Which of the following are similar to the ways you've served Christ in your family? [check all that apply]
• Taught your kids to see God's glory in nature
• Washed the dishes without being asked
• Played a board game with your kids
• Encouraged your wife to finish her master's degree
• Attended a child's open house at school
• Worked fewer hours to be with your family
• Set an example of a godly prayer life for your children
• Held a crying child
• Swung on the tire swing with your daughter
• Told your wife why you're still in love with her
• Told your son he's got what it takes
• Coached soccer
• Let you child correct you now and then
• Fixed the vacuum cleaner
• Taught your sons to ride a bike
• Listened patiently to a complaint of your wife
• Taped your child's artwork to your office wall
• Admitted to your kids that you were wrong
• Told your children how Christ entered your life
• Cleaned up vomit
• Taught your children to love books
• Been romantic without expecting sex
• Told your daughter she's smart/beautiful
• Set standards for your kids and stuck to them
• Dealt graciously with a busybody neighbor
• Peeled carrots
• Watched movies together
Any Old Bush Theme of the Week: Selling Out Thursday, May 30, 2002
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May/June 200253Any Old BushTheme of the Week: Selling Out Any Old Bush Theme of the Week: Selling Out Thursday, May 30
Key Bible Verses: I have been crucified with Christ. I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:19–20). Bonus Reading:1 Corinthians 15:8–11
During my first semester at Multnomah School of the Bible, Torchbearers founder Major Ian Thomas spoke at our chapel service. He talked about how it took Moses 40 years in the wilderness to learn that he was nothing. Then one day Moses was confronted with a burning bush—likely a dry bunch of ugly sticks—yet Moses had to take off his sandals. Why? Because God was in the bush!
Major Thomas said, "God was telling Moses, 'I don't need a pretty bush or an educated bush or an eloquent bush. Any old bush will do as long as I'm in the bush. If I'm going to use you, it won't be you doing something for Me, but Me doing something through you.'"
I was that kind of bush: a useless bunch of dried-up sticks. I could do nothing for God. All my reading and studying and modeling myself after others was worthless unless God was in the bush. Only He could make something happen.
Thomas closed his message by reading [today's Key Bible Verses]. I ran back to my room and in tears prayed in my native Spanish. My spiritual struggle was finally over! I'd let God be God and let Luis be dependent upon Him.
—Luis Palau in Discipleship Journal
My Response: Is the way I am serving allowing God to be God?
Thought to Apply: We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own. —John Owen (English minister, 17th century)
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