God on the Tennis Courts
Game. Set. Scripture
Tennis and the Bible make a winning team. If you love both, join me here as we examine how they complement each other in daily life.
Awaken to God's Love
with this Commitment
to Action
This is one of 365 daily messages from the Bible SPA—Study. Pray. Act. Each begins with a prefacing thought, "Today I will..."
Decide For God, With God
We face spiritual crossroads daily: with God or without God; against God or for God. Choices may be difficult, but why not be with and for God?
Carry This Thought
With You
Throughout Your Day
Turn From Worthless Things
“We have come to bring you the Good News that you should turn from these worthless things and turn to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them.”
Acts 14:15
At the time of Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas were in Lystra and Derbe (1) preaching with power and performing healing miracles. On this occasion, Paul healed a man cripple from birth. The crowds, seeing what they had done, decided they were the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes in human form and wanted to sacrifice to them.
It was then that Paul and Barnabas ran out among the people and shouted,
“Friends, why are you doing this? We are merely human beings—just like you! We have come to bring you the Good News that you should turn from these worthless things and turn to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them.”
Here are the key takeaways:
“Worthless things” refer to pagan idols and false gods.
They are
Powerless: They cannot speak, hear, move, or act on behalf of their worshippers.
Lifeless: They are merely man-made objects crafted from wood, stone, or metal.
Futile: They offer no true salvation, lasting help, or spiritual meaning.
Paul uses the Greek word mataia, which translates to vain, empty, futile, or lacking any real substance—clearly an overarching thought to apply to many things in life.
As an interesting thought, the word “turn” also identifies with “repent” in the sense of “you are going in the wrong direction and turn around.”
Paul contrasts these empty idols with the living God, creator of the heaven, earth, sea, and everything in them.
The Main Message
Turn from everything not of God.
Let us pray:
Lord, send your guiding Spirit to us that we may discern the worthless idols in our lives and turn to you and truly live The Abundant Life. Amen.
_______
(1) Modern day south-central Turkey
Your Grandpa Loves You
My friend, Sebastian, writes a daily blog to his 7 grandchildren. He has been doing this for years without interruption. With profound clarity and simplicity, Sebastian applies Holy Scripture in a way that makes sense to his grandchildren. He has allowed me to share his writings, below.
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
(Galatians 6:9)
It's easy to become discouraged when you try to do the "right thing" but don’t see immediate results. Favorable results may not come according to our timetable, only on Gods timetable. Some of the things we do may take months or years to bear fruit. The key is persistence. This verse doesn’t promise that life will always become easy, but it does encourage us to "stick to the plan" remain faithful to God even when circumstances are difficult.
Your grandpa loves you.