God's Help Our Response

Well, I'm not feeling particularly good about this morning's sermon.  I'm not sure why.  It might just be a feeling.  In fact, I feel (there's that dangerous word again) that whenever I explore that theme there's something wrong with what I'm saying or how I'm saying it.  

For now, I believe what I'm trying to communicate, but perhaps falling short, is that we're called to work with God so that we might learn to love as he wants us to love.  We can't change ourselves.  We need God's help.  The logic works like this:  God has worked and is at work and will work, therefore, we can work--and we should work!  We should work with the God who is working toward our own transformation.  Translation:  We have to be in the business of placing ourselves in environments where God can do his best transforming work.  

But here comes the hard part--how to talk about the practices that place us in an environment of God's transforming love?  Here's where I struggle.  I believe we should embrace certain means of grace--avenues that open us to God's love.  However, I don't want to impose those on anyone as "have-to's."  They should be "want-to's."  In other words, being called by God to participate in his kingdom, we then submit to a variety of means of grace.  And we need to learn to stay put, to practice stability in those things that really make a difference.  

What are the means of grace?  Here's a rough idea . . . as God calls you, of course:

Christians should pray.  Start with offering yourself to God everyday, perhaps.  Or find sometime to think about your day and begin to ask God how he might want you to live.  Open the bible to a Psalm and just let the words of the Psalmist guide your prayers.  These are just suggestions to get started.  

Christians ought to give themselves over to substance.   Devotional reading.  Scripture reading.  Thinking.  Good conversation.  These things are so important.  

Fellowship/Church.  It's what the good doctor orders.  Furthermore, we need to learn to stay put in those practices.  

Giving.  Giving transforms us.  Give it a try. 

 

Disciplines of denial.  There are moments when we need to go without something so that we might focus on the things of God.  Fasting from food.  Fasting from TV for a while, to spend more time thinking and praying.  

Again, these aren't "have-t0's," but "want-to's."   

What say you, the church?  

Peace!