If You Value Your Life Like God Value's His Church...

Then you won't try to defile it!  This is a re-write of a bumper sticker that my pastor saw.  The original bumper sticker said something like, if you value your life like I value my truck you won't touch my truck.  But this statement totally ties in with what our evening sermon was about this Sunday.  We studied about 1 Cor. 3:16-17 which says

¹⁶Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
¹⁷If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

There are a few key points in this passage.  Here are the questions that my pastor posed to us:

1. Who are the ye in the sixteenth verse?
2. What does it mean by the word defile?
3. Who are the defilers?
4. How does someone defile the temple?
5. And what does it mean by "him shall God destroy"

A lot of questions for such a small passage of scripture huh?  But questions that we might not take the time to consider with just a regular skimming of the Bible.  So here are the answers that Bro. Dan gave us.

• The ye is plural, it would be the church as a whole and as individual churches also. 
• Defile means neglecting of duties by the guardians and leading away of the church from a state of holiness in which the church ought to be.
• The defilers are believers, Christians.  The greatest threat to t the  church is from the inside.
• We defile the church by letting divisions to occur within the church, by allowing bad theology to permeate our churches and by bad methodology or bad conduct. 
• By destroy, well, we really don't know what God intends to do.  The Bible doesn't say for sure, we can only take references from other areas of the bible (see 1 Cor. 11:30)

Which brings me to the beginning, the title of this post.  As humorous as the bumper sticker would be, valuing your life doesn't mean God will strike you with a bolt of lightening.  During this part of the sermon, I felt a sense that perhaps this would mean the quality of your life (although I am not trying to limit God by saying that punishment by death wouldn't happen).  This sermon has a very important message in it.  When God gives you a command, you should want to keep it because you love Him.  Doing the opposite shows defiance, not love. 

Crave Pure Spiritual Milk

^{Last night at church our pastor spoke on the words from 1 Peter 2:1-3.  That scripture says:}

 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.  Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

This scripture really challenged me.  I read it and re-read it.  I had to ask myself, do I really crave God's word?  Do I seek out opportunities to delve into it and seek to find subtle nuances that were hidden to me before?  I honestly had to answer, no.  I read the Bible.  I remember some scripture (some, not a lot), and the major stories of the Word, but I don't read it to seek something new from it always. 

God's word to us should be a craving.  Why?  It is our direct link to what God has commanded us to do, how He has illustrated for us to conduct our lives and mostly because it was sent for us to know Him better by.  When you think about how a baby needs milk, how they don't stop fussing until they get their need met, you must then compare yourself with that same urgency.  Do you merely read God's word to read it?  Or do you read it because you crave it? 

I seek to develop a craving for God's word.  Brother Dan gave us a really good start at developing a craving for that "pure spiritual milk".  The first step was to rid yourself of all these that were mentioned in the scripture.  Like a child, if you are full with bad stuff (in a child's case, junk food) you won't be hungry for the healthy good stuff.  We need to rid ourselves of sin and the love of it to be able to have room for God's word.

The second step, read it!  Get in there and dig in.  God reminded me during this sermon (as He often does) of something I already knew, but hadn't put the two together.  Researchers say that in order to get a toddler/child to like a new food, they must try it between 6-15 times (Read about it here).  So if it takes a child that many times to develop a taste for something so basic as food, how many more times must I read God's Word before it surpasses habit and reaches a necessity? 

Thank you God for using Bro. Dan once again to tell me something that I needed to hear. 

You have a ministry too!

A few years ago, if someone would have told me that I could clean and still be doing work for God I would have laughed (inwardly of course) at them.  I never really understood what having your own ministry for God is. 

Those of you that are involved in a church body (and if you are not, you really should) may not even be aware of all the opportunities to serve God that exist.  The first thing to do when seeking a ministry is to make sure you are doing what God has called you to do and not just what you think will make Him happy.  God has a specific purpose for each of us.  Not everyone is called to do every job.  We are all parts of the body.  Some are the knees (prayer warriors), some are the mouths (speakers, singers,), some are the hands (people who help in a physical way) (please note, these are just my interpretations of the body).  But EVERYONE has a job to do.  You need to ask God where He needs you.  Be aware of where He is working and then join Him. 

There are several ministries in each congregation I am sure.  I can give you a few examples of the ones at our church and what they do.  Ask your church if you have this program and if you think God is calling you to do that, join Him.

• AWANA program is a ministry for children children of any age.  There are lessons for kids ages 1-13/14.  Bible verses are taught, missions education is taught, good social interaction with kids and adults that love God.
• Vacation Bible School (VBS) is done (at my church and I assume all others) during the summer break for kids.  The age range is similar to that of AWANA.  Again they will learn about God, Jesus and how to accept Jesus' gift of salvation.  It usually lasts 1 week.
• GROW Team is a group of people who go out on neighborhood visits to shut-ins, people in need of salvation and sick people.  They also (at our church) send out cards of sympathy, get well cards, and encouragement cards.
• Bible Studies are awesome ways to get involved.  Sometimes (and this really should say always)  the pastor has so much their plate that they don't always have time to host bible studies.  Guess what, you have a home, and a bible, you have a perfect setup for a bible study.  Or you could meet at chruch as well.
• WMU is a group for ladies who are interested in missions.  See my post about WMU and what they do.
• Church Cleaning Crews do just that.  They clean the church.  Now I know some churches pay for this service, and we used to do that.  But having volunteers from our congreation to do this has saved us lots of money and also given us a new way to fellowship.
• Sunday school teachers teach a Bible lesson on (usually) Sunday mornings.  Our church has a different teacher for all ages groups.  That gives a lot of opportunity for you to work with God.

Now please note, these are just a few.  There are also things you can do like taking up food, clothing, and hygiene items for your local food bank, homeless shelters and domestic violence shelters.  Any way you can get out in the community and spread God's love is a ministry.  It doesn't just have to be in the church.  Take a walk around your neighborhood and bring a Bible, and some tracks with you.  Introduce yourself to people, get to know them and their situation.  People are in need of God and we are called to show them His love.  How will they know if someone doesn't move to show them. 

Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly [is] great, but the labourers [are] few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. ~Luke 10:2

Get Involved

Oh yeah, that sounds like fun, sitting around with a bunch of old ladies talking about Tupperware and stuff.  That is pretty much what I thought about our church's WMU (Women's Ministry Union) when my mom asked me to come to the meeting.

I (very reluctantly) said I would come thinking that it would just be something to do for my mom.  In reality, it is something that every woman should be involved in, women of all ages. 

What we do is have a meal together first (love my mama's cooking), then we will read from the Missions Mosaic the names of missionaries around the world that are having a birthday on that day.  We pray for them and ask God to be with them always and to help them know what to say in every situation.  We then discuss new and old business, who we will donate money to, what causes we can support and how we can help the church in whatever God is entrusting it with.  We also have a lesson about a wide variety of things.  Things ranging from Prayer to Patience, Saving money to being a missionary in our own ways.  From these lessons I have learned more than I could imagine.

I'm sure your church has a lot of programs that you may not even be aware of, maybe you have a WMU and don't know about it.  If you aren't sure, I suggest you take a look at it.  I promise you will be blessed.  I have gotten to fellowship with some wise ladies, learn a lot about them, learn a lot about myself and more importantly, learn a lot about God.

A Word From God

I watch a show on ABC called “What would you do” every Friday.  It is a hidden camera show that shows scenarios devised to capture peoples reactions to various social situations.  Everything from breastfeeding in public to spousal abuse has been covered.  Every time I watch that show I think to myself, “What would I do?”.  Would I react in the correct way, would I just pass by and ignore, would I call out the injustice?  Funny how God delivers a message to you huh?

This morning during service at Watts Chapel Baptist, Brother Dan Gutenson was delivering to us a message about promises or vows that we make to God.  He gave us some reasons that we generally make promises to God such as being in the midst of a crisis (God if you will _____ I will _______ for you).  He also spoke about a promise we make when we accept Jesus as our Savior.  We vow to God to share His word with others.  To be a witness for Him and bring others to Him.  He also said that often times when we can witness to people and don’t, we justify it to ourselves by saying “Someone else will do it”. (That is also the main reason on the TV show that people give when they ignore the situation)  When Brother Dan said that it was like a bolt of lightening went off in my head.  God told me WWYD.  When I am presented with an opportunity to witness to others about God what DO I do?  Generally nothing.  I am too nervous.  I am not embarrassed about my faith, but when I am in a potentially confrontational situation I literally break out in hives.  Even if it is arguing about my bill over the phone, I still get nervous.

I wrote exactly what God said to me on my arm that moment.  I knew if I wrote it anywhere else I would forget about it.  Then during our evening service, Brother Dan talked about hearing from God.  He asked when was the last time you heard from God.    That reaffirmed to me that I had heard from God.  Brother Dan reminded me of something Henry Blackaby says “God’s not into idle chit chat”.  Meaning when He says something, you need to remember it.

(Picture says WWYD Someone else will witness)

So as the show says at the end… What would you do?  Will you speak up for God?  You promised  Him you would.  Pray for me that I always have the courage to speak up when offered the opportunity.