Keepers of the Aquarium

GOD? What Do You Want From Me? [Part 2]


Spiritual Blog -

1 John 4:7-11 – “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  NKJV

 

             Imagine a God who is Omniscient (all knowing) who does not like us.  That is a horrific thought, right?  Most of us have or have had a secret(s) that we were ashamed to confess even to our closest friends but God KNOWS everything about us and knows our thoughts even before we think them.  The terror that would accompany the thought that God who knows all about us and does not even like us would drive us suicidal.  He would be an infinite monster!

The Bible never says:  God HAS Power or Love it says HE IS!  Love is not something apart from Him it is WHO HE IS.  But what is Love?  What is Love as it is spoken of here in this passage?  Love, in the English language has become almost a worthless word for we apply it to so many things and give it some many shades of meaning.  What do we think of when we say or hear Love?

Let me suggest a possibility:  It means that we reach out to someone we can reasonably count on that is in our class.  Before you get self-righteous and pious, that is exactly what most of us do much of the time if not all the time.  In European history when a member of a royal family fell in love with a commoner they were fired.  If the king fell for a commoner and married them he would be required to give up his throne.  Likewise when we humans fall in love we tend to keep within our self-imposed boundaries.  Naturally we do not talk about it and possibly refuse to admit it but we do it.

When we say LOVE what do we mean?  If I love a person I am acknowledging that person calls forth my highest admiration and when I look at them I admire them.  We are so captivated by them that when we talk about them they are elevated to a level of worship in our eyes and minds.  We adore them!  Likewise when we LOVE someone it means they answer to what I feel is beauty (eye of the beholder).  Beauty is something that happens in our heads and that is what we usually understand to be love.

But when it comes to God and the Bible declares:  “God is Love” many assume that God is Love in the same way we love.  Virtually every religion in existence has a concept of God based on human love.  However, if God loves like we love how would that work out?  Think with me through some problems with that concept:

  • He cannot find anyone in His Class so immediately we are eliminated. If he were to get friendly with us he would be fired as being God so we are out in the cold.
  • He cannot find anyone in harmony with Him (before salvation) so our disharmony disqualifies us. He is love and holiness and we are selfish and have no plans to change (before salvation).
  • He cannot find any human that would elicit in Him a sense that says about us, ‘That is the best person I know’ for our righteousness are as filthy rags and there is none good (before salvation).

         The dilemma for us is that if God loves like we love we are TOAST!  It is over! We are without hope and hopeless lost forever!   I heard a most appropriate illustration that explains this beautifully:

A missionary went to a witch-doctor and said:  “You preach to me. I come to you with a problem. How would you tell me to reach the Most High God?  I know you have many gods, but I want to reach the Big One, the Most High God.”  The witch-doctor said: “First, you have a big problem, because the Most High God is not interested in you for you are not good enough for him.”  That’s where their religion begins!  Sadly, we have heard the same thing in much more sophisticated terms in church.  We have been told, in so many ways, that we are not good enough for God and He is not interested.

When the Bible says:  God is Love it means that He does not reach out to someone in His class but reaches out to Whosoever Will or reaches down to mankind.  Human love reaches up but God’s love reaches down.  God loves the lost, hopeless, messed up, twisted, distorted, bent, wicked, evil and sinful man and offers LIFE, LOVE and LIBERTY through Jesus!  That is the Gospel message.  What does God want from us?  He wants to dwell in us and with us and manifest Himself through us!

God bless you as you go through this day!

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KEEPERS OF THE AQUARIUM


Matthew 9:35-38 – “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.   36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”  NKJV

 Spiritual Blog - Fishers of Men

In Matthew 4:19 Jesus said, “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men…”  From Jesus’ time to now the harvest has been plentiful but the harvesting has not always been.  I’ve had people tell me that this area or that was a ‘hard area’ as a reason for the lack of growth of ingathering of souls in their community and local church.  I understand that and have ministered in some of those ‘hard areas’ sometimes with more success than others.  I can relate and do not question the labors of those men/women laboring in those fields.  I simply say the potential ‘harvest’ is plentiful, for I believe Jesus’ words.

Through my years of ministry including leading congregations as pastor I have found that too often more attention is given to those we are trying to ‘keep’ than those we are trying to ‘reach’.  I’ve seen far more ‘church swapping’ than ‘harvest gathering’ and it disturbs most pastors for our hearts burn to ‘reach the lost’ and follow the heart of our Lord who came to ‘seek’ and to ‘save’ that which was lost.

I remember hearing two pastors going at each other with the accusation of ‘sheep stealing’ being leveled.  The one being accused said, “Well if you fed them properly they wouldn’t be so skinny they could crawl under the fence.”  I thought you are both wrong!  What fence?  Do we have a fence to keep people in?  Are we a prison or a hospital?  Are we guarding our territory or harvesting the souls of men for the Kingdom of God?  What is our purpose?  Is it to have large numbers in attendance weekly or to bring in the Harvest of God?  Are we Fishers of Men or Keepers of the Aquarium?

I served in one city where there were ten churches of the same denomination as ours and there were people in each church that had been in virtually all of them at one time or another.  The sheep moved from one sheep shed to another, took on that brand for a time and then moved on.  I do not suggest that what is needed are more evangelism campaigns or programs for ‘soul winning’ but more LIFE lived in the community that speaks that “in Him we live, move and have our being.”  More LIFE that says it is “Christ in us the hope of glory.”  More demonstration of the LIFE of CHRIST being manifest in our day to day actions and then I believe we would become more like the Early Church in that our daily lives would produce fruit, reap harvests, and then our Sunday gatherings would be ‘reporting times’ rather than just ‘preaching times.’

The church has a mandate to ‘go’, ‘gather’, ‘equip’, and ‘train’ not ‘entertain’.  I do not mind entertainment and would never suggest that you do not need to provide ministry and functions that touch all the people attending the local congregation.  I simply suggest that if we become ‘Keepers of the Aquarium’ rather than ‘Fishers of Men’ we have missed the heart of what our purpose is.  My daily prayer is “Lord send forth laborers into the harvest…” 

May God help us locally and universally turn our hearts to the harvest and rescue the perishing before it is everlastingly too late.   May God be with you as you go through your day!

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