love the church?

Do we love the church? The local body of believers? Do we value meeting together? Do we give it a place of importance in our lives?

I've often wondered about those questions. Earlier today I read an article on Boundless that started me thinking about these things again. The article was called Love the Church. I would encourage you to read the article for yourself, but for those who don't, the basic premise is that in all of our desire to do big things for Jesus we cannot leave the local church in the dust. We need the local church along with those big things.

After I read the article, I found myself reflecting on what my usual attitude is towards the local church, and how it comes across in what I say and how I spend my time. Do I love the local church? Do I value meeting together with other believers? Do I value serving in the local church the same way I value doing the big things for Jesus?

There was a couple of sentences in the article that seemed to jump off the screen at me:

"The passion for ministry and commitment to a local church are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they must go together. You can't be all about the mission of Jesus and not be all about the mission of His bride."

When I read that, it felt like it got to the core of the issue for me.

I have heard the argument about not being involved in a local church that Jesus didn't go to church. Except that over and over in Scripture we find that He was to be found in the local Synagogue - the church of the day. And although He often spoke against the religious establishment of the day, Jesus was speaking against the misguided way they were leading the people in ways that were not according to God's will. Jesus' model for ministry was always in the context of people together. And much of the New Testament is comprised of letters to the local church in an area. Paul spent much of his time strengthening the local churches in areas he went to. Scripture makes it pretty clear that the local church is an important, I would daresay vital, part of our lives as followers of Christ.

So, I'm left with the question of whether I love the local church. And the challenge that I need to love the local church and I need to live in such a way that my life shows I value it.

can God trust us?

As I was working through my homework for Beth Moore's study on Daniel, I found myself struck by and unable to stop thinking about a question she asked. She was talking about Daniel 10:12 which says: "Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them." (NIV). Beth Moore then spoke about a few different phrases in this verse, all of which were challenging and encouraging (and I'm not going to talk about them in this post), although it's the last phrase she spoke about that was what caused me to stop and reflect on my life.

Part of the verse says: "... to humble yourself before your God ..." Humility. I've heard it talked about often in Christian circles. And it something we should have in our lives as followers of Christ. In her words on this phrase, Beth Moore asked a question that stopped me and made me reflect for a while. She had this to say:

We often talk about whether we can trust God, but our concluding question is, Can God trust us? Can He trust us with power, insight, and influence as He did Daniel? Or will our pride get in the way? (Beth Moore, Daniel, page 204)

I've bee a part of lots of conversations about trusting God and wrestled with that question in my own life many times. But having the question turned around on me was something that caught me a little off guard . . . in a good way. I'd never asked myself or thought about that question before.

Can God trust me? Can He use me in great ways? Can He teach me and show me new things? Or will I get caught up in my own pride does those things for and through me? Can God trust me to be able to use me to reflect His glory to the world around me? Or do things God uses me for quickly become things I use for my own glory?

Tough question. Challenging to think about.

Pride is one of those things I think we all struggle with at various points in our lives. It is easy to lose focus of being humble before God. We learn something new through study. We hear something great form God. God allows us to be part of something great that He is doing. And we become proud. Maybe not intentionally, but we become proud nonetheless. Proud of our knowledge. Proud of our ability to hear God. Proud of what we did, instead of what God did. And in the process we answer the question of whether God can trust us the way we don't want to. The answer to that questions becomes, "no, God can't trust us - our pride has gotten in the way."

But, thankfully, we can push the reset button on humility in our lives when that happens. We get on our knees before God and declare, again, our dependence on Him for all of that we do. And then we move forward in humility, praying that we can continue to live in a way that God can trust us. And, quite probably, the cycle continues to repeat itself to some degree or another for the rest of our lives. But each time it becomes easier for us to humble ourselves before God because we know that is truly the best way to live and the time between our turns back to pride grow longer and longer.

There is grace when we fail and continue to struggle with pride. There are second chances for that. But,we need to make humbling ourselves before God a lifestyle, as Daniel did. And when we do that, we can know that God can trust us with power, insight, and influence.

So, I leave you with one question to reflect on: Can God trust you?

hearing God's voice

In the last few months I've been part of conversations that have turned to what it sounds like to hear God's voice. It seems that in Christian circles we often use the words "God told me" when talking about why we're making a certain decision. I've used it often myself. But, lately I've been wondering what I actually mean when I say that.

What do I mean when I say that Gold told me to do something different? What do I mean when I say God told me not to do something?

When I say that, I'm saying that I heard God's voice in some way in my life. But, often I couldn't explain it anymore than that. I can't often tell someone how exactly I heard God's voice, but I know I have. It would be easy if hearing God's voice was like hearing someone sitting across the table from you telling you something. But, it's not. Hearing God's voice is something inside. Most often it's something personal. And that can be hard to explain to another person.

What I do know is that to learn to recognize God's voice speaking in our lives we have to take the time to develop a relationship with Him. We have to make it a priority so we can learn to hear God's voice. The same way through spending time with them we learn to recognize the voices of our family and friends, is what we have to do God if we want to learn to hear and recognize God's voice when He speaks.