It's all for YOU

I’ve spent a good part of my life trying to prove to God how awesome I was….sounds like a good plan, right?  I would walk around and proclaim to God to bless my life as a result of all the “good” I was doing.  This is how the conversation would go:  “God, I am a youth pastor, I have dedicated my life to serving your kingdom, as a result of that would you take care of me…would you bless me.”  It looked really good on paper, I do something for God therefore he should do something for me.  I recently got a theological smack upside the head from Ephesians 2:8-10.  We deserve death, Romans 6:23, and yet God in all His mercy allows us to live another day, but we try to barter with Him to make it better or more comfortable.  I believe what the right response should be is “God, as a result of all you have given to me and how you continue to bless my life…..how can I serve you?”  So, in this season of business know that God has given you so much, every day you exist is as a result of His grace, mercy, and love.  Therefore we should live our lives not looking for what we can get from God but what we can give.

Oprah?

I have recently been faced with this reality...Oprah is the most influential person in the world!  I mean, it angers me to the point of wanting to throw my laptop off a roof top.  There is this other part of me that is deeply saddened because of this reality;  The reason why she's so effective is as a result of her leveraging her influence, but we as the church, we as the home of the very presence of the living God have not leveraged our influence....Why?  And what would happen if we had Oprah like influence in the name of Christ.  I believe without a shadow of a doubt that Oprah is more salt in light in this world than we are.  

My wife has terrible allergies. One day while watching  Oprah has a doc on to tell the world how to remediate the problem of stuffy noses and sneezing with something called the neti pot.  This is a ceramic pot that looks like something you would rub for a wish, but instead it relieves  of your allergies.  I decided, being the amazing husband I am, to order my wife this amazing remedy.  As a side note...yes I was watching Oprah...and yes she influenced me to buy the neti pot.  Within 24 hours of her show being broadcast every single neti pot had been purchased, I know because I called a thousand different stores.  Their response, "we don't know what's happening, all we know is that the phone is ringing off the hook and were completely sold out, but we can back order it for you sir, " Yeah go ahead and do that." 

I would love for the Church of Jesus Christ to be so influential that people would be standing around going " I don't know what's going on." In Acts 2 we see this happen with the arrival of he Holy Spirit.  Believers are quick to point out how amazing this is, and how they desire it for our world, and then continue living as normal.  What gets me is the Holy Spirit dwells inside each and every follower of Christ and yet we looks to Acts 2 and go "man that would be awesome." 

John 14:12 tells us that we will have the ability to do even greater things here on earth than Jesus did....that's insane!  Jesus knew if we tapped into the power and influence of the Holy Spirit,  Oprah would look at us and be influenced.