This passage exites me! I want to pick it apart a little bit and share with you little pieces at a time and show you what God has been teaching me through it the past couple of days.
First:
1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
4-6In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.
6-8If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
My comments: I love that this directly addresses our call to ministry and living the life of a witness at all times. I think it kind of hints that all Christians are called to ministry, but all of our roles in ministry will be different: some of us will be helpers, some pastors, some caregivers, some secretaries, but we all have a crucial role to play and we cannot be successful if we're constantly looking at other's positions or talents and wishing we were them. Instead we need to be confident in how God made us individually and do our best to put our whole selves into what He has given us to do.
9-10Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.
11-13Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.
My comments: In the same way taht we are to be confident in our purpose, it is also our job to build each other up, give encouragement in teh hard times, and have each other's backs. We are responsible to make sure that we are being refueled, but also that our teammates are getting what they need. It's never all take and no give, but as the passage said, "love from the center of who you are,"we are to selflessly offer what God has been fueling us with to those who need it and rely on God to refuel us again. It also can't be constantly giving with no take because that is when we burn ou and are no longer effective in spreading God's love and His Word. That is where the team comes in to help rebuild someone who is too drained to take the initiative themself.
I have by no means arrived at this place of not comparing myself, loving always, etc. But God is doing His work in my life to transform me into the person He desires in three ways:
1. He is drawing me much closer to Himself and making our relationship much more personal and intimate.
2. He is working to make me more outwardly oriented, cleaning up my selfishness (which I have struggled with a long time), and turning it into an ability to love others.
3. He is showing me what matter most in life, which is not what our worldly society tends to tell us, but rather showing His love to the people who need it most.
The ultimate goal of God's transforming my life is that we become more like Christ. Christ, in essence, loved people uncontrollably and lived every moment of His life on earth in a way that purposed to glorify His Father and spread God's love and Word to others. When we examine our purpose, then, this basically describes it: we were created to be a true reflection of Christ, to love every person alive uncontrollably and unconditionally. This isn't easy, it sometimes hurts, and it can cost us a lot, but in my experience, there is nothing more worth it than to experience the love of God making a change in a person's life that is going to last for an eternity.
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