Unforgiveness
Current mood: expecting God to do GREAT things

When I was a child I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

                                                        I Corinthians 13:11-12 

Isolate these two verses of scripture and it may appear to be speaking of our knowledge of God. How we, in our finite mind can never understand the greatness of who He is, but at the same time can know Him on a personal level. However, the context of this passage is "love". 

Love is not jealous, boastful, or proud, or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.                           I Corinthians 13:4-7

At this point in eternity our vision is clouded. We are unable to understand  the negatives in our lives, especially those caused by other believers. But God who is all-knowing, tells us that all these things work together for good. I for one can testify that some of the injustices that I have had to endure, have led me to become better for them, better equipt for life and more importantly better equipt for serving  Jesus. It wasn't until I stopped blaming the people and started trusting Jesus that he was able to bring me through, stronger on the other side.  

Unforgiveness is one of Satan's greatest weapons to keep us as Christians from moving on to greater things. We can't get past what so and so did to us. We gossip and spread the cancer throughout our Christians circles, completely unaware that anything is happening in our hearts. Wasn't  it Jesus who said to love your enemy? After all they didn't sin against us in the first place. They sinned against Him. At the cross, Jesus died for all the sins of those who believe in Him. And as the old saying goes, all means all, and thats all, all means. Not all but the ones that happened to hurt or offend me. No, all of them.  

It's time for us to bind up the enemy, by removing the blinders from our own eyes. It's time for us to stop holding on to issues of the past, that have absolutely nothing to do with our "calling", to "go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." The harvest is plenty but the workers are so few, or let me paraphrase, but the workers are so caught up in themselves, that, they too are blind. 

God is in complete control. He knows us better than we know our selves and opposed to our worldly perspective, He has the eternal perspective. The bumps and bruises along the way, help us see just how dependant we are of Him. "His strength is perfected in our weakness."      II Corinthians 12:9 b

Let it go, and let Christ grow in you.

Instead,

"If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads." Don't let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

                                               Romans 12:20-21

Take off the blinders
Current mood: hoping to inspire

I had the privilege of going on a mission trip to France in 2004. The one thing I remember being said over and over again, prior to taking the trip, was how spitually dark it was in that country. After I arrived I noticed that outside of the Cathedrals you could walk by a church and not even know it was there. Kind of like watching TV here in the States, if you didn't no any better you wouldn't even know the church existed. I later found out that the city of Paris had a population of 12 million people. The largest church body consisted of 600 members, and the average church body was approximatly 50 members. I returned home with my heart aching for these people.

Upon my return, I painted a mental picture of how dark it was in France. I thought to myself that on my drive home from church I passed by eight churches. Four of these churches had a congregation of at least 1,000, and on the cross streets that I encountered I know there were eight more churches within a mile of me. To give you a better perspective, according to the 2000 census Stockbridge had a population of 10,000.  It appeared that I was living in the land of  light.    

That was until I conducted a survey of fifty people, and ask the following questions:

1. What comes to mind when you think of "church?"

2. What is the Bible according to your understanding?

3. Who is Jesus according to your understanding?

4. How does a person get to heaven?

For Question number one the answers I recieved were: God, Jesus, worship, fellowship, a place to grow closer to God, a place for prayer. These were basically the answers across the board for this question. 

For question number two the answers basically fell into two different categories. Thirty-eight percent of the people said in one way or another that the Bible was the word of God. While sity-two percent of the people  said in one way or another that the Bible was a guide to life, a standard by which we are to live.

For the third question ninety-six percent of the people said that Jesus was the Son of God, the Savior, or God.

With the exception of the Bible being a standard by which to live, it appears that I have spoken to people who atleast have some basic Biblical knowlege. Or have I spoken to people who have been confused by a cultural thought process? In other words, have they given these answers based on what they have heard. In my opinion these people have at sometime been in the church. They have heard about God and the Bible, but there answers are based on what they have heard not on what they know to be true. The Bible being a standard by which to live is a good indication of that.

The answers I recieved for the fourth question were eye opening. It brought to light the reality of Matthew 7:13-14. "You can enter God's kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gate way to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it."

Six percent of the people I surveyed answered with faith alone in Christ alone, while eight percent of them said by faith, but attached some type of works to the faith.........Believe and obey the Bible,......or keep the ten commandments,.........or live right. Eighty-six percent based it upon works, with no reference to faith at all.......Be good......live by the Word.......meet God halfway........read the Bible and do what it says........These are only a few of the eighty-six percent but all of them basically said works in one way or another.

Salvation is 100% God. It is not a partnership. There is nothing we can do to obtain it other than BELEIVE THAT JESUS GIVES US ETERNAL LIFE!

-Jesus Christ the God man "guarantees" eternal life to all who "believe" Him for it.                                      John 1:12

-For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever "believes" in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.                                        John 3:16

-Abraham "believed" God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.                        Genisis 15:6 

-But people are declared righteous, not because of their work, but because of their "faith".              Romans 4:5

-God saved you by his grace when you first "believed". And you can't take credit for this it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.                                             Ephesians 2:8-9 

As leaders we need to make sure that our people understand salvation as it is presented in the Bible and not some man made system of works.

There is a great harvest right here among us. The gate is narrow, but it is wide enough for the whole world to enter. Lets stop assuming that people know the truth. Get people to question what they believe, and be prepared to present the gospel in a clear way that anyone could understand.