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The world calls us to be like them and do what they say. We spend most of the time with the people of the world. And if we are not careful, the world and the values of the world can easily influence us. God calls us to be different. God gave us a new name 'Christians' when we became Christians, to be different from our old name. He redeemed us by buying us from Satans family, he bought with his blood and he brought us in to His family.
1. Dare to trust God.
Hebrews 11:7
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
We can see that Noah dared to trust God when nobody else was trusting God those times. Noah was warned about the flood. Till then the mankind has not seen the flood the way God said to Noah. God told him to build an ark and Noah did. He built an ark, according to the instruction given by God himself because he feared God.
We also think about saving our family, our ministry, the lost….. Noah's faith and his trust in God made big difference in saving his family. Our faith and trust in God plays a major role in helping our family, our ministry and the lost to make it to heaven. We need to fear God like how Noah did.
Genesis 6:5-9
5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them."
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.
Noah was a very different man comparing to rest of the men who lived with him. Think about our lives without God, what is every inclination of our thought lead us to. It leads to evil; without God our hearts will always be directing to evil. And when our thoughts are filled with evil our actions will also follow our heart. Noah dared to be different in his time. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time and he walked with God. Today we have to look at our life and see how we are living our Christian life.
Are we different from the rest of the world and the neighbors? Would we find favor in Gods eyes because of our faith in God? It took lot of faith for Noah to build an ark, nobody could ever seen an ark like that. It takes lot of faith to be obedient when nobody is obedient; it takes lot of faith to share our faith to people when nobody else is doing it.
2 Peter 2:5
If he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
Noah was known as preacher of righteousness. He was not actually going around preaching, speaking or talking to everybody. Noah's life became a message - by his life, by the way he lived, the way he spoke. More than preaching he lived a life that is example to others, his life became a message. When we look at our daily life, is there any difference in our old and new life. If not, it's time to change now. It takes a little decision. So we got to dare to be different.
Noah dared to be different to trust in God. Dare to trust God, trusting God means believing in him that he is going to take care of our life believing with all your heart, with out any doubt trusting God.
2. Dare to be consistent.
Job 1:1-5
1 In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.
2 He had seven sons and three daughters,
3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.
4 His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
5 When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, "Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." This was Job's regular custom.
Job was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters he had a big family. He had to raise up ten children in a Godly way. Each of his sons would hold the feast in turns. What would Job do when the feast was over he would get his children and purify them before God. Here we see the father is concerned about the purity of his children. He felt that deeply because he feared God and he shunned evil. Early in the morning, he would sacrifice burnt offering for each of them. Job knows the only way that they are going to be spiritually alive is by the power of God. This was Jobs regular custom.
We can see some thing different about Job here, he was consistent. He was consistent in the way he felt for his family and his children's spiritual well being. We get emotional, fired up for sometime and then again we go back to our mediocrity. That's not the way Job lived his life. We can be consistent if we decide to be consistent.
Noah and Job were just ordinary men who decided to live extraordinary life. We got to be daring to be different. We have to really love God with all our mind, with all our soul and strength because that is the greatest commandment. Each one of us has to decide to love our God with all our heart, with all our mind with all our soul and all our strength. Let's believe that God can change our hearts, our ministries and our families.
Lets take away all the doubt, worries and burden that we are carrying. Let's leave every thing and believe that God the Jehovah, God who created the whole universe has the power to change every one and change our ministries / families. Let's all dare to be different.
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