Monday, October 19, 2015

Do what you be

"Women's Work,"Canadian Illustrated News.
January 4, 1875. Vol. 12, No. 23, p. 360.
Record 1966
Christians and Western philosophers love to debate being and doing, as though the acts of the body were separate from the development of the heart.

Today, I'm thinking beyond "being Christian." (Or "being moral." Or "being a good person.")

Rather, God-with-us is God-in-us in our work and in our doing. Our relationship with him is not about "being" only. He is among us as we are "being in our doing."

Who are we when we are doing? When we're busy working? When serving? When at work or home or in the community?

How does our inner being
renewed every day by God's Spirit, 
   inform,
      enlighten,
         and direct 
            our doing?

Let's allow our Heavenly Father to transform us. To take us - who we are today - into an increasingly holistic future. The Father is conforming us to the Son (Rom. 8:29) ... and thus making us fully human.

Let's let Jesus forgive us. Completely. In his provision, we appear clean-slated before God and the world day after day. (So forgive yourself already!)

And let's permit the Spirit bring the beautiful qualities of God's nature - goodness, kindness, love, joy, peace, patience - into our doing.

Read more:
*Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram's horn--shout for joy before the Lord, the King. Psalm 98:4-6 NIV

*Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. Psalm 34:5 NIV

*For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:45 ESV

*For unto those whom he knew beforehand, he also marked out beforehand the way that they might be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8:29 (Jubilee 2000.)

*May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 ESV

Moravian Prayer: Holy Triumvirate, we live in you! All our joys and tribulations are part of our preparation for the place you prepared for us in heaven. Through your power alone may we be saved from this world and held for eternity in your grace. Amen.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III: I would prefer to combat the ‘I’m special’ feeling not by the thought ‘I’m no more special than anyone else’ but by the feeling ‘Everyone is as special as me.’ In one way there is no difference, 

grant, for both remove the speciality. But there is a difference in another way. The first might lead you to think, ‘I’m only one of the crowd like anyone else’. But the second leads to the truth that there isn’t any crowd. No one is like anyone else. 

All are ‘members’ (organs) in the Body of Christ [I Corinthians 12:27]. All different and all necessary to the whole and to one another: each loved by God individually, as if it were the only creature in existence. Otherwise you might get the idea that God is like the government which can only deal with the people as the mass.

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