The "church", greed, love

I couldn't think of one specific good title for this post. I am so moved this morning from church, God was speaking something big from our Pastor Tommy this morning.

The sermon was called The Rock, Strength for the struggle. It will be online here, soon, please go listen to it.

God spoke to me in so many ways this morning it brought me to tears at church. The sermon itself was from 1 Peter, teaching that first and foremost I live for Christ, that I live in holiness, preparing myself for struggle.

He explained how we are saved through Christ's blood, but that we live for Christ, in Christ because we love God so much, not because of a set of rules. We don't do certain things because we don't want to break God's heart, because of love, not fear.

Tommy spoke about the "church" being the people, not the place. How the church (people) should love each other and care for each other. He said caring for one another is NOT optional, it's biblical. He referred to the verse in 1 Corinthians 11:17 and explaining it's meaning.

What hit my heart were several points that Tommy made. One of them, was talking about how we should be taking care of other believers, others in the church. He talked about how some of us are sitting here with everything we need, and other believers are struggling and dying and we are doing nothing about it. Maybe he meant dying in a physical sense, maybe he meant dying in an emotional sense, or both, but it brought tears, for me, thinking of my brother and his family, and a family at church who is struggling. My brother and sister in law have been part of a church for years, 8 years ago, my sister in law Debbie was in a car accident and has been paralyzed to a wheel chair ever since. Through the years, my brother has given his entire life to his wife. He is her sole caretaker, doing everything for her. I have watched my brother's faith in Christians fade away. He has called the Christians hypocrites. He has lost some of his faith in God, and I know is bitter at times and feels alone and deserted. I have watched him turn to other things for relief, rather then turning to Christ or the people of the church. ( In a sense, I see him dying, the person he was, is not the person he is today, he is physically and mentally exhausted) Today, I felt that tug at my heart, and understood why my brother feels this way. No one in the church has helped him in the last 8 years to take care of his wife. He was left alone by the church to do it all on his own. I am one of those people. Sure I visit when she's sick in the hospital, or visit at home when it's convenient for me, but I haven't helped with his burden. I haven't showed Christ in me to my brother. I can now understand where his bitterness came from.

Pastor Tommy mentioned in general the "people" with their big back yards, and three car garages, coming home and shutting the garage, and not reaching out to people and helping others, or spending time with others, Pastor Tommy has never been to my house. I am embarrassed to say, I AM one of those people. I have the big back yard and the three car garage. We don't keep our garage closed per say, but we sure don't invite neighbors over to shine our lights to. I was convicted beyond words today about how we live in our own little worlds, doing our own thing, and just being busy with our own "stuff". My family is not going to like what I got out of the sermon today. I feel greedy. I am humbled. I feel that we should sell our big house, or share it. I feel we can do more then tithe our 10% to the church. I feel greedy for having this house and not opening it up to my brothers and sisters in Christ. I know that wasn't Tommy's objective, to make me feel convicted of greed, but maybe it was God's objective. We are so programmed from childhood on to want bigger and better, and keep up with the people next door. Make as much money as you can , and get the bigger house and more stuff to put in it and you'll be happy. What a messed up world this is. A few years ago we lived in a smaller house, and I wasn't happy with it, I wanted more space for our family of 6. That was greed. We had "enough" but I wanted more. Sure we love it here, and it's nice to have the space we have, and the beautiful backyard we have, but is this what Christ wants for us? I feel God leading us somewhere. I'm not sure where, but there's definitely something coming. My poor husband. He was perfectly happy in the place we were before and I persisted that we needed something bigger. Now I am convicted I was being greedy. I pray that God shows us how we can glorify him with what we have. I pray that when people look at me, they don't see a greedy worldly person that calls them self a Christian. In the last year God has changed my heart, and convicted me of being greedy with my time, I used to think that I should have time to myself, that my kids were more of a burden to me when I wanted something for myself, he turned that into a mom that wants to homeschool and worries more about bringing her kids up to love God than time to myself. I am so thankful for everything we have been blessed with, but most of all, for a God that can give us happiness without all the things of this world. We are here to glorify him, to live for him, to love each other and take care of each other, not for ourselves. What has happened to this world? Us Christians need to show the world God's love, not love ourselves so much. Thank you Lord for helping me to understand, and to see who you are and who you want us to be.

Self Control- The platform

Our pastor Tommy gave the an amazing sermon this morning on self control.
He referenced a point in Ecclesiates 2 where Solomon says, " I denied myself nothing my eyes desired", that's how the world lives today, we don't deny ourselves of anything, we want what we want and we seek to get it, there's no self control. We consume ourselves with with wanting more and more, the things we desire begin to control our lives.

We've been going through a series on fruit of the spirit , and he explained how you can't just "make yourself" have more fruit. Like you can't just say, "I need to make myself more patient!" Or "I need to get more peace in my life", but that we get those things by living in the spirit. The closer your relationship with God and the more you live in the spirit the more fruit you'll grow. Today with self control, he explained that self control is the platform for all the other fruit. You have to have self control to live in the spirit, then in return get more self control and more fruit! We have to learn to say no to our flesh, and yes to the spirit. If we live for the flesh, we are rejecting the spirit of God! Living in the flesh is living for ourselves, it always comes back to satisfying "ME", instead of God.
This made sense to me. The world is all about , me, me, me. You hear it everywhere from everyone, it's so hard to get yourself out of that way of fleshy thinking and think and act in the spirit. The Christian life is not easy, Tommy reminded us of this verse~ Luke 13:24 (New King James Version)
24 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
An interesting point about the word "strive" is that if you look it up in the bible dictionary it comes up "agony", so we are to be in agony to enter through the narrow gate! Self control is hard! But it's so important to kill the flesh as a Christian. Quit worrying about yourself so much, live in the spirit and be fruitful!! I want this so badly. When I don't feel like being self controlled I have to keep in mind how much sweeter my life will be when I'm a tree bearing lots of fruit. How much better God is than anything else. :)

Born again

I just love this song, it touches my heart everytime I listen to it. I do feel this way about having a relationship with Jesus, and it just keeps getting better and better. :)

God leads us

The other day I saw a post from a friend about her life and having 4 kids in 5 years and she commented how she loves having a full plate.
It really made me think this morning. I really wouldn't want it any other way either. I am busy, I don't have much time to myself, I do have piles of laundry every day, a messy house, kids constantly needing something, always other little people to worry about, feed, change, referee, play with, read to, drive around, council,wipe butts, take kids to the doctor, it's never ending.

I have days when I feel too exhausted for my husband, and days when I'm so stressed I want to run away for awhile, but when I really think about it, I wouldn't have it any other way. I absolutely love being a mommy.

My kids bring so many smiles to day, and warmth to my heart. I learn things from my kids daily. They love me unconditionally no matter what, they depend on me for everything. My life would be so boring without these children. I honestly feel so blessed to have these little people in my life.

The closer my relationship with the Lord, the more I love these kids and want what is best for them, the more I think about their needs instead of mine.
Recently God put in on my heart to home school my kids. For various reasons, but they are all about the kids and what they need to have a life centered on Christ, so they can grow up having real relationships with the Lord and not being influenced by silly worldly things that they shouldn't have to deal with until they are mature enough to deal with them. (Great sermon on educating our children) My thoughts about myself, and having free time, or time to clean the house, or read a book or just be alone are gone. (at least for the most part!) God has changed my heart to be less focused on Amy and her needs. I am thankful for that. He has made me more grateful for my children, and helped me to understand my role in their life as their mother. ( I think this must be some fruit of the spirit!)
It amazes me how God orchestrates things to work together before I even know what's coming. He put it in my heart/mind about home schooling months ago, around that same time I was going through months of discipleship with a friend at church, learning tons from her, but at the same time becoming discontent with my church. I know I blogged about it, that I was angry I went to church for 6 years and hadn't learned the things this women was teaching me in less then six months. My husband thought I was crazy. He wasn't really for the home school idea, and didn't think there was a thing wrong with our church. Again, around the same time, we both started listening to sermons online from Mars hill church in Seattle. The Pastor is Mark Driscoll. Kevin and I both really enjoyed his sermons, he tells it like it is, and nothing is watered down. One day I was scanning through the Mars hill web site and found a link to Acts 29. Something Mark Driscoll started for church plants. There happen to be a church called Mercy Hill. We decided to go check it out, I know God led us to that church, the address on the website was not only wrong, but it also said it was at a grade school. We drove around, found the address, and it was NOT a school. Kevin said, "oh, maybe we should go back to the other church", I said, "let's just drive a little farther." We found a middle school with cars parked in the parking lot and decided to go in. It WAS the church. People said, "how did you find us??" Good question! It's a very small new church plant, but when we found our seat, and I started singing along with the one man that was doing worship the tears starting falling. I had this peace in my heart, and I just knew it was where we were supposed to be. Then I heard the sermon, it was fabulous. The people, are so friendly, I just knew it was where we belong. So more things start coming together. So far every mom I've met there home schools. Is that a coincidence? I don't think so.
I was trying to find a home team at our old church for the summer, no luck. This church family gets together 3 weeks out of the month. My kids are going in the makeshift nursery, all of them, together, and no tears. We didn't have that before either. Oh, and my husband is on board with the home schooling now. Huh, what just happened?? This last month has been amazing, watching what God is doing in our lives. This is a time that I don't want to forget, God is so visible to me right now, directing our family, but he took it slow, one curve, one idea at a time and just led us right where we are now.
I am excited to see where this takes us, excited to see what home schooling will be like, excited to be a part of a brand new church plant. Who would have thought? A year ago I wouldn't have believed I'd be doing any of these things. God is amazing!

Just one thing I want to add to my friends at my first home church, I love you guys! I have made some wonderful friendships with beautiful God fearing people and i'm so grateful for each and every one of you! I was saved through that church, and if it wasn't for that church and it's misson for new beleivers, I wouldn't have been saved. I credit that church for my salvation and getting me on the right track to having a relationship with Christ. Had the sermons been as deep as what I need now, I probably wouldn't have understood it or liked it. I am thankful for both churches. I guess sometimes we have to move on to new and different things, different times in our life God leads us to new things, but Fox River will always have a place in my heart!! :)