Angels never appear to people in Scripture and say, “God is calling you to do nothing! Thank you!” and then disappear into the sky. It never happens.

“Gideon!”
“Yes?”
“I am an angel of the Lord. Stay put. God bless.”

That conversation never happened. God calls us to constant movement. Children of God are always on the go. Moving. Growing. Changing. Transitioning. Transforming. Advancing. Pressing. Attaining. Maturity. Development.

Always.

If you’re a member of the Central Church of Christ, you received a 4″ x 5-1/2″ card yesterday that contained three challenges to knock you out of your comfort zone and into what’s NEXT. The challenges were all different. They called our brothers and sisters to get more into the Word, to meditate on Scripture, to interact with their neighbors, to practice a spiritual discipline, to sacrificially serve, to give of themselves to others. They were all different; some of the challenges are more difficult than others. But they were all designed to get us out of our comfort zones into a place where we can listen to God’s leading and/or get engaged with other people in the name of Jesus. We asked each person in our church to choose one of the challenges. And then to do it.

Now, I don’t know what God is going to do with these little challenges. I have no idea. I don’t know what kind of an impact this is going to have on our individual members or on our congregation as a whole. I’m not sure if the impact will be immediate or longer range. I don’t know if it’ll result in subtle attitude tweaks that are barely noticeable or in really dramatic changes in our overall church mindset that will blow our community’s doors off. I don’t know.

But I do know this: completing these challenges will definitely have some kind of a positive, transformational, gospel impact on us as individual disciples and as a church family that will impact all of Amarillo. How do I know? Because God promises us that if we give ourselves wholly to him, if we keep adding to our faith more and more each day, if we keep striving, keep attaining, keep pushing and pressing, he will use us to his glory.

“Make every effort to add to your faith… For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive.” ~2 Peter 1:5-8

You might look at these challenges and say, “There’s no way I can do any of these. I just can’t.” You might also say, “This isn’t going to make a difference. If I do one of these challenges, it won’t change anything.”

Not true. Our merciful Father promises: if you’ll give yourself fully to him, he will use you. Sometimes in very surprising ways. However, if you stop moving, stop growing, stop pressing and pushing and attaining and striving, you’ll forget who you are and what you’re supposed to be doing.

Peace,

Allan