Breathing Rain

Presuming the preeminence of God and His Word over all, I can’t think of anything better in this world, anything that renews my spirit and soul, more than rain. No matter what it is you are doing, rain changes perspective, and not in some lame intellectual way, but in a base, underlying manner.

It is like food for the soul. I think the rain replenishes us as a living part of this planet, just as it does everything else. Rain even seems to have a refreshing, cleansing effect on the manmade stuff of this world.

God’s ways are perfect. At one time or another, we all lose sight of this. Rain restores some primal understanding of who God is, and who we truly are in comparison. Perspective.

I hope it’s raining where you are right now.

*****

"I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit." -- Leviticus 26:4

"Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm ... " -- Job 38:25 ...
"Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?" -- Job 38:28

" ... the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain, before God, the One of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel." -- Psalms 68:8 ...

"He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills." -- Psalms 147:8

"You heavens above, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness grow with it; I, the LORD, have created it." -- Isaiah 45:8

"Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies themselves send down showers? No, it is you, O LORD our God. Therefore our hope is in you, for you are the one who does all this." -- Jeremiah 14:22

"When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses." -- Jeremiah 51:16

"Ask the LORD for rain in the springtime; it is the LORD who makes the storm clouds. He gives showers of rain to men, and plants of the field to everyone." -- Zechariah 10:1

" ... that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." -- Matthew 5:45

"Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." -- James 5:17

VALUE

I’ve got to give it up to my church when it comes to VALUE for their Easter Service. Apparently they had over 1000 in attendance with 30 salvations. Clearly, regardless of my personal like/dislike attitude, what the church is putting out there clearly has value when it comes to bringing a clear and concise gospel message to people.

30 salvations…although I am struggling with what this means. I think any Christian would, although I also think Christians should have the least trouble accepting it. My struggle has been with a basic question: How do we know there were 30 salvations? Are we just talking about checking a box on a card? What about the public confession, what about the baptism, what about, what about, what about…..?

Then the following thought occurred to me: What about all the “what abouts”? If a person says they have accepted Christ in their heart, who am I to contend with them? The Biblical truth is, a this stage in their journey, I have no choice but to take them at their word, and perhaps I even have an obligation to believe them. The same is true for everyone who knows me to be a Christian; they have taken me at my word. Even when I got up in front of strangers and made a “confession of belief in Christ” or when I was baptized, everyone was simply taking me at my word that I truly believed. They had no choice.

So who am I to doubt someone’s “not so public” confession of marking a communication card in church saying they had accepted Christ? Soon enough, their life either will or it won’t bear the fruits that go along with being a Christian. Sooner or later, they either will or they won’t be filled with a desire to obey Christ and be baptized. Sooner or later, they either will or they won’t willingly subject themselves to the command to fulfill the Great Commission.

The better thing for me to do, rather than further explore my doubt, would be to simply pray for the seed that obviously sprouted on Easter in these 30+ peoples’ hearts, praying that it will find root in good soil, and grow huge for the glory of Christ’s kingdom. AMEN!

Contrivances

These thoughts tonight stem from what is to me a serious concern: When it comes to genuinely seeking to serve Christ in a manner consistent with the intent of spreading the gospel message to the 4 corners of the globe, when it comes to working to enlarge the kingdom by seeing people dedicate their lives to Christ, when it comes to seeking to exist in the center of the culture without losing sight of Christ, where is the line? I’m just seeking to explore some thoughts, and no offense is intended, just in case you happen to be reading this and know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m just being genuine.

contrivance
noun
1.
a device or control that is very useful for a particular job [syn: appliance]
2.
the faculty of contriving; inventive skill; "his skillful contrivance of answers to every problem"
3.
an elaborate or deceitful scheme contrived to deceive or evade; "his testimony was just a contrivance to throw us off the track"
4.
an artificial or unnatural or obviously contrived arrangement of details or parts etc.; "the plot contained too many improbable contrivances to be believable"
5.
any improvised arrangement for temporary use [syn: lash-up]
6.
the act of devising something [syn: devisal]

I’ve pondered this question since my Easter Morning church service today. I don’t have an answer, but I really do wonder where the line is, if there even is a line.

During the service, I found myself extremely distracted and though the message was perfect and true, the “show” going on around the message was definitely as cluttered and “contrived” as the culture it was seeking to exist within. I wonder how much of the message survived. Perhaps it isn’t our job to worry about the survival of the message. Rather, perhaps we’re just supposed to put it out there and let the message do its thing. But is it possible to get in the way of the message with our human stuff?

The other day my dad reminded me of how many thousand Jesus preached to out in the desert, sometimes, up to 5000 at a time (at least) with no postal service, no TV, no radio, no printers, no billboards, no amplifiers, no guitars (6? I think this morning), no microphones, no smoke machines, no lights, no repetitive songs, no crosses, not even any food, no coffee, no childcare, no building, no shelter, no ministers, no Bible colleges, no universities, no denominations, no money, no salaries, no t-shirts, and NO NEED for any of those things. Just the Gospel and the world, doing their thing.

But God did give me a thought at the end of the service…what about VALUE? Rather than looking at it from a “like/dislike” perspective, it would be better to determine whether there was value in what I was a part of this morning. I don’t know the answer to that, but I hope there was. By value, of course I mean value when it comes to fulfilling the Great Commission.

I do truly believe the leadership of the church I currently attend, and claim as a member, should ask themselves more frequently: Does this thing which we’re making a part of what we are presenting in the name of Jesus add REAL value to what we’re trying to achieve?

I’m not offering any answers, or opinions beyond what I’m saying here, but I do believe the question is genuine.