All of Us

Have you ever visited an "Escape Room"?  There's one in the town where I live, but I have yet to try my hand at this new form of entertainment. However, it's also one of the new techniques used in education to help students learn how to work in a group while reviewing or learning new academic information.  In a technology training last summer, I had the opportunity to participate in an example of this type of lesson.

Last week I tried out a similar activity in one of the classes I co-teach.  The students had to work together to solve puzzles, find clues, and decipher codes with no guidance from me or their classroom teacher. They had to rely on each other, listen to the ideas of their teammates, solve problems as a group, and be willing to try approaches that were different than their own.  They had a blast!

After the activity was over, we all talked about how that exercise was like real life.  In most businesses and occupations, people have to rely on the gifts, talents, and knowledge of others to accomplish the objectives of the organization.  While the activity and the discussion that followed was good for my elementary students, it brings up an even better reminder to us as members of the body of Christ.

My pastor likes to say that not one of us is as smart as all of us and not one of us is as strong as all of us together.  We were never designed to walk out this Christian life on our own.  We need each other - not just to work together to accomplish tasks, but just to be there for each other - encouraging, exhorting, teaching, interceding, and serving.

There are spiritual gifts that each of us has that were meant to be shared. What we lack, someone else can give to us. What they lack, we can share with them.  Every time the voice of the Holy Spirit urges us toward some kind of action and we hold back because of fear or self-consciousness, we are robbing our brothers and sisters of a blessing that God desired to give them.

I like the way the Living Bible expresses Ephesians 4:16:

Instead, we will lovingly follow the truth at all times - speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly - and so become more and more in every way like Christ who is the Head of his body, the Church. Under his direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly, and each part in its own special way helps the other parts so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

Are you doing your part?  Are you helping in the church where God has placed you?  Are you solving problems, searching for knowledge, contributing your skills?  If a third grader can work in a cooperative group and unlock virtual locks, certainly you can be a functioning member of a healthy, growing, loving body of believers unlocking the promise of God for the corporate body where He has placed you.

Who Has Life?

The other day I heard a phrase we often use in Christianity.  The person speaking said, "I gave my life to the Lord."  What he meant was the same thing we all mean when we use those words - we accepted the work that Jesus did on our behalf, acknowledged our sins, asked for forgiveness, and became a new creation in Him -  born-again.

I've heard the phrase a thousand times, but that particular day the words struck me a little differently.  When you give something to someone, you have to possess it in the first place. While we are in the body, I guess to a certain extent we own our lives.  We are the ones making decisions daily that tell our body what to do and what to say, but the "life" we have is nothing we can give to God.  He gave us the lives in our mortal bodies to begin with.

When we come into a relationship with Jesus, He gives His life to us - not the other way around!

Life is more than just the absence of physical death.  We all have heard of people who seemed to be living "the good life".  They had money, position, fame, talent, looks - everything the world thinks is required for happiness, yet they are miserable and some even take their own lives. I've known others who had little the world would envy, yet the joy that radiates from them is amazing. 

The Bible tells us that "in Him we live and move and have our being" in Acts 17:28.  The life that we have in Jesus is so much more than anything that we can gain in the natural world.  Jesus Himself said, "I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing". (John 15:5)

If we do not maintain that connection to Him, we can begin to dry up spiritually.  He promised that He would never leave us, but the choice to leave Him can be ours.  I have learned leaving Him doesn't always involve jumping back into the deep end of the sin pool.  It can be as simple as ignoring His voice or avoiding his Word.  It can just be prioritizing our wants before His will.  We will never perfectly follow Him, but we can be pursuing Him in obedience, regardless of how we feel or what circumstances surround us. Choose life!

Hunger and Empty Calories

Anybody hungry?  That's a pretty easily answered question.  From our infancy, we recognize the need for food.  When we are tiny, we cry for it until someone satisfies our craving by bringing us a bottle.  As soon as we develop the least little bit of language, we ask for "milk" or "cookie" or whatever we know how to say in an effort to get those hunger pangs under control.

The more we mature, the more control we have over what we put in our mouths.  Sometimes we make good, healthy choices and sometimes we consume junk.  We wrestle with our weight and vow to control our diet.  Food is a constant in all of our lives.  We depend on it for nutrition and we enjoy it for its taste.  We plan, we shop, we cook, we share, we celebrate - all with food.

God gave living beings the sensation of hunger to ensure that we would seek the food that we need so we could survive. I believe He also gives us a sensation of spiritual hunger to draw us to Himself. 

Sometimes when our family is out in our van, my two-year-old granddaughter passes the time by pretending different things.  One of her games of imagination involves giving everyone in the vehicle virtual gummy bears.  They are always pink.  She puts some in my hand and tosses them over her head to her papaw and her daddy in the front seat.  It's a delightful little game and we all play along - thanking her for her gift, but her gummies have no taste, no calories, and no nutrition. We don't get any enjoyment or any energy from what she provides to us.  Imaginary food profits nothing, even if it's fun.

In our lives as Christians, we sometimes settle for fun things that profit nothing instead of pursuing things that are spiritually nutritious, that provide energy for our lives and yes - that we can enjoy. The Bible tells us to "taste and see that the Lord is good".  However, we settle for the food of the world that is at best bland, and at worst - poison.

Are you feeding your hunger with empty calories?  How is that working out for you?  It's not working out too well for me and I'm asking God to direct my choices so that I am taking in that which He knows will strengthen me and help me grow. 

Are You Really Listening?

This weekend I learned why 60-year-old women do not have babies.  I already knew that raising children is a challenge even for young people, but a weekend of managing a strong-willed two-year-old showed me the wisdom of God's plan in trusting tiny people with younger parents! 

Sometimes my son and his wife say of their little one, "She doesn't listen".  I decided this weekend that her problem wasn't a listening problem - it was an obeying problem. Of course, just about everything this kid does points me to a larger lesson and I realized that sometimes my own problem is not in the listening, but in the obeying.

How many things am I neglecting to do when God has already told me in His word what He expects?  How many times have I felt that nudge of the Holy Spirit to say or do something and used some lame excuse to avoid being obedient to that calling?

When Bella doesn't do what she is told, it is because she really wants to continue to do what she wants.  Just like all of us, her flesh says that playing with something dangerous is fun or that it's more important to explore the possibilities of what is in that mystery cabinet than it is to truly listen to what I am asking her to do or warning her to avoid.  She's human and she is two.  I will love her regardless, but I will expect her to grow in obedience as she gets older.

In the same way, God will also continue to love us, but He expects us to grow in obedience and understanding as we follow Him.  That selfish, self-centered spirit that is in all of us must come under His control and guidance as we pursue Him.