Standards: July 30, 2012

TODAYS WORD FOR MONDAY JULY 30, 2012.

STANDARDS

Definition:

Something established by authority, custom or general consent as a model or example; criterion; the morals, ethics, customs etc., regarded as acceptable.

SCRIPTURE:

What does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God with all your heart, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees. Deuteronomy 10:12.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

God has set standards for us who love Him to keep. Setting human standards that ignore God and His commandments have no lasting effect. For the non-believers standards are made to be broken.

For those who know Jesus as his or her Savior, a standard has significant importance. A believer in Jesus lives by the standards that Jesus lived by and taught. They are God’s standards. God first gave His standards to the Children of Israel on their way to the Promised Land. The purpose of God’s standards was to make His people spiritually and morally unique from the rest of the world. Their godly standards of living were to be a witness and a testimony of the true and living God to the nations.  We read in Deuteronomy 10:12-13, that there were five things that God expected of them. They were: 1. Reverence God. 2.  Walk in all His ways. 3. Love Him. 4. Serve Him with all your heart and soul. 5. Observe His commands.

Jesus, when He was here on earth, lived by and taught these same standards. God does not change. His standards for us are the same that they were for the children of Israel and as they were some 2000 years ago when Jesus was on this earth and taught them personally. Godly standards are essential in every believer’s  life. Are you living the way that God expects you to and are you keeping God’s standards?

Here is a list of standards for you to evaluate. Do you set a time daily for reading the Bible, praying to God, spending time with the family and communicating with your spouse?

At the workplace do you set yourself a standard of excellence in your work, completing your work, communicating to the people you work with and living a life that exemplifies the Lord?

What about your church? Do you set examples and a standard for your family, friends and neighbors? Do you attend church and Sunday school? Are you involved in a home Bible study group? Do you volunteer to help in some area? Do others during the week see the same standard on Monday that you live by on Sunday?

We are sure that these are enough questions to get you to think about setting standards in your life that honor God. Keeping God’s standards are essential if we want to be used by God and be a testimony to the rest of the world of God’s love and saving grace.

The commands and decrees that we are told to keep in Deuteronomy 10:12 are given to us in Exodus 20. We know them today as the Ten Commandments. We urge you to read these today and then print them and put them in a prominent place in your home so you have to read them daily. If you choose to do this and then choose to live by them God will change you and your life dramatically. Commandments are not options. They are the requirements necessary to have a right relationship with God.

LEARNING:

Our memory verse for this week is found in I Corinthians 3:11:

For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

PRAYER:

Father in heaven, help me and my family to be obedient to Your commandments so that others will see that we are morally and spiritually unique. Keep us committed to living by godly standards so that our lives are a testimony that we have been changed by Your saving grace that we have received through the shed blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ.