July 12, 2010, 1 Corinthians 4

Key Verse:

Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

(1 Corinthians 4:2)


Central Truth:

Don't let small habits keep you from reaching a deeper relationship with Christ


SNOWMEN AND CHRIST
Being from South Georgia, I haven't made many snowmen. Last year with all of the snow, my kids wanted to make a snowman. So, trying to be a cool dad, I go out and attempt to make a snowman. Of course, I have to google it first to make sure I do it right. So, we start just like the Internet says, we take a small snowball and roll it on the ground until it gets larger, and larger, and larger. After about 20 or 30 minutes of rolling this ball, we finally realize that we have enough for a base; we almost took up all the snow in the front yard. The base was thick and heavy. We wanted it more in the center of the yard, so I tried to pick it up and move it, but there was no way it was going to be picked up. It was too big and heavy. Eventually, we pushed to the center of the yard where everyone could see it and began working on the next section.
In today's key verse, Paul is writing a letter to the Corinthian Church and tells them in verse 2 that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. The Encarta Dictionary gives one definition of faithful as, "consistently trustworthy and loyal, especially to a person, promise, or duty." (www.encarta.msn.com/dictionary). As Christ followers, many things can affect our walk with Christ. It seems as if the things that affect our walk the most are the things that other people maybe don't see at first. What we feel are small sins, that start off like the base of our snowman, are tiny in essence, but they eventually progress into a larger part of our life and our connection to Christ begins to break up a little. We let the sin keep us from going to Community Group or to Church. Or, we just try to hide it and figure that no one will find out. But it constantly stays on our minds and our conscious, and we can't hide from it, and we certainly can't hide it from God.


Here is the part where being a Christ Follower makes us different though. Christ knows that we aren't perfect. We are put on Earth as sinners and are cleansed through His blood. Our communication line to Him is open once we accept Him into our hearts, and only we can change that. When we allow a small problem to grow and grow until we finally go into hiding from God, we are shutting the communication off, not Him. All we have to do is confess to Him; we have already been forgiven. He wants to communicate with us.


So, what is keeping you from getting closer to Christ? Are you carrying things that you can let go to Him? Have you let a tiny snowball grow into a wall?

Finishing the snowman that day took a lot of hard work. By the time we scraped together enough snow for the remaining pieces, we were all tired. But after all that work, we could stand back and be proud of what we had built. The same goes for our relationship with Christ: It is a constant battle to overcome the things of this world, but God promises that He is with us every step of the way, and you never have to worry about Him remaining faithful on His promise to us!