Sharing within the Body

Have you ever been close enough to someone that their joy was also your joy? Where their pain was your pain? I remember sitting at a friend’s wedding recently. He literally jumped for joy when his bride walked through the doors. I remembered how I felt when I saw my wife walk down the aisle, and I felt his joy. I was not directly affected by them getting married, but their joy became mine as I watched. I’ve also experienced the opposite. I had another friend recently receive some devastating news. This news would not directly touch me, but my heart broke with his. I felt nauseous thinking about how bad my friend must be hurting. In a small way, his pain became mine. In both situations, I felt closer to these friends by sharing their joy and their pain.

I’ve been studying through the letters to the Corinthians recently, and it has been massively challenging and convicting for me. I’d love to share one little passage that has shaken me up a bit lately. It comes out of 1 Corinthians 12.

“… so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” – 1 Cor. 12:25-26 (NASB)

Paul has been teaching about the value of every member of the body, which is the church. It’s a simple idea, but my question is, how big is our idea of the church? Saturday night students? Fellowship Saturday night? Or even all believers in Northwest Arkansas? What would the implications of this passage be if we saw the church the way Scripture teaches that God does? When God views the church, He sees all people everywhere who will follow Him. According to Scripture, if we embrace our role in the church, when another part of the church suffers, we all suffer. When they are honored, we rejoice!

I’m scared that we are so concerned with what’s going on here in our little corner of the world that we miss out on being a part of something so much bigger. It’s a simple challenge. What if we started learning about what’s going on in the rest of the world. Where is the church exploding and doing great? Where is the church being persecuted and suffering? How can we make their honor our joy and their suffering our suffering? I think the first step is that we learn about what’s happening and we pray for the church. Who knows what God will do from there? Below are a couple of websites you can check out to see what’s going on in the church across the globe.

For His glory and our joy,
Nr

www.voiceofthemartyrs.com
www.win1040.com
www.compassdirect.org

On Drawing Near

As we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. It’s the promise we are claiming during our 50-day journey. And as I have begun thinking, it is the promise in which He will make Himself known. As He makes Himself known to us however, it is His desire that it would overflow into the lives of others.

The overflow would speak of God’s desire for us to live with purpose and mission. I think sometimes in my life there is a disconnect. A disconnect that is described also in James 4:8 “purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
I often like to pretend that there is somehow a secular part of our days or weeks and then the part that is sacred with God. But God cannot be fit into our lives; He must be that which fills our life.

This would mean that how I treat people, all people; my spouse, my children, my family, closet friends, or a complete stranger would come from the same bond of love which is Christ. We must all understand that we are called to be a vessel that overflows with the love of God, Christ Himself. So the next time you are at a restaurant, at the movies, a coffee shop or grocery store, realize that the smallest encounter can be used for the greater purposes of God.

As we draw near, He will draw near to us, which means we have to also be willing and open to allowing Him to change our hearts, minds, attitudes and lives. As He does that, you will begin to see, taste and experience a purity of heart. A purity of heart will lead us towards a love for God and for others.
Now the question to ask ourselves, “is the love that is overflowing from your life as you draw near to God, double-minded?” Be willing to become single-minded for the purpose of God and the love of others.

~Bold thoughts from a loud woman
ew

Paint by Numbers

To most of us, the luxury of “artistic ability” is not even in our vocabulary. We can’t even trace let alone be expected to draw. The whole journey from an object being viewed by our eyes, then being translated down through our finger tips onto paper clearly has some potholes in it. How else could the intended drawing of an elephant look a lot closer to a bloated clown than anything else?

That is why, at the invention of “paint by numbers” a whole new world of possibilities is open to us. Rather than creatively originating artistic thought, we instead merely have to follow instruction and stay in the lines. If we do what they tell us, things will turn out well in the end.

I think the process of Drawing Near to God is very similar. Many people are trying to blaze their own ways to experiencing God for the sole sake of edginess, creativity, and recognition. Where I can appreciate that God crafted some to be trail-blazers…he also gave us very clear “paint by number” instructions to how we can experience Him. As we practice our 5 disciplines (Read-pray-serve-gather-worship), our expectations should be simple. God promises blessing when we pursue Him authentically and whole heartedly through these means. It brings relief that there is clarity. Lets face it…we are simple minded people (Psalm 19:7) and need all the help we can get.

So what do you say? Let’s give this a try together. Let’s begin our journey of cultivating faithfulness (Psalm 37:3) as we do as the Word says, believing fully the results will be the NEARNESS of the Lord.

Amen?
~Deep thoughts by a Shallow guy~
mn

Jesus the Evangelist

Jesus told us that as the Father sent him into the world, so he is sending us (John 17:18; Acts 1:8). How then did the Father send him? Essentially he became one of us. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). God didn’t send a telegram or shower evangelistic Bible study books from heaven or drop a million bumper stickers from the sky saying, “Smile, Jesus loves you.” He sent a man, his Son, to communicate the message. His strategy hasn’t changed. He still sends men and women—before he sends tracts and techniques—to change the world. You may think his strategy is risky, but that is God’s problem, not yours.

In Jesus, then, we have our model for how to relate to the world, and it is a model of openness and identification. Jesus was a remarkably open man. He didn’t think it was unspiritual for him (fully realizing he was the Son of God) to share his physical needs (John 4:7). He didn’t fear losing his testimony by revealing to his disciples the depths of his emotional stress in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-52). Here is our model for genuine godliness. We see him asking for support and desiring others to minister to him. We must learn then to relate transparently and genuinely to others because that is God’s style of relating to us. Jesus commands us to go and then preach, not to preach and then leave. We are not to shout the gospel from a safe and respectable distance, and remain detached. We must open our lives enough to let people see that we too laugh and hurt and cry. If Jesus left all of heaven and glory to become one of us, shouldn’t we at least be willing to leave our dorm room or Bible study circle to reach out to a friend?

by Rebecca Manly Pippert

"In Regards too..." - Reflections on Psalm 28:5

“Because they do not regard the works of the Lord, or the works of his hands,
He will tear them down and build them up no more.”

I have been reflecting on this brief passage with 2 different trains of though.
1) Not Regarding the work of the Lord: it is a common thing today to exist in a culture that claims spirituality, but lacks authenticity. The title that comes to mind for the common mode of man I steal from Revelations 3:16—Lukewarm. They are not hot. They are not cold. They just exist. They go through the motions of life acknowledging a higher power, but not making it the center of their surrender. In short, they do not REGARD the work of the Lord. They give way too much credit to the spontaneous, the random, and the unnatural. If they can’t dial up experiential spiritualism in an instant, it must not exist. They give no credit to where credit is due: the sovereign, glorious plan of God almighty.

2) What he will do….NO MORE: For me, I’m interested in the process of things. I’m interested in the way LIFE plays out, and how I can get the most out of it. As a believer, this means I pay attention when the Word gives me a “heads up” to how things are going to be. Here, we have a very distinct glimpse into what the Lord is going to do to each of us. It is a steady balance of two things:

1) tearing down, and 2) building up

Crazy thing though, when I picture a “good God” I often imagine anything referencing the words “tearing down” surely cannot exist. Does that mean God is intentionally ripping us apart, beating us up, and making things bad…on purpose? As a collective chorus lets answer this together: YES! Any theology that teaches differently is simply messed up. God tears us down SO THAT he can build us up. He causes us pain, so that we will return us to being needy of Him. He breaks bones so that we may return to rejoicing (Psalm 51:8). Make sure you set this as your spiritual alarm clock, because this should
WAKE US UP!

AMEN?

~Deep thoughts by a shallow guy~
mn