To God Be the Glory! Epistle VII "A Pragmatic Life - The Negative Side"

I really enjoy reading "Days of Praise", a daily devotional by the Institute for Creation Research! It always gives a daily challenge from the Word of God and is the inspiration for much of my blog material. A pragmatic life can be looked at in two lights: One negative and one positive. The word "pragmatic" involves the idea that the "end justifies the means". That sounds alright on the surface, but this concept has been used by Satan to get many Christians to involve themselves in many ungodly and worldly practices. Taken to an extreme, this concept would allow for rationalizing ideas such as: "We need more men in attendance at our churches to hear the Word of God". (This is an "end"). We should use positives to attract men to the church. (This is a "means"). The idea of more men attending church services to hear God's Word is a good thing, but God obviously wouldn't approve of the means of achieving that end in our scenario!

In II Timothy 2:4, Paul warns of something many Christians are guilty of: Becoming entangled in life's affairs (Greek pragmateia). These “affairs" would be anything done outside the power of the Holy Spirit's power working in and through your life! Anything that doesn't please God and bring Him glory (Both in its end and means), is simply not to be bothered with. The only tool to use to determine what brings glory to God is the Word of God! We must be careful not to rely on our rationalizations because all too often we allow ourselves to become involved in seemingly “good activities" which yield "good results", but at what cost?

Could all of that time and energy be used for a much more pleasing-to-God activity: Personal discipleship (Which includes personal daily discipline), personal Bible study (which doesn't include the TV as background noise), and prayer, cultivating spiritual relationships with people to talk to about Christ and seek to win them to Him: instead of recreational relationships for "fun”. These are questions we all need to think about when we self-evaluate and family-evaluate (Dads), to see if we really are "doing all to the glory of God"! I Corinthians 10:31.