GETTING STUCK in the plug-in mode #1

GREETINGS IN THE NAME OF JESUS:


  Throughout the many years now that I have been involved in ministry I can honestly say that I have never seen more people who seem to be stuck in a mold of ministry or in a place in their worship where they find it impossible to grow in Christ beyond where they currently are now.  In most cases, it is an unspoken pattern of thinking that allows us to think there can be nothing out there more for me to learn about Christ than that which I already know.  What I find every time I get into the word; especially when I uncover the word with others who like myself want to begin digging to find the truth, I always learn something new.
  There are a great many times we may feel like cupcakes placed upon a cake pan that we cannot remove ourselves from, and many are caught off guard by the idea that we may be ready to actually move into a deeper study of the word that we have been lead to believe we are ready for.  It is a simple fact that we can go much deeper with God's word than this world seems to think we can because we are not restricted to needing a higher education before we increase our studies in God's word.  The simple truth is that most of those who become great ministers will tell you that most of their instruction was rendered through the power of God's Holy Spirit teaching them rather than through any formal education they might have gotten.  I believe this is completely due to the amount of control that we allow the Holy Spirit to be given over our lives. As we begin to give away the pieces of our lives to God that are necessary for Him to teach us the more perfect ways of Christ we will find a great change come over our attitudes and goals in daily life that we have probably never before thought about.

  There were only about 35 miracles that Jesus did that were recorded in the New Testament and about 30 parables that He used in His direct ministry to explain the Kingdom of Heaven and the process of being Born Again. The things Jesus used to spread the message of His Salvation was simple in design. The things He told us and the things that He did to demonstrate what He meant were all very important to our relationship with God the Father.  All of our human emotional problems are dealt with in these works of Christ, and they are just as important to us today as they were when they were first given to us.

 God has never done anything without a reason, and this includes building the church.  The purpose of the church has, however, been lost for many people because of our sense and drive to control the process of learning, and growing in Christ.  It starts with the use of our own interpretations of what Christ said because of language constraints and our own hidden agendas in leadership. In much the same way as the Scribes and Pharisees were leading the people away from the true worship of God in their day. We too are separating ourselves from one another so that this world has to work very little to conquer those who allow themselves to be caught up in the busy work created by men who want us to think we are busy in the work of Christ when all we are really doing is being plugged into a program.  The reason this does not work more than a few months in our lives is that we are not being fed spiritually by it. Instead, we get stuck in the minor details of what it means to be a member of the organization. Paul dealt with this constantly in his ministry to the church body by calling these things "strifes" that caused division from the inside of the church and not from the world around us. If we do all of the work of dividing ourselves it is simple for Satan to send in his minions to create the reasons for the disbandment of so many churches we have known.

  In our desire to grow in Christ we need only the simple things like sitting down with others of like faith and desire to create ways to open up God's word to one another.  This is done not by great knowledge, but by simply sharing what we think and feel about the scripture that God reveals to us. Instead of a teacher let's begin to allow God's Spirit to be the teacher while we each become a vessel used to reason out what He is saying to us.  As we begin to do these simple things we will find that we are no longer stuck in the mud of relentless programs and the desire to have everyone else do our thinking, studying and praying for us.  May you richly bless God through your life in Him.



THE UNWORTHY SERVANT