NO COMPARTMENTALIZATION

“Blessed is the one
     who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
     or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
     and who meditates on His law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
     which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
     whatever they do prospers.”  (Psalm 1:1-3 NIV)

The story of God doesn’t make room for compartmentalization. It doesn’t speak of moments of being influenced by the Word, but having our imaginations fixed on it, meditating on it day and night. It doesn’t speak of producing for God in separation from Him. Rather, living a life being planted in Him. Jesus doesn’t say, apart from Him we can’t do religious things very well. He says apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5)…

When the psalmist says “whatever they do prospers,” I don’t think he means “whatever religious activity they do.” The story that God is inviting us into changes everything. From the heart, to the home, to the church, to the city. The more you dive into God’s story, the depth and breadth of His grace begins to tear down any divides that could lead to compartmentalization. He wants your all. 

-- Excerpted from Lo Alaman in “Wake-up Call” 

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BACK TO BIBLICAL BASICS – Part 2 of 2

The great C. H. Spurgeon, a preacher who reached out and grabbed the guts of the people of his day, once said that the Christian bloodline ought to be a Bibline. [Spiritual leadership] entails mastery of this Bibline bloodline. Novelist Joyce Carol Oates writes of a character’s grandmother: “We are linked together by blood, and blood is memory without language.” Christians are linked together by the blood memory of the Bibline that circulates through the body of Christ.

There is nothing more exciting in life than to find your sense of direction. Why is it that when we open God’s Word we expect to be bored? It is theologically incorrect to talk of making the Word “come alive.” It already is. We’re the ones who have tried to kill it. We’ve sucked the blood right out of the Bibline. We’ve drained it dry with boredom, banality, and mediocrity.

“Breathe on Me, Breath of God” is a song the soul should sing every time one opens the Scriptures. To study and learn the Scriptures is to inhale the energies of the Spirit. We inhale the breath of God. We exhale the breath of life: biblical stories. Through modulating exhaled breath, humans fashion stories, stories to build lives upon. When the stories of Scripture become “our” stories, when biblical images and metaphors become “our” images and metaphors, when we structure “our” lives around the cornerstone Jesus story, a new architecture for our souls is constructed.

In his first letter, Peter wrote to the scattered church about this cornerstone: “As you come to Him, the living Stone -- rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to Him -- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.’ Now to you who believe, this stone is precious.”  (1 Peter 2:4-7a NIV) 

-- Leonard Sweet in “Aqua Church: Essential Leadership Arts for Piloting Your Church in Today’s Fluid Culture”

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SIT STILL AND TRUST

“For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you.’”  (Isaiah 41:13 NIV) 

We need to hear that God is still in control. We need to hear that it’s not over until He says so. We need to hear that life’s mishaps and tragedies are not a reason to bail out. They are simply a reason to sit tight.

Corrie ten Boom used to say, “When the train goes through a tunnel and the world gets dark, do you jump out? Of course not. You sit still and trust the engineer to get you through.”…

The way to deal with discouragement? The cure for disappointment? Go back and read the story of God. Read it again and again. Be reminded that you aren’t the first person to weep. And you aren’t the first person to be helped.

Read the story and remember, the story is yours! 

-- Max Lucado in “He Still Moves Stones”

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