Seed Flingers

It's Christmas time here in Hampton Roads and we are LOVING the 65-70 degree weather!  It's not often you have a Christmas this warm!  We are still doing all the seasonal things though: singing "winter wonderland," going Christmas caroling, wrapping presents, and building Christmas boxes.  That's what made me think about this thought today.

As we made our first attempts this year at many things as a church, it feels unusual - out of the comfort zone.  Are we truly doing any good or just going through the motions?  We had our first annual Christmas program, sang Christmas carols at two assisted living facilities, and built a Christmas box for a small struggling family.  It doesn't seem like much against the backdrop of a community so full of lost and hurting people. 

But God reminded me of something today.  We are "seed flingers."  You remember the parable: "a sower went forth to sow...."  When Jesus taught His disciples, he said the seed was the Word of God and proclaimed that it would fall on all types of soil.  He never said the sower should stop flinging seed just because some of it would be gobbled up or wasted.  All He did was prepare us for the responses to the seed.  He also said that some seed WOULD fall on good soil and bring forth a great harvest. 

In the context of this and other Scriptures, I am reminded that we are to be "Seed Flingers" and "Harvest Reapers."  Don't fret that what we are doing is not enough or that it is not easy or that it is uncomfortable.  Rather focus on spreading the magnificent message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in every venue available.  Let us demonstrate His love toward others even when they are yet sinners without the knowledge of Christ.  Let us fling the seeds of His Word everywhere and trust Him to bring the harvest!  Merry Christmas!

Life on a New Level

The 2nd of two excerpts from "The Law of Faith" by Norman Grubb:

We are summoned to step right off the level of the visible, the natural, carnal, and take the giant leap into the invisible.  Witnesses are piled on us to press us into it.  The inward light.  The outward Scriptures.  The historic fact of Christ.  The miracle of changed lives.

               Very well, at last we do it.  We state to ourselves that we have begun life on a new level of reality – in Christ.  We pronounce the new realities to be the new facts of our every-day life.  We are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.  We are crucified with Him and He is living in us.  We have His love, His wisdom, His power.  We are in a mystical union with the Godhead.  We are in a new timeless, spaceless realm; a fourth dimension, where, in the spirit, we reach everywhere, possess all things, and touch all lives or supply all needs by the law of this invisible kingdom, the law of Faith.  And in the magnificence, wonder and glory of this new and full livingness, like Paul, we lose our hold on all the paltriness and trivialities which were once the sum of all life to us, our little bit of earthly dignity, position and reputation, our miserable scraps of earthly possessions, our little world of friends and relatives, even our tenacious hold on our minute particle of physical life.  All these rivulets of the good things of existence are now merged and submerged in the endless sea of ALL in Christ…not lost…merely absorbed, as the light of the night lamp in the morning glory of the sun.  How can we grasp tight and cling to our petty dignities, our few bits of things, our tiny circle of loved ones, when hands and hearts are brim full with the wealth of the universe, the honor of the divine sonship, the whole family in Heaven and earth, and we are busied in praising, blessing and dispensing, in place of coveting, grabbing, and keeping? (p. 62,63)