We flung tongue!

What a night of chaos, competition, and flying bovine taste buds! You should have seen the event. It was wonderful. There were 17 teams and lots of spectators from 5 different churches, which probably meant there were around 250 people at this community wide affair. Right in the middle of we paused to hear from the word of God. This year, Michael Curl, from First Baptist in Mustang brought the message. He delivered a powerful challenge to the mediocre holiness our society attempts to portray. This is it in from my point of view and with a few things added.

We have all gone to a restaurant and after reading the menu the perfect item captured your eye, mind, and stomach. But have you ever received your food to wonder what it was? Have you been curious about the peculiar side, topping, garnish, sauce, ‘meat’, etc? Sometimes this is a problem due to negligence on the server or kitchen staff. But many times this is due to our ignorance and failure to read through the description thoroughly. Had we known what the whole dish included we might no probably would not have ordered it.

No one is to blame but ourselves. We read all we needed to see and stopped at the part we liked. We were sold on the good stuff which caused to miss the big picture.

You see where this is going. Do we do that with Christ? Do we read scripture like a menu? We find out or hear the good stuff and then when things happen that we did not know were a part of the deal we get frustrated, hurt, angry. We think we have been screwed or that God has failed us, but the truth is we just stopped reading and missed the big picture.

Do you take God’s grace and leave His discipline?

Do you accept His salvation but pass on His correcting?

Do you want His love but not be faithful in giving Him yours?

Do you welcome the blessings and complain about the difficulties?

Do you praise and worship Him on Sundays but leave Him on the pew during the week?

Life in Christ is meant to bring us wholeness. It is meant to consume us and transform every thought, every act, every attitude. God is not a buffet for us to pick and choose what we want as much as we want leaving that which we do not like. “If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” – Jesus

Every day. All in.