For many years now I have been challenged in my heart to find God dwelling in some form within what we have called "Church".  You see like many others  I had grown up thinking that in order to find God I needed to go where He lived.  You may smile as I do now in thinking that people may really feel that way about God, and yet that is the way that we treat the concept of God within the church in this age.

    We of course who are in Christ know that the dwelling place of God has nothing to do with a building, doctrine, or an organization of fellowship like what the world so often sees on the outside; but I have to wonder if the world realizes from their perspective what the real drawing card is to Christ outside of those things.  This world is so used to seeing a world of relationships that are built around buildings, concepts of thinking that are alike , and the pooling of resources  that it must be an easy mistake to make when they see no real difference from how we operate than it is from the ways they operate. While we are quick to say  "Oh its not us but it's God's love that matters" so often we do not understand that this world has no reference point to understand that love unless they see it in action, and that my friends is our job.  If we treat our relationship with God in such a way that it can be limited to what ever we dictate then the world will see no difference in Christ for their lives than what they have now.  That is simply because there is no difference in the quality of life when God is not in control.

     God has given us His love freely as a gift for us to accept.  That love leads to Jesus Christ who is the gift, and who paid the price for our relationship with God.  That gift is free to accept, but it is not free to give without paying a price.  That love gift is no more free for us to give another person than it was for Christ to give it to us.  My friends that is the part of our relationship with God that we do not understand.  Obedience to the will of God Matthew 12:50 tells us we cannot hope to understand the kind of love that God has given us unless we are willing to love in return.

     If we are to find a way to really get the attention of this world it must first be done by showing them something that they can never have outside of Christ.  A Spiritual Family was the main goal that Christ had in the establishment of the church. That meant that God's goal in us was to raise up strong and powerful witnesses to what God has done for us.  God looks upon us as His children  Luke 8:21, and that includes His desire for us to obey His commandments out of love for Him much in the same ways we would obey our parents.  I think it is interesting how our relationship of obedience changes with our parents over the years.  At first when we are young we obey them out of a kind of fear, and not so much because we think they are right.  As we grow and begin to understand them, and life a little more we can begin to see the wisdom even though we still don't always agree.  But there comes a time in our lives when we obey not out of fear of them any more , and not out of a lack of knowledge on our part, but we obey them out of love for them...that is the mature kind of love that God wants for us to have for Him.  The only difference is that God still is all powerful and He will always be.  Exodus 19:5  makes no mistake ; the world and all that is in it is still His.

       John 14:15-23  tells us that we have been created to love as His own Children and that includes keeping His commandments out of love for Him, not just out of fear.  In verses 21-23 Christ tells us if we love God in that way then He will dwell within us and give us the power to love one another in that way as well.  The simple truth is that through our giving that love to others as He has given it to us we will show this world the one thing that the world cannot offer on it's own; and that one thing is HOPE.  We are quickly coming to the new year.  It is my prayer that we may find Hope within the body of Christ again for this world, and for ourselves.  May you richly bless God through your life in Him;


The Unworthy Servant

    We are still dealing with my thoughts in Romans 12, and for those who would who may happen by please leave a comment if you would.  It makes it very helpful to know what God is speaking through your heart.  Let me ask you a question.  Have you ever been told by God's Spirit to do something?


      There are a great number of people that I know of who have been given something to do or say to someone or in some situation that exists by our Lord; yet because they didn't feel it was the right place or time they held off on doing it.  In most of those cases some how we miss a real opportunity to minister because of our timing or maybe letting the chance pass by altogether.  We tend to want to do things in our timing and place so that we feel more comfortable with it, but many times God does not want us to do the planning or prepare for what He wants for us to say.  I believe that God has a grace period on those things that tend to be life changing for us.  As God uses us in everyday life situations we will find that His timing is always good if we dare to listen to His voice within us.
      Paul had a real good concept of getting up and doing something when God told him to.  It is a trait that I have myself failed with many times, and yet on each occasion I have realized when I failed it was because I didn't listen at the time.  When God gives us something that is special for us or for another person He will also always give us a grace period to operate under where His power and authority is linked to that work.  The thing is that is is usually never within our timing or comfort level at the time because God does not want us to necessarily prepare or toil over it.  God simply wants to use us as a tool to see His work of love or word carried out.  If you notice in the letters that Paul wrote or the accounts of his life it seems that he was very spontaneous  to God's call to him to go or to do something.  I also believe that was a big part of his success.

    In Romans 12 Paul writes: " I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living scarifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service".  Paul used the word "Holy" as in completely pure, and not "Wholly"  or complete because he knew that God would never work through a vessel of self will or the desire to control the work being done.  It is funny to me how we justify our need to control the work of God within us just as though God somehow needs our approval before He moves.  This idea of a Holy  sacrifice involves all of our rational powers being under God's control only.  It is after all His ministry while we remain merely tools that He is using to do the work.  The idea of being thought of as a tool is strange to many people.  One of the reasons for this feeling funny is that they can't understand that God may not use them every day...He may in fact only use them for certain work and in certain seasons because of the way they are formed.  Some of us as tools do not fit into God's hand very well for all work that needs to be done.  In those cases God will lay us down and use yet another tool more suited for the work then we are.  The bottom line is then ; who is willing to fit into God's hand the most?  If we look at ourselves as being made for a specific job we may not be willing to be used to get dirty if we feel we are a polished show piece.  On the other hand if we have no regard for ourselves in Christ we may not be willing to be used as a display piec if we think of ourselves as rough and ugly.  The idea that Paul was trying to get accross is that we should not think more highly of ourselves than we should, because it is our tendency to elevate our worth at every turn in order to feel better about who we are.  God operates under the idea of our personal submission to His will as a part of the body of Christ.  While it true that we are all gifted in various areas it is also true that God may or may not use us in the areas that we always want to be used in.

     If we are honest for all of us there areas in our lives that we can see our talents being used in more than others.  I remember that God had a lot to say about the talents that we have been given and that by stretching out and using those to try to increase them we would be given more.  I found out that God knows what He is doing when it comes to bringing out these things in us because as we give ourselves over to His will, and as we are transformed and changed very often we are given both opportunity  and ability in other areas we may have never thought of before.  Always in my life I have been an artist, and a vocalist, and so I thought that was where God wanted me.  I never would have thought that my life would have different seasons of work that God wanted from me.  I had done broadcasting but never had I written, or really ever taught until God began to transform my life.  Some of the other things that I had concentrated upon before are not even main stay in my life like they once were because of God's desire to use me differently, but you see I had to adjust to that change and accept that difference.  When Paul writes in Romans 12:3-8 about thinking more highly of our selves than we should that may also be said of thinking of ourselves in only one way when God actually sees us in a much broader and different light.  In the very next text Paul says "Let your love be without dissimulation".  This world is bent on trying to make us ever more deceitful and cold to one another, and yet our Lord continues to call us toward banding together as a family.  The world would have us destroy the very concept of righteousness in our society today. If we were to try it without God's direct power we would indeed be sick and murderous people in much the same ways as the Sanhedrin was of Christ's time.  The world can and does watch closely for that kind of hypocrisy.  In general we have been taught very well how to lie by TV programs. I always think it interesting that the producers of these programs which depict violence and murder for kids always say " The show didn't tell them to do it"  but what was shown to them gave the best example of how it might be cool to do something!  In that same way we become examples to one another of what it means to fit into God's hand.  May you richly bless God through your life in Him;


                                                              The Unworthy Servant