Until He Comes!

    We are in a time period where Jesus has come to die for our sins, but we're still waiting for Him to come back again. The Israelites were given careful instruction for how to worship and praise God in the Old Testament. Now that Christ has come and paid the price for our sins, what are we supposed to do to worship and praise God? (Assuming we are already saved. What I am about to talk about is not something you have to do, but what the Holy Spirit inspires us to do when we accept Him into our hearts. Also, I want God to be speaking through me at this point, because if I were teaching from my own "wisdom" I would really be a hypocrite right now. I'm trying hard, though, now, and God is definitely shaping me everyday to be more like Him.)

    In the greatest commandment, we are told to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. All the laws and the prophets hang on these two commandments. Matthew 22:37-40 In one way, I would say that this means that out of the love we have for God, and the love He has given us, we are to love others. When He washed His disciples' feet, Jesus, the Teacher and Lord of the whole earth, makes himself humble and washes the stinky, dirty feet of His friends, making Himself their servants. "Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet," He says to them. (John 13:1-17) Jesus also says in the last three verses of Matthew to teach others through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Matthew 28:18-20

    Paul also sheds light on what our role is now that Christ has come. In the fourth chapter of Second Timothy, verses the first through the fifth (As Charles Dickens would have put it, :) which I will let you look up yourself, Paul says to always be ready to preach the Word! We need to correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. (That is very important.) In doing the work of an evangelist, we spread the Sound Doctrine of the Gospel. Even though we do go through hard times and persecution in doing this, it's still kind-of nice! God gives us all the words to say, and if you look at the last verse of the previous chapter, you will see that when the Holy Spirit works in you, nothing can go wrong when you preach out of the Bible. Also, In Ephesians 6:10-17, he talks about being a warrior. (I've probably brought this up every time, but I just love that verse.)

    Out of what Jesus and Paul have said (and they say much more than that,) the Holy Spirit calls us to be servants/slaves, preachers/ambassadors, and warriors now that we have accepted Christ into our hearts.

Servants/slaves: A servant is someone who works for someone all the time, really hard, and doesn't expect anything back. We are to be slaves not only to God and righteousness by being faithful to Him, but also to others to show the power of God. And again, we serve others because the Lord and Teacher of the universe has served us. Plus we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.If we are willing to serve ourselves for our benefit, we should be just as willing to serve others in the same way.

Ambassador/preacher: In the real world, an ambassador is a native of one country that lives in a different one, who is hired by the leader of that country, to bring that leader's message to the leader of the other country in person. (Does that make any sense? Look it up on google if it doesn't :) We are called to be ambassadors of God's kingdom to bring His Good News to the people of this earth. A preacher/ ambassador for Christ does not always have to stand behind a podium. An ambassador of Christ may be just a regular person who does every little thing for the glory of God. That person preaches with loud words when people notice him, even though he uses no words. The awesome part of when you preach like that is when people ask, "Why?" "Why are you always serving me so much? I haven't done anything to you." "Why do you always forgive me?" "Why do you always do thing for God?" What an opportunity to preach the Word while actually using words! And again, they won;t be your words, they'll be His.

Warrior: (see the AHH! I missed two weeks! post :) This is my favorite part. It is so cool. Obviously, a warrior is someone who fights for a certain cause. When we are warriors, we fight against the devil, his demons, sin, and temptations. However, God is really the Big Fighter. We only fight (and succeed in fighting) these evil things when we are properly equipped with the Armor of God. In other words, the only reason why this could ever work is because the Big Fighter, God is really fighting through us.

    And we are going to start of as experts. Yep.... NO! We will definitely not start off as experts. In fact, we will be really bad at it at first. Life is a long, hard path, and when we live our best, God will work through us and make us better people. I may be farther or less far along in the Christian path than some of you guys, that does not make me a worse or better person than you. It is all in God's hands. Think about it in terms of us starting off as a boring block of rock. God has His chisel and he is slowly but surely turning us into something magnificent and that something magnificent is finished in Heaven.

    When we live as an servant, ambassador, and warrior, we worship and glorify God greatly. We definitely can sing and dance to praise Him, but we also praise Him when we live these things to the fullest and when the world asks, "Why?"

    Ephesians 4:1-7 When all the body of Christ strives to be a slave, preacher, and warrior, all evil will tremble, for that is the power of God.

1 Corinthians 15:56-58