We're talking about being a church on the move, and on Sunday, we'll dig deeper into how God unsticks us. It's an inspiring message that I'm sure will help us all take flight with God.
If God unsticks us, in what ways are we able to find ourselves stuck? Here is one, you get stuck in a cycle of clinging to the wrong relationships. But why? Because we don't appreciate God as Giver.
…you get stuck in a cycle of clinging to the wrong relationships. But why? Because we don't appreciate God as Giver.
When we look at Acts 3:1-12, we meet a lame man stuck at the gate called Beautiful. Peter and John, through the power of Christ, heals him. Luke is adamant to point out that afterward, the man is clinging to Peter and John.
This man had never walked, had never been into the Temple, and marked off both of things on his to-do list in this one day. It's a great day for him!
Peter and John make it clear that it's through God's power and not their own that the lame man can now walk, and it's evidence of God's power living with us through faith in Jesus' name. Peter goes on the preach the Gospel.
Now it's a beautiful story and powerful in its display of how God's power is available to us all when we live with faith in Jesus. But I'm noticing in Acts 3:11, "While the man held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon's Colonnade." some translations say "clinging."
We are much the same way; God touches us, moves in our lives, and may use a particular person, relationship, or circumstance to bless us, but we end up holding on to the person and not the God behind the blessing.
When my kids were tiny, we would buy them little Christmas gifts. They would, at times, be more fascinated by the box and packaging than the gift! But watch this, as they got a little older they would fall in love with the gift and pay more attention to it and not us givers. Now they have reached an age of maturity (somewhat) and focus on the givers.
That's the way it is friends. Our maturity in Christ helps us to ascribe glory to God appropriately. Think about babies loving boxes. How much sense does that make? That's the situation we find ourselves in when God gives us a blessing; money, favor, healing, etc. But when we focus on the vehicle for the blessing. The person he used, the organization he gave you favor with, the boss who put your name in for the promotion; all of these are just different forms of relationships.
It's an unusual situation, indeed. We do have to be careful not to ignore that God used "Support Character A" to bless us, and then as we mature, not be too caught up in the blessing itself. Even further evidence of maturity is to follow the glory instead back to GOD–this is maturity.
But if anyone can do it, you can! YOU can give God his due glory, and you can free yourself from relationships that, even if they were a vehicle for a blessing at one time, may not be so now. You can move on from enjoying the box of the gift to enjoying the gift, and finally to appreciating the Giver.
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18”