Is there a balance?

Two things I know about this serving God thing......

(1) God loves me and wants His best for my life. I see in His Word and in my life that He delights in blessing His people, and in many instances, goes out of His way to do so. As a believer I suppose that I am to be looking and seeking those opportunities to receive His love and favor, and in many ways expect them. However, I also understand that...

(2) ...my life is expendible for the purpose of accomplishing His will. Should I also be looking for opportunities to sacrifice valuable dimensions of my life? Isn't this the opposite of seeking blessing?

I realize that the spiritual answer is that God's blessings come through the sacrifices. Yet where is the balance? How does one know which direction to be walking...toward the blessings or toward the sacrifices?

May I have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to me at all times.

Is this how we end up....

I heard an incredible song recently by the band Gasoline Heart. "Is This How We End Up?" (Lyrics posted below) It is asking the self-examining question that, if asked at every point along one's journey, may keep someone from coming to the conclusion of life or mission and being somewhere he/she never intended to be.

The song by Gasoline Heart is asking this question to the musicians and bands currently producing the music for the world to hear ... musicians and bands who apparently have some type of roots in the Gospel of Jesus.

God has used these lyrics to help me examine where I am, and where I am bound to end up based on where I have come to from where I have came from (I know, that is confusing...but think about it).

I want to always ask this question in regards to the life and destiny of the church we are planting in St. Louis. I don't want to ever have the answer to "Is this how we end up?" being, "saved but out of touch...holding candles in the rain, asking God why our light went away..." I don't want to be guily of "reaching the already reached," and "feeding the already fed." That is not what the Gospel is all about, and that is not worth giving one's life for.

In the words of my friend Joseph Jennings, we as preachers need to consistently be called back to our original mission - reaching the world and rescuing the perishing.

How quickly I get off track.

"Is This How We End Up" Lyrics:

Is this how e end up? Stoned and out of touch

Holding candles in the rain ... Asking God why our light went away

Hide behind song and Hide behind dance ...Trading truth for this cheap romance

As modern man advances

Born again boys dressed like girls ... Trading art for cheap plastic pearls

Making records and breaking hearts ... Borrowing other bands creative parts

Emotions

Someone explain this to me .... from where did emotions come?

I am not asking where DO they come from, but where DID they come ... in the evolutionary timeline and process?

The more I reflect on what life is truly all about, the more that I appreciate the gamut of feelings that I experience. In some ways, the experiencing of these feelings is the living of life.

I realize at times it is best to shield oneself from emotions and feelings, for it is just too difficult. However, the degree to which I can and do allow myself to feel the height and the depth of the emotional backlash of the situations that unfold in my days is the degree to which I truly live life.

Back to my original question: where DID emotions come from? When did this uniquely human phenomenon first occur and from where did it originate? Much of the dynamics of life can be considered mechanistic, and it is therefore remotely possible that they evolved. We have all seen movies which featured some sort of robot or android, developed and built by mankind. They all share one thing in common: they have no emotion, or at best they have simulated emotion. It is as if it is understood that emotions cannot be developed or built into something that is not inherently gifted with them.

Next question: who gave US this gift?