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Guard those Pieces with Your Life!
Joining the pieces of information together that God gives us takes time and knowledge to accomplish. We all use different methods to join those pieces together. To follow the will of God we need to be able to put those pieces together. Putting these pieces together takes a steadfast mind on the task. If we are keeping these pieces in our mind we cannot allow ourselves to be caught off guard. We need to guard these pieces with out life. Each of those pieces keeps us alive in Jesus so when we do not guard them we will lose them. Keeping guard of these pieces with your life will lead to two rewards, more pieces and growing up.As we learned from the last blog, pieces are bits of information that the Holy Spirit places in our heart/mind to help us stay in the Fathers will. As we guard the pieces we already have he will supply us with more. Jesus said in Matthew 13:12 that those who have will be given more but those who do not guard their pieces will lose their pieces. This applies to all knowledge and wisdom given us by the Father. We are gathering information because it helps us to get into position to fulfill the will of God in our life. Some of these pieces of information include how we are gifted, who Jesus is inside those gifts, how we can use those gifts each day and what other information we need. No information is complete by itself so we need to gather more to fully understand all the pieces. Guarding all the pieces information results in more and our growth as well.
With each piece of information we gather and guard we will grow in our faith of Jesus Christ but what is more important is that we will grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. When we grow in our knowledge of Jesus Christ we begin to grow up in Him too. It does not take a rocket scientist to learn Jesus Christ it takes someone dedicated to learning Him and dedicated to growing up in Him. We can spend our whole lives warming the bench at church but once we leave our hope, our faith, and our stamina fail to continue as we go to work, parent our children, submit to our husband and follow our leaders. Gathering pieces together to grow is imperative to being who Jesus wants us to be.
It is all about who Jesus wants us to be. He gives us pieces of information so that we can keep doing what He has created us to do. He has created all things and all things hold together because of Him (Colossians 1:16-17). It is His great pleasure to give us more pieces and it behoves us to grow with those pieces. To live in ignorance about who Jesus is, is to live in ignorance about who you are. We are defined by who Jesus is which is why we need to guard those pieces with our lives and He will surely reveal the rewards to us.
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Picking up the Pieces!
I was reading in Genesis recently and was struck by the pieces of unassuming information that reside in that text until I found another one. As I was reading I was reminded of my last 13 years as a Jesus follower and how many pieces of information Jesus has given me along the way that I have had to put together to solve a puzzle. What have I done with all the pieces that God has revealed to me along the way? The habit I have gotten into while reading the Word now is to search my mind whenever I am given a new piece to a puzzling question. I am always pondering information so that I can join it with something else but sometimes it may very well be just the beginning of a new cluster of information. If you read the same story about Joseph in Genesis chapter 37 with chapters 40 and 41 you will find out that all the dreams were in groups of two, why? To get the answer we must first ask the question then wait for more pieces to pick up the answer to the puzzling question!
We can find pieces of information in the Word of God plus the Holy Spirit gives us pieces of information. Even with these different pieces of information we may still not understand although one day when a piece of information is revealed to us all of them will come together. You might have ten pieces of information that make some sense by themselves but remain incomplete together then one day you get another bit of information and all the other pieces come together into that perfect understanding. It is a wonderful thing when that full understanding comes but it is also a wonderful thing to have the pieces as well. These pieces keep us in communion with Jesus to get the answers. Pieces to a puzzle add intrigue to our lives.What do we do with these pieces of information? Jacob and Mary did what was best and we can do it too. When Joseph told his family about the dreams, they hated him but his father kept it in his mind. Mary, mother of Jesus, did that same thing. Every time Mary got a piece of information about Jesus she kept it in her heart and when He was dying on the cross I am sure that she remembered that she was told by Simeon that her own soul would be pierced (Luke 2:35). I am sure that she began picking up all of the pieces that God revealed to her during the 33 years of Jesus’ life. Keeping the pieces in our heart/mind is exactly what we need to do to make sure that we understand everything that God is revealing to us!
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A Reason to Think!
I have to figure things out! I need to know! Why do I do things this way and how will they work out? Every time a thought comes in my head I reason it out to get the answer! I can talk myself into hating something that is perfectly fine! Why do I do that? I want something other than what I have so I refuse to like it. I get unsatisfied with what I have and what I am doing from time to time and I throw myself a pity party. I think about all the things I could have if I was doing this and all the things I wouldn’t have if I was doing that. I look at my surroundings and crave what I want. I think of how my life could be different then I throw myself another pity party due to everything I am missing.
When I reason about these thoughts I always come to this conclusion; God’s truth. God does have a plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11) and that plan is His plan and it may very well not include what I want. He gave me this mind to reason with Him and for Him (Isaiah 1:18). He supplied my gifts for accomplishing His works (1 Peter 4:10). I am to learn to be content with what I have and who I am because God is with me (Hebrews 13:5). I learn through this process of reasoning that I am not irrational because I reason through every thought. Reasoning with our God and ourself is good for us and God loves it (Ask Moses, Jonah, Job, Isaiah, Peter and Paul)! It makes us more rational and less likely to get caught up in the Devil’s schemes! It is in this back and forth that God reveals Himself to us so we can come to an understanding about what our next step is; God’s will.
The action we take this week is to stop talking and start reasoning! I am an extrovert and talking is how I get answers but I continue to learned that thinking them through (reasoning) is just as good. It is a wiser decision if I talk it out with God rather than people to spare them the frustrating indecision I go through to get to my answers. Come to the truth this week and see the reason to think! -
Let Him Choose!
Elijah, the prophet of God Almighty, killed 450 prophets of Baal and believed at this time that he alone stood for God (1 Kings 18-19). He was exhausted and ready to give up. He went up to the top of carmel and put his head between his knees waiting for the rain to come. It came but it poured down more than just water. Elijah had to run for his life to Bersheba. God ministered to him there but he was still running under the impression that he was the only one. It is a great encouragement to know that God has a plan and you are not the only one working it but until you know you are still alone. God asked Elijah what he was doing in Horeb. He told God he alone is zealous for Him. God, before He told Elijah about His plan first showed him His glory then He informed him he is not alone.
Elijah built his ministry by himself. He walked by himself in the zeal of the Lord! He alone went against Jezebel. He looked around and listened but there was not anyone with this same zeal. I feel like this sometimes. I feel like I alone am filled with the zeal of God and it is draining sometimes. Over this couple of weeks I have seen that Jesus has spoken the same words to others as He has spoken to me. He is training me with the same instruction He is using with others. He is showing us His glory before He chooses our fellow workers for His cause. When we are ready He will unite us!
Sometimes we feel we are alone but when God tells us that He is going to do something He does it. We CANNOT do God’s works on our own and if He has shown us that we will join with others He has those others already chosen. He is moving them into place just as He is moving us into place. God knows exactly what we need in a partner worker to accomplish His Word. I am finished trying to pick my fellow workers I am going to let Jesus do that for me and see the wonderful people He adds to my life for the glory of God. He definitely has revealed to me that He can do a better job choosing His workers than I can!
Action Plan: If you feel alone you are in a good place because your aloneness will make you available to view the glory of God from the place where you can see it best. This week open you eyes and ears to what others are saying so you can hear how God is working just for you. Sometimes you have to reveal God’s plan for you even though you have discounted it out of barrenness. That is when God will reveal to you the work He is doing!
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A Change Maker not Making Change!
I am a change maker except I am making no changes in my community at least that is how I feel at this moment or rather a moment ago. Has God directed you as He has me that you will be a change maker but He hasn’t released you to make much change except in yourself. My innards are bursting to make change in my community! They are curdling with age though! I wrestle with what to do! I wrestle with how to do it! I am a wrestler at this moment not a changer.
God has taught me over the past year that I am a learner right now. I read the Word, I learn the Word and I read other books that help my mind get ready. BUT I wrestle with learning. I think I know enough! I think I can but apparently God has a different plan for me. What I learned recently to help me deal with this is – I cannot understand God’s plan for me because my feelings get in the way all the time.I know that He has a plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11) and I know that I am predestined to walk in that plan (Ephesians 2:10) and I know that He will finish what He started (Philippians 1:6) but my human feelings get tangled with the world. [She has my job, he is doing what I want to do, she is being used by God in the way that He will use me.] All of this gets the better of me sometimes making me feel unused and unwanted by God!
This is why He revealed to me that I am not focusing on Him. I have memorized verses just for this reason – to focus on Jesus and not on the world but I had forgotten why I was memorizing them. I recently came into a situation where I decided my feelings were getting the better of me so I started focusing on the verses I memorized. Amazing enough I was relieved of the turmoil and found peace again.
Action Plan: Last week we attempted to discover what it is that God has gifted us to do but what do you need to learn to be more efficient at that gift? Begin that process of learning this week but don’t get discouraged. It may take 12 years, like me, or it may take 2 before God starts using you in His Kingdom. Whatever the number the goal is to be ready to be the change maker that God has revealed you’d be!
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RIM 2: A Patchwork Called the Body!
Much like this Christmas tree I purchased in 2014 for my basement decorations, we are a patchwork of patterns and colours. Some of us have buttons and some bells. Some are cross-stitched and some are straight stitches. Some of us shine from the top and some of us hold the patchwork up for all to see. There are bells at every level and buttons as well. Each part of the Body needs to be sewn together to make the whole. For this tree to look like a tree it all had to come together at a specific place.So is the will of God for each one of us at each stage in our walk with Him. He puts us into place at a specific time so that we can edify the body at that given time with the knowledge and wisdom we have. He makes us the stand sometimes so we can support the whole. He makes us a bell sometimes so that we can sound an alarm to someone who is in sin. He makes us cross-stitches sometimes so we can be two places at once and straight so we can fly solo. He makes us a colour pattern so we can cause people to look twice and solid to be hidden yet blend. Sometimes He makes us a button so we can be in the gap to hold someone together. He has a clear plan for each one of us even if it is the weld on the stand. It is our responsibility to know what part of the body we belong. This is part of knowing the will of God. When you are in the will of God the body comes together but all it takes is one person in the body to stray from the will and the body becomes out of sink and can become fruitless but when everyone does what God wills them to do the fruitfulness of the body can be seen for miles. 1 Corinthians 12:18:27 describes this wonderful phenomenon that Jesus has put together.
Action Plan: Ask yourself this question this week – what is it that God has gifted me to do and am I doing it? If you understand this part of the will of God you will yield much fruit and help the body yield much fruit too!
