the People

OK, personal update. Did not receive the job with ICAN.org, but I came in second, which is worthless in obtaining a job, but great for self-esteem. Low on money, but high on life. God has allowed this jobless time for something else, which has been to build a few relationships further. Shout out to Dom and Steve. Side note- It’ funny how we get stuck in meeting the standards of society, that we forget how God works differently. God wasn’t looking for a job with me, at least at this point, God was placing his hands in other places. I was so involved in trying to find a job, that I didn’t identify God’s labor else where, until basically last night. Moving on.

Alright, there are a few areas of thought that have been consuming me for the past few weeks, in which I’ll express as best as I can.  Hopefully, you can help me. I also have an idea of a topic I want to address for the next few weeks as well, but I’ll explain that later.

Community. This idea of community has been dragging and jerking me in all different directions. I believe that this issue has been intentionally laid on my heart, which I’m trying to figure out as well. So let’s get heated.

Our “Christian Community” today, I suspect, for the most part, is very far from the Community that Christ intended for us. I have come to believe this is due to two separate areas: 1. We’ve become too intertwined with the world we live in, that we have begun to take on worldly characteristics and most of us are totally unaware of it. 2. The nature of sin has led us down a path of individualism, in which we’ve chosen to push aside various teachings of Jesus and pick and choose what is comfortable for ourselves.

As Jesus quoted to a lawyer, “Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all mind, and with all your strength. And your neighbor as yourself”

Love thy God, basically fully, with everything you got. Love God. As Becca pointed out from the previous post, with seeking God and righteousness, our Love becomes active. Which is pointed out in “Love your neighbor as yourself”. Huge implications in that statement, especially how we have grown to love our selves A LOT. A question I began to ask myself is, how much time do we dedicate to our selves? I’m going to go ahead and make up a statistic and say the time we use on ourselves has to be in the 90 percentile. Shopping for instance, how often do we shop for our neighbor vs. our self? Hm…..

 So, when Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself” that would completely change everything. And think of what it would do. Would poverty exist? Would there be hunger? And I’m convinced believers would continually multiply, due to the works, produced from a loving body. And so on.

I think the hardest part about this concept, is what does loving our neighbor fully look like. Other than a yearly charity donation, a one-dollar bum giveaway, or coffee once a week with a friend, though those are all important and good – for many it’s not challenging enough. Pet peeve of mine (probably shouldn’t be), is when people say, in some type of certain context “I’m just going to love people”.  What does that mean? How do we actively and love people in “all” situations? It is attractive and easy to say, but a lot of times that’s all it is, attractive and easy to say. 

So let’s try and figure it out.  Let’s dive into the word this next week and see what it tells us. How do we love our neighbor as our self? Perspectives. Stories. Whatever you got to offer, cause I throw in the towel of trying to figure it out alone. Also, I want to point out, though I make certain points, does not mean I am or feel that I am free of what I speak of. Guilty as charged.

Plus, the next few weeks, this idea of community, I want to belly flop into more. Meaning I want to hit it hard. There a couple more areas that I’ve been wrestling with, and need some help. Then, after we hit community and see where that takes us, I really want to see what Jesus and you guys have to say about money. I feel that this is at the root of a lot of evil and would make for an interesting topic. So if you want, I’m going to be reading a short and easy, but from what I’ve been told, an impacting book called, “The Treasure Principle” and you could too. That would be neat and helpful. Exciting.