What makes the American Dream work? We speak of the opportunity to be whatever we want to be, to forge our own destinies, and to become self-made people. We stand tall in our success, and we want the world to look up to our achievements.
Yet, how is all that possible? Can welfare bring us the American Dream? Can watching documentaries about self-made millionaires propel us into bettering our lot in life? Is it reasonable to think we can hope and dream of success, and that will make it happen?
Take a cake. We can have the supplies for making a heavenly masterpiece delivered by the grocery store, and they can sit on the kitchen counter ready for us to prepare that delicious confection everyone loves so much. We have everything we need to make cake, but unless we put our hands in the flour, those supplies are simply going to sit there until they begin to spoil, and then the opportunity will be gone.
This applies to every area of our lives. We collect materials for projects we never get to, telling ourselves we will start that quilt or refinish that stool someday. The fact is, someday will never arrive if we do not get out of our easy chairs and get on the ball. The fact is, it comes down to us to make our dreams happen.
This is true Biblically, too. God gives us the ingredients for a great life, but he does not force our arms to move and our legs to walk. We have to get out of our easy chairs if we want to achieve his plans for us.
Look at these six examples from the Word of God:
Example #1:
We must step away from sin and anything that would distract us from following Christ. Only then will our lives before the world be pure and holy.
Romans 12:1-2. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Example #2:
We must speak to those around us of God’s hand in our lives. We must give the Father all the credit.
1 Peter 2:9. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Example #3:
Those who are our fellow believers need our experience in order to avoid the pitfalls of life. Our words of wisdom are especially helpful to new believers.
2 Timothy 3:16-17. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”
Example #4:
It takes a real effort to keep ourselves scrubbed clean. The world will dirty us. Christ will clean us, but the scrub brush is ours.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20. “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
Example #5:
It is our duty to not let our desire for earthly possessions come between us and God. When luxuries become necessities, we walk a dangerous line.
Exodus 20:1-5. “And God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.’ ”
Example #6:
We must find God wherever he is, and one of the best places we can look is in the company of other believers.
Acts 2:1-4. “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
When we get off the sofa, that’s when God will begin to move.
Copyright © 2014 MyChurchNotes.net
Originally Published in Discipleship on 8-20-14