Over the past month and a half I've been focusing my energy on getting a job and figuring out what I'm going to do in the spring. I knew from the point that I decided to leave YWAM that I was going to need direction from God before making any huge life changes, so between job hunting, college searches, and disc golf, I've been seeking God. I've been just consuming reading material like a madman. I'm reading Christian books, listening to sermons, reading the Bible, and reading Christian articles online. When I just can't take any more reading, I start watching sermons, Christian videos, and Christian movies. (Sermons from Mark Driscoll and others, and an awesome documentary from the makers of Finger of God called Furious Love) I've been focusing on the Love of God, and people who have experienced that love and put it into action. Heidi Baker, David Hogan, Smith Wigglesworth, and Kennith Hagin were just a few that I have studied. There were many people who have said that some of them were "false prophets", and there were probably an equal number of people that showed them respect. (I cannot say whether or not any of the people I have studied were false prophets or not. I can only pass judgment according to their spiritual fruit.) Disregarding criticism, the one thing that I have noticed is that these people were transformed, influenced, and fueled by the Love of God. There are many cases where a minister, or "revivalist", were initially drawn in and influenced by God's love, and then later forfeited the intimacy, power, and love of God, to pursue their own sinful desires.
I just came back from a walk, and God spoke to me an interesting thing. Often you hear people say, "faith is blind". I disagree completely. Before I explain that statement, let me call attention to another common saying, "Love is blind". I disagree with this idea as well. When we love someone, we act as if reality and circumstances have no bearing on the relationship. We trust the other person to come through for us no matter what. In human relationships, many are let down, because we were never meant to put someone in the place of God. However, when we are in love with God we are to trust him - no matter the circumstance. How do we do this? In the Bible, we are told that we are to be a body with Jesus as the head. We don't need to trust our own sight, because the only parts on the body that are able to see are the eyes. We really can't see what is truly going on, we don't have the hardware. Simply move in the way the head directs.
Picture this: Imagine you are baking in the kitchen. The timer for the cake notifies you that it's time to take the cake out of the oven before it gets burned. You reach for the oven mit', put it on, open the oven and reach into the oven to retrieve the freshly baked cake, and to your surprise, your hand objects! It exclaims "I can't go in there, it's too hot! I'll get burned!" Knowing that hands possess no intelligence, and have no brain or eyes, this statement is foolish - in fact, the hand is wearing a mitten, and won't be burned as long as you don't hold the hot cake for a long time. You know something that the hand does not. The hand does not have the responsibility of looking after itself, the head does. The same principal applies when we are connected to the body of Christ. We have a specific job as a part of the body Christ, and since Jesus is the head, we can figure out that we won't be hearing, speaking, seeing, tasting, smelling, or thinking. We simply obey in love. A body loves itself, so Jesus will take care of his Body. We may say something, but it is Jesus that is to be speaking through us. We may see or hear something, but it is Jesus that gives us discernment. Paul says in Acts 17:28 that, "In him we live and move and have our being." (Paul was quoting Aratus's poem "Phainomena", when addressing the Athenians about their altar "to the unknown god") In Jesus we are to live and move and have our being. When I think about being controlled by Jesus, I think of a dead body coming to life. Something like a reanimated corpse. That body has no will of it's own, but it is being controlled by something else. In the beginning of our walk with Christ, our walk is something like a zombie stagger, but as time goes on, we are transformed into a new being, and we are able to run with Jesus! The old rotten corpse has gone, and the new body has come!
To bring it all together - If we focus on Jesus, and trust that he is the one who loves us, and can truly see, we are able to do the impossible, because it is not us that is living, it is Christ in us. When we perform miracles, it isn't us at all, it's Jesus that moves in and through us. When we speak to people about the Gospel and the Love of Jesus, it isn't us speaking, it is him speaking through us. Sometimes I force myself to "believe" or to have the "right" answer, and that's just my flesh. It's just pride. I know when Jesus is speaking through me, because I wish I was taking notes! I know Jesus is working through me, because I am able to accomplish something that I never would have been able to accomplish on my own. When this happens, we are humbled! It looks like pride when we acknowledge our accomplishments, but it is actually true humility, because we know that we could never accomplish these things without the help of Christ.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
I take it back
Oh, there is so much inside the soul. There is equally infinitely more in the world that surrounds. The hard things in life are simple answers to complex situations. I can handle a calculated religious answer, but when it comes to being silent and letting the maker of everything that was ever created grasp the steering wheel of my life - I always over-complicate. My goodness, imagine the life that humanity could life if we would lay down our pride and accept Jesus for who he really is, and we emulated him? Imagine what salvation through Christ would do to the world if we believed every salvation-defining word in the Bible?
Oh yes, humanity is human. Flesh is sinful. There is grace and forgiveness in Christ. Is it really wrong for me to believe that we can do better than this? Is it wrong for me to (as many others before me have) despise going to "church"?
Really?
...
No, Really.
That wasn't a group of rhetorical church questions.
I don't have much grace or patience, but I still would much rather go with the flow than rock the boat. That's weird, because the thing that I hate the most is what I see in myself. Maybe humility through Christ is the only answer to these frustrations. Maybe if I just simply lived my life to humbly serve, then things would really change. What made me think that controlling people would make the world flip upside down, when control is only useful in generating greed, profits, and self-promotion? Look at people who have changed the mindsets of a nation - Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus (obviously) - Did they rise to power and try to flip things upside down? No. They each went to the bottom. Think about this - Have you ever gone to a Caber toss? (Me neither, but bear with me.) Caber toss is a Scottish game where a bunch of buff dudes throw (basically) telephone poles, and see who can throw it the farthest. Now, imagine this - the first guy comes out and stands the pole on end, to only start climbing to the top. He's not going to get very far. The best that he's going to do is fall with the log. This is pride. We try to climb to the top to flip the world upside down. It doesn't work that way. The second contestant takes his spot and grabs the pole by the bottom, lifts the caber, starts a running approach, and launches the pole end-over-end down the field. The second contestant humbly followed the rules and changed the life of that log.
It's so easy to get involved in politics; I advise not to get involved. When someone tries to control from the top, he's just going to wreck the whole system. If change is going to come, it has to start at the bottom; not from the banks. Just let it fall. God's got the godly in his hands.
God's working on me to be humble, love, and serve. It's going to take a long time to get it right. Thank God that he loves us not for what we do, but for who we are.
Oh yes, humanity is human. Flesh is sinful. There is grace and forgiveness in Christ. Is it really wrong for me to believe that we can do better than this? Is it wrong for me to (as many others before me have) despise going to "church"?
Really?
...
No, Really.
That wasn't a group of rhetorical church questions.
I don't have much grace or patience, but I still would much rather go with the flow than rock the boat. That's weird, because the thing that I hate the most is what I see in myself. Maybe humility through Christ is the only answer to these frustrations. Maybe if I just simply lived my life to humbly serve, then things would really change. What made me think that controlling people would make the world flip upside down, when control is only useful in generating greed, profits, and self-promotion? Look at people who have changed the mindsets of a nation - Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus (obviously) - Did they rise to power and try to flip things upside down? No. They each went to the bottom. Think about this - Have you ever gone to a Caber toss? (Me neither, but bear with me.) Caber toss is a Scottish game where a bunch of buff dudes throw (basically) telephone poles, and see who can throw it the farthest. Now, imagine this - the first guy comes out and stands the pole on end, to only start climbing to the top. He's not going to get very far. The best that he's going to do is fall with the log. This is pride. We try to climb to the top to flip the world upside down. It doesn't work that way. The second contestant takes his spot and grabs the pole by the bottom, lifts the caber, starts a running approach, and launches the pole end-over-end down the field. The second contestant humbly followed the rules and changed the life of that log.
It's so easy to get involved in politics; I advise not to get involved. When someone tries to control from the top, he's just going to wreck the whole system. If change is going to come, it has to start at the bottom; not from the banks. Just let it fall. God's got the godly in his hands.
God's working on me to be humble, love, and serve. It's going to take a long time to get it right. Thank God that he loves us not for what we do, but for who we are.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)