It’s What You Do With It

Walter Hunt was great at making things. He just wasn’t good at doing something with what he made.

In 1834, he inventing the first sewing machine but never filed a patent on it. Someone else did and made a fortune. He didn’t make that mistake again with the first fountain pen and first repeating rifle. However, he never turned them into viable products. Others did and made amazing profits. In 1849, after a few hours playing with a piece of wire be bent it into the shape that would become the safety pin. That idea would go on to be a million-dollar one. Just not for him. He sold the patent for $100, to make some quick cash.

Such great ideas but he never capitalized on them.

James warns his readers about this kind of behavior. Those that hear the word but don’t act on it. Those that have faith but don’t have works. Those that have God’s commands but don’t do the very thing those commands say. It’s not enough to just know the right thing, we have to do the right thing with it.

But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

James 1:22

With the inventive brain, Walter Hunt was blessed with he should have been set for life. Instead, he had nothing. We could do the same thing if we never heed the wisdom that God has blessed us with. We exactly what we need to be set for eternal life. Are we taking hold of it? Are we utilizing the knowledge we have been given? Are we exchanging it for something of less value?

We know what we need to but what are we doing with it?

Comments

Until Midnight

In Acts 20, there is the tragicomic event surrounding a young man by the name of Eutychus. He did what a lot of folks before and after him did, he fell asleep during a sermon. Unfortunately, he was setting in in the third story window at the time. So instead of nodding off and hitting the pew in front of him, he fell to his death. The good news was the apostle Paul was delivering the sermon and had the ability to bring him back. I don’t know, however, if we can judge Eutychus too harshly. The sermon had gone on till midnight. Paul wouldn’t finish it up till daybreak. That’s a long lesson. I know some folks that might want to jump out of a window if I had a lesson that long, yet these Christians wanted to be there to hear Paul. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing for all night sermons but I think we might need to adopt these folks' dedication. They knew that Paul was only in town for a limited time only and they were determined to ...

The Gift You Give Yourself

I always hated buying gifts for my Mom. If I got her something like a new set of pans, it was like saying “Here’s something you can use to go make me something to eat”. A gift for her was seemingly a gift for me. There are however gifts you give that benefit you more than the receiver. For example, forgiveness. When you give it, you are giving it to yourself as much as you are giving it to them. Jesus said that when we forgive others it means God is forgiving us our wrongs (Matthew 6:14-15). I once read: “ Heaven is where everyone's forgiven. Hell is where nobody's forgiven. So, when we forgive we pull heaven down into our lives. When we withhold forgiveness, we pull hell up into our lives ” Give yourself something nice today, Forgive.

Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission. It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...

Ecclesiastes 12:10

Search This Blog