Before I explain the title, let me first take this opportunity to welcome myself back to my own blog. No, that is not Pride that you are sensing, but merely the fact that I have been away for over seven months. Even before that it was sporatic.
I recently changed jobs three months ago, and have absolutely been engulfed in training, studying for a new license, and juggling family events. To say that I have been a little busy and preoccupied would be a HUGE understatement. Since taking this job, I have been wanting to get back into writing my blog, but the time just has not allowed it. What, you might ask, sparked my interest in tickling the keyboard again. Well it was a simple question posed to me the other night at a Bible Study.
A dear friend of mine asked me one simple question: "So Greg, what is the Lord currently teaching you in your life?" I must say that I am usually the one on the sending part of that question, rather than the receiving end. I have usually been the one that has challenged men to greatness in Christ by posing that very same question. All of a sudden I knew what it felt like to be challenged by somebody else out of love, not that I haven't ever felt that before. More importantly, I knew what my friend Adam must have felt like when I started talking about my job, and how it has kept me busy. He didn't say anything, but I caught myself realizing that the excuses that I was spurting out, were no more than just that, EXCUSES!!! I looked at him, just as I had seen from so many other men through the years, and simply said: "But that is not what you asked me..." You see at that point in time, I couldn't definitvely say what the Lord was currently teaching me...
I have thought long and hard about that moment since Thursday night. As I was walking this morning at the park, I was crying out to God as to why I couldn't answer that question. It was as if He simply said, "My son, that is exactly why, because you haven't been crying out to me..."
After walking I came back home to spend some more time with Him. As I picked up my Bible, I read the following passage:
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.
I Timothy 1: 15 (NIV)
You see my friends, it is very easy to walk through life and think that we have it all figured out. Our pride can rear its ugly head in a moments notice, and if we are not walking with the Holy Spirit in our lives, then there is a good chance that we are not going to notice it. An offshoot of pride is complacency. When we are lethargic and complacent, then it is very easy to feel that we are okay, when in essence we could just be rotting on the vine.
My fellow brothers and sisters, it is not that I was in a dark place in my life over the last three months. No, I have been having quiet times with the Lord, and serving Him as I could. I led a team back to Haiti (pictures coming soon on the Haiti tab) and was used immensely by the Lord while there. My dilemma is that it has been hit and miss with no consistency. I have not been still to know that He is God. I have been swayed by the hustle and bustle of life, that so easily distracts and weighs us down.
Now to the title, why do you think it was that the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy to tell him that he was the worst sinner of them all. I feel that it is quite simple. It was to express God's almighty MERCY that he has shown to us. In that while I was still a sinner, Christ died for all of my sins: Past, Present, and Future!!! It is a reminder that while I was a wretched and distraught man trying to make it on my own, Jesus Christ blood was shed on my account to wipe me clean.
My friends, may we never forget what Jesus did at the cross for us! May we always remember that without Him, we are nothing but a mere speck of dust on the road to Vanity Fair. I beg you to wake up and be challenged by that simple question. "What is the Lord currently teaching you in your life?" Not what have you learned out on your own. Or even further, what has the Lord taught you in the past. No we have to live fresh fruitful lives that are producing ripe fresh fruit, that can only come from realzing where we came from as wretched sinners, through the Holy Spirits transformation.
I recently changed jobs three months ago, and have absolutely been engulfed in training, studying for a new license, and juggling family events. To say that I have been a little busy and preoccupied would be a HUGE understatement. Since taking this job, I have been wanting to get back into writing my blog, but the time just has not allowed it. What, you might ask, sparked my interest in tickling the keyboard again. Well it was a simple question posed to me the other night at a Bible Study.
A dear friend of mine asked me one simple question: "So Greg, what is the Lord currently teaching you in your life?" I must say that I am usually the one on the sending part of that question, rather than the receiving end. I have usually been the one that has challenged men to greatness in Christ by posing that very same question. All of a sudden I knew what it felt like to be challenged by somebody else out of love, not that I haven't ever felt that before. More importantly, I knew what my friend Adam must have felt like when I started talking about my job, and how it has kept me busy. He didn't say anything, but I caught myself realizing that the excuses that I was spurting out, were no more than just that, EXCUSES!!! I looked at him, just as I had seen from so many other men through the years, and simply said: "But that is not what you asked me..." You see at that point in time, I couldn't definitvely say what the Lord was currently teaching me...
I have thought long and hard about that moment since Thursday night. As I was walking this morning at the park, I was crying out to God as to why I couldn't answer that question. It was as if He simply said, "My son, that is exactly why, because you haven't been crying out to me..."
After walking I came back home to spend some more time with Him. As I picked up my Bible, I read the following passage:
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.
I Timothy 1: 15 (NIV)
You see my friends, it is very easy to walk through life and think that we have it all figured out. Our pride can rear its ugly head in a moments notice, and if we are not walking with the Holy Spirit in our lives, then there is a good chance that we are not going to notice it. An offshoot of pride is complacency. When we are lethargic and complacent, then it is very easy to feel that we are okay, when in essence we could just be rotting on the vine.
My fellow brothers and sisters, it is not that I was in a dark place in my life over the last three months. No, I have been having quiet times with the Lord, and serving Him as I could. I led a team back to Haiti (pictures coming soon on the Haiti tab) and was used immensely by the Lord while there. My dilemma is that it has been hit and miss with no consistency. I have not been still to know that He is God. I have been swayed by the hustle and bustle of life, that so easily distracts and weighs us down.
Now to the title, why do you think it was that the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy to tell him that he was the worst sinner of them all. I feel that it is quite simple. It was to express God's almighty MERCY that he has shown to us. In that while I was still a sinner, Christ died for all of my sins: Past, Present, and Future!!! It is a reminder that while I was a wretched and distraught man trying to make it on my own, Jesus Christ blood was shed on my account to wipe me clean.
My friends, may we never forget what Jesus did at the cross for us! May we always remember that without Him, we are nothing but a mere speck of dust on the road to Vanity Fair. I beg you to wake up and be challenged by that simple question. "What is the Lord currently teaching you in your life?" Not what have you learned out on your own. Or even further, what has the Lord taught you in the past. No we have to live fresh fruitful lives that are producing ripe fresh fruit, that can only come from realzing where we came from as wretched sinners, through the Holy Spirits transformation.
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