I’m forgiven and …

I’m sorry if you don’t forgive me or you remember who I was back then or you can’t get over what I did,

But I’m forgiven by my Father who sent his Son to come to this earth,

and to do some miracles, and feed the hungry, and give mercy to the merciless,

Then they killed him.  Or he gave his life.

Either way, it was through that killing, that sacrifice, that blood, that I was forgiven.

But it gets better.

Because sacrifice is important, but it’s not unheard of.  Many have died, many have sacrificed,

but the next step made all the difference.

Then He rose from the dead by way of the Father.

That meant my forgiveness wasn’t just from a man, it was from a God, the same God who loves the world.

So you may or may not forgive the person I used to be,

or you may not like me now and decide to talk about that amongst your friends.

But it’s ok, because I’m forgiven.

permanently.

And my God is alive to prove it.

So because of all that, and because I’m still not perfect, but I’m working on it,

I would just like to say, here on this “good day”

I love you.  With all God’s heart.

The people who get things done for God are people who take risks.  I believe He actually created the world to be this way, and our selfish nature fights against that by putting comfort first.  And when comfort gets put first, the irony is the world becomes more broken, more empty almost, and it takes more sacrifice to rebuild that once whole, then broken world.

What do you need to risk that you would rather keep?

Today I want to be a good friend.  To be able to sacrifice what I want for what my friends want.  And even to give up what I most value for the sake of my friends:  my own life.  At times I may need to be a friend through trials rather than laying in comfort.  I may need to tell the truth, even if that stings a bit and even it makes my friend mad.   Today I will not blame, manipulate, guilt, talk down to, or violate the trust of my friend, because that is the territory of an enemy, and today I am not an enemy.  I am a good friend.  The only thing that should come before being a friend is being a Christ follower, and the two should only co-exist.  For if I am like Christ…

I am a good friend.

I’m freeing myself slowly from it.  The need to be everyone’s friend.  Sure I’m friendly with everyone, after all, it is my personality. But friends – I’m getting away from the addiction.

I used to believe that as a pastor of a church, I had to be friends with everyone in the church.  Consequently I would bend over backwards trying to please everyone, pour into everyone’s life individually, and in the end have a heaping full of watered down relationships.

Recently I’ve realized a better way.  Friendly towards all, but friends toward a few.  Real friends are hard to come by and they are not going to be made once a week in an hour.  Real friends develop connections through long conversations, time spent in mutual activity, and being real with one another.

I still believe the church is an amazing place to find real friends of character, integrity, and sacrifice, I just don’t believe that that friend has to be be me anymore.  It could be a life group leader or a band member, a nursery volunteer, or just a wise individual who happens to be in a seat each Sunday.  Just because someone has a title doesn’t mean they are your friend.  A title doesn’t make a friend…

a sacrifice does.

Yesterday I posted about Sunday Morning @ Fellowship, and shared about the chipmunk that decided to join us.  Today I wanted to share a few thoughts I wanted to write down concerning my message that day:

1.  Any group (family, church, organization, country, etc…) is based on an ideal. (i.e.freedom, love, justice, peace, etc…)

2.  That ideal is propagated by a core group of people who sacrifice for that ideal.

3.  Those who sacrifice are followed by a larger group of people who give valuable service.

4.  Eventually that group reaps the fruit of their efforts.

5.  The fruit and the ideal should be the same thing.  Far too often in our culture, the fruit is comfort, which is typically not the ideal.

6.  Fruit over time, goes bad; and so we need new fruit, which means new sacrifice.

Later this week, I’ll give examples for each of these 6 progressive thoughts.

Would you add to or disagree with this list?