Friday, September 29, 2006

Zechariah 4 - 6; Luke 12 (msg)


Arggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Do not want to hear what YOU are wanting to say to me this morning and yet to ignore You or.... it doesn’t seem HONEST this morning…..doesn’t seem….ah hell it doesn’t even seem possible to want anymore….the promise of YOUR GRACE IF I really listen….really hear…..responsively obey…….OK



Zechariah 6:15 "People will come from faraway places to pitch in and rebuild the Temple of God. This will confirm that God-of-the-Angel-Armies did, in fact, send me to you. All this follows as you put your minds to a life of responsive obedience to the voice of your God."

Your mind……I know this Crown thing is making me think things that I’ve never thought of before….making me look at the patterns of my life and while it deals with money that bleeds into everything…..lack of seeking counsel (wk 3) ….lack of honesty (wk 4). This morning my ability to, I don’t know... Dan and I being asked the questions WHY people lie or cheat or misrepresent and my response was to ‘ save face’ and to ‘get ahead’…Dans was simply PRIDE and GREED…..I didn’t see saving face as PRIDE until he pointed it out…Didn’t see a desire to get ahead as GREED….dumb huh??

So to put my mind to a life of responsive obedience…..I’ve been praying to become responsively obedient, praying to understand what it looked like and here it’s THINK about it……of course to think about it would be to not just be REACTIVE…..to be counterintuitive, hey if your intuitive response is to LIE wouldn’t counterintuitive be to be honest….I wish my nature was to BE HONEST but it’s not….I am more deceitful than I ever knew……..but in Christ I can become all these things…….I can???? Been praying to live life on the EDGE to live RISKY what would be more edgy and risky than to after a life of deceit to be honest??? But I thought it would be MORE GLAMOROUS…….hmmmmmmmmmmm

Luke 12: 1-3 By this time the crowd, unwieldy and stepping on each other's toes, numbered into the thousands. But Jesus' primary concern was his disciples. He said to them, "Watch yourselves carefully so you don't get contaminated with Pharisee yeast, Pharisee phoniness. You can't keep your true self hidden forever; before long you'll be exposed. You can't hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known. You can't whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day's coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town.

11-12 "When they drag you into their meeting places, or into police courts and before judges, don't worry about defending yourselves—what you'll say or how you'll say it. The right words will be there. The Holy Spirit will give you the right words when the time comes."

It just makes sense you know….ALL of it……

29-32 "What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.
33-34 "Be generous. Give to the poor. Get yourselves a bank that can't go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from embezzlers, a bank you can bank on. It's obvious, isn't it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being. 35-38"Keep your shirts on; keep the lights on! Be like house servants waiting for their master
to come back from his honeymoon, awake and ready to open the door when he arrives and knocks. Lucky the servants whom the master finds on watch! He'll put on an apron, sit them at the table, and serve them a meal, sharing his wedding feast with them. It doesn't matter what time of the night he arrives; they're awake—and so blessed!
39-40 "You know that if the house owner had known what night the burglar was coming, he wouldn't have stayed out late and left the place unlocked. So don't you be slovenly and careless. Just when you don't expect him, the Son of Man will show up."
41Peter said, "Master, are you telling this story just for us? Or is it for everybody?"
42-46 The Master said, "Let me ask you: Who is the dependable manager, full of common sense, that the master puts in charge of his staff to feed them well and on time? He is a blessed man if when the master shows up he's doing his job. But if he says to himself, 'The master is certainly taking his time,' begins maltreating the servants and maids, throws parties for his friends, and gets drunk, the master will walk in when he least expects it, give him the thrashing of his life, and put him back in the kitchen peeling potatoes.
47-48 " The servant who knows what his master wants and ignores it, or insolently does whatever he pleases, will be thoroughly thrashed. But if he does a poor job through ignorance, he'll get off with a slap on the hand. Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!
49-53 "I've come to start a fire on this earth—how I wish it were blazing right now! I've come to change everything, turn everything rightside up—how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I've come to disrupt and confront!
From now on, when you find five in a house, it will be— Three against two, and two against three; Father against son, and son against father; Mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; Mother-in-law against bride, and bride against mother-in-law."
54-56 Then he turned to the crowd: "When you see clouds coming in from the west, you say, 'Storm's coming'—and you're right. And when the wind comes out of the south, you say, 'This'll be a hot one'—and you're right. Frauds! You know how to tell a change in the weather, so don't tell me you can't tell a change in the season, the God-season we're in right now.
57-59 "You don't have to be a genius to understand these things. Just use your common sense, the kind you'd use if, while being taken to court, you decided to settle up with your accuser on the way, knowing that if the case went to the judge you'd probably go to jail and pay every last penny of the fine. That's the kind of decision I'm asking you to make."

It's like I been saying THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE but it is HARD........Be careful what you pray for you know????

4 comments:

tonymyles said...

Keep wrestling!

Anonymous said...

Wow...yep, be careful what you pray for. I would have had the same response as you did about why people lie, etc. but Dan was right.

This Crown stuff is getting to me to and I'm not even doing the study! Keep it coming, I'm with you but it is hard. LIfe is hard.

Anonymous said...

I don't no how you do it B, really...you say things and place scripture that makes my heart come alive...there is a wonderful Nichole Nordeman song that says..."I asked for matches and I received a gallon full of gasoline!"...the whole song is talking about the being careful what you pray for,...to be responsively obedient, I just go through watching Sara Groves Documentary and she said the one thing she has learned is that she is just to "Go!"...thanks for continuing to work this out and sharing it with us...

karen said...

sounds like you know it, b...we all do...
we just need to apply it.