Just when I think that the annual Tailgate Fest cannot get any better.... it happens again. It was beautiful to watch kids play..... to stand in the middle of the concourse and listen to the laughter.... to smell amazing food.... to look at everyone wearing the colors of their favorite teams..... to experience our students playing 'trash cans' and throwing down some sweet rhythms.... to watch Ian and Jamie utterly and completely free the fools..... to have our kids enjoy the night of their lives as they jumped, played, and loved life... it was beautiful! It was the church being the church in the most beautiful of ways! Hey, we even threw a marriage proposal into the mix. A group is gathering and eating and enjoying a sweet little fire... that seems like a good time to ask the woman that you love to marry you! I love the tailgate fest! We'll do it again next year!!
We kicked off the series with the cry to 'free to fool'. At times, it's just foolish to consider following Christ. It's foolish to dream of changing the 
world... to consider expanding the fame of our God... to anticipate that God doesn't merely consider using you, but fully intends to use you for His greatest glory as you find your greatest satisfaction in Him. When you come to know Christ, two things begin to track as you grow into His image. Christ-likeness and Child-likeness track simultaneously in your heart. Spiritual maturity is becoming more and more like Christ and more and more like a child.
world... to consider expanding the fame of our God... to anticipate that God doesn't merely consider using you, but fully intends to use you for His greatest glory as you find your greatest satisfaction in Him. When you come to know Christ, two things begin to track as you grow into His image. Christ-likeness and Child-likeness track simultaneously in your heart. Spiritual maturity is becoming more and more like Christ and more and more like a child.Like a child, I want to believe that God is. I want to believe that God moves. Like a child, I want to believe that He can do as He chooses. I want to believe God-sized things and actually see Him bring His activity into fruition. I want to care far less about what others think and I want to care far more about what God thinks. I want to be God-conscious rather than self-conscious! I want to walk on water.... free captives.... live for His glory.... revel in Him.... dance... dream.... hope.... and vision! I want Christ.
I want the Word (logos = the written, living,and indwelling Christ) to dwell in me richly. I want to encourage others as I sing, dance, live, move and have my being in Him. I want to confound the wise and the strong and the together, because God chooses to free a fool like me - in all my simplicity and incapability - to most glorify His name.
I want Christ. I want to be a fool for Christ. I want to be surrounded by fools, so that we might just release His character in this earth.
Freeing fools... that's Jesus!
Enjoy today. Comment, if you like, by clicking below.
By Grace... For Glory,
Mark
3 comments:
In the service Sunday you mention Ezekiel. So I have been reading it, and I am left with questions. I have only gotten thru the first 10 chapters, but I have a question. Why was God SO angry with Ezekiel? Was Ezekiel the blame for the lack of believers in the nation Judah? And God's wrath is incrediable. I didn't know God could get so angry.
Exekiel is a prophet who is crying out to God's people. They ignore and ignore and ignore and God uses creative means to continue to reach to His people. I'm not sure how much I see God as 'angry'... Instead, I see God as gracious to His people, who ignore Him.. His attributes... His character... their role in carrying His fame while on this earth.
God, in His great mercy, simply continues to reach out to them and to tell them (as He does us), if you choose your own path and roll down that route, there is destruction for you. Choose me, seems to be the cry of God via Ezekiel. It's the same cry in our day. Choose Christ. In Christ, there is life and mercy and wholeness and perspective and eternity and passion and..... When I don't choose Christ, I chose death and entropy and futility and frustration.
Perhaps you are encountering this perfection of God. He is perfectly loving. Perfectly Gracious. Perfectly Just. Thank God for grace, because in His justice I don't have much to offer Him.
Just a few thoughts... I will have to read Ezekiel again in order to actually talk more directly about the book of Ezekiel. However, I think that we often think and enjoy God's love and we actually forget that He is just as well. His justice is what compels me to make the most of every opportunity.... to seek Christ... to embrace His life and His grace.
I am accountable to God. I am thankful for grace. It is my role (and yours as a Christ follower) to live, speak, and perpetuate His character in this earth. I would imagine that it torches God when we don't do that... when we compromise His fame and His glory.
Just a few thoughts..
By Grace.. For Glory,
Mark
But why Ezekiel? I am not verse in my bible history, but why Ezekiel? Was it just because he was a prophet, who couldn't get people to follow in Christ, so God wanted the non-believers to understand his Power? God blesses my life so much, I am thankful.
Jayne
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