Servolution

At a recent meeting one of our leaders pointed out that people always refer to "The Church", you know, 'the church' should do this, 'the church' should do that. People talk about it like it is an entity of its own. When in reality it is the church only because of the people who are there in THE CHURCH. I was going to write my Pastors thoughts this week on the servant attitude of Jesus as He lay down His life for us and relate to The Church from that perspective, but then I found this article in my in box so I thought I would pass it on instead.

Servolution. It’s a different kind of word. It’s a different kind of revolution. Usually we think of revolutions as involving angry mobs or military coups, but this is an entirely different angle. It is a revolution that starts by serving those around you. And it isn’t a revolution that unseats governments and political forces. It changes hearts and lives. It makes people realize that there’s a loving God who wants to forgive their sins and give them hope.

So how do you start a servolution? Jesus demonstrated it very clearly in John 13 when he washed the disciples’ feet. The Bible says, “He showed them the full extent of his love” by stooping down to serve them

Joh 13:1 Now before the Passover Festival, Jesus realized that his hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

What a huge portrayal of the heart of God!

Jesus not only left Heaven to become one of us, to lay down His life for our sin and break the power of sin and death. He also showed us His love by serving those around Him. What’s more, Jesus served them even though in just a few hours, these very men whose feet He washed would deny they ever knew him. He still served them.

This is why I believe it is important that we don’t choose whom we serve based on the best “return on our investment.” We need to serve others even if they may never repay us. We need to because it is that kind of demonstration of love that truly communicates the heart of God.

At Healing Place Church, when we decided to start a Dream Center in downtown Baton Rouge, and when we launched our two campuses in Africa, I assure you it wasn’t based on the potential of increased revenue from those areas. We just knew these were ways we could serve others—others who had been forgotten, who were hurting and who needed the love of Jesus.

We need to be willing to serve others regardless of their potential capacity to return the favor. What we are looking for is the opportunity to share the love of Jesus. That’s it. That’s the “return on investment” that counts most.

I want to challenge you to do something. Think of the people in your community who are being overlooked, people whom no one else wants to serve. Are there neighborhoods shunned by churches because the people look different than they do? Are there groups of people who get ignored because there’s little or no chance that they’ll ever participate in a local church?

It takes a lot of effort to help those caught in the sex trade. It’s not likely that many residents of nursing homes will regularly attend your church. It’s tough on people to serve in the foster care system and to reach children with special needs. It can be hard to understand the true needs of the homeless. And it’s costly to send missionaries to the lost halfway around the world. But these are all people for whom Jesus died. They are as precious to His heart as our own children and families are to ours.

Ask God to show you the people in your community who are being overlooked. Pick up a newspaper to see what’s going on, and let God point you to the people He wants you to serve. Ask Him to give you the unlovable, the unwanted, the unlikely, the hurting and oppressed. He knows where they are. And wherever they are, you’ll find Jesus there too.

Then go serve them. Get to know them. Love them unconditionally. Give to them. Show them “the full extent of Jesus’ love” by serving them Jesus-style. And watch what happens. Your world will be turned upside-down as you find yourself in a zone—in the flow of blessing poured out by God so you can lavish it on others.

I hope we all take this to heart and not read it then move on but at least pray about it and allow the Lord to move on your heart to perhaps join or make your own servolution....

Paralyising thoughts

If there is one thing that I have learned over the years it is this. "I know a lot less about God than I thought I did" We all try to pigeon hole God into a frame that "Suits" our franchise and moulds Him into a tidy form that we can understand (Hear; Manipulate (or so we think) into a form that we like. It is in many ways making God in our image. Which really is kinda like "God in the hand of angry sinners". What do I mean by that. Well take for example how we think God sees sin, everyone of us whether we believe it or not grade our idea of Sin. For some homosexuality is horrible and how can anyone be a Christian and live that lifestyle and yet we "The Elect" choose to gossip about the very subject and gladly condemn that person to hell. While we in our self righteous cocoon judge while fully being aware that we are told not to do that very thing, and while still judging the sexual orientation of a brother we may have a multitude of irrational behaviour at home ranging from addictions to badly treating a spouse or an anger issue that no one but the family know about. But these things in our lives although not liked by us are allowable while the things we find abhorrent are used to discriminate against anyone else. Our perspectives are all skewed by our upbringing and as we are told categorically in scripture;

2Co 10:12 We would not dare put ourselves in the same class with or compare ourselves to those who recommend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves to themselves, they show how foolish they are.

It’s this point of comparison that Jesus railed against, he never referred to anyone in the bible as a sinner, he made ways for people to enter the kingdom while the church is seen today as a body that finds ways to lock people out of heaven, by telling what we must change. Categorically Jesus was only ever against anyone when they took on an attitude that told or inferred to anyone that they were not attaining to a standard that they had made.

Mat 15:7 You hypocrites! How well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, Mat 15:8 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Mat 15:9 Their worship of me is empty, because they teach human rules as doctrines.'"

and again

Mat 23:13 "How terrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door to the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You don't go in yourselves, and you don't allow those who are trying to enter to go in.

Mat 23:27 "How terrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead people's bones and every kind of impurity.

Mat 23:28 In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Over and over Jesus confronts the issue at hand which was implied or plainly said by the Pharisees in particular and that was that "We have made it and you have to work to get here" This kind of Pharisaical attitude was the one thing that Jesus was against. He despised the implications that this placed in people’s hearts, and the reality is that He HAS qualified us and yet our concepts and mind game keep us out of the kingdom. Allow yourself to be honest with yourself right now what in your mind have you raised up as a standard for people to keep them out of the Kingdom by your reckoning. Was it their sexual orientation, their lifestyle language behaviour? Or do you hold yourself at a distance from the kingdom because of the shame of your past? Its time to let go and live in the true freedom of the sons of God. judging no-one by the flesh and living by the rule of the Spirit of life that has set us free from the law of death. There alone is a reason to celebrate and love him.

Well they are some of my thoughts Pastor Rob.