April 25, 2024
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Oh, it happens every year after Thanksgiving and Christmas...leftovers. I cannot believe the infinite possibilities for preparing turkey. You know how it goes: You have turkey crispies for breakfast, and turkey, butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, etc. I mean, listen, there are so many ways to get rid of that turkey! Actually, any time of the year, it's just hard to get a lot of enthusiasm for dinner when it's leftovers. It's just not fair how many times you and I serve just that to our family. They deserve much better.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Family Leftovers, Family Regrets."
I'm not talking about food here. I'm talking about leftover me; leftover you. Our word for today from the Word of God is found in Psalm 101, and I'm going to read verses 2-3, and yes, it does have something to do with something better than leftovers. Here's what it says. David is speaking. He says, "I will be careful to lead a blameless life." Now, Before we go on to the next verse, let's think about that word blameless for a minute. What does he mean? What's a blameless life?
Well, it means living your life in such a way that you have nothing to regret. Isn't it nice to wake up in the morning with no extra baggage, no emotional hangover, nothing to regret, nothing to repair, nothing to hide? That's a blameless life.
Okay, now listen to the next verse, "I will walk in my house with a blameless heart." Actually, these verses in this Psalm give us several arenas in life. After he says, "I'm going to be careful to be blameless" he gives us several arenas in which he wants to do that. But the number one is my family. He says, "When I'm with them, I want them to get blameless living from me. They will not get my leftovers. They are going to get my emotional and spiritual best." Is that how it is with your family and you?
I'll tell you, it often is not the case, is it? Our friends get much better treatment sometimes than our family does. In fact, if we treated our friends as we treat our family, our friends wouldn't stand for it. We'd be out of friends pretty quick. But our friends shouldn't be getting our best. Our family should get that.
David says, "You start in your house with blameless living." Sometimes we save our best for the kids at school, or the people at work, people at church. Oh, they see a wonderful person that the people at home so seldom see. We use up all our patience, all our listening, all our love, our helpfulness, our unselfishness some place else. And guess what we dish out to our family when we get home? Yep! Leftovers!
And that's wrong!
Here's the way it ought to be. Everyone should just be getting the overflow of the respect, and love, and patience that you're practicing at home. And David says, "I will be careful to lead a blameless life." See, there's a tendency to let down on living in a way we won't have regrets, and won't have anything to fix, or repair, or hide. It's easy to let down at home. That's why we have to be careful to lead a blameless life. When we get home, we let down; we're careless because we think no one's watching. But the biblical priority is put on how you live at home.
Like David, let's make it a commitment; give your family your best, your very best. You've served them enough leftovers.