Christian Living

Living as it Pleases Him

by Thomas Kirkpatrick
10/28/20
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“The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, But the LORD tests hearts.” (Proverbs 17:3)

 I often find myself trying to keep my composure while driving around in the small town that I live in. Perhaps that is an exercise of my memory, as the town is growing every day. At first, I thought it was all my neighbors signaling their howdy do’s as I travel by on the roads. But then one of my middle-aged sons said, “Dad, you drive like an old man out here in the street.” Of course, I reply, “Well, son, I am an old man, and I am driving just the way I am expected to.”

 So, yes, it is true that I drive much more cautiously than I used to when I had that fierce Cobra Mustang of younger years gone. At this point in my life, I am more experienced with the hazards of street life and try to avoid hazardous problems. Plus, no matter how late I may be, I never hurry myself to where I might make waste. I never expected to live this long, and now it has become a contest to see how long I can prolong my time here. So those anxious drivers can blow their horns all they want, as they are the only one aggravated, and that by their actions. I have never found relief in blowing a horn or making hand gestures.

 Then again, it may be my stubborn southern pride. I am the legal driver of my car, and I will drive it in a way I feel comfortable. I remember back in those chance-taking days when I would barrel down the highway, thinking I always had to be the first in line. I remember what I was driving my grandmother to the store, weaving in and out of traffic, trying to save a second of time. She gritted her teeth at first but then would ask me to stop the car so she could walk. It would make my mom so mad that I would strand a seventy-year-old lady on the side of the road to walk to her destination and back. Yeah, it was stubborn southern pride that I was the best driver in the world at eighteen. Never mind that I wrecked every car my mother ever owned.

 Now I have slowed down at speeds that are comfortable and undoubtedly not stressful to my temperament. It’s not that I can’t drive faster; I have the traffic awards to prove it. I have had a change of attitude over the past several years. One is Biblically speaking, and I am obligated to obey the law. “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except God, and those which exist are established by God.” (Romans 13:1) I am not presenting an excellent testimony to my Lord if I disobey the government’s laws that He has established. If I push that amber light, I am endangering members of His creation. If I cut someone off or blow my horn, raising their stress level, then it is the same thing. That “In God, we trust” on the back of my car, that “have a blessed day in the Lord.” If I give a testimony, it might not be so meaningful. I am accountable for my actions, not the driver behind me or the one blowing his horn at me. I am responsible.

 The more I study the Scriptures, the more I learn of God’s ways, the more I must change my daily living attitudes. I try to live the image of my Lord by a renewed mind in the influence of the Spirit. “Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk, that you excel still more.” (1 Thessalonians 4:1)

 Some may think that is a tough thing to do. That is becoming a new creature in Christ. Well, it is because your most enormous opposition is yourself. But it becomes so much easier when you set out each day to do that which you know is right—doing what is right in the eyes of God. I will be the first to admit that I do not know all the Scripture in the Bible. And I do believe that no man on earth has fully comprehended a complete knowledge of Scripture as much as we try and meditate upon it. I, being lazy, know a shortcut around the things that I am still ignorant of. So many times, I mess up and then seek the Lord. What a backward way to live. If God is God, and He is, if all things are possible with God, and they are, He is the refuge I should hide in always. Solomon, the wise King of Israel, gives us this insight from God. “In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:6) If the all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present God will direct our paths if we acknowledge Him, then how could not walk as we ought?

 It is God that gives us our time, treasure, and talent. Who else can? None of these things can be bought? Where would you buy them? They are gifts from God by His grace. They are given because He has a purpose for our existence. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10) This verse is an amazing thought: God, the Creator, all created each and everything with a purpose. There is a specific purpose for you and one for me. All we have to do to find it is to follow that path He will direct, you know, that narrow one made just for us. We each have a specific purpose and a particular gift to accomplish it. “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” (1 Peter 4:10)

 The right way is this, having the proper attitude in all that we do to serve Him who has provided all we need. As the Apostle Paul says, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3) We are but a creature of His creation, but creatures with a high-end purpose. Our purpose is not to glorify ourselves, as He will on that day, but for now to glorify Him as our Creator. “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36)

 It is a narrow path as most people will not find it, and they will miss the purpose they were created, and they will not please the Creator that created them. Sadly, it is not just the world that seeks not God, but also those who can be found in His Church. Many in the Church have puffed themselves up in their ministry, looking down with eyes of judgment on others. They seek to receive their reward here and now, and they do as Jesus said, “They have their reward.” (Matthew 6:2) I am not picking on the Church, as I am a member of the Church. But they had better beware if they are living as those of the world. “Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.” (John 12:42-43)

 A word of caution to those of the world and some in the Church, “God knows.” God sees where a man cannot, God knows what man cannot comprehend, and God is man’s final judge. “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17:10) God is love, God is love, God is love, and I repeat, God is love. “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

 As Christians, we are sinners, forgiven, but sinners. We stumble and fall, repent and confess, become reconciled, and soon stumble again. We cycle on as long as we are here in this world, and God knows. He forgives and disciplines His children as a loving Father. There are 600 plus laws in the Old Testament, and we each have most likely broken the majority. If not, then hold on because it is not over yet. Jesus, who knew us before we knew, made it simple for us. He not only made forgiveness possible for us, but He narrowed our focus to this. “The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31). If we strive to meet that measure as best as we can for God’s glory, then Jesus will guard our hearts that we may have peace in pleasing Him. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7)

Thomas N Kirkpatrick

First Baptist Church of Durant, October 31, 2017