Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Waiting for a delivery

I am waiting for a delivery.
While I wait I finish a sermon, watch a soccer match, finish a book on reaching the unchurched and checking the door.
I am waiting because the delivery has to be sign for or it will return to...well, someplace to which I have no access.
The delivery isn't for me - it is for a family member who plans to pass through and needed a place to drop stuff off that could be picked back up easily - for them.
I feel frustrated - there are other things I could be doing but I can't do any of them until I do this.
I wonder - does God feel this way waiting for my prayers? Sure He gets stuff done while waiting, but, He can't do anything else in my life until He gets the next delivery. He can't do His part till I do my part.

Thursday, October 18, 2012



Fearless & Free
How do I move fearlessly into an unknown future given my experience with the known pain, effort, and, failures of the past?
Donald A. McGavran, who served as a missionary to India and then held a Chair on Evangelism at Fuller Theological Seminary, wrote, “We have Jesus Christ our Lord. We have no one else. We have the Bible. We have nothing else. In the light of revelation we can go fearlessly forward.”
Could it really be that simple? Great truths usually are stated simply when the underlying basis is known and the underlying basis for Dr. McGavran’s thesis is found in our commitment to the authority of God’s Word. The greater our acceptance of the Bible as God’s inspired collection of faith and practice, the greater our sense of peace in the actions we plan for tomorrow. Since God is our ultimate source of authority. He is he self-existent One not dependent on anything or anyone outside himself. He is the one we can rely on for our standard of belief and practice. Since we cannot know Him who is eternal we rely on His revelation.
His general revelation in creation (Psalm 19:1-6) and His special revelation in His Word (Psalm 19:7-14). Through general revelation all people everywhere can know Him through His creation. However, since our knowledge is overlaid with our assumptions of creation fed to us in our culture He has given His special revelation to tell us about himself and His Truth that we could not discover on our own. It is in special revelation we find the truth from Jesus, “if you have seen me you have seen the father” (John 1:14. Now we see God in human existence showing us a way to live we can reach for and finally touch even though we can never truly know Him in all His glory. We can know Him and be able to glorify Him in our daily lives.
We can live a fearless life as we rely on God’s special revelation to make clear His general revelation as a set of principles by which we conduct ourselves day to day. When our practices come out of our principles derived from God’s revelation – we are assured those actions will contribute to God’s peace and rest in the world around us. No longer fearing the outcome of actions which is God’s job we make decisions to His glory and our peace.
Then when we choose to enter any arena of life our passion for His principles keeps us focused on speaking of His behaviors rather than ours. We focus on proposing His truths rather than ours. We no longer need to control outcomes, God’s domain, but only speaking the truth in love, our domain.