One of the most difficult things about moving from being a child, to being an adult, is becoming responsible. Taking responsibility for your thoughts and your actions. That’s why a whole bunch of people simply, never grow up.

Let’s be honest. Some people never grow up. Now, there are different aspects to growing up: Moving from childhood through those difficult teenaged years, into adulthood. One of them is taking responsibility for your life. Of course, not everything that happens to us over the years, good or bad, is under our control. Often storms blow in that we didn’t see coming, and yet it’s surprising how many things in our lives are, in fact, under our control; how many things we can change or influence through the decisions we take.

A child look to his or her parents when something’s too big for them to handle. In fact, even for the day-to-day, children rely on their parents for somewhere to live; for the food on the table; for the clothes on their backs. They rely on mum and dad to run them here and there, to come and watch them play sport or to get that award at the annual school speech night … That’s all as it should be, by the way, but the reason that teenaged years can be so difficult is that those are the in-between years when parents want to teach their children to take responsibility for themselves, and yet still live under their authority.

That’s confusing for the teenager and for the parents. It’s why there’s so much conflict often in those teenaged years. When we come through that process though, what we should be is responsible young adults. Sure; we have lots to learn, but we’re meant to be responsible for providing for ourselves and for taking control of the direction of our lives, as much as that’s possible, and for owning the consequences of our own actions.

Yet so often as adults, we want to abdicate those responsibilities. We want to blame other people or our circumstances or whatever for our predicament, and that frankly is no way to live. There was a time in Israel’s history where they knew, they just knew, that they’d gone astray. Ezra 10:1:

While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women and children he gathered to him out of Israel. The people also wept bitterly.

Now they had some incredibly difficult decisions to make, and what they came to was to take responsibility for their mistakes, and (listen to this; it’s really important) to take action to rectify those mistakes. Ezra 10:4:

Take action, for it is your duty, and we are with you. Be strong, and do it.

What is it in your life that you need to take responsibility for? What is it in your life that you need to grab a hold of and, as difficult as that may be, deal with? Because until you take responsibility, things just won’t be right, and yet one of the things that stops us from doing that is the blame game. Have you ever noticed how easy it is when something goes wrong to blame someone else? It’s often our first instinct – our first response when something in our lives goes awry. In fact, in this day and age, it’s almost a rarity to see someone taking responsibility for their own mistakes or shortcomings.

There’s a business bestseller called, “Good to Great” by a man called Jim Collins. He and his team undertook a huge research project to determine what factors set apart those companies with sustained stellar performance on the stock exchange from the also-rans; the run-of-the-mill; the everyday companies. On the question of leadership of the successful companies, he writes this:

The leaders of truly great companies look out the window to attribute success to factors other than themselves. When things go poorly, however, they look in the mirror and they blame themselves, taking full responsibility.

The comparison CEOs often did quite the opposite. They looked in the mirror to take credit for success, but out of the window to assign blame for disappointing results.

When things don’t go the way they should, what do you do? Do you blame someone else, or do you own the problem with all your heart, taking responsibility to the extent that some or all of it was as a result of your failings or limitations? Think of the last time something went wrong. Go on, be honest with yourself. What did you do? People blame their past; their parents; their upbringing; their spouse; those people out there … In fact, some people (be honest) have become exemplars at living out the blame game, and the problem with that is that in your own eyes, your life is completely out of your control. It’s everyone else’s fault and never your own.

Who or what do you blame when things go wrong, and how different would that be if like the truly great leaders, you instead took ownership of the situation? Because (listen to me) when we take ownership, all of a sudden, God has something to work with. When we take ownership, God steps in, in such incredible power.

King David is arguably the greatest king that Israel ever had; the greatest leader, until Jesus came along a thousand or so years later. Here’s the conclusion that David comes to. Psalm 51:1-4:

Have mercy on me, o God, according to Your steadfast love; according to Your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You alone, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified in Your sentence and blameless when You pass judgment.

That’s why he was a great leader. That’s why God got right behind him, and I don’t know about you, but I want God working for me and not against me.

Like it or not, we have to live with the consequences of the choices that we make, so on that basis, I don’t know about you, but I’d like to make the best choices that I possibly can. Good choices, most times, yield good outcomes. Not always, of course. Sometimes other people don’t like it when we make good choices; I’m sure you’ve experienced that. Sometimes unpredictable things happen to rob us of the good consequences that should have resulted from our good choices; that’s just the way it goes sometimes, but most of the time, good choices lead to good consequences and bad choices lead to bad consequences.

And as much as we may wish that it weren’t true, sometimes we don’t have what it takes to make the good choice; to take the high road. Maybe it’s because of our own blind spots or because we’re tired, or we don’t have all the information, or our emotions lead us in the wrong direction. There are plenty of times in my life when I don’t have what it takes to make the best choice.

It intrigues me that even Jesus the Son of God, the Creator of the whole universe, found Himself in that place on more than one occasion because when He became a man, He laid aside His glory and His power, and became just like you and me.

So, He had a big decision to make. Out of all those who’d been following Him, who would He include in His inner circle – those who, ultimately, would go on to build this fledgling thing called the church, when His business on this earth was done? Big decisions with huge ramifications there, in choosing those twelve, remembering that one of them was destined to betray Him. So how did Jesus handle it? Luke 6:12-13:

Now during those days, He went out to the mountain to pray and He spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, He called His disciples and chose twelve of them, whom He also named apostles.

He involved God. I mean, seriously, all night He called out to His father in heaven; sat and listened, and received the guidance He needed to make the right choices – God’s choices.

Think about it. God sits above all; He sees all; He knows all, and above all, He loves you more than words can say. You and I do have to live with the consequences of the choices we make, so why wouldn’t we involve God in them? I can’t tell you the number of times that the answers have come to me just in the next passage of the Bible that I was due to read, or just waiting quietly on God in the early morning. God loves you. He wants to be involved in your life, and He’s waiting right now to help you make the best choices.

At some point in the process of growing up, of maturing if you will, we all come to the conclusion that there are some things that we just can’t do. Some things that we just can’t be. We come to the conclusion that in certain areas we have limitations that we just can’t overcome. When you come to that conclusion, what do you do with it?

There are certain things that, no doubt, you’re incredibly good at. You have certain gifts, certain motivations in your hearts, certain things that you know you can do better than just about anyone else. Sometimes of course, we don’t value those natural giftings enough because you live with your gifts and abilities twenty-four seven. The easiest thing for you to do is to think to yourself, “Well, you know, my gift – my ability? It’s nothing special. Not like that person over there. If only I could be like her. If only I could do the things that guy over there can do. If only I could be as successful as them.”

Have you ever found yourself thinking those thoughts? Making those comparisons? Sure you have. We all have, and at that point, you beat yourself over the head with your natural limitations. At that point, you look in the mirror and realise how far you fall short in certain areas. With me, it was my lack of pastoral gifting. Hey, I’m supposed to be a minister. I’m supposed to care for people, and I do; incredibly so, but it seems that I don’t have a pastoral bone in my body. There’s no gifting; there’s no anointing there. Not like my good friend Greg, who just seems to be an absolute natural at it.

Do you see how easy it is to fall into those comparisons? Have a listen to God’s take on all of this. Romans 12:4-8:

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we who are many are one body in Christ and individually, we’re members of one another. We have gifts that differ, according to the grace given to us: Prophecy in proportion to faith, ministry in ministry, the teacher in teaching, the exhorter in exhortation, the giver in generosity, the leader in diligence, the compassionate in cheerfulness.

The bit that leaps out there for me is the bit that says we have gifts that differ, according to the grace given to us. So by God’s sovereign choice, He made you and me differently, with different purposes in life, just as my nose has a different function to my big toe. Without my nose, I couldn’t smell or taste. Without my big toe, I probably wouldn’t be able to stand up and balance, and walk properly. Totally different, but equally important.

Here’s what I think. In our process of growing up – of maturing in Christ, one of the most important things of all is celebrating the gifts that God’s given us, and equally, being completely comfortable with the gifts that He hasn’t given us. God made you who you are. That was His sovereign choice, and He wants you to be completely delighted both with who you are, and who you aren’t.

You and I both know that there are always areas in our lives where we can improve and come up higher. Even though I’m not necessarily pastorally gifted, that doesn’t give me a license to be rude and detached or uncommunicative. My people skills and relationship skills are really important.

It’s the same with you. Perhaps you’re one of those pastorally gifted people. Praise God for that, but pastorally gifted people are rarely on-time for meetings, because they’re the sort of people who will always make time for someone in need. That’s in their nature. Equally, it’s simply not right to use that gifting as an excuse for constantly being late.

So, yes, there are always areas where we need to come up higher; areas where we need to work on our behaviour, even though they’re not necessarily in the sweet spot of our gifting. Excellence honours God; it’s as simple as that. I’m sure as we’ve had this conversation, God’s touching your heart with one or two things that He’d like you to be working on, but (and this is such an incredibly important but) equally, struggling and trying to become someone who you aren’t is never going to work. Here’s God’s take. Ephesians 1:6:

He destined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace that He freely bestowed on us in the beloved.

Now, let’s think about what’s going on in God’s mind (in God’s heart) when He destined you for adoption as one of His children through Jesus. Adoption is a big decision. Huge, in fact! And He did that out of His love for you; out of His pleasure; out of His will, pouring out His glorious grace on you, through Jesus. Just ponder that for a minute. What was going on in God’s heart when He destined you for adoption into His family, through the incredible suffering of Jesus, His beloved Son? It’s a whole different view, isn’t it?

What’s the matter with us, that we can’t get comfortable with how God made us, who He made us to be? What’s the matter with us, that we want to compare ourselves and wish we were this or wish we were that? Get a revelation. God loves you just the way you are. Hey, He made you just the way you are. Do you have a few rough spots that need sanding back and polishing? Course you do. God the Holy Spirit has that process well underway; don’t you worry, so instead of beating yourself up about who you are and who you aren’t, what God wants with all His heart of love for you is for you to join hands with Him in that process of change, for His glory and His love. God wants you to be comfortable in your own skin, while at the same time working with the Holy Spirit to deal with the sin in your life, and we all have sin that’s holding us back.

So here’s the question for you. How comfortable are you in your own skin? How comfortable are you with your natural gifts and abilities, your natural weaknesses and limitations and with handing over the sin that God wants to deal with in your life.

I know people whose emotions are curled up in a hard ball like an armadillo. It’s like they have a cramp in their soul, wrapped up all tight and hurting. If you’re in that place right now, the Holy Spirit is probably convicting you of that as I speak. That’s the way God works. He sends a messenger to tell you things that you need to hear.

But along with His Word, there is power. And I believe what He wants you to do is just relax and open yourself up to Him. 1 Peter 5:6-7:

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.

Part of letting go and letting God in, is humbling yourself. Admitting that there’s something going on there that you need help with. And the other part is casting yourself on Him. Trusting him enough to do for you those things that you cannot do. Because there are things in us that we can’t do for ourselves. And yet, here’s the thing, you can cast all your anxiety on God, knowing one hundred percent, that it’s safe to do so, because He cares for you.

That’s right the God who created the whole universe, who is sovereign and powerful over the whole creation – that God, cares for you. That’s why He sent Jesus. That’s why they call it the good news. He cares for you. May you be blessed as you receive that Word into your heart.

He cares for you.

We get a lot of our understanding of who we are, where we fit and what we’re worth, by listening to what other people say. How the world reacts to us. The problem is, you can’t always believe everything you hear.

If I asked you, in twenty-five words or less, to write down who you are, what would you write? No, not some bland generalised statement. I want a sentence that captures your essence; your value; the important things about you. So, what would you write? What evidence, what feelings, what feedback would you draw on to write it? It’s hard because we don’t think too much about who we are, and yet who you believe you are, what you believe about yourself … It shapes your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings, and your reactions and mostly, we rely on what other people tell us. Perhaps you were told once by a teacher or a parent, “You worthless child! You’ll never amount to anything,” and that, like it or not, has had a huge impact on your self-image, or perhaps you were always the last kid to be chosen on the team, as I was in the schoolyard; and even though you don’t think about it all that much anymore, it still has a huge influence on how you see yourself.

Self-image is a dangerous thing. The lies of this world are ruining many a life, even (let me say) the lives of people who with all their hearts believe in Jesus, so what’s the alternative? One of my professors back in Bible-college days used to talk about replacing your self-image with a faith-image. In other words, deciding to believe what God says about you, rather than what the world says about you. For instance, try this on for size. John 1:12-13:

But to all who received Jesus, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.

Children used to taunt me at school because I was chubby and short; because I was gifted in the classroom and not on the sporting field, and it hurt – a lot, so then I’d come home and talk to my dad about it. He’d help me get my perspective right. He’d get me believing the right things about myself. I got a lot of comfort from my dad just being my dad, and I’m absolutely certain that it’s because of him that those things from my childhood don’t affect me these days, but not just him; also my Father in heaven. As I read my Bible day after day, my heavenly Dad speaks those words about who I am into my heart, and for me, it’s been a simple decision to believe what Dad says about me, rather than what the world says about me. That is my faith-image.

Do you believe in Jesus? Then He has given you the power to be His child; it’s as simple as that.

There’s an important reason why believing what God says about you has such a huge impact on your life. Most of us believe the world, and that’s what self-image is all about. The problem with that is that it’s like looking into one of those distorted mirrors on Sideshow Alley, and believing that that’s your body-shape. It’s not reliable. Believing what God says about you … well, that’s a lot harder because often, God says things that the world doesn’t say.

The world may tell you you’re worthless, while God tells you your worth by showing the price He was prepared to pay for you by letting Jesus die on that cross. The world tells you you’re not talented, but God tells you that He has given you a unique gift – a unique ability and not only that, He has a call on your life: A destiny planned for you to live out.

A carpenter hangs different tools off his belt. Two of the most common tools you’ll find there are a hammer and a screwdriver. Let’s say he takes the screwdriver and starts to hammer a nail into a piece of wood by gripping the shaft, and whacking the nail with the plastic handle. Is that a good use of the screwdriver? No! Is that the best way to get a nail into the wood? No! And yet how many people are living their lives like that, simply because they haven’t yet figured out what God has to say about them? Because they don’t know the unique gift that God’s given them, the call that God has placed on their lives. 1 Corinthians 12:1, 4-6:

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. There are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

In other words, God has given you certain gifts, and those gifts are for the purpose, for the service, the activities that He has planned for you to do. Hammers are for driving in nails. Screwdrivers, on the other hand, are for screwing in screws. It’s obvious! But you know, people tell you this; they tell you that; they shove you into a job that you were never made to do, and then … then we wonder why we’re not happy; why we’re under stress and pressure at the moment.

Just picture that screwdriver being used to hammer in the nail. Is that what your life looks like today? Are you doing something you were never designed to do? God made you with a purpose in mind. He gave you a gift that fits like hand in glove with the things that He has for you to do, and it’s time to start believing what He says about you, rather than what the world says about you.

What a waste of a life it would be for a screwdriver to be constantly used as a hammer. What a waste of a life it would be … no, let me be more specific, what a waste of your life it would be for you to spend the rest of your days doing something you were never made to do. Don’t you think? So, how are you spending your life at the moment? What do you spend most of your life doing – perhaps at work or at home. In a paid or a volunteer capacity? Is it the right thing? Is it the thing that God made you to do?

Some people know that straight away. They can tell you whether their living out their God–given gifts or not. Others don’t have a clue. And the best way to know that is by whether you’re enjoying what you’re doing. Now, sometimes we don’t enjoy out jobs because of the people we’re working with – many organisations have a toxic culture and it doesn’t matter how good the match is between your job and your gifting, you’re never going to enjoy it. So put personalities and circumstances aside just for the moment.

Are you enjoying the work that you do – be it paid or unpaid, in a workplace or in your home? Do you find it fulfilling and satisfying? If not, the chances are you’re not exercising your God–given gifts. And it’s time for a change. Life is too short to waste it on doing things you were never made to do.

Stand back for a moment. God made you who you are. And He has given each one of us – that very much includes you – one or more gifts, abilities, talents, call them what you may – to do the acts of service that He planned for us before time began. Step into that space, start doing those things, and there’s a joy and a peace and an exquisite sense of fulfilment that comes from living out your faith in Jesus by using the gifts to do the things he made you to do.

Ignore it, keep working away at things you were never meant to be doing, and all that will elude you. It’s up to you.

We each have a sense of destiny built into our DNA. This sense that, well, there’s a plan out there somewhere, somehow. Something that we’re meant to do. Something that we’re meant to achieve. And unless we lay hold of that destiny, in a sense, we feel lost, as though we’re missing something.

So let me ask you, is it right to be ambitious? My dictionary tells me that ambition is a strong desire to do or to achieve something. A desire, a determination to achieve success. As someone who believes in Jesus, I’ve often struggled with this one, because success, well that can be truly self-seeking, self-fulfilling. Jesus, after all, said this – Luke chapter 9, verse 23:

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

I don’t know, but that radical view – and it is a radical view – of what it means to believe in Jesus, to live your life for Jesus, well, it doesn’t seem to fit too well with this notion of success. And frankly, I’ve lived my life, at least the first thirty-six years of it, often with the wrong sort of ambition in my heart.

Here’s what it looks like, this wrong ambition. You want to make a splash, you want to be noticed, you want other people to think well of you. You want, you want, you want … to be successful. Yeah, there’s money involved. Hey, who doesn’t want to have money? Who doesn’t want to live in a nice big house and drive the sort of car that other people will notice? Who doesn’t want to be able to afford the sort of clothes that’ll make them look sharp and catch people’s eyes?

That’s precisely how the thinking goes. And so what you do, what I did, is you climb over the top of other people, you walk over them, crash through them, even destroy them to get to your success. That’s what wrong ambition looks like. I ought to know. When I was in business, I was known to make grown men cry. I wanted to win. I wanted to succeed. How about you? Does any of that sound even vaguely familiar?

And I can tell you, sadly, you see that sort of behaviour even amongst people who profess to believe in Jesus. Jesus saw it too and this is what He had to say about this wrong kind of ambition. John chapter 5, verse 44:

How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?

That’s the bottom line isn’t it? How can we possibly believe in Jesus, how can we possibly follow Him and serve Him and love Him with all that we are, when we’re seeking glory for ourselves? And that’s what many people do. We want to put our best foot forward. We want other people to think well of us, to admire us. And when you do that, when you seek glory for yourself, it becomes virtually impossible to believe in Jesus. That sort of ambition, well, it’s simply not God’s plan for your life. But there is an ambition, a zeal that God does want you to have.

Jim Collins is a man who, with a research team that he established, set out to determine what it is that sets the great companies apart from the ordinary ones. What are the common threads, the common attributes that run through truly great companies, when compared to the also rans? That was the question.

So, he chose a number of stellar performers on the New York stock exchange, and set about doing the research to get answers to those questions.

What he discovered, not surprisingly, is that one of the things that set the great companies apart was great leadership. And one of the essential leadership attributes that he writes about in his book, “Good to Great” is this:

Great leaders embody a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will. They are ambitions, to be sure, but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not for themselves.

I’ve thought about that … a lot. And the conclusion I’ve come to is that Collins’ research simply bears out the truth of what Jesus had to say about ambition. Mark chapter 10, verses 42 to 44:

You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognise as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are like tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; whoever wishes to become great must become your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be the slave of all.

The sort of zeal, the sort of ambition that Jesus is looking for, in you and in me, is the sort that sets out to serve others. The sort that removes us from the limelight, the sort that gives up the clamour and the desire for glory. The sort that is driven to seeing others experience the love of Christ through the sacrifices that we make.

Think about it. Who are the people you admire most in your life? Who has achieved greatness in your eyes? Come on, it’s those who’ve served you the most, right? Those who’ve sacrificed the most for you, correct? Not the ones who’ve been self-seeking and sought to lord it over you. Later on in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul puts it this way, Romans chapter 12, verses 10 and 11:

… love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, but be ardent in spirit and serve the Lord.

Yes be zealous. Yes be ambitions. Yes be driven. But for the purpose of showing honour to others. For the purpose of serving God.

So, what drives you? What motivates you? What are you ambitious for? Yourself? Your own image? Your own success? Or for outdoing others in showing honour, and serving the Lord? Because God is looking for ambitious people. Driven people. Zealous people. People who will get on and serve Him for His glory. Are you one of those?

I was at a function recently and I ran into a retired businessman, a man whom I’d met one time before. Now this man, over his career, had been extremely successful. He’d been the chairman of boards of some very large public companies. He would often appear in the business pages of the newspaper, being reported on with great respect. By any measure, he had been very successful and, you’d have to imagine, he was pretty wealthy by this time, in his early seventies.

Now, he and I happened to pull up in our cars outside the function at the same time. We parked next to each other. And the first thing that struck me was the modest vehicle that he was driving. Certainly not one of those cars that screamed ‘success’ at you. And as I chatted with him during the course of the evening, one thing stood out for me.

His great humility. You don’t often hear those two words in one sentence – greatness and humility. But actually, and this becomes pretty obvious when you think about it, true greatness only comes to those who are humble. Or put it the other way around, humility is an essential ingredient, perhaps the essential ingredient, to greatness.

I think sometimes we over-complicate life. We try to imagine what success looks like and we think we have to jump through this hoop and that one, impress this person and that one over there, dress like this, speak like that, be seen, be admired … in fact what I see when I look around is a lot of people trying to please one another. So, let’s take it back to basics. Let’s look at something truly simple that leads to true greatness. Micah chapter 6, verse 8:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Right there is a path to greatness – and let’s face it, your greatness is a legacy that lives in other people’s hearts. Greatness is how other people perceive you.

Firstly, do justice. Be honest and decent. Stand up for those who are in a difficult place. Be the one that the other people can trust and rely on.

Secondly, love kindness. Don’t you love being around people who are kind to you? You want to be around them. You love them, because first they showed kindness to you. Love kindness.

And thirdly, perhaps most importantly, walk humbly with your God. Don’t seek the glory or the limelight. Don’t try to be better than anyone else. Don’t forsake God and go your own way. Just walk humbly with your God.

That’s what godly greatness looks like. Justice, kindness, humility. That’s the greatness that’s ready and waiting for you.

It’s funny how these days, there seem to be so many shades of grey when it comes to the difference between right, and wrong. But however you want to cut it, some things are right, and some things are wrong. Some people are good, and some people are bad. Which one are you?

Wickedness is rather a strong word. I don’t think that any of us really thinks of ourselves ever as being “wicked”. According to my dictionary, wickedness is the quality of being evil or morally wrong. Someone who intends, or at least is capable of harming someone else. Wickedness is something that broods in a person’s heart and then comes out in their words, their demeanour and their actions. So, might I ask you today – are you a wicked person?

At this point, most of us are prepared to cut ourselves some slack. Well, you know, I’m not that bad. Sometimes I have bad thoughts about people and yep, sometimes I hurt other people, but ‘wicked’, no that’s too strong a word to apply to me.

Really? Isn’t it amazing how we want to flee to the middle ground when we judge ourselves, our own thoughts and intentions, our own actions? We forsake the black and white of right and wrong, good and evil, and we soften the blow of self-judgement with shades of grey. And in any case, other people, well, they compromise as well don’t they? They make mistakes too. They do things that are morally wrong too. I’m not the only one, right? It’s so easy to be led astray in a world that has such incredibly low standards. Psalm 1, verses 1 and 2:

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.

How easy is it in this world to take the advice of the wicked, to follow the path that sinners tread, or to sit in the seat of the scoffers? It’s so easy to do in the workplace, or in a social setting or even, let me say, in a church setting. When other people are behaving badly, we have a tendency to follow their lead, by stooping down to their level.

The original Hebrew word used there for “happy” literally means to be happy because you are blessed. God wants to bless you. God wants you to be happy as you receive His blessing into your life. But that’s not going to happen, if you follow the advice of the wicked, or tread in the path of the sinner, or sit in the seat of the scoffer.

So whatever wickedness you have bubbling away in your heart, wherever you know you’ve gone astray by following wicked advice – right now is the time to turn away from it and instead, delight in God’s Word. Instead meditate on it day and night. Because that’s where God’s blessing is to be found and that’s the only place where true happiness will overtake you.

Sometimes we find ourselves mired in the consequences of the mistakes that we’ve made, in the consequences of our sin, in the consequences of, let me be blunt here, our own wickedness. And when you’re that low, it seems virtually impossible to work your way out of it. How can I possibly move on from this place, from all the things that I’ve done wrong?

That’s the question that rattles around in the hearts and minds of so many people. And sadly, because they can’t see a way out, many of those same people end up wallowing in their sin and their wickedness for way too long.

Me? I knew in my life that many of the things I was doing were wrong. I knew there was a God out there somewhere. And I knew I needed to find Him. My problem was, that I also knew that I didn’t measure up. That He was good and I wasn’t, no doubt, if I bumped into Him, I’d be in some serious trouble.

Just in case you find yourself in that place, I want to share with you the way out. Unless and until our slate is wiped clean, unless and until the sins of the past are atoned for and our conscience is clean, the reality is, we simply can’t move forward. So here’s the good news. Are you ready? That’s exactly why Jesus died for you. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 3:

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

Plain and simple, if you put your trust in that one truth, if you trust completely in Jesus, your sins are wiped away. You are forgiven. God’s wrath is removed from you. It’s an act of God’s grace. It’s an act of God’s mercy. Where once you were mired in your sin, now you are completely free, completely forgiven.

And it’s at this point, that you can make the decision that you’ve been longing to make. To start living your life the right way rather than the wrong way. To start living for good, rather than for bad. Because after all … Romans chapter 2, verse 4:

Do you not realise that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

“Repentance” seems like such an old-fashioned word. But it literally means to turn – in this case, to turn away from evil and to turn back to God.

It’s a decision that we all long to make. We all want to live a good life. But the power to make that decision, comes only when we trust in Jesus. So, no matter what evil, what wickedness, what sin, the consequences of which you’re living out right now, Jesus stands ready to forgive you, to set you free … to give you a new life. And at that point, your life is going to start bearing good fruit. Really, really good fruit.

I love fruit trees. I remember as a young boy, Mum and Dad had nectarine trees, peach trees, apricot trees, plum trees in the backyard. Man, in spring and in summer when those trees started producing their fruit, my sister and I would just go outside and it was amazing.

What do I feel like today? Oh those plums look good, so I’d just pluck a plum off the tree, sit down on the grass and eat it. So sweet and tasty. And the nectarines, when they were ripe, wow! There’s something about fruit trees, right? So long as they have their roots down in good soil, and they get plenty of water, they are going to keep on giving. They are just going to yield their fruit in due season. And interestingly, it’s that luscious, tasty, amazing abundant picture that God uses to describe the life that He wants you to live. Psalm 1, verses 1 to 3:

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of the scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all they do, they prosper.

Chances are, you’ve never really thought of yourself as a fruit tree. But let’s just sit down on the grass and look at this picture that God’s painting for us. When we choose to do good rather than to be wicked, when we choose to become a man or a woman of God’s Word, feeding on God’s Word the way that a fruit tree feeds on the soil and the streams, the promise is that our lives will indeed yield rich fruit in season.

Do you feel sometimes like there’s not quite the overwhelming abundance of fruit that there perhaps should be in your life? Do you feel as though sometimes your leaves seem to be withering, your emotions are frayed, you’re spiritually dry, you’re completely spent?

Then it’s time to deliberately get into God’s Word. Interestingly, the original Hebrew word used there for ‘streams of water’ implies irrigation channels. In other words, a deliberate, man-made decision and act, to bring the water to the trees. And it’s that same deliberate decision and act that you can make, to become someone who is immersed in God’s Word.

Because then, with goodness flowing into you, you won’t be tempted to follow the wicked, the sinners and the scoffers. Instead, you’ll be like one of those amazing fruit trees I was telling you about, yielding a bounty of stunning fruit in due season. That’s the natural consequence of a tree that’s planted in good soil, by streams of living water.