Sunday, 18 November 2007

Sunday School Class Proverbs 26:4 speaking of 'fools'... 

Choruses: All over the world the Spirit is moving ‘C’; I need you more ‘F’; More of you ‘C’

scripture reading: #648

Sunday evening @ 5 p.m. The Life of Christ - Luke 13.23 Pharisees warn Jesus of Herod's intentions to kill him.

Wednesday @ 7 p.m. Developing a Biblically consistent World-View: How does our motivation affect our mission?

Sunday evening – December 16^th: our church Christmas party @ 5:00.

Thankful, grateful, appreciative...

2Co 4.13. It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, 14. because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.

15. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. 16. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

17. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

You have to see the 'big picture' and keep focused...yada, yada, yada. During my working career I hated those rah-rah staff meetings where some consultant, or expert, or motivational person would try to take us into 'paradigm shifts,' finding the 'moved' cheese, or some newly worded brand of improving the quality of systems.

I'm convinced that old cheerleaders never die, they become consultants.

Now that I have been among the ranks of consultants for a few years, I'm equally convinced that those who still can - do; those who no longer can - consult. Thankfully, there are still folks who used to work with me who will recommend me as 'knowing how it ought to be done.'

I don't go into a consulting role with rah-rah-rah. The Apostle Paul wasn't presenting a rah-rah either. When Paul was encouraging the folks at Corinth to ‘not look at the things that are, as they are, but to look at things that are not - because they are transcendent,’ he was introducing something beyond hype.

It IS imperative that we, by faith, see the 'big picture' and keep focused. That is said with calm intensity - no hype, no rah-rah-cheer-up-it'll-get-better stuff.

There is a metaphysical ingredient here. God laid it out in Psalms 50:23. "He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God."

If being thankful is a genuine sacrifice right now,

God will use your sacrifice of thanks-giving to prepare the way

so that He can show you the great things that He has in store for you.

In this, we are placing our perspective in the transcendent, the eternal - 'that which was and is and is to come', with the understanding that God will answer in the present, presently.