Preaching to the Choir Only Gets You so Far

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It is the job of a minister to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Sometimes that means the minister is also afflicted….

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Be saved to sin no more…

Blessing and curses cannot come from the same mouth….

God’s mercy and grace abounds to all, even to the person I dislike, which means…

Who am I?

Redeeming love has no agenda.

I sit here, calm in spirit yet mind and heart attempt wrestling with calm. That moment of resolve, feet firmly planted in trust and the clinching onto what I have known to be all that is true and good and right, yet war rages all around me. And as I stand in the midst, in slow motion I see the dark gloomy fog making its way toward me in attempt to shake me, spit fear into me, and choke me in its suffocating foulness. And for a moment it has me – anger sets in and the comparison battle begins. “Rise O Lord from your slumber and smite _____, slap him in the face!” And the questions begin spewing…”Why does he get a new Mercedes and I sit here wondering if I’ll have water when I get home? Why does he get my son with the guise of teaching him to respect his mother yet he cannot respect me as the mother? Why? Why? Why?”

And then in the middle of my pity party, in slow motion yet out of nowhere, a slap in the face – my own.

My name means peacemaker. As a peacemaker, a minister, my message [only revealed in the last two years or so], is a theme of redeeming love. This redeeming love does not do away with consequences; it simply removes me as judge and asks this of myself: “If I am who I say I am in Christ…”

Here I am, as vile as he is and yet God has washed all my sins away. I cannot pray for one man in my life and curse the past man in my life while still expecting God to bless me and rob him. Blessings and curses cannot come from the same mouth, God’s grace abounds to all. For this behavior, I am truly sorry and beg forgiveness. Who am I to think that God’s fountain only extends to those to whom I believe to be worthy? Shame on me!

Be saved to sin no more. O God how I need thee every hour – your mercy and your grace and yes, even at times a slap in the face.

“O Lord you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely.” ~ Psalm 139:1-4

Thank you Lord that your love has no agenda, it is freely given – a gift of redemption, for ALL.