I wrote the following in an attempt to capture all that God was saying and revealing to me on February 24, 2014. Part three of Reforming Church: Documenting God’s Burden.
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For the past couple of weeks, my heart has been rended, maybe not so violently has the definition conveys. Maybe more of a sifting or a gentle cutting than sudden brute force ripping, like a purposeful surgeon bringing healing as opposed to a villain intending to kill. But very often, it has felt like there was a villain intending to kill. I’ve felt my life at stake as I meandered the path of life and tried to figure out how to navigate the challenges I’m facing.
Over and over again, I’ve gone to the Father, and each time He has spoken to me. I ask a question, and He gives me an answer. The questions are hard, and the answers are even more difficult and generate more questions. What I know to be true is that He has been absolutely faithful to be there and to answer.
“Call to me and I will answer and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3
Although I was interested in the IF:Gathering and even participated in a minor amount of planning meetings for IF:Local, I only really listened to about one and half of the sessions via telecast at the beginning of this month (February 6th). I live tweeted and facebooked quotes from Ann Voskamp’s talk though. One such quote that has me thinking is,
“If the body becomes a business, isn’t it more about prostitution?” – Ann Voskamp
This is not the first time I had heard a quote like this. The first quote was a couple of weeks prior and it was on Chris Fabry Live by Dr. John Koessler,
“When you brand your church, you begin to market it. When you market the church it becomes a product. And in the product market, the customer is king. In the church, however, Christ must be King.”
The funny thing was that I had listened to this on January 15th, and then it showed up in my facebook feed on January 29th as a quote, and then on February 6th I was listening to Ann Voskamp saying essentially the same thing in stronger language.
I am not the smartest tool in the box, but I’ve been taught to pay attention to the things that repeat to you. In essence, repeats of bible verses or of even things of this nature are possibly ways that God is trying to get your attention. If the quotes were not enough, I began to study the book of Daniel, via a Beth Moore study. I felt led to do it on my own, so I am going at my own pace, which is slightly slower than the usual pace.
Well, on the day before I listened to Ann Voskamp, I listened to Beth Moore’s teaching from Daniel and took notes in the listening guide,
“The inspiration for building an image doesn’t come from the Holy Spirit (Daniel 2:36-40).” – Beth Moore
Continuing onto the same day as I listen to Ann, I read in my Daniel study these words by Beth Moore,
“Image building is any way we intentionally make ourselves seem different – and usually more – than we really are. Image building is the attempt to make impressions that are bigger than we are. Image building may begin with what is true but enhances that truth until it is a lie. For instance, if we’ve gotten mileage for being ‘real,’ we can become a fake at being real.”
and
“After all, we are so thoroughly indoctrinated in image building that I’m not sure we easily recognize the difference between excelling and self-selling. Can you think of anything our culture teaches more thoroughly than image building?”
The more I read, the more burdened I became, and I believe whole-heartedly that it is a God-given burden.
photo credit: Nick in exsilio via photopin cc
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