God speaking to us
I should not be surprised, but I always am, at how the same things turn up time after time until I take notice. Obviously, the Lord knows that repetition is the only way to get His message across.
Yesterday I went to the Woman Aglow breakfast. I had not been keen but somehow felt I was meant to be there. There are so many stories and messages in the Bible but the speakers chose those that we, at NMEFC, have been considering over the last few months. Coincidence or God incidence? There was talk of Bob M’s favourite text about dry bones (Ezekiel 37) and our being the bearers of the message; that we are the church not the building. Gifts and their different uses were touched upon (1 Cor.12:1-11) – we have discussed this a lot in the Wednesday group recently. Someone spoke of Jabez, a man we studied last year (1 Chron.4:9-10). The fact that we are human beings and not human doings was quoted. It was even said that if the Wise Men had been Wise Women the gifts would have been more practical
We were reminded that we are here to worship and witness to the Lord, to do His bidding in His time. He will equip us as an army with different skills and weapons and it will be His words that come from our mouths as we go about our daily lives, in the world that He created. He made us in His image (Gen.1:27) and wants to love us (1 John 3:1) all we have to do is receive and pass on this wonderful message.
Sceptics may say that we create our own God, a comfortable being whom we control and who does what we require. Aaron and the Israelites did this when they forged the Golden Calf (Ex.32) and what did they get for their pains? God’s displeasure and a plague. We do not control God, as we were instructed at the Prayer Vigil, our task is to be ready to act when called. We do not know the time of the Lord’s coming, not even He knows that (Matt.24), therefore we must be constantly alert.
Jesus commended Simon Peter for saying what he knew to be from God rather than concurring with non-believers (Matt.16:13-20). Quite often what we hear is at odds with the comfortable existence we were cultivating for ourselves. We are shaken out of our complacency and forced into situations we could never have anticipated. I did not expect to be an active part of an Evangelical Church – in my teens I felt the same about the Free Church as I did about the late Maharishi Yogi – seriously weird! I was quite happy reciting the Book of Common Prayer every Sunday (1662 version with all the thee’s and thou’s, preferably). Now I know more is expected of me and although my place in heaven is secured through grace, through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, I still have to be worthy of it. I cannot just sit back on my laurels, carry on sinning and expect the Lord to accept me as His child (Rom.6:1-7 and 1 John 3:9).
Incidentally, the Lord is quite capable of having a joke with us. The first passage read yesterday concerned St. Paul telling the Corinthians that, as he had been boasting about their church, he would be ashamed if a Macedonian visited them and found them wanting (2 Cor.9:1-4). I had brought my own Macedonian with me!
