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This is an Encore episode of the Follower of One podcast from our archives. We are on a short break.
Hey, it's Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Welcome back to our podcast and today's devotional. I want to dig back into the Old Testament again. This has to do with my daily reading, and I was reading in 2 Chronicles 25:9. I'll read you the whole verse, but we're going to just focus on the very end.
"And Amaziah said to the man of God, "But what shall we do about the hundred talents that I have given to the army of Israel?" The man of God answered, "The Lord is able to give you much more than this." The kingdom of Israel was split. You remember there were 12 tribes, 10 went to the Northern kingdom after Solomon passed away.
Ten went to the Northern kingdom and were called Israel. And the two remained in the Southern kingdom, Judah and Benjamin, and they were called the kingdom of Judah. It also happens that all the Kings of the Northern kingdom were not God-followers and some of the Kings of the Southern kingdom were good guys.
They were trying to follow God. And this fellow who was the king was named Amaziah. And Amaziah was planning to go to war with another kingdom, but he was afraid he didn't have enough of an army. And back then you needed a lot of people to win a battle. You needed God to be on your side too. Amaziah paid a chunk of change to the king of Israel to get an extra a hundred thousand men to fight with him.
And this man of God came to him in verse seven, it says, and he says, "Do not let the army of Israel go with you for the Lord is not with Israel, nor is he with any of the sons of Ephraim." That's anyone in the Northern kingdom. "But if you do go do it, be strong for the battle and God will bring you before the enemy."
He says he will bring you down before the enemy because God has the power to help. And he has the power to bring down. And Amaziah, said, "But what shall we do? We've invested a hundred talents." This is a hundred year wages. I've got this sunk cost. My challenge for us today is to not sell God short. Let's not take the things that we've done and stick with them when we believe we're convicted by God to trust him. Here, the man of God is challenging this king. "Trust God. And he will give you this win." Now, Amaziah let go of the troops of Israel and, and they even created some more trouble for him. But Amaziah trusted God in this particular case and was victorious in this battle.
Where are we not trusting God today? That's my challenge for us. Where am I not trusting him? I can think of one place in particular. And so as I record this, I'm challenging myself to follow through on this need to trust God. I want to trust God. I don't want to worry about the money that's already been invested or any sunk costs or any sunk effort.
"The Lord has much more to give you than this." It says New American Standard and in the English Standard, it says, "The Lord is able to give you much more than this." God has everything and he owns everything. When we listen to him, and when we trust him and obey him, that's when we get to see him work. We get to see him make a difference in the world, through us or near us.
We get to take part in it. I want to challenge us today. Trust God, ask him, "Where am I not trusting you?" Should I trust you to go into battle with what I have or should I, bend my commitments? Should I cut corners, or should I take shortcuts?"
I believe that if we can trust God and do what he calls us to do, that he will become visible and he will work great miracles in our presence if we will trust him. Today in your workplace. Let's challenge ourselves, ask God where he would have us trust him, and then do it. Thank you for being a marketplace minister.
Thank you for investing some of your energy and your time and your effort to making a difference for the kingdom of God in your daily job. It matters. Practice the five daily activities. Check our online community out at https://community.followerofone.org, where you can join us for free and take part in the next Marketplace Mission Trip.
Thanks very much.
This is an Encore episode of the Follower of One podcast from our archives. We are on a short break.
Hey, welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm your host, Mike Henry. And I'm looking forward to today's message. Today. I want to talk about 2 Corinthians 5:14 "For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died." And that's from the English Standard Version of the Bible.
I'm tempted to bring in the next verse two. And I may stumble over into that. This is a favorite passage of mine, as many of these are. So, I apologize about that, but I hope you hear the excitement. I want the love of Christ to control me. The love of Christ controls us. That could either be Christ's love for us or our love for him. It doesn't really say.
Can you agree? It's just you talking to you now, does the love of Christ control you? Does it control me? I work often to be more controlled by the love of Jesus. I read my Bible and I work on these podcasts. I go back to first Corinthians 9:27, even "to discipline my body and make it my slave."
Maybe if I do that for long enough, I can say that the love of Christ controls me. Sometimes. I honestly don't believe the love of Christ controls me, but I would like his love to capture more my attention to be a bigger part of my daily life. I can give Jesus the ability to control me and step one of that is step one of our daily activities.
It's to pray. "Jesus, here I am. Would you put me to work for you today? I want to ask you to take over my life, to let me be so absorbed with the love of Christ that I'm controlled." And I want to let go of the other things that might be controlling me. I want to achieve a goal, so I take an action and I believe that my actions contribute more to that goal than the love of Christ.
But today I want Jesus to show me an action that I can sacrifice. This is not a job activity. I'm not talking about you sacrificing part of your job responsibilities. We still need to do what our managers and our leaders expect. We still need to do excellent work all the time. But what's something that we cannot do and trust Jesus?
One of those things is worry. Another one of those things might be working extra to make something happen. It's late in the year as I record this. Have you taken all of your vacation time, or do you need to take some vacation time and spend it with your family? I can pray and read my Bible instead of doing something else, instead of watching TV or playing a video game. I can trust a coworker rather than checking up on them or following up on them and nagging them. And for those of you that I've nagged, I apologize. I want the love of Christ to control me. So today, at least on this podcast, I choose to be controlled by the love of Christ.
Then let's ask him, Jesus, control me today. Let's keep asking. "Please, may I, so concentrate on your love for me that I enjoy my relationship with you and trust you more than ever. What would you have me to do? Jesus, take my life over and do what you want with it. I want to listen to you today. Use me as a minister in this workplace to be a blessing to others for you."
That's the way that I want the love of Christ to control my life. What about you? Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you if you have the courage to pray that prayer. Let's let God direct us on how we impact the lives of the people that we work with every day. The natural result is that we would no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died and rose again for us. Let's live for Christ because his love for us and our love for him controls us today.
If you think about it, join the community, https://community.followerofone.org. Let's put people into our lives that are helping us be controlled by the love of Christ on a daily basis so that we can serve the people that we interact with every day.
Thanks very much.
This is an Encore episode of the Follower of One podcast from our archives. We are on a short break.
Hey, it's Mike Henry with the Follower of One podcast. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us. Today, let's talk about Galatians 5:1 (ESV) "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to yoke of slavery." I think it's interesting because I believe Jesus came to set us free.
Sometimes I think we take that freedom for granted. We're created with the freedom to choose. God created us with this ability to choose. And all of the effort that I believe that Jesus has gone through to save us is designed to protect our freedom of choice. We choose wrongly before we even know, and we suffer the consequences of being separated from God.
All of us choose some way of life other than Jesus. But then Jesus paid for our poor choices so that we could still have another chance. In our previous episode, I asked you to consider the question, "God, what do you want me to change today?" Jesus set us free to hear God's answer and then to choose to do it.
Galatians 5:1 says it was for freedom, that Christ set us free. He got us back out of our yoke of slavery, our bondage to slavery. We go back into that mode when we choose to obey our own flesh. But we have the freedom to step out of that mode because Christ died on the cross for us and he gave us the opportunity to step out of this yoke, this chain, this slavery model.
And we can stand firm, therefore, as it talks about here today, Jesus set us free to hear God's answer to that question and then choose to do it. We were set free for that very freedom. What was your choice? Jesus paid for your freedom. Did you take advantage of that payment by Jesus yesterday? Or will you today?
If we want to be active with our faith every day, we begin by saying yes to God. We listen to the Holy Spirit, and we do what he says. This verse goes on to say that we can stand firm in our new life and not be a slave to sin any longer. Let's ask God the question again today. God, what would you have me change today?
Then let's do what he says. Let's choose today to do whatever he challenges us to do. This is convicting to me, because there are things going on in my life, I know I ought to be doing. And so, I have to confront those as I speak to you about this, on this podcast. It's a challenging place to be, but let's be there.
Let's challenge ourselves to follow Jesus, to step into the freedom that he paid for and not submit again to this yoke of slavery. Our habits and our environment are powerful things. If we can start the habit of saying yes to God, we strengthen our muscle. We may need to hang out with some other believers who have the guts to ask God this question over and over and over again, and then step into the answer.
Don't underestimate the pull of our enemy, our flesh, and our habits. Let's get the help we need. You can join the online community of Follower of One. That's what it's designed to do. It's designed to create an opportunity for us to be able to connect with other believers who intentionally try and live their faith every day.
Check it out at https://followerofone.org. You can take part in the Marketplace Mission Trips for free as well. We simply ask you if it's beneficial to you to pay it forward. Thanks for being a marketplace minister. And thank you for making a difference in the lives of the people that you're around every day.
Let's ask God the question, "God, what would you have me change today?" And then do what he says.
Thanks very much.
This is an Encore episode of the Follower of One podcast from our archives. We are on a short break.
Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm your host, Mike Henry Sr. Today. I want to talk about James 2:26, "For as the body, apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead." That's from the English Standard Version.
We talk about work regularly here, but we're not talking about your job today. We're talking about actions that we take because we follow Jesus. James is explaining how we can claim to believe. But if that belief never changes our lives in any way, we're just fooling ourselves or we're trying to. If we claim to believe in Jesus, but we do not change as a result, we don't know him very well. We're not really following him. And I think this sometimes gets mistaken in the tug of war that kind of goes on about trusting God with my salvation. If I trust God with my salvation, then I should live differently. I shouldn't just trust him and relax and not do anything different.
By trusting him it means that I now live differently because I believe that what he says matters. One of those great examples is with the tithe. Do you give some of your money to support the church; to support the work of God? We give a 10th of our income or more. We give whatever we give, because we trust God to do more with the remainder of what we keep than what he would do if we kept it all. It's the same concept behind being closed on Sunday or taking a Sabbath rest day or going to church. If you spend a couple of hours every week going to a local church or being a part of a body of believers so that your relationship with God can grow, God has the ability to use the rest of your time to bless you more than you might possibly be blessed by using all of your own time. God challenges us to give away things from time to time because we trust him. We trust him to do more with what we hang on to.
That's the way I think we're called to be at work. We get a challenge to live our life differently in the workplace. We can give away more than is expected of us. We can do more than our job might demand. We can give to our coworkers and bless our customers or our vendors more. We're free to do that. Today, I want to challenge us. Let's use our true faith and let's ask God to make it cause a change in our lives.
If we claim to be Jesus' followers, let's ask God one quick question right now. "God, what do I need to change today?" Can you ask God that question? The things that come to your mind are from him. You can tell him "No." You can think, " God, I can't really do that." Or "God, you really don't want me to do that today, do you?" This is very convicting to me, because I've been struggling with myself in a particular area as well. And now I need to take action on what I just told you. So, let's ask ourselves one more question.
"What happens if I don't listen to God?"
I want to follow Jesus more and more every day. Do you? Today let's turn to him and follow him. What he puts on your mind today to do, figure out a way to get it done. Do things that glorify him. Do things that you know that he would have you do in your workplace simply because you trust him. Let's follow him. This is between us and Jesus. My prayer is that today we are each courageous enough to ask this prayer and then act on the answer we hear. You'll be blown away by what happens next.
If you want to be a part of a community of people who are trying to grow in their faith and trying to make a difference in the world that they live in every day, then check us out over at https://followerofone.org. We'd love for you to join our community and join us on the next Marketplace Mission Trip.
Thanks very much.
This is an Encore episode of the Follower of One podcast from our archives. We are on a short break.
Hey, welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr. Today, I want to talk about 2 Chronicles 15:1-2. We don't often do a lot from the Old Testament, but this is a challenging passage that I happened to read the other day and I wanted to pass it along. The verse reads like this, "Now the spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded, and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, Listen to me Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you're with him. And if you seek him, he will let you find him. But if you forsake him, he will forsake you." Now I read that from the New American Standard. That word "forsake," that's like "abandon." If we abandon God, he will abandon us. This is a challenging word from the Lord.
This prophet has been challenged to go talk to the king and to remind him that if you we are with God, if we seek him, if we pursue God, then he will let us find him. But if we abandon him, he will abandon us. Let's remember who we seek. Let's remember where we want to point our heart and our desires and our ambitions.
For me, it's so easy to get wrapped up in the things of work, to try and get the next promotion to try and pursue the next shiny object or the next thing we want to buy. It's so hard to follow after God. But if we can follow after God and remind ourselves to seek him, then we have this promise and many more that God will be with us when we are with him.
And if we seek him, he will let us find him. Our relationship with God is so far outside of our control, it's hard to fathom. And yet God has given us this ability that if we truly turn toward him, he will let us find him. But if we're joking with ourselves or if we're lying to ourselves or if we just choose not to have anything to do with God, he'll let us go that way too.
The key to our life is learning to live it pointed towards God. In the Follower of One community, we try to encourage each other to be intentional in the way that we live our daily life. Today. I want to challenge you. Let's ask ourselves, are we seeking God? Or are we seeking something else?
And what has to change? We can change with a prayer. We can punch in and tell God, "Here I am." And then we can also pray and ask him to bless the people around us. We can get on this eternal clock by punching-in with God and letting him use our life to matter forever. That's our job. We can follow Jesus and stick with him like we're following the bumper of a friend in a town where we're lost, where we don't know where we are. Let's stay close to Jesus and not let the shiny objects of career and material possessions take us off track. When we focus on God, he will challenge us to pay attention to the people around us, and the people that we work with. Let's follow hard after him today and let him direct our actions and use us for his glory.
You never know, your life may change so much that someone will come up to you today and go, why are you different? Or why did you just do this for me? Why did you go outside of your way to help me when you didn't have to? And that gives you an opportunity to share how Jesus transformed your life. That's part of the excitement that we get by following Jesus every day.
If you want to take part more in this type of a spiritual life and this life with Jesus, where our life matters as we interact with others, it matters for eternity. If you'd like to take part in that life, join us at https://followerofone.org. You can check out our online community there. You can see our videos and different things that we offer.
And by joining the online community, you can also take part in our next Marketplace Mission Trip, which is a two-week exercise to help us learn how to practice following Jesus carefully at work. Thanks for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for wanting to integrate your faith into your daily life.
Ask God to help you, and he will make it happen. I promise. Thanks very much.
This is an Encore episode of the Follower of One podcast from our archives. We are on a short break.
Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. Today, I want to talk about God being at work. If you hear this on the day that it airs, it's actually the Monday after the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving and we're back at work. And so, I wanted to check out and just think a little bit about how God is always at work.
In John 5:17 it says, "But Jesus answered them, 'My father is working until now and I am working.'" And that's from the English Standard Version.
Where are you today? What's your situation? Are you at work or going to work? Are you working from home? Maybe you're retired or maybe your day is trying to get healthy from an illness or caring for someone else who's not healthy. You may be on vacation. Wherever you are, we are workers. God created us to work. The original mandate in the original story in Genesis, you will find that we were challenged to subdue the earth and be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth. We have a working God who calls us to work.
So even if we're on vacation, even if we're outside of the normal work world or we're in some situation as a volunteer, our job is to work, to make the earth better for everyone on it. Now, if God created us to work, who do we work for? Do we work for God? Or do we see ourselves as the boss? Or do we see someone else as our boss?
What's our goal in our job? Do we work for a purpose? Do we work simply so we can spend time not working? Do we work only to get through Friday? If God has created us to work and God is always at work, what's he challenging us to do? The entire Trinity is working. Can we see our work as something that God has assigned to us?
And since our original mandate is to work, do you think of yourself as an employee of God's? That was a big transition that I had to make many years ago. I had to realize that the people that I reported to at work, the people who signed my paycheck, they really weren't my boss. They were in charge of me. I was assigned there, but I was working for God.
If God's working and Jesus is working, I want to work for them. Today at work, I want to focus my perspective. I want to point my brain to working for God. Colossians 3 23 and 24. We're challenged to do our work heartily as if we work for the Lord. As we get back into it and we get on our tasks at work, let's remember that we do them for God.
That our job is to do excellent work and to do our work with quality and with energy and with passion so that we can glorify God. We can show other people that we worked for him. Today, if we focus our perspective on work, as if we work for God, how will that make us behave? Would we work differently?
Will we take our assignments from him and do our work like we report to him? And if so, how will that change how we work today? That's my challenge to us. Today let's work as if we work for God. If that's something you normally do, go ahead and ask him for one additional assignment today. Ask him to give you something else that you can do today, just because you work for him. He will answer and he will call us out and he will challenge us if we let him. Today, let's remember we're marketplace ministers. We have an opportunity to make a difference in the world, right where we are, because we follow Jesus. Let's pray for the people around us and look for opportunities to follow Jesus with our whole life.
If you want to practice this more, you can join the next Marketplace Mission Trip. There's not one coming up for another month or so, but you can find out more about that mission trip by joining our online community at https://community.followerofone.org. Thank you for being a marketplace minister and thank you for making a difference with your faith. What we do matters and your actions on behalf of Jesus, your actions as a Christ follower matter forever.
Thank you very much.
Do you ever get surprised by the things other people do? Remember what I told you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they obeyed my word, they will obey yours too. John 15:20 NET In this verse and this section of John 15, Jesus is very black and white. He can be. He's God. Fortunately for us, we're not God. We can't handle our own job, much less God's job. Jesus is giving us a statement about the people who don't follow and obey Jesus. Unfortunately, I still fall short enough that I might even be mistaken as someone who doesn't follow Jesus either. I don't think we need to act like we know. I want to be humble and open to the evidence I see in someone's life. At the same time, I want to listen to the Holy Spirit. But fortunately, since I consider the definition of "ministry" to be "helping everyone move one notch closer to Jesus;" I don't have to act differently around anyone. Jesus calls us to love others, even those who don't love us back. He asks us to represent him in the world. The people who persecute us, or who take issue with us or with our faith are also the kinds of people who took issue with Jesus. I read this more as an encouragement. Whatever we go through while we're loving people is something Jesus experienced and he knows what we feel. Today, even if people let you down, love them. Even if they don't like Jesus love them. You don't have to force your methods on them. Find a way to love them asking God and trust ing him, too. Remember, what we do because we follow Jesus matters forever. Also, please remember we have three weeks left in our matching gift. At the time of this recording we still have over $18000 that will be matched dollar for dollar. Would you help us reach that goal? Please head over to www.FollowerOfOne.org and click the donate button to help us make it. Thanks very much.
Can you love people who don't love you back? "If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you do not belong to the world, but I chose you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you." John 15:19 NET When we start following Christ, we begin to leave "the world." Jesus doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room in this process. So what are we to do? Love people. That's about the only thing we can control. We can't save them? We can't help them see Jesus any way other than simply living our life following Jesus. We can't fix the broken in people, we can simply love them. It seems that Jesus is saying, anyone not following him hates him. He's not wrong. When we follow him, we're called to love people, knowing they won't love us back. How can that challenge you today? Pray for the people you will meet and ask God to show you how to love them. And remember, what we do because we follow Jesus matters, forever.
Are you an optimist or a realist? "This I command you—to love one another. If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me first." John 15:17-18 NET Bible I'm pretty optimistic. I generally expect the best. I think Jesus is speaking a bit to me here. First he sums up what he has been saying. It's important that we realize that verse 17 is a repeat of verse 12. Repetition is for emphasis. We're commanded to love one another. And while the context of this passage is to love our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, this next verse also exposes another idea. Often when Jesus says one another, he's talking about our fellow humans, period. We can't just love the people we want to love. God is sovereign, which means he doesn't answer to anyone. He can do whatever he wants. And he's also omnipotent. That means he has the power to do anything he wants. Based on those two ideas, the people you're around aren't an accident. God wanted you to be his witness with the people you're around today. Today, don't expect everything to be fun and joyful. Sometimes we will not be received well. Jesus has enemies. Everyone won't agree. That's all the more reason we need to practice our 5 Daily Habits. We can pray, appreciate others, know what we believe, serve others and speak for ourselves. Some won't agree. Some may even get hostile. Let's trust God and do what he says. Please also consider joining a community where we try to do all these things. You may be the only person you know trying to obey Jesus where you work. Why not connect with some others in our online community. Check it out at https://community.followerofone.org.
Do our actions as a Christ-follower really matter? "You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you." John 15:16 CSB Notice a few things in this passage. First Jesus chose them. Jesus is choosing the people and assigning the work. He chooses which branches bear fruit. Notice second that the fruit we bear will remain. This means that what we do matters. We get to take part in Jesus' strategy for saving the world. Our actions matter and if our actions matter, our inaction matters too. This is why I think complacency and lack of urgency is a problem for us. We can get occupied with so many useless things. But we can do things that will last forever. As a result, when we ask God for something according to his will, he will do it. The reference to the ask being according to God's will comes from the phrase "in my name." So you can pray for every person you meet. Your prayers will be answered when they line up with the will of Jesus and you will experience joy. What you do matters. If you never pray, God still accomplishes his work. He still saves people. He will still be glorified. But you will miss out. If we all celebrate the victory, but you know you didn't have much to do with it, you are less joyful than if you scored the winning run or if you made a key play. Today, we can remember that we can bear fruit and that fruit can remain. What we do matters. Even if you have a meaningless job you hate, you can still say or do something that can matter forever. So stand up straight. Take your position and do your job like you're doing it for God. You are. Any moment you can interact with someone and impact their eternity. Please also remember we're a donor supported ministry. If these podcasts, or our Marketplace Mission Trips are beneficial to you, please consider paying it forward. We want to help every Christ-follower integrate their faith into their daily life. Find out more and join us at https://FollowerOfOne.org.
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