Just Do Something!
-Colossians 3:23-4
I have a word that applies to many of us who want to do the right thing and want to do what is best. I have a word for my people who are waiting on God for many things. We are waiting for empowering, for guidance; we are waiting to be ready, to be complete, to be equipped to go.
Some of us are perfectionists, some of us are afraid, some of us believe we are not whole enough to go out and some of us are just passive. We think of aggressive as being the 'bad' so we go to the opposite extreme and live passively. In truth, aggressive is good; and everything good in our lives came from people being aggressive.
God likes aggressive, ambitious and productive people. God wants believers to be aggressive. God wants believers to get to work and stop being passive.
There is a tension in our lives between being and doing, between waiting and actively exercising faith while we wait. The answer is that we are people who are beings that are also doers. James says that, "faith without works is dead", and that means we have to do something with our faith, for our faith to be alive. The key to the being and doing, and the waiting while keeping faithful in your life, is to live in and through Christ.
The essential, center of the Christian life; and the reason we are called Christians, is that we are people who are in Christ. We are in Christ seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. That is what a Christian is.
From that place, of being in Christ, we live and breathe and be and do. We consider the Christian life as we read or hear spoken, any of the New Testament scriptures. We can open up almost any passage and find these two sides of life, being and doing, that dovetail together.
And being and doing are the essentials that we need to learn and be mindful of.
The Christian is a Christian because they are in Christ. A question to consider, is, "when we do whatever we do, are we doing it in Christ?" This brings up the idea that there are people who say they are Christians, but live like someone who is not on their way to heaven. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who believe that they can not do anything, and feel immobilized, and are living something that is the opposite of an abundant life.
My message is "just do something". And whatever we do, we do it in Christ. Sometimes we don't do something, because we think we are not ready or worry we will fail. This brings up the question we might have of, "what if I fail?"
And the answer is that you will fail, sometimes, and that is ok. God likes aggressive people and God likes failures. God says to us, "I wish you failed more".
God has made provision for our failures, but we can only draw on it by risking and failing. Consider Thomas Edison, who had thousands of failures before he got the light bulb right.
There is a principle in the kingdom called "give and it shall be given". When we invest, God matches our investment and makes it easier to invest more. I think it works that way with risk-taking, failures and perseverance.
The more faith I exercise in perseverance, the more ability or grace I am given to exercise faith. And as I fail, I receive comfort and encouragement that only comes after I try and fail.
Have ever heard or read these sayings: "if you knew you would not fail, what would you do?", or, "if money was available to fund it, what would you do?" The next thing that is said is, "then do it". The under-girding principal is that God is with you and God put that idea in your heart. What I am adding to the mix is that God not only wants believers to go for it, but God also loves us when we fail and says that He wishes we would fail more.
What this means is that something that God is not for is passivity. Pacifism is something different. Passivity is sin when a person refuses to do something that they ought to do.
There are a zillion things, good things, that can be done in this world, and we are not assigned to do them; but we are assigned and commissioned to do something. The word is, "just do (that) something".
The "be-ers", and I am one of them, look at a scripture like, "be still and know that I am God", and we say that this is what we need to do, to be still. Yes, do that, is what I would say. We can do being still and not be passive, because being still and knowing that God is God takes effort.
One of the traps, pit-falls or detours that the passive person might fall into is waiting passively and never getting around to doing, because they are waiting for God. That trumps every other method, so they think, and the pay off is that they don't have to take responsibility for risking and being aggressive, and they can blame God for their life and play the victim.
But faith without works is dead and what that means is that for faith to be faith, alive faith, it has to be exercised or worked. It truly does not work if you do not work it.
Sometimes we are passive because we believe that God has a plan for our lives and we want that plan, but we don't know what that plan is or how it will come about. Added to this, we might have a fear of failure. We are afraid that if we try and fail that we will be a failure and it might be 'game over' and then we are a 'loser', so rather than fail, we endlessly plan, imagine, dream, talk about it, listen to others talk about it and never get around to doing something because along the way, we get weaker and our self-esteem goes down and our heart gets sickened by the solitary confinement that we have imposed on our selves all in the name of wanting God's plan.
Are you passive? Are you waiting for someone, something, perhaps waiting for God? If you believe in divine guidance, a great piece of wisdom is that guidance mostly comes when you are moving.
Some of us are perfectionists, some of us are afraid, some of us believe we are not whole enough to go out and some of us are just passive. We think of aggressive as being the 'bad' so we go to the opposite extreme and live passively. In truth, aggressive is good; and everything good in our lives came from people being aggressive.
God likes aggressive, ambitious and productive people. God wants believers to be aggressive. God wants believers to get to work and stop being passive.
There is a tension in our lives between being and doing, between waiting and actively exercising faith while we wait. The answer is that we are people who are beings that are also doers. James says that, "faith without works is dead", and that means we have to do something with our faith, for our faith to be alive. The key to the being and doing, and the waiting while keeping faithful in your life, is to live in and through Christ.
The essential, center of the Christian life; and the reason we are called Christians, is that we are people who are in Christ. We are in Christ seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. That is what a Christian is.
From that place, of being in Christ, we live and breathe and be and do. We consider the Christian life as we read or hear spoken, any of the New Testament scriptures. We can open up almost any passage and find these two sides of life, being and doing, that dovetail together.
And being and doing are the essentials that we need to learn and be mindful of.
The Christian is a Christian because they are in Christ. A question to consider, is, "when we do whatever we do, are we doing it in Christ?" This brings up the idea that there are people who say they are Christians, but live like someone who is not on their way to heaven. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who believe that they can not do anything, and feel immobilized, and are living something that is the opposite of an abundant life.
My message is "just do something". And whatever we do, we do it in Christ. Sometimes we don't do something, because we think we are not ready or worry we will fail. This brings up the question we might have of, "what if I fail?"
And the answer is that you will fail, sometimes, and that is ok. God likes aggressive people and God likes failures. God says to us, "I wish you failed more".
God has made provision for our failures, but we can only draw on it by risking and failing. Consider Thomas Edison, who had thousands of failures before he got the light bulb right.
There is a principle in the kingdom called "give and it shall be given". When we invest, God matches our investment and makes it easier to invest more. I think it works that way with risk-taking, failures and perseverance.
The more faith I exercise in perseverance, the more ability or grace I am given to exercise faith. And as I fail, I receive comfort and encouragement that only comes after I try and fail.
Have ever heard or read these sayings: "if you knew you would not fail, what would you do?", or, "if money was available to fund it, what would you do?" The next thing that is said is, "then do it". The under-girding principal is that God is with you and God put that idea in your heart. What I am adding to the mix is that God not only wants believers to go for it, but God also loves us when we fail and says that He wishes we would fail more.
What this means is that something that God is not for is passivity. Pacifism is something different. Passivity is sin when a person refuses to do something that they ought to do.
There are a zillion things, good things, that can be done in this world, and we are not assigned to do them; but we are assigned and commissioned to do something. The word is, "just do (that) something".
The "be-ers", and I am one of them, look at a scripture like, "be still and know that I am God", and we say that this is what we need to do, to be still. Yes, do that, is what I would say. We can do being still and not be passive, because being still and knowing that God is God takes effort.
One of the traps, pit-falls or detours that the passive person might fall into is waiting passively and never getting around to doing, because they are waiting for God. That trumps every other method, so they think, and the pay off is that they don't have to take responsibility for risking and being aggressive, and they can blame God for their life and play the victim.
But faith without works is dead and what that means is that for faith to be faith, alive faith, it has to be exercised or worked. It truly does not work if you do not work it.
Sometimes we are passive because we believe that God has a plan for our lives and we want that plan, but we don't know what that plan is or how it will come about. Added to this, we might have a fear of failure. We are afraid that if we try and fail that we will be a failure and it might be 'game over' and then we are a 'loser', so rather than fail, we endlessly plan, imagine, dream, talk about it, listen to others talk about it and never get around to doing something because along the way, we get weaker and our self-esteem goes down and our heart gets sickened by the solitary confinement that we have imposed on our selves all in the name of wanting God's plan.
Are you passive? Are you waiting for someone, something, perhaps waiting for God? If you believe in divine guidance, a great piece of wisdom is that guidance mostly comes when you are moving.
Have you ever tried to steer a car's wheels, when the motor was not running, and the car was parked? Have you ever tried to do something or to change something or to become something or to launch something, while doing nothing? It obviously does not work.
We are huge about being: being with God and being with others and just being with our selves. We are human beings and not human doings. But we get into trouble, into pain; we get angry, depressed and lonely when we don't know what to do, so we do nothing.
Doing something is better than doing nothing. The safety net or guidelines for doing anything is the Word and the Lord of the Word. We live and breathe and do life according to the Word.
It really is that simple. God's plan comes alive as we move forward. Be still and know that He is God, yes! But also, do all things through Christ who strengthens you.
Sit at Jesus feet and learn, but then go and do what he taught you. Sit and listen, sit and read; then stand in what you heard and walk. If you do not understand what you read or heard, ask questions.
Ask questions of God and ask questions of believers who are further on in God than you are. God designed us to have mentors, sponsors, coaches, guides, counselors, mothers and fathers who are people with flaws who have learned some wisdom that they can impart to us. Part of the doing that we all need to do is doing things with the support and cheering on of others.
Solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments created by mankind. Everyone needs alone time, some needing more. And God periodically brings his kids into a time of isolation, called the desert, to do a special work of growth that can not happen otherwise. But doing nothing and being alone and isolating one's self from interaction with others as a way of life might not be best.
If you are designed as a hermit, then you will do something even in your hermitage. In silence, through no work of your own, you will allow God to work in you, in your hermit lifestyle, and bear fruit, even if that fruit is completely secret to just you and God. There, you did it.
There is a tension in "working out our own salvation, with fear and trembling", because we "work out what He works in". That means we don't save ourselves, but we exercise faith. We stumble and fall forward, but we get up and keep walking.
Just do something, and as you begin doing it, as you are being in Christ, let God guide you and let God love you, even when you fail and receive the compensation of being a loved son or daughter of the Most High God.
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