Green Pastures and Still Waters
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Generally speaking, when one applies for a new job, references are requested. People want to know what other people know. What the interviewer is after is an understanding of character, training, capacity and work ethic. No one wants to hire a bum. What if someone you know was thinking about following Jesus? He does have quite an impressive resume. He is the Creator of the universe, He sustains the universe by the word of His power, He is the express image of God’s Person, He has authority over all things because He owns everything and, He is the One who is putting the universe back together again. But, anyone can have an impressive resume. You can write down anything on paper and somebody will believe it. People try to impress people with resumes every day. The person who is thinking about following Jesus often wants more than a resume, they want references. Would you be a reference for Jesus? Have you found Him to be truthful, faithful, personable and timely? Does He complete the jobs He starts? Does He work well with others? How does He resolve conflict? Can He handle pressure? Is there anything else you would like to say that I haven’t asked you about? The letter to the Colossians contains an impressive resume of Jesus, I wonder if you would say you have found it to be true. 😀
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That’s probably a terrible way to start a blog on the weekend that we celebrate our independence as a nation. But. It’s. True. Freedom is only without problems when the hearts of the free are willingly bound to Another in love. If we have proved anything as humans over the past several thousand years, it is that when we are free to do whatever we want, we make a mess of things. We are like toddlers in a kitchen stocked with eggs, flour and syrup…without supervision. It makes for a funny Facebook photo but it’s really difficult to clean up. The messes we have made outside the kitchen are even worse. Just think of what has been done in the name of freedom. Much of it should make us ashamed. Adam and Eve had real freedom and their self-will put the rest of us under the law of sin and death. Would we have done any better? Because God is gracious, we still have freedom. We are free to choose Him, free to accept forgiveness, free to receive a Kingdom of love and free to walk in the ways He designed from before time began. Living in that kind of freedom is more liberating than we can imagine. It’s the freedom of a bird to fly, and fish to swim, and a kangaroo to jump. The freedom to become what we were designed to be is the freedom we are really after. Every other response to freedom ends up messy. Join us this weekend as we learn how to pray for one another with true freedom in mind.