Too equipped to be whipped!

Everybody thinks that the only one that has the right to speak the things of God is a preacher.  I am a preacher and I don’t believe that one.  The Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter 4 that preachers, teachers, prophets, and apostles are there to equip the Saints for the work of ministry.  The greatest ministry does not happen with in the four walls of the Church on Sunday morning.  The greatest ministry happens when the Saints (those who have received the savior Jesus) get equipped enough to begin to hear the Holy Spirit for themselves.  The Holy Spirit did not just come to earth to fill Pastors.  The Holy Spirit came to empower the believer to bring Kingdom influence to those that God has chosen for them to minister to, in their every day life; between Sundays!  Church is there to refuel and retool the believer because he or she has spent the week ministering to the hurting who would never come to a Church, because they do not want to be labeled and categorized, just empowered!  Churches should be equipping centers not producing cookie-cutter saints but empowered Kingdom sons and daughter that know they are the BODY of Christ extending His hands to a dying world.  Here is where much of the problem lies.  We want to love people, but we forgot that we can’t love people.  Oh please that concern and care that you have for those who love you back is not love.  That is a fear motivated affection or a selfishly based emphatuation that has no power at all.  True love comes from God alone and it is never afraid.  Perfect love casts out fear.  It is impossible to love someone if God is not involved because God IS love!  So we go out and try to love people and come back more wounded than when we first started.  Problem is our love cannot fix a broken life only HIS love can.  So what do I do.  I love Him- Jesus- with all my heart-soul-mind-and strength, and then maybe I can love my neighbor.  It is not by loving people that we become effective, it is by loving God that we receive the love that people need.  Romans 5:5 tells us that “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us”.  We are called to love with His love, because His love never fails.  His love is pure, clean, gentle, light, freeing, fascinating, incomparable, and PERFECT!  Have you ever felt His perfect love.  Once you do – you will never be the same!  To know how He loves you is to know how to love others!  Just a thought.