The Word To Live By: 1-20-26
Phil Waggoner
Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. Philippians 2:14-16
The Word To Live By: I had a tough week last week. Not tough from the standpoint that I got bad news from the doctor or a lawyer or my wife. I didn’t lose anything, nothing frightened me, and nobody died. When I tell you what the problem was, your first reaction is probably going to be, “That’s a bad week?” It seemed like every time I sat down with an individual or a group of people, all I heard was complaining. And what made it particularly raw was nobody had an answer to solve what they were complaining about. Most of it was about something they could not or would not do anything about anyway - everything from the weather to traffic lights that don’t exist to traffic lights that do exist, from who should be in charge of things they had nothing to do with, to people in foreign countries and their lifestyle. I mean, it was constant. And most of the people, I knew to be church-going Christians. I was frustrated and angry about the whole mess. Then I had one of those Holy Ghost experiences where I opened my Bible to read Proverbs and it opened to Philippians 2. I was about to turn the page when I glanced at it and saw verse 14 and began to read. It was going really well and I was feeling very justified by God for my frustrations until I got to the part in verse 15 where it says, “Among whom you appear as lights in the world…” One of the things I say a lot, particularly when it appears I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time is, “I’m always in the right place at the right time, for the right reason, even when I can’t see that reason immediately.” I realized that God had put me in those situations to appear as a light to a disgruntled, angry people. I didn’t agree and complain with them, but I didn’t hold fast to the Word of life either. I simply sat there quietly. That won’t happen again. I’ll at least say, “I guess it could be worse. We could be living in some place colder or hotter,” (whichever scenario applied). Appear as a light to the world, not as a broken bulb in a dark hallway. It won’t be in vain.
Read through the Bible in a year: Luke 15; Genesis 27:1-45; Psalms 20;
Read through the New Testament and Proverbs: Proverbs 20, Matthew 10:22-42, Acts 20:
The sum of Thy Word is Truth Psalm 119:160