Glorious Journey

What makes us the way we are? When we see bruised and broken adults, are they the product of their own poor choices? Or are they the victims of the poor choices that surrounded them in their youth? We say that there is a time when we must stand accountable for our own actions. Our society holds this to be true. When a thirty year old commits a crime, no one arrests the parents.

What about when a young person turns out to be an outstanding adult? Much of the time we give credit to the parents, telling them what a good job they did raising this particular child. But what about that young person who becomes caring, compassionate, trustworthy, loyal, reliable, wise, thrifty, gentle, loving, and joyful almost in spite of the influences that surrounded them rather than because of them.

I must say, I simply don’t know. I do know that when God puts his hand on a young man or woman they will indeed do something grand. That is the power of the hand of God.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

2 Co 5:17

I have heard it put best this way. When Jesus turned the water into wine at the wedding in Cana, he didn’t use new and fresh water. The water pots placed there by the door were pots for purification. In other words, the water may very well have been some of the same water the celebrants at the wedding had used to wash their feet as they came in off the dirty roads. Jesus’ command to fill the pots does not indicate the pots were empty. They only needed to be “topped off.”

When Jesus told the servants to take this water and serve it to the guests, you can guess the hesitancy of the servants might have had.

You want us to take dirty foot-washing water and serve it to the wedding party!

The amazing thing is that Jesus didn’t simply turn water into wine. No, he took dirty, polluted water, water unfit to drink, made it clean, and then turned it into wine. That is the miracle of God’s work in you. Jesus Christ takes you as you are, with all your sins, mistakes, flaws, and faults, and cleanses you in a manner worthy to be presented to the Master of the Feast. It doesn’t matter whose choices led you down that awful path you have travelled.

Next He turns you over to the Holy Spirit who takes you and forms you into something that brings joy to that same Master who proclaims you the very best that could be!

Don’t dwell on the place from which you came, rather, glory in the journey you have begun!

Pastor Craig

Your Spiritual Journey

Over the next several weeks I am going to be asking you all several questions. How you answer these questions six months from now will be more important than you initial answers as you read them.

I won’t keep you guessing. The reason your answer six months from now will be more important than the answer you give today is that, if the answer remains unchanged for six months, it will show that we are headed nowhere. We may talk a great deal about the who, what, when, and where of ministry, but the only thing that matters is if we actually engage in the ministries we have planned.

You had your first question last week. Here is your second question: When you consider all of your experiences at this church, what has contributed the most to your spiritual life? Think. Think very hard. Remember a time when you felt close to God? Remember things, spiritual practices that brought you to that place in your life? What things made the most difference in your spiritual journey?

While your answers may be quite different and varied from person to person, I can tell you one thing that always guarantees a solid return in your spiritual growth. That thing is time alone with your God and His word. God promises us that His word “will not return void.”[1] This means that your faithful study of the Word of God will bring you closer to the God who gives humanity his Living Word!

Maybe your study comes with the rising of the sun. Maybe it is the last thing you do before you go to bed. It may be something you do with your spouse and family or something you do in a quiet place all by yourself. You may join a study formed at church, or you may use a book or guide you buy at a store and do it all on your own. You may read the Scriptures and meditate on a single verse all day, or you may read long sections of Scripture and drink in the larger flow of God’s interaction with humanity.

We usually stop our study of the Word when we feel the action has become something of rote. We may not get the same “feeling” we had originally. We wonder what we get out of our effort. We wonder if we are wasting our time. The Scriptures promise that we are not. God is in the reading, and if God is there it can never be a waste of time.

Whatever it was that meant so much to your spiritual life, don’t give up on it. Reclaim your first love. Remember the words of the One who cannot lie telling you that you will be blessed if you choose to spend time before Him, studying Him, learning His ways, and experiencing His eternal goodness.

Pastor Craig

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[1] I Thessalonians 2:13