A.L.I.V.E.

If you were not at church yesterday morning, you missed a pretty intense Youth Group and discussion on gifts, talents and living lives with spiritual eyes, hearts & minds.

 

Which has a lot to do with today's PW Devotional.  If you are looking at this world, relationships and what you do in this quick little life God has granted you with spiritual eyes, hearts & minds...then you'll understand what today's devo has to say.

 

However, if you are looking at your life as your own, to do with as you please, you're going to get goofed up and "taken" in by the world's message of "be all you can be, get all you can get and feel all you can feel N.O.W."  This philosophy is based on a blatant lie.  Satan wants to trip you up.  He wants to convince you waiting on God's time is boring and will make you miss out on all the fun stuff.

 

In college, we were taught this acronym, A.L.I.V.E.=Always living in view of eternity.  Interestingly enough, today's Daily Bread discussed this verse:  2 Corinthians 5:10 "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil." 
 

What we do today for the glory of the Lord matters in eternity.  Are you ALIVE?  Do you consider what you do in view of what God thinks?  Do you look for ways to bring Him glory in your life?  If you are His child, that is how you are supposed to live.

 

Someone who is ALIVE will wait for God's timing in their life and in their relationships.  If you belong to the Lord, your body, soul & spirit no longer belong to you to do with as you please.  Waiting on God, His timing and His plan for your life brings lasting joy and pleasure.  Not waiting, only brings destruction.

 

Be ALIVE today, and every day.

 

PlanetWisdom.com Devotionals

---

Telling Time: Sex Out of Season? Posted: 31 Dec 2009 01:26 PM PST "There is a time for everything . . . a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain." (Ecclesiastes 3:5) What better week that this one to talk about recognizing the times you're living in. We're in the middle of a famous poem describing some of the different seasons we experience during our lives. Understanding our particular times helps us to live wisely and make the most of them. Today's line deals with times of "embracing" or not. The writer may have been talking about having sex, saying that sex is right for some times and wrong for others. If you're a Christian who believes the Bible is God's Word to you, that seasonal difference has everything to do with being married or not. It's not just that sex out of season is wrong, it's that it's foolish. It still feels great, of course, and it creates a kind of closeness between two people -- but it's a false and destructive closeness when it happens without the commitment of marriage. The negative consequences linger far beyond the moments of pleasure. But the creator of sex intended for sex in season to be the norm, providing connection and excitement within the commitment of marriage. And it's just as important to participate in "embracing" when the time is right as it is to skip it when the time is wrong. Think: If someone asked, what would you say are some of the negative consequences of participating in sex out of season? What's the point of sex as part of marriage? Pray: Ask God to give you the wisdom and courage to avoid the destruction that comes from having sex out of season. Do: Read 1 Corinthians 7:1-9 to hear how Paul spells out God's teaching on sex and marriage in our times.

--
Mary E.Hickcox
www.CalvaryBaptistSM.org
http://mary-neotes.blogspot.com/