the Gospel pursues beauty, Legalism holds back

The Gospel pursues beauty, wisdom, growth, and the best in life knowing that it is accepted. Legalism pursues only those measures seen as obtainable and is ruled by fear and anxiety and a desire to be accepted.

God calls us to be stewards, God created us to cultivate

God created us to cultivate,  to reflect His character in making beauty out of chaos, when we loose that, we loose a part of who we are.

As a culture and just in our sinful nature, we often have become comfortable with lifestyles that our lazy and messy. We avoid cultivating the things God has placed in our lives. Instead of being the faithful stewards God created us to be, we willing to settle for less joy  than what God has for us, because we think we know ourselves and our desires better than God. We think we know what we are created for better than God.

 When we see the weeds, we try to save ourselves by avoiding the weeds. We choose not to cultivate, because we think we are better off ignoring the hardships of the weeds. We listen to the foolish woman in Proverbs and run after her. And we weary ourselves our attempts to avoid the weeds.

When God created man, He created man to be a steward, to work and to cultivate, to make beauty out of chaos. He created us to reflect Himself. This is a part of the very fabric of what we were created to be.

No, we are not to be perfect, and, yes, there are many weeds, we have fallen from our original state. There is also death and decay. Nor our we to be legalistic or take things to the extreme, sin has made this world full of weeds, and there is a realistic understanding of that, we are not perfect not is our cultivating perfect. But this is still who we are, and despite the weeds, God still calls us to cultivate. We are still to reflect God's heart, and we are still to faithfully act as stewards of what He has given us. We are to still work and make beauty out of chaos.

God is more concerned about our hearts and that we have hearts that pursue being faithful stewards who seek to make beauty out of chaos, than the results. And this will look differently for different situations. But God does not want us to have hearts that when we find weeds, instead of being faithful stewards, we make excuses to not cultivate and be faithful stewards, and instead turn to ourselves and our own immediate wants and desires and become lazy and in the process loose what He created us to be. The foolish woman seems right and pleasing, but God has called us to something more. The foolish woman makes us weary, but God in His wisdom calls us to rest in who He has created us to be.

"Church Discipline!? Is that Purpose Driven!?" - Jeff Noblit

How do I receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit? - Tim Conway