More & Less

The world needs more people giving us something to think about and less people telling us what to think.

Counting People

is not the same as making people count, counting on people or being the kind of person people can count on.

Sameness

God’s highest hope for each of us is to find and stay in an intimate, unique, and completely fulfilling relationship with Him. It’s not His idea for us to walk the path of everyone else. Different is good.

The world is countering God’s plan with sameness. We’re becoming franchise humanity with no tolerance for anyone unlike ourselves and will soon be herded into one of only two crowds; it’ll be them and us. Much of the church today is playing right along with this plan.

Our answer has to be personal. Our intimacy with the Lord will result in an outpouring of love on individuals, persons that are different than we are and our goal can’t be to make them just like us.

Adore

Jesus, I adore you, lay my life before you, how I love you.

How we love Him is by loving His people, all of His people, not just those that are like us. Please help us do that today Lord.

Persons

We’re all called to the ministry of persons, individuals, families and small groups of folks we can know intimately, care deeply for and do life with, that’s the great commandment. We really mess things up when we decide to minister to people, large groups that we can plug into the system or run through our programs. Too often the great commission of going into the entire world subverts the commandment to love because we assume the enormity of the world is on our shoulders, so we must do it big, when all God’s asking for, is us to help Him one person at a time.

People Matter

More than anything! God values people above all else, in fact all of creation is for us. So why do we put so many other things ahead of the people in our lives? Let’s not let the day end having neglected the persons around us and if we did then let’s not tomorrow.

Two

It seems that there are two kinds of people in the world, them and us. Is that how God would have us see it?

Family of God

I think the family of God is much more inclusive than many would have us believe. Scripture tells us His perfect sacrifice is for all. And while we see things only as they are now, He also sees them as they will be. God’s view is always so much clearer than ours. Let’s ask Him to show us what He sees in people and for Him to let us be a part of bringing them into the family.

Shouts

All of creation shouts His magnificence! What beauty we are surrounded by, the hills, the trees, the mountains, the deserts, the clouds, the stars, oceans, lakes, wildlife, flowers and fields but the most beautiful of all are the people He has surrounded us with. Oh, He loves us so.

Not What

You may have noticed in yesterday’s post that all of the questions began with who, who do you care about, who do you love, who do you give your time to… not what. You see what is never important if there isn’t a person involved. Far too often we get caught up in the thing or the what and lose sight of the folks God has put around us. Sometimes we even appease ourselves by thinking that the thing that is so important to us is for the masses and therefore it’s okay to neglect the persons for the sake of the people.