Rainy day thinking!!!

As God put it on our hearts to lead a church, I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs I sensed the Spirit saying that we were to teach people to, “Love God, receive His love and to give it away.”  While it seemed like that would be very easy it has proved to not be so easy really.  You see when you talk about loving God and receiving His love people begin to hear, “anything goes”, and when sin is confronted the first words out of their mouth is, “Where is God’s love here?”  So they hear, God is a loving God and expects nothing from you at all….He is a forgiving God, full of grace and mercy and you cannot judge me!  Our sign on Reynolds Rd. @ the Barn said “Come as you are, you will be loved.”  And we meant it then and mean it now but I guess it should also have said, “Come as you are, but you cannot stay that way.”

2 Cor.5:17, “Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone and the new has come.”  (GNT)  So I have to wonder what does it mean to love God??  What do we hear when we hear “God is love”?  When I first heard God is love I don’t think I really believed the message or at least that He loved me.  But as I came to realize God not only so loved the world, He loved me it began to transform me into a new person.  I never felt that it meant, He loves me so I can live however I wanted to…I took it to mean He loved me so much that how could I not follow Him?  Why would I choose to be disobedient to Him?  Why would I not listen to Him when He called to me?  I mean I fell often yet I did know He was there to pick me back up and get me headed in the right direction but I never wanted to continue to sin just because He is so merciful and gracious…that’s abuse!  His faithfulness should build our faithfulness.  His love for us builds our love for Him.  His mercy towards me allows me to be merciful towards others.  His grace does not give me permission to sin…it give me the strength to say no to sin! 

Now I am beginning to see the vision of people loving God, receiving His love and giving it away, mature and happen.  People will ask, “What does it mean to love God?”  Well John writes it looks like this, “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And His commands are not burdensome.” 1Jn.5:3 He also writes, “You know we have come to know Him if we obey His commands.” 1Jn2:3    Also Jesus own words, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  I think in the church this is what is needed.  People following Jesus...People obeying His words…  People dying to their own selves, so that He might live through them.  People saying yes to God…This is why I do what I do…be a pastor…my hope and dream is to see this happen in many lives.  To hear people say, “I love God,” and their lives support their words.  Where we no longer pray, “God let me see what you see” and then walk away to do our own thing but we actually do see what He sees because we love what He loves…and then when we see what He sees, we respond the way He would want us to. 

I read recently this challenging thought…People will on many occasions ask or say “Why doesn’t God do something about (fill in the blank)?”  And the thought came maybe He is asking us the same question, “Why aren’t you doing something about that?”  I am beginning to think that is probably a very true thought.  And I think people loving God and others will care…don’t you? Hey this leader thing might work out after all…there is hope you know.

Bill