Jesus Where are You and What Are You Doing in 2009 Continued...

Before I go on with the continuance of last weeks topic which I am feeling like I may be being led to continue for a few weeks. I am going to tell you all about a 7 part article written on the topic of Emerging Church on Martin Scott's web site. He is a very unassuming brother who is extremely transparent and humble and has a mature prophetic gift with which he serves the Lord and Body of Christ with integrity.

I believe this article by Martin and his friend Stuart Lindsell on "Emerging Church" is valuable for all of us who desire to walk in organic relationship with Christ and the Ecclesia outside of institutional church. You can read the article on Martin's web site 3generations.eu by clicking here.

Don't be thrown off by the fact that Martin lives in the UK as he has connections in and visits the U.S. and other nations from what I know it seems a couple times per year and the Lord has given him excellent in site and wisdom that I believe is for the Body of Christ worldwide. If you are interested in learning about the operation of New Testament prophetic gifting or believe you are called to walk in the prophetic I highly recommend that you visit 3generations.eu Martin has excellent articles on the topic and others and books he has written for purchase all that I recommend.
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Jesus Where are You and What Are You Doing in 2009 Continued...

If you have not seen the You Tube video by Willow Creek Leadership Summit titled "A Thousand Questions" I encourage you before reading this weeks entry to click here to watch the video prayerfully and perhaps read lasts weeks entry then come back and read this weeks entry as the rest of what I say here will be enhanced if you do.

Matthew 5:3-10 (New Living Translation)
“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
God blesses those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
God blesses those who are humble,
for they will inherit the whole earth.
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice,
for they will be satisfied.
God blesses those who are merciful,
for they will be shown mercy
God blesses those whose hearts are pure,
for they will see God.
God blesses those who work for peace,
for they will be called the children of God.
God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs."

You can watch and listen to the message of the video I posted last and think it only applies to those who we we typically think of as living in poverty, bond by physical slavery, are uneducated, and or bound by destructive habits, addictions, and thought patterns, etc. as can easily be seen with our natural vision.

However when we are in the real world where Christ has called His Ecclesia to live, play, work, serve, and worship we are all surrounded by the people that video is talking about regardless where we are or we live, work, play, visit etc. Matter of fact within ourselves we are all those kind of people. There is no us and them were are all them. Sometimes the outside of the cup just looks a little more dressed up or clean, but on the inside outside of Christ we are all the same.

The foundation of being able to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and of loving one another as Christ loves us is knowing Father loves us even though within ourselves we are utterly corrupt, and undeserving of relationship with God and unless we have placed faith in Christ without hope of being made righteous.

Whether covered in physical filth, malnourished, dressed in tattered clothing, living in a cardboard shanty or dressed in the finest clothes, well fed, living in a million dollar home every living man, women and child everywhere are the poor Jesus is anointed to preach the Good News to, the brokenhearted he is sent to comfort, the captives He is sent proclaim release to, and the imprisoned he is sent to free.

Wherever you and I are within the world whether at work, play, the market place, in the neighborhood pub etc. whether surround by those rich with worldly treasures or the poorest of the poor are we willing to say Here I am send me even when it means to the coworker we have looked down upon, a neighbor who everyone avoids, the checkout clerk in the grocery store who seems to always have a bad day, or anyone else.

The truth is if we are in Christ wherever we are He has sent us we are His hands, feet, mouth, shoulder to cry on, ears to listen, mouth to speak loving words and He is still anointed to preach the Good News to the poor (including those who do not know they are poor), comfort the brokenhearted (Even those who appear to have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth and have never experienced disappointment or failure), proclaim release to captives (Physically and Spiritually), and set free prisoners (Regardless who they are).

We are not all called to reach out to those who we normally think of as the poor, needy, oppressed, etc., but we are all called to go and whether it looks that way to our natural eyes or not unless we have chosen to isolate ourselves from the world we are surrounded by and therefore sent to those who need what Jesus and therefore we who are His Body are anointed to demonstrate the Fathers love to in the same ways Jesus did when walking on this earth.

This is important to me, because I and I suspect many others find myself working with people who do not know God and are unaware of His love and treat me and others poorly and therefore I have judged and sought to avoid or ignore them.

I have only recently, begun to accept that to the degree I do not love everyone I am surrounded by everyday and do not choose to participate with Jesus in His ministry to them to that same degree I will be unable to genuinely love and will be ineffective in representing Christ to anyone. For several years a couple of my coworkers have been from the very people group God sent me to at Budget Inn, but I have chosen to not demonstrate God's love to them, because their job performance has created more work for me or their behavior toward me, customers, and other coworkers is consistently hostile and rude.

It goes even deeper though. Three weeks ago I wrote the blog titled "Following Christ Requires Suffering, Death to Self, and Death to Religion" (Click Here to read it), in it I told a little about my experience as a 15 year employee of State of California Government.

After writing that God, began a work in my heart and through a dream I had and the loving and gentle instruction and conviction of the Holy Spirit, began showing me that until I freely love all those who have and possible will in the future use me, neglect me, ignore me, abuse me, take advantage of me, treat me with disrespect and dishonor, and even persecute me for righteousness I myself am the poor needing to authentically hear the Good News and therefore can not effectively preach it to others, the brokenhearted needing to be comforted and therefore unable to comfort others, a captive needing release and therefore unable to release others, and the imprisoned needing to be set free and therefore unable to free others.

As I began to see this I was shown that anger toward my earthly dad, mom, pastors/elders at the institutional church I left about 6 months ago, past and present management, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually anger at God. As I began confessing my sins of selfish anger, hate, and bitterness I also said even though I don't feel I like I blamed God I was also directing anger, hate, and bitterness at God, because he was the one that gave them authority and did not stop their behavior.

This actually all started last week in the morning before I wrote the first article in this series that was prompted by the "Thousand Questions" video. This past week was the first week in at least 10 years that I enjoyed my job and I genuinely loved my coworkers. Father even gave me the blessing of being able to intervene when one of my coworkers who is an insulin dependent diabetic became low on blood sugar and almost needed us to call 911 Emergency Rescue. However Father's love in me for her allowed me to take notice when she was showing symptoms of low blood sugar. Her sugar level went down to 38 and after giving her something to eat the sugar level returned to just barely above normal and she was able to finish her shift without further incident.

She and one other coworker even commented this week that I was more friendly and compassionate then usual and that I normally would not have cared enough to notice what was happening with my coworker. This also seemed to build a bridge, between another coworker and me whom has not spoken to me for weeks, because I had requested our supervisor to intervene and stop her continual hostile passive aggressive behavior toward me, our customers and others.

Matthew 6:14-15 (New Living Translation)

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Luke 6:27-31 (New Living Translation)

“But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. Do to others as you would like them to do to you.