Sunflower Faith

This Weeks IOTW Quote is:     

In Other Words Tuesday

      

  “One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as ‘those evil people’ or ‘those poor people who need our help.’ Nor must we search for signs of ‘loveworthiness.’ Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.”~Philip Yancey
     

“What’s So Amazing About Grace?”
     

Hosted this week at:  Patricia @typingone-handed.com     

I had a not so funny experience last week.
Someone had hacked into my twitter account and sent a not so great message from my account. People who had been “following” me for majority of the time, were understanding, particularly since this was happening everywhere, but for the few, and there were a few, they were quick to not only unfollow me but also blocked me without even taking the time to sort it out.

It left me thinking-I hadn’t been the culprit but yet, without taking the time, they had probrably made a quick judgement call and figure I was at fault and blocked me despite not having the history of sending messages like that and it made me realized that they must have never taken the time to even read my “tweets” that I had posted.

At the same time, it had me thinking why it was hard to share my testimony too.

¹ And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, ² in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, ³ among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), ⁶ and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast. ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:1-10, New King James Version)

See….I’m pretty reluctant about sharing my testimony of what God has done in my life, namely because the majority of time, it’s met with condemnation, rejection, judgement and always with expectation that I’m suppose to be perfect and that the illusion of that was broken.

Rather than focus on what our Father has done or doing, they are quick to discard that broken vessel without seeing that in and through Him, He was working.

Truth was-where others were quick to give up on me, walk away, not love me, overlook me, condemn me, judge me and more than anything, deemed me unworthy of their time or space-God didn’t.

He met me where it was needed to be met and showed me how much I meant to Him and more than anything how much He loved me.

He did so through people who didn’t share Christ with me, who didn’t speak about what they did for their church, or what they did for Him, but rather….I saw Him through them, simply by their lives, by their actions, by what they didn’t say.

I saw His love through and in them; I saw their love for Him through and in Him; By just opening their hearts without conditions, questions or judgement, they allow me to feel their love that I needed to feel.

They let me know through their actions what I meant to God and without evangilizing, without judging, but simply by just loving me…they planted the seed and more than anything allowed God to do what HE needed to do to grow and bear fruit in my life.

So the same it is with others.

I’m pretty sensitive to others who don’t have perfect pasts, who have or are traveling rough roads, because I know what it was like to be in their shoes and I know what it is like to simply needed to be love, while they are making their way.

I then spent the evening contemplating this part of IOWT’s quote,” Nor must we search for signs of ‘loveworthiness.’ Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.”

How often do we keep ourselves to the safe zones of people we know? To the church? To our home? To our neighborhoods and rather than venture out beyond those “safe zones”, instead build ourselves around people and habits that rather than challenge us, just lets us stay in the same habits that make us comfortable.

How many are willing to ventue out beyond those zones and not on what we desire but what our Heavenly Father desires?

More than anything, how many of us are willing to go beyond our safety zones and encourage not just ourselves, our family or our friends, but possibly someone we may not like, or think we may not like, or someone we may not know.

You know. The sandpaper people. The broken people. The not perfect people who dress like we do, live like we do, talk like we do. The sick. The ill.

They are all around us and we know them; Maybe they are friends or strangers that we find difficult but rather than seek God’s guidance, we take the human route and reject them and close them off.

The thing is that in 1 Thessalonians, we are told,”

¹¹ Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:11, New King James Version)

And pretty sure that it doesn’t just mean the people we do know, but those we don’t.

There are many around us each day, that we don’t have to go off to a far off country to minister too, but that we could minister to, just in our backyard. It could be as simply as taking the time for someone we know is having a bad day and putting their needs before ours, providing for the homeless in your town, or volunteering time, clothes or donations to a shelter for the abused and letting them know, they are really loved and that they are cared for.

We don’t know that they are having a bad day and just need to know that someone does care for them and if we are called to be His servants, it made not make the front page news, but it is an act of service to our Heavenly Father, by just being there for someone even if we don’t know them.

Mary Southerland wrote an article for Crosswalktoday.com called, “Sandpaper People:How to Love Abrasive People God’s Way” and she shared,

Sandpaper people are not only a reality of life, but opportunities from the heart of God. God uses difficult relationships in my life as catalysts through which He lovingly upsets my comfortable plans and purposefully redirects my safe and sound steps.

Every relationship, difficult or easy, is wrapped in God’s love, faithfully delivered with His permission and wrapped in His plan.

The world is watching, as is every sandpaper person in our lives, pushing every limit to see how we will respond. It is through these difficult relationships that we grow and mature in Christ. The rough edges fall away as we welcome the lessons sandpaper people bring.

This reminded me of the story of the immoral woman who cleaned our Saviour’s feet with her hair.

³⁶ Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. ³⁷ And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, ³⁸ and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. ³⁹ Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, “This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”
⁴⁰ And Jesus answered and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”
So he said, “Teacher, say it.”
⁴¹ “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴² And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?”
⁴³ Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”
And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.” ⁴⁴ Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. ⁴⁵ You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. ⁴⁶ You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. ⁴⁷ Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
⁴⁸ Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
⁴⁹ And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
⁵⁰ Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” (Luke 7:36-50, New King James Version)

We read the same stories and celebrate what a great thing our Saviour has done, but when we are presented with the same situation, how quickly do we reject?

The very same people today, who could use, who are in need, of knowing Him and often we are His P.R. agents:

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. ¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16, New King James Version)

Essentially, we are like this anonymous quote that I had come across one day: “We cannot choose whom we will love if we claim to be Christians.”, yet how often do we do just that; We pick and choose.

That person that is driving you crazy or makes you mad-You know whom I’m talking about-that person you just don’t want to have anything to do with, guess what, they do need you more than you can ever imagine because in and through you, that’s probrably how they are going to know that God will love them even though they are not perfect, have perfect lives, go to the “right” church, wear the “right” clothes or fortunate to have the same blessings as you.

Truth is that there is a lot of broken and sick people out there in this world and the truth is that the real world is filled with broken, hurt and often misunderstood.

Those are the ones that Jesus came for.

I came across this from,”Message for the 18th World Day of the Sick“,

“Jesus exhorts us to bend over the physical and mental wounds of so many of our brothers and sisters whom we meet on the highways of the world. He helps us to understand that with God’s grace, accepted and lived out in our daily life, the experience of sickness and suffering can become a school of hope. In truth, as I said in the Encyclical Spe salvi, “It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love”

I know of bikers whose lives have been turned around because of our Heavenly Father and think anyone prior to that would have thought them “worthy” of God’s love and grace?

There are people who have gone through years of abuse of some form or another whom many probrably would have walk around while they sit on the sidewalk crying from pain and neglect.

Funny. We love our brothers and sisters as long as they are saying the right things, wear the right things, look the right way, but in the moment of fall, when they really need our fellowship and encouragement the most, are we quick to show them love and compassion as our Saviour did to the adulterous woman about to be stoned, or would we, ourselves, pick up a stone and stand alongside a Pharisee?

¹¹ And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
¹² When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” (Matthew 9:11-13, New King James Version)

Jesus ate, walked and worked among sinners. He didn’t ignore their company to “hang out” with the priests who at the time had a higher level of status then the lowest of the low. It was because He knew that’s where His love and compassion was not only needed but would be received the most.

He knows that we are all sinners-You,Me, all of us and yet, He doesn’t pick and choose-He loves us all without conditions; Yet, such a reminder and example that as we strive to grow in and through Him, neither can we pick and choose.

We may not agree, but that person we may decide to shun, to ostracize, to gossip, to hurt, to ignore-God loves him or her too and if we are to call ourselves followers of Him, do we be like the Pharisees or do we be like our Heavenly Father and follow Him not them and love all, though it maybe hard, we make that commitment not to men, but to our Heavenly Father for His help and guidance that we rise above our own pride and selfishness and fickle emotions and be like Him, for in and through Him, using us as His vessel, maybe the farmer who plants that vital seed in that person’s life.

I enjoy going to garage sales and thrift stores and antique markets, because I learned just from personal experience, that the real treasures, the real joy, that love I don’t know, often are what others are quick to dismiss as garbage, as trash as unusuable or unsightly but in our Heavenly Fathers, we are all jars of treasures that only He can see and we can too when we look beyond the surface and at the real heart that lies beneath.

In “God Looks on the Heart” by David L. Antion , David shares about when Samuel went looking for the new king,

“When God was choosing a king to replace Saul, He sent Samuel to the house of Jesse to pick one of Jesse’s sons. Samuel wanted to choose the first born son but God told him, “…look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature…for man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1Sam. 16:7)

He (David L. Antion) went on to share, 

God sometimes tests us to know fully what is in our hearts. While God can read our mind and our heart, there are situations in which He Himself wants to know just where we stand (2 Chron. 32:31). The word translated “heart” is the Hebrew word “lebab (lay-bawb)” which means the inner man, mind, will, understanding, resolution and determination. There is a second Hebrew word (“leb”) which has identically the same meaning.

Food for thought. That person that is rubbing you the wrong way, maybe it bothers you to see the homeless under the bridge, that quiet person you just don’t think you have anything in common or worth your time,day or space to talk to, ever thought instead,”Hey this is an opportunity from God to do something in and through and for Him?”, instead of trying to find a way to avoid, to hide, to gossip or to block?

As “God Looks on the Heart” shared:

A heart can be open or closed. Paul said his heart was wide open to the Corinthians (2Cor. 6:11). Remember, the Bible is really talking about the mind.

To open one’s heart is to open one’s mind regarding another and to be able to receive new and accurate information. But some people close their “heart” even to those they used to love.

One offence and there is no more chance with them — you’re simply out of their lives.

 I have seen people abandon all contact with their son or daughter because that person did something “wrong” in their sight. Where is the open heart?

 Their heart (mind) is hardened in that it will not take in new information and like a computer is supposed to do — update itself……….Some people look on appearances.

 They say, “This person looks good, like a leader, I believe him or her.” But others who look on appearances make another kind of mistake.

They say, “That person looks good, so they could not be a leader or know truth.” What they want is someone who looks “humble” and not so good.

 In both cases people judge from outward appearance and not on a person’s heart. Why? Because it takes more effort and time to know a person’s heart than it does to make a quick decision on ouitward appearance.

 We must look beyond the surface to deeper things. In the case of evaluating messages — written or spoken — we must compare them to the Word of God and our good common sense.

People who know what it’s like to be rejected, condemned, judged and neglected, often also know the importance of really loving others, taking the time for others, and to be of service to others because they have been there too. It’s not to say you have to have a “bad background” to be able to love and be of service, but sometimes, with nothing else to lose, where they have no friends, they  have no family, they have nothing, and all they have at that time and moment, is just them and God, its usually through that un-asked for humilty and understanding of what it really is like to lose it all and to have nothing, that they, as they, through and in Jesus Christ, strive and struggle themselves to grow and rise in and through Jesus Christ, remember and know the importance of loving others, without strings, without conditions, without question.

If you haven’t taken the time like our Father, to “eat with sinners” do so without question, without expectation, without conditions or judgement or pity. Take the time to do so with love…love like our Father loves us and beckens us, to come, eat with Him at His table.
 ¹¹ But the meek shall inherit the earth,   And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
          (Psalm 37:11, New King James Version)

© 2010, Sunflower Faith. All rights reserved.

Sunflower Faith is a quiet, sometimes silly, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes serious, follower of Christ sharing words of devotion, encouragement and hope that is always about our Father in Heaven. So grab a cup of coffee and join Sunflower Faith in words of growth, hope and more all in the spirit of 2 Peter 1:5-8.

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