Monday, November 12, 2012

God's Secret Family Recipes


"Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord..." Isaiah 1:18

When Jesus commands us in Matthew 18 to go to our brother if he has sinned against us and tell him his fault that he might listen and you may gain a brother, that isn't some new way of dealing with people...its been God's way since the beginning.

God is the first example to us this. He has just listed off all the people's wrong yet he does not pour judgement first. No, first he says let's get together and talk reasonably about it and not continue in ignorance of where we stand with each other. He then promises forgiveness and blessing if the repent and turn back to Him. He comes to us and says, "Hey, here is what you have done, lets see it as it is and move forward in grace and forgiveness." Which is exactly what we are to do with each other. To come together and see ourselves and our actions for what they are (not what we want them to be or how we want to see them) in relation to each other so that we can acknowledge, repent, forgive, and move forward together in love and grace. 

When God asks us to do the same in Matthew, remember that he exampled it first. He is not asking us to do something cause he decided its what is best for us (which in theory would be a good enough reason), but actually he lets us in to his world, into his secret family recipes, and says "Hey, let me tell you my secret to reconciliation...it works every time."

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Honesty...is such a lonely word.


“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7


God, knowing all that we need even better than we do, still has us ask him. You do not have because you do not ask (James 4:2) Clearly, we do not ask because God needs to know what what we need but because it is how he designed us to be...to be honest. Asking is honesty, its admitting to ourselves and to someone else what we need. This is the way God wants us to be...

So if God asks us to ask in order to receive, how much more do we need to ask each other when we need something? We so often expect that people should just know what we need and expect them to answer our needs, even God who knows all and can do all says thats not how it works, yet we expect it of each other who are so far less knowing and able than God almighty. We need to learn to ask each other, to be honest with each other and with ourselves when we have needs.

God can promise that when we ask anything in his name we can receive it because he can do all things, and though we cannot promise that of each other, I think we would find if we asked more, we would have a lot more...and judge a lot less.