Partnership with God - Part 1
29th January 2006
Jeremy Rutherford
Jeremy showed us a straight line, one end of it has a person who loves Jesus and loves being with people, the other end has a money grabbing successful person who has trodden on others to get where he is now.
The scenario is that both people die and go to heaven. Heaven for the first man is being with people and with Jesus. Relationship and being who we're created to be, fun too. This same heaven is to the other man like hell, people keep hugging him and don't want money in return for being nice to him.
Is there a hell? Of course there's a hell - we just don'y fully comprehend what this might look like.
Various opposing thoughts:
Is there a heaven & hell, or just heaven
Should women be in leadership, or not
Catholic versus Protestant
Cell groups versus home groups
Having a line with opposing ends isn't helpful. There is good at both ends. If we stand at one end looking at the other we get entrenched and may be standing for something which isn't worth standing for.
God didn't tell us to get into arguments with each other. He sits above the line, transcending it.
Are we in partnership with God even though we are a different shape. Only Jesus was the right shape but he still always submitted to God's will.
Jesus was fully God and fully human. We are fully human and have a spirit filled life.
Jesus had an abundant life on earth. We need to be abundantly filled so we can live a spirit filled life.
The will of God doesn't mean that we sit down and wait for predestination to take it's course. We hope that each encounter with a new seeking person is not predestined, but is an opportunity to be grabbed.
Jeremy showed us another line, with our birth at one end, we get saved somewhere along the way, with our death and the other end, with various ups and downs along the way.
Imagine a circle made up of three elements: the spirit filled life, fullness of life, and the formula 'victory over sin/satan equals life'. Each one leads to the other and round again.
As we live like this, in partnership with God, we become more God-shaped and connect better with him.
I've got time to be a Christian, but have I got time to be like Jesus?
Are you living in partnership with God. Pray that he will build you and grow you, make you more like his shape so your partnership can grow.
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