His Church

Many a times, we the Church look at people and approach them as projects based on their skill, weighing how we can use them for our benefit. We belittle individuals and cut them down in size yet appearing as if we care and want the best for them.

The church is meant to see people for who they are, as individual lives that are worthy of being loved and being known. They should never embrace someone because they want something out of them but because they yearn to love and affirm just as Christ does.
Our desire should be to see people grow, nourished, mature and  bear fruit through every season. Our goal is to love and bring hope for that very love that we express, that genuine relationship that we partake in transforms imperfect people and stirs them to serve not just God but His church in passion & thanksgiving.

Just as we go before God as we are for the first time.. in our brokenness and failure and just as His love overflows into our hearts only to change us into someone beautifully new so must the Church be transforming, spirit filled gracious, unconditional and genuine . We are his hands and feet. We are meant to be here for each other not to gain but to give. And in this giving comes reward as we become who we are meant to be.

The church does not exist to serve itself nor gain for itself through people but exists to glorify God and serve people for no gain of their own.

It is rare that we approach a person out of genuine desire to serve them and see them grow. It is rare that we put what’s best for them above what’s best for us. We ask ourselves, how will this investment benefit me? What do they have to give back? Perhaps they have nothing. Not now, anyway.
People are real. They are not meant to be pursued based on how much they can be used for the “apparent” glory of god . We the church are meant to serve the heart, soul & body. We are meant to be like Christ, to do as Christ . We are meant to be His Church.

Real Stories

So many of us are too ashamed to share our stories thinking that they are unworthy of being told because of our fallout, immoralities and more. We hide the truth and cover the stains that seem so ugly. Little do we know that there is a power in confession.. confession of the truth even if it’s the brutal truth about our very lives.  The mere utterance of it not only brings liberation but frees those who hear our stories, especially those whose world secretly collides with ours.

You see, the perfect stories are the imperfect ones.. the ones that are raw and uncut. They are the ones that don’t have anything missing.  How ever, we often try to be selective about what we say but that holds no power. Power is in the details that we often hide away and push under the rug. Those are the details that make our stories real and that reach out to the lives of others. It’s the dark stuff that act as a beacon of light to those who are too afraid to lift up their voice to say they are being wronged because they think their sin is to be blamed.

But when we show ourselves as imperfect people, these very hearts who silently struggle realize that there is hope and that they don’t have to be perfect to be justified in their cause. And in bringing them hope, our stories serve a purpose beyond ourselves, encouraging us, our lives as we glorify the Author.

Originally dated: 23/1/2011

Freedom

There is a future in our hearts that we dream of.. A time when all is beautiful and worry does not abide . It is a place where our spirits are full of satisfaction; heavy-laden no more.

The mind of our tomorrows is where the answers to desperate prayers live.. it is where we are weightless.

Freedom needs fighters who will claim all they deserve and more. Freedom needs lovers who are willing to believe that waiting for the prize is never in vain.

If we could wait through the storms then how much easier is it to just walk through the wilderness. Even when we have stepped out of the pain of the past, freedom still needs work and completion. The fight never seems to end but it does.

What has begun must finish. What is hoped for must come to pass. The waiting room has a door that will be opened and the reaping of what was once sown will grow out & cease to be..

Winter will end..

Freedom will be.