Christian Living

A Good Example

by Jeff Drinnan
02/04/21
For Sale
Author requests article critique

  Message Writer
  Hire Writer

Tweet

"Remember your leaders who taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and follow the example of their faith." -Hebrews 13:7

When I look around and see how Godly people behave, especially how they react to trials, I realize how important the Word of God is. Conversely, I see how those who do not have God in their lives act. Believers, being sinners saved by grace, can still fall into worldly traps and look for a way of escape.

There are two ways of escape. One is to just avoid the problem, run away, and not deal with the problem. This is what Gregor, in Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, the parable of the cockroach, did. Of course in real life people don't literally turn into a cockroach, but Gregor turning into a cockroach was a metaphor for not wanting to get up in the morning and face the world. I sometimes wake up as a human sized cockroach, even during the middle of the day.

The escape the Bible talks about is not about bailing out, dropping out, but escaping the woes of the world, from sin, rising above it, being rescued. God not only tells you how to get through the storm, and comforts you doing the turbulance, but gives you the power to do so. If, like plugging in a laptop when the battery is dead to empower it, God charges a spiritually dead person and gives him life.

How do we plug into God? By reading his Word and meditating on it and His creation, assembling with the saints, praying, singing psalms and spiritual songs, or just listening to them. We need to confess our sins, turn from them, and strive to live a Godly life, which is a good witness to the world. It's not easy to walk rightly, with the trials and temptations out there.

It's not enough to just say "no" to sin, although we must. We must have something to fill the void. "When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds thehouse unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation." -Matthew 12:43-45

At the retail store where I work, management gets crazy when they see empty spaces, even for a little while. Management relayed a message that if those empty spaces are not filled, then some other products will be put there.

When you are tempted, you have to rely on faith, and you must obey God.

"Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully develooped, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." -James 1: 2-4