Our culture says, "Try harder!" ... "Believe in yourself!" ... "Be determined!" Our culture loves self-help gurus and self-focused ways of dealing with our problems. But anyone who has been in recovery and has emerged from the process with success, sings a different tune. "I admit that I am powerless over my addictions and compulsive behaviors and my life has become unmanageable ... I know that nothing good lives in me!" Paul said it this way ... "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, I keep on doing (Romans 17:18b-19)!" So, I want to ask some questions.
1. Do you repeat behaviors that keep placing you in troubling situations? Every addicted person will answer "yes" but many of us are unwilling to see and admit our addictive patterns, so we miss the first step of leaving them behind.
2. Do you find yourself saying, "I've seen this before ... why does this keep happening to me?" See question 1 and reread it!
3. Do you believe Scripture? If the answer is yes, Paul is right and he might be addressing something universally true, both in his congregations and over history! God/Scripture is accurate and applicable!
4. What can we learn from Paul here? Glad you asked!
J.D. Watt, in Still Day One has the crazy idea that the repeated practice of trying harder and believing in yourself is a certain entry into a repeated pattern of behavior that has no end. It doesn't work. What works is what always works ... applying God's word:
1. "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away (2 Cor. 3:16)." Turn to the Lord and you will begin to see clearly. Which means you must turn away from YOU/SELF.
2. "Now the Lord is spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17)." Freedom from our patterns and addictions comes from getting out of your will and your spirit and allowing God's Spirit to fill you.
Bishop Scott Jones, at Annual Conference and in other conversations, told us we must be willing to leave our previous connection by forgetting many of the ways of thinking we have been practicing over the last 50 years. He says if we fail here we will become a different version of the institution we left. Dr. Jeff Greenway, this past Friday evening, said we must leave our addictive patterns behind, especially those that were focused on building a denomination ... for if God desires the denomination, it will build itself!
"Kicked out and fired!" That was the story from my buddy in West Alabama. "What can we do?" I sent the message all the way up the line to Rev. Keith Boyette and Rev. Angela Pleasants. They said, "We will do whatever it takes to get them planted in a new location, and get my friend on board as a GMC pastor." 6 months later, that new church is planted in West Alabama with hymnals from Abbeville Methodist, administrative help from another GMC church, resources from the River Network, and lots of faithful prayers from all over. Angela Pleasants and I have been there. I served their 1st communion. And (Andy and Tina) they have a 12 member choir! Yesterday, my friend was ordained as a Deacon in the GMC. That same story is being played out all over America, Asia, Africa, Europe and the whole world. As many as 15 new congregations are in their infancy, just in the Alabama, Emerald Coast Conference. I will begin work with a church plant (this coming week to a town near you) that already bursting at the seams!!! How is this happening? Because we are part of a movement that says, "What is Jesus doing?" and then says, "How can we help?"
Twila Paris writes (from Romans 10:15) "How beautiful, are the hands that serve, the wine and the bread and the sons of the earth, how beautiful are the feet that walked, the long dusty roads and the hill to the cross." When we let go and allow God's Spirit to run the show we find healing from our patterns, freedom from our intuitional bonds, flight from the cages we have built around ourselves, and freedom in Christ. That little church in West Alabama thanks you for beautiful feet! May God's Good News be proclaimed over the whole world! AMEN
No comments:
Post a Comment