I am not looking for sympathy but I feel like I am on the island of misfit toy's sometimes in my walk with God. In some circles I walk in I am the most liberal and in others the most conservative. I am too academic for some and looked down on by others. I'm too "free" or pentecostal for some and to "uptight" for others. I'm too Jewish for some and not Jewish enough for others. Get my point???
This morning I was thinking to myself that I am for the most part, flaws, frailties and all the person God has created me to be in this time. Don't hear pride or too much self confidence here but I believe the person of Jesus Christ who began a good work in me Will continue to do so until I look and act like he wants. For I and you were created by Him and for Him and for His pleasure. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works. And listen to me....God don't make junk!
I know that in my walk with God I am always letting the "light" of Jesus penetrate me and expose the darkness in me that sometimes I was not aware of. I am always taking personal inventory of my walk and more importantly studying to know what it is I am supposed to be doing and whom it is I am supposed to be. You see and this is a point that is far lost in the church, if I call Jesus Lord, I am not my own. As Paul said it is no longer me that is living but Jesus living in me.
So here is my biggest study and struggle and why I feel like a misfit. Jesus said if you love me keep my commandments. Pauls first reaction to the blinding light of the Holiness of Jesus when he was thrown from his horse was this....LORD WHAT WILL YOU HAVE ME DO? I don't hear that cry from the people in today's church. I don't hear that cry from the church leaders, elders and pastors. What I do hear is God BLESS ME IN WHAT I WANT EVEN IF ITS NOT YOUR WILL!! That is so opposite of the correct attitude we are to have and why I feel so alone in the church.
I also feel alone in that people excuse away the commands of God and yet confess and claim almost God Like capabilities and have this special gift from God that they can act in anyway they chose. I have asked men to come close to me and pray and seek God together and reason together as the word of God say's and for the most part that plea has gone unanswered. There is not a hunger out there except when people want to ask God once again to bless them. Matthew 5:6 says and this is Jesus talking,"Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be FILLED."
I'll say this and agree with the Bible again that there is none righteous except for the Lord. So we are to hunger and thirst after Him and we will be filled;we will be satisfied. In the day Jesus spoke these words there was a lot of physical hunger so the appeal to the natural hunger and equating it to being filled and satisfied meant something to the origination hearers more than it does to the western church goer. There are so many things that we hunger and thirst after and 99% of it has little to nothing with Jesus. I'm hungry! I'm thirsty! I'm hungry and thirsty to know God as he defines himself and not a way I can make myself feel good about him and justify what I do and still call myself a believer. Again, Jesus said if you love him to follow after him with all you are and deny yourself and pick up your cross. These are the basic truths of our faith and yet where are they being taught and followed in our church culture??
Please hunger and thirst for the things of God in the way he has designed them and not in the way that is pleasing to your flesh designed by a man. Find others that are just as hungry and seek Him, reason together and pray. If you are near to my location of Southern York County Pa. I invite you to do that with me. To seek Him together, pray and hunger and thirst after His righteousness. I hope there are others like me looking for something different. There must be or I am alone on the island of misfit toys!
In His Service!
Brian
