Digging and Building
Posted by simplisticthoughts , Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:53 AM
So I have been up in McCall since Monday and have really been enjoying my relaxing vacation time. I was supposed to be at the Oregon Coast this week, but things didn't work out so I got the opportunity to come up to McCall and hang out with one of my besties, Lacey and her husband Cole. They are the newly ordained youth pastors at Mtn Life Church up here and Cole gave Glover (she came up for a few days too) and I the opportunity to preach to their youth group Wednesday night. So Wednesday Glove and I spent the day bouncing thoughts off each other, reading, studying, praying and really asking God what His heart was for this group of young individuals. The theme had been on commitment, so we were asked to correlate that into our message.
Glover was on the vein of wells- God had been showing her about drinking from your own wells and digging deep wells that even when dry seasons come around you still have water to drink from. Throughout her research of wells, she found that they used certain wells that have either dried up or were broken as prisons for people. How interesting that the dry wells in our lives can actually be vessels for prisons in our life.
God has been imparting to me lately about building altars in our lives. How we need to be the sacrifices on those altars and allow the fire of God to burn out areas that are displeasing to God. I read from 2 Sam 24 about David's punishment for taking a census of the fighting men of the land due to pride in his life. Once he recognized the sin that he had committed he cried out to God but it was too late. The sins of the people were already rampant, but once the head of the people fell, the rest was like a domino effect. So God gives him 3 options for punishment- 3 yrs of famine (which they were already recovering from), 3 mos of fleeing from their enemies or 3 days of plague. David decides that it is better to fall into the hands of a merciful God than into the cruelty of man. These 3 options are all in Deut. 28 under the curses for disobedience. After the 3 days of plague, David is instructed to go build an altar to the Lord and offer burnt and peace offerings to the Lord. As he goes to buy the threshing floor to build the altar the man offers to give it all to him for free, but David refuses to offer sacrifices that don't cost him anything. As soon as he builds an altar, the Lord answers his prayers and the plagues stop and healing comes. It is the altars in our lives that are going to bring healing to our spiritually plagued culture.
God calls believers the head, so if our sins or complacency set in then the rest will crumble. We continually need to be offering up ourselves as sacrifices so that we can see healing in our land. God doesn't give us what we can't handle, which usually is a prayer of thanks but it is also bittersweet because he isn't going to give revival to a nation, a city, a church, a person who can't handle it. It's going to take a sacrifice that will cost us something whether it be commitment, cutting off certain hang ups, etc...
It was pretty sweet preaching side by side with another one of my besties, but I pray that the word really went deep in the hearts of the McCall youth. We certainly had a good time after service hanging out at Crusty's pizza! Live outdoor music and dancing, it was bodacious! And here is some footage of us too ;)
You should totally become a preacher with some really amazing dancing skills. You can bring people to God through your interpretive dance. :D But seriously, good word!