Work Instructions

I came to work last week and gave a packet of work instructions to all my employees, on the top was in big bold letters, Work Instructions. In the lower center of it, it read: "This is a manual to help each employee do their job better and more efficiently." Inside I took the time to put the rules, the instructions and the wisdom I had gleaned over the years of doing that job. I gave them instructions on things to avoid and why to avoid them. I expressed why these instructions need to be followed. My desire and reason for writing it was because many companies had failed in the past, I really thought that this would make a difference.

When I returned the following week to work I found that the employees were conducting themselves in the same manner as they were before I gave them the manual. I immediately called a meeting to ask them if they had read the manual. They all answered yes they had read it. A few of them said and they have memorized certain portions of it and they could quote it back to me. They told me about the rules and instructions to do there job better. They told me how well it was worded and told me how it could make a difference. I asked them why they were not following it. They all looked at each other with this look on there face of confusion.

This is just a story to get a point across. Do you know that God has given us a book of instructions, rules and commands to follow. Do you know that it isn't just words on a page, those words are alive in our lives, but we have a choice to act upon them or to just know them or read it. He has given us great wisdom to follow and when we don't do what He has told us to do, that is a sin. We are not to conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, it says that in Romans 12:2. Are we just going through the motions, are our lives different then that of the world, our are marriages different? God has given us instructions are we following them?

James 1:19-27 says "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

God just didn't give us the Bible for something to read, it is for us to follow. Not just when we feel like it, but all the time. Isn't it time to do it all God's way and not our own way. Do you truly believe what is written in the Bible is really real? By not walking it, you are saying I only trust you so far, the rest I will do myself and that is not completely surrendering to God's way. What is God calling you to? Are you doing it your way or His?