godquest.com
Good sermon today. Pastor took us to mapquest.com and the detailed directions it provided to get him from his starting point to his destination. How nice would it be, he asked, to be able to look up similar directions for life. Every maneuver, every turn, distances and times that will take us from where we are to where we want to be.
Going from single to happily married?
Brush teeth--3 min.
Iron clothes--20 min.
Go to church with large singles ministry, carrying the largest Bible you possess--2 hr/wk.
Introduce yourself to beautiful people--1 min.
Say you were really blessed by the sermon and want to grow in your relationship with Christ--15 sec.
Talk about how much you enjoy kids and puppies--5 min.
:-)
Ok, humor aside, his point was that God's will as we seek it is often quite different from God's will as He reveals it in the Bible. God does have a plan for your life, but marriage, kids, location, vocation, and vacation are not in it. These things are incidental; they do not contain the substance of His will for us.
I Thessalonians 4:3-8 "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God... For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you."
I stopped following the sermon here (the next 20 minutes he talked about sanctification and holiness--yeah, I'm familiar with the topic). I was watching the family sitting in front of me. The mother wrote a note to her ?high school/college? Daughter that said, "God and I will be praying for you every day while you're gone."
That's sweet; my mom loves me too.
That exchange was the motivator I needed to understand the sermon. God no longer sees my sin, but Christ's righteousness. Yeah yeah, got it. He wants me to walk worthy of that calling. Uh-huh, got it. God does not just tolerate me and wish I would grow up, He loves me as a parent loves his child. Oh. I am lovely and precious to Him, and in His affection He longs for the day when I will stop cutting myself in service to foreign Gods and worship Him alone.
Enough of pain killers and entertaining distractions (see previous post), "One day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere... No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly."
Going from single to happily married?
Brush teeth--3 min.
Iron clothes--20 min.
Go to church with large singles ministry, carrying the largest Bible you possess--2 hr/wk.
Introduce yourself to beautiful people--1 min.
Say you were really blessed by the sermon and want to grow in your relationship with Christ--15 sec.
Talk about how much you enjoy kids and puppies--5 min.
:-)
Ok, humor aside, his point was that God's will as we seek it is often quite different from God's will as He reveals it in the Bible. God does have a plan for your life, but marriage, kids, location, vocation, and vacation are not in it. These things are incidental; they do not contain the substance of His will for us.
I Thessalonians 4:3-8 "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God... For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you."
I stopped following the sermon here (the next 20 minutes he talked about sanctification and holiness--yeah, I'm familiar with the topic). I was watching the family sitting in front of me. The mother wrote a note to her ?high school/college? Daughter that said, "God and I will be praying for you every day while you're gone."
That's sweet; my mom loves me too.
That exchange was the motivator I needed to understand the sermon. God no longer sees my sin, but Christ's righteousness. Yeah yeah, got it. He wants me to walk worthy of that calling. Uh-huh, got it. God does not just tolerate me and wish I would grow up, He loves me as a parent loves his child. Oh. I am lovely and precious to Him, and in His affection He longs for the day when I will stop cutting myself in service to foreign Gods and worship Him alone.
Enough of pain killers and entertaining distractions (see previous post), "One day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere... No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly."
posted by Motokeb at 12:40 PM
2 Comments:
Are you sure it didn't say "DAD and I will be praying for you?" I think we are supposed to pray TO God, not WITH Him... just a thought.
On a different note, the pastor obviously missed one important step, which you figured out on your own... check out all the young single girls in the congregation DURING the service so you don't have to waste time afterwards looking for them. j/k =P
BTW, that was a great post!
Almost - but it's "so you don't have to waste time afterwards" talking to the ones that don't matter.
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