Thanks to all who have been reading and commenting on the blog. I'll be at staff training for a few more days here in Madison. It is good training, but i think i'm ready to go home and see Joanna. One thing that has really impressed me this week is looking at how far the organization has come in the past 50 years. Around 1950 there was a man named Stacey Woods who went all over the country planting Christian fellowships (in that day there were not very many Christian orgs. besides IV). One time, while on his way across the country his plane made an emergency landing in a town which also had a university, so he planted a chapter there as long as he had stopped. He also went around and gave resources and advice to many of the chapters he planted. Before there were very many of us staff, a staff would have to oversee every chapter over an area of several states. One day when Stacey was headed out the door of the national service center in Madison to give literature to chapters in Georgia and North and South Carolina an advisor yelled out the door "and take Florida, too!" We've come a long way.
We read through Deuteronomy 8 as a group this week. When looking at that chapter by itself it seems like God is saying "if you keep my commands and remember me I will give you a good land." I wish with all my heart that we would have done a better job of putting that chapter into context of the whole of scripture. If we read the very next chapter, just a few verses down, we see God declaring "Know, therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness." It is because of God's promise and covenant that Israel gets this special grace of God. For us it is much the same. If we imagine for a moment that we could keep all of God's commands and not forget Him we are very wrong. But His grace is amazing, and i stand in awe. So when looking at Deuteronomy 8 we see God's free gift of grace and our brokenness. God's love and our response. God's faithfulness to His covenant and our undeserved grace. Instead of taking from the passage "look at what we need to do for God to take us to the promised land of ministry," we should say nothing because of our sin and sensing what huge grace has been given. It is His work, from the first to the last, and His love that will bring us where we go on earth and will guide us safe home. That makes me want to love and serve Him. Father, help us do that for Your Name. To Him be glory forever.
"At your right hand are pleasures forevermore." -Psalm 16:11
"Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God..." -Acts 2:33
I started this blog to give updates on life, to share in searching and submitting to Christ and God’s Word, and thoughts about books, theology, chasing squirrels, and other things. “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” Colossians 1:19-20
2 comments:
Andy, it's great to see you up and blogging on here. It's a refreshing read... Per your Deuteronomy comments, it amazes me how often our perceptions, or misperceptions, are easily corrected by the full context of Scripture. Deuteronomy 9 brings part of the fuller story - the part we (and perhaps those who put candles in Christian bookstores and write "Christian" be-the-best-you-can-be-self-help books) tend to conveniently forget. I would add, however, that I think we are to do more than say nothing in response to His great grace. I believe we are to agree with Him, and that may or may not be an auditory response, but it should certainly be a "lived-out" response - a life that constantly agrees and submits to the grace of God and the guidance of His Spirit. But perhaps that is what you were saying all along. Either way, those gar better watch out. Because we're coming for them...eventually.
Thanks Pete. You're right i think. I meant to say something more like "we should say nothing of the sort." And the gar won't even know what hit them. They finally got that record from last year in the books. 1 to go!
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