From Where Have you Come?

Ezekiel 16:22, “In all your detestable practices and your prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking about in your blood.” Don’t forget from where you came and more importantly don’t forget who got you to where you are.

One of the easiest things to do when you experience either success or failure is to forget from where you came. Part of this is because we have short memories. Part of this is because we do not think clearly in times of pain or joy. In Ezekiel God used a visual of his chosen people when he found them. He described their condition as being one of an infant lying naked in a field surrounded by their own blood. Not a pretty picture, but God described their condition as such and he said, “I took you from there and made you a great nation.” In their many successes and failures they forgot their beginning.

Why would God want them to remember their meager beginning? It was not because he wanted them to relive pain and suffering, rather it is because he wanted them to remember who brought them from the depths to the heights. There is a popular and familiar saying, “Whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.” That is not true. Whatever makes you look to God is what makes you stronger. One of the problems of joy and pain is we forget who has been with us and we put all of the focus on ourselves.

The truth is no one succeeded or failed on their own. The truth is no one has ever accomplished anything without God allowing it to happen. The Bible makes this clear in many passages: Ecclesiastes 3:11, 14 “He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end…I know that everything God does will endure forever’ nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does is so that men will revere him.” Paul said, “…everything comes from God.” (1 Cor. 11:12) and James said, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” (1:17).

Certainly no one remembered from where he came like Jesus. Paul explains this beautifully for us in Phil. 2:5-8. Jesus humbled himself from the highest of highs to lowest of lows in order to be obedient to God. Jesus remembered from where he came when he said the very food that sustained him was to do what God asked him to do. John 4:34, “’My food,’ said Jesus, ‘is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.’”

So the next time something good or bad happens to you remember from where you came and remember for those of you in Christ Jesus who will always be with you.

Do churches have it backwards?

I wasn't planning on writing today, but I ran across a verse from one of Paul’s letters that just hit me in the face.

“…while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church.” 1 Corinthians 8:1

Paul is writing to a church that some believe had slogans for the way they should live their lives. He said they had the head knowledge of what to do, but they didn’t have the love associated with being a child of God. He goes on to say in verse 3, “But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.”

My limited observation of the local church today would lead me to believe that we have gotten love and knowledge mixed up. Churches today are filled with wonderful teachers and classes that know the difference between a Sadducee and a Pharisee, but when was the last time that class left the building and showed God’s love in their neighborhood? Ouch, that hurts me too.

Why are we closing the doors on more churches than we are opening on new churches? Why is the Southern Baptist Convention not growing, but reached a plateau for the last two years? Why are churches weak today? I believe one of the reasons is we have abandoned hair on fire love for people for knowledge of the Bible.

Now don’t get me wrong, I believe the answer for our world today is the truth and proclamation of God’s word. I of all people love to understand and teach God’s word, but have we escaped into the church with an excuse to learn more and abandoned the people God has called us to love?

One of the great things from our student led echo groups formed during Falls Creek is that they have actually gotten out meeting people’s needs. They have shown love. A couple of groups have spent time at a senior adult care center.

Let’s reverse this trend of knowledge over love. Let’s be a people that the world would say, “They really know how to love people and take care of those in their neighborhood.” Let’s let love strengthen the church!