Time to Reflect and Take Things Seriously

Time to Reflect and Take Things Seriously

14 "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
Joshua 24:14~15

When Joshua said these words to the Israelites, he was at the end of his life on earth. He lead the people of God to conquer the Canaan land and even as he was saying this, there are still a lot of towns that were not been taken yet. Here we can see that Joshua is urging the Israelites to continue to serve God and make the right choice whether to serve God or the idols that they had left behind.

How does it apply to us today?

Let’s answer some of the question below and let’s see what the result is:
1. Do I confess my sin and accept Jesus into my heart? YES NO
2. Do I live a life that’s different prior to my conversion? YES NO
3. Do I live a life that’s different from my colleague? YES NO
4. Do I have a time everyday to spend with God? YES NO
5. Do I do my devotion everyday? YES NO
6. Do I enjoy the devotion time? YES NO
7. Do I know what devotion is at all? YES NO
8. Do I serve in any ministry? YES NO
9. Do I submit to my leaders? YES NO
10. Do I pray for the lost? Or even cry for them when praying? YES NO
11. Do I love to be with Christian? YES NO
12. Do I submit to my parents? YES NO

This is not to judge you as I myself don’t have the perfect scores (all YES), here I want to share my burden in my heart with you as a leader. If we have more NO then Yes from the answer above, please continue to read on and I really pray that you’ll be blessed and challenged to take our relationship with God SERIOUSLY.

From the scripture, we can see that Joshua is urging the people to be serious with their walk with God. From there, we can see that there are still some Israelites having the mind set on the things in the past EVEN THOUGH God has done wondrous acts right in front of their eyes. Like wise, we (including myself even as I write here) are like Israelites in many occasions. We live a life that’s no different from what we were before we accept Christ; we still talk all the foul words; we still keep anger and bitterness towards others; we hold grudges against our brother and sister in Christ for the bad things that happen to us; we hold bitterness against the leaders when they didn’t notice us; we reason with the leaders when we are told not to go to “some” places… etc etc ( you name it). Why we still live in such as way? Don’t we know the Word of God that tells us not to do those?

With love I would really urge all of us (including myself) to be serious with God. This might sound super spiritual, but this is what God says in His word!
How long more that we want to give the reason that we don’t have time to spend time with God? How many more reasons that we want to find for our self to argue with the leaders when come to serving? How long do we want to wait for other people to continue to serve us instead of making the effort to meet others’ need?

We are to live a life that’s according to God’s word. Like what the scripture said above, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD”. What do we mean by serving? Is like when you have a maid/ servant that works for you, running the chores for you, taking care of the tidiness of the house, taking care of the children when you are bz, taking care of the garden … etc. Like wise, when we serve God, we are at His service, to do His will, to take care of His sheep that has been entrusted to us (1st Timothy 6:20a “Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care.”, of course not only to Timothy … ) but the question here is, are we doing it? Or we are just giving our self reasons for others to continue to serve us? When I am talking about serving in the ministry or church, I’m not saying that we have to be on the stage, be under the spot light in order to the classified as “serving” the Lord. Do you think that God is just looking at those who’s serving under the spot light? Didn’t the bible says that our God is omnipresence? Doesn’t God see what we do in the background where no one see it too? Things like taking care of other people in need, investing in others’ life, be there as a listener when others are looking for some one to talk to, pray for the people, pray for the nation. I know this is something contradict from what the society is teaching us that says “the one being served is the one that’s more superior” but you know what the bible says,

“The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Matthew 23:11-12.

We are called to be a leader, all of us. We are to serve the people around us especially our family members and our beloved brothers and sisters. Do you know that when we chose not to serve at certain area when there’s a need, we are actually causing some one to burn more of their energy in order to cover the need? So, the question now, how many more church ministers, leaders, teachers, pastoral staff, ushers, musicians, Cell Group Leaders, evangelists do we want to see burned out in front of our eyes while we are folding our hands and keep on demanding more and more from them? Are we not being called by the same Lord? Are we not in the same family? Then why there are only a handful of us willing to serve? While we are just standing there and watch things goes by? Do you still remember the “Parables of the talents” in Matthew 25:14-29. Why are we keeping everything to our self and serve our own? Even worst, why are we keep on asking the leaders to keep giving to our needs when we are the one that should be serving together with them? Why are we frustrated when the leader didn’t shake your hand, didn’t call you, didn’t follow up on you, not meeting your need? Why can’t we all change our view from “I’m in need, thus others should meet my need” to “I see a need in my group, I should try to meet the need of that person”?

Luke 6:38 ”Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."”

Don’t we believe in this word of His? Give and it will be given to us! Do you want to be a puddle of water that doesn’t flow anywhere but just stagnant? What will it become? A smelly puddle at the end of the day. When we start giving, we are actually channeling God’s abundant thru our life and from there, our life can be a living stream, where there’s a constant flowing of blessing from God. I know we have this kind of message for a thousand time, but just how many of us practice it?

I know some of us wonder at time on how God can bless this brother or that sister abundantly and when it’s our turn, we don’t seem to get the same result as them. First question to ask, are we going to hog on the blessing that God is going to bless us with or are we going to let it flow so that other’s around us can be bless also. You know the answer.


We need to continually transforming our mind according to God’s standard as mentioned in the book of Romans 12:2 “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” If we don’t spend time in reading God’s word, how do we know what standard to follow? Test your self on this, how many things that you believe right now is actually a product of your society instead of God’s word. I’ll share one example with you. Dating
Never in the bible mentioned about dating and this practice is the result of what the society is trying to teach us (including our friends). Every courtship should end up with marriage in mind of both parties. Dating is a trial and error game that our society practice and this is very common as it doesn’t require 100% commitment from either party as there’s always a “way out” if it doesn’t work out. Thus we have multiple couples that seeing more then one boyfriend or girlfriend at a time. Our society has thought us that relationship is no more a sacred things, it’s not something to be taken seriously as there’s always a way out, either thru breakup OR divorce. So, do you believe that? You make the choice, either to go on with God’s way (according to His words) or the society way. I’m not sure how many of you have gone thru the pain of breaking up with your dearest? Was it a good experience? NO! Even if you feel good about it, do you realize that it still hurt the other party? Even if they didn’t bring it up? The scars will always be there until we allow God to heal us.

So in summary,
1. I’m not judging anyone here as I’m not perfect.
2. This is my burden in heart and with all my heart, I really want to bless you with this as it’s meant for good for you and me
3. Get serious with your salvation
4. Constantly transform your mind with God’s word
5. Have constant fellowship with God everyday. You make the choice. Trust me, when we meet God and submit our account to Him, there wont be any reason that can stand.
6. Live a life that’s according to God’s word even if it’s not what the society is teaching.
7. Start serving as you’ll grow maturely in the Lord.

Lastly, may God bless you with this.

1st Timothy 6:20 “ (your name), guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you.

Paul Wyne