speakers

Never Getting Beyond My Need

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I was channel surfing earlier, and ran across a program called Better Together, where some speakers and authors were discussing modern idolatry and how we are all prone to it.

Basically, most of us think of idols as tiny statues made of gold or silver or wood. Most of us picture idolaters as people bowing toward some stone image that can’t possibly reciprocate.

The reality is that idolatry is taking something good, i.e. marriage, family, children, careers, success, and putting it in the place of God. It’s letting something other than God take the throne of our hearts.

The painful truth is that we are all idolaters. We have something else other than God that we put in front of God or place beside God. We never get past needing to repent our idols because our flesh craves something tangible to worship. Our flesh isn’t satisfied with God.

We will never get past our need of God because the more we grow, the more we see how far we are from the mark of God’s standard. The more we see our own faults in the light of God’s perfection and holiness. The more we understand that our good intentions rarely lead to good works.

But God is faithful even when we are not. God is faithful to His promises when we don’t keep ours to Him. God is faithful to pursue us when we so often pursue so many lesser objects instead of God. God is faithful to finish what He started in us and make us like Jesus.

A Letter from Jesus to His Church

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Disclaimer: If you’re looking for something warm and fuzzy and feel-good, this is not it. You can skip to the next blog, which will be about fuzzy bunnies and cute kittens.

I was wondering if Jesus wrote a letter to one of his churches, particularly the post-modern trendy churches popping up all over the place, I’d bet it would go something like this:

“I came to one of your services and sat in the back row. I felt unwelcome and unwanted. Nobody turned around and greeted me. Nobody even so much as acknowledged my presence there.

They sang songs about me with great enthusiasm, about how great I am to save and how mighty God is. The preacher spoke at great length about how important it is to know me. But I walked in and out of the building and no one even saw me.

You have an amazing facility with some of the latest technology. You have some of the best singers and musicians leading the worship and one of the best speakers to motivate my people. But if there’s no real love behind it, it’s all just noise. And I didn’t see much love.

I came as one of the least of these. The outcast, the loser, the nobody. The ones you say you love, but your actions prove otherwise.

Get back to loving the unlovely. Don’t just associate with the popular and the trendy and those who have it all together. Take time for the ones who are sitting by themselves, who are  socially awkward, who can’t do anything for you and probably can’t even say “Thank you.”

When you serve one of the least of these, you serve me. When you ignore them you ignore me.

Remember that I loved you when you were one of these. I loved you when you hated me, when your life was a wreck and you were hopelessly lost. Remember how that love felt and how it made you come alive. Then go and share it with someone who needs it most.