Welcome to Redeemer’s Church

In some ways the truth that God has revealed to us is like a bar for a high jumper. The bar tells us what God wants for us and from us. It tells us many things like “Be patient with your daughter” and “Rejoice even when things are hard.” All of the message of the bar can be summed up in two commands, love God and love others, but we still need to be reminded of the hundreds of ways of living out the two great commandments.
When it comes to a high jump bar, most of us could jump one foot. Many of us can jump two or three feet, but when the bar gets to four feet most of us wouldn’t even try. So where is this bar set for you and me and for the whole world? It’s been set at infinity, at perfection. You may jump ten feet when I only jump 3, but you will not be able to clear the bar. If you give your all and try your best the maximum amount of time that you can, you will fail.
But, there is grace. There was one perfect high jumper who cleared the bar when it was set so high that we can’t even imagine it’s height. And God has gifted and implanted this right way of living and doing into all the sons and daughters of God. So when you jump, by grace, you clear the bar, even though you’re not always clearing it. One a particular day you helped your neighbor move some boxes, but you overreacted to someone’s political view on Facebook. You passed the bar by grace and you failed the bar, but there is more grace to cover your failure.
When a baby learns to walk, when they take their very first steps, people go a little crazy. I’ve witnessed it many times, and it is a joy. The baby takes one or two steps and falls. No one says: “What a useless baby! Can’t even walk all the way to Daddy.” Instead we cheer. That is what God is doing when you take a step, by grace, over the bar.

John 10:3 “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”
The other night some friends and I were talking about the call of God. I suggested that maybe God is always calling us but we aren’t always listening. At that moment the phone started ringing in the kitchen, and we didn’t answer it because we were having Bible study. That’s a well-time illustration. Sometimes I’m home, but I’m not available to answer the phone. What if God is reaching out to me and I’m not answering that day or month? I know that he can get my attention if he wants to, but it makes sense to me, that since God doesn’t need my help (although he wants it), that if he has a local opportunity to participate in kingdom work, he rings my spirit. If I’m not answering, his will is not stopped.
Think about the honor it is to be called by God to do even the smallest thing. On my own, I am not worthy to serve in the household of God, but he has chosen me and made me worthy through the blood of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:8-10 says that we are saved by grace though faith, not by works, but so that we can do good works. God has something for you and me to do that matters in his kingdom and contributes to his story.
My current focus in quiet time with God is not to read the whole Bible this year or to journal five days a week or to pray for certain lists of people a certain number of times. Even if I were doing those things in my time alone with God, I would subordinate them to this: opening the word and asking God to call to me through his word and through the Spirit. Every day I read the Bible there is a calling for me, away from myself and into the will of God. Holy Spirit leads me in prayer, who to pray for and sometimes how to pray for them. How is God calling you?

If you are a Christian or if you are not, you are made in the image of God. When I look at you, I was meant to see the divine in you, and you are meant to see the divine in me. In Genesis 1 God made us in his own image. Some people are so beautiful, so kind, so talented, so kin to us that it’s easy to believe that they are the image of God, but the least useful, handsome, likeable or loveable human bears the same image of God. Your enemies look like Him. The unborn look like Him. The elderly look like Him. People with different skin and beliefs look like Him. If you’re trying to follow Jesus, take a walk in a school or hospital or at work and whisper as you pass each person, “Image of God.”

I’ve found it impossible to treat everyone as the image of God. In my flesh, I’m a failure, but we are called to live a miraculous life. I need a righteousness implanted in me, and God, through Jesus Christ, took on the image of a man and lived among us. God made us in His image. Then He took our image to be an example for us and to come and dwell inside all His children. Christian, the love of Christ is in you. You can begin to see the image of God in everyone around you. When you see it more you will know how to act.