Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Fallowed Much?

There's a corner in my backyard I've been working on. I'm trying to break it up and move it so that I can do some new landscaping in that area. Let me tell you...it's a lot of work! I'm pretty sure this area has not been cultivated probably since the house was built 35 years ago. It's petrified, ugly, and unusable (right now anyway). One might say it's pretty fallow ground.

As I work away with my shovel and pick axe I'm reminded of the scripture in Hosea 10:12:

"Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you."

God also told the men of Judah to break up their fallow ground, and to not sow among thorns (Jeremiah 4:3). Like the ground, I know my heart can get hardened and useless.

I find it interesting that in those two passages, it's not the work of God to break up the fallow ground. Rather it is a work that I must do. Just like I have to get outside and work the ground in preparation for a new purpose, it's my job to break up the ground of complacency and routine in my life.

Our hearts and our ministries can become fallow from several things. It could be a relationship issue that has made us bitter, or a really painful situation that has left us numb. We can wait, we can pray hoping that things get better. However, if our heart has been hardened and we've hit a dead end, The Word encourages us that the next step is ours to take. We must act.

God wants to do a new work in us over and over again. However, our fallow ground impedes the absorption of his righteousness because of our lack of fertile soil.

As I work in the corner of my backyard and come across weeds, roots, rocks, trash and Cable TV lines, I'm reminded of all the junk that I've allowed to harden my heart. Weeds of mistrust, roots of failure that have grown and expanded, rocks of lies from the enemy, and yeah, all that trash from Cable TV. I have to take action to rid my heart of these things so that God can have His way in me.

It happens to us all, what matters is what we chose to do so that we can experience the power of God working in us in a new way. So we can either sit on the couch of complacency, or pick up the shovel and get to work!

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Calling all sinners, report for ministry.

Upon finishing the Calvary Chapel history book called "Harvest," I came to a glaring conclusion. God often doesn't call leaders who haven't lived sinful lives. It is a person's experience that validates them to minister to the people God is calling them to. It is clear to see that in the work of the Calvary Chapel movement, through the stories of how he called the druggies, the hippies, the drunks, the suicidal, the abusers and the abused to minister to people who are walking in these same life experiences. God doesn't often call super straight laced people who have never done anything wrong because what validation would they have to minister unto people who have been in a lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock and roll? If you don't know someone's situation from experience, you have less of an ability to say "I know what your going through, and believe me God can deliver you from this because he did it for me". Not to say that God can't use the straight laced for reasons of ministering to the people who have never done anything wrong, but let's face it, most of us have done some bad stuff in our life.

Reading this book reaffirms my calling into ministry. It reaffirms my understanding of why God would call this wretched man to a work of facilitating the saints into the throne room of God. My life experience is anything but pretty. I've experienced so much bad, and God wants me to use that for good. I'm reminded of the words of Joseph (Gen. 50:20), and several other stories throughout The Word of God of people being called to minister out of their trials and misfortune.

Everything from growing up in a broken home watching physical abuse between my Father and Step Mother. To my party days of college where I was engaged in a lifestyle of getting drunk and inappropriate relationships. To the trials my wife and I have faced in her battle of endometriosis and issues conceiving a child and then having a hysterectomy. God had a plan for me. I can remember so many occasions since even my high school years where I've had the opportunity to minister to people who were going through something that I've gone through.

I can remember praying with a young middle school kid that was watching his parents go through a divorce. I had just sung a song with my band at a summer camp. It was a song that I wrote about divorce and God's comfort that spoke to him and he came to me. God's calling on my life began to become clear at an early age, but I'd still have a lot to walk through.

From the valleys to the mountain tops my relationship with God and understanding of his great and awesome grace has become a reality. Not just a superficial reality, but something I know to be true in my heart of hearts. It is the wellspring of which I can minister out of. It's the context to my worship and the power in my praise.