Don’t be a sign post (sign board)

1 Cor 9:27 “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified”.  NKJV

During the last Christmas, I decided to spend it with my mum in the village, and I decided to go with all my nephews and nieces around. As with got to a few kilometers near the village, there was a large bill board with the name of our village and the direction on it. My four years old nephew asked what it was and I said it was a sign post and he asked what a sign post is, I told him it is a sign board placed at a particular place to show us where we are going, the direction and how many kilometers we still have to get there. And in this case I told him we still have three kilometers to get to the village. He then asked me if this sign post has been to the village before and I said no, he laughed and said, pointing at the sign post “how can you stand here directing people to a village you have never been there’ he then turned to me and said, ‘uncle, I will never like to be a sign board, I will always like to go to places not stand at one point and direct people to where I have not been’

The three kilometers journey from that point to the village kept me thinking about my own life. To be honest with you, most often, it is not the part of the bible I don’t understand that worries me, it is the part that I understand and I don’t  do it that worries me. The part that I teach, and preach and cannot do exactly that way, that worries me, I know you are not like that, thank God for you. but Paul said something that I keep reminding myself every day and we should remind ourselves of that always and ask God to give us that grace as he said in I Corinthians 9:27 ‘I am staying alert and in top position, I am not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing it out myself’ The message Bible.

Does this remind you of something? The sign post (sign board), it spends its entire life directing people where to go but you will never see it there.

God forbids that we spend our lives teaching people the right thing and not doing it, directing people towards heaven and moving towards hell. Telling people what to do and not doing it. Of what use is it to look for information and not use it? Studying volumes of books and not finding time to put it into practice? Of what use is it going through the bible every year yet not doing what it says? For the bible says be ye doers of the word, not just hearers, not just readers, not just talkers of the word, but doers of the word.

Let us take some time this week and ask God to give us that grace, not just to direct people where to go but to carry people along and go there ourselves with them.