"Defined by His scars - not mine"

While looking over my notes for tonight's Bible study, I happened to have the notebook fall open to a page near the rear. I'm pretty much a digital guy now, but early on I printed everything out as well. Made sense in the time of the small hard drive and floppy disk I suppose. But today, when the president of Tyndale House says that "print is dead", well, it feels quaint.

I've picked up a large task once more - the Book of Romans.

It has been several years since I have taught through it. There's so much there for us that for me as a teacher/preacher, I have flashbacks of the first time I took Adam and Sean into the then new "Toys R Us". They both looked stunned that such a place could... be. It was took much at once for them to take in. But they did adjust quite well and rather quickly at that.

Still, it is Romans.

The notebook has all my notes from forever. One of the pages I happened upon had at the top a note "DF 10/24/94 AM". That would mean "Dames Ferry Baptist Church" which was the church I served first as a pastor.

Ouch.

To say it was hard on me - and especially on my family would be a big understatement. There were some great strides forward for Christ made in that rural family owned and operated church, and a great, great reversal. Yeah, and that last part left a mark.

So when that page fell open, the memory suddenly was there again. Ah, but God had already prepared me, for earlier today I read this from Troy Neujahr, my Lutheran friend as he was explaining to another friend how we who are pastors have to relate to those places God places us to serve:

I'm afraid that you're so afraid of getting in another bad church that you want to destroy this chance before it becomes anything like reality. I'm afraid that you're like a certain woman in my church who feels a need to hurt people before and push them away before a serious relationship starts to develop, just so that she won't have to risk getting hurt herself.

I know you've got it rougher than I probably ever have. I understand that. But I've hit a rocky road or two even in my short time out of the gate, and there's one thing God impressed deeply, deeply into me in my first painful ministry experience:

My ministry should be defined by His scars . . . not mine.

Did you catch that last line?

See friends, we're human - true enough. But we have the Spirit of the Most High God residing within. We have to, have to, have to return again and again to our core - Jesus. We simply cannot function as followers of Jesus in any God-honoring way unless we do.

Sunday's message from the beautitudes pointed us to the fact that when people abuse us, despise us, and throw all sorts of falsehoods our way, instead of looking at the effect on us and seeking pity - we need to look at Jesus.

Yep. Thanks Troy. Thank You God.