I like to cook, and I like pretty things. Sometimes I like
putting the two of them together. There! I said it, and I still feel secure in
my manhood. No, seriously, I do enjoy cooking, and I enjoy arranging what I
cook in attractive ways. I think it is part of God’s image in me working out
its creative bent. Every Saturday afternoon I spend several hours making and
plating a big family meal that we can enjoy as something both wonderful and
beautiful. Over the past several years I have picked up serving pieces here and
there to help with the aesthetics of the meal. Honestly, sometimes what I cook
needs all the help it can get and I am convinced that a beautiful plate or bowl
has fooled my family on numerous occasions into believing that what I put
before them really did taste wonderful.
Somewhere in my journey of collecting I picked up a lovely
set of green bowls. OK. So they don’t sound lovely but they really are. I got
them second-hand but they looked new, and I couldn’t wait to try them out. I
don’t remember what I cooked the first time I used those bowls, but I do
remember that whatever I prepared went into the largest of my bowls and that
this bowl was displayed prominently in the center of the table. I also remember
the horror of leaving the room only to return and find a puddle, growing slowly
under this bowl, a stain upon my table and my plans for a wonderful family
meal. Turns out the bowl had a crack, one I still can’t see, but I know is
there because whatever goes into that bowl shortly leaks out.
As I read Paul’s words in Ephesians 4 this past week I
couldn’t help but compare the Church to my lovely green—and cracked!—serving
bowl. What is put in the Church is going to leak out, only what leaks out is
not meant to be a stain but a blessing. What is in the Church is God himself.
Somehow—and honestly I don’t understand it all—God has put his fullness within
the Church, not the Church building but in the people who make up the Church.
As these people who are called the Church go through life, God leaks out of
them. They don’t leak in a becoming-empty-and-needing-to-be-filled-up way, but
they leak in that the very character of the God who is in them comes out of
them. Everywhere. All the time. Quite simply, those who have God in them begin
to move through life leaking God’s character and nature.
Drops of God’s character form trails marking where the
Church has traveled. A pool of God’s nature gathers around the place where the
Church meets. Bits of God are splashed about the comings and goings of the
Church because the Church leaks, at least that is the way it is supposed to be.
When I am honest with my own life, I am not sure that I leave God splashed
about everywhere. Oh, I leak; I just don’t always leak God. If you were to
follow me for very long you would find that I leak quite a bit. I leak
frustration, impatience, self-centeredness, selfishness, and on certain days
just outright meanness. If you were to ask my kids, they would tell you that I
can leak harshness and unforgiveness. Rachel could probably tell you that I
leak pride and arrogance. In other words, more often than not, I leak myself,
not God.
Why is this? Why is it that at times I leak more of myself
than God? I think it is probably because I am more full of myself than of God.
I have God but I don’t always let God have all of me. Letting God fill me,
allowing Christ to live through me is difficult on the best of days. I am
scared to release control, scared of the God who loves me and wants the best
for me. I know. It is a bit insane but it is my reality. I am learning that
being the Church means that God fills me, every part of me. I am learning, as I
ask God to teach me to be the Church, that I can trust God to fill every part
of me. I am discovering that the more of me God fills, the more I leak.
A fellow traveler,
Blake
What’s my next step?
We encourage you to
consider engaging in the following as a way of handing off faith in your
family.
Talk about looking like Jesus: Being the Church means that we look
more and more like Jesus to this world. This week, consider asking your kids
who they would most like to be. This could be a celebrity, a sports hero, or
even a favorite teacher. Ask them to elaborate on their answer. Respond to
their answer with the statement that you most want to be like Jesus. Talk with
your child about what being like Jesus might look like. Consider praying with
your child, asking that they might look like Jesus. You might also ask your
child to speak to God, asking for the grace for you to look more like Jesus.
We encourage you to
consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.
Ask God to teach you to be the Church: During this series we
encourage you to wear a silicon wrist band with the phrase, “I am Church.” Use
this band as a reminder of your identity and allow it to serve as a prayer
prompt. Every time you see it, consider turning your mind to God and asking him
to teach you how to be the Church.
When I woke up this morning and before I read this blog, a reoccurring thought came. We were made for God and our purpose is found in Him. Many times, although I love God and God's word and read it daily to be with Him, I find myself running ahead thinking of many ideas and plans whether it be for dinner, homeschool, small group ideas, what I should read...etc. I fail to pray and ask Him. This may be small scale as it relates to me but this needs to be done to be faithful in the small things. When I lay down my own thinking and wisdom in trying to do and figure out all things and SEE God's wisdom, more of Him leaks out rather than me. Almost 10 years ago, I came across a book that God used alongside people and His great Wisdom in Colossians 1:16 to really have me find my purpose in Him as all is by Him, through Him and FOR HIM. Here is the prayer "As I begin this journey, help me to realize that building my life around myself instead of you will only lead to emptiness and meaninglessness. I was made by you, for you and I want to discover my purpose in you." Praying has been on my heart before and especially since this series you are preaching. Praying for the SAINTS! Here are 4 great prayers from the Bible I am praying:
ReplyDeletePaul's Four Great Prayers"
I. Ephesians 1:17-19a
I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him--since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened--so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe ….
II. Ephesians 3:16-19I pray that according to the wealth of his glory [the Father] may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
III. Philippians 1:9-11And I pray this, that your love may abound even more and more in knowledge and every kind of insight so that you can decide what is best, and thus be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
IV. Colossians 1:9b-12
[I ask] God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects--bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of all patience and steadfastness, joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the saints' inheritance in the light.