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

Spiritual Gifts

Jon's Third Sermon

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer."

Today is Ember Wednesday. Ember days are the days at the beginning of the seasons ordered by the Church as days of fast and abstinence. The purpose of their introduction, besides the general one intended by all prayer and fasting, was to thank God for the gifts He has first given us, to teach men to make use of them in moderation, and to assist the needy. They are supported by the verse in Zechariah 8:19 “Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace.” If March is the first month in the Jewish calendar, then June is the fourth month.

I consider this particular set of Ember Days especially meaningful due to their close proximity to Pentecost and the bestowing of spiritual gifts upon the apostles. There are so many places in the Bible that speak of gifts that the Lord bestows upon us. Until we begin counting our blessings, it is easy to forget just how very blessed we are. We might complain about what we don’t have…the grass is always greener on the other side…instead of appreciating what has been given to us for us to use to glorify the Lord.

The Israelites in Numbers chapter 11 were grumbling to Moses and to God about only having bread to eat rather than praising the Lord for feeding them. Like them, we all fall into the trap of looking for what we don’t have instead of praising God for what we DO have and using those gifts to glorify Him. Whether those gifts are material blessings or spiritual gifts, we should offer thanks and praise for those wonderful blessings and the best way to praise the Lord is by using the gifts we have received to do all such GOOD WORKS as He has prepared for us to walk in.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus tells us that as the Israelites received manna from heaven, which fed them physically, he is the bread which feeds us spiritually. He is the bread of life, which we will never hunger again once we have received him. This isn’t a physical hunger, it is a spiritual hunger. It is a hunger to grow closer to the Lord, to be a part of his heavenly kingdom. We see this ‘fulfilled’ hunger at work in Peter and the other apostles in the signs and wonders which the Holy Spirit performed through them, through wisdom, prophesy, healing, discernment. We all have spiritual gifts. Like the servant in the parable of the talents, we are given these gifts to glorify our heavenly master…we are supposed to use them, not hide them away. This is how we give praise to our Lord; by using the gifts he has given us to glorify him. Like Abel, giving God our first fruits, the best of what we have been given, so that he will be pleased with our joyous giving “For God loves a cheerful giver”.

You might think, “I don’t have any gifts” or “I don’t have much and I need what I have.” I wonder if the servant who only had one talent felt that way. Jesus said at the end of the parable of the talents, “For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have in abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'” I don’t want to be a worthless servant, I want the Lord to look at me and say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
All of us have gifts we can use to glorify the Lord, no matter how small and the more you use your gifts for God’s glory, the more abundantly He will bestow his gifts upon you. 1 Corinthians 12:27-31 states “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But eagerly desire the greater gifts.” Perhaps you are thinking, “But I don’t have any spiritual gifts.” Think of the shepherd David. He was the youngest of his brothers. King Saul gave him strong armor and a shield and sword when he went to fight Goliath, but instead of depending upon human means, David chose to put his faith in the Lord and the gifts the Lord blessed him with. David picked up three stones...and using the abilities God honed while David was a shepherd, God took out Goliath. Today we remember David as ancestor to Jesus and one of the greatest kings of Israel.

Luke 11:13 states “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Ask the Lord to reveal the gifts to you that he has blessed you with and use them for His glory. As part of the body of Christ, if each of us uses the individual gifts we are given, we work as a unit, and we are Christ’s representative here on earth. Let us remember that He is who we represent in the world and it is His glory we achieve through using our gifts in such a way to only glorify him…never ourselves…never for the pat on the back of ‘what a good person I am’. If not for God first giving us gifts, we would have nothing to give, so we are merely being good stewards of those gifts we have received.

Amen