Some time ago I stopped into Whole Foods Market on a Sunday morning on my way to church. On that particular morning, I became aware of a lack of contact with Christians and the Sunday morning non-church world. We are typically either in church, or sleeping in if we attend church on Saturday night. This is really just one example of our isolation from the world around us.

In Bible times, the disciples walked from place to place and so much of their ministry to the world took place along their way to someplace else. In this day and age, we drive along, shut away in the privacy of our cars, and go from place to place in our Christian lives, rarely exposing ourselves to the world (or the world to us). Most of our homes are seldom opened to fellow believers, let alone to the world. We live as though the only goal of the Christian life is to get through this life without committing too much sin, or too severe a sin; so we surround ourselves with fellow Christians to help us get back on track if and when we stray. We focus almost entirely on ourselves while the world around us goes to hell, literally.

It's no wonder Christians waste so much time "beating each other up" - we have too much time on our hands - time we should be using to reach the lost and to let God use us to bring them into the found.

Matthew 16:24, 25 "Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.'"

Acts 1:8 "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

How are we doing that? We sit in our churches expecting the lost to come looking for us. We do community outreach in which we expect the community to come to us.

Matthew 5:14 - 16 "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Have our church buildings become baskets?

Matthew 9: 37, 38 "Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." We sit in our churches and pray for the lost; we pray that people will come to church or we try to bring people with us to church. We need to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send us out as laborers into His harvest.

We have the Parable of the Lost Sheep - the owner goes out to look for the lost sheep. And the Parable of the Lost Coin - the woman cleans her house and searches carefully to find the lost coin. But too often we do not even consider the lost, let alone seek to find them. Father, forgive us!

Genesis 27:27 "As for me, being on the way, the LORD led me..." Please lead us LORD!

Have Mercy on Us O LORD!

God's been working on my heart pretty deeply recently. One of the verses that really drew my attention was Psalm 123: 3 "Have mercy on us O LORD, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt." Having lived a life where Jesus filled a living, active role from birth; having accepted the free gift of salvation at age 7; and having never strayed very far from center in my journey of faith; I've don't think I've ever really considered myself to be "filled with contempt" and certainly not "exceedingly filled with contempt." But as I read these words recently, I was drawn to look more intently at them. With the uncertainty of a preschooler, I wondered whether I really understood the word I have read and spoken; was my comprehension of the meaning of contempt adequate for me to correctly interpret the meaning of this verse? So I researched the definition and this is what I found:

• (from wikipedia.org) intense feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something inferior, base, or worthless
• (from merriam-webster.com) despising; lack of respect or reverence; willful disobedience to or open disrespect for a court, judge, or legislative body (or toward God - my comment)

Am I guilty of lack of respect or reverence for God? of willful disobedience or open respect for God? What does my response to life's circumstances reflect to the world around me? And back to myself? What aspects of my journey through life do I regard as inferior to my dreams and desires? Do I fully trust God and thus embrace every circumstance in my life? Or do I whine to Him about the way I think my life should be?

Have mercy on me O LORD, have mercy on me! For I am exceedingly filled with contempt!

Due to lack of response, I am postponing further posts. Perhaps some who expressed interest in this blog are viewing it but not participating. So if someone decides to participate, I will be willing to continue with posts. But until that time, I will not continue posting. God bless, Anita

Vacation

I will be on vacation for the next two weeks and will not post until after that. Anita

"Crazy Love" Chapter Three

Chapter Three: Crazy Love

In chapter three, Francis compares God's love to the love of an earthly father. For many, including Francis, this Fatherly love is foreign because of the lack of example from their earthly fathers. My family was so blessed because our daddy's love for us made it easier for us to identify with our Heavenly Daddy's love for us. About six months after our dad died, one of our cousins told me he had never known another man who loved his children as deeply as our daddy loved us. (So others saw it too.) Even so, recognizing God's great love for us is not always easily done: we know that we are so unworthy. But His love for us is not based on us and our worth, but rather on Him and His character.

Francis says, "For years I 'got' God's love in my head, checked the right answer on the 'what God is like' test, but didn't fully understand it with my heart. ... Most of us, to some degree, have a difficult time understanding, believing or accepting God's absolute love for us." He goes on to say that a major turning point for him came from being a father himself. "Nothing compares to being truly, exuberantly wanted by your children."

John Eldredge says in the book Wild at Heart, "I am convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt of this: God wants to be loved. He wants to be a priority to someone. ... As Tozer says, 'God waits to be wanted.' " Francis adds, "His being is utterly complete and perfect, apart from humanity. He doesn't need me or you. Yet He wants us, chooses us, even considers us His inheritance (Eph. 1:18). The greatest knowledge we can ever have is knowing God treasures us. ... The irony is that while God doesn't need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don't really want Him most of the time."

Discussion Questions:

Question 1. Share the moment you felt like you "got" it; that "aha!" moment when you realized "I am in love with God!"

Question 2. The Bible tells us in Matt. 22:37 - 38 to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Francis says, "this is how God longs for us to respond to His extravagant, unending love: with true love expressed through out lives." How can you make the cross central in your life?

I hope some of you will take the time to post comments this week. During this next week, let's remind each other and others to "remember the cross."

Anita

"Crazy Love" Chapter Two

Chapter Two: You Might Not Finish This Chapter

Francis encourages us in chapter two to give some serious thought to how we approach each day of our lives, and our lives as a whole. Quoting him from page 39: "it's easy to think about today as just another day." ... "On the average day, we live caught up in ourselves. On the average day, we don't consider God very much. On the average day, we forget that our life truly is a vapor. But there is nothing normal about today."

Francis goes on to give us an example of uncontrolled, 'justified' stress in his own life, and the alleviation of that stress when he surrendered all his worries and stress to God. We seem to tell ourselves that our 'burdens' are just a little too unimportant to bother God with; at the same time, they are so important that they command too much of our focus and often bring us to a state of ill health; and we allow them to steal our joy. Francis relates worry to lack of trust and stress to lack of balance. "Both," he says, "worry and stress reek of arrogance." Worry and stress are also symptoms of misdirected focus: Life IS all about God and not about me at all. Francis suggests that we get over ourselves and focus on giving glory to God. "The point of your life is to point to Him." I really like that statement. I think it's time we get the point.


Discussion Questions:

• How can you refocus your life in a way that will help you remember "the point of your life is to point to Him"?

• Think about people in your life who have died abruptly. Think about their achievements; and about their regrets. Perhaps you were in a relationship with them in which they shared this information; perhaps you have to imagine what the answers might be based on what you knew about them.

• Frederick Buechner: "Intellectually we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever." What's your response to this quote?
  

• Read Philippians 4:4. Are you obeying that command? What steps will you take to ensure that you do? Philippians 4:5-9 offer us help.

• What if today was the day you came before God? What regrets might you have? Think about things you can change to day to avoid those regrets.

• What was your response to the quote from A. W. Tozer? "A man by his sin may waste himself, which is to waste that which on earth is most like God. This is man's greatest tragedy and God's heaviest grief."

I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Anita

Crazy Love Book at Amazon

I just got an email from Amazon that they are currently selling Crazy Love for $10.19. If you haven't gotten it yet but want to participate, now might be a good time to order it.

Anita