Respectable Sins: Ungodliness

definition: "living one's everyday life with little or no thought of God or of God's will or of God's glory or of one's dependence on God."

scripture:

Come now, you who say, 'today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit;--yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' { James 4: 13-15

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. { I Colossians 3:23-24

so, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God {  I Corinthians 10:31

Train yourself for godliness { I Timothy 4:7

what this means:

"It means that I eat and drive and shop and engage in my social relationships with a twofold goal. First, I desire that all that I do be pleasing to God. I want God to be pleased with the way I go about the ordinary activities of my day. So i pray prospectively over the day before me, asking that the Holy Spirit will so direct my thoughts words and actions that they will be pleasing to God. Second, to do all to the glory of God means that I desire that all my activities of an ordinary day will honor God before other people. "

Questions for the week:

• How ungodly am I?
• How much of my daily life do I life without any regard for God?
• How much of my daily activities do I go through without any reference to God?

 ~

This was the first chapter, and the sin that Bridges says is the spawn of the other sins. I can see his point--how much less likely would I be to have a bad attitude or complain or become impatient if I kept it in my mind that everything I do should be for God's glory? I confess that there have been some days--maybe even some weeks--where besides my time at church or daily prayers, I didn't think about God so much in between. That is something I want to change and that I'm praying that the Holy Spirit will change in me--I want to do everything, whether its changing Zu's diaper or teaching a class or writing a poem, to God's glory. This week I'm going to pray about and think about what that will look like in my everyday life.