After spending much of my day tying up loose ends prior to our upcoming move. i.e cancelling our phone with Rogers, starting up a new plan with Bell (Rogers home phone can't be transfered to Owen Sound unfortunately, b/c -Rogers is cheaper, and offers more special discounts). Anyways I eventually grabbed my red tuck-tapped bible and streched out on our burgandy carpet to read through some of 1 Corinthians.
By the way Muskoka was lovely. We ate dinner at Beauideal Resturant in Port Sydney, and then I had Kawartha Moose Tracks ice cream and Julie had raspberry yogurt - just delicious! On Sunday we had breakfast on the dock, Julie and I read through parts of Isaiah and John together discussing "vineyard" imagery. We decided that God once called Israel to be the vine and other nations were to be blessed through them, but they were a barren vineyard which eventually was cut-off only to usher in the "true vine" Jesus. Now Jesus is the Vine and all of us are now able to bless others and be in union with God via Jesus.
But back to 1 Corinthians. There's a lot God spoke to me about but I'd like to share these two ideas.
1. CHECK YOUR MOTIVATION -
1 Corinthians 4:5 "He will bring to light what is hidden in the darkness and will expose the motives of peoples hearts"
When I read this God asked me "Are you persuing me to be empowered by the Holy Spirit? Is that your motivation? If it is your wrong. Persue me just to discover more about me, persue me to be with your creator, persue me just to be with me, for the satisfaction of just being present with me".
As I persue God a by product of our deepening relationship will be the empowering of the Holy Spirit to use me. God want's my foremost motive in persuing Him to just be Him. That's all. Let that sink in, it's actually took me a while to really get this.
A friend of mine (Chris Lewis) has actually heard God speak into his life recently about his motivation and he described this lesson on his blog saying.
"On the particularly long drive back to Philadelphia I thought that I would shut down this blog for a while, perhaps until the end of August. I think I need to spend less time worrying about what people think of me, of what I write, and who they perceive me to be and more time figuring life out, what I want, what God wants and how to move towards that"
(check out his blog, he left some very helpful quotes, and thoughts)
2. CHECK YOUR PERCEPTION
1 Corinthians 4:7-8 "For who makes your different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not recieve? And if you did recieve it, why do you boast as through you did not? Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have become kings-and that without us. How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be king with you."
Sometimes like these Corithians I forget that I don't deserve to be holy in God's eyes. Sometimes I forget that I'm really no different then the multitude of other broken people. In Chris Folmsbee's book "A New Kind of Youth Ministry" Chris says "There's no such thaing as "us" and "them". It's all one big us. The only thing that makes me as a believer different is the grace of God.
The second part of this verse reminds me of the journey "arrived yet distant" concept. God doesn't want me in my holiness via positional sanctification (from Christ) to forget about the necessary progressive sanctification (work of the Spirit) which is a daily thing. I must remain in the inbetween, the satisfied yet unsatisfied, the rich yet poor, the king yet slave. I need to hold both of these realies in my perspective.
After I finished reading I tried to pray but I got sleepy so I layed down on the floor, but I knew if I closed my eyes I wouldn't get much praying done. So I got up on the couch and slowly I started to slip my head down, I even decided to go lay down in bed but just as I flopped myself unto the covers I was reminded of the story of Jesus' disciples who always fell asleep when they were supposed to be praying. So I got up and kneeled at the bed. I think I know why people kneel by their beds, it's hard to fall asleep when kneeling.
After I finally beat off the sleepyness I had a good time of prayer. My advice, try to stay uncomfortable during prayer.
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