3:14 a.m.
Sitting here at my computer with thoughts running through my brain.
Oh, they aren't the kind of thoughts that you might go "Eureka!" with, but I'll own them just the same. "Thoughts?" you may say. Yep, thoughts. Let me give you some for-instances about the train that goes through my head.
#1 - Reading from Exodus yesterday...this morning I keep thinking "Don't make the trip to the wilderness last nay longer than it should." Because of Israel's stubbornness, what should have been an 11 day journey turned into a 40 year wandering. How much of my own life has been a wandering because of my refusal to follow God? How much of the things my family has had to go through has been because of my own personal stubbornness?
#2 - This call that we have received to follow Jesus is more than my life being divinely arranged by Him so that I spend my days in comfort. In other words, if comfort is my goal, I've missed the point. The call to follow Jesus into learning a new way to live is also a call to warfare. We have an enemy. We have an enemy whose soul purpose is to either stop us from following, or slow us down in our following of Jesus. He uses deception, and the idea that he can frustrate us through throwing up roadblocks in our daily walk that we have to deal with. Those roadblocks sometimes involves others who have become tools to be used by the devil to keep us from moving forward.
#3 - Just because we refuse to engage in this warfare....or, even worse, believe that it doesn't exist, does not make it any less real.
#4 - I read in Ezra 9:2 where many of the people of Israel, and even some of the priests and Levites did not keep themselves separate from the other people living nearby. In other words...we had some folks who had a position and call upon their lives from God, but chose, because of their relationship with these other folks, to take up what Ezra refers to as "the detestable practices" of their worship. In other words, you can't lay claim to being a follower of Jesus, and live like the world. Or as Romans 12:2 reads..."You can't be conformed to the patterns of the world." Look like...smell like...walk like...talk like what the world defines as being okey-dokey and all-righty.
#5 - Being Holy is something you are because of the Holy Spirit at work in you. Holiness is not a set of rules. Holiness is not a list of don't's. If I boil the Holiness of God into a list of rules, I've missed the point. I'm trying to conform my outward behavior without changing my inward beliefs. I may be totally off base here, but I truly believe that all outward behavior is governed by a person's world view. In other words, our behavior is evidence of what we truly believe.
#6 - I do not see myself as others do. Some will come forward and tell what a great teacher I am. Some will tell me that I am a godly man. While I appreciate such, I know the real Michael Bynum better than anyone except for my wife and God. I know that the real Michael Bynum is one step away from, given the right situation and/or circumstance, like Peter would deny Christ. I know that such still dwells inside me. And it is for this reason that I chase Jesus even harder. It is for that very reason that I keep my focus and purpose fixed on Him. I know this may sound crazy but secretly one of my most favorite verses is Romans 7:24. I love it because of the honesty that Paul reveals in his own heart. Paul, the Christian of Christians....says, "O wretched man that I am!" Isn't that amazing that this man we hold in such high regard...this man who penned the most of the books of the New Testament...this man who was knocked from his horse during his first encounter with Jesus, calls himself "Wretched". Now there is a man I want to hang out with. Someone who is honest and transparent in his own view of himself.
Well, I think maybe that is enough of my thoughts for today. The coffee has finished and I believe there is a cup with my name on it.
If your free tomorrow night, come and join us @ Vineyard ReCovery. meeting starts at 7 p.m.
Until next time...
God on you...
mbb
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