Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Gettin’ Personal

Who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Php 2: 6-7

I rose from my seat on the low concrete wall to let the young man sit his blind sister in my place. The wall was pretty much filled with the seated homeless who had come for lunch, patiently listening to God’s word while waiting for the sandwiches and chips.

“If God didn’t want His best for us, he’d have kept on killin’ sheeps and goats and wouldn’a kilt his only son!”

The preacher was speaking the language of the homeless but he was speaking my language as well.

This preacher, raised up from the people he now served, was talking about a God who could have stuck with religious practice and let folks make out the best they could. Instead, our God went beyond religion and made it personal.

I couldn’t help but question my own life when I heard the “amens” around me. As we ask God to work through us to redeem His world, have we, with Him, moved beyond religion and made it personal?

Religion gives money and that’s good.

Religion prays and that’s good.

Religion meets with others to worship each week and that’s good.

Religion seeks to bring people into the church and that’s good.

Religion is good, but it only goes so far. To transform people you’ve got to get personal.

‘Personal’ means touch and ‘personal’ means risk.

If we are going to get personal in our service to the King, just like Him we’ve got to touch and we’ve got to risk.

When was the last time I touched a lost or broken person with love and with a longing for His redemption?

When was the last time I risked reputation or a painful loss of time to touch the life of one whom God was seeking?

When was the last time I went beyond “killin’ sheeps and goats” and made it personal?

Dear God,
Thank you for the religion You have given us that provides structure and organization to our faith in a world of chaos. Help me to move beyond the form of faith to get personal with You and with those You seek to save.
Amen.

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