If We Are the Body, Why?

By Donna McCrary-

“But if we are the body, why aren’t His arms reaching? Why aren’t His hands healing? Why aren’t His words’ teaching…why is His love not showing there is a way?”

These lyrics by Casting Crowns blasted straight to my heart. I glanced around at the 6,000 plus women packed in the coliseum. Six thousand mothers, daughters, wives, and BFF’s praising God in our own unique way. We are the body of Christ!

The drum beat of my heart suddenly seemed louder than the pounding state-of-the-art sound system. The powerful lyrics cut straight to my soul. Why? In that moment it was the Holy Spirit asking me, little unimportant me, “Why don’t you see me?” I glanced around the coliseum as the tears started streaming from my eyes and the burning why question pieced my thoughts. God softly asking, “Why don’t you see my hands healing? Why aren’t my feet moving? Why?”

For the remainder of the conference, I found myself searching for the answer to the simple question. Each speaker shared their own struggles and heartaches.  Then each shared the redemptive power of God’s perfect plan. This only stirred in me a deep hunger to answer the question of ‘why’ burning in my soul. I found myself crying out prayers between breaks, “God, show me! Show me how I can know you intimately. Show me how I can see you moving daily in my life. Show me how I can speak boldly like Peter and John. Show me how I can experience water walking faith! Show me how my life can be a living testimony of Your indescribable love, your unexplainable grace and mercy. Show me! Please, God. I am willing and wanting to experience You like never before!”

Determined to answer the why question, I searched the scriptures to glean wisdom from those who were part of the body that experienced the grace, love, and miracles of Jesus first hand. There it was, a simple answer spelled out in red letters, “put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34). Easy to read, hard to live! But if we are the body, why aren’t His hands healing?

Perhaps you should also ask yourself why?

PRAYER: “God, show me where I am living out my own selfish ambitions. Show me the sacrifices I have been unwilling to make for You. Help me today to follow You!”

“Then He called His disciples and the crowds to come over and listen. ‘If any of you wants to be my follower,’ He told them, ‘you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me’” (Mark 8:34 NLT).

Failing Fast

By Lori Freeland  –

A lone piece of pizza taunted me from the cardboard box. A perfect triangle of hot and greasy heaven—mozzarella browned just so. I sidestepped the mouth-watering heap of cheese and pepperoni and grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl.

“Hey,” I yelled to the kids. “Someone come eat this pizza!”

No one came.

I peeled the banana, shoved it in my mouth, and waited a minute or two for the sound of pounding footsteps on the stairs.

The only sound came from my nails as I clicked them against the white Formica countertop, inches from the pizza box. I wandered around the kitchen, gliding past that last slice of pizza for at least another thirty seconds before grabbing the delicious, gooey pile of Pizza Hut mastery and devouring it.

Nineteen days of self-denial gone in less than a minute.

I’d like to say the pizza sat like a rock in my stomach, but it didn’t. I’d like to say I regretted eating it, but I didn’t. Heaven from the first bite—the tangy sauce danced in my mouth—the richness of the browned cheese tantalized my tongue and warmed my stomach.

How sad to trade twenty-one days of the Daniel Fast for a piece of pizza that took twenty seconds to inhale. Did my moment of weakness undo the other nineteen days? Or the TV I’d given up? Did it negate the prayers seeking God’s blessing over my writing?

Guilt slammed me. What a loser—I couldn’t even make it two more days. Deflated, I curled up on my bed and hugged my pillow.

I had given up sugar, meat, dairy, coffee, and hours of DVR. Despite the natural, healthy food and the extra hours of sleep, I felt awful. And further from God than ever.

As I cried, curled up under the covers, a verse played through the soundtrack in my head. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened…and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29 NIV).

It’s not about the food. It’s about Me. Giving up food and TV pushed you into the arms of books and friends when you were supposed to run to Me with your burdens. Not to other things.

As God whispered truth into my heart, the tears stopped running down my cheeks, and I realized my whole perspective had been off. I hadn’t understood the real reason for the fast.

“Lord,” I whispered,”I’m sorry about the pizza. Help me remember You made me to need You. Help me to run to You first because You are the only One who will truly satisfy.”

Sharing Knowledge with Love

By Rosemary Flaaten –

Envision two ordinary fish swimming side by side, fins gently brushing each other. Suddenly, one of them begins to enlarge, filling its abdominal cavity with water until it becomes four times its normal size. Then, it sprouts poisonous barbs which project into its swimming partner. This ‘puffer fish’ is now a lethal enemy to all it would contact.

Knowledge can have a ‘puffer fish-like’ effect on each of us. As we grow older, developing in our careers and gathering experience, we also grow in knowledge. But do we use this ability to push others away? In our circle of relationships do we flaunt our knowledge to look more important? Do we have a self-inflated importance, diminishing others in our eyes or even deflating them in their own? Our motivation for gaining knowledge and how we use it has the potential for harm. If we increase in knowledge so that we lord it over others, surging in self-importance, knowledge becomes a weapon rather than a helpful tool.

Love, on the other hand, cannot harm. Love is pure, never self-seeking or inflammatory. Love builds up others rather than puffing up ourselves.

Knowledge is not evil, rather it is an essential step towards wisdom. In our jobs, for example, it is necessary to increase our knowledge so that we can become better skilled and more efficient. However, do we combine that increased knowledge with love so that others may succeed as well? Do we use it to help others, building them up and providing a safe learning environment?

The question becomes what do we do with such knowledge? Do we hoard it or flaunt it, or do we share it with love? Being filled with love will never prove to be dangerous. The Apostle Paul summed it up this way: “…to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:19 NIV).

Be a fish that is safe to swim with–let your knowledge be puffed up with love.

PRAYER: Lord, help me to add love to my shared learning so that others can be built up.

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1, NIV).

T-Shirts Over Time

By Hally Franz –

Girls like bling; boys like t-shirts. Specifically, my 13-year-old son loves his t-shirts. He’s amassed quite a number of them over his double-digit lifespan, many of which I have retained for posterity. Early endeavors into Tae Kwon Do and soccer are commemorated with t-shirts, as are more recent seasons of Khoury League baseball. There are 4-H club and camp t-shirts, as well as drama club shirts. And, he rotates four VBS shirts in blue, green, yellow and purple on Sundays when I allow jeans for services.

Ivan attends a Christian school, and, of course, he believes the school’s modified dress code is horribly restrictive. So, when given an opportunity to buy an item of clothing, he’s likely to choose yet another t-shirt. The elective t-shirt purchases will typically reflect one of two themes: anything country/cowboy or St. Louis Cardinals.

I have seen moms hang their kids’ t-shirts on display at high school graduation parties, and I’ve heard that awesome quilts can be made from your graduate’s childhood shirts. Maybe that’s what I’ll do when 2016 arrives. It would be a terrific souvenir of what my son has done, what he likes and where he’s been at the age of 18.

It makes me wonder, though, what Ivan’s shirts would say about his activities, interests and experiences after he leaves our home. What phrases will sum up his adult life?

One cotton favorite might read “married the girl that God made just for me.” Perhaps, he’ll don a tee with the words “took my son and others on a mission trip this summer” or “faced some tough decisions at work, but Jesus gave me wisdom.” As seasons pass, Ivan may wear shirts that tell how he “faced grief, but God granted mercy and strength in pain” or how he “celebrated when the youngest completed a college education.”

Many young people will complete high school or college this year. We’ll celebrate their accomplishments and encourage them as they enter a new phase of life. The future can be scary and there will be struggles for these young people, but hopefully they will each move forward with their Heavenly Father at their side.

My boy isn’t there yet, but it is time to order another shirt. This one is our 2011 VBS shirt. The theme is “Stepping Up to the Plate for Jesus.” That’s one he’s going to love!

 

PRAYER: Mighty and merciful God, place your loving, guiding hand on those young people who draw to a close one period of their lives to begin other phases. Bless them with your wisdom and protection.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them”  (Ephesians 2:10 NKJV).

 

David Wilkerson: A Grain of Wheat

By Nina Medrano –

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives” (John 12:24, NLT).

Rev. David Wilkerson, founding pastor of the Times Square Church in
New York City, was killed Wednesday in a car crash in Texas, according
to a source close to CBN News.  He was 79.  Rev. Wilkerson’s wife Gwen
was also involved in the crash and rushed to the hospital.  Details of
the crash are still developing. Stay with CBNNews.com for an update.

The day that I heard this news broadcast my breathing paused for a long while. Almost immediately, I began to receive multiple internet news on Pastor Dave’s passing. Still too shocked to believe my ears and eyes, my mind raced back to the day Keith Green died a tragic death in an airplane crash in 1982.

It was July 28, 1982 and I was visiting dear friends who lived on an Air Force base in Victorville, California, when we heard the news of Keith Green.

I still remember how compelling the power of God moved upon me and my friends as we gathered together trying to grasp the news of the death of this mighty man of God, of our ‘then’ generation.

There was such a surge of anointing running through our hearts that we could not continue with the tasks at-hand. We HAD to share the gospel—we were compelled to tell someone about Jesus Christ!

We turned off the television. We turned off the stove—dinner will have to wait.  We grabbed our Bibles and we took off walking—we didn’t know where we were going—we just knew we had to tell someone that Jesus Christ loves them and died for them on a cross and desires to have relationship with them.

As if on some spiritual frequency, we all stopped and looked at each other and sensed that we should go to the women’s dorm building.

With our spiritual sword in hand, we knocked on the first door in the woman’s dorm.  A young woman came to the door. She was crying and alone. She let us in her room. We asked her why she was crying. She told us that this was her first time away from home. We opened up the Word of God and shared the Good News that Jesus loves her and will always be with her!

We led this young woman and several others to Christ that evening.

I find it amazing that whenever the death of a mighty man of God takes place, that God has a divine plan for this. It is His pattern for life, which leads to multiplication.

“…unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.”

May the power of God so compel us to pursue and capture this generation as it was in the life of David Wilkerson.

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