Church

The Path to Purpose

Posted on by Jonnelle

Pastor Pete challenged us on Sunday to answer the following questions.  I scribbled some answers in my journal during the sermon (sorry!) but want to expound on them here.  These are my answers for this season of my life.  2 years ago, they were probably radically different… 2 years from now, they may be different, still.

Shamelessly ripped from Without Wax:

1. Who Am I To Serve?

Your deepest purposes must bring good to someone who is without justice, reconciliation, or hope. It might be abused women, orphans in Africa, or business men who don’t know Christ.

2. Where Am I To Be?

What is the primary context where I will serve the people I’ve been called to love?

3. What Burden Am I To Bear?

This is so important!! Everyone of you reading this right now is called to battle some unique effects of the Fall.  Don’t just blow by this. Stop for a moment and think about this… there’s a problem in this world that brings you to tears or makes you downright angry. What is it?

4. How Am I To Engage?

Your engagement to the problem might be to pray, administrate, teach, serve, lead, paint, sing, confront, repair or nurture. EACH of us will do what we do with a style which reveals something about God in a way that no one else can.

My answers: Read More

Sharon asks, I answer

Posted on by Jonnelle

Sharon Cobb asked about Ephesians 5:22-23 over at Kat’s blog. This is much better understood when you expand the passage to include 25-32.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

– ESV Version

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of sermons on these verses. I’ve bristled at what the preachers said. I have fought the teaching. Now I embrace these truths. Read More