Tuesday, September 14

Beyond our self interests

We need to be doing a lot of things in our lives to be meeting the expectations of God and to be growing in maturity.

Fellowship, devotion, prayer and reading the bible are important. But those are inward looking (either self or community). Two others are: helping the poor, and making disciples of all nations. (And yes, these can be supported scripturally.)

When Greg organized the camp trip lots of others talked about helping, but when the dust settled it was just the two of us. Have I brought anyone to Christ? Well I helped with one, but it took 13 years, so if I don't do something to improve my rate, the harvest is going to be meek indeed.

Every week God gives me some small task that needs doing for his kingdom. I do my best to help gladly, but I often check back with the person who was looking for a host family for visiting missionaries for the weekend or some other such thing, and I ask them, "Did anyone else call you?" I know these requests were seen by hundreds, and in some cases more than a thousand people (christians). Most often the answer I get is, "You were the only one that called."

Sunday, September 12

The timelessness of Gods call

I get stuck sometimes thinking that the Old Testament is less important or less relevant than the New. And I even tune out parts of the New Testament, mostly focusing on what Jesus himself said. But over and over people tie the messages of the new testament back to the old (I've even got some examples in here), and some problems are timeless.

Issah 58 is sort of an incrimination and call to action that could have come right from Jesus:

6-9 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

It seems easy for us to look at others and ignore them or declare them the enemy, when we are all one family. What I do to another, I do to myself. I cannot criticise the actions of another while ignoring my own selflish ways. If I am to make a difference in the world, I must be doing God's work, not my own.