{"id":34860,"date":"2023-01-11T03:30:30","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T11:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/?p=34860"},"modified":"2023-01-08T15:10:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T23:10:07","slug":"january-11-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2023\/01\/11\/january-11-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"January 11, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div><\/div><\/div>

The Delivery<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cNot that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.\u201d<\/em> 2 Corinthians 3:5, 6<\/p>\n

We have a chocolate lab who loves the water. In fact, you can\u2019t keep him out of it; no matter how cold it is or how mucky it is, he is naturally drawn to it. But, if the water is delivered from a hose, he hates it and resists it by trying to run from it\u2014like it\u2019s so foreign to him that he doesn\u2019t even recognize it as water.<\/p>\n

I think part of the reason is because he associates water from the hose as rejection and punishment. We\u2019ve used a hose to wash him when he\u2019s rolled in something dead and stinky. The hose was forced on him along with unpleasant words like, \u201cEw\u201d, \u201cYuck\u201d, \u201cCaCa\u201d, \u201cYou stink\u201d, \u201cThat is so bad\u201d, etc.<\/p>\n

It made me think of how the Living Water (the Good News of Jesus Christ) can be delivered in a way that makes people resist it.\u00a0 \u201cFrom the hose\u201d it is legalistic, condemning, critical, offensive, harsh and very unloving. Kind of like \u201cChristian water-boarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, I have shared the gospel from a hose in the past. It was not done in love, thus it was met with resistance and maybe even some resentment. I was nothing but \u201csounding brass and clanging symbol\u201d <\/em>(1 Corinthians 13:1), totally misrepresenting the heart and character of our Lord.<\/p>\n

Since we are all commanded to share the Good News, let us consider the spirit in which it is shared. Is it done in love for and obedience to our heavenly Father, or is it merely out of duty, thinking we need to \u201cfix them\u201d because they stink and are offensive to us?<\/p>\n

I have to continually search my own heart and motives, and ask myself, \u201cAm I merely an irritating and unwelcome \u2018hose\u2019 or a refreshing, cleansing spring of Living Water to a dry and thirsty soul?\u201d Am I sharing out of a pure heart, conveying the love and compassion of our heavenly Father towards a lost sinner, or doing it in order to selfishly and self-righteously feel good about myself?<\/p>\n

Lord, never let me forget from whence I myself have come: a sinner saved by grace. Help me to hold my tongue until I can speak the truth in love. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-94g","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34861,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34860\/revisions\/34861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}