Perspective

My good friend Sky got his first chance to preach at church this past Sunday, and I was really blessed by what he had to share. He spoke about perspective and I was just so impacted with the need to keep everything in right perspective. Specifically in this way -- nothing outside of Christ really matters. He is the purpose of everything, and what He is doing is building up His Body (the Church). The only reason we exist is to be a vessel for God to pour all of His grace and spiritual riches into, and He is going to spend all of eternity doing just that. What's more is that the more we let Him do that for us now, the more He will be able to do that for us in the Kingdom and beyond.

What this comes down to is, why worry about anything else? "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." Matt 6:33

Spiritual Gifts and Changes

In 1 Corinthians 12-13, Paul wrote a lot about spiritual gifts and their function in the Body of Christ. He makes a few really important points:

1) We each receive a specific set of spiritual gifts, according to the Holy Spirit's choosing, the moment we are baptized into Christ by faith.
2) We all have different gifts.
3) Our gifts are given, not for self edification, but for edification of the Body
4) Our differences mean that we should all serve in different ways (according to how we are gifted)
5) We desperately need each other to fill up where each of us are lacking on our own.
6) This happens in the local Body.
7) The end of it all is love.

In so many ways, this is foundational to everything I believe. But I've found that I've been working against this principle in the way I teach. I don't have the gift of prophecy (the prophet is the one who always has that piercing word to say to make people uncomfortable and desiring to correct their lifestyle). This is what a lot of really great preachers have, Charles Spurgeon, Dr. Earl Radmacher, and Martin Luther are great examples of this. Some great preachers are encouragers, Charles Swindoll jumps out to me as a perfect example. The word of knowledge is my primary teaching gift, not prophecy, not encouragement. By this God has made me a better teacher than a preacher. So what I need to do is to embrace it and do what I've been gifted to do; it is according to His will after all!

Every now and then, I get this strong conviction from the Spirit like a fire in my belly that says, "go out, roll up your sleeves, and give 'em a kick in the pants on Sunday," but not usually. Usually, I have a passion for some truth that I want to convey clearly, and to let the truth have its effect over time (the truth will make you free). God has given our church the gifts of prophecy and encouragement through others, and I don't need to be that. "If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?" (1 Cor 12: 17). The best way I can love my little flock is to embrace the gifts that God has given me and use them for their edification. So, it seems that God is bringing notes and powerpoint and other teaching tools back into my life, and I can't wait to see what He has planned. It's going to be an awesome change, because I'm sure, based on the Word of God in 1 Corinthians 12-13, that it's His will for us.

So, a funny thing happened

God showed Himself to be faithful once again. About a month ago, we got a bill for a checkup that Tamara had had at the doctor's office, and though all she was doing was getting a routine physical and well woman's exam, the bill was just shy of $900. That's a whole lot of money to us. As I was looking at the bill, it was apparent that we were being charged out-of-network rates, even though it was an in-network visit. For those of you who don't know much about insurance, even when your insurance doesn't cover certain medical care, you get a great discount just by having insurance (it can range from 30-70%). We weren't getting that discount. So, I tried and tried to get a hold of the billing company to get it straitened out and they wouldn't answer or call me back... a month had passed and I told Tamara, "God is going to take care of us, and it's His money anyway; we can just go ahead and pay it." This was a big change in attitude for me, to say the least.

The next day Tamara got a call from the billing company. I was able to tell them about the situation, they realized what they had done wrong, and told us they'd send us a corrected bill. They couldn't have been nicer. It's so predictable that it's funny. God always goes to work and does amazing things when we just have a little faith.

God Has Always Known

From all eternity, God has known every mistake you would ever make, every last time you have missed or will miss His mark. Yet, not only does He still love you, but He was and is still so very in love with you that He sacrificed His Son just to be with you (Romans 5:8). It is a precious thing to stand forgiven before God, knowing that you are accepted, but sometimes we don't feel as though we are.

I'm coming to know more and more how vital it is to know just how forgiven we are. As far as East is from the West, God has removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12), and we have the right to a clear conscience. A life free from guilt is God's design for us, because guilt is nothing but a trap set by the devil to keep us separated from God and wallowing in sadness. Satan knows that only in intimate union with Christ can we live holy lives.

1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." The word for confess in the Greek means to say the same. The idea is that we say the same thing God does about our sins. But what does He say? He says that yes, indeed we are sinners, and yes indeed our sin is a hindrance to us living the joyful life God desires for us. But let's not forget that God also says we are forgiven, that our sins are separated from us as far as East is from the West, that our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Heb 10:22).

Always know that God has always known, yet He gave His Son for you. You are loved. You are forgiven. Cast off the burden of shame and fix your eyes on Jesus.

Time to get to work!

I'm finding that God is opening up a lot of opportunity to share His love with others in new ways, but I've got a lot of work to do. The new website is up, which is a huge blessing, and our daily hit count is up to 1200 per day (about 110 individual viewers each day). For a church of about 20 members, that's a big audience! I've got a ton of things I'd like to put up on the site to help people wrestle through God's Word and that's what I'll be focusing on for the next several weeks. I hope many of you who enjoy the site and this blog (not that there's much in the blog to get excited about yet) will come and see us on Sundays. It's a lot easier to love on people in person!

First blog post...

In this blog, I hope to be able to share what God is doing in my life, specifically the things He is teaching me. I hope that it's both enjoyable to read and helpful to whomever stumbles across it.

A quick caution: The Bible is a hard-hitting book and, while I always seek to speak the truth in love, I don't intend to avoid the hard hitting truths. Please keep a spirit of kindness in all comments. Rude or offensive comments will be deleted.