Don't Be A Fool
“A reputation for a thousand years may depend upon the conduct of a single moment.” -Ernest Bramah
Exercise. That word makes about half of us cringe and the other half get excited. I come from a long line of humans with congenital heart problems. All but one of my relatives on my father’s side have died from heart-related issues. My father had the “widowmaker” heart attack at age 34, before I was even born, and had a heart transplant in February 2010. My mother had a heart attack when she was in her late fifties as well. Needless to say, exercise, specifically cardiovascular exercise, is not optional for me.
Did you know that it takes 8 to 12 weeks to build cardiovascular endurance? That’s 2 to 3 months of regular cardiovascular exercise. That is a long time! Do you have any guesses on how long it takes to lose it?
Cardiovascular fitness can be lost in as little as a few days. DAYS! In fact, some experts say that you are likely to lose about half of your fitness level if you do not exercise at all for an entire week. Just one week. That hardly seems fair does it? It takes all that time to gain and such little time to lose. It makes you wonder why you should even bother trying.
Reputation is a lot like cardiovascular fitness. It is made up of tons of large and seemingly small decisions. It takes months and years to build up and can be destroyed in no time. Some would argue that it is also the most important thing that you can build up in your life. There may come a time when your reputation is the single thing that can make or break you, just like there may come a time when your life depends on your level of cardiovascular fitness.
Scripture tells us that a good reputation is more valuable than money and riches (Proverbs 22:1, Ecclesiastes 7:1). Why is that? I think taking a trip over to the book of Matthew might help answer this question.
Matthew 5:16 says, “ Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good deeds and moral excellence, and [recognize and honor and] glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (AMP). As believers, our reputation either draws people in towards Jesus or pushes people further away from Him. The things that we do and say, the way that we love others, are what make up our reputation. Saying one thing but doing another contributes to a bad reputation. No one wants to be known for talking a good game but then never having the courage to actually live those words out. Going beyond just saying the right things and actually living them out contributes to a good reputation. That is what we should all be striving for as believers.
Matthew 28:19-20 lays out what Jesus expects of us now that He is no longer here on earth. We have been commanded to go and make disciples. Jesus didn’t say to just go and tell people about Him. He said to teach them to obey His commands. How can we expect people to learn how to obey if we ourselves are not obeying?
One thing that I learned very quickly when working with children is that they will always do what you do, not necessarily what you say. The same thing applies here. Telling people about Jesus and His ways does not make true disciples. You cannot make true disciples of Jesus if you are not living as a disciple of Jesus yourself. Obedience is key in discipleship. If you are not obeying the Word of God, why would those that you are discipling? You must show them the importance of obedience through your actions, not just your words. This shows people that they can trust you and that trust creates the foundation for a good reputation.
So, how do we learn to obey the Word of God?
First, you have to actually spend time reading the Word on a regular basis. You can’t obey what you do not know.
Second, you have to get rid of the belief that you have to have attended seminary to be able to understand what the Bible says. This is a very popular belief that has infiltrated our world and convinced people that they have to rely on others to tell them how to interpret scripture. It is simply not true. James 1:5 tells us that all we need to do is ask God for wisdom and He will give it to us generously.
Third, choose a passage of scripture to focus on and read through it in multiple translations a few times (the YouVersion app is a great tool for this). Ask God to reveal Himself to you through this piece of His word. See if you can see anything about yourself in the passage.
Last, write down how you can actively obey God based on what this piece of scripture says. Make sure that you write it down. This will help solidify it in your mind and also give you something to go back to later to see how you did in obeying what it said. Do a self-check in a week or so and see how you are doing with obeying this scripture. If you have been able to walk in obedience to it, move on to another piece of scripture. If you haven’t been able to actively obey, don’t beat yourself up and let the voices in your head convince you that you are a terrible Christian and will never get it right (oh...is that just me?). Simply read the passage again, pray to God about it, and start over. See, James 1:5 says that not only does God give us wisdom generously when we ask, it also tells us that He does so without rebuke or blame.
God desires that our relationship with Him continue to grow and strengthen throughout our lifetime. The relationship is the most important thing to Him if you ask me (not that you would considering I have never been to seminary or Bible college). You can’t strengthen your relationship with God if you don’t spend time in His word. As we all know, knowledge of another person does not create or strengthen a relationship. Actions create and strengthen relationships. It’s about obedience. Like James says, “...don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.” (NLT) No one wants to be a fool; it’s one of the most difficult reputations to overcome.