Friday, January 15, 2016

FLATTENED

There may be some things that are better flat. Like bread.

I can personally attest today that tires are definitely better inflated and round.

Basketballs are no good when flat.

Soda tastes bad when it goes flat.

Followers of Jesus Christ who go flat in their spiritual life is not very good either.

Luke 14:34"Salt is good [an excellent thing], but if salt has lost its strength and has become saltless (insipid, flat), how shall its saltness be restored?"

Jesus likens us to salt. Once the saltiness is gone (or goes flat) what good is it?

The insinuation that it may not be able to be restored is disturbing.

Basketballs and tires can be pumped up with air.

Unless they are full of holes.

Some folks are full of holes. They can't retain the Spirit of God. He blows through them instead of filling them.

They get "pumped up" for a bit and then deflate and go "flat" after a season.

I find that this happens when our desire to follow Christ is more of a fad. Or when one turns to Jesus only during times of stress and difficulty.

There is no steadiness. No spiritual good health. 

Jesus spoke often in the gospels of leaving the things that kept us bound and useless spiritually and never looking back.

He said we will leave our mothers and fathers.

He said we would not even allow the death and burial of a loved one interfere with following Him.

He said we would walk away from even the largest fortunes to be His disciple.

He said we would put our shoulder to the plow and never look back on the ground we already have turned.

There is only Him before us. Our eyes are ever upon Him.

Do you have holes? Are you leaking? Deflated? Flat?

I think there is a danger zone we can reach where the flatness cannot be restored.

I also think that there are many opportunities along the way where we are given chances to achieve spiritual health.

Maybe this is your wake up call this morning?

Be blessed! Be filled!

Doc

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Us Being Us

When major league baseball player Manny Ramirez was with the Boston Red Sox and used to "act up" and perform his strange and eccentric antics, his team mates coined the phrase, "That's just Manny being Manny".
There was never really anything really wrong with "Manny being Manny". He just looked and acted a little strange at times. Then Manny got caught by a drug test for using performance enhancing drugs and was suspended for 50 games.
That now defines Manny as being Manny. It's no longer cute or funny. It's sad and disappointing. Manny is out of baseball now, and his once future Hall of Fame career is no more.
Such is life. "Manny" is really no different than us.
We are just us trying to be us on a daily basis, from the rich and famous and powerful, to the rank and file of people who have to punch in to be noticed every day.
People being people. Us being us.
Paul says in 1 Cor.4:12 - "And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it".
In other words, we act upon or respond to our world in certain ways.
What he is describing is how a disciple of Jesus Christ gets through the day.
We "despised fools for Christ" are just "disciples being disciples".
We choose to be that just as everyone else including Manny choose to be who they are.
Your mission today, should YOU decide to accept it, is to be you being Jesus.
Doc