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It takes time and effort to be a follower of Christ (Colossians 1-2), July 10, 2017

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Today’s Podcast


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  1. Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.
  2. It takes time and effort to perfect a skill. Should we expect anything different with our Christian walk? Then why do so many Christians think they can just get by with wearing His name?
  3. Scripture – Bible Reading Plan – http://www.Bible-Reading.com  (week 28)
    1. Colossians 1:10; 22-23;2:6-8
    2. May their lives be a credit to You, Lord; and what’s more, may they continue to delight You by doing every good work and growing in the true knowledge that comes from being close to You.
    3. …but now He has reconciled you in His body—in His flesh through His death—so that He can present you to God holy, blameless, and totally free of imperfection 23 as long as you stay planted in the faith. So don’t venture away from what you have heard and taken to heart: the living hope of the good news that has been announced to all creation under heaven and has captured me, Paul, as its servant.
    4. Now that you have welcomed the Anointed One, Jesus the Lord, into your lives, continue to journey with Him and allow Him to shape your lives. 7 Let your roots grow down deeply in Him, and let Him build you up on a firm foundation. Be strong in the faith, just as you were taught, and always spill over with thankfulness. 8 Make sure no predator makes you his prey through some misleading philosophy and empty deception based on traditions fabricated by mere mortals. These are sourced in the elementary principles originating in this world and not in the Anointed One (so don’t let their talks capture you).
  5. Devotional
    1. When I was a kid, pre-teen, as a matter of fact, I took piano lessons. It was the thing to do for a lot of kids and it was a good way to learn music and, quite frankly, music teaches kids to strive toward perfection. You see, it’s pretty easy to know when you aren’t playing something correctly when you hit a wrong note. Our ears are tuned to hear things in certain harmonies and when notes are played out of harmony with everyone else, we know it. We hear those off color notes in a piece of music or a band or an orchestra and no one has to tell us.
    2. Well, I took lessons for two or three years and learned to play all those songs in those first half dozen or so beginner books, but that’s about as far as it goes. Needless to say, I didn’t learn to play well. I could read all the notes. I knew what all the marks on the score meant. I understood what the timing was supposed to be when played well, but my fingers never did what the composer intended when those black and white shapes were placed on those lines years earlier.
    3. On the other hand, I have a cousin who studied piano for many years and became a very accomplished pianist. He majored in keyboard in school and could play just about anything you put in front of him. He could play any type of music and accompany other musicians as they performed instrumentally or vocally. He was very good. But you know what? He started out the same way I did. Those first two or three years were brutal for his parents. Lots of practice with missed notes, obvious disharmony in the notes he played, mistakes galore. It’s the way things work.
    4. We cannot expect to be accomplished musicians without years of focused practice on the instrument we want to perfect. We cannot expect to just piddle around a few times with a piano or guitar or trumpet and expect to play like those we hear in some orchestra like the Philadelphia Harmonic Orchestra. No, we would be foolish to think we could do such a thing.
    5. I’m not a golfer, but I know from those who play the game, that the same is true of that sport or any other. Granted, some people are certainly more athletic than others. Some have an aptitude for certain sports and are fitted to such things much more so than others, but still they require practice. For instance, we would not expect a person four feet two inches tall to make it into the National Basketball League no matter how well he might shoot from the foul line. He just couldn’t compete against the seven footers on the court. But neither can all seven-footers play basketball. Frankly, most of the very tall people I know are a just a little uncoordinated because they’ve had to deal with their size in a world not made to fit them.
    6. So golf, baseball, basketball, pick a sport, pick a vocation, pick a hobby. To be good at it, takes time and effort and practice.
    7. I think the verses today tell us that about being followers of Christ. Listen to what Paul tells us in his letter to the church in Colossi:
      1. May their lives be a credit to You, Lord; and what’s more, may they continue to delight You by doing every good work and growing in the true knowledge that comes from being close to You.
      2. …but now He has reconciled you in His body—in His flesh through His death—so that He can present you to God holy, blameless, and totally free of imperfection 23 as long as you stay planted in the faith. So don’t venture away from what you have heard and taken to heart: the living hope of the good news that has been announced to all creation under heaven and has captured me, Paul, as its servant.
      3. Now that you have welcomed the Anointed One, Jesus the Lord, into your lives, continue to journey with Him and allow Him to shape your lives. 7 Let your roots grow down deeply in Him, and let Him build you up on a firm foundation. Be strong in the faith, just as you were taught, and always spill over with thankfulness. 8 Make sure no predator makes you his prey through some misleading philosophy and empty deception based on traditions fabricated by mere mortals. These are sourced in the elementary principles originating in this world and not in the Anointed One (so don’t let their talks capture you).
    9. Paul prays about doing every good work and growing in the knowledge that comes from being close to God. That takes time and effort and commitment. He says Jesus reconciled us to present us blameless … as long as we stay planted in the faith. In this present world with it pull on us every day toward the evil one, it means we need to stay in the fight, keep up our guard, draw closer to Him. Commit ourselves to Him continuously and consistently. We must work at growing in Him. Paul says in Chapter two, to Let our roots grow down deeply i Him and let Him build us up on a firm foundation. If you’ve ever tried growing something, you know it takes work to till the soil, the plants fertilized, watered and weeded, so that you get the harvest you expect. It takes work to make roots grow deeply.
    10. And what about making sure no predator makes you his prey? Have you ever watched a prey try to escape its predator? A rabbit fleeing a fox? Or a mouse trying to outrun a hawk? Talk about work! This thing about following Christ means we must work hard at the task. We can’t expect to ask Him to forgive us and then expect everything to be over. To follow Him means we must work at doing so. We must grow in Him and that means picking up a hoe or a pick and shovel and getting through the tough ground so the right seeds can be sown in our life and a harvest reaped in our own soul.
    11. So as a Christian, don’t listen to those who might tell you everything will be peaches and cream when you become a follower of Jesus. It won’t. Following Jesus means work. It means commitment. It means suffering with Him. It means taking up our cross. It means giving our all because He gave His all. But is it worth it? Just ask the many who have followed Him and you will discover the joy in their lives that can never be shaken because He lives within them. Don’t expect an easy life, but expect one filled with excitement, joy, and His presence.
  7. If you want to learn more about my church, you can find us at SAF.church. If you like the devotional, share it with someone. If you don’t, tell me. I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for “A Little Walk with God.”

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Are you ready to go with Him? (Matthew 8:20) February 10, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Psalms 15-17

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 8:20
Jesus: Foxes have dens in which to sleep, and the birds have nests. But the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

Jesus’ comments to the scribe who decided to follow Him might seem a little out of place at first. Here was a man steeped in religious tradition who was ready to give it up and follow Jesus. So why these words? Why would Jesus give the scribe a comment that would discourage him from following him? Why would He not want the scribe on His side and joining His party of followers?

Although it may seem Jesus discourages the scribe, I don’t think He did. I think Jesus just stated the facts as they were and wanted the scribe to understand the journey that lay ahead of him if he became a follower of Jesus, the Son of God, the Christ. He would immediately become an outsider to the temple. The religious leaders he stood with on this day would quickly turn against him and, like Jesus, he would have no comfort in this world.

No one would house Him. No one would give Him bread. No one would share their home. Except for what they could get from Him. Every time Jesus lighted in a home, His presence became known quickly and the house filled with the broken, the injured, the ill. All wanted Jesus to touch them. To speak to the demons that filled them and drive those demons away. To grant their prayers as He did in so many towns and villages across the territory. Jesus could not be alone in the cities and towns. He had no place to rest.

To go with Jesus meant work, tending to the needs of others above His own. It also meant finding time to commune with the Father. It meant learning from His ancient instructions and finding His will for life. It meant going to the outcast and helping them reintegrate into their community. It meant turning the rules inside out and upside down to show the meaning of love that the scripture talks about but the nation forgot in their attempts to single themselves out as God’s chosen.

Jesus laid out for the scribe the facts of life with Him. Giving up everything that the world says is dear. Houses, lands, material things. The titles and prestige that might seem important here. It all disappears when you follow Jesus. It means nothing to God and they become just so many meaningless words to Jesus’ followers. To follow Him means to give everything up and allow Him to direct the next steps you take whether it’s across the lake, to stay where you are, or move to another country where everyone finds you distasteful.

Later Jesus will use a story to describe the cost of following Him, but here, He just lays out the facts. Follow Me and you’ll give up everything. Does that mean Jesus expects you to live in poverty? Not necessarily. He just wants control of everything you have. It’s really not yours anyway. He only allows you to use it. Think about it. What would it take for all your possessions to disappear? One disaster and everything is gone.

Oh, but you have insurance, you say. And how long do you think that will last if your whole city or your state is hit by the same disaster? What happens if ISIS decided to strike our financial infrastructure instead of the physical acts of terror they have used so far? How long could you operate without your bank account? Just stop and think about it.

I have about $40 cash in my pocket at the moment. Like most Americans, I use online banking, and debit cards for almost every financial transaction in my life. So what would happen if my bank suddenly lost all of its electronic records and backups at once? What if my paychecks no longer went into my account on a regular basis? What if suddenly all those assets just disappeared? How long could I live out of my pantry, refrigerator, and freezer?

How long before someone decides to foreclose on my house, assuming they have a record. How will I buy groceries, or gas, or pay electric bills? How long will life go on as usual if a virus or deliberate attack crippled our financial system. See, we are only temporary stewards of all that stuff anyway. It all belongs to God so why do we worry about it? Why do we hold on so tight? Why can’t we understand what Jesus was saying when He made His comments to the scribe that day 2000 years ago.

Jesus want us to know the cost of following Him, but in reality, it’s no cost at all except the one thing He wants. Me and you. Everything else is just temporary stuff that we really can’t control very well anyway. We think we do, but it’s a façade. It’s one of those lies of Satan, the father of lies. When we follow Jesus, we must know the cost, Jesus says, “Foxes have dens in which to sleep, and the birds have nests. But the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.” Are you ready to go with Him?

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.