Just do it

So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective. (Colossians 3:1-2)

Are you serious about following Jesus this year? The past three weeks should have cemented your determination to follow wholeheartedly, or maybe you have chosen to remain in control of your life and be a little too stubborn for your own good. Christ's call to us today is to 'get serious about living for him - stop waffling, buckle down, and 'get er done'. 

Pursue the things over which Christ presides - stop shuffling along. A 'shuffler' walks that way because they are dragging their feet - they lack determination, are a little too resistant to the forward progress, or are so weighed down with life's cares they just have no 'pep in their step'. Christ calls us to look up. Stop focusing on all the things that bring us down and keep our focus on the things of this world. Instead, look fully into his face and begin to walk strong.

Be alert - not just awake, but alert. I have gone through times when I am quite 'awake', but I was not 'alert' to what was going on right in front of me. The more we get consumed by the cares of this world, the less we will look upward and see what he is doing all around us. When we begin to change our focal point, the view gets much better! The burdens we insisted on carrying ourselves aren't so important for us to carry any longer. 

If you are realizing today that you 'began great' with this new year, fully 'committed' to a new way of living, spending time with Christ each day, but now you realize you aren't 'doing very well' with that commitment, begin again. Sometimes all we need to do is allow Christ to change our perspective. We do that by changing what we focus upon. We may not be perfect in this commitment yet, but we are on the right path, so keep it up! Prepare to let go, then do it. Things change when we just do it. Just sayin!

An Edison Moment

It was the American inventor, Thomas A. Edison, who reminded us that "just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless." This is a good reminder for each of us who get down on ourselves because we didn't do what we were supposed to do. We aren't useless just because we failed. We are human! We are fallible. We are going to make unwise choices from time to time. It is what we choose to do IN those moments that makes all the difference. Do we get down on ourselves, labeling ourselves as 'useless', or do we take our failure to Jesus and ask him to help us find a way to take different steps the next time?

You can’t whitewash your sins and get by with it; you find mercy by admitting and leaving them. (Proverbs 28:13)

Edison also recounted that he had tried a lot of things, but in trying these 'new ways' he found lots of ways that don't work. We oftentimes find ways that just 'don't work' in life and then we stop trying because we think we will never find the 'way' that will work. The thing that made Edison successful in his attempts at inventing was that he didn't stop when he had 10,000 ways that did not work - he was determined to find the ONE way that did! If you know anything about Edison, you will soon realize he was not content with failure - it created what he called a 'restlessness' within him. That restlessness caused him to not stop taking 'next steps' in life. I think we might learn something from him - next steps aren't easy, but they are necessary if we are to make forward progress!

Our failure really comes when we stop taking 'next steps'. When we settle into our sinfulness and just accept our failures in life, we abandon our mission. We were created to be a holy people, decisive in our actions, determined in our commitment, and demonstrative in our love. When we accept our failures as 'where we will always be' in life, then we wither and die right there. We cannot stop with the 10,000 times our steps didn't work in life - or even our 100,000 attempts to abandon our sin. Instead, we bring our sin to Christ, accept his grace, and take whatever the 'next step' is he asks us to take. Yes, it won't be easy. Yes, it is sometimes us 'repeating steps' we have taken before. There is no getting around it - the ONE way we need to find is there - we just have to take the next steps into it!

Edison didn't abandon his inventions just because they didn't work. In his case, he applied the principles of science to each failed attempt to see what went wrong. In our case, we apply the principles of grace as they apply to repentance - the confession and forsaking of our sin. Then we look at how we can use what comes out of our failures to take 'new steps' that don't result in the same failures. Yes, we will fail again on occasion, but be determined and decisive about your commitment to see each failure become the ground upon which you learn what steps not to take the next time. We aren't 'inventors' here, but we can learn from what inventors do. They don't give up because they fail. They learn from their failures and don't repeat those same steps again! Just sayin!