Be homeless - Follow wholeheartedly

*We interrupt our regularly scheduled (...ish) posts, to bring you a special Hurricane Edition. 

This entry was written last week during Hurricane Irene.*

Be homeless - Follow wholeheartedly

As I'm writing this post, for two different reasons, the title has taken on a new meaning  for me. Today, 25th August 2011, most (if not all) of the Bahamian population is boarded up in their homes waiting out the category 3 Hurricane Irene. As we are beginning to get reports from the southern-most islands, we are learning that some settlements have been up to 90% destroyed, and there are some islands we've heard nothing from at all. Fortunately (up to the time of publishing), there has been no reported loss of life in The Bahamas. 

Be homeless.

Up until yesterday, 24th August 2011, I was technically homeless upon my return to England. My friends and I, have been waiting with baited breath for several weeks to hear whether or not we were going to get the house, or would have to keep looking. For a contract beginning September 1st, this was cutting it fairly close, and it didn't help that we're currently scattered around the globe. My degree was in jepoardy; with nowhere to stay, British passport or not, I could be refused entry into the United Kingdom. 

Be homeless.

And? We live in a pretty self-centred world. How do those situations affect you? I couldn't possibly be telling you to be homeless simply because I was right? They say misery loves company, but that would be taking it to an extreme. Well what if it wasn't M-J telling you to be homeless, but Jesus? Would it make a difference?


The main verse we're looking at today is Luke 9:58. It's Jesus' response to  a man that said he would follow Him wherever He went; He said "Foxes haves holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." Ok, to be fair, Jesus wasn't exactly saying 'Be homeless,' but rather warning that it was a very possible consequence of following Him. What I notice however, is that He didn't ask of people something He wasn't willing to do Himself. He told the man that He, the Son of Man, had nowhere to stay. Know this, when you say you're a Christian, people watch what you do. Jesus said He was the Son of God, so everyone watched (and many criticized) what He did. Jesus lived a life of example. He told us to love, then showed us how.

Luke 9:57-62 is about the cost of following Christ. The main point being made in this passage is that living as a follower of Christ requires a wholehearted commitment. You have to be ready to give up everything, drop your old life, and take on a new life in Christ. Again, Jesus set the ultimate example in that He gave up everything - Heaven and perfection - to take on the sins of the world, to take on my sins.

In today's world it seems as though people have 'glamourized' Jesus' life. People talk about the highlights -water to wine, walking on water, raising people from the dead, being the Saviour of the world, rising from the dead Himself - but what people seem to skirt over are some of the details. Those last three years of His life when He was doing all those amazing works, Jesus was homeless. He had a God-given purpose, and to realize that purpose He had to put behind Him His old life, that of a carpenter, and take on His new role as Son of Man.


Nowadays we don't have Jesus the man to actually physically follow around, so maybe you don't need to be homeless to follow Him, unless of course you've been called to a life of poverty or missions work ;), but it's the mindset you have that's important. 

At some point during my final two years of high school, I created a major called 'International Bumology,' and began telling people that that's what I was going to study at university. It was basically studying the world's homeless, and the different factors that contributed to their current status. There was even a knesthetic learning aspect where you would live the life of a homeless person for a time. It is only now, seven years after, I am realizing, how true that may turn out to be living life as a follower of Christ. 


Now again, I'm not I saying that to live a Christian life you have to become a vagabond. What I am saying, is that it is not a life of material possesions and narcissism, but one of heavenly wealth and servitude. 

So yes, maybe I am kind of telling you to be homeless, but homeless here on Earth. Store up your treasure somewhere with a better insurance policy. Matthew 6:19-21  Look, I don't know about you, but I have a mansion waiting for me. John 14:1-4  You may want to get on that. ;)


P.S. "The closer we get to September, the more awesome the miracle of us getting a house will be. " That's what I said in an email to one of my (now) housemates, while we were still unsure of what was going on with the house. There's a song we sing during Praise and Worship at my church in The Bahamas, 'He's a Miracle Working God.' That's so true. We found out last week, with 7 days until the beginning of September that we got the house. God is good. :)

Be used Pt I

I realized while writing this that it would take more than one entry. 

Part one:

“The Lord doesn't ask about your ability, only your availability.”


This is really a twofer (definition for those unfamiliar with the term). It's difficult to talk about being used without talking about being available.

How do you make yourself available to God?

• Stop blocking God. - James 4:7-8a This takes us back to 'Be Lego.' Don't try to merely fit God in, submit your life to Him. His plan is better anyway. We often try to fight surrender because it's not easy to not be in control. When you run into a problem at a company, what do you ask? Something along the lines of 'Who's in charge here? May I have a word with them please?' (Maybe not in as mannerly a fashion as that, but you get the idea.) BEFORE you run into a problem, why don't you do that with your life? 'Excuse me, who's the manager here? God? Oh! Well okay then, I want Him to take care of this for me.' This doesn't mean the rest of your life will be easy, but you won't have to do it alone. One of the songs we learned growing up was 'He's got the whole world in His hands.' That's kind of reassuring isn't it? :)

• Stop making excuses. - 1 Corinthians 13:11* I'll be blunt. Excuses are childish. Do away with them and take responsibility for your actions, or, in many cases, inaction. Benjamin Franklin said, "He that is good for making excuses, is seldom good for anything else." Until you stop finding reasons for why God can't use you, and accept that He can and will in His time, what are you good for? Time is precious, don't waste it.

• Come correct. - Psalm 51:10 You can't come to God 'any kind of how' (as we would say in the Bahamas). I think however, that to an extent, how you come to God is more about your heart than the state of your life at the time. Of course if your life is in complete disarray, with you waffling between the ways of the world, and the ways of God, there will be a problem (see next point), but how genuine you are is important. When he wrote Psalm 51, David's life was in a shambles. He had committed adultery with a married woman, got her pregnant, tried to cover it up, failed, had the woman's husband killed instead, then he married her. David had it bad. The thing is, when he went to the Lord, he acknowledged his wrongdoing, and asked to be cleansed, before doing anything else, because as he said, God would not accept a sacrifice from him until he had done so. If you want God to accept your life, let your heart be pure when you give it to Him. Proverbs 27:19

• Don't half step. Matthew 6:24 This one is simple, make a decision as to whom it is you're going to work with, and stick to it. You come to God asking Him to use you, when you have [His] undivided interests at heart. Philippians 1:27a

• Humble yourself. -  Philippians 4:13 If you want to make a difference in the world, you have to be humble enough to admit that you cannot do it on your own. The thing is, you can't look to other people to help you. Depend on God. Philippians 2:3-5 In that scripture we're instructed to be not only humble, but selfless as well‽ In today's world, values like those are really only praised in people like Billy Graham, and [the late] Mother Teresa. In the business world, traits like being ruthless, cutthroat, even backstabbing if it gets you what you want are admired. Let's be honest. It's all about survival of the fittest right? Humility and selflessness go against human nature. Or do they? Perhaps not. Ephesians 2:10, "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." It seems from that verse that doing good is an intrinsic quality in us. Just because we do not recognize it doesn't mean that it's not there. To 'do good' for another person means putting yourself aside, and putting their needs above yours. Humility. Understand that a life consecrated to God is a life of [among other things] humility. Aside from the positive impact on the lives of others, one of the best things about humility is the payoff: James 4:10. 

• Give yourself. - Romans 12:1 If I ask you to borrow a million dollars, and you say you will give it to me, so I go and take it out of your bank account, I'm pretty sure that makes me a thief. Saying you will do something does not equate to doing it. We have a saying in the Caribbean, 'Mouth can say anything.' You only said you would give the million, you did not actually give it, so I had no authority to take it from you. Until you actually give me the money, it's not mine to use. Actions speak so much louder than words. If you want God to use you, to use your life, don't say you will give it to Him, do it.

• Ask. -  Matthew 7:7 This may seem obvious, but it's interesting how after doing all of those other things to make ourselves available to God, we just forget to ask. How many women get 'the wrong gift' for their birthday/anniversary/Christmas because they drop hints and assume their husband/boyfriend will know what they want? Children will often do the same thing. They will see some popsicles (ice lollies) in the freezer, and instead of simply asking for one, choose to go on and on about how much they like popsicles. Though we know what they want, because they have not asked, sometimes we deny them the privilege. We can hint, suggest, intimate to God all day that we want Him to use us, but often, if we don't ask, we too are denied the privilege. 

Now don't think that not doing these things i.e. not making yourself available to God, means that He will not use you. 

It is easy to let ourselves fall into the trap of thinking that we're too far gone, or too sinful for God to use us. Reality check: God uses anyone He wants. He's God.

Just in case you're still skeptical, here's a few people that God used despite their flaws:

Noah was a drunk

Abraham was too old

Isaac who was a daydreamer

Jacob was a liar

Leah was ugly

Joseph was abused

Moses had a stuttering problem

Gideon was afraid

Samson had long hair and was a womanizer

Rahab was a prostitute

Jeremiah and Timothy were too young

David was an adulterer and a murderer

Elijah was suicidal

Isaiah preached naked

Jonah ran from God

Naomi was a widow

Job went bankrupt

John the Baptist ate bugs

Peter denied Christ

The disciples fell asleep while praying

Martha worried about everything

The Samaritan woman was divorced (more than once)

Zaccheus was too small

Paul was too religious

Timothy had an ulcer

AND (my favourite)

Lazarus was dead!

Never doubt that God can use you. :)




Leaving you with a song again today, enjoy!

* For the most part, the scriptures will be from the NIV (New International Version) or the ESV (English Standard Version), but in this particular instance the quote is from the KJV (King James Version). Though now use my ESV more than my KJV, I grew up using a King James, and so for me, 1 Corinthians 13 is just one of those scriptures that just doesn't sound as sweet coming from a newer translation. 

Next posts:


Be used Pt II

Christianity without Christ? I think they're forgetting something...

Hey everyone,

This is outside of our regularly scheduled posts, but after having read this article on the BBC, Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world, I thought it was worth it to ask you all to pray for Holland. If you remove something's core, how can you expect it to survive? To take the Christ out of Christianity changes it completely, and it is no longer Christianity.

Hope you all please take some time out to pray.

Thank you,

M-J

Be Lego

If your childhood was anything like mine, you played with Lego growing up. At the end of the day you would 'tidy up' by throwing everything into the container as-is. The next time you came back, you would very likely find a 'creation' that someone else had already started, and what would you do with it? Take it apart, and start again. You wouldn't continue what someone else had already begun. I think God is like that. Often, we have built a foundation for ourselves. We have plans, dreams, goals. We are attempting to live (and control) our lives, and then try and fit God in where it's convenient. When we come to God, or in some cases come back to God, He has to take us apart, strip us down to our lowest point, to our nothing, the same way we used to do with our Lego. God will not build on someone else's foundation. He has a different, and better vision for our lives.

When I began writing this entry, my thinking was that when you let God take control of your life you had to be two things, a) willing, and b) committed. To me, being willing meant you would stick around until things got difficult, and being committed meant you would be there until the end, but more out of sense of obligation than desire. I even referenced Luke 9:57-62 (which is about the cost of following Christ), and how those men were willing but not committed. I thought when you were both willing AND committed, then you were starting to head in the right direction. I thought. Then I read this article: 'Why I'm Not a Committed Christian (And Why That's a Good Thing)' and realized, it's not about willingness or commitment, it's about surrender.

Surrender is where it starts. James 4:7-8a says 'Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.' Earlier I talked about when we are trying to live our lives how we want, and adding God in as an afterthought. I now understand that when you surrender to God, the things of His heart, what He desires for you, become your desires as well. Things line up. In our container of Lego growing up, we had two big green pieces, one a square, and one a rectangle. They were the perfect base for making houses, schools, anything that needed a solid foundation. How much more important is your life, than some house made of Lego that will be taken apart the next day? Instead of trying to be a construction worker (unless that's your actual job), why not let God be the builder? Make Him your big green square, and let your life be His Lego.

Photo credits

To end, I leave you with the words to one of the hymns I grew up with, I Surrender All:

I SURRENDER ALL

All to Jesus I surrender; 
 all to him I freely give; 
 I will ever love and trust him, 
 in his presence daily live. 

Refrain:
 I surrender all, I surrender all, 
 all to thee, my blessed Savior, 
 I surrender all. 

All to Jesus I surrender; 
 humbly at his feet I bow, 
 worldly pleasures all forsaken; 
 take me, Jesus, take me now. 
 (Refrain) 

All to Jesus I surrender; 
 make me, Savior, wholly thine; 
 fill me with thy love and power; 
 truly know that thou art mine. 
 (Refrain) 

All to Jesus I surrender; 
 Lord, I give myself to thee; 
 fill me with thy love and power; 
 let thy blessing fall on me. 
 (Refrain) 

All to Jesus I surrender; 
 now I feel the sacred flame. 
 O the joy of full salvation! 
 Glory, glory, to his name! 
 (Refrain) 

Photo credits

Third Servant

Hey everyone! Just wanted to welcome you all to a new blog of mine. The name ' חכמה (Chokhmah) σοφία (Sophia) Sapientia' is made of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (respectively) words for wisdom (I hope, otherwise this could be embarrassing). Now I don't purport to be wise, the title is more of an allusion to James 1:5.

The reason I decided to start this new blog with more of a biblical focus, was as a result of a revelation I had last week. Not to be a Pharisee, but when praying, something I would often ask God is that He 'bless me to overflow so that I could be a blessing to others.' Last week, while in the middle of praying this, I realized how greedy that petition was. It brought to mind the parable of the talents, where a master entrusts a certain amount of money to three of his servants before leaving on a journey. Upon his return he was pleased to find that the first two of his servants had invested and doubled the amount of money he had left them. The third and final servant however, had simply dug a hole, buried the talents he was given, and gave back to the master exactly what he had been left with. Like a slap in the face it hit me that I was that third servant. I was asking for more blessings, but what had I done with the multitude that I already had? Selfishly horde them. Undeserving of what God had so graciously given up to this point, how could I even think, much less actually have the audacity to demand more?

So is that it? It doesn't matter if I've realized my inclination toward being a third servant, if I choose not to do anything about it. Having studied a handful of languages, something I've noticed about many (if not all of them), is that there are often what seems to be two very similar verbs for one action, for example, to hear, and to listen. In English we tend to blur the lines between the two and use them interchangeably, however if you look closely, you see there is a subtle difference. To simply hear, is just being able to perceive, whereas listening involves effort, you pay attention. One is just the ability, you hear things regardless of whether or not you try, the other is an action, it requires energy and doing, you purpose to listen.

At this point, the choice is mine, just hear God, or actually listen to Him? James 4:17 talks about how knowing the right thing, and not doing it is sin. As sin doesn't look good on me (or you for that matter, just throwing it out there), I've decided to get going. This blog is just me trying to overflow, to use my writing abilities to get God's word out there. These posts are really just my take on/understanding of whatever the entry is about that day. I intend to draw on life experiences, hopefully that makes you able to relate. The first few entries will take the format 'Be ______.' Sometimes the title will say it all, and sometimes you'll have to read for it to make sense. The goal, at least until the end of the summer is to post [at least] once or twice a week, and I've put it up here trusting that you all will help keep me accountable (thanks in advance). One final thing, this blog is as much for you as it is for me, so if you have a correction, a different opinion or take, or just a comment please let me know, and you may just find yourself writing a guest entry. ;)

In closing (boy I feel like a Baptist minister!) and to borrow from the New Testament, 'May grace and peace be multiplied to you.'