Discipleship and Breastfeeding

There continues to be a lot of discussion in the world of Christianity about the idea of discipleship and how can we as followers of Christ do a better job of investing in people's lives. There are tons of books and resources out there that have provided myself and others some valuable insight into this quandary. With this abundance of resources I think many of us have gotten away from studying (with a specific guidebook) what God's word has to say on this issue. Today I would like to share with you some ideas that are a result of my mind pondering on just a few verses from 1 Peter 2.

The verses from this chapter that really seem to struck a cord were verses 1-3 and even more specifically verse 2. From this verse I began to wonder about the parallels of breastfeeding and discipleship. Here are some of thoughts that come from those wanderings.

• Someone must be willing and able to provide the milk. Not all mothers want to breastfeed and not all mothers can breastfeed. We also know that women who are not the biological mother can produce milk for an infant. The same is true in discipleship. Not everyone is williing to do it (though we should be just like I personally think all mom's should be willing to do it) and not all of us are best wired to do it.
• Not always on a set schedule. Infants do not always eat on a set schedule though some do develop an eating schedule. Many of us have tried to make disciplining someone something that happens when we want it to as opposed to when it needs to (infants eat when they need to not necessarily when we want them to).
• Breastfeeding passes the health and strength from one generation to the next. Breastfeeding typically gives an infant a stronger immune system sooner. The same is true of discipleship. The "older" generation passes it's knowledge and experiences to the "younger" generation. This should allow the "younger" generation to develop a deeper understanding of God sooner than the previous generation.
• Each child is different when it comes to being ready to move on from breastfeeding. As a discipler we must see each person different and understand that some people will take more time to "get it" than others.
• Sometime there does come a point when the mother must be the one to initiate the end of breastfeeding. Many times we must be the ones who sort of force the younger ones to move on to someone else to get their spiritual development. There can be a variety of reasons for this.
• Breastfeeding is mutually beneficial. Mothers bond with their babies through the process and babies receive a variety of incredible benefits. Discipleship relationships are the same way. Each person will benefit and both will be better long term for the relationship.

I hope these all made sense. What do you think? Have any more thoughts on this, if so please share them with all of us.

Ligaments for life

Many people have heard that love is the greatest of all those things that we must seek to find and live with. We see this all over the worldly cultures. We have countless stories of people who are willing to sacrifice anything for love (think Romeo and Juliet). I believe this desire for love is a God given desire and something that He has hard wired in to us, as His creation. Unfortunately, love is like the various other gifts God has given us in that we, through our sin, have developed some screwy concepts about how love is suppossed to be. In many ways we have made love more complicated than it was created to be.

The Bible gives some pretty clear direction on love. We must love God first. We show Him our love for Him by following His commandments. So how do we follow his commandments? I think it begins with living our lives as the incredibly wonderful creations He has made us to be. A major part of this is using those gifts He has given us (1 Corinthians 12). We must use these gifts to their maximum potential and ability. We must also allow others in the church to do the same thing. When we are all doing this then we will act as a single body that accomplishes great things. This body though is not that far different from our own bodies in that it's joints are held together by a series of ligaments.

Ligaments are those strands of fibers that literally hold our joints together. They prevent our joints from bending in ways that would be detrimental to our bodies. The body of Christ is no different. The ligaments (translated unity) that hold us together is our love (Colossians 3:14) for one another. I believe this principle can be applied to our other relationships.

So this Father's Day I would encourage you to show your love for the Heavenly Father by following His commandments. Be willing to follow Him to the ends of the earth and do whatever He wants you to do no matter the cost.

How to best love someone

Have you ever been in that place where you really wanted to be able to show someone that you love them but you just could not figure out the best way to do that?

I know I have been in that place many times. Usually when I started thinking like that my mind goes to thoughts about who that person is and what might appeal to them. This though is really the wrong approach. Our first approach really needs to be a focus on God and His commands (2 John 5,6). This does not mean and that we do consider who this person is and how they receive love but it does mean that we need to always make sure that our hearts are set towards God so that our love for Him and His love for us will overflow into our love for others.

Some may say that many people love with being saved and to a certain extent this is true. We are all create with a certain capacity to love and a desire to be loved. I believe this a reflection of being created in the image of God who is Love. In all reality though it is only when we are madly in love with our Savior that we can truly and fully love someone else.

Today hope you are able to truly love someone.

Do you love food?

Do you love food? Are there certain tastes that just are beyond your ability to truly describe? I really have two foods that I just love to eat. They are my wife's tater tot caserole and my mom's chicken and rice. Did you know that God has this same kind of love for you and me? I know it may sound weird but you can check it out for yourself at Malachi 1:2. So what does this mean for us. Well, I think this gives us hope as we struggle with our intense desire for things. Ths hope comes from the fact that the intense desire itself is not a bad thing but it is where we place that desire that becomes sinful for us. In fact the desire it is a aprt of how God has wired us. So the key becomes focussing that desire on God and the things He desires us to focus on.

I think for so long we have beaten ourselves up for having intense desires for things of this world and our solution has been to try and eliminate our ability to long after anything. Or if we decided we could keep these longs we could only have them for God alone. Neither of these solutions are totally correct. First of all God has wired us to be passionate creatures. Second, while it is true that we should focus a lot of attention on God Himself I am not so sure that it all needs to be focussed on the person of God. I think that if focus entirely on Him then we can easily miss that which He is doing. We must learn to also focus on God's activity here on earth.

I hope that today is a day where we can all learn to focus our "love of food" on God and His work and a little less on the fleating things of this world.

Paul's Passion

Do you have a passion in your life? What are some the things that you really enjoy doing? Is there that one thing you would even if you did not get paid for it?

For many years that one thing has been working with college students. I love doing it. It is one of those things that just gets my energy going no matter how physically sleepy or tired I may be. It is a passion that only god could have created within me. I am thankful for this desire. I think could relate to this kind of deep passion for a particular people group. For Paul I believe it was the Gentiles. Paul's love and compassion for the Gentiles was so deep that he was willing to suffer for them and their salvation.

I hope that today you will be able to do whatever it is that God has placed on your heart. If you do not then take courage in the fact that God has specific plans for this day. Plans that He knew and formed together long before you were even a thought in your parents minds. There is a reason for everything that God does and He will fulfill every promise He makes to you and I.

So no matter what your day holds I would encourage You to seek out God's plan for this day and then turn your actions and thoughts towards that plan.

Workmanship

I know many of you have heard me talk about how God has created each one of us for specific tasks and jobs. Many of you have also heard me speak on how with Christ all of our good works are like filthy rags (menstrual rags). So my thoughts for today may seem redundant but I wanted to share with you what I have been pondering on.

Many years ago while on a mission trip I got in "trouble" for not being at my assigned position to help with our VBS. The reason I was not there is that I was in midst of what I believed to be a rather important conversation with another missionary. To this day I stand by my original assertion that I was were I needed to be and that things went on just fine without me at the VBS. This incident though has stuck with me because of the implications it has for me living in a society that revolves so much around schedules and timing. As I have thought through this incident and others like it I have come to the understanding that God's timing and schedule. I know we have heard this a lot in church but I am not so sure we fully grasp the depth of this statement.

We typically understand this thought when it refers to our desires and prayer request. God's timing in our life goes so much deeper than this. God's plans for us deal with every moment that we are here on this earth. He has something for us to be doing every moment and He is actively involved in our lives all of the time. This means that we must be constantly seeking out those things which He would have us to do. It is only when we are vigilant for His plans that we are able to truly accomplish those good works that He has laid out for us.

So today my friends I would encourage you to be in a constant state of seeking God's plan for you. You never know what His plans are for you each day and you never know how He may use you to change someone's life.

Remembering Your Past

How much f your past do you remember? Do you remember the good times? the bad times? How much of it do you try and forget?

One of my all time favorite movie scenes is when Rafiki whacks Simba on the head to teach him how things are in the past and need to be left there. I think most of us can relate to Simba's problem. We struggle with getting over the hurts and mistakes in our lives. We allow those feelings to hold us captive in the here and now. There was never a part of God's plan. This is not to say that He wants us to forget the past, rather He wants us to understand where He has brought us from so that we can better appreciate where He has us now.

God constantly reminded the Israelities that He had brought them out of the slavery of Egypt.He did this to help them realize that they were not meant to be the slaves of anyone and that He desired for them to be a free nation living in peace and prosperity (Leviticus 26:1-12). This desire was never meant to be limited to the nation of Israel and as such God repeats this theme specifically to the Gentiles in Ephesians 2.

In the end God never wants us to forget our past. He has used it to make us who we are today and without you would not be the special and unique creation that you have become. God also does not desire our past to cripple us. Fro those of us who have accepted Christ we must remember we are living in the year of jubilee. This means that we have been set free from all of those things which have held us in bondage and made us slaves to this world.

So my question for you today is... What part of your past continues to keep you in bondage? Whic things in your past are preventing you from truly living out the joy found in the year of jubilee?