Sunday, August 18, 2019

Before Church: Who Do You Think You Are?


Who do you think you are? 

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our sufficiency is from God, Who has qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code, but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life. II Corinthians 3:4-6

Starting something new?  Your internal voice will challenge the new.  Creatures of habit, we humans don’t like change.  If only our consciences were sinless; I could use a little Jiminy Cricket in my life to steer me the right way.  So that internal voice can be right, or it can be wrong, and when I start something new, and maybe you have heard it too, the question comes up: who do you think you are?  Who do you think you are to tell people about God?  Who do you think you are to advocate for life, for suicide prevention?  Who do you think you are, to call people to take career risks that you have avoided for years?  Who do you think you are to interpret Scripture?  Who do you think you are to make sermons, serve communion, or baptize? Who do you think you are to write books?  And to sell them? Who do you think you are?

Most often, it’s of the enemy.  Who am I?  I am a child of the Living God.  I am redeemed, and have the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide me and teach me (way better than Jiminy Cricket!).  I am called by God, entrusted with a ministry.  It may be my church job, it may be my job out in the world, it may be my hobby, but somehow God is going to use me to expand His Kingdom.  And God doesn’t send us out there without resources.  Nothing in the Kingdom of God is wasted.  God gives me experience and education to prepare me. 
I am the mother who lived through the suicide attempt of my daughter.  I am the teacher who went the second mile to not just master mathematics at the collegiate level, but squeezed in a semester in France in order to learn this language well enough to teach it.  I am the mother who has raised five children, children who are all college-educated and employed.  I am the wife of one man, going on four decades now, with deeper joy than I can tell.  I am the seminary graduate, who did not settle for lay ministry but fought through the rigors of a master of divinity program and the ordination process.  All of this came not through me, but through the Spirit of God, the grace of Jesus, because He put before me a path that I could only walk through His Holy Spirit.  He qualifies me, and my sufficiency comes from God Who uses everything in my life to enhance my witness.  


So who am I to do these things?  I am the woman who by life, by faith, by experience, and by education is eminently qualified to share my story, in the hopes that grace will reach new hearts, so they, too, can follow Christ. Who are you?

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