Steve McVey in 'Grace Walk'

The life pattern of believers is shown in the way that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit relate to each other. Each seeks to minister to the other. So it is to be with the church of Jesus Christ in this world. There is no such thing as Christianity turned inward. Empty religion seeks to preserve itself and focuses on gathering. New Testament Christianity purposes to pour itself out in ministry to others. The ultimate benefit in allowing Christ to express His life through us is not what happens in us personally. Personal fulfillment is a wonderful by-product of His life within, but His greater goal is to express His life to a needy world through loving ministry.
Legalistic religion promises freedom, but actually causes those who are drawn into its snare to become prisoners of rules. Grace causes the Christian to simply rest in Christ, allowing Him to reveal Himself to others in the course of living each day naturally. Religion makes performance its priority. Grace chooses people as its priority. It frees us to take our eyes of ourselves and allows us to invest ourselves in others. It is a freedom that activates ministry motivated by life, not laws. Law insists on ministry. Grace inspires it.
Since coming to understand Christ as life, I have related to people in a different way. As you proceed in the grace walk, you may also discover this change. Jesus loved people during his earthly ministry 2,000 years ago. He still loves them and will express that love through you as you rest in Him.

This expresses pretty clearly the place I used to live compared to where I've been the past few years. We as Americans look at everything in life according to what we get out of it. This is no different with Christianity...we are constantly asking "what's in it for me?" Our own personal fulfillment is secondary to the concept of Christ living His life through us...loving those around us with a love only He is capable of. How would Christ's ministry on this earth have looked different if He had the same obsession with self gratification that we have?

No one would have noticed He had arrived...
He would have been the same as everyone else around Him...struggling to find out what was in it for Him...
Maybe that's why we don't see things being done today like Christ did on earth...we're too busy trying to figure out what is in it for us...

A good friend of mine said to me recently, "something's wrong when the most dominant, powerful, and wealthy country in the world's top selling books are about praying a prayer to get more blessing and increase our territory."

God forgive us...

New/old tattoo

Justin and I went up a few weeks ago and I got some work done on the tattoo I got this summer...it definately needed some work. It is definately better now, I like it...which is kinda important for a tattoo...the 'like' factor is fairly large when talking about permanent body art. Not sure if I'll get anymore...

I guess that is about it right now...I would like to post some interesting things about "Grace walk" right now, but the book isn't in front of me and the sections are a little too long for me to feel like typing them right now.

Ran into Nathan today after school...a former student...if you're reading this, you little punk kid, then listen up...I'm going to give you and your friends...Jon and Dustin...24 hrs to start your own blogs...if I haven't heard back then I will be hunting you down like the dogs that you are...I'd like to sit around and laugh at your blogs like I know you laugh at me on mine...the clock's tickin'...

almost a month!!!! where have I been

Yeah, it's been a while...where to start.

We started having a meal at our house on Tuesday nights about a year and a half ago. We started with themes of different types and quickly tired of that, and all the planning it required, going to the easy "potluck" approach. To us it was more about the time of shared life and less about the "spread" of food we had, but for some others it was very much about the food too. It was said by someone once, "what if everyone brings pasta salad one week?"...well then...I guess we'll eat pasta salad...it seemed obvious to us anyway, and I didn't think it was a big deal. Besides, if nearly everyone brings something to eat we'll have plenty to share.

So again, we've been doing this for a while now, but we've also begun a more specific time for the church to come together in our home on Sunday nights as well. We have the similar approach to food for this evening as we do for Tuesday nights. Just bring something and we'll have plenty to eat.

I was reading recently, "What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these things must be done for the strengthening of the church." I Corinthians 14:26

And I was struck by the spiritual parallel to what we went through with the food issue at our common meals. It is assumed here by Paul that people would be coming together with the list he presents, "a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation."
He wasn't teaching that they needed bring these things, he wasn't trying to convince them that this is what they should be doing...this IS what they were bringing and he had some instruction then on how to do all of this in an orderly way. They were bringing the things the body needed already, they just needed some instruction on what to do with it.

I was sharing last week with our house church that my heart was that each of us would be living our lives in a way that we would constantly be asking ourselves not only "what is God saying to me?" but rather, "what is God saying to His church?"

We have a responsibility to bring a "spiritual" meal to our gatherings just as we need to pitch in and bring a dish to share for our physical meal. If we don't come prepared with what the Lord is sharing with us, then the body doesn't get the nourishment it needs to grow and develop. If we continually pass off responsibility for bringing something to the body then we become emaciated as followers of Christ OR, what has happened in the church today, we become completely dependent on a crew of "professional chefs" that prepare a 5 course meal for us week after week. We love it because we don't have to do a thing...we can show up week after week and eat to our hearts content then we leave after we've gorged ourselves on a meal we never even contributed to. This is why we have an entire generation of the church that can't even make a peanutbutter sandwich for themselves or anyone else because not only have they never needed to, but they've been encouraged by the system to never even try...just leave the food prep to the professionals...We don't want people in the kitchen making something when they haven't had the "formal training" required to turn out a really nice meal. We've got an entire generation of the church that can't even boil water for a pot of rice and then we wonder why the church is powerless and ineffective. The only way we can bring something to the table is if we've heard from God himself through the Holy Spirit...the problem is we don't know what His voice sounds like...we've never had to...as long as we listen to the voice of the preacher we'll be fine...or so we thought

What is the Holy Spirit saying to His church? What is he saying to us...the body of Christ?