Mark 13:11
But when you are arrested and stand trial do not worry about what you will say in your defense. Just say what God tells you to.
So how do we say what God tells us to? What does that mean? I picture a world leader addressing the masses with an earpiece hidden from sight, repeating what he hears from an inspirational speech writer. But we don’t have some divine, “earpiece”… or do we?
When Christ left his disciples he told them in Acts 1:4-5 to, “wait for the gift that the Father promised.” That gift was our divine earpiece; the one who would empower us to communicate with the Creator of the universe. So how do we turn that earpiece on?
I don’t think it’s as much a matter of turning our earpiece on as it is knowing what God would say. If we see ourselves more as ambassadors representing God, speaking on his behalf, then we simply become as familiar as we can with His values, His principals and run everything we say through that criteria.
We should always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us. Tuning into God, hearing from Him is first a matter of a getting familiar with who He is and his message to us through the Holy Scriptures. Then we have to find time to commune with Him to know when He is stirring and speaking to us.
Tags: Truth Courage Boldness Obedience
Mark 12:30-31
“And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.” The second is equally important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” No other commandment is greater than these.
Apparently anyone who was familiar with the scriptures of the time probably had heard these verses countless times. We find them in Deut. 6:4 and in Lev 19:18. These passages were the most taught and discussed portions of scripture because they were the books that Moses wrote, but for some reason people often looked for mystical formulas and fixated on dogma to feel spiritual.
Just as people often missed the point in Biblical times, I think we often miss the whole or wholistic message of the Bible. Jesus brings up a passage that most everyone is familiar with but for some reason the simplicity of loving and following God and loving others has gotten convoluted in a mire of rituals, rules and religiosity. So many of us have just missed the point: God is love and God is life; every facet of life. It’s from the time we get up until the time we lay our head down at night that God wants to be engaged with us. We are being called by scriptures (reiterated by Christ) to love Him at an emotional level, a spiritual level, an intellectual level and a physical level because that is how He created us.
I believe that this is how we are to love others as well. Just how does that look? Well, I can love someone at an emotional level by sharing in their pain and joy. I can love someone at a spiritual level by praying with them and for them. I can love someone at an intellectual level by teaching and discipling them and I can love them at a physical level by embracing them, giving them food and shelter. It seems pretty simple to me.
Tags: Wholistic Ministry
