I So Hate Consequences by Relient K

So I skipped sunday service this morning. Wasn't that I couldn't get up on time. I woke up a good 20 minutes before the bus came. Could've easily made it. No, I just didn't feel like going. So I was reading manga and thinking about stuff instead...

Over the last few days, I've been thinking about Committee. I wanted to serve CCF in some fashion, and I'm willing to step up to do this. After all...Committee is simply another serving position, no? But something was holding me back. There was some sense of hesitation...I didn't understand it till now.

I serve for several reasons. I want to give back to the fellowship and church. I want to hang out with friends. To fill a need. To learn. The fact that the willingness to serve as a symbol of faith never really crossed my mind. I've always thought, serving is good, right? Does it matter if I'm serving cuz that's what God said to do in the Word, or if I'm serving cuz I myself think it's cool?

A friend of mine, at the beginning of the term, asked me...why is it that I serve? I answered, because it feels good. He blantly told me, sin feels good too. What's the difference between sin and serving, if that's the only reason I do it? He then proceeded to have me draw a cross out on a piece of paper. The horizontal plank is my relationship with brothers and sisters. The vertical plank is my relationship with God. "Seek God," he said.

I've tried to keep that in mind thoughout the term, trying to figure out questions like "How do I know that I love God?" and that type of thing...in ACF, Roger was telling us how when he choose to step up more and more, he had to pray for the things that were keeping him from God to be revealed to him...so that he can get closer to Him.

And that was what I've been praying. Over the last few days, a few things I've been struggling with, for a long time now, all the sudden became more prominent. My two biggest sin is slapping me back and forth, and I've been trying to strug it off...but it doesn't work like that, does it?

I've realized. How I'm been doing this is all wrong. I've always thought I could handle the sins myself. "It's not like I'm hurting anyone," is how I justified it. They're all internal sins. But I've made a realization. These are exactly the things that are keeping me from God. If I were to have a conversation with God about all this right now, it might go something like this:

God - Why do you want to serve on Committee?
Me - To serve my fellowship...to do Your work...to lift things up to You...
God - So why is it that you can lift something that's not yours up to Me...but not yourself? You want to know what is keeping you from Me? It's you. You're not coming before Me yourself, so you can't be closer to Me.

I've been thinking of Jonah's story. How when God told him to go preach to that city, Jonah refused. But eventually he went. How God's will will come through at the end. But that wasn't the parts I should've been paying attention to...

But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live." But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die." But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?" - Jonah 4.7-11

I'm like Jonah, in that I'm focused on the vine (CCF) and not on where I really should be focusing...alright. So it's not the greatest parallel. But the point is clear.

Being a Christian doesn't mean we're free from sin. It doesn't make the battle any easier. In fact...it's probably harder. Now that we know our right hand from our left, ignorance is not an excuse. Gotta take that plank out of our eyes, eh... Once you're a Christian, it doesn't mean you need God any less. Quite the opposite...you need God more then ever. Yes, maybe we'll have to battle against sin all our lives. We're human, we fall to that. But isn't that exactly the reason Christ was sent to us? It took a 4th year accountant, 2nd year Health Sciences student and a CCF graduate to remind me all that...

I went on Utmost Highest today. I don't usually come here, but I did today. Was laughing because this is exactly what I was dealing with...

"Be serious in your commitment to God and gladly leave everything else alone. Literally put God first in your life." - Utmost, March 18, 2007