Letting go of suffering means letting go of finding answers but letting go of suffering demands an authentic pouring out of the questions. Because our pain is carried in the questions. And God wants us to pour out our pain to him and to each other. That means naming it.
The people of God are to regularly gather to sing and shout and give thanks with music and song and prayers and creeds and scripture and the Lord's table. They are to bow down as Psalm 95 says. They are to kneel as Psalm 95 says. They are to proclaim that God is God, the King above all kings. It is not a recommendation. It is a crucial practice that forms us individually and as a “we”, into the people of God.
There may be people in your family or maybe right across this room you resent a little or a lot. And I guess I want to say this, if we don't learn to let go of it, it won't let go of us. And our inner being will gradually and slowly pay a price. Resentment is a slow growing cancer. It takes time to wreak its havoc. It's in no hurry. It prefers to be ignored.
Where might God be inviting us to let go?
In this special service, Pastor Mike Lueken interviews our guest panel from VantagePoint3. He speaks with the creators of the Journey process—Rob Loane, Pam Edwards, and Wesley Kouba, as they have a conversation about what growth in formation looks like in ourselves, the community, and the church.
Our faith in Jesus compels action.
If prayer moves the hand that moves the world, then why do cancer, Parkinson's, cystic fibrosis, and divorce exist and win so many times, even though so many people are praying?
Word games are manipulative; they're controlling. They're a subtle grab for power over the other. When we add words to our simple yes or no, we're trying to strengthen what we're saying to convince our audience, so they think or do what we want.
The people of God, the church, every person who calls them self a Christian, needs desperately more than patriotism, more than social criticisms, more than political partisanship, and more than national fervor. We need to remember our first love, our first loyalty, our first priority. We need to remember that the way of Christ is a way of surrender.
To live well in today's world as Kingdom citizens we desperately need Gods wisdom. We need his heart. Think of all the issues that are just sitting at the tip of the tongue when we start talking about what's going on in the culture, what’s going on in the world. Think of all those issues probably racing through your mind right now, and here’s the thing, we desperately need Gods wisdom. We need his heart, his mind, his perspective, his priorities, as we navigate life and the issues in our world.