Jonathon Edwards Moment

Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.

Whenever I can I try to read through Jonathon Edwards’s resolutions. They are such a good reminder of what I should be doing with my life. As I read through them a few minutes ago this one really stuck with me.

This stuck with me, because I tend to be a very competitive person. I try to play basketball every Saturday morning and sometimes on Sunday nights. Due to my competitive nature I can do more harm to the Gospel message than positively influence those around me. The Lord has been gracious to constantly bring to my attention these times so that my hearts desire is to compete so that I glorify the Lord and not myself. My desire is that those around me would glorify my God more because of my actions, not that I would drag them into sin.

This also stuck with me, because I work in a secular job and have to deal with gossip and people talking ill of others. I wish I could say that I have never talked ill of a co-worker, but I cannot. I am not quite the gossip, but if someone is lazy in the workplace I have problems keeping my mouth shut. The Lord has been very gracious to me in this area too by gently tugging on my heart and reminding me that I am lazy when it comes to my obedience to Him. I know that work ethic should spur others on to work harder and that my actions should be a non-verbal Gospel message.

I pray daily that my actions and words would first, be in alignment with each other and not in contradiction and secondly that my actions would speak louder than my words.