So awhile back I was reading a blog post somewhere (I'm pretty sure is was Jason's blog), and this blog talked about making a "to-be" list instead of just having "to-do" lists.
Even though it's halfway through January, it's still the New Year in my mind. Thus, for 2009, my to-be list:
1. A passionate lover. Life is way too short not to love people. I feel like I didn't love enough in 2008 ...or if I did, I didn't let it be known enough. So in 2009, I want to love God passionately, I want to love people passionately, and I want to make that love known. I don't care if people think I'm emotional or sappy or whatever - I just want people to know I love them.
More than that though, I want to passionately love God with all I am - way more than I could ever love anyone else.
2. Less selfish/self-centered. As I've thought back the past couple of weeks on 2008, I felt like I was wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too self-centered and selfish. I feel like things were more about me than others way too much, and that has got to end. Ugghhh ...it's just disgusting how selfish I was last year. All my thoughts, all my desires, all my plans - they need to be about God first, others second, and myself third.
I'm so tired of it being all about me, and one of my big goals is to be God-centered and others-centered instead of being so self-centered.
3. A servant. This one kind of ties in to number 2. It used to be that people described me as a servant. It used to be that I wouldn't think twice about doing something to serve. It used to be that I would wake up thinking about how I can serve someone else. Lately ...not so much. So that's something else that's gotta change - I need to be a servant. Not so that I can feel better about myself, not so that people can see me serve, but because Jesus Christ was a servant and He told us to serve.
And because I think serving people is the greatest way to earn the right to be heard in their lives. Thus, I want to be one whose first reaction in everything is to say "how can I serve here?"
4. One who delights in the Word of God. Psalm 1:1-3 says: "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers."
I want to delight in God's Word - absolutely delight in, rejoice in, take great pleasure in, gorge myself in, indulge myself in - God's Word.
5. In the gutter more. I don't want to be all about having people come to a church gathering. I mean that's great, we want to see many people come to Del Sol Church every weekend - but the truth is there are many who will never darken the doors of a church building, and those are people God cares about just as much as the ones that will walk into a church gathering. We're having around 1,000 people every weekend at Del Sol, and that's something to celebrate ...but in a city of nearly a million, that is just not enough.
I mean, I doubt a prostitute would feel comfortable coming into the DSC building. A practicing, "loud and proud" homosexual would probably not want to come in. Or a bruised woman whose husband just beat her the night before would surely not want to show her face. Or an alcoholic who destroyed his family with his addiction and got smashed the night before because he was in so much pain ...he would probably not feel like he'd be accepted.
So I don't want to wait for them to come to us - because they never will. There are some people who will never walk into any church in this city, and unless we the Church go out to them instead of asking them to come in to us, then they will live their lives separated from God and will eventually spend their eternities separated from God. And that can not be. It just simply can not be! So I want to go out to the lost more than I ask the lost to come to me.
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