Right after we come up out of the water our souls are so very clean and bright. Do you remember the day you got a new phone or tablet, and peeled that plastic wrap from the screen? Unlike your old phone, this one has no cracks, dents, weird oily streaks… it’s clean and crisp. But, also unlike your old phone, the apps are in all the wrong places and your widgets have to be set up again. When a Christian first comes out of the water (or perhaps when a prodigal returns to “factory settings”- repents) some things have to be placed in order to optimize the device for use- meaning, there are behaviors that need to be learned, and some that should be deleted. This list is designed to help you optimize you for use by The Master. Go through these and evaluate how serviceable you are for Him:
Galatians 5.16-26 Some “do’s & dont’s”
Galatians 6.1-5 Help other Christians do better
Galatians 6.6-10 Do good things
Colossians 3.12-17 Grow in harmony with Brethren
1 Thessalonians 5.12-22 Little things to focus on
James 1.21-27 Act on your Christianity
1 Peter 2.11-12 Don’t return to sin
1 Peter 3.13-17 Be steadfast under pressure to sin
2 Peter 1.5-11 Some qualities to grow in
1 John 1.5-7 Be as sinless as possible
1 John 2.15-17 Where sins come from
Jude 1.20-21 Work on yourself with prayer
Please understand, these are not some creed, and mastery in these areas won’t earn you a merit badge; but we are called to be saved people who celebrate being saved, showing others that our religion is not about rules, but about a ruler who died to give us a new life. A life free of the blight of wrong; no cracks, dents, or weird oils. A life that shows our Savior living in us in ultra-high definition. We are programmed to spend less time buffering and more time relaying information from “the cloud”.
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