Principle by Pastor Ed Young

I had this occur in my life a couple of nights ago. I was thinking about this principle, “Ed, you really need to put into practice this command. Treat others as more important than yourself. Lisa and I go to bed. Two a.m. We have one of those Fisher Price intercom things. EJ, our 16 month old son must be having a nightmare or something. He starts crying, echoing throughout the house. He was so loud, even Dominic, the dog was barking in the yard. I heard it. Lisa was still asleep. I did something, guys, really cool. I acted like I was asleep. Didn’t move and thought, “I hope she wakes up”.  She didn’t. She was still fast asleep.

So I did the old elbow trick. I acted like I was sleeping and I nudged her like that, hoping it would startle her, she would hear EJ, her motherly instincts would take over and then she would sprint to his room. It worked like a charm. I did it. Boom! She was up. I acted like I was asleep. Then I was trying to go back to sleep and I couldn’t. Then I felt the Lord speaking to me, not audibly, but saying, “Ed, you missed it again, did you? Here you are lying in your bed of self-centeredness.   You missed another golden opportunity to put someone else’s needs above your own”.

God wants us to believe in Jesus Christ, John 3:16 tells us. The word “believe” does not mean, “I believe in you. Hey, I believe. Okay, I believe”. The word “believe” means to put your trust, faith, confidence in the fact that only Christ can save you; and the moment in time that you make that commitment, right at that point, you are adopted into the family of God and someone becomes your owner and His name is Jesus.