yesterday i asked God to help me be sensative to His leading and to help me see people and situations through His eyes. this isn’t something new really, but i actually tried to put it to the test. you know, if i felt God was telling me to do something…i needed to do it, no matter what. doesn’t sound so harmful, but i tend to think of this as being set up to fail or get some mud on my face…not so fun.
in doing so, i ended up e-mailing a complete stranger in indiana and offering him one of my cd’s and then talking to a man that sat behind me at a basketball game…he ends up being a sophmore computer science major at BGSU and he’s from tanzania, in east africa. there wasn’t a whole lot of substance to the conversation, just me asking about his life and what he is doing in ohio. i shook his hand and asked his name at the end of the game…i think he said “ima” but i can’t say for sure. (his usual language is swahili, making his english a little more difficult to understand)
so why? why did God lead me to do these things? i don’t have any idea…maybe to show that it’s not so hard after all…or that i’m not out anything by being obedient…or that there is this joy you get from being obedient, even when it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense??? then i get to my devos this morning…
so i’m continuing to study in the book of ephesians, slowly of course…remember i’m not too swift about anything. today i started in chapter 2, verse 11. i continued to the end of the chapter, but had to keep returning to verse 11…mainly the first sentence of the verse. check out these 8 verses…
11 Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts. 12 In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. 13 But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. 14 For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. 15 He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. 16 Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death. 17 He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. 18 Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.
i think what God wanted to teach me was wrapped up in verse 11…and then verse 18. there have been times in my life that i was an outsider…outside of God’s family and other times when i have been outside of His will.
i need to not forget about that…not forget about the fact that there are others all around me that are outsiders, or maybe fell like outsiders. i need to show them the love God has shown me! even if it’s a simple conversation that never even makes its way to talking about God. i need to not forget that there is only one reason that i am no longer an outsider…because of what Christ has done…
don’t forget…that we need Christ…that others need Him too…
don’t forget!!!
