Today I took time to reflect. To reflect.
On the things that I've thought. That I've said. That I've done. That my mind's worried about/constantly processing.
Me. ME. All I think about is me and what I want. How I've been unjustly treated, how things seem so unfair. How my entitlements and rights have been eroded time and again. How my songs talk about my faith, my life and my views. How my ministry depends alot on what I do and what I deem as right.
I am in love with myself.
Others. OTHERS. Those niggling thoughts that keep me self-conscious and worried about what others might think or say of me if I do this, say this, sing this. Blah blah. So I choose to retreat into neutrality. Stay quiet cos' you don't want anything negative. Close yourself up in a shell of safety.
In love with others and myself.
What about that man you thought you'd put all your faith, hope and love in? That Man they call Christ? Sure, you wear your faith on your sleeve and you do all the right things that would give you the title of a "devout Christian" as the world would see it. You know the right words to pray, the right songs to sing, the right things to teach. You get into the right circles. You're there as the world sees it.
But we have to ask the honest, hard questions. What does God see? What does God seek?
More and more I'm finding that God doesn't need more religiosity to accomplish his plans. He needs people who are madly enough in love with Him to say that something is wrong about us keeping His love stale within our confined racial/religious/ethnic enclaves when it should be overflowing into other communities, healing and restoring the broken and setting the captives free (and doing it!). He seeks people who will lay down their personal security and sense of well-being to get out there and accomplish the great things He has set forth since the dawn of ages.
And He needs us. Not because we are anything. But because He chooses, out of His sovereignty, prevenient grace and great love, to work through us. The Lord of the universe caring to work with mere mortal men and even considering accomplishing His perfect will through our flawed reasoning and understanding of everything we know. (Insert better word for 'wow')
He didn't call us the hands and feet of Christ for no reason. If we really desire to know so badly whether we are in the body of Christ, obviously the first thing we should consider is if we are acting under the headship of Christ as his hands and his feet to a world that is broken and hurting. A world that believes it is self-sufficient, that is blind to the weight of sin upon its shoulders and the beauty of Love crucified and resurrected.
We need to be the hands that open the blind eyes, unlock the deaf ears and the feet that go with the message of God's loving salvation all around.
Like I said, I know the right stuff that makes a "good Christian"
Now God, help me forget me because me will never get me anywhere near that. Help me to think, eat, sleep, talk, breathe, listen, think of, sing of nothing but You. Because the world's got enough of religion.
It's time they saw You. In me fading so the Light of the world may take His rightful place.
More like falling in Love - Jason Gray