Lead pastor Blog I.IV
April 20, 2009 by Russ
Filed under Pastor's Blog
In our spiritual journey there is always another level to ascend. Our journey actually begins long before we ever encounter Christ in a personal relationship. We are just unaware of the Holy Spirit’s gentle work in our life. However once we truly do enter into that personal relationship with Christ we embark upon a life-long journey of learning and growing…..or at least we should.
What I mean is that in all honesty we have many individuals who have encountered Christ and somehow decided that was all they really needed to do. They may have prayed a prayer or went forward at an event or in some way engaged the God of the universe out of a sense of their own personal need. That was and is great but it is only a start.
One of the exciting things about our relationship with Christ on earth is that it can never be saturated. We literally can never get to a point where we say that is all there is when it comes to knowing/walking with God. No one has ever learned everything you can learn from God. No one has ever walked as close to God as it is possible to walk with Him. No one has ever trusted God to the point where we could say it is impossible to trust him more. Do you see where I am going with this?
The challenge is to keep on casting the vision for the people so that we collectively as well as individually catch the vision to go further in our walk with God. I do not understand why we would ever stop at the great news that God loves us and sent His Son to die on our behalf to forgive us our sins. That first slice of good news is only the start of the whole pie. Keep cutting yourself another piece of the good news God has to share with you. We could spend a life time just meditating on the basic truth that God loves us and we could keep going to new levels of understanding that truth.
If you are bored in your walk with God something is awry. If you can’t get excited about trusting the God who created the universe we see as well as who knows what we can’t see then something is amiss. Perhaps it is time to just pray a basic prayer: God shock me out of my lethargy. The Christian life is anything except boring. There is so much to see, feel, experience, understand, grasp, search and on and on it goes.
Are you with me?
How true! It seems that often God has a “theme” in mind when I read through his Word. Each time I read through the Bible, a different theme seems to present itself to me. I’ve never read through the Bible without learning!
I just tried to catch up on the previous blogs, and yay on let’s go get men (I mean that even though it sounds funny). the other thing that jumped out at me is how you remark on the church being full of imperfect people. (it’s from one of your early blogs) I think that is great, so how do we as a church show that? How do we not become lazy in our approach to worship, to worshipping, to prayer- but show earnest attempts of the heart? How do we put our best foot forward with our services, with our church building, with the programs and the maintenance-everything- while opening wide the doors and being imperfect?
sometimes I see myself cutting the grass and keeping the floors clean in my own house so that anyone who comes in will see how with it I am, how succesful or whatever you want to call it. Then I wonder, is the chaos missing? Do those who come in only see one side of me not including my heart because I have camouflaged it so well behind the Febreeze?