World Renewal International
Monday, March 5, 2007
The Divine Yes!!!!
I don't know about you but but I hate negativism and legalism in the church. I hate it most when it seems to come from me and my thoughts. It seems so contrary to what Jesus Christ really is. I grew up seeing it in many of the places my parents ministered. I have experienced it many times traveling the million or so miles around the world for the Lord.
In one pastorate they told my parents we should not have coke bottles in the parsonage refrigerator because beer came in similar bottles. I was five at the time and I remember thinking, "This is really stupid!" New is wicked, every thing new is bad and everything old is sacred. Some folks live in the state of "No!" says E. Stanley Jones. He points out in his devotional Christian Maturity that Sir Francis Drake brought potatoes from Peru to Scotland. However, people refused to eat them because they could not find them in the Bible. One of my favorites, being a Wright, is the one made by the Bishop Wright, father of Orville and Wilbur. He was against the idea of flying. He said if God intended man to fly he would have created him with wings. I just figure there were two little Wright boys setting out in the pews that Sunday, half-way listening like kids do, they looked at each other and thought, "That's stupid. We will show him!" Many Wright boys have taken this approach at times.
One famous author relates that when indoor plumbing reached the church some said they could not have indoor restrooms. They said, "We can't do that in the church." How funny are we? We seem to get all hung up on methods that have worked in the past, something God used. Yet we make it more than a tool, we make the thing sacred. It seems easier to worship a thing or method God has used than keep a relationship that requires daily attention. I think this is one reason God keeps changing the methods He uses.
Jesus is about the "Divine Yes." 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, "For no matter how many promises God made, they are 'Yes' in Christ. God is the "Eternal Yes." Dr. Jones says, "O Father, that I would be the walking expression of your creative activity. May the "Divine Yes" sound in me continually. The "Divine Yes" will work in me today so I shall belong to the Divine Positive."
WORLD RENEWAL'S CIRCUIT RIDER I told you last week that Pastor Luc in Haiti was church planting on horseback. Well, a closer examination of the picture may cause you livestock farmers to question what kind of horse looks like that? I think he was really "mule-back riding". What do you think?
THANKS FOR STOPPING BY
:: posted by Gary Wright, 8:55 PM
1 Comments:
I agree Dad with your concerns about legalism in the church. Thanks for sharing.
