Weeds vs Instruments

My pastor has been teaching through Philippians. I have been reading the tiny but meaty book in the mornings. It was an easy jump for me to go from Philippians to Colossians. In Colossians, Paul is focused on the preeminence of Christ. Today I sat on my deck and read and thought about Colossians.

I have been enjoying my mornings on my deck. I read a little, talk to God a little and then go play in the garden. Usually I harvest some onions and spinach and anything else I can find and come in and make an omelette. There is something satisfying about working for my food. This morning I was out in the garden pulling weeds when I remembered something my agronomy teacher said during a lecture. "Any plant is a weed when it is growing where you don't want it to grow." I was busy pulling out volunteer tomato plants. They volunteered to grow in the middle of my squash patch, in my flowers, and just about everywhere else.

As I pulled out volunteer tomatoes, bluegrass, clover, wild carrots and morning glories, I couldn't help but wonder how many times I have made myself a weed in God's garden. I always seem to want to volunteer to do something He hasn't given me to do. I think that happens when the focus of doing something for Him takes priority over being focused on Him.

Being focused on doing gets us into trouble. I think the seeker-sensitive-pomo-emergent agenda reflects the errant focus I am talking about. I don't think professing believers set out to build systems of ruin within the body of Christ. I think they start out wanting to bring honor to God but they lose their way and focus on what they need to do to bring people to God. Instead of being an instrument in God's hands they have tried to be the vehicle that draws a fallen people to Him. Since they do not have the power and strength of the Holy Spirit, they resort to what they do know. Seeker friendly is a politically correct term for manipulation. There is a difference between being winsome because your speech and demeanor reflect the love of Christ and being overly solicitous and dare I say, duplicitous, stooping to any level to get people through the doors of your church.

The Holy Spirit draws, the Gospel of Christ saves and we should be focused on the power and mercy of Almighty God; the preeminence of Christ and the strength of His name. We need to know our place and be clay in His hands instead of weeds in His garden.

Psalm 18:1-6 1 "I love Thee, O LORD, my strength."2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.3 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.4 The cords of death encompassed me, and the torrents of ungodliness terrified me.5 The cords of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me.6 In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

Hebrews 7:25-27 25 Hence, also, He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. 26 For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens;27 who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the {sins} of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

Col 1:13-20 13 For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.15 And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.16 For by Him all things were created, {both} in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created by Him and for Him.17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything.19 For it was the {Father's} good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him,20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, {I say} whether things on earth or things in heaven.(NAS)

Character Flaws, Sin and Remediation

I have been thinking about my last post in which I offered to talk about how having a job has shown or magnified my character flaws. Before I do though, I want to distinguish between character flaws and sin. My character flaws predispose me to sin in certain areas more readily than in others. Indulging in my character flaws is sinful. Entertaining the idea of indulging my character flaws is sinful. They are the weaknesses in me where my flesh makes itself known by screaming, "You know you want to!!" Too often I hear Christians lamenting that they "make mistakes" or are victims of their genetic make-up and intimate that they should, therefore, be excused from culpability for being prone to certain activities. Our cultural dependence on a medical model to define our behavior has given many what they see as a plausible excuse for sin. I don't see that caveat in the Word. For Christians, the Word is always our standard. It is the standard by which all will be j

Fear Down, Hope and Peace to Go!

Last night I had the honor and privilege to present some information to the women of my church. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love and appreciate them. The seminar I did was on fear. God is clever and He had me present the information to them because I needed it. It's not that I don't want to study things for my own benefit and growth, but whenever I do a topical study to teach it, I see how badly I needed it and how much more I have to repent of than I realized. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. That's a topic I want to return to in another post. I want to talk about the ladies for a moment. They are an incredibly loving group of women. Women who seek God and are teachable. They have gone out of their way to include me and love on me, which speaks volumes of their characters because I am not all that lovable. I am not being self-deprecating here. I am a mix of endearing and maddening qualities like anyone else. What I am telling you is

Super Church a song for the Emergent-sy

In the early 70s I was in a youth choir at my church. Our youth pastor was a musician and his way of connecting with us as a group was through the choir and music. Somehow there was an affiliation between him and The Continental Singers, New Hope and Jeremiah People. He was worked with Moishe Rosen of Jews for Jesus too, I think. Are any of these names familiar to you? Though I remember the church fondly I was a profoundly lost and troubled young woman during my years there. That and time have muddled the memories quite a bit. Today I was digging through some old paperwork and one of the books to the musical we did. It's Getting Late For the Great Planet Earth, a folk rock oratorio by Cam Floria. Yes, that's right. Cam Floria put Hal Lindsey to music. There's a lot to laugh about and some to groan about but as I was looking through the songs and remembering, I found this little ditty and I only wish I could sing it for you. Just remember that this is circa 1972 and even th

rambling rosemarie

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