It’s not that it’s wrong to have nice things. It’s not wrong to buy things that you don’t necessarily need even though there are millions of people who suffer continually all around the world. The spirit will lead you to do the things you should do. He’s not calling all wealthy people to send half their paycheck to Africa. After all, he doesn’t need our money to save these people from physical death. He doesn’t NEED my help in the least. God doesn’t need a thing from me.
However, God does tell me to honor him with my stuff. I should be using my stuff to bring God as much glory as possible; even though he doesn’t need me for anything. Nevertheless, I am provided with opportunities to please, honor, and glorify him. I’m not to put stock in earthly things since they are really of little value. What is money in the grand scheme of everything anyway? Next to worthless, I'd say.
This was a moment of clarity for me with the help of a couple good friends :)
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
What are we doing?
Sometimes, I wonder this. What are we doing? Like, seriously, what are we doing? As much as we claim to be followers of Christ, what are we REALLY doing for Christ? You can't dive 10 blocks without passing a church. Sometimes I feel all we really do is exist inside of them. I'm guilty as well.
My church took a survey awhile ago that 'revealed' what we, as a church, need to work on. The survey revealed that as a whole, we were extremely low on people who are in the Bible on a consistent basis. Also, as far as I can tell, it takes a whip or cattle prod to really get people to serve in the church, let alone in the community within which they live. Maybe that's just my perception??
I had a conversation recently with a good friend of mine. He brought up the point that many Christians perceive God as all knowing, all powerful, all loving, etc... While these things are true, He's a jealous God. He's a Just God. He did wicked crazy things to people who didn't obey him (recorded in many different places in the Bible). This tells me that we're more concerned with making people feel good than we are telling people the truth.
The bottom line is I feel that we as Jesus-followers are really missing the mark. We're severely distracted by the pleasures of life and the lie that sitting in church on Sunday and being in a small group is following Christ to the best of our ability.
If people were sincerely grateful for the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, I feel we'd have a much greater movement of God's people being involved in God's work.
My church took a survey awhile ago that 'revealed' what we, as a church, need to work on. The survey revealed that as a whole, we were extremely low on people who are in the Bible on a consistent basis. Also, as far as I can tell, it takes a whip or cattle prod to really get people to serve in the church, let alone in the community within which they live. Maybe that's just my perception??
I had a conversation recently with a good friend of mine. He brought up the point that many Christians perceive God as all knowing, all powerful, all loving, etc... While these things are true, He's a jealous God. He's a Just God. He did wicked crazy things to people who didn't obey him (recorded in many different places in the Bible). This tells me that we're more concerned with making people feel good than we are telling people the truth.
The bottom line is I feel that we as Jesus-followers are really missing the mark. We're severely distracted by the pleasures of life and the lie that sitting in church on Sunday and being in a small group is following Christ to the best of our ability.
If people were sincerely grateful for the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, I feel we'd have a much greater movement of God's people being involved in God's work.
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