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Our Effective Control
The Awakening
As she sits on her ‘have-to-have-it’ couch she thinks back to when there were no choices to make. As a child she was told what to do and as a teenager she fought to make choices of her own. She had no idea at the time what a mess she will make with that right. Then, when she became an adult Leola made too many wrong choices. Too many choices with her time and too many ungodly choices with her morals. The result of that is she has too much furniture, gadgets, clothes, food, body fat, shoes and worse, flimsy morals. Leola just has too much of everything except money and godly morals. How did she get so out of control? Loela was not watching her future nor was she controlling her current wants. She has in effect lost control of herself.
Leola has seen the word ‘sober’ in the bible! It always brought to mind alcohol but she is getting a good picture of what sober means outside of drinking. She wonders if there is much of a difference between what she has been doing with her life and what someone who is drunk all the time is doing. They make impulsive decisions weighing the cost later when they are sober yet is that any different than what she is doing? Are either one of us clear-headed when we are sober? She is recklessly spending her life on useless things meant for instant gratification. She knows it isn’t going to last because she will soon be bankrupt. Her husband, Sam, is frustrated with her spending. As long as Sam stays in the dark about all the purchases and donations he will never voice his frustrations and she is off the hook. Leola has become accustomed to deceiving her husband. She isn’t seeing how ineffective she is at this deception; she is sound asleep.
Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober (1 Thessalonians 5:6). We need to make sure we do not fall asleep while we are living our life for Jesus. We have a roaring lion following us around whose goal it is too make us ineffective in the Body of Christ and in the world. Our effectiveness depends on our own self-control. This is something we need to learn over time. Self-control doesn’t just show up overnight, it is learned. It takes a little self-control to gain a lot of self-control. The issue with lack of control is it engulfs our whole life and our whole being. If we lose control in one area I am pretty sure we have lost control in many other areas. Let’s think about alcohol for a minute. Someone who drinks to excess has lost control of the alcohol but what has he lost control of before the drink. The area God will go after to get control over is what is causing our life to be ineffective right now. Once we are effective at controlling that other areas to control will show up.
The Conviction
One more lie won’t change anything except Leola. God has had enough of the deception. She has lost control of the truth! God ordained her to teach women life skills but how will she be able to be of any effect to them when lying has become her norm instead of the truth. She is extremely grieved by her behaviour. She looked around the room to see all the money she has spent on frivolous stuff. Sam was right! It is time to clean this mess up. Leola would embark on a two year quest to get rid of the frivolous stuff everywhere in the house and control her spending. The first thing she had to do was stop lying to her husband. Leola has asked the Holy Spirit to convict her on this because it has become so habitual she won’t catch it fast enough before the dirty deed is done. Since Sam is not saved yet, his only view of Jesus is her. She is determined to be a good effect on him and anyone else she teaches!
It takes a long time to clean up a mess that was years in the making. When we lose control it effects our whole life as well as the people around us. Discord is the mainstay with loss of control but we don’t first try to fix it, we attempt to hide it, making everything worse. Paul wants us to watch and be sober about our life because our Lord Jesus Christ is coming back and we do not want to be caught in the middle of dishonouring Him when the trumpet blows. Fear not because you can do this! God has chosen us, equipped us and set us to His work that we would be effective to all, honouring Him.
This weeks meditation verses: 1 Thessalonians 5:6; 1 Peter 5:8-9; 2 Timothy 1:7
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The Unfolding!
The Pagan Unfolding
It is a day like any other in the life of a married mother of four with a full time job. She leaves the older children at home to get themselves on the bus and drops the younger ones off a day care. Leola drives the few miles to work and begins her daily duties. She is a CAD Design Leader for a company fully capable of designing everything under the sun yet they cannot seem to get along with each other nor were they working to their full potential. Designers are an eclectic group of people with different needs and different wants. It is in this job Leola discovers her quest to help people improve their life skills. The Father had not called her yet but today she knows His hand was all over this job.
This was an exciting job for her because she was gifted to lead and gifted to design products too. She has a good eye because she is a visual person and she can easily see what she is looking at from all aspects. She is a visual person even today with a good mind for detail and an eclecltic imagination. Leola spots things long before most people plus she is gifted with Administration and leadership which is how all of these God given talents all work together to make her good at what God calls her to do. Leola was thriving in this role but she was well aware of those who would challenge her authority. She was more interested in those who were willing to learn and grow in all areas of their life and stayed away from those who didn’t. She saw every day how some would be dedicated yet struggled. There was always more going on then she saw but the only thing she could do is help with their work. Leola saw her future calling unfold right in front of her eyes.
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labour among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves. (1 Thessalonians 5:11) We all have a job to do in the body of Christ, which encourages each of us to see getting done. If we watch closely we can see those who need our help and those who need our guidance to discover what it is God will have them do. We know the will of God because He lays it out for us in the Scriptures but our individual work from Him is different for each of us. It is a wonderful thing to discover it and begin walking in it. We will each go through a tremendous change in our soul so we can be the perfect person to do the perfect job given to us by God. From the time I discovered His work for me until now it has been more than a decade and more than a few horrible years of character adjustments. I want to labour among you and guide you to the calling God has for you! God did that for me and He will for you too.
The Godly Unfolding
Leola’s work every day, not only was leading, but guiding as well. She made it her personal mission to help those she worked with in all levels of their work. She was a fierce person to deal with when the designers were being verbally abused. She went to great lengths to stand for those who needed it, sometimes at her own expense. Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was a horrible day at the office. The world stood still along with all the work. Two months later her company closed its doors for lack of business and they all went their separate ways. Leola was convinced by this time that she had to learn how to help people in the workforce live better lives. There was just too much sadness and to many fights. This was the beginning of the pagan unfolding. Even when Leola is down she can be found encouraging and building people up that they would do the work God has ordained them to do. The pagan unfolding has become the Godly unfolding because He planned it this way.
There can be no doubt that God has His hand on those He has called and is going to call. Think about what He did for you while you were dead in your sin. It is hard to see when we are dead but when He brings us to life we can only come to one conclusion – He was unfolding us right before our eyes!
