My Heart is Missing!

This building is a great place to play hide and seek!
It's missing because the people of Linden Avenue Baptist Church in Dayton, Ohio have stolen it! The thieves! :)

I'm back home sweet home and thinking a lot about the people I've met this week. God is the Rescuer and I just spent 4 glorious days with people who have been rescued from much for Much. I met former alcohol and drug addicts. I met former prostitutes. I met people who are wholeheartedly seeking after God's plan for their lives who yet struggle with addiction...people still crying out for freedom from their old life. I met servants, humility, hospitality, teachability, generosity, vulnerability, gentleness...real people in touch with their weaknesses and need for a Rescuer. I was in good company. I need a Rescuer, too.

I don't ever want to forget what God has saved me from. I never want to become desensitized to my moment of salvation. We all have sinned...we all have fallen short of God's incredible glory and holiness. What a God I have that would provide a way through Jesus for me to rise to the condition I was intended for...His glory. I don't ever want to lose the wonder and thankfulness over this truth. More importantly, I want to look at other people with this same wonder and thankfulness. All of us are on a journey of Christ-likeness. No one has arrived yet. All that God is and can do is available to us but we have not achieved living in that fullness yet. And so each day that I exist is to be spent stepping further into the fullness of God that is available to me now. Every day I exist is to be spent learning how to put aside my dead self and how to live as a new creation. What an amazing life! What an amazing God that He doesn't leave me in my old condition. I want to spend my days thanking Him for this and looking at others around me as "un-arrived" people on their way to living in the fullness of God. This requires the love defined in 1 Corinthians 13 (Pastor John is preaching on this at Redeemer this Sunday! Can't wait!). It requires patience, kindness. It requires that I not be envious, boastful, rude or self-seeking. It requires me to be slow-to-anger...to always hope, always believe, always encourage.

Father, today as I tune into Your voice, teach me how to walk further into the fullness of who You are and who You've made me to be. And may I view others in this same light. PS...bless the beautiful people of Linden Avenue Baptist Church and may today be a day of freedom for the oppressed.

Comments

  1. Wendy WrenJuly 22, 2011 at 1:30 PM

    AMEN!!!
    Beautiful Post Holly
    I am thankful for YOU :)

    ReplyDelete

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