How many of us have sat in time out?
Now don’t shake that head and pretend it hasn’t happened to you. Time out can take many forms. Your wife sends you to the sofa for the night. Time out! Your boss excludes you from an important meeting. Time out! You’re sent to a conference to improve your skills. Time out!
If we’re at the top of our game, we don’t need a time out. Or do we?
After a vacation, we return to work refreshed and with a get-’er-done attitude. We’ve all been to that Friday point where we think we can’t do another day without a weekend to get us through. Send the kids to Grandma’s? He, he. We’ve all done it, just for some time alone, or should we say, for a time out.
We only need a time out when we are under stress. If we have our act together, we are fully functional and ready to go forward in whatever we have before us.
How can we get our act together for God?
2 Timothy 3:16-17 gives us our first clue.
“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.”
When we study the Scriptures, we are getting our act together.
Titus 2:3-5 says women are vital to our Christian walk.
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”
If we listen when godly woman talk, we will have taken our first step toward getting our act together.
1 Timothy 2:4 addresses the rest of the world.
“Who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Finding fulfillment in Christ is not for the few. Jesus came for the entire world, so everyone could get their act together.
Galatians 5:22 names the signs that tell of our progress.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.”
When people see these attributes exercised in our lives, they will know we have our act together.
Galatians 3:28 glues us into one unit.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
When our religious and ethnic barriers fall away, we will have our act together.
2 Corinthians 7:1 polishes us to perfection.
“Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”
This is our final step in getting our act together. When we are cleansed from every defilement, we will never be asked to sit in time out ever again.
When we stand spotless before the Lord, he won’t need to send us to the bleachers to do our time out. He will feel comfortable putting us into the action every time, and we will be useful to him every day.
Let’s polish our act so that we always give a perfect performance for Christ.
Copyright © 2015 MyChurchNotes.net
Code: FGO.D.03.15.vp.esv