Milking God

Is God taken advantage of? Is that even possible? Let's think about it: God is always there, He offers his help when we need it, it is impossible for Him to do anything "wrong"...so I guess it's not. There are really only two things about Him we can use to our advantage. Here they are:

1) Using his name. We can twist the holy name by using it as just another word in our dictionaries. Well, let's just say that He's made it clear He don't like that too much. We can use the title "Christian" to let others view us a certain way, however that may be.

2) This one is the one that counts. We can take advantage of God because He is always there. Since He is always by our side and willing to help, well, why would we reasonably ignore Him in our times of distress? All He asks is our repentance and cooperation, so any other reasoning to ignore our God is folly. Take advantage of God "while you can", not because He only gives you one chance or a certain amount of time to choose, but because we only have one life to live, and who knows how long that will be?

--P.S. Stop milking God to get what you want, take what He's got and you won't need milk ever again!

--P.P.S. Recall what Paul said in 1 Cor. 3:21 "I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready."

Muck

Ode to the Stagnant Waters 

by Nathan Titchenal 

Waters abide by nature alone 
Unaffected by civilization’s wood and stone. 
Life held in its barren form, 
A thing to be visited in seasons of warmth. 

Meaning held to be compared
By feelings and actions not many can spare,
But the stagnant waters that glow with life;
Pools amidst the frontage of strife, 
Of glamorous figures who have hidden their ways, 
Hidden their feelings over the span of days, 
Can be found even in the worst of life’s storms 
In the worst of our troubles, our doubts reformed. 

Oh, the stagnant pools, 
Your wisdom surpasses the rush of fools. 
From the knowledge you hold of life and its workings,
Of death and its doings,
You must recognize by now,
As every knee must bow,
We are never alone
For we cannot possibly survive in this broken world
On our own.

Jesus wallows in our muck.

 This poem was written to portrait the morality, frailty, monotony, insignificance (etc.) of the human race. If you can picture a pool of stagnant water, never having been seen nor touched by man, lying dormant in some secluded forest, then you might consider how it would practically feel it's own insubordination and helplessness to be some physical thing. The application of this kind of position in the chain of life is to say that, 1) All humans beneath God cannot possibly be or become more or less equal to this analogical stagnant pool, and 2) At such a level of depravity, we should not be able to help but see the significance of a bondage with the only being who could possibly fulfill our needs.

That being, that figure, is Jesus Christ. Remember him when you begin to feel like a mucky pool of water again.

Think Different.

The Lord has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does. ~Isaiah 8:11

So think about it for a minute: what does the world think about? What do we neglect to think about? I'll start with a list:

-Language

-Perversion in ads/movies/TV

-Aggressive attitude toward friends/family/coworkers

-Fighting over prices

-Gluttony/complacency

Now, we as Christians generally try not to participate in these things. Because it is all around us, however, we begin to write it off and often become desensitized to it. We no longer harbor a hatred for the sin we see or a longing to help those people who don't see it.

"When will we realize that we've been desensitized by the lies of the world" ~Skillet

Instead, consider reevaluating what it is Jesus would be disgusted by--how he would respond--were he standing by you experiencing it firsthand. My bet is that he would already understand the depth of our sin, so he would begin showing love to those who don't seem to see the evil in their lives.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ~Romans 12:9

Whose Shoes?

Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. ~Ephesians 5:10

If you've ever watched a fly or an ant, you may have noticed that they seem to move in random directions that will take them much longer to get to their destination than simply moving in a straight line. We like efficiency because it was how God made us: sentient beings. The ant can't necessarily see far enough in front of itself to know where it needs to go, simply because God did not make it to be quite so tall as us. Although we can't hold to this ant analogy too strictly, considering they most likely don't have an afterlife, we can take something from them. God made both us and the ants to see only so far ahead of us and gave each of us an inherent purpose in this life. Part of pleasing the Lord is simply to pursue the traits God implanted in us, to be who God made us to be. We have gifts, we have desires, and we have a God who wants to see us strive; so, in order to know what pleases the Lord, we have but two things to do: be ourselves and expose our strengths for his use, and ask Him just where it is He would have us go with whatever we find.

Me: I'll find the right style and sized shoe if you program my shoes where to go, deal?

God: Let's do this together, my child! 

"To please God is to obey His commands no matter how difficult. To please God is to offer Him all that I am, all my heart and soul. To please God is to have faith in His Son. To please Him is to turn away from a sinful past. To live to please God should be my goal as a Christian. To please God is to bear the Fruits of the Holy Spirit — that I should learn how to love, be joyful, be peaceful, be patient, show kindness, spread goodness, not lose faith, be gentle, and have self-control. To please Him is to be strengthened by His power in every circumstance. To please Him is to live a life so grateful to the blessings because they are undeserved–causing me [to live] each moment carefully as if it is my last." ~Reah Padla

Ignorant Lese Majesty

Make the Lord of Heaven’s Armies holy in your life. He is the one you should fear. He is the one who should make you tremble. ~Isaiah 8:13

If I could underline just a few things in the verse above, one of them would be the verb Make. It's up to us to make God holy to us. God is holy, but if we can't see that, then we can't see God. The connection must be made, just like when we make new friends here on earth. We make a connection, see a face, call out a greeting, and it feels so natural. Meeting with God won't feel natural at first, because it's hard to see him.

Some people call God invisible, but that is far from the truth. If God were a human, he would be visible as we know the term, but because he doesn't take shape, he can't be anything, but rather he can be in things. God can be seen in people, in nature, in everything he has created, but it takes time. First make the connection, then make God holy in your life by honoring his will.

Tongues of Action

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. ~Ecc. 9:10 (NIV)

Any one part of the church can become a leader to the rest. Leadership simply means guiding the people to new grounds. That's what the pastor does, that's what the guest speakers do, the worship leaders, all the volunteers who provide information and new ideas: they plant a seed that may or may not take flight and reproduce. The difference then, between a church of stagnant waters and a people of action is how the leader leads.

Take the presidents' many roles for example. If all they do is explain what they will do for their nation before election but end up not following through with it in office, they won't be reelected and America won't be as well off as it might have been. As leaders, it doesn't always work--in fact, it almost never works--to just explain an idea to the church during a service or somewhere convenient and expect results. It allows time for the thoughts to settle in, for the already stagnant pool to stir up a few bubbles, and for the devil to twist those motives until everyone forgets the idea again. The truth behind an accomplished president is that they know how to take action responsibly and show the people their thoughts without ever having to explain them first. As leaders, we must take initiative and do. Then, when God works through us to accomplish his will, the people will see it and follow. It's precisely how Jesus worked in his short time on earth, so maybe we should try doing the same in our own lives. Think about it.

Swim At Your Own Risk!

I have held this idea for the past week about how we are rivers, or rather, carriers of an ever-flowing body. Now, there are many different angles you could look at this analogy, and they all might make their own decent points, but for this post, I'd like to bring up just one.

The river of life flows through us as it does through all people. It is a river of blessings that fill us in our darkest days. God is its source; He was the one to start it flowing, and guides its branches through everyone--I have no doubt that he blesses even the unsaved. They simply don't know its source, they brush it aside and call it fate. The point is that we all are gifted with the blessings of the Most High, but we are also faced with the choice of how to use what we are given.

Many Christians today lose such a potentially strong connection with God because they speak to him and never listen, take from him and never give back. We tend to gather the river up in a dam and keep it for ourselves. This causes a problem though, as the river was meant to flow from one being to the next. We are to take the spirit of God and follow it to wherever it leads, helping those it touches. Only then will our connection upstream be strong and healthy. Only then can we truly communicate and coordinate with our Maker.