The Call of The Prophet

Its official, my Dad cancelled his trip to come out here this week. I don't know, I think I would be a pretty cool son to hang out with and do life with. But this is a relationship that is just never going to happen.

We moved our house church from tuesday evenings to Sunday evenings with a meal and I am really liking the change. Sunday is just so much more relaxing for me and gives me time to prepare our discussions better and be in the right spiritual mind. Rushing home on a weekday from a crazy day of work was kinda stressful. We also extended our time together by an hour to include a common meal. I'm liking the change.

Last night we discussed chapter 3 of McLaren's "Secret Message of Jesus" and his Jewish background. How Jesus came in the line of the prophets to disturb status quo. We are tempted daily to pay attention to and be influenced by other prophets around us. Prophets who speak of our need for health and wealth and how God must bless us in these ways. Prophets who tell us to focus on ourselves and what we're entitled to. Prophets who teach of worldliness, materialism, legalism, sexualism, lusts for power and feeding our insecurities. But in the midst of those voices, there is a Voice of The Prophet. Calling us to a new community and to become a new kind of people. A Voice that says the Kingdom has come and to also participate in the Kingdom that is yet coming. A Voice that is calling us to finally be free. The way of Jesus is the way of freedom.

Jeremiah 10:1-10 (Message)

Listen to the Message that God is sending your way, House of Israel. Listen most carefully:
"Don't take the godless nations as your models.
Don't be impressed by their glamour and glitz,
no matter how much they're impressed.
The religion of these peoples
is nothing but smoke.
An idol is nothing but a tree chopped down,
then shaped by a woodsman's ax.
They trim it with tinsel and balls,
use hammer and nails to keep it upright.
It's like a scarecrow in a cabbage patch—can't talk!
Dead wood that has to be carried—can't walk!
Don't be impressed by such stuff.
It's useless for either good or evil."

6-9All this is nothing compared to you, O God.
You're wondrously great, famously great.
Who can fail to be impressed by you, King of the nations?
It's your very nature to be worshiped!
Look far and wide among the elite of the nations.
The best they can come up with is nothing compared to you.
Stupidly, they line them up—a lineup of sticks,
good for nothing but making smoke.
Gilded with silver foil from Tarshish,
covered with gold from Uphaz,
Hung with violet and purple fabrics—
no matter how fancy the sticks, they're still sticks.

10But God is the real thing—
the living God, the eternal King.
When he's angry, Earth shakes.
Yes, and the godless nations quake.

peace,