In disgust..

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing. I attend a few church services a week. Enough to feel ok about myself and my life. Even lately, I haven't been going to church as much as I used to, or even as much as I should. We've heard it for years. The whole analogy, just because you go to McDonalds doesn't make you a hamburger, and just because you live in a garage doesn't make you a car. So just because you go to church doesn't make you a Christian. You can sit in a presence of God filled service and get the goosebumps, be content with a few tears of joy you got from a prayer line. Then go home and go back to your old ways. We all know about it. We all have suffered from being guilty of this very thing at least once in our life. If you deny it you are lying. We're human.

Years and years of teaching. Years of gained knowledge from being in church, reading the Word, and even the small amounts of time spent with God alone. We gain something. Then we become what is known as a "fat christian." We do nothing with what we have. We sit in our own waste and get fat. We are accountable for everything we know. But we do nothing about it. I'm not trying to point fingers. I'm actually pointing it at myself. I'm mostly having us all examine our lives. American Christianity is so spoiled. We know more than most and more than we realize. So no one has an excuse not to do what has been asked of us. We all have ministries. In the workplace, at the grocery store, the gas station, and the swimming pool! There are hurting people everywhere! Look around you for crying out loud! Let people see the Jesus in you and take every moment as an opportunity to bring healing to someone's life. Stop making excuses. Being selfish and too busy and wrapped up in your own life. What's the point. Nothing here matters. It's all temporal. The only thing eternal is life.

I sit here looking at pictures of my pastor ministering in Brazil right now. A young girl had a disease where she had a growth problem. My pastor prayed for her, and in the next few services, or days, I can't remember exactly, she was in pain. Her bones were growing and she grew 3 inches. Everyone at the church could witness because they knew her. So you can't tell me that isn't God. But what makes me sick is that I am living in my own little confined life worrying about what shoes to buy or how my hair looks, or what I should eat today for the 10th time, when my pastor sits in his closet for hours and prays and seeks God, and doesn't eat for days from fasting to kill his flesh so that he can go to Brazil and have God use him and such miracles. Um, I feel pretty low right now. Not in condemnation because God sees us all where we are at. But in motivation and disgust to do something different. Seriously. We don't have to stay the way we are in our ugly selves. Mostly, there are hurting and dying people out there that God loves sooo incredibly much and He is counting on us to reach out to them. It's the greatest call on a life. And we are all called to it. So I hope this kicked you into gear a little bit like the sight of those pictures of Brazil did me.