Saturday, September 5, 2009

"As for me and my house....."

Above our fireplace mantle is this scripture sign my parents gave us for Christmas several years ago.  I love the verse painted on it: "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15.  I pray that scripture will always be true in our home.  I also pray that we are teaching our children about God in way that this scripture will also be true in their homes when they grow up and have families of their own.

Today I was thinking about all of the things with which we can fill our lives.  It's hard to not fill our lives with stuff....non-important "stuff". If we become so busy, we don't have time to serve the Lord.  If we're not careful our "to-do" list becomes so big that our "service" list gets neglected.  It's a struggle for our family and maybe yours, too, to not let fun and entertaining things, and even sports become the most important things.  Not that any of those things are bad, but they need to be kept in  proper balance and not before our service to God. 

Let's think about how else we could finish this scripture if we allowed our lives to get too busy, or if we allow ourselves to put other things first in our lives.

As for me and my house we will.......watch TV for hours and hours, but not be able to do any good deeds for others. 
As for me and my house we will.....spend all of our free time doing what we want to do for pleasure, but never have the time to help the needy or visit the sick.
As for me and my house we will......put entertainment before God.
As for me and my house we will.....find fault with people who are doing trying to do good, but not help with the effort to do good.
As for me and my house we will......do whatever we want to do instead of worship God with our church family.
As for me and my house we will.....be thankful for baby Jesus and celebrate his birth and resurrection a few times each year, but not worship Him daily by following Him.
As for me and my house we will.....put sports above our service to God.
As for me and my house we will....worship God when it is convenient to do so.
As for me and my house we will....make sure we don't miss the latest movie that's out, but not have time to fellowship with our Christian brothers and sisters.
As for me and my house we will....make sure we have the biggest and best things, but fail to give to further the Lord's work.
As for me and my house we will....make sure to read the latest and greatest novel just released, but never have the time to open and read God's Word.
As for me and my house we will....make sure we attend worship service once, twice, or even three times a week so that I can check that off of our "faithful Christian" list.
As for me and my house we will....make sure to stay up late Saturday night watching the end of the big game, but not be able to get out of bed the next morning for worship (or Bible classes).

"As for me and my house we will........" Can you think of any others?  How would you finish this sentence?  Hopefully we can all finish it just like Joshua did:  "Serve the Lord."

4 comments:

  1. Great thought! This would be great to use with a youth group lesson!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lori, I read this from Irving Texas from the hotel after the game. I've been convicted by the amount of energy and focus my husband and I have towards enjoying OU, but haven't had as much passion about other things much more important. So, for this fall I am going to put college football, way on the back burner.

    Thanks for the post it is really helping me regain my focus. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your posts are always encourging. Thank you for the reminder.

    Laura

    ReplyDelete
  4. Robin, Mary, and Laura:
    Thank you for your comments. I appreciate them.
    Lori

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting "Shine Like Stars"! I appreciate your comments. Have a great day! Lori