Homeless People Don't Buy in Bulk

As we drove down a country road, I spoke aloud, "If I were homeless I wouldn't buy birdseed." My husband gave me a strange look. We'd recently walked city streets, then left to drive through the surrounding countryside. The marquis outside a farm store advertised 40-pound bags of birdseed and I immediately pictured myself dragging a forty pound bag of birdseed along the streets of Boston. Total non-starter.

Admittedly, I enjoy comfort--and the things that bring it. I can pack a LOT in a small space (i.e. suitcase or car) and I dislike being unprepared. But if I didn't have a place for my stuff, how much would I carry all day, every day? Just enough. Just enough food. Just enough clothes. Just enough to be clean and warm and...what else? That's about it. No laptop, no smart phone, no extra gazillion shoes or hair accessories or paper products. Just enough.

And in that moment, I was reminded that I am a traveler, a pilgrim, a journeyman here on earth. My eternal home and riches and valuables are not here. They're in Heaven with Christ. He has given me everything I need without the extra weight and burden of lugging it from one place to the next. In fact, He has given me "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3). Really?!

That means I have the freedom to travel light. And permission to ask hard questions. "Why am I doing this?" "What is the benefit?" "It was on sale, does that mean I need it or want it?" And I begin to think differently about opportunities and endeavors. Is this the best use of my time? Am I obedient and responsible with the blessings and callings God has put on my life? What is most immediate and pressing? What can be laid aside?

Perhaps more convicting is the real stuff I already have. James says, "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you!  Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten" (5:1). In other words, the stuff you have has been untended so long it's falling apart. The clothes that could have been worn are no longer useful. The things you kept for "a rainy day" are past the point of return. You sat on them so long they have given up the ghost and you have wasted not only their benefit to yourself, but their benefit to anyone. If you don't need it, give it to someone who does! Ahem. Yes. My closets and attic testify to my at-homeness, my I'm-here-for-the-long-run mentality. And stuff takes time. Time to acquire. Time to sort. Time to find. Time to dispense. Time. And that, dear self, is limited. Travel light.

Perhaps you know this song by Jim Reeves I heard many times throughout my childhood:
This world is not my home I'm just a-passin' through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.Think about it. I know I am. Who's running my life? Who's filling my cart? Me? Others? My schedule? Or God? Hmmm.

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2

His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. 2 Peter 1:3-4

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. Ephesians 1:3-14 

Personal Worship, Corporate Benefit

 
Is it true that our everyday life is separate from our church, Sunday life? Think again. Because worship is a lot like eating.  It's personal.  What goes in is who we become.  What's been ingested is evident to others, lacking the details.  Worship and eating are both private and corporate practices.

After a piano offertory a gentleman approached me and asked, “Do you ever play for just you?"

"Of course.”  

"I thought so," he said with a smile.

When each of worships God personally, our corporate worship becomes richer, fuller, deeper.  One of my friends prays Scripture passionately, especially the Psalms. Her words are tinged with heartfelt humility, rising, falling, tapering to silence.  Before she completes a petition, my eyes and face are moist. My heart is more satisfied than before; I have experienced God differently through her love and expression than my own.

Regardless of how we minister in our local churches, when we come having set aside self, God is revealed in a powerful, personal way through His Word. What thoughts or Scriptures aid you in personal worship and ministry? They’re not yours for keeps, they’re yours to share.

 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,  with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love,  endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism;  one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. 
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.  Therefore He says:

“When He ascended on high,
He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts to men.”

(Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?  He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,  for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,  till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,  but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—  from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:1-16)

Children Trump...Ministry?

Being a mom has many facets—and reveals more about me as a person than me as a mom. What’s really important? What do I love—more than anything? What matters and what doesn’t? Where I spend my time and energy reveals my heart.

If you read the earlier blog on how husbands trump ministry, you know my struggle with ministry and marriage. My parenting came under conviction around that same time (and continues—maybe your parenting convictions came all at once, lucky you—twenty years later).

God used the story of Manasseh, a wicked king of Judah, to pierce my heart. Manasseh was raised by a godly father, Hezekiah—God even ran the sun backward for him—but became king at the age of 12 and rebuilt the altars and high places his father had torn down.  What happened on those altars? He “made his sons pass through the fire” (2 Kings 21:6). That’s saying it nicely.  In truth sacrificed his sons as a means of worship. Their lives for his benefit.

As I looked at my own acts of worship and service within the Church, a voice inside asked, “Sydney, where is your focus? What does your life communicate about what’s really important?” I was convicted by the many times I gave in to meeting the needs of others over and above the needs of my immediate family. There was a sense of immediate gratification and appreciate from others that didn’t happen at home.

Children are not designed to appreciate and laud me. They are a gift to make me more like Jesus. Jesus willingly gave up everything for me—his comfort, reputation, glory, even His life. Children are my opportunity to practice giving my all with or without applause. They are long-term disciples, living and learning, watching and waiting. To overlook or neglect ministry to them is to neglect my God-given responsibility.

God’s response to Manasseh and those who offered their children to false gods was this, “They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Nimmon to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind (Jeremiah 7:31). God does not require or ask us to offer our children. He calls us to sacrifice ourselves. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).

On a dangerous, personal note: your god may not be ministry or the church. You may sacrifice your children on the altar of career or special interests, charity, personal goals or hobbies. May each of us be challenged to love our children as God loves us.

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma….

Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says:

“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord  giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God. (Ephesians 5:1-2, 8-21)