Seeds for a Purpose — Don’t Quit While You’re Ahead

I was back in SNR after a long SNS – Saturday Night Slumber. I was with Frederick, my brother, indecisive over going to SNR or taking my brother out to town. I didn’t want him to feel that I was saturating him with church, yet I was happy that he was enjoying it so much. He even asked me if there was a dream center in Pennsylvannia! The charm of the dream center is like a fast oncoming train — it hits you and runs over you hard. But because Christ is in it, you rise again. I felt a tug in my heart. I could not bear to be right next to Angelus Temple and not go. I had been “robbed” way too many times of this awesome weekend night service.

SNR – April 5 was about seeds. Seeds and Purpose.

Matthew 17:20
“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Pastor Brad Reed carries a container of sunflower seeds challenges the audience. Jesus does not use “seed” accidentally, because it is a pretty metaphor, or because he decided to be eco-friendly or reach out to the gardener market. Faith is akin to a seed because it is supposed to grow.

1 Peter 2:2
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.

We don’t get salvation like we get a precious diamond that is too expensive to use, locked away in a safe. We get saved, and then we grow, we mature, and we bear fruit. It was emphasized in the sermon that seeds are planted not to remain in the ground, but to be transferred to another pot and another pot. And finally, the tree can be planted on the ground. “The seed must be cracked to get the life out of it.”

The saddest part is that a lot of people pull out of the ground before the harvest. Stop crawling to the end of the tunnel just short of the light. Stop running the marathon 0.2 miles away shy of the finish line. Pastor Brad said emphatically — “if you don’t finish the marathon, you don’t get any credit!” This is perhaps the most poignant part of Pastor Brad’s sermon – at least for me — because his words hit home. I had gotten out of my comfort zone, stepped up to serve God, yet was giving the doubting and fearful voices in my head more attention than I should. I went through the motions of serving God, hanging by a thin thread.

It’s time to stop running away, and it’s time to face His hands. The hands that will take me gently from my pot and start planting me on the ground. Success, getting there, reaching a goal, scares more people than we realize. Sometimes the finish line is just as scary as the starting line. More than sometimes, we start more races than we finish. The race of our Christian life is a race that’s not negotiable in God’s eyes. We must long for his “well done, good and faithful servant,” the same way that a little girl longs for her mother’s approving smile. Contrary to the popular saying — “Don’t quit while you’re ahead.”

If a seed does not later on produce fruit — it does not fulfill its purpose. If salt loses its saltiness, and light is hidden……

Matthew 5:14-16

14“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

We are seeds meant to bear fruit. Salt meant to be salty. Light meant to shine. Go, fulfill your purpose.

Freedom Redefined

 The Saturday Night Redefined service at Angelus Temple lingers in my head. Master’s Commission Los Angeles — a group of God-hungry young people who have committed two years of their life to knowing the Lord — made a presentation about freedom. There was a dance, a shadow play, a testimony-slash-monologue, and more. It was a call to freedom, a perfect foreshadowing of Martin Luther King Day that would occur that following Monday.  The first question that occurred to me was, wait a minute – freedom from what? The answer came a few minutes later. It was freedom from the cult of cool. A rebellion against rebellion. We have been fooled by invented and imagined norms (most of which are perpetuated in the media) about what freedom is – it is doing what you want, being what you want, when you want. It is running through a crowd-filled concrete road half naked, adorned with multi-colored shiny necklaces at Mardi Gras, it is the freedom to drink as much as you want on a Friday night, and the freedom to roll out cuss words the way a coin machine rolls out quarters. Yet in Saturday Night Redefined, freedom is redefined. We can only really be free of we walk in obedience – unfettered by bondages and addictions that pull us down, desperate only for The Father’s approval, and wanting to be “cool” only in the eyes of Our Savior.

Definitions. We don’t really give much thought to them — unless, probably we’re about to take a test. Academics make us care about them but unfortunately, life doesn’t.  After SNR, I began to think of my own definitions. How do I  define love? How do I define happiness? Sometimes when asked questions like, when was the last time you had a boyfriend,  some women jokingly say, “well, what’s your definition of boyfriend?” We stop to think first.  But when something of a more serious nature comes along, like a profession of love  from someone whose trustworthiness is questionable,  we don’t even stop to ask ourselves,  “what is this person’s definition of love?”  Once, in the process of writing  a short story that  told the story of a  certain kind of love,  I ask one of my good guy friends — what is your definition of love?  He unhesitatingly tells me that  physical attraction, and attention, to him is love. I really  am not surprised — this is the world’s standards — it just reminded me of how much we have been deceived. The bible says in 1 Corinthians 13 that Love is patient and kind, does not keep a record of wrongs and rejoices in truth — in a nutshell.

That is just a micro case study. Love. What about happiness? How do we define that? What thoughts do you have about peace, fairness, justice, and hope?

Definitions are the framework from which we act — the template that houses our decisions. Do you need to redefine your definitions?