Reality 5: A Crisis of Belief… the fork in the road

In a recent crisis, a popular politician was heard to say to his aide, “About that charge that I’m indecisive.  Do you think I should answer it. . .or let it go. . .or answer it in part. . .or what?”  That reminded me of what a man did whose home was on the border that separated the North and the South during the American Civil War.  He didn’t want to take sides so he wore a Confederate Army jacket and Union Army pants.  But he ran into trouble.  The Union soldiers shot at his jacket and the Confederates shot him in the pants!  Indecisiveness has its downsides.  Indecisiveness comes with a price.  And often the wounds are deep and the scars are indelible. 

 

Decision making is important in ordinary life.  It’s crucial in the Christian’s life.  But if we are going to experience God we must expect a life with complex choices and alluring enticements.  There will be slippery slopes. . .dark valleys. . .steep climbs. . . stormy nights. .  .sunless days.  And all are forks in the road.  They are turning points or possible tipping points that serve to refine our faith and sharpen our vision for God.  The right decision brings celebration and serves to enhance our faith.  The wrong decision brings pain and often serves to weaken our resolve.

 

When you find yourself at one of those ‘fork-in-the-road’ decisions remember who you are.  Remember who chose you.  Remember your faith.  Don’t sacrifice your faith for popularity or power or pleasure or prestige.  Surrendering your faith at the fork in the road is a step away from the cross, and it’s also a giant step closer to the One who put Jesus there.

 

Aren’t you glad that when Jesus came to the fork in the road he chose to travel the one with a cross on it?

 

Choose life. . .Eternal life!

Reality 3: God Invites Us To Join Him At Work

• God is always at work.
• God is pursuing you with his relentless love.
• God wants to reconcile with you and he invites you to join him in His mission to reconcile others to Him.

It’s interesting that Jesus even said that he only does what the Father tells Him.  Jesus, God’s own Son, followed the lead of God.  He joined God in what He was doing.   Jesus even begged to get out of an assignment, atleast one recorded.  I wonder if there were more.   Nevertheless, God was ready to use His Son for His mission.  Jesus wasn’t down here to “do his own thing”.  There was a divine purpose orchestrated by the Almighty Creator and Redeemer.

Blackaby makes the remark: “History never waits for our decisions… history keeps on moving, and that historical moment will never again be the same.  When God invites, there is a window of opportunity for our response, and if we don’t respond quickly, that opportunity is gone…”

Who did God place in your life at just the right time to turn you toward him?

Whom has God placed in your life right now, or in the past that needs God’s love – through you?

Blackaby goes on to say that, for Moses, going over to the burning bush and just looking and listening to it was a small assignment… “It started out small, but nothing that God has in mind is little.”  Look how big it got… and God’s power was sustaining the call ALL THE WAY. 

You may think that the only calling one can recieve that is truly from God is from is to go into full time ministry… or maybe to be missionaries… or to give a lot of money… or pray all night … Honestly, it makes me tired thinking of those big assignments, and pretty fearful… but what if God is calling us to something “that” big.  In my experience, it seems that he first calls us to a smaller step.  Something right under our nose.   We seem to always think that God is going to call us to go “over there” and to do “that”.  What if God opened our eyes and said “here” and keep doing “this”.   We don’t usually look for God to tell us to: “just be aware of the new coworker”; or “check on your  neighbor you haven’t seen in weeks”; “your daughter needs you right now, make room in your day for her”; “make that phone call”; “make peace with your dad”; or something else very close to home.

God is not necessarily calling us to all stop at every corner and give money to the traveller.  He’s not calling us all to buy a meal at subway for that man who’s hungry.  He’s not calling us to go to the “south side”, because there’s obviously a physical need, surely there’s a spiritual void, too, right?  Wrong.  God may be calling you to one of those situations.  But there is a spiritual void on YOUR street.  At YOUR work place.  In the restaurant you ALREADY are eating at.  Let’s ask God to open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts… that we would hear, see, and respond to His calling, and join Him where He’s already at work.

You may think your invitation or assignment from God is too small, or way to big.  But if God is the one giving the call or the opportunity, it’s never to little, and never to large.  Remember: “He always gives assignments that match his ability… not yours.”

Will you join Him?

Share with us God’s providence in your life through people He has used; OR what do you believe He is calling you to do now? 

 

Reality 2: God Pursues a Loving Relationship With Us

So are we talking about “Chasing God” or “The Chasing God”?

Isn’t the point of doing these “40 Day Journeys” so we can “get closer to God”.  I mean: we read a booklet, we listen to sermons, we watch a video with a guy who looks like he has a floating head (you know, the guy with the “blue computerized screen” behind him), and Jerry preaches on a specific topic.  So… end result: we feel closer to God, right?  We’ve done something that allows us to get closer to God.  We’re chasing God.  We want to catch Him.  We want our effort to get us closer to God. 

That perspective is quite a contrast from “The Chasing God”.  Think about it.  “Chasing God” and “The Chasing God”.  There’s a fundamental difference.  It’s one of the biggest reason for misinterpreting God that there is.

“Chasing God”, that’s religion.  Religion is man trying to bind himself to God.  Some how our efforts make us deserving of salvation.  It is focused on our efforts, our accomplishments, our “deservingness”.  Some how we have “earned” the way.

“The Chasing God”, now that’s a relationship.  A “relationship with God” is man recieving a relationship in which God has made the way.  God has pursued us and invited us into a relationship… and He’s also made the way, the effort.  He made the way and invited us before we were good enough.  God continues to pursue us, daily, hourly, one thought, decision, and action at a time.  It is a “gift”, not something we have been able to purchase or merrit.  God is chasing after us.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life”.  Romans 6:23  Pauls words outline two economies.  One is an economy of earning our way (our payment, our wage), which ends in death.  The other economy is based on grace.  It’s based on the recieving of a gift that we don’t deserve, yet we have the option of recieving or rejecting.  Participating in this second economy ends in life.  Because God is Chasing Us.

In John 17:3, John records Jesus prayer.  Jesus says that “This is eternal life, that they may know God and His Son, Jesus Christ”.  What if we don’t have to wait to see Him face to face to begin “that life”?  What if God’s invitation right now is to know Him, and begin living in a relationship that He has made a way for?   What if getting the most out of life doesn’t consist of following all the ”church rules”, but is about yielding our life to a relationship with ”The Chasing God” – the God that chases after us, pursues us, & wants to live life together with us now.   What if that “life together” with The Chasing God shapes our lives and guides us as we love God back with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strenght; and our neighbor as ourselves.

In what ways has God revealed His love for you?

Do you find yourself “Chasing God” instead of loving “The Chasing God”? 

How “is” God pursuing the YOU?

How is God using you to express His love to someone else?

As you answer… pursue the personal answers, not generalities.  Lets give witness to what God is doing in our lives.

Reality 1

God is always at work around us.  Whether we realize it or not, this is reality.  As children we may have studied examples of God working in Scriptures.  If you have heard them, how can you forget accounts of Moses and the Burning Bush or God parting the Red Sea?  Yet with years passing, Bible stories may become simply stories in our adult memories.  However, in reality, reports of God at work in the Bible are invitations for us to know and experience God ourselves.

This is true here in East Texas.  God is still at work.  We want to hear how you have seen Him.  You have felt Him.  Where you have seen Him.  Let us continue to tell the stories of the God who parts the Red Sea, raises His Son from the dead, and redeems the lives of those who call on His name.

Ask that the Everlasting God would open your eyes to see Him.  To experience Him.  To be used by Him.  To witness his constant and unending love.  Then TAKE NOTICE and SHARE what your eyes, hearts, and lives have witnessed.

How are you EXPERIENCING GOD AT WORK?

WHERE are you seeing GOD AT WORK?

In WHAT WAYS has God been working around you?

Seeking to Know God

Our community of faith that gathers as the Alpine Church of Christ is seeking God.  We long to Know God.  We strive to love Him with all our Hearts, Soul, Mind, and Strength.  We want to Know Him intimately.  We want to know Him through the way we love Him, our friends, and our enemies; through the deep passions of our soul which He placed in that sacred place in our being and stirrs according to His purposes; through every thought that is entertained, worked through, or disproved in our head, through every idea, inclination, and solution that comes to our God-wired brain; through every effort that our temporary bodies make with the strength that God alone can provide, through every good deed that God has prepared in advance to do… we want to LOVE, KNOW, and EXPERIENCE the presence, providence, and power of the Almighty God who loves us so much He calls us His children.

Would you join us on this JOURNEY?

I spoke to a young man today.  He is young.  He knows only a fraction of information on any subject that I know about.  He knows some of the Bible.  Yet, compared to people who have walked with God for over half their life… he knows little and has experienced little.  As we talked, God opened my eyes (once again), and showed me how much I have to learn.  God wasn’t comparing knowledge, right answers, or comparing “spiritual feats”.   God was showing me how beautiful He is, how faithful He is, how peaceful He is, how patient He is.  He was showing all of this through hearing the story of a fellow Christ follower on the Journey. 

We can all learn from each other.  We can see a clearer picture of the Almighty when we open our hearts and ears to hear how He is at work with and for those that are around us.

Will you join us in this Journey to KNOW GOD?

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?  Please feel free read, reflect, and share!

HOW DO I CONTRIBUTE?  Below each blog entry, also called a post, there is a line called “comments”, press on it and you will see a spot to leave us a comment. 

WHAT SHOULD I COMMENT ABOUT?  Please SHARE YOUR JOURNEY!  We want you to feel free to say whatever you want, as long as it is not a personal attack on someone, or criticism about Alpine or another comment left.  There are other avenues to do those things through.   What is God doing in your life?  How is the topic discussed true in your life?  Where are you seeing God at work?

CAN I WRITE SOMETHING LONG OR SHORT?  Whatever God is laying on your heart to share… share it.

SIGN YOUR NAME ON THE COMMENT!  Put your name on the comment that you leave.  We will ask you to leave your email address, too, but that will not be available to anyone, except the Alpine Staff member that is administrating the website.  We may want to ask you to expand on your experience and extend the conversation.