CULTIVATING SOIL
Greetings in the name of Jesus:
I there is anything that I know it has to be dealing with dirt in our lives. The problem seems to be that so many want to not have to deal with dirt, but they want to see a completely clean life. This is a problem if only because in order to be cleansed you must first of all be dirty, and people don't want to be seen as being a life that is no more than filthy rags in the eyes of God. Everything that we know or have learned has been learned through the process of being cleaned through the power of God's Spirit. What that has meant is that for me to be cleaned at all I have had to admit to myself first and then to God as to how much I need to be cleaned, and then I have to humble myself to the process of being washed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Most people stop there, but that is only the beginning because in much the same ways as God's angel's sent Peter and John right back into the very place they had been delivered from in the Synagogue we too are sent right back into the muck and mire of the world, but there is one amazing difference...the sin no longer sticks to us and decays our flesh. We are in this world along with everyone else and yet we are still not a part of this world. Our life and our future is no long attached to this place...the sins of our past are no long weighing us down and drowning us. In other words the Holy Spirit in us coats our soul to float above the sins that others are saturated with and we can be taken out of it altogether clean.
The part that we don't seem to understand is that God has asked us to climb back down where we were to give testimony to the world around us that it is possible to find a way out. In dealing with the tremendous amount of dirt and mud that surrounds life we must do just as Jesus did, and get right down in life with people. We need to relate to them and yet still show that better way through Christ shining through us to them. We need to be cultivating the soil of peoples lives that are around us. That means we need to get our hands dirty helping people out of the filth they live in by showing them how we got out of it. We don't need to judge people or try to change people any more than we were judged by those who drew us to Jesus Christ...we tend to forget the ways we were drawn to Jesus is by the examples of others lives that showed forth the qualities that we so have wanted to have in our own life...that is true of other as well. The question is how long has it been since you have experienced making a mud pie with someone?
Frankly I think there are many of us still making mud pies yet trying to hide it from anyone in church because of the judgement of the need by others to be squeaky clean. What we need for a change is real Christian people who understand failure and can love anyway just the way Jesus did. To cultivate soil in our lives we must be able to live in the light of truth and eternal light with God and realize how petty and unjustified those burdens and worries are that we so often carry. If you had everything that you could ever want, and yet you had to forfeit your very soul tonight whose would those things belong to? How desirable would those things be in comparison to the eternal joy and life we can have with God our Father? When we begin to really think about those answers things start to fall into better perspective....may you richly bless God through your life in Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
I there is anything that I know it has to be dealing with dirt in our lives. The problem seems to be that so many want to not have to deal with dirt, but they want to see a completely clean life. This is a problem if only because in order to be cleansed you must first of all be dirty, and people don't want to be seen as being a life that is no more than filthy rags in the eyes of God. Everything that we know or have learned has been learned through the process of being cleaned through the power of God's Spirit. What that has meant is that for me to be cleaned at all I have had to admit to myself first and then to God as to how much I need to be cleaned, and then I have to humble myself to the process of being washed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Most people stop there, but that is only the beginning because in much the same ways as God's angel's sent Peter and John right back into the very place they had been delivered from in the Synagogue we too are sent right back into the muck and mire of the world, but there is one amazing difference...the sin no longer sticks to us and decays our flesh. We are in this world along with everyone else and yet we are still not a part of this world. Our life and our future is no long attached to this place...the sins of our past are no long weighing us down and drowning us. In other words the Holy Spirit in us coats our soul to float above the sins that others are saturated with and we can be taken out of it altogether clean.
The part that we don't seem to understand is that God has asked us to climb back down where we were to give testimony to the world around us that it is possible to find a way out. In dealing with the tremendous amount of dirt and mud that surrounds life we must do just as Jesus did, and get right down in life with people. We need to relate to them and yet still show that better way through Christ shining through us to them. We need to be cultivating the soil of peoples lives that are around us. That means we need to get our hands dirty helping people out of the filth they live in by showing them how we got out of it. We don't need to judge people or try to change people any more than we were judged by those who drew us to Jesus Christ...we tend to forget the ways we were drawn to Jesus is by the examples of others lives that showed forth the qualities that we so have wanted to have in our own life...that is true of other as well. The question is how long has it been since you have experienced making a mud pie with someone?
Frankly I think there are many of us still making mud pies yet trying to hide it from anyone in church because of the judgement of the need by others to be squeaky clean. What we need for a change is real Christian people who understand failure and can love anyway just the way Jesus did. To cultivate soil in our lives we must be able to live in the light of truth and eternal light with God and realize how petty and unjustified those burdens and worries are that we so often carry. If you had everything that you could ever want, and yet you had to forfeit your very soul tonight whose would those things belong to? How desirable would those things be in comparison to the eternal joy and life we can have with God our Father? When we begin to really think about those answers things start to fall into better perspective....may you richly bless God through your life in Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
Comments
Post a Comment