Reaping What We Sow

Today was the perfect day for me to return to my church home.  Not because it is just a beautiful day weather wise, or because I was awake before the alarm clock sounded.  Not even because, though I was blocked in I managed to get out of the driveway.  This day was perfect because God is perfect and so many things fell into place that I am confident today was meant to be my once again return to church.

It actually began last night when I was listening to some messages online from another church I had been considering trying out for a home place to worship.  The messages are in a series titled, “Unpopular”.  I totally understand why that is too, because there is nothing warm and fuzzy about the messages that were preached over the summer at White Water Christian Church.

The first message was about how it isn’t all about me.  The second on sexual morality.  Mind you I know this, but it was still a bit of a sting.  In choosing a place to return too for worship and being fed I’ve been more concerned about me and far less about doctrine and teaching, and that Christ is glorified above all else.  My heart attitude has been pretty selfish.  I want what I want as far as music for the services, attitudes in others toward me, church on my terms.  Well that isn’t how it works if I want to be taught something solid.  We’re to be imitators of Christ, and that means it cannot be all about me.

In my life I have spent many years justifying things.  First through the swinger years but that is another post, then through being single and feeling that it was okay to have sex with the guys I was dating.  I heard my own words echo back in the sermon message last night, “I know it’s wrong but what am I supposed to do, deny myself????”  Well yes, yes that is exactly what I am to do. Christ denied Himself, came to earth as a man and died.  We are in fact to deny ourselves, imitate Christ, pick up our crosses and walk.  God’s word is not known for its grey areas.  Certainly there are things it does not address, but it isn’t hard to figure out what the right answers would be in relation to God’s word.  Sex outside of marriage isn’t a grey area.  Adultery is pretty specific too.

If it’s about Christ, as my life should be, then it isn’t about me.

If He is in control, I’m not.

If He is God, I am not.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” ~ Jim Elliot

“Attitude reflects leadership” – Remember The Titans

What does my attitude say about who leads my life?

I went out of here ready for church, with my car blocked in by my niece.  My fault, I didn’t think of it last night so I could get my car in last or put it on the street.  So, determined that I was going, I drove through the lawn to the neighbor’s driveway to leave.    Sunday school was in the book of Judges.  While it spoke to me, and was good for me to hear, it was more about what was to come.  The service really got under  my skin and down into my heart.  From the  opening chorus, then hymn, the reception of a new member (mostly her testimony), the scripture reading  which was Psalm 1 (below) and then the hymn, When Trials Come which is SO good that I’m including the video from Youtube and you should watch and listen, the beat picks up and it’s a beautiful hymn, and  then finally the message from Pastor.  His message was from Galatians 6:7-8.  This was entirely too timely given the messages I heard last night.

Galatians 6:7-8

New King James Version (NKJV)

⁷ Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. ⁸ For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.

WOW do I know the truth of that passage.  For years was a lifestyle that sowed seeds of sin with each fantasy, encounter, etc. and we reaped sin in return.  The final reaping being the end of the marriage.  The consequences were high.  When we attended church we were a better couple, when we started sowing seeds of wrong doing in a sinful field, we fell apart.  That lifestyle was all about self, desires, appetite and little or no thought for God.  The end result was corruption.

But now, my desire is to sow not to my flesh but to the Spirit.  Good seeds so what grows in my life is good.  Not an easy task but then in Christ I can do anything.

I had someone recently tell me basically good luck finding a man, even a professing believer, willing to wait til marriage for sex.   My thought…if he IS a believer he will desire to wait as well.  If not then obviously he is not the one for me.  If I never find him, then I was meant for single life.  There is no grey area.

Psalm 1

New King James Version (NKJV)

The Way of the Righteous and the End of the Ungodly

1 Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
² But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
³ He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.

⁴ The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
⁵ Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

⁶ For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the ungodly shall perish.