Humbled in His presence...

So here's where it gets tough...I've got to confess what I've been struggling with lately. I struggle with judgement, and not with people I don't know, but with those I know and love the best. The Lord's been working on my heart with this for a while now, and praise His name that my eyes have been unveiled to it in the last year. I can do whatever I want to change the inside, but ONLY Christ Jesus can transform my heart, praise be to Him! This is where Satan likes to latch onto us when we're pursuing Christ. He likes to whisper in our ears that we've got it all figured out, that this new way of thinking is the "best way" or the "only way." Who am I to tell someone that how they pursue Christ is wrong? I am NOTHING but a beggar in the same line as they are, reaching for the same goal.

We've really been burdened with this going to downtown Ft. Worth. We're working with a homeless ministry there to buy this building and turn it into an outreach/resource center for the community off of East Lancaster. It would be a place where people could store their belongings (so crucial for these people you would not believe), get a mailbox, and hopefully have a voicemail system all in the hopes of getting them permanently off the streets. Literally this has the potential to transform the homeless community down there and even erase it completely from the area. Yet one of the things we've been humbled by (thank you Jesus!) is that feeding these people will do them little good, they don't "want our sandwich" as we've been told countless times. But for years churches have gone down there to hand out food, trying to serve these people the best way they think possible. It's easy to sit here and point the finger, tell them they're enabling the problem, tell them we have "the answer." But who are we? Who are we to claim our way is God's way? We can't, and God help us not to! Let us only cry out for more for these people. Let us only reach down into our own pockets for more than money. Let us fall flat on our faces, begging God to show us his will!

We have no right to harbor bitterness, resentment, anger, frustration, or anything else in vain. We have no right because Jesus was given these rights and he turned them away. He was given the Kingdom of Heaven and all of its riches, only to come down to earth and shed all his "rights" for our eternal salvation. Yet we can't help it. We harbour it, store it up, maybe even seek out more. I'm guilty of it, and I hate it. I hate that I can't let things go. I hate that I only want to unconditionally love others and seek nothing in return, yet as hard I try to avoid it I still sometimes get disappointed when it's not returned. For this reason I fall on my face and cry out to Jesus to forgive me for my pride. How did he do this? How did he love us so much? How did he bear the burden of our sin all while giving us his Kingdom in return? Tonight I am utterly humbled by his presence. He is SOO faithful in this journey how do I ever think for a second he will not deliver? Lord let me continue to fall on my face. Let me continue to be humbled again and again by your word. Let me give you all glory for your faitfullness that I am completely undeserving of...

"So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any afflection and sympathy, complete my job by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in HUMILITY count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is in Christ Jesus."
Phillipians 2:1-5