Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Workmen's Effort

1 John 1:5 "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

If you continue reading this chapter you will come across one of the more moving scriptures (v 7 & 8) which leads up to 1 John 1:9 known as the "Christians bar of dove soap".
The reason I bring up this verse is to follow up on what Blake said on Monday - hard work is cool. We are part of this group because we are searching for truth some of us have found truth or at least somethings we know to be true (there is always more to be found). With that knowledge of truth there has to be a component of practice in each of our lives. For example I have found it to be an absolute truth that if I treat Christy (my wife) with love and respect and I serve her the way the Bible instructs a husband, my marriage flourishes and I experience how awesome it is to be married and in love. Another truth is that if I drive the ball to the hoop in basketball and prove that I can score an easy layup then it opens up space between my defender and I for me to rain three's on him for the rest of the game. The last example is that if I never throw heaters inside to hitters they lean out over the plate and smash my fastball on the outside corner like it was thrown right down the middle. Truth has to be put into practice for it to be relevant. What truth do we practice? We might think that the best players, workers, salesman, etc... all have luck and talent and get the brakes but I know that if we sift through their lives we will see that they worked at it tirelessly. Are you putting in an honest days work? Are you outworking everyone else? Do you have the strength to put in a full workmen like day? Do you want it bad enough?

More importantly are we practicing the gospel Truth that Jesus has revealed to us? Are we shinning like the lights of the world that God intended us be (Matthew 5:16)? Are we liars because we aren't practicing the truth? Is the reason we aren't practicing because we've grown lazy? Gutcheck, throw on that workmen gray shirt (the grey and white speckled shirt that is not quite grey but not close enough to any other color to call anything but grey) and get to work, we have got to stand out as hardworkers. I don't want to be a liar any longer.

6 comments:

Tanner said...

I can't remember the last time I power shagged. Basically, I can't remember the last time I worked on my defense. Also, my lift program is once every road trip which equals about 3 lifts a month. So needless to say the work hard speech is pretty convicting for me in those areas.

- TEvans

PS - Jules don't try and come in there. You're not welcome in my kitchen.

Jules said...

I can't wait to see you, I owe you big time after that broken bat fiasco in Albuquerque. You were 2-2 but one of em was pretty flimsy. I hope you got a Bible study ready for me and my crew.

Tyler Parker said...

Great post. Thanks to Ben for clarifying the grey t shirt and how it should look. ha.

If you have ever read "the 4 hour work week" you see how much time is wasted in a work week. I know I am guilty of it all the time. In sales, you have so much freedom it can hurt you sometimes. Whether it be taking a 2 hour lunch break or just messing around on the internet for too long.
I don't know how many of you watch the Office, but this reminds me of the episode about being a "time thief" at work and Jim has Dwight on the stop watch everytime he is doing something that isn't work. Hilarious

So, are you a 'time thief' for God? Are you slacking on quiet times? You ever find yourself reading the bible and all of a sudden your mind is just completely gone in another direction. We are all guilty of this.

"practice doesn't make perfect. But, perfect practice makes perfect" - Ripken, JR

Tyler Parker said...

one more quote that works here is this:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

Jules said...

I love that you just dropped Ripken Jr. as a worthy source of a quote on this blog, who's next Cecil Fielder? "Get your wheat germ bottle out of my refrigerator section, that is the spot for my nonfat vanilla yogurt."

Tyler Parker said...

Ju Ju, hahaha. Tossing me under, and I love it. What are you going to do next, throw all of my belongings in a water heater closet?....wait, you already did that in Palm Beach.