Do we get it or Not?

1 Peter 1:7 “Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.”

I love those movies where rich children are predicted as never working for anything in their lives.  The story usually goes, they do something that drives their parents to force them to have to work for something they want.  They don’t know how to do it or try to find a way out of it because they find it ridiculous.  In the end, they learn a really good lesson and they find out what they wanted wasn’t as important as they viewed it before.  Most of us have found out that when you have to buy or work for something, it becomes more important to you because you invested into it.  If you’ve noticed, God doesn’t usually just hand us faith when we ask for it; He gives us moments and opportunities to learn it.  If He just gave it to us what would we learn from that?  It wouldn’t be something we completely understood.  He wants it to be a personal feeling to us.  Something we see as important and precious; something worth working for.    

Romans 1:16 “God's way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: "The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives."

A Surprise Gooey Center

Proverbs 25:21 “If you see your enemy hungry, go buy him lunch; if he's thirsty, bring him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness, and God will look after you.”

I love gum.  I often forget to bring my own gum with me when I go somewhere.  A few of the kids at the youth center are always happy to share a piece of theirs.  One day, a visiting kid offered me a piece of gum.  I hadn’t asked for any but I thought it a nice gesture and accepted.  I really wasn’t paying attention the gum itself and popped it in my mouth.  I bit into it and was very surprised to get a gush of very strong flavored goo.  It surprised me because I wasn’t used to that in gum at all but it was a good surprise.  It’s now one of my favorite types of gum.  Most of us have grown to expect the usual behavior from people.  It doesn’t deviate too much from person to person.  When you get someone who acts differently than what you except, it’s surprising and catches your attention.  Be a good surprising burst of flavor to people.  Instead of zooming by someone who is waiting for all the cars to pass so they can cross the street, stop and let them run across.  Wave at them and smile.  You know what would surprise me??  It would surprise me if I saw someone alone in their car driving and actually smiling.  Nobody smiles when they’re alone in their car.  Their face is always grim looking.  Have a different attitude other than the one the world pushes on you.  Be that surprise gooey center and snap people out of the same old interactions.  Once you’ve captured their attention, you can direct that attention off yourself and let them know who it is that makes you so different (Jesus).

Romans 12:1 “Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

Let Meeeeeeeeeee Do it

Hosea 13:4-6 “I'm still your God, the God who saved you out of Egypt I'm the only real God you've ever known.  I'm the one and only God who delivers.  I took care of you during the wilderness hard times, those years when you had nothing.  I took care of you, took care of all your needs, gave you everything you needed.  You were spoiled. You thought you didn't need me.  You forgot me.”

My family has the gift of being able to learn things very quickly.  We’ve gotten into the habit of believing we can just do it after only seeing it be done once.  Most of the time we can, but sometimes we can’t.  After we’ve seen it once, though, we don’t want to be shown again, we want to punt and figure the rest out on our own.  In our walk with God, just starting out, we need to be shown how everything works.  Like a baby learning how to walk and talk, we need to be taught how to begin walking and talking like Christ.  Once we get to a certain point where we’re feeling confident that we’ve got it, we set God aside and say, “Alright, I’ve got this.  I don’t need to be shown anymore.”  Not true.  There’s always something to be learning and without God guiding us and showing us how, we can screw it up.  There’s no punting after that.  When I was learning how to crochet from my twin sister, I would think I had it and then mess it up so bad I had no idea how to start over.  It would be a tangled mess and she would have to patiently undo it and show me where I went wrong and guide me back through it.  Even as a mature Christian, you will always need God guiding you, no matter how good you think you’ve got it.

1 Peter 2:3 “Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God's pure kindness. Then you'll grow up mature and whole in God.”

Leadership

John 13:15 “I’ve laid down a pattern for you.  What I’ve done, you do.”

In my college class, we were discussing the qualities of a good leader.  We listed people in our lives that represented good examples of leaders.  We then had to compare ourselves to the characteristics we saw in the good leaders around us.  Are we taking these things on and using them in leading people or we were noticing them and then forgetting about them?  We are leaders whether we feel like we are or not.  Everyone always has someone who is watching what they do and seeing it as an example.  We had to tell of a time when we dealt with a bad supervisor and a good supervisor.  We explained how it affected our working and attitude.  What kind of effects are you leaving on people?  Are you helping them in the work we must do daily in Christ or are you making it hard for them?  As a bad example, you give them more to try and work through.  They think what you do is ok and if it’s not, then you’re dragging them down.  Be a good leader!  It doesn’t matter if you think you can be or not, you have the perfect example to be practicing…Christ.

Titus 2:7 “But mostly, show them all this by doing it yourself, incorruptible in your teaching.”

Sacrifice

Genesis 22:1-3 “Some time later God tested Abraham.  He said to him, Abraham!  Here I am, he replied.  Then God said, Take your son, your only son, whom you love-Isaac-and go to the region of Moriah.  Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.  Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey.”

I was just discussing the story about Abraham sacrificing his son when God asked him to with the youth the other day.  He waited 14 years for that son to arrive and then it wasn’t long before God was asking him to kill him.  He wanted Abraham to give his son back to Him as an offering.  Could you imagine waiting 14 years for something then after a short time having to not only give it up but destroy it with your own hands?  No, I can’t fathom it and I highly doubt anybody else could either.  It’s nuts!  I’m sure Abraham was floored and it took a second to register in his head what God was asking of him.  Instead of asking why or hating God, he obeyed and moved immediately to do what God asked of him.  That’s trust.  We can’t even trust God when He asks us to go talk to a stranger about Him much less when He tells us to destroy something we longed and desired for so long.  As the story ends up, God stopped Abraham before he finished the task and praised him for his faith.  He was blessed many times over for simply listening when he was told.  You never know why God may be asking or how the situation may end up, it’s only our task to listen without hesitating and trust that God has a perfect reason.

John 10:27 “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

Don't Judge Me

Proverbs 15:12 “Mockers resent correction, so they avoid the wise.”

When I write, I usually have my mom edit it as an outsider reading in.  I like to get a different view on how well it flows and if my point is making it across.  Sometimes, when she suggests things I get upset at her because I had been fine with it or even excited.    I want to hear her say, “You did great, you don’t need to change anything.”  My mom cares and wants to see me make it the best it can be, so when she sees something that can be done better she wants to make sure and let me know.  When working with youth, they will ask me for advice in a situation.  I will give advice based off of what the bible says and it usually ends up not being what they wanted to hear.  They will go ahead and do the opposite of what they should and then wonder why their life isn’t going how they would like it.  When I tell them their choices are causing the pain in their life they tell me I’m judging them.  Don’t get the feeling of being convicted confused with feeling judged.  The people who care are the people who aren’t going to feed you a bunch of junk about how everything you did was ok.  They’re willing to help you see your mistakes and then stand by you and support you in fixing those mistakes.  No, it doesn’t feel good to be told something we don’t want to hear.  We want to hear that everything is just fine and we did nothing wrong.  Just because those people are telling us what we don’t want to hear, doesn’t mean that they’re judging us.  The uncomfortable pangs we feel are convictions.  It’s our conscious knocking at our heart confirming that we in fact made a boo boo.  

 Proverbs 15:32 “Those who disregard discipline despise themselves, but the one who heeds correction gains understanding.”