THE NEXT STEP
THE NEXT STEP
Where do we fit in? I'm talking about our place here on earth, in the Body of Christ. Some with tell you that their church is the body of Christ alone. But it is bigger than this. Being a part of the Body of Christ is important, there is much that a church can do to help people and communities, churches can also help countries through missionary work. But there are so many different churches out there, how would a person know which one to join?
He did not make us unable to eat of the tree of knowledge, He told us not to, giving us the choice. I don't think that God wanted us to be robots, doing what we were told because that was all that we could do. God wants us to choose Him. When Adam made the choice to go against God a part of him died. We all lost a closeness with God that was had in the garden up to the point of that choice. The death we had as a result of the choice made that day was Spiritual death. If you look at all of the commandments given to the Jews, I think there are over 600 of them all together, He also told them what was to be done when they were broken. Here are the rules, you will brake them, and when you do, you must do this. He knows what we are and what we will do and He wants us to come to Him to ask for forgiveness. Choice brought us to where we are, we lost that closeness with God because of a choice.
We are offerred a new life, a new spirit, a new heart in Jesus. He gave us these things as a comfort and as a guide to living. When I am doing something that is not right, I feel it and am soon confronted on it, usually in the bible-seemingly by accident, I just come accross something in the Word that shows me what I'm doing is not right. But sometimes it is from others that I get the message. They don't even know they are delivering the message to me but here they are showing me my wrong. I now have at least two pointing out my wrong: the inside "voice" and the bible or this person. I feel that the Law is written in my heart, that is why I know when I have done wrong and it does affect me. I am not ignorant of my wrongs, I am aware in a way that I was never aware before.
Paul here is talking about the choice to turn away from the sin that is in our flesh. We have this choice. We have the example of the life Jesus lived, a life of complete righteousness. He was tempted but always turned to the Father and was able to fight off all attacks. By the teachings of the gospels we see that with the power of God, we are able to be free of sin. But Paul also talked about how strong this enemy is:
Paul is talking about the constant struggle that goes on within our bodies and minds. A war of knowing what is right-and wanting to do just that, and failing. On my own I cannot fight this war, there is no way, for I am of the flesh. I fight, but "do not understand what I do". There is only one way to win this war, as Paul answers his own question from verse 24.
We are living according to the Spirit that lives in us when we turn away from the sin of our lives and choose to follow God. As Paul said we will still feel these pulls towards sin, but with our new Weapon, turning to God for help and forgiveness, we can become better at spotting these thoughts and desires for what they are. We are saved by Grace, but that is never a reason to let sin overtake you, to give in to the desires of sin or flesh. We must fight with our new Weapon these pullings, always knowing that it is God that saves us from sin, both by forgiveness and by His strength to resist our sinful nature. For God is our Strength, our Weapon to fight our sinful nature.
As we turn over the parts that bring us to sin, the Spirit is then able to move into those places that we have made open. And as we concern ourselves with things of the Spirit, our focus becomes spiritual in nature. We find that the things that had such a hold on us have become smaller. If we are spending all of our time fighting these things, they become larger, our focus is on the very things we wish to have leave us. But by turning away from these things and focussing on things of the Spirit, this becomes our focus, the more we concern ourselves with the things of the Spirit the larger this focus becomes until it is the most important thing in our lives. It is a process, we do this as the things that lead us to sin come up. Little by little the transformation happens and we see how we are changing by looking at how we were before. The first step in turning away from sin is to bring it to God, asking for forgiveness and asking for Him to remove these things from us.
There are things we can do to help the process too. For one, if we find that when we are with certain people we tend to do wrong-we must stop spending time with these people.
We do have a choice much of the time about the people that we are to be around. If they are leading you into sin, stay away from them. As an addict, I know that the friends I had when I was using drugs are not who I can be around now. I cannot hide from drugs completely, there are many people that do drugs in my type of work. But I don't go with them out to their cars at lunch, if they are going to get high over in the corner, I walk the other way. I don't have to be right there with them as they use drugs. Do you see what I'm saying here? We can choose to place ourselves at risk or we can choose to place ourselves in safty. Best to be with "likeminded" people. I live in a sober living home-with others that are sober. I am part of a church-with others that are interested in God.
I am not good at bringing others to God. I don't know how to do this well. I find that here at this sober living house I am tolerated but it is because of my strength in my program. But as far as what my program is, they really don't want to hear about it. I think this is because I have talked openly about the anonymous programs not being enough for me. This is something that the "programers" don't want to hear, even if it is me talking just about me. I felt that I needed more than the spiritual "awakening" that the program offers, I needed to continue to grow spiritually. And I went to the Source. The holes that I felt inside me are full now, I feel that I am being led towards Spiritual Fulfillment. So as far as evangelism, I am lacking. But I am becomming closer to my God as I walk this path. I am learning more about His love for me and I will continue to do so. These writtings are a way for me to do just that. Over time I hope that I will be used by God to witness to others about the Good News I have found.
We all have gifts, I don't know what mine are right now. I know that I am young as a follower of Christ and my gift may come later. Right now I feel my place is to learn how to be close to my Lord, to know what He wants me to do, and then do just that. I find that when I pray and read the Word I feel closer to God, so I know that this is the right path. I love the bible study at my church, it feels good to be with others that are interested in what God is telling us in the Word. My pastor is strong in his knowledge of the Word and I feel that he really cares about teaching us. I have alot of respect for him. Sometimes I need to have my studies regulated, structured so I have a direction set before me. I do a study by mail and it is a simple way to keep up with parts of the Word that I'm not otherwise studying. These pages also help me by allowing to go over what I have found. Although I write this as though I am talking to someone, I am really just rolling over my thoughts from the verses that have been brought to me. I am able to dicuss with myself the information that I am learning about.
I had a wonderful experience tonight and I thought that I would write alittle about it. What happened speaks to me about the choice I made in the church I am part of an the man who is the pastor there. I came to the bible study after work to find that the pastor was involved with helping a young woman who was in a bad situation, she needed help and really could not do anything to help herself. She was being taken advantage of by the people she knew and is also handicaped. The pastor was able to help this woman because of a fund set up from donations to help just such people in need. His compassion really hit me, as he found a place for her to stay and even may work out a way to get her home where she maybe safe. I was honoured to be standing with him as he helped her.
I know I made the right choice about this church, that would help out someone they don't know just because she desparately needed it. And the pastor. Here is a man I can so deeply respect because he would devote his time and if need be his money to help another one of God's children who has found her way to the church and is plainly in need. I was directed to this church, I've said that from the beginning. There are maybe 10 or 15 churches very close to where I live but it was this place that I pulled into and asked about, knowing nothing about the church. You may say all churches do these things and I hope you are right. But I don't think they all would have done it so freely to someone they did not check out first, and so promptly. This is why I put money in the basket, this is what I pray to be a part of. I thank God for just being a small part of this, and for helping me (or at least letting me think I was the one to) make the right choice.
One thing about choice is that it is always possible to make the wrong one. But when dealing with right and wrong, we generally know when we have crossed over the line from light into the dark. Even as a child I knew when I did something wrong that it was wrong, but things like, "No one saw me do it" or "I'm gonna do it anyway" or even "I don't care" came into mind making it okay. I lived with a lesser degree of guilt for doing wrong than I do now. I call this the law written in my heart (Jeremiah 31:33). I am confronted as I mentioned above and I pray for forgiveness and for the stregnth to overcome these things. I have no power, or do I? I have the power to call on the Power of the Almighty God.
I find myself with choices that are hard for me to make. On one hand I have been taught that my job is everything, but I also know that my service to the church is a privilage, and that I am honored to be able to do this. There a new part of the war is opened to me. I know I must always place God first and service to the Body is service to Him. But I also know that I could lose so much by refusing to work when needed. I am not so important at my job that I can make demands, simple requests can hurt me. I need to be the guy that will get the job done, someone that can be trusted to be there when needed. There are so many levels to what we are willing to do for security. Jesus would say, "Follow me." But does my hurting my employment mean that I am not following Him? But it is a question of how far are we willing to go? Am I or am I not taking up my cross daily and following Him? Is it: I'll follow only til it hurts, then I'm out of here.? Does my not being able to serve the church one Sunday mean that I have left Him. That answer is "NO!"
And now I find that it is time for me to look for another church to worship and to serve the Body and my Lord. Would my leaving one church for another mean that I have let God down in any way? Again the answer is "No!" He is with me and I will be with Him and also care for the Body and find my place within it. My hope always is to be of the most use to the Body of Christ and to do the Will of My Lord. I must find the best way to do this.
There are easy choices and there are harder ones and we are going to be making them, all day, everyday. My only answer to the questions above is to pray to my Father about this and then study the Word for answers. I know that every question I ask is answered though I may not understand the answer or recognize it when it comes. Jesus turned to the Father for strength, He is the perfect example. I will do my best to do what He did.
I read once that a man bought this bit of land and there were many large rocks on it, boulders. He and his family began clearing them off the land so he could plant there. After they had gotten the large rocks off the land, they saw that there were many smaller, fist-sized rocks. So they began to clear those away. These were harder to clear and there were so many. They found too, that over time, rocks seemed to work their way up through the soil and had to be removed as they were found. I don't know if you see the connection to what I said above and this story but it sure made alot of sense to me. The choices may seem about petty stuff, smaller, but here are more of these and they too must be dealt with. It is good to have cleared away the larger problems that led me to sin and much troubles, but it is a continuing process to clean up even if the problems or sins seem smaller.
LINKS
Jesus started a revolution, and it turned into a blood bath-but it was His blood we were all bathed in.
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