By: Courtney Gilmour
Today has been a day of intense and constant prayer. Have you ever had days like that? You just make everything you do and say a prayer, always talking to God, always praising Him, always keeping people who you are concerned about in your thoughts as you pray. By the end of the day, you realize “wow…I just spent like 6-8 hours completely in tune with God” and it’s incredible. And at the same time it’s a little discouraging when you are praying intensely for someone who really needs it, and you just want God to work SO badly in that person/people’s lives, that it almost hurts. I guess it’s like mourning for them. Yesterday I was watching Dr. Phil, my ultimate role model LOL, and he was working with 12 couples on the verge of divorce. They all had heartwrenching stories of the broken homes they’ve created, how they fight explosively in front of their kids, how they abuse each other verbally and physically….the women claimed their husbands were disrespectful and emotionally unavailable, while the men reported their wives to be too demanding and argumentative (and these are couples who have been married for like a year, that’s pretty disturbing). I was somewhat taken back when Dr. Phil made one couple stand up, looked the wife in the eye and said “would it surprise you if I ever told you that you are 100% responsible for the downfall of your marriage?”
The woman’s eyes widened a bit and she said, “Yes, it would.” He then replied, “Well be surprised then. Because you are 100% responsible for the destruction and downfall of your marriage.”
I gasped a little, and so did she as she raised an eyebrow and protested, “Why??”
He then turned to the husband and said the exact same thing. “You are 100% responsible for the downfall of your marriage.”
And I thought to myself, that’s exactly right. Relationships aren’t 50/50. They’re 100/100 even when they fail. You might wonder how I managed to bring this up when I was contently talking about God. Well this relates perfectly to two crucial issues in faith, and if you have ever given your heart to God at any point in your life, no matter where you are at right now, listen up.
In the same way that Dr. Phil said it to the married couples, if there is distance between yourself and God, (in other words if you can’t even remember the last time you talked to him or the last time you were involved in fellowship with other believers at church, wherever or whatever that might be for you, or the last time you read His word) and there is a broken connection, you are 100% responsible for the downfall of that relationship. And you know what else might seem like a shocker? God isn’t. Why? Because He’s God and therefore He is exempt from ownership of things like that and we just can’t understand that mindset? No. Because He gives you 100% every single day of your life, you better believe He does. You, sitting there in your seat, wherever you are, a computer lab, your bedroom, your family room, a library, your friend’s house….yes, you. Last night you fell asleep in your bed, and this morning? This morning your eyes opened for a reason. They didn’t have to open at all, but they did. For a reason. You were chosen to be born, and you were chosen to be alive today, for a reason. A reason to build God’s kingdom. Do you know what that reason is? If you’ve found it, congratulations, and live it. If you haven’t…what are you doing about it? Are you asking God to show you? Are you waking up every morning and preparing yourself to be used by the living God to contribute your talents, skills, abilities, and gifts to His glory? Are you thanking Him for choosing you to be alive at this particular time? Are you squirming in your seat just reading this, if you have kept up and not skimmed through? You have been designed with certain intrinsic qualities, capabilities, talents and gifts that are so distinct from anyone else’s, so personable, and so you, to give God glory and let me tell you that there is nobody in history, on the face of this earth, nor will there EVER be, anybody with your qualities, your DNA, your gifts, your human life, and your skills to contribute to God’s kingdom the way you can. Nobody. And after you die, they will have either been used the way they were designed to be used, or they will have been wasted, never to impact anyone in this world the way you alone, were meant to. I encourage you with everything in me…..don’t let that fall to the ground. God wants to talk to you every day. He wants the commitment you made to Him at any point in your life, to have meant something. The air you’re breathing, the heart that’s beating, the home you live in, the intellect you’re given to go through school and make something of yourself, it’s all evidence of the 100% He gives you every moment that passes. And we have the audacity to use it all up like we did it for ourselves. He reaches out to you when you pull away, and if you don’t make the effort to reach back, whose fault is that? If you don’t want to, that’s another thing. If you don’t believe anymore, that’s your prerogative. But God can do some pretty remarkable things in your life. With Him you can really live. You can go out into a world of catastrophe and make an impact in His name and be rewarded eternally. He can fix you in all the ways you are broken, and He can fill you up in all the ways you are empty.
If you are a Christian, a believer and follower of Christ, you are a part of His Body. 1 Corinthians 12 says, “Our own body has many parts. When all these many parts are put together, they are only one body. The body of Christ is like this…………The body is not one part, but many parts. If the foot should say, ‘I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,’ that would not stop it from being a part of the body. If the ear should say, ‘I am not a part of the body because I am not an eye,’ that would not stop it from being a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye how would it hear? If the whole body were an ear, how would it smell? But God has put all the parts into the body just as He wants to have them. If all the parts were the same, it could not be a body. But now there are many parts, but one body.”
One body of believers. Every part essential. Did you know that when you fall away from that body, you break its unity? You were blessed with things in your life, that make you YOU, that contribute to the body of Christ. Your very own part. Which part are you? If you know what part you play, congratulations….and live it. If you don’t…what are you doing about it? He died for us, so we could live for Him. Are we doing that? Or are we letting it fall to the ground? Every church and community of believers is full of human error. We make mistakes. We make people feel unwelcome. We’re poor excuses for the Body. And it’s not right by any means. But we are 100% responsible for our own parts of the Body. It’s not about what church can do for us, it’s about what we can do for our church. For the body of Christ. And if one is slipping, we all slip. We hurt for that member. We mourn for that member. We pray for that member. We all have the responsibility as Christians to stick together and contend for our faith. To stand up for not just what WE believe in, but what Christ represents. We don’t see a lot of that going on in the world right now. Instead of defending God, we’re agreeing to blend in to the world and leave Him out. We use buzz words to describe life, happy phrases that make us feel good but mean nothing. Like candy coated water drops. (Plumb, anyone?) Isn’t it time for us to get real with ourselves and with God? Isn’t it time to start contending for our faith, or throwing ourselves back at God’s feet if it’s been too long? Don’t you think He’s been waiting for you to stop running and hiding? I think so. I really think so. I long to see the day when people will be asked, “Why don’t you drink? Why don’t you curse? Why don’t you have sex” and rather than the response blanketing the truth, “I just don’t….” “I’m breaking my habit” “I used to be addicted”….rather than that wishy-washy garbage that wastes our opportunity to profess our reason….I hope we will get real. We’ll stand up and say “because my life has changed, eternally, I belong to God.”
Can we do that? Can we cut the crap, step into the ‘real’ world’, and be real? A good friend of mine always tells me that ‘some things are real and true whether you believe them or not’.
I believe.
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