Accept

 

        To accept is an action.  It is more than a word.  It is something you have to resolve in your mind and convince your body to follow.  It can be a simple as consent to receive a gift to as complicated to follow Jesus to the point of death.  We all have to accept things in life.  We just have to have it clearly defined for yourself.  Acceptance is a part of faith because it is believing in the impossible, against what is rational.  It is believing that it is correct and valid when logic tells you it could not happen.

    Job understood that faith was about acceptance.  He had the ideal life until things changed all at one time.  His wife became bitter, but he understood that faith is accepting the good and the bad in life.  We don't only get the blessings in life.  We live in this world.  That means bad things happen and we can't always change that.  We just have to accept that there is a reason behind it.

    By the end of Job's long journey of suffering, he still held onto his faith.  He never forsook God to make his life better.  The reward was some clarity.  God then placed his attention on his friends that made things harder on Job instead of better.  They needed to accept that things in life change.  Just because evil is cursed it does not mean that only evil people pay the consequences.  Prayer is the key to making things better and finding forgiveness, but forgiveness also requires action.

    To follow Jesus the first thing you have to do after salvation is learn how to treasure God's commands.  You have to listen and learn wisdom to obey.  Focus on understanding God and you will find clarity.  There is no greater treasure in life than wisdom and understanding.  It leads to a life of honesty, common sense, and integrity.  

    Accept the wisdom that the Holy Spirit provides you.  Use that wisdom to make good judgment calls in life.  The more wisdom you gain the more you hate deception.  Use wisdom to speak truth into the world and live a wholesome life.  God is not hiding anything.  He has made it all clear.  We just have to accept it.  

    There are truly evil people in this world.  I doubt that they think they are evil.  The Pharisees didn't think they were evil.  They thought they were holy, but they had hard hearts to refused to hear the truth from Jesus.  They were evil because their hard hearts made them hate Jesus.  Hate is evil.  Not everyone can accept the truth.  Some people feel the need to manipulate the truth to suite their own desires.  Manipulating the truth is evil because it leads people astray.

    As Christians, true followers of Jesus, we need to accept each other where we are in our journey.  No one's walk will look exactly alike. Some people have just started following Jesus and others have followed Him many many years.  We have all experienced life differently, even in the same family.  It is not right to judge each other with the limited facts that we may have.  We only need to judge if we know of a habitual sin that is being denied or hidden.  

    Instead of judging give God the glory of living your life for Him.  Jesus came as our example on how to live and he came as a servant.  That is the attitude we need to follow.  Show mercy and humble yourself so that you can have a servant heart.  This is how you lead other people to Jesus.  God is the source of hope, but we live out that hope everyday.  It gives us joy and peace the more we trust him.  It overflows because of the Holy Spirit giving us confidence to do things that we never imagined we could do.  All we have to do is accept the truth of Jesus.

Job 2:8-10, 42:7-9, Proverbs 2:1-8. 8:1-11, Matthew 19:1-12, & Romans 15:7-13