Don't Expect Much

My mom told me when I was a kid that if you ever do something nice for someone don't expect anything in return. She said God woud repay me in his own way. Pretty good advice. Sometimes we take this a little far though and start doing good things for the sake of getting a reward from God. I've always had this picture of this guy trying to run around heaven with his head full of crowns for his good deeds, saying "Look at what good things I did on earth." Yeah, not really how it's supposed to work out. The goal of those crowns is to lay them at Christs feet. When you do good things, do them for Christ and expect nothing in return except the satisfaction of knowing that you have furthered the kingdom.

Thoughts from the Past

I was thinking about this summer and the various church camps that will go on. These were always a great spiritual high time in life and I think most youth and adults wonder how do we stay on that type of spiritual high. Well I'm not sure that life is meant to be completely a high as in everythings perfect but we are always supposed to stay as close to God as possible. I know the first thing that comes to mind for staying close are devotions and prayer. In other words camp is a time often we are talking and listening to God. I think part of what we lose after these camps are EXPECTATIONS. At camp we excpect God to do something great after word we just expect life to be normal. We don't expect God to meet with us at work or school. Also, the whole talking and listening to God part tends to die down or become non-existent. I know this isn't all the answer just things I've thought of. If you have any more to add please feel free to do so.

Cleanliness

I was reading something in Proverbs today that talked about how we are pure in our own eyes. I think this happens a lot in my own Christian life. I compare my life to that of non-christians and say look how much cleaner I am than them. Well duh that doesn't do me much good. I rarely compare myself to Christ because I know what the outcome will be, but then again isn't that the goal. I remember Dr. Long talking about being like Christ. He brought up the point if our goal is to be like Christ then why don't we think we can reach it. After all God said we can do all things through him who strengthens us. Do we doubt the power of God or do we doubt ourselves?