Tag Archives: witnessing

How Christians Should Be Like Dust

How Christians Should Be Like Dust

How Christians Should Be Like Dust

This past week my family and I took a vacation to Colorado. It was amazing! Believe it or not, it was the first time I’ve ever seen the mountains up close and personal. Talk about amazing and inspiring…I could stay in the mountains for a LONG time and write and study and write and study… I’ll post a few of our pics on Instagram. In addition to sightseeing, hiking, and fishing, we participated in some pretty adventurous undertakings too! We did some summer alpine activities on a mountain in Breckenridge. We ziplined through the mountains (in the rain!), and we also went white water rafting.

While we were there, we also had an opportunity to attend a church bible study in Canon City with some family. The kids weren’t quite as excited as I was about this activity, but I sure enjoyed it! Call me crazy, but I eat that kind of stuff up. It’s super fun for me. I especially love gleaning wisdom from older, more experienced people. However, the coolest bit of insight I gained at this study was from my 15-year-old cousin. And of all things…her insight was about dust.

We are like dust

One of the passages we studied was Genesis 28:10-19 about Jacob’s dream at Bethel. My young cousin focused on verse 14 in this passage:

“Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions–to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants.” Genesis 28:14 (NLT)

She explained how this made her think of Christians being like dust, pointing out that dust spreads in all directions and gets everywhere. Then another lady brought up a verse that came to her mind which also indicates that we are like dust:

“For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.” Psalm 103:14 (NLT)

Their conversation got my wheels turning about the qualities of dust and how we are to exhibit some of those same qualities as Christians. This also reminded me of when I studied salt and wrote previously about the qualities of salt and how we should be like it.

Let’s talk about some of the qualities of dust that we should emulate… Continue reading

Your Gifts Are Intended to Point People to God

Your Gifts Are Intended to Point People to God

Your Gifts Are Intended to Point People to God 

Last week we discussed how your gift will make room for you.  We also mentioned that our gifts should advance the kingdom of heaven.  One of the primary purposes of our gifts is to point people to God.  Through our gifts, people will see God in us.  People will see that God gave each of us a variety of unique talents and abilities that could have only come from God.  Our gifts can serve as an avenue to reach people for God or to speak into the lives of others.

So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of the way you live, and you will be honored along with him. This is all made possible because of the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.” 2 Thessalonians 1:11, 12 (NLT) 

Unfortunately, you CAN use your gift without acknowledging God.

It is completely possible to operate in your gifts and use them well but still not point people to God.  Unfortunately, we see it every day in the secular world.  You don’t have to be Christian to be gifted—God has gifted EVERYONE.  You also don’t have to be Christian to figure out that you can use your gifts to become prosperous.  There are droves of celebrities worldwide that are not Christians.  They have discovered their gifts and have used them to get wealth, fame, honor and influence.  God MEANT for our gifts to do this…but that’s only half of their purpose.  Additionally, God intended for our gifts to direct others back to Him, to point people to God which is where the gifts came from in the first place.  We need to keep in mind that someday God will hold us accountable for how we used our gifts too.

God is absolutely big enough and powerful enough to not only use our gifts to bless us but to point people to Him without it removing any of the benefits.  We will NOT suffer if we use our gifts to glorify God.   Continue reading