Deaf to the Voice of Love

Anybody remember the story of Elijah on the Mountaintop. He is standing there waiting to hear the voice of God. First comes the earthquake, then the storm, followed by the volcano and in none of these is the voice of God to be heard. Lastly, comes a still wind, or a small voice, and in this gentle passing Elijah not only HEARS God but FEELS His TOUCH. At this Elijah is reduced to a humble and tear soaked man. Interesting isn't it.

Elijah, the guy who called fire from heaven, the guy who outran a King and his chariot, the slayer of 400 false prophets, the man who raised the dead, cursed the insolent and watched a bear devour them, and the second of two people listed in the Bible who went to heaven without dying (and by a fiery chariot no less).

Elijah a prophet who both new and spoke the Word of God, who spoke to God and carried His message to Queens and Kings and courts. This is a man of power, of presence, of incredible leadership ability. The power of God was so present with him that in Elisha's putting on of his cloak Elisha received the power of the Spirit. This is the stuff of Old Testament mystery and, if you deny God's Word, the stuff of science fiction and legend. But in the instance when God brings His message of Love to Elijah we understand the source of this man's life...humble recognition of God's grace and free love.

The difficulty for Elijah, and for us, isn't in knowing that the only source of our lifes true joys and peace is the love of God...it is the practice of paying attention. We know in this age of ADD and ADHD as children are popping pills to stay focussed in the classroom or at home that the art of singular focus and the discipline of filtered listening is lacking in all our lives. Hearing God's voice in the midst of well-intentioned but misguided cries...

"Show me that you are a good person. Be sure you have your future secured. What are your connections? Are you sure you want to spend time with those people? Wouldn't you rather live like me? Let's learn from our famous people? Don't show weakness, you might get used. When you stop being productive, people lose interest in you. Know where you are going. Follow through or just plain follow. If you don't work hard God isn't pleased. The church needs to be bigger and better, more production, more pomp, more cultural relativity."

...coming from friends, parents, teachers, pastors, the media and many other places.

If we lose touch with the voice of God, the voice that calls us Beloved, then these voices have called us away from home. Anger, jealousy, resentment, desire for revenge, lust, greed, antagonism, factionalism, rivalries, sloth, apathy, bitterness and other such fruits start to fill our life.

Without much effort we slip into thinking about how we were rejected, hurt or abandoned. We begin to brood over others successes, our own loneliness, and how the world has abused us. We daydream about becoming rich, powerful and very famous. And all of these unintentional thoughts reveal the fragility of our faith that we are the BELOVED ONE on whom GOD'S FAVOR RESTS.

Like Elijah we are afraid of being disliked, hated, hurt, left alone, but if we chase the earthquakes, storms, or volcanoes of other voices we will not hear the quiet voice of love that is God's voice, that drops us to our knees with the recognition that we were God's enemy but even as His enemy He loves us, gave His Son for us, and with us He is well pleased. We are His beloved, and in that is peace and strenth.

Amen

Sorry for the absence...

To all of our readers and supporter I am sorry for the long delay in a recent blog, there are no excuses but I do hope for your gracious forgiveness.

Well, lets get you all up to speed.

It is the first day of March. 30 days and counting until the evangelism seminar gets under way.

We have entitled it: BECOMING MSN GOSPEL MESSENGERS
MSN stands for Mandate, Service, Navigation. To explain things a little bit I will be teaching three sessions for our church (and we are advertising to several others as well) on Saturday March 31. The first session is entitle "The Mandate Mindset" and will focus intently on the nature of discipleship, the churches calling to produce disciples and not just converts. The second session is entitled "Strategies that Serve" where serve implies service to the Gospel through service to individuals and communities. This will be the most practical of the sessions. I will be providing strategies for personal evangelism and church service to the community. Session three is called "Navigating Obstacles" and I want to address at least two prevelant objections that people have to the Christian Church and its doctrine. I think I may talk about the exclusive vs. inclusive discussion of salvation i.e. "Is Jesus the only way to heaven?" and then maybe discuss the science and religion debate i.e. "Does science make religion invalid?"

We are looking forward to a great weekend. In the mean time we have recently started a youth home group for teens age 15-18 and on February 24th our Under Construction Crew (10-15yr old boys) went to a Power Team presentation where one of the boys accepted Christ!! Also we are starting two other new home groups, one for married couples studying the topic of marriage, and the other is still in the planning process. So things are definitely on the move.

God Bless and thanks for your prayers, which by the way...see the sidebar on the right of the blog to find out specifics requests for prayer.

Jeff