NEW CREATION LIVING

The missionary, Hudson Taylor, once said, "God isn't looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him."  Isn’t this a very good word for those of us who are pretty much regular folks seeking to be faithful to God in our times.

Sometimes the enemy whispers into our ear that our faith is weak and that we are not capable of offering significant ministries for Christ.  I don't agree with the enemy too often, but I do on this.  In ourselves we are incapable of doing anything for God, but, then, it's not about us.  It's about God.  Somebody once said that God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.  

When God shows up, ill prepared fishermen become "fishers of men" (Matt. 4:19).  When God shows up, the gates of hell tremble and fall (Matt. 16:18).  When God shows up, Jesus builds His Church and gives His Church "the keys of the kingdom of heaven," and then commissions that church to bind and loose in His name throughout the earth (Matt. 16:19).  When God shows up the words goes forth, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come" (2 Cor. 5:17).

Perhaps the question of this age to the regular folks is, "Are we ready to follow Him?"  If the answer is "Yes," then go for it.  Let's put our life together into the sovereign care of Almighty God, and "immediately" follow Jesus (Matt. 4:20, 22).  Just go for it.  As we walk in obedience, God will qualify us.  As we keep saying yes to Jesus, God will keep opening and closing all necessary doors.  As we live for the One who is the Lord of life, God will take care of outcomes.  We are free to abide in Christ and share the fruit of that abiding relationship.  We are free to love like Jesus loves.

As we follow Him He might even roll away from some nearby tomb a boulder that is in the way. That would be something, wouldn't it?  But then He's already done that, hasn't He?  

LIVING THE GOOD NEWS

I think it is a wonderful time to be the Church of Jesus.  What a great time to live out the meaning of the Gospel.  What a great time to be alive in the power of the Holy Spirit. What a great time to be faithful to the visions and dreams of God for His Church.  What a great time to live transformed and transforming lives.

In the end, isn’t being a Christian simply living for Jesus one moment at a time.  Hundreds of books have been written on how to touch our world for Christ.  Thousands of Websites are out there in cyber space telling us how to touch our world for Christ.  Scores of monthly magazines tell us how to touch our world for Christ.  I suppose we need all these sources but I think we’re living in an age of sensory overload, too.  I believe the best way for Christians to touch their world for Christ is simply to go and be Christian.

     

The Bible says that God’s “divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” (2 Pet. 1:3, NASB).  I’m not smart enough to know how to improve on this.  I am smart enough to know not even to try.  

     

In Christ we have everything we need to live for God in the world around us.  As we live in Him, by faith, seeking to glorify His Name, God creates in our midst a people who are rendered useful and fruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:5-8).  

     

The folks around us are going about their daily lives,  and the grace and love of God are flowing like a river.  What a wonderful time to live For God.  What a wonderful time to live out the meaning of the GOOD NEWS.

GOOD NEWS

I don’t think our culture cares much about what the Church thinks.  Should this surprise us?  No.  That it doesn’t surprise us, however, doesn’t let those of us in God’s Church off the hook. Actually, the ghosting of the Church by the culture is a good thing, not pleasant, particularly, but good.  Why?  Because it drives the Church further into the embrace of God’s amazing grace, and opens up the Church to the Holy Spirit’s energizing and creating imagination.

Within God’s embrace we are set free to dream and explore so as to give the Holy Spirit of God a community not limited to its own creativity but let loose to allow “God to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…” (Ephesians 3:20).  Here we are empowered to make our home in Jesus and from Him, to bear the fruit of God’s remarkable and life-changing love (see John 15:5).  

Actually, I’m pretty sure the culture doesn’t need what the Church thinks, as if there is one way the Church thinks.  What our culture needs is a Savior, a Guide, a Teacher, a Leader, a Shepherd; and we have one.  He is the One whom the Church should be sharing.  He is the One who says to a weary people, to all of us, “Come to Me…and I will give you rest” (Matthew. 11:28).  He is the One who came not “to condemn world, but to save the world” (John 3:17).

In a ghosting, disenfranchising, canceling culture, we all have a Guardian-Sentinel who calls us to Himself and brings within us the very life of God’s sacrificial self-giving love.  He is our “Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.”  He is the One who came that we “may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). 

Jesus doesn’t ghost us or cancel us or disenfranchise us.  Rather, He opens up to us the very arms of God and says to all of us, “Come to me…Welcome home…Live…You are loved…You are embraced…You matter….”  

I identify with Brennan Manning who wrote, “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”   

Sounds like a great reality to me.