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The
Importance of Fast-paced living skips many crucial steps along the way. By Ken Raggio We live in an "instant" society It is common in our day to be able to get anything we want quickly. Since the invention of push-buttons, we have grown accustomed to instant gratification. We get instant meals from the microwave oven. Instant entertainment comes at the touch of a button. We don’t even have to "roll" the windows up in the car anymore. We can get instant cash at the ATM machine 24 hours a day, instant text messages on our cell phones, instant weather radar on the internet, and instant connections to everything in the world via computer. We are forgetting the concepts of delayed gratification. God Himself has to have "long patience" It is hard to persuade a person who gets almost everything he or she wants within a moment’s notice that the things of eternity and of the Kingdom of God only come through LONG PATIENCE. The Husbandman of the earth has LONG PATIENCE for the harvest. Great purposes cannot be accomplished quickly That means that even the ancient purpose for which God created the earth has not yet come to pass. Things that are in world news today are amazingly accurate fulfillment of prophecies made 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. Why did it take so long? God ordained it to be line upon line. Natural and Spiritual Growth is incremental There is a gradual spiritual progression that follows the same trends as natural progression. Every step along the way is vital and critical to the next phase. If you skip around from place to place, growth will either be stunted or will cease. One life phase contributes to another, and if you fail to experience an important phase, every subsequent phase will be deficient. If you are not at the right place at the right time, the results will be significantly less gratifying. Every step is for a purpose, and missed steps are costly That is one of the reasons every person needs to attend church faithfully. There is no way to measure the critical and priceless value of each and every step along the way in your spiritual development. Do not underestimate the value of the sermon you missed last Sunday night. Do not tread lightly on the prayer time you missed. Do not dismiss Bible reading as insignificant. Skipping school means lessons are not learned You will one day find yourself in a desperate condition, looking for the necessary resources to handle a difficult situations, but you missed that class! The very inspiration you could have received in church Wednesday night will not be there for you to draw on. The valuable words of encouragement and consolation you needed so urgently may not be there because you neglected to read your Bible and pray. When we fail, we look for a scapegoat All too many people aim their poisoned disillusionment with life at the church, the preacher, or one of the saints. But when they do, they estrange themselves from the very agents God ordained to help reconcile them! We must not fall into that trap. It is rarely someone else’s fault when we fail. It is almost always the result of personal irresponsibility. Maybe we should accept the blame for ourselves A good test to apply to every situation is to ask ourselves, "Am I really down this time because God failed me, or is it because I failed Him? Am I so demanding or impatient that my thoughts and my expectations are in foolish conflict with God's gradual way of doing things?" It is folly to spend our precious lives throwing blame for our misery on others. Jesus Christ taught that every man stands or falls before his own master. That suggests sole responsibility. Paul taught that every man should bear his own burden. On Judgment day, blame-shifting and excuses will be rendered useless in the face of a God who knows all the facts. Right living is its own reward. If I do right, your wrong cannot prevent me from being saved. If you do right, my wrong cannot prevent you from being saved. Do not let anyone be your stumbling block. Walk the way God instructs and nothing will stand in your way! I am continually writing new content for this site. Please return often for more material, and tell your friends about www.kenraggio.com , too! THANKS! And God bless you! Ken Raggio 
Click here for BOOKS and VIDEOS by Ken Raggio ALL ARTICLES WRITTEN BY KEN RAGGIO, Copyright 1988-2008 Articles may not be republished on the Internet without express permission. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Thanks for coming by! |