Day 31 - Serve In His Strength

Read Colossians 4: 2-6

It has been said that we have put so much emphasis on avoiding evil that we have become virtually blind to the endless opportunities for doing good.  We have defined our holiness through what we separate ourselves from rather than what we give ourselves to.  I am convinced that the great tragedy is not the sins that we commit, but the life that we fail to live.

Another challenge that we face is that we are still influenced by a “Greek” or Hellenistic way of thinking,   rather than a Biblical or Jewish way of thinking. The Greeks saw their lives completely compartmentalized. You are body, mind and spirit. Whatever you do in each category doesn’t affect the other. For the Greeks they could do all sorts of things to their body and the believe was that it would have no affect on their soul.

We still have to fight this tendency to compartmentalize our lives. Now, we don’t necessarily think “body, mind and spirit”, but we can easily separate ourselves into our work life, our home life, our social life, our leisure life and our church life.

There shouldn’t be a split between a person’s spiritual life and a person’s leisure life. Jewish thought and the Bible sees it that way – there is just your life – period. 

God is not interested in some abstract thing called your “spiritual life,” he is interested in you!  Furthermore Jesus talks about this word called “abide.” That means that His living presence goes where you go.  Fully alive followers of Christ have Jesus transforming every aspect of their life. They live out how they where created in their work, homes, leisure and everywhere they go.  

As we continued our hike on our ‘Team Day’ we hit Kelso Park and over lunch we talked about stories where God gave us opportunities to serve others outside of our church commitments.  All too often as pastors we can be so compartmentalized to the point where everything we do is part of our job.  As we shared with each other, we were inspired by the stories that God gave us to serve those in our community.  It was done in a way that was such a natural overflow of the people that God had designed us to be.  It wasn’t because we had to, but because His Spirit inspired us to serve with open hands which led to open doors in our conversations with others.  We shared how it happened while doing home renovations with others, it happened when someone took the time to give their neighbours some tomatoes from their garden,  it happened while connecting with some guys after a hockey game.  In what way is God allowing it to happen with you?