Detours and Roads under construction

“Detours and Roads under construction”

It seems the summer is a great time to do road repairs and construction. Have you noticed? At least this summer I sure have experienced a lot of that. How about you? You have well laid out plans and you begin your trip and before you know it, you get stopped and there’s the sign – “road under construction”. There are detours, flat tires, and disappointments. Things just have not worked out the way that you planned. How do you make sense of life when life does not make sense? I have found in life that it’s a short step from disappointment to God’s ultimate destiny for us. This could be the biggest disappointment in your life, or it could be God directing you to His destiny for you! God’s Word teaches over and over that we will be blessed by waiting on the Lord. (See Psalms 37) Henry Blackeby wrote years ago, “never come to the final conclusion on anything that is happening in your life until to you consider it from God’s point of view.” I have taken his advise on this on more than one occasion in my life. I offer it, that is HIM to you no matter what you are walking through. Let Him make sense of life when life does not make sense.

There is something exciting about the Fall of the year for me. A new School year begins. 

(I can hear groans from some) New seasons of life begin {football seasons and hunting seasons! :-) } Brisk fall air sharpens my senses and calls me to the new seasons that are right before me. I hope you share in this with me. Something new is at work around us. He is at work! Calling us to consider His point of view on things. I believe as we do, we will be blessed and filled with hope for the future. This might just be God directing you to His destiny for you through the detours and road blocks. Keep looking to and trusting in Him! Believing in Jesus and sharing Him with others. That’s our task in every season.  Lets be about His business! (Matt 6:33)

LOVE IN ACTION – Submission = “Beautiful”

Blog for May 28, 2014

  

LOVE IN ACTION – Submission = “Beautiful”

I know this may sound strange, but I believe one of the most “BEAUTIFUL” aspects of LOVE IN ACTION is expressed through a life lived in humble “submission”. Paul writes in Ephesians that we are live a life of love through humble submission “to one another out of reverence for Christ…”  (Eph. 5:1 & 21)  A sincere follower of the Lord Jesus learns through following His example that humble submission is a central focus of Christian living. “Self-submission (not self-assertion) is the hallmark of the spirit-filled Christian”.  Submission is so beautiful because it is yielding to the heart of another as a “help-meet” – to so live to submit all of one’s resources and energies to help their partner accomplish their dream or mission.

Let me share 3 examples of humble submission.

   

First is the Lord Jesus who yielded to the Father. On the evening of the Passover (Lord’s Supper) as the disciples argued over greatness and status (Luke 22:24-27), Jesus humbly gets up and washes their feet. He was modeling for them (and us) that true greatest is found in the person who uses his authority or their status to build people up, not in using their status to make himself feel important. BEAUTIFUL!

   

Then there is the Apostle Paul who yielded to the Lord Jesus. In his day, Paul was a well-educated and held great status and power as a Pharisee and Roman citizen. But by his own confession, he identified himself as a man of service and suffering. Paul discarded all those things that defined him prior to His meeting with Resurrected Lord. (Acts 9) All of this lost its value. He saw himself through his relationship with Christ alone. Paul writes in Romans 1:1, I am a “bond-slave” of Christ Jesus… “set apart” (literally, “new-horizoned”) for the Gospel.” Paul is saying that when I submitted my life to the Lord, I embraced fully a new “horizon” for which I would forever live. Read his testimony, “but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward (his new horizon) in Christ Jesus”. (Phil 3:12-14) Paul fully submitted to Christ as His slave. He chose the suffering and service of his Lord as the benchmark of his work and the foundation of his identity. BEAUTIFUL!

    

Then there is the life of William Borden.[1] As heir to the Borden family fortune, he was already wealthy. In 1904, for his high school graduation present, his parents gave 16-year-old Borden a trip around the world. As the young man traveled through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, he felt a growing burden for the world's hurting people. He wrote home about his "desire to be a missionary." He graduated from Yale and then Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. When he finished his studies at Princeton, he sailed for China. Because he was hoping to work with Muslims, he stopped first in Egypt to study Arabic. While there, he contracted spinal meningitis. Within a month, 25-year-old William Borden was dead. Mary Taylor wrote in her biography of his life, "Borden not only gave (away) his wealth, but himself, in a way so joyous and natural that it (seemed) a privilege rather than a sacrifice".  Was Borden's untimely death a waste? Not from God's perspective, and not from William Borden’s perspective either. Prior to his death, Borden had written these words in his diary,

"No reserves, No retreats, No regrets."

Living in humble submission to the Lord… BEAUTIFUL!

Pastor Garry

[1]http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=15641525