PUTTING ON DILIGENCE

INTRODUCTION:
I want to start by asking you if you like to wear hats? Pause. I’m glad I’m not alone! I like wearing hats and I have at home about a dozen different hats. My favorite hat is a straw hat that can fold and I can put it in my suitcase folded. I wear my hat practically everywhere, except to church.
Like I said before, I do have other hats I wear but I always come back to my favorite hat.
The Bible tells us in Galatians 6:22: “ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Which one of these do you need the most?
I need all of them but the one I need the most is love.
How can I make myself to love others? Being kind and patient? To have the self-control when your child is screaming in the grocery store and everyone is staring at you wondering how you will react? Can you relate as a parent? I know I can, because it happened to me. But when it happened, I dealt with the situation as calmly as possible. You see, I would quietly surrender it to the Lord in prayer asking for his peace, patience and a soft word to take the anger away (Proverbs 15:1)
The flesh wants to do the opposite. It wants to yell and strike at what is provoking our peace. But

WHEN TO PUT ON DILIGENCE:
By putting an effort to what God has given me. We find in 1Timothy 4:7 “…discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness”. The New Testament Greek word for discipline is gymnazo, which means “to exercise or to train.” In other words, it means do it over and over until you get it right. How godly we become depends on how hard we work at it. Old habits of sinful thought do not disappear. They have to be replaced with new, godly ways of thinking and responding. To be… “Transformed by the renewing of their minds” (Romans 12:2) as we work to be a kinder, patient and loving person, the Holy Spirit supernaturally enables us. Eventually the godliness response becomes the automatic response. This process is called in Ephesians and Colossians as the process of change.

EXAMPLE
When we buy a new car it comes with everything we want: oil, brakes, air conditioning, seat belts, alarm, lights, defogger, windshield wipers, etc. It is well equipped. Why do we want a car that is well equipped? It gives us good transportation. But in order to maintain the car, we need to change the oil, get it serviced every 6 months and change brakes when needed. We do all this for our new car in order to keep it running. The same way, God gave us a wonderful body that we need to maintain in order to keep it healthy because this body grows older each year. We need to keep diligence with keeping ourselves healthy so that our anatomy will live longer.
The same way we are diligent trying to keep this outer shell healthy, we also need to be diligent with our spirituality. How do we do this? Prayer, Reading the Word, Time for Worship and Fellowship with the saints.
When do I do this? Well, we need to take time to be diligent.
It’s easy to be distracted when we want to be diligent for the Lord! Let me say it again: It’s easy to be distracted when we want to be diligent for the Lord! (Read: Galatians 6:8)
“For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
Do I want to feed my spirit with the right things, like God’s word, His worship and doing things that glorify our Savior? Yes, indeed. God’s word tells us in Matthew 6:33 to “let us therefore seek His kingdom (God first) and his righteousness; all these things (what you will wear, what you will eat) shall be added unto you.” In other words, when we put him first he is going to take care of your needs. What a great God!
In conclusion, we can be diligent in seeking God by putting Him first in our lives. When we do this, we can trust Him to fulfill His promises to us.