{"id":261,"date":"2014-04-17T04:35:34","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T04:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/?p=261"},"modified":"2014-04-17T06:04:12","modified_gmt":"2014-04-17T06:04:12","slug":"excuses-excuses-excuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/excuses-excuses-excuses\/","title":{"rendered":"Excuses, Excuses, Excuses!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Navigating<\/a><\/p>\n

Think for a moment. How do you live your life? Either you live it for yourself alone, or you live it to serve others.<\/p>\n

As we live our lives, we are going to be confronted with whether we give our life for something good or something not so good.<\/p>\n

How do you live your life? What is most important to you? What will it be\u2014a career, a sport, a hobby, fame, wealth? None of these will have lasting significance. Here is what I learned, service is the pathway to real significance. It is through ministry that we discover the meaning of our lives. The Bible says, \u201cEach of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body\u201d (Romans 12:5 MSG).<\/p>\n

As we serve together in God\u2019s family, our lives take on eternal importance. Paul said, \u201cI want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less . . . because of what you are a part of\u201d (1 Corinthians 12:14a, 19 MSG).<\/p>\n

God wants to use you to make a difference in his world. He wants to work through you. What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of it.<\/strong> Not how long you lived, but how you lived.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not involved in any service or ministry, think about these people. They did not use their physical circumstances as an excuse not to serve.<\/p>\n

What kind of excuses we use? Consider these.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Abraham was old,
\n\u2022 Jacob was insecure,
\n\u2022 Leah was unattractive,
\n\u2022 Joseph was abused,
\n\u2022 Moses stuttered,
\n\u2022 Gideon was poor,
\n\u2022 Samson was codependent,
\n\u2022 Rahab was immoral,
\n\u2022 David had an affair and all kinds of family problems,
\n\u2022 Elijah was suicidal,
\n\u2022 Jeremiah was depressed,
\n\u2022 Jonah was reluctant,
\n\u2022 Naomi was a widow,
\n\u2022 John the Baptist was eccentric to say the least,
\n\u2022 Peter was impulsive and hot-tempered,
\n\u2022 Martha worried a lot,
\n\u2022 The Samaritan woman had several failed marriages,
\n\u2022 Zacchaeus was unpopular,
\n\u2022 Thomas had doubts,
\n\u2022 Paul had poor health, and
\n\u2022 Timothy was timid.
\n* and you are….?<\/p>\n

Wow, that is quite a variety of misfits! Yet, God used each of them in his service. He will use us, too, if we stop making excuses.<\/p>\n

(inspired by a Rick Warren sermon} <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Think for a moment. How do you live your life? Either you live it for yourself alone, or you live it to serve others. As we live our lives, we are going to be confronted with whether we give our life for something good or something not so good. How do you live your life? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}