Monday, June 16, 2014

I Must Confess, The Wells I Dig Can Be Shallow...

04-20-2014


Ephesians 2: 8-10 – “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God —  9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.  10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

I suppose that I should begin my thoughts with a disclaimer:
It seems that from the beginning, people of faith in their very sincere desire to please God, have missed the mark by confusing the things of man’s “successes” with what God considers to be true accomplishment.  (i.e. Cain’s sacrifice, Adam and Eve’s desire to be as smart as God, etc.)  So we are not alone in our current “misguidedness”. 
[End disclaimer.]

To elaborate a little further, Abraham built altars as we know from Genesis.  Where he encountered God, he made an altar to signify the exchange.  Then he would dig wells as he needed water for his family and herds while tarrying there.  Isaac saw this and would later re-dig those wells with disastrous result; even though he followed Abraham’s “formula” when doing it.  He thought that the wells were the accomplishments, when in fact it was the faithfulness to worship (follow God’s leading) that brought God’s favor to him.  (A lesson that Isaac finally learned we find in Chap 26 and v. 25)

In our modern contexts we often mistake the buildings in which we gather for the blessing of God.  Our parents and grandparents worked and sacrificed to build them and have left us a legacy not unlike Abraham’s legacy for Isaac.  And like Isaac, we have misunderstood the truth of these gifts.
They ARE a testimony to our shared history of faith in the communities where they are located.  But we are not meant to measure OUR accomplishment, or our faith for that matter, by our parents’ and grandparents’ faithfulness.  Isaac’s mistake wasn’t trying to dig wells… it was trying to re-dig someone else’s wells.  When he finally built his own altar, and dug his own well, he found success!  When his father’s faith became his own; THEN he found favor.
So dig deep!  Only, dig the wells that God has called YOU to dig and don’t fall to the temptation to draw from someone else’s well for too long.  That will just lead to congregations that are dehydrated and dying.  

We can either brag about our ancestors’ faith, and hold to our misguided need to maintain their “wells” at the expense of all of the other tasks that God has called us to, OR… we can deepen our own faith and reach beyond the bricks and wood of the buildings to begin to (through lives lived in faithful worship) accomplish what God through Christ deemed to be the only worthwhile accomplishment… leading others to know the Grace of God that allows the salvation of the faithful.  After all, that is what we were built for in and by Christ’s work of salvation.  We are made for good works of our own.  Just as our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were made for good works of their own.  And no, I am not saying that good works save.  In fact that was Paul’s whole point in the above passages.  However they should be the response to (and newness of purpose in) Christ’s loving act of redemption.


That is our gift from God.  And that is the only legacy that brings life.  (Now THAT is something to brag about!)


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