2 Words in 1

The Unusual Service
The author of Confusion

 

The Unusual Service

Scenario: Everyone gathers at one of our local assemblies; as usual. Before the service even begins, the leadership steps to the pulpit, and makes an announcement. “I want all of you that are here, to stay here and worship and pray for the next few hours. In looking out over the congregation, I can see, that someone, is missing. And I’m going out to look for them. I’ll be back, when I find them. Then, we’ll have church. Then, we’ll rejoice, and dance and sing and shout.”

Jesus said some wonderful things; and taught so many deep and truthful lessons. He posed it as a question. If you had a hundred sheep, and one of them was missing, wouldn’t you leave the ninety and nine, and go and search for the lost one. The next comment, is one that many have come to also ignore. He said, you would rejoice more, over recovering the one that was lost, than all of the others who were safe in the fold. The Lord, is my Shepherd. My, how we have loved to recite that over all these years. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters. He, restoreth my soul. How safe and secure we are. In the fold.

The real truth is, you have to love sheep, the way He loves sheep. In the old days, every single sheep was important. The shepherd was not willing to give up, even one; and He could not rest, if one was unaccounted for. I love this Lord Jesus. There is no one like Him. I must tell you; what would I have done, if He had not come looking for me. I tell you what I found out to be true. There is no place you can run to, no valley so low, or mountain so high, that He cannot find you. It doesn’t matter how low you sink, or how very lost you might get, He always knows where you are. And nothing, or no one, will stop Him from getting to you. He will not be hindered.

We once thought differently, than many do today. The words to an old song, came to me a few minutes back. “The shepherd went out, to search for his sheep, and all through the night, on the cold, rocky steep. He searched til he found him, with love bands he bound him, and I . . . I was that one lost sheep.” No one ever cared for me, like Jesus. Oh, can’t we see today, that He meant for us to be like Him. The heart of the Shepherd.
Haven’t we all seen those pictures; the one of Jesus on the mountain side, and Him climbing down and reaching for a lamb, who’s all by itself?

I have no words, to relay the message He wants me to say today. I speak to hard hearted people just now; who think the door of the church is open, and the lost one can find his way back, just like he left. What if that lamb on the side of that mountain, has been wounded. What if one of it’s legs has been broken. Tell me. How can it climb back up by itself. Maybe it was attacked by wolves; maybe it got hurt, trying to run away. If someone accidentally or intentionally, pushed it over the edge.

Hear the word of the Shepherd. It does not matter how it got there. What does matter, is that it needs help.

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The author of Confusion

All of this believing different things, did not come from God; it came from us. I was reading again just now, how that the apostle wrote to one church about, confusion. It’s been clearly stated in their writings, that we should all speak the same things, and agree together on what we believe. Well, we didn’t, and we haven’t. It’s kind of confusing to me, to read where Paul wrote about all the gifts of the Spirit, about the ministries God placed in the Church; how each of them should operate. I find it confusing, because I don’t understand why he wrote it, if most people today, don’t believe it or practice it. Then, why did he even talk about it?

In fact, this verse we used to like to quote, “for God is not the author of confusion,” came right after he said, the spirits of the prophets, are subject to the prophets. God is not the author of confusion, He is the author of peace. And it’s supposed to be this way, in ALL churches of the saints. I don’t fully understand, why we all had a doctrine, an interpretation, our own individual beliefs and practices, when we were clearly instructed not to do that.

It never did make sense to me; that’s because, it wasn’t supposed to. It ouches me now to see and hear that many are doing things, they hotly preached against years back. Things like, having a television, having a church softball team, wearing wedding rings and using video monitors.

Does anyone realize, what a difference it would make, if folks would just be a little more honest? Why can’t the church say, we preached and taught what we thought was right at the time? And that we’ve grown wiser in some things; we really didn’t mean to hurt people or run them off; we’re sorry that it happened that way. No. Nobody seems to apologize; what they do say, is that if it was a sin fifty years ago, it is still sin today. And watch television, and do other things they used to judge people for. We are gong to have to be real in some things. God, did not make all of this mess we see today. He instructed his Holy Apostles to write about what we were supposed to do. It’s man, who twisted it and re-sifted it all to mean what they wanted it to mean. Sometimes, I think we even confused ourselves. Man can do that.

Perhaps, I might need to back up and clarify, that maybe I’m not confused as much as I think I am. Because it’s not so hard to see today, that much of these things, are about power, control and money. There’s an old adage that I never really like to hear; it was something about, straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel. I always felt a little offended when I heard that phrase; maybe it was because, I secretly thought, we might be actually doing that.

We like to dismiss the fact that we hurt people. We don’t want to take responsibility for the sheep we pushed out, because they could not agree with our personal interpretations. It doesn’t seem to matter, that in this hour, many of us realize we didn’t even have real scripture for some of the things we taught. Again, God wasn’t the author of that; we were.

There was a time, when we actually allowed one another, the option of having our own “personal” convictions. If I felt something may not be just right for me, I didn’t expect you to live by that if you felt differently. It seems, we forgot the word “personal,” and made some of it a blanket rule for everybody.

Can we see, that this was flesh talking; more often than not? I don’t know why so many of us, can be so unreasonable. We don’t even want to sit down with someone, and hear their side of things. We don’t even try to get to know them; to understand how they feel or think. We are still acting like we were told to act; and some of it, didn’t even come from God. Leaning to our own understanding, has always brought confusion.

 

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Robert Blackburn