Monday Morning Musings ...

Seems like these Monday morning posts are the only ones I get around to lately. My mind has been distracted a lot recently, with my back, finishing volleyball season and other random things.

Yesterday was another good day. Enjoyed a good time of worship. Our worship leader was gone and the guy who led did a great job. Illness kept a few from helping with the worship team but we still had good worship. My back was not doing well yesterday which meant I had to work really hard to stay focused on worship. Worship is a choice. What did you choice yesterday?

Had some new people yesterday and some who had been gone for a while returned. That is always encouraging. Our regulars are always late arriving so I had to a assure a new family that they indeed were on time and that others would stream in soon. They admitted that they wondered if they had the time wrong when they got inside and saw so few people. I am trying to keep smiling as I type this, but it is a struggle. How hard is it to get there on time? Sorry, I will not rant, I will not rant, I will not rant.

My message was on living an unbalanced life. Yes, I meant to type unbalanced. Acts 4:1-22 was the scripture. Peter and John caused quite a stir when they healed a man who had been crippled from birth. People were interested in what they had to say and many believed in Jesus as their savior. This upset some of the leaders who called Peter and John on the carpet, actually they put them in jail I guess a little more than being called on the carpet. (What does being called on the carpet even mean? There I go distracting myself again.) The leaders saw their courage, noticed that they were ordinary guys but that they had been with Jesus. What do people notice about you? Peter and John were not balanced. They were not trying to keep everything even and under control.

The point is that we need to surrender control to the Lord and being filled with the Holy Spirit be totally leaning on him and not in control ourselves. This led people to accusing the disciples of being unbalanced, what a great accusation. They gave up control to be led by the Spirit. This is the life we were called to live, not a balanced, even, passive life. But a passionate, spirit-led, life that is leaning completely on God. For too many of us we are seeking "just enough of God". That is a lousy way to live.

One writer called it "$3 worth of God". "I would like to buy $3 worth of God please - not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of him to make me love a foreigner or pick beets with a migrant worker. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I'd like to buy $3 worth of God please." That is not the life we were created for and not the one we were called to live.

I want to be unbalanced for Christ, totally leaning on Him and under the control of His Holy Spirit. Not even, balanced and under my control. People are attracted to an a life under the leadership of the Holy Spirit not one in which I call the shots.

How balanced are you?