Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Heart "sings"

"My heart will sing no other name, Jesus Jesus" hearing that again the other day at church got me thinking. It has been on my mind a bit lately. I think I get in trouble with my heart "singing" to something else other than God. It has been alcohol, popularity and a variety of other objects I have given myself to.
I think part of this has been reading through Hebrews for quiet time and possible use for Koinonia during fall. It is the supremacy of Christ that the writer of Hebrews extolls and challenges us the reader to truly believe. I think that what we give our "song" to defines who we believe is supreme in our life,much more clearly than our words ever could.
I am learning more and more that actions truly do speak louder than any word ever could. Mainly because I can say what other people need to hear or I think what they want to hear. But actions put a whole new meaning to those words.
Just a thought I have been thinking through and will continue to explore.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Afshin Ziafat's message

Acts 17:1-6, Eph 4:22-25, I Thess. 1:3-10.
God uses those people that are ready, willing and able to "outlive your life."
Here's how you outlive your life: 1) Have an understanding of the Gospel. People with a true understanding of the Gospel will share the "Good News." They won't need prodding or be forced to share. Having a understanding of our "enemy" before coming to Christ (Romans 5:8-10) helps us to rise up to the challenge of sharing with others, in that we understand what obstacles might be in the way of a person's belief in Who Christ is.
2) Requires receiving the Word of God, continually (Galatians 1:12.) Seeking the Word of God and relying on the words there, instead of first seeking out the advice of others. We have all we need in terms of guidance and wisdom from the Word of God, but too often we won't do the work to learn what God Word says. It's actively seeking what the Word says and often won't make sense to those around us.
3) Outliving your life requires sacrifice. Being ready to lay down our dreams and hopes for our lives, to accomplish God's will in our life (I John 2:17.) We need to be prepared to lay down our life if necessary.
4) Outliving your life requires perserverance (Philippians 1:12-13, 1:29-30) God uses our hanging on to His plan and call on our life. With a eternal perspective, then suffering=opportunity, an opportunity to advance the Gospel. God will be the One who makes best use of our perserverance to share Who He is in our life, through whatever means it takes.
5) Outliving our life requires us to be "other focussed" (I Thess. 1:11-12.) God gives us a perspective to see success as when His Word is heard, not as the world sees success. God's love will shine through us as we become concerned for other's welfare both in the present and the future.
As we try to outlive our life, God's Word is naturally advanced and goes onto impact others all around the world. It is a costly lifestyle but the eternal rewards are unimaginable.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Living the words

Had a fun and enjoyable chat last night at outreach at http://houstonsfirst.org and several thoughts immerged. The topic of the discussion was "service projects" and what different classes were doing for them. I explained what our class, Night Light, is doing, and people were interested, in hearing more about both Noah's Kitchen and our "water ministry."
From this time came a couple of thoughts came out. 1) Becoming a follower of Christ is fine. In word there is nothing wrong with that. This will "establish" a relationship with God and His Son. Going to church, going to Sunday School, having some involvement is all well and good. I was there for more years than I can count, marginal involvement as long as it didn't infringe on my life or require more than I was willing to give. I think that we as followers of Christ can drift along this way for a whole lifetime, being happy that we are in church, doing our thing. BUT
I have been learning God calls us to so much more...
2)God calls us to not only have a relationship with Him, and to call others to "come and see" the God we have a relationship with, but become involved with those who don't know God or even want to know Him. I at first thought it was purely for the good feelings produced that I got involved at a bit of a deeper level, but then realized that a peace and a sense of completeness comes along is a much larger reason calls us to involvement with a lost world. God created us to relationships both with Himself and then also with others. When we take opportunity to go and do get involved with people we begin to get back to God's original design on us and for us.
Will keep on thinking about this more and keep sharing more as I learn more, till then...