Being a Lampstand
God has entitled us to put laws in place for the betterment of our society, so that it can run more smoothly (after all, we can't just run rampant saying, "Live and let live"...then murderers and child molesters and thievery and...you get the idea...would abound), but being a lampstand to ME is about reflecting the light of Christ in your life and giving others something to come TO. I turn people over to God, I let HIM push them out of their 'comfort zone'...and He does and will. Judging someone's physical sin under the laws society has in place is acceptable, judging someone's spiritual sin is best left in the hands of God.
I am talking to a friend from high school who found my 'myspace' account page. She said that when she saw my page, she had to write to me to talk about problems she was having. I haven't seen or spoken to this woman in 16 years and even in high school we were only acquaintances. I simply started sharing with her where I was, what I have been through, where I am at now and said, "I don't know your exact situation, but I hope that helps you."
She wrote back to me and told me that she cried when she was reading what I wrote because it spoke directly to her heart and helped her see where she needed to put her priorities. I don't know if it really did that or not, I hope so...I only said that I stopped worrying about what my 'so called' friends wanted and started putting what God wanted first...and to do that, I needed to read the Bible and learn it, to receive some guidance from spiritual leaders, but working on my relationship with God affected how I relate to my husband, my children, my friends, my dad, my step mother, my in laws, even people I don't like...because instead of condemning every act that hurt me as evil, I spent more time simply loving them where they are at...and over time, several of them started seeing the difference. Some of them (who had stopped attending church and turned away from God) realized that they wanted what I had found...peace. They wanted that same peace and asked to attend our church when we have a place to worship. At my husband's ordination, it was the first time my dad had attended church in ten years...and I cried because he said afterward that it meant a lot to him and he missed church and wanted to start attending again.
I prayed for my sister (in California) for years. One day she called me and we were talking about several things, church being one of them, she hadn't attended in a long time and I just told her, "Well, I love you. I am praying for you, whatever you decide."
She started going back to church and taking my niece and nephew and they loved it. She said, "It was like coming home again." I laughed and said, "Yeah, that prodigal son story has new and special meaning to all of us I think." It made us closer than we had been in a very long time. I wasn't doing it...I was praying for the Lord to work in her heart...and in my Dad's heart, and in my in laws hearts, and in the hearts of everyone. I pray for the waitress at the restaurant...and GOD WORKS in their lives, not me. God might use me in some small part of the whole, but God does the work.
Not in MY time, in HIS time...but He DOES work. Anytime I start trying to do it, rather than putting it in God's hands, it never happens as I want it to, but when I do the little things God prompts me to do, and also pray, God makes huge wonderful miracles happen. Tiny, little seeds bearing big beautiful fruit...not MY work, His work, my little part is only a tiny part of the whole...and I need to remember that if I try to do the whole job, instead of the part that God has given ME authority over, if I try to take over God's job, then I am going to end up ruining the entire thing....and I am more likely to drive people away rather than drawing people to the light of Christ.
This sort of goes into spiritual gifts I think...we don't get the spiritual gifts we WANT, we get what God bestows upon us. He gives us as much as we need to do the good work he has prepared for us to walk in, no more, no less. Thinking of the servants with the talents, if we bury our spiritual gift and don't use it, then we are doing a disservice to the Lord by not taking a chance and using the gift he has given us to glorify Him.
What if the same servant had attempted to steal his fellow servant's talents and use them? Then he would have been taking on more authority than he had been given. Would his master have been pleased? Would our master be pleased by our taking away a gift he has first given us? The gift of the freedom to CHOOSE Him with love? Isn't that being the same type of hypocritical person whom Jesus condemned in the Bible? The fig tree that Jesus came across and withered because it was not bearing fruit...I think back upon the story of Jonah and see Jonah being upset about the tree that grew up to give him shade and withering overnight...I see that God has purposes for all things that we can't always see. I see the story of Jesus and the fig tree as, "Bear GOOD FRUIT that God can use, or you will wither like this fig tree." But I also see the tree of Jonah as God has purposes for all things and all people and He will forgive whom He will forgive and condemn whom He will condemn...we only have what authority has been granted us by Him and taking more authority, as Jonah attempted to, can only be self defeating...not working for God's will, but for our own.
God bless
I am talking to a friend from high school who found my 'myspace' account page. She said that when she saw my page, she had to write to me to talk about problems she was having. I haven't seen or spoken to this woman in 16 years and even in high school we were only acquaintances. I simply started sharing with her where I was, what I have been through, where I am at now and said, "I don't know your exact situation, but I hope that helps you."
She wrote back to me and told me that she cried when she was reading what I wrote because it spoke directly to her heart and helped her see where she needed to put her priorities. I don't know if it really did that or not, I hope so...I only said that I stopped worrying about what my 'so called' friends wanted and started putting what God wanted first...and to do that, I needed to read the Bible and learn it, to receive some guidance from spiritual leaders, but working on my relationship with God affected how I relate to my husband, my children, my friends, my dad, my step mother, my in laws, even people I don't like...because instead of condemning every act that hurt me as evil, I spent more time simply loving them where they are at...and over time, several of them started seeing the difference. Some of them (who had stopped attending church and turned away from God) realized that they wanted what I had found...peace. They wanted that same peace and asked to attend our church when we have a place to worship. At my husband's ordination, it was the first time my dad had attended church in ten years...and I cried because he said afterward that it meant a lot to him and he missed church and wanted to start attending again.
I prayed for my sister (in California) for years. One day she called me and we were talking about several things, church being one of them, she hadn't attended in a long time and I just told her, "Well, I love you. I am praying for you, whatever you decide."
She started going back to church and taking my niece and nephew and they loved it. She said, "It was like coming home again." I laughed and said, "Yeah, that prodigal son story has new and special meaning to all of us I think." It made us closer than we had been in a very long time. I wasn't doing it...I was praying for the Lord to work in her heart...and in my Dad's heart, and in my in laws hearts, and in the hearts of everyone. I pray for the waitress at the restaurant...and GOD WORKS in their lives, not me. God might use me in some small part of the whole, but God does the work.
Not in MY time, in HIS time...but He DOES work. Anytime I start trying to do it, rather than putting it in God's hands, it never happens as I want it to, but when I do the little things God prompts me to do, and also pray, God makes huge wonderful miracles happen. Tiny, little seeds bearing big beautiful fruit...not MY work, His work, my little part is only a tiny part of the whole...and I need to remember that if I try to do the whole job, instead of the part that God has given ME authority over, if I try to take over God's job, then I am going to end up ruining the entire thing....and I am more likely to drive people away rather than drawing people to the light of Christ.
This sort of goes into spiritual gifts I think...we don't get the spiritual gifts we WANT, we get what God bestows upon us. He gives us as much as we need to do the good work he has prepared for us to walk in, no more, no less. Thinking of the servants with the talents, if we bury our spiritual gift and don't use it, then we are doing a disservice to the Lord by not taking a chance and using the gift he has given us to glorify Him.
What if the same servant had attempted to steal his fellow servant's talents and use them? Then he would have been taking on more authority than he had been given. Would his master have been pleased? Would our master be pleased by our taking away a gift he has first given us? The gift of the freedom to CHOOSE Him with love? Isn't that being the same type of hypocritical person whom Jesus condemned in the Bible? The fig tree that Jesus came across and withered because it was not bearing fruit...I think back upon the story of Jonah and see Jonah being upset about the tree that grew up to give him shade and withering overnight...I see that God has purposes for all things that we can't always see. I see the story of Jesus and the fig tree as, "Bear GOOD FRUIT that God can use, or you will wither like this fig tree." But I also see the tree of Jonah as God has purposes for all things and all people and He will forgive whom He will forgive and condemn whom He will condemn...we only have what authority has been granted us by Him and taking more authority, as Jonah attempted to, can only be self defeating...not working for God's will, but for our own.
God bless
posted by Dancer | 9:39 PM
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