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Abiding and offerings (2003-03-23 - 7:34 a.m.) Is it Sunday again already? The days just go by too fast, and I accomplish so little! I recently got my owner's manual for the Korg D1200 that I got at Guitar Center over a month ago. They aren't very good at little details like that. Great prices and very knowledgeable salespeople, but if you have to buy floor model and they don't have the docs for it, good luck! Anyway, I sure wish they would write these things in English! Haha...Why do manuals on electronic things need to be so complicated? Well, I really need to get busy using this thing (if anyone else is reading this and don't know what it is, it's a hard disk recorder) so I can justify buying it. My daughter and I need to lay some tracks down and make a cd. Then we need to get a gig. Heck, it must be pretty easy, because we were at a "concert" last night at a local church with about four or five local bands, one of which my daughter is friends with four of three of the four members. The first band was pathetic. They should be ashamed of themselves for wasting our time! What makes it worse is they knew it! The kept trying to excuse it with statements like, "We've only been a band for 18 hours." Grr. Aargh. *weg* So, anyway, I figure that Rachel and I ought to be able to get a gig because we can be way better than that! Well, enough complaining and on to the spiritual stuff. Chamber says, and yes I do quote him a lot, "It is the dull, bald, dreary day, with commonplace duties and people, that kills the burning heart unless we learned the secrt of abiding in Jesus." And what a secret that is! Something that should be so simple becomes rather complicated, indeed. Why? Mostly, I think, because of our humanity and our flesh. It's the old Romans 7 dilemma. If we could only learn to abide. "Much of our distress as Christians comes not because of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test as to whether we ought to allow an emotion to have its way is to see what the outcome of the emotion will be." How many of us can actually think that far ahead?!? I know I seldom do, to my shame! Most of the time, I let my emotions rule me, instead of the other way around. I read a chapter in "Up With Worship" today that deals with offerings. She doesn't mention "tithing" once. She just talks about bringing an offering when you come to worship. My wife and I have been "tithing" for years, now, and we have felt both the sacrifice and the blessing from it. But the bottom line is not how much you give, it is that you bring an offering. How dare we appear before the Almighty empty-handed! I wonder if He even hears our worship if we do. And honestly, our churches don't teach enough about this. They tend to teach about tithing, but really leave out the importance of simply bringing an offering before the Lord. Well, off to take my offering! TTFN 0 comments so farMissed anything? |