What Are You Building?

"Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, 

but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself."

Philippians 2:3

Building for the kingdom of God.

Pause and think upon this for a moment…

What does it look like?

Seeking first, His kingdom's accomplishments.

What are they?

What is the aim of God's heart?

The latter verses of this passage reveal to us the heart, the mission of God--that the ministry of Christ bring freedom in the lives of the lost, that every knee would bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of God.

The ministry of Christ began on a sacred hill, tearing down the walls of sin and separation, and is carried out through we who have been freed. 1 Peter tells us that we are living stone, being built up into a spiritual house. 

Therefore, I believe that the stones of God's kingdom are laid and built up by His bondservants seeking the betterment of others. The world will know Christ indwells us by our love for one another. When we prefer another, we reveal to them Christ, when He is revealed and they receive, we are adding more stones to His kingdom.

The problem lies in, the mindset we have to be building up our own kingdoms. Before coming to Christ, we lived for our own, and we too often try to hold the same mentality as we are seeking to build up the kingdom of God. We prefer others when it is convenient, or we put others before us so long as it isn't too big of a sacrifice for our own building plans.

What would happen if we all ceased our own buildings and together worked to build up the kingdom of God?

What would happen if we put the same effort into others as we do ourselves? If we stopped storing up for our future and left it in the hands of our Lord? What would happen if we did not do things for our own gain, but if we loaned out from our storehouse, for another's gain, that they might benefit and come to know the Builder more?

Paul exhorts the church here to get our eyes off of our own kingdoms and onto the Kingdom of God…to get our mind off of our own desires and onto His desire--to be living stones for the sake of the unknown to know.

Everyone is building something, it is up to us what we are building toward. 

God's word promises that all things necessary will be given to those who seek first His kingdom. His kingdom seeks out the lost, what is yours seeking?

Application: I will take time to write out the main things I spend the most time on each day and measure it to see what kind of "building" it is accomplishing? If its outcome is for my own kingdom or God's Kingdom.

Learning to Walk...

"As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." 

Colossians 2:6-7

     We all were taught to walk. Gripped within our parent's hand, we put one foot before the other, and in a stumbled learning, we came to walk. These feet were quick to go where our mind pleased, and sought to always be the first in line. We walked in selfishness and upon the pathway of the world until we came to Christ. Colossians tells us that we are to "walk in Christ". 

Certainly we understand walking, but what does it mean to walk in Christ?

     I think of a child learning to walk, they feel confident to move forward because they know the hand they hold is rooted firm and will not let them fall. They have a proper understanding of the one they are holding onto, that this one is in control, and will teach them; with each trip, a strong grip. The child trusts the teaching technique of the parent. The parent's love and control gives them the confidence they need to be established with each step.

     I want to propose a thought…perhaps many of us never learn to "walk in Christ" because we fail to have a proper understanding of the way He teaches us. We fail to trust the technique of His Fatherly grip. We commonly fail to see His lessons coming through solid, firm, hands of love. We see trail and falsely accuse it to be a misfortune instead of a blessed in disguise.

As a Father, God seeks to train His children to walk in the new life of Christ. He seeks to train our feet to move along the selfless path of self-denial, because it is the path to abundant life.

The problem lies not in our feet to learn, but in our mind to trust His ways of teaching.

The child must trust the hands that are holding them up.

The hands of God are sovereignty.

We commonly want to be held by Him, but falter in our end of holding on when the road gets rough.

He never ceases to hold us, working out His sovereign will in our life, but we commonly let go and miss out on the blessings of the testings along the way. There are lessons within each rough step.

     You see, endarkened clouds are often His blessings being formed for the reaping.

We see the sun hidden, He sees the fruit of the rain upon His planting.

Trusting His sovereign hands means trusting Him in the sun and rain, trusting that what He allows you to lack is that which He desired for a better purpose to come. 

Do we honestly think He sovereignly wove a plan throughout history's centuries to save our lives from sin, to just let what may happen in the present? His sovereignty changes not. He accomplishes His will through all things in this life. Truly He is a God who works all things together for good to those who are in the center of His will, to those who are walking in obedience to His call.

If He called you and you answered, walking in obedience, you can trust that each step of the way will be directed by His hand of blessing. Every difficulty and trail that will encounter the believer is first filtered through His sovereignty and turns into a blessing for thee.

     This life was never promised to be smooth, but He has promised to teach your feet how to walk through.

Story of Our LIFE...

     A triune God, fully satisfied in Himself looked out and conceived the idea of joy to be found in expanding Himself…Making Himself known.

His heartbeat…love, His hands… sovereignty, His intelligence… of ruling wisdom, His actions… of unchanging goodness, within His being… grace and truth, His existence… one of unity. That which worked counter to unity, He despised, and in His perfect holiness cannot dwell within.

     From nothing, He created, for He beheld all creativity, all idea, all ability. Out of the dust He breathed life and created man. He formed something in His own image, most special of all His creations, forming it capable of something nothing else contained, the ability for eternal relationship--demonstrated by free-will choice.

     Man dwelt with God in perfect union, enjoying the benefits of His goodness displayed in His creation. Man lacked nothing, all satisfaction was found in God, until he doubted the goodness of HIs creator, and desired more than what had been formed. The enemy deceived, implanting a thought that only through disobedience could man obtain unkept abilities.

In such envy for satisfaction apart from God, man chose disobedience and was separated from God. 

The separation is entitled sin.

In such a state mankind dwelt, sin growing as it was embraced. Mankind was moving further away from the yearning within to be united to his Maker again.

     God looked down upon His creation and saw from afar what He desired to be near again. With loving eyes He saw us in our lost state as a bride searching for the lover of her heart. He looked down and saw the sin separating us from the state we once existed. He saw what we would become without His blood, the eternal separation that was counter to His creation for eternal relationship. 

     With such a yearning, He sketched a design to redeem His people back to Himself, He would use a small nation to display His love for mankind, and use her as a vessel for salvation. The people of Israel He claimed as HIs own, and through her history, He sovereignly wove with His hands, His character, His plan, His lineage to bring forth a Savior for the plague of sin.

He watched this people cycle through the depravity of sin--enslaved to their own ways, rebelling against the ways of God; just as the first man and woman of creation. He stood so near, but they chose to walk so far, He stood at the alter, but His bride would not come near. He knew it was only by giving Himself in full surrender upon the alter, that He might bring her back to Himself. 

     The depth of such a sight moved His heart to leave His throne. In longing vision, He chose a way to make Himself known, He authored His Son, Jesus the Christ to live a life we could not, a life that would demonstrate His own nature in making a path for man to once again be united with God. He walked among us, sympathizing with our every weakness and sin that tempts us from nearness to God, He endured it all, to tread a path of overcoming such separation by dependence through unity on the Father. He lived a sinless life, but was accused and sentenced to a sinner's death. He drank the cup of death bearing our sin, to be for us the sacrificial atonement for our penalty, and in the most brutal death the world had ever designed, He bridged us back to God.

     The earth shook when the grave welcomed in the Creator; and evil falsely assumed that death had swallowed victory--

but how can death swallow One who is eternal, the One who gave life and breath to all things? The grave could not contain the sacrifice, and instead of dead-death, new life began to spring forth , as a seed falling into the ground and producing new growth. He was crucified, stated dead, and three days later, resurrected, revealing Himself to eye witnesses.

     In His resurrected living, He spoke of a gift He would leave for those who believed that He was truly the Son of God. In His assent ion back to His eternal throne, He gifted us with His Spirit to dwell among us, to work to daily unify us back to God. To enable us to walk pleasing to God.

     This Spirit was a new form of breath breathed upon the new creation, those created in Christ's blood. God had re-formed a people for Himself through faith in the work of the cross. 

     This new creation He has chosen, that by free-will believing in Christ, those who are found cleaned by His atoning blood would be sealed by His Spirit and kept in Him until His second coming. The Spirit reveals to us who God is, and in knowing we love. Our faith is exercised in our love for Him. This new creation is one of hope, and one of waiting for HIs return. One of reason and design, kept upon the earth with purpose, commissioned to go forth unto the lost world and testify of the good news that there is a Savior come to save us from our separation from God, to restore perfect unity of creation to Creator forevermore. Amen.

Brought Nothing…Bringing Nothing

"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, 

and it is certain we can carry nothing out. 

And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content." 

1 Timothy 6:6-8

Look at the face of a child playing with recycled goods as a toy.

Look at the smile of the poor, as they greet you standing before the entrance of their dirt-floored home.

Look at the grateful heart of one who has been given work to eat.

Do you not in some way envy the joy you see in what the world calls, "the least of these"?

Have you not ever wondered why a child with many things seems to only cry out for more, and only enjoys a smile for a moment; yet the one who has so little can wear a smile like the new dress she is imagining in her dreams?

We brought nothing into this life, that is reality, every man was born the same, but we lie to ourselves by the way we live. We act as if we have done something to deserve all that we have around us, as if there is some distinguish between the "least of these" and the "increased of these". 

Don't think that is true? Then let me ask, why is it that we cling to things when they are taken from us, we feel robbed when wrong happens to our possessions. It is because we have falsely believed these things to be within our ownership; forgetting that we brought nothing into this life and the certainty that we can take nothing out. 

The glimpses of poverty my eyes have beheld and the glimpses of abundance I have lived within has caused my heart to wonder. I wonder why there is such happiness found in places of less, and why complaints seems to ceaselessly echo from those with much. Perhaps the "least of these" are the "blessed of these"?

Contentment. 

Not a word, but an attitude that makes the difference. 

Contentment appreciates that which it has, and recognizes the truth that nothing belongs to itself.

People with less seem to grasp this concept easier than we who have much. They seem to see everything as a gift: sunshine, breathe, food, clothing; but we seem to see those things as only a base for more to come.

What if we viewed them as the gift and not as the base? What if we appreciated those things, and sought extra comfort in the life to come? 

What if we stopped exhausting ourselves with extra things and instead appreciated what we have already been given? 

What if we stopped seeking gain, and recognized the gain we have already attained? 

Christ knows our hands, and knows that if they are full of earthly things, there will be no room for His eternal gifts.

He seeks that we be filled with His fullness and His blessings. Not that we live with less, but that we live with value. 

The life with less sees beauty in the small things. The life with less finds contentment through appreciation. 

The life with less sees Christ within as the reality that despite what the day brings, life is eternally blessed.

A child with a simple piece of clothing, and necessary food to sustain, has open arms to run and hug the approaching comer. 

This is what Christ is thinking when He exhorts us to live in simplicity. He's thinking of His child being available to run and do, and bear good fruit in the fields of His harvest.

No part of His creation lacks, He supplies for every need. It is our perspective on what is necessary that causes our discontentment.

If we would view life through the eyes of the Creator, I think we would find that less is more and contentment is found in appreciation for what He has given and what He sufficiently gives each day by the undeserved favor His grace has poured upon our lives.

Contentment is found when grace is acknowledged and seen as sufficient for each day of this life, until we reach our true home.

The Road to Dying

     More of the Gospel, majority of it, focus of the Gospels is on the last 2 weeks of Jesus' life...testimony of that time. Does this not strike you as interesting? That when the scent of death was near, the fragrance of life was more powerful, more impactful, more alluring? Death enhances the fragrance of one's life. For thirty years this Man from Galilee had lived among the Jews; however, it was not until His final days that His life was given especial notice. Certainly during His life and ministry He had many stories to share of healing, miracles, teachings, on and on; yet those who followed Him found the most words to share of His final days on earth. As death neared, His words were emphasized. As the nearness of death pressed, the influence of His words and doings were stressed. As the Creator of life moved nearer to death, the pathway for eternal life became more clearly directed. He was leading the way to true life. Death brings true life. When we come to a place of living our life upon the road to dying, we may find stones of life, live a life worth a monumental stone.

As death became only a stone's throw away, the Master was seen 

Death...the pathway, the road of death gives way to the story of God's grace.

As we die to self, more of His story may be read by others.