God is my Father

How often do you think about God as your father? We often address Him as such in prayer. But do we interact with Him that way? Should we? So many times in scripture our relationship with God is compared to the parent/child relationship. So many times earthly parents fall short of that ideal. When I think and read about some amazing parental examples it seems like the best picture of what our relationship should look like. But because of the brokenness of this picture it seems that many people do not attempt to relate to God in this way. Possibly they use some other example. Is this helpful? Is this sufficient? What examples are more helpful than others? Which ones fall short?

Comments welcome

Fellowship You Don't Wanna Miss

When you think about church discipline there are two main tools that come to mind; rebuke & exclusion. Rebuke is sometimes necessary but basically works to point out the shortcomings of others. Not that anyone likes doing this, (well some do, but not many people like them) but when people choose to be held to a higher standard, rebuke is one of the first courses of action in addressing that person's mistake.

Exclusion, that sounds equally as legalistic. But as a higher level course of action, this is often described as 'putting one out of the fellowship'. When someone repeatedly messes up and does not respond to correction or rebuke ( are you still cringing when you hear that word? Me too), the next action is to NOT allow them to be apart of your fellowship. The idea here is that by missing out on what your group is doing they will decide on their own that they want to change.

Now there is some thinking behind this that believes it is right to exclude someone because a fellowship of believers in Jesus should be holy and set apart. So it is just 'right' to prune the bad branches to keep the whole tree from corruption. I'll give that some merit. But that should not be the focus of this type of discipline.

Is your fellowship something you don't want to miss out on? Think about it. If the relational temperature and draw of community were so great, then when you need to correct someone by exclusion they truly feel the loss of friendship, support, and community. Even the threat of missing out would be a preventative measure to those desiring to stay on the straight and narrow of this higher standard.

All this to say, "is your fellowship something that people don't want to miss out on?"

What would the church look like if we spent more time on creating that kind of community than righteousness of exclusion?

Meekness

Meekness means to harness or control the power or strength that you have. But there is a big difference between gaining power in order to control it and realizing the powers of liberty that you already have and already control. Meekness is found in both. Where do you find meekness in your life? How often do you actually think about being meek?

Creating in Community

I've been reading a bit lately form some "creatives" about the creative process.  Great insights as I love being creative, but struggle with my analytic personality.  But one perspective I have not gotten from any "creatives" is the idea of creating in a community.  I bring this up because as I read through this passage in Colossians, and am reminded of others like it. When I read of God's creation, I get this image of God the Father and Jesus working together as a team to in the creative process. Previously, and I think most people do, I had the mental picture of creation where God the Father (only) was up in heaven and was chillin with the angels and they are just watching God cheering Him on, in awe of the things he is "speaking" into existence.  But now, I get a different image of God the Father and Jesus having some great discussion full of excitement and collaboration.  While they create and come to agreement on things, they poof into existence. Seems like a better image to me.  There is one flaw I guess, where is the Holy Spirit?  Not sure yet, haven't seen the scripture that creates that added mental image.