written 05.09.2008

Hello!

How are you? What has God been teaching you lately? Prayerfully, you have been able to keep in step with Him over the past weeks or striving to do so… but a word of encouragement if you’ve struggled (as have I), is that God is abundantly patient, kind, and loving; and we can rely on Him as our strength.

I wanted to let you know that between May 16th and June 8th, I might not be able to write up a Weekly Thing… a week of ministry training and classes; then my wedding week; and then a week off for the honeymoon. A computer is probably going to be the furthest thing from me 99% of the time during those three weeks. Not being able to write the Weekly might not come across as so strange because I haven’t really been able to keep up with writing this on a weekly basis lately, but I thought I’d give you a heads up regardless.


One of the things that struck me over the past two weeks was a passage in Philippians 3 in which Paul says that he considered “everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus…” Here’s Paul who has all the reason in the world to boast of his position and how good of a Hebrew he was, and he says it’s all “rubbish.” Paul knew how to follow religious rules and regulations to a T, he had the kind of zeal that would shame anyone, and he had an outstanding heritage (a ‘Hebrew of Hebrews’). But it didn’t mean squat to him compared to knowing Christ… woah! It seems obvious to say that we should rejoice more in Christ than our own accomplishments; but I think it is less obvious to say that we should rejoice in the fact that we know Christ instead of how “good of a Christian” we think we are. I can stand and say, “I haven’t done this, I haven’t done that; I must really be following Jesus really well!” but I don’t think being a Christian is about the things we do or don’t do. Being a Christian is about knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and following Him. Only through our love and adoration of Christ are there certain things we do – like reading Scripture, or praying, or helping someone else – or don’t do/avoid – greed, lust, gossiping about our neighbor, etc.
This actually reminds me of one of Jesus’ parables when He talks about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18). The former thanks God for not being like all the sinners and his own good deeds; the latter pleads mercy for sinning against a holy God. … My “good behavior” is really not meant to be used to hold me a set of rules in order to follow Christ or to brownie points; rather, my “good behavior” is meant to be an act of worship and respect to a holy God. Would it be easy for me to say that being a good Christian woman or my accomplishments – that the world can see and be impressed by – are worth garbage compared to just KNOWING the Savior of my soul? Do I want people to see how good of a person I can be, or do I just want to do it because I love Jesus?

I beg to question that if we aren’t doing good deeds are we really worshipping God. There are so many fine lines to this kind of thing that we must really examine our hearts… and I pray we do so. I pray that God really reveals to us why we do things or don’t do things. Do we not do certain things because we love God, or simply because someone told us it was the wrong thing to do? Do we long to please God with our behavior? I pray the Holy Spirit causes our hearts to desire to please God in all that we do… that we would seek humility, gentleness, self-control, sacrifice, purity, and all things that mold us more into the image of Christ.

In love and in Him,
Your sister
Yvonne