I have been thinking a lot about ministry while in Thailand. One thing that occurred to me was that God while God has called men to "shepherd" other believers, those shepherds are still sheep! I think sometimes that is a forgotten fact, and those in ministry can look at the others in the church as "those people". Truth is, we're all "those people". And we all do stupid things, and so we all need the Great Shepherd to guide us all! And interesting thought to ponder...
I had done some thinking about how God uses people. I was thinking of a number of instances where the Bible speaks of God using people as the means to do things in the world. It's really something to stop and think about. It's sort of like a painter using a brush. This is something that I am pretty familiar with, so I thought it would make a good illustration. One guy has all the fancy equipment, and yet can do little more than a stick figure. The other guy has meager equipment and yet produces a masterpiece. So it is with our lives. It's really not about how good the brush (people) is, it's about how good the artist is. And since in the illustration, the artist is God... well, we don't have to make our lives a masterpiece, God's already at work doing that. And He'll probably do a better job than we could. I chose Psalm 100:3 to sound this out. God made us, not ourselves. And He is so much more capable of painting a masterpiece out of our lives.
I was reading in Jeremiah 10 and found it to be an absolutely fascinating chapter of the Bible. Here, God pleads with Israel about the ridiculousness of their devotion to their idols. He walk them through, from start to finish, what it takes to create their gods. Somebody whacks down a tree, they prepare it and carve it into an idol, they decorate it, and finally they stand it up and nail it down so it doesn't get knocked over. After all that work, they finally put their hope and lives in the care of said wooden idol. Hmmm... sounds ridiculous (stupid in the words of Jeremiah 10) to follow such a thing. Yet we do the same thing today, don't we? Oh, it might not be a gold plated statue, but it may be a bank account, or material things. It might be more elusive, like the desires to be loved and accepted, security, or anything else that replaces our devotion to our God. I hope this encourages you. Read through Jeremiah 10 and see if God points out any idols you may be building and worshiping in your heart.
I was inspired when reading through 1 Corinthians 12, especially verses 13-22. There, Paul compares the church to a body, pointing out that every part of the body is crucial to the survival and health of the whole. So in Christ's church, each person is important the way God made them. We should help a foot be the best foot it can be, not try to make it a hand. Good things to think on...
I was reading in Jeremiah 10 and found it to be an absolutely fascinating chapter of the Bible. Here, God pleads with Israel about the ridiculousness of their devotion to their idols. He walk them through, from start to finish, what it takes to create their gods. Somebody whacks down a tree, they prepare it and carve it into an idol, they decorate it, and finally they stand it up and nail it down so it doesn't get knocked over. After all that work, they finally put their hope and lives in the care of said wooden idol. Hmmm... sounds ridiculous (stupid in the words of Jeremiah 10) to follow such a thing. Yet we do the same thing today, don't we? Oh, it might not be a gold plated statue, but it may be a bank account, or material things. It might be more elusive, like the desires to be loved and accepted, security, or anything else that replaces our devotion to our God. I hope this encourages you. Read through Jeremiah 10 and see if God points out any idols you may be building and worshiping in your heart.
I was inspired when reading through 1 Corinthians 12, especially verses 13-22. There, Paul compares the church to a body, pointing out that every part of the body is crucial to the survival and health of the whole. So in Christ's church, each person is important the way God made them. We should help a foot be the best foot it can be, not try to make it a hand. Good things to think on...
