1 peter 4:7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.

Peter was aware that the Lord will be coming back soon. He encourages us to be serious and watchful in our prayers. In the ESV translation says to be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of our prayers.  I've often thought sober-minded to mean to abstain from the influence of drugs or alcohol but you could very well not be of a sober-mind and lose that self-control while being completely sober and that was something that I've realized recently. To be sober-minded I believe is to be aware of the situation at hand, and not only that, but handling yourself in a manner that allows you to continue to be affective in your ministry. It was pointed out today that we don't have a lot of time left here in Antigua, and since we're drawing near to the end, we may have the tendency to become intoxicated with the excitement of going to our new field locations and even becoming intoxicated with the thought of going home to see family and friends for the ten day intermission we have and in that we would be in danger of losing sight of the ministry opportunities that are placed in front of us and totally missing what God has for us here and now. With that being said, We need to be serious and watchful in our prayers, making sure we don't focus too much on what is to come that we lose sight of what we have right here in front of us, for the end of all things is at hand . With that being said, we're not promised another day, and that's a sobering thought.


Application: Write one a piece of paper this verse and a reminder that I need to be focused on what God has for me this day and that He can come at any minute.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Luke 21:19 By your patience possess your souls NKJV By your endurance you will gain your lives ESV This is a strong statement and not to be taken lightly. Though we don't earn our salvation by our endurance, we will be required to persevere through extremely tough times. The surrounding context talks about being killed or thrown in prison or betrayed by family for His name sake and truth is I may or may not face all of that, but one thing is for sure I will face hard times, my faith will be tested. There will be days where I just want to quit, where I may be down right tired not wanting to press on and honestly in these past few weeks there have been time where I just wanted to give up but there's something inside that tells me I'm not going to quit and I don't believe it's by my strength that I'm still here today. Ephesians 6:10 tells us to be strong in the Lord and in the Power of His Might. Telling us to put on the whole armor of God so that we ma
Read more
II Corinthian 10:5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Part of spiritual warfare is defending the gospel of Jesus. To be able to defend the gospel we have to be walking in the Spirit in obedience and in Love not looking at ourself. I know for me I've taken things personal, and ruined my witness with someone because I responded in the flesh, in disobedience I didn't take captive my thoughts and hand them over to the Lord and I didn't respond in love. I responded in my flesh on impulse. I must remind myself that people are not persecuting me, they're persecuting Jesus. People may try to slander or gossip or build up strongholds against the Gospel but we must take our thoughts captive, and hold those thoughts to the word of God and respond with love, not responding from a worldly defense but having on the whole armor of God wielding the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word
Read more
Philippians 3:11 - if, by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Romans 6:4-5 Paints a wonderful picture of what these verses are saying; [4] "Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life [5] For we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection," Now, back to Philippians, if, by any means I key word MAY attain to the resurrection from the dead. Paul knows that if strays from Christ and isn't walking under the blood, He's not covered. I would dare to make reference to the Passover scene in Exodus, where Gods people were commanded to sacrifice a lamb and paint the door frames with the blood of the lamb and when the time of the Passover came, they were to be in the house or they would suffer death. Likewise, our faith must come with acti
Read more