I've been hit hard today. A beating I truly deserve. And something I am going to have to process for days to come. But I just love how when God speaks, He really gets the message delivered. Between the sermon today and the un-ignorable urge to pick up Crazy Love again after weeks, I just find it amazing that I am getting the same lesson preached to me.
The sermon series at church as been on the book of James for the last several weeks. Unfortunately, I miss out on most of the messages since my Baby girl hates the nursery. By some miracle today, she survived longer than most days, which afforded me the chance to hear todays sermon. James tells us in chapter 2 that faith without action is USELESS. It's like a screen door on a submarine as Rich Mullins sang. As the minister, Adam Ormord said today, we are really good at covering up the stinch of what is really rotting underneath. We are good at appearing Christian, but don't fully live it. When we do act, we are selective. We serve ourselves. We don't freely give and freely love as Christ did.
I can say that I honestly feel compelled to give and act, but then my reasoning wins over. "I couldn't possibly serve in that way. I have my own kids to take care of". "I can't pack up and travel to places like Joplin and help with the disaster." It seems like things I really want to do and saw myself doing when I was training to be a nurse, become impossible because I have other responsibilities elsewhere. While some of that is true and understandable, I think I am gotten too comfortable with excusing myself from doing more. There are so many gifts I know God has given me that I am not using. There are so many things I have a passion for that I have intended to use for God, but have not. The church is not the building. The church isn't the Christian congregation. It is a movement of the followers of Jesus Christ. And unfortunately, there is not a whole lot of movement because of people like me.
In my reading of Crazy Love tonight, Francis Chan says God isn't interested in those who fake it and recalls the parable of the sower. He believes, that "American churchgoers are the soil that chokes the seed". Then he questions if we are truly in love with Christ. I think if we were, I wouldn't feel even the smallest hesitation with being compelled to act on my faith. I am just dawdling. Another good word for that is LUKEWARM. I never really thought of myself as lukewarm until I read all the many descriptors of someone who is lukewarm as Francis Chan describes them.
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you - unless, of course, you fail the test?" 2 Corinthians 13:5
These kind of self-inventories are never pleasant. But they are necessary for radical transformation. My desire in all the blogging is to communicate the ways in which God is transforming me. I cannot be lukewarm and call Jesus my savior. I cannot be lukewarm have love the Lord my God. My faith needs to entail more. I can't be part of what is "choking the seed" or "covering the stinch".
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