Memebers, or...

Members or…. , oh well, members?

I wanna share with you some C.S.Lewis wisdom. Most of us heard about him, and many may have already read some of the books. Maybe all of us have already seen The Chronicles of Narnia, a movie made after one of his books. He is a tremendous person and truth to be told if I were to pick a celebrity to meet it would be either him or Beethoven. Coming back to words of wisdom…

I was reading today on my way to work one of his books – essays actually – about how some people, Christians, can see the spores on a fern but miss the elephant next to them.  One of his ideas really caught my attention and made me think. He was talking how Paul’s meaning to the word “members” was really “organs”. Because as Christians, that is what we need to be to each other – members, so we can all complete the body. But he was explaining how the world took this word and emptied it of this meaning. Now we say I am a member of a band, or a club, or a church … and what we are really saying is that “I am just the same as all the others in this class”. The world wants to make us just units in a class when God actually wants us to be unique, each having its unique function in the body of Christ.

Lewis continues with the presentation of a perfect example of “members” in God’s-way-of-meaning-it: the family. All the members of a family are unique … and all together they form the whole. You cannot consider them units of a class because they are not the same: children, and parents, and grandparents and so on so forth. No wonder that the family is the cell of a church. No wonder that this cell needs to be healthy in order to give a healthy body.

Bottom line to all this is that I don’t want to be just a unit. The world actually has so little to offer me, because God did not create me to be ordinary. He has created every one of us to be extraordinary. And this is the saying of another great man.  The problem with us we are so used to be units that we have lost the touch with the extraordinary. Even I cannot pick myself up and snap out of the “unit” thing. It’s just so unbelievable how world can tie us in an invisible cage and we happily stay there without protesting.

I keep seeing this everywhere on Internet: be the change you want in the world. And it’s not that I don’t agree. I do! But it’s so used that our heart cannot feel it as it should. So will just come out and say it:

I am so tired of being mocked by the devil and I am so tired of just being a unit. I want to seriously believe God when He tells me he has a special place for me, where my uniqueness and my talent and my skills can be used to help the others. Because, in the end, it’s not what we do for ourselves that counts, but what we do for others.

Anyone else?

Where are YOU … God?

I think we – the Christians – have a problem of perspective, a problem of optic.

 I truly think that the first churches that were built, were built as a way of showing the greatness of God – because He is – as a way of showing gratitude, as an act of sacrifice … but then we got caught in this “race” for who’s the best, who builds the greatest cathedral, the most imposing church etc. We have forced God to dwell in a cold-rock construction that we call the HOUSE OF GOD. We have forced God to play by our rules. But we were so wrong! The god dwelling in that construction is not the true God. The god playing by our own rules is not the true God.

 The true God? Well He looked at us, fighting to find out who’s gonna be the greatest, and left to find “the someone among them  who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one” [Ezekiel 22:30]. The terrible sadness He must have felt when seeing us “worshiping” an image while the great need for someone to built a wall and stay in the gap.

Even today – we still fight, we still wanna be great and important in the “body of Christ”, but not willing to wrap our waist with the towel and serve our brothers and sisters.

I don’t think God is as complicated as we make Him look. God is simplicity. And, after complicating everything … when we find ourselves in a difficult situation we expect God to intervene. And He doesn’t. We run to the church – where we knew we have put God – and we haven’t found Him there.

In our blindness we started to cry and ask: Where are you God? Now, when I am in this difficult situation?

I think we Christians have a problem of perspective, a problem of optic. I think that an authentic Christian would never ask “Where are you God?” – because he would already know the answer.

These last days we’ve been taking a lot about sacrifice and suffering and salvation. And yes, because Jesus allowed to be crucified the door for our salvation is open now. But us talking about this huge sacrifice like we understand it … is just a lie. We do NOT understand it! There’s no one who could understand this …

Not even those who passed through great suffering

Not even those who have lost a loved one

To understand it would mean that you, as a father, accept that your most beloved son be tortured and sentence to death for someone who didn’t do anything to deserve it! Your most beloved son … who has done nothing wrong, nothing that could deserve punishing.

Would mean that you have to look your son how he’s beaten and spat and mocked and crucified and then laid down in a cold tomb.

 Would mean that you have to listen to your son’s prayer to take away the pain and the torment – and to know that YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU ARE BEING ASKED FOR!!! And then, the resignation in your son’s voice that if that was your will, he will do it!

Would mean that you will have to look upon your son and see how he is sold for … nothing!

And when he is on the cross … you need to hear him asking forgiveness for his murderers!

So, do we really understand the sacrifice? We are the murderers and in our human pride we thought we deserve everything. We thought we can do whatever we wanted. We took this as granted! It isn’t! We do not deserve this.

My sole conclusion to this is that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Do you see His love? Who on earth could love as He does?

Tricky think tho, the door is only open. It doesn’t mean we are on the other side. In order for this sacrifice to pay your own guilt … you need to accept it and cross over through the open door.

Do not worry. On the other side there are no surprises, no darkness, no fear. It’s just Jesus open arms! Because Jesus has resurrected!

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Unfinished vessel

There’s this story with Jeremiah when he is sent to the potter’s house and see how the different vessels are made. Well, the hidden meaning of this story is that we are all vessels in the hands of the greatest Potter.

With all the things happening around me, around us, it was impossible not to notice that with some of us the Potter has a lot of work to do. I guess that there are just a few vessels that come out as they are supposed to be … in the first try. And it’s not that the Potter is not talented. He is! He knows exactly what we can be, what we are supposed to be … what we WILL be! But you see, we are all made of different types of clay. Some are easy to work with, others … it’s just more difficult.

I feel like I am an unfinished vessel. I feel like, as clay, I am too stubborn. I didn’t want to be what He planned. So, He just put me aside … to cool off. He looks at me from time to time, just to check if I am ready. I see how He took other vessels to work on and the result is such a fine object, useful in so many ways that I cannot wait until He picks me up again … I know that the hard part is yet to come: the shaping, the edging, the oven. But all these are so necessary! Without all these stages I am just an unfinished good for nothing vessel!

And unfinished good for nothing vessels are not kept on the side forever! Eventually, He will pick me up again. He will try to transform me into His grand plan.

But it’s up to me if I want to become a useful vessel, or remain just clay!

 

Guilt is such a bad companion. Whenever guilt is present we know that something is so wrong. Guilt follows sin … and sin makes us all sorrow.  I know that guilt is a mental state.  The battle is given in our mind!

We are not taught how to get rid of this companion. We are not taught how to fight this off. Maybe we are even taught that guilt is something like a punishment that we need to live with for the entire life for not doing the right thing.

 My friends, I know that guilt is good … because when we have it we know that we have done something wrong and we need to put it straight. But I also know that God did not want this for His sons…a life full of guilt. So in my opinion, guilt is good to some extent. After that it becomes a useless baggage we’re carrying around, a baggage that doesn’t allow us to evolve!  A baggage that preoccupies us so much that we cannot pay attention to all the wonders God has made for us, to all the other lessons we are supposed to learn.

I’ve been carrying such a baggage for some time now: guilt for not doing the right thing, guilt for doing the wrong thing, guilt for saying the wrong words or for having the bad thoughts. And all this took my energy, my energy that was suppose to go to something constructive, to something that would please God. Instead, I just sat there… feeling guilty and not doing anything about it!

I know what you might be thinking: “But how can God forgive me after all I’ve done? How can He forgive me one more time?” I do not have these answers…all I know is He does! If you are sincere and the next step is to forgive ourselves! Guilt is no use for us if we keep carrying it around.

So … lets all do an exercise. Let us all trust GOD that He can take away all our baggage … and instead we WILL ALL BE FREE!!!

And when I say all … it’s me included!

Holidays or holy days? This is the question. 

We are walking on shaking ground. We are getting close to what people call Christmas, but what does that mean to each of us? December is the month of making presents, the month when everybody should try to be better. But what is this to us? We are not like the other, we should not be like the others! Why? Because, unto us a Child is born – Isaiah 9:6, and this Child is not just any Child. He is the Savior we are all longing for.

So, let me ask you again what are these days to you – holidays or holy days? Are just happy to have some free time to catch up with your reading or finishing some chores you kept pushing for tomorrow or maybe just sleep more? Or you deeply understand how important this event was more than 2000 years ago?

We all need to stop doing what we’re doing and look into ourselves to see whether we are prepared to celebrate this great event with a humble and an open heart. I need to do that. I need to clear my head and clear my heart from all the bad things and keep it open for our SAVIOR. These are holy days we’re living. I’m not saying that we should not take care of our body – and rest and catch our breath from the speed this life is getting to, or I’m not saying that you should not spend time with family and friends! But I am saying that we cannot face these days like usual. We need to think of the importance of His coming on earth for our sake.

We must prepare ourselves; now even more knowing that His return is so close! We need to start living our lives accordingly. 

How about turning this holidays into some Holy days?

We talk about colour and normally colour is what gives another view to our world. We really need to admit that black&white wouldn’t have made such a great combination when talking about world! But (and here comes the first  big BUT of this story), colour is what makes the differences. I did not say the difference, but the differences! We got to look to the colour of our skin, to the colour of our money, to the colour of our intelect, to the colour of our political views. The greatest barrier ever was created by colours!

For centuries people have tried to push or even eliminate these differences given by our colour. Still we are marked forever by our colour. As hard as we try, we are always white or black, poor or rich, smart or less equiped, republican, democrate or any other political view. This entire society is rules by the colours.

But (this is my second BUT of the story), even worst then letting ourselves driven by colours in this society is that we let colours drive us inside the Church. Church is supposed to be the Body of Jesus Christ. Church is supposed to be neutral, same for everyone regardless the colour of the skin, the political view, the height on the social ladder. We are all equals in front of the throne of Jesus...

This is how it should be, and for our parents and grandparents life was like this. For us, things have changed just a little bit. We live those days when we think we can buy our place in the church. We think that our political or social status can help us – when speaking about the salvation of our soul. I hate that we got to this! I hate that we cannot be simple and transparent. I hate that we got to fight over the colour of our Jesus.

Let me remeber you: Jesus was neither white, nor black, neither rich, nor poor, neither republican, nor democrate ... He was, He is, He will always be the only way to be saved! We can stay and fight, we can try to buy the confortable seat, we can pretend we are holy, we can walk as we were saints... but all this is nothing if we do not forget about colours and just let Jesus see Himself in our lives!

Jesus has no colour!

 

Faith

Faith... I would say compulsory for our living, but seldom we find ourselves empty with no horizon and no expectations for tomorrow. We forget the yesterday, the day before yesterday ... the only thing we know is that we are done, we have no back-up plan, no resources to walk further and - the bottom line - the only direction we seem to be going is DOWN. There is no other way, there is no one who can help us - or at least that is what we think.

Faith - I guess faith means looking up where true help dwells. Faith is what keeps us going on. What makes us know that even if we seem to be alone, we aren't. BUT, and there is always a but, we have to choose sides. Faith is not something that we can keep in our closet or on a shelf. Faith is something you get after choosing sides - and it's not like it doesn't count which side - after choosing the right side. This is a one way road. There is no turning back. But having faith means that we are never to think that we are alone or that we have no power to fight any longer. And this makes it worth the "trouble"!

Faith is. We stand by faith and faith alone.

I thought that I had no other choice but to melt and disappear, cloudy and darkness, and then I remembered it doesn't have to be this way.

I could have faith.

I can have faith.

I should have faith, because faith and faith alone helps me stand looking straight into the night.

FAITH - willing to wait for the dawn. So I choose the right side!

Joyful heart

We, the Romanians, have a national (I might say!) trait: we are tragic-dramatics!  We like to be dramatic – so we cannot afford to smile just for the sake of the smile itself! We need a very good reason to smile…

And this brings me right where I wanted to get: we, the Romanian, the Christians, have the best reason in the world to smile. We have a Savior, our lives are saved and we need to worry no more ‘cas our faith is in His strong hand. We stand by the faith in His name!

Even so, we do not smile! In church, in our day-by-day life, we seem to participate to a never-ending funeral service. This is no way to show Jesus to the world! We keep saying that our joy is in our heart. And that MUST be true – we need to have a joyful heart, we need to rejoice into God, BUT (and trust me this BUT is what makes the difference) this joy of ours MUST be so great that it cannot be hidden inside our hearts, it cannot be kept only for ourselves, this joy MUST be seen all over our faces, all over our lives…

I am not encouraging a hypocritical smile, but I am encouraging all those with a joyful heart to let the others see…

Maybe, just maybe, the other will want the same joy, the same honest, simple joy that is driving us, and giving us the strength to walk every day!

We cannot imagine the power of a sincere smile on our faces! And it’s not like we have no reason to smile!

Loyalty

These are hard times we’re living in. Unusual times. We have no expectations, we have no hope left and I think that we are in this situation only because we have lost our loyalty! This is what I think happened. We have no loyalty to people around us, we have no loyalty to our friends and even family, but worst that all this is that we have left our loyalty to God. I am just looking to my life and to those around me, and it is so sad to see that we make same promises everyday and we still fell. We ask for forgiveness and then we do same mistakes.

We even forgot what true loyalty means. We are so blind to get where we want to get that it doesn’t matter anymore how we get there. It doesn’t matter who do we have to push aside in order to obtain what we want. We are driven so much by our own desire that we do not know anymore how to trust God and his everlasting promise. I am so ashamed to say it, but, sometimes, I find my self in the position of taking my own life both hands, not knowing that He who made everything knows infinite better than I. We only think we know what we need and that is because we listen to the whisper of the Evil. Loyalty is what God asks from us, because loyalty means trusting Him even when we see no alternative, no open door, no light. Just standing and waiting for the right moment when He WILL send His help…

I wish we could find deep inside our selves the power to be loyal to our God. Many of us already made the promise to never leave Him for the rest of our lives, and many of us forgot about that promise. Many of us … Loyalty is something we can learn, we just need a strong will and lots of prayers, we need to educate our mind and educate our ears, our eyes, and not let us tempted by the Devil.

I know it is hard! I know … I’ve been there, I’ve been to that dark place where no light can be seen. But we do have a great God, who can reach no matter how deep we have gone. He is just at a heart beat! Let’s renew our promises to God and this time just ask Him for strength and if we stay close to Him, He promised to walk with us every step of the way. Above everything our God is a loyal God! 

Tradition

A while ago I hated anything about tradition. Tradition seemed so old, so antique … it had nothing to do with new and revival. Especially in the Church of God! “Tradition” is a problem for the young. If there is something we do not like, we yell “Tradition, God doesn’t like tradition!” I was one of those who yield! I do still think that God is a God of revival and strength and has nothing to do with tradition. But indulge me and allow me to explain my new point of view.

As I told you, I do think that our God is not a God of tradition…but He is a God of order! And now… my new point of view isn’t actually mine, but I heard someone talking about this particular subject and my eyes were opened. We hide ourselves behind this curtain of tradition, we accuse and we point out as being tradition – things that are only supposed to be “in order”! For example, why do men and women stay separately in church? Or why is there any need to cover our heads (I  am talking about women here)? And I could go on and on with the questions. We don’t like the things as they are so we stand and sentence: “Tradition!” Well, my dear friends, let me tell you – this is not tradition, this is how things should be, this is how God created the things… On the other hand, things that are tradition, but things that don’t bother us … we accept them as normal!

The problem with Tradition is that we take as tradition things that should be order, and we accept things that are tradition as they were normal!

Let just ask God open our eyes and accept things as He created them!

Kaleidoscope

According to the dictionary, this is a term coming from Greek, and the exact translation would be "observer of beautiful forms".

As a child I had a kaleidoscope, but I guess I couldn't appreciate its value until today, when I am looking for one as crazy and I can't find it anywhere... maybe, there are no more beautiful forms to observe, or who knows!

The thing is, we must all be kaleidoscopes! When looking through us, people should be able to see all the beautiful forms. Yeah, I know it is a difficult reality - the reality we're living in, but we must do our best to let the others observe the beautiful forms...

In order to do that, we must be transparent and allow the light to enter. It's all depending on the material we're made of! There would be a lot of things to say, but not all those things are really important. What matters is that beautiful forms do exist and it is up to us to discover them!

I wish I were a kaleidoscope! 

Wrote by: Camelia Sighiartau