Hey Beloved…
Did you even notice that we skipped over it? It was purposeful, but it wasn’t for lack of importance. In fact, this has monumental consequence to us—more than most of us realize. Many Christians might find it mildly interesting. Most would struggle to see its relevance to our daily lives. But the entirety of our identity is wrapped up in this subject that we just sailed right past. Intrigued yet? I’ll tell you more in Deeper Thoughts below… But first…. · Women: You matter to us, and you matter to God. This Sunday is Mother’s Day, so of course we want to honor all women for their vital role in our families, our lives, and our society. BUT… even more than this, a particular Word from the Lord has recently been shared by the Holy Spirit in prayer with the women who are part of our Elder Team. So, in addition to the traditional honoring of women this weekend, we have a special prayer moment planned to share this prophetic Word and pray over you! · And more for the ladies: Saturday, May 25… 9:30 – 11:30 a.m. – Join us for breakfast and a prayer walk at Morven Park in Leesburg. Click here for more details! · Our Next Mt. Hope Worship Night – A few weeks ago, God met us powerfully in an unscripted worship and prayer night where we gathered to seek God for our church family, God’s direction for us, and God’s provision for our growth and capacity challenges. The movement of the Holy Spirit was thick; God’s presence was very tangible. Let's gather again! Sunday evening, June 2… 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. (or whenever God is done!). · Summer Kick-off Celebration and Carnival – Sunday, June 9… 11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Join us right after church for our “second annual” celebration of all things summer with food, fun, fellowship, games, and activities. While we’ll aim this to be super-fun for the kids with relay races, competitions, and games, this is for the entire church to gather for a great day in the pavilion! (Rain date will be June 23.) OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and those who never wonder about who you are. BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… Our identity is a complicated little critter, is it not? Our identity has two sides to it, and they are often wildly different. The one side is how others see us—our personality, our communication style, our skills, our passions, our connectivity and usefulness to whatever group they are viewing us from. While there are many facets the outside world looks at to determine who we are to them, it is relatively straightforward. We are perceived and defined by what is naturally observable and what is of interest to the observer. The other side of our identity is how we see ourselves. This is a little more complicated. We are typically not so good at self-assessment. On the one hand, we shy away from being honest about certain flaws and faults that might negatively impact someone else. We dodge responsibility for being rude or overbearing; we turn a blind eye to our sharp edges. We ignore the influence our frequent bad mood has on others. We blame negative outcomes on everyone else while some of the situation indeed belongs to our behavior. On the other hand, we shy away from being honest about the beauty and glory and goodness that others see in us. We blush or roll our eyes at a compliment. We dismiss the power of our talents; we conclude our abilities and strengths are useless because they are imperfect. We scorn the idea that we might be the most beautiful person to someone else because we cannot see that beauty ourselves. We beat ourselves up for our flaws and shortcomings. The “how we see ourselves” side of our identity drives everything we do because it drives everything we think. If we think we are not good at something, we will avoid it. If we think we are faultless about something, we will defend it. If we think we are not useful to someone, we will evade them. If we think our sharp edges are smooth as butter, we’ll keep spreading it on. In the Bible, God works really hard to define our identity for us. He poured a lot of energy into revealing our identity through prophets, miracles, and words. In fact, God organized the entire human race to reveal your identity to you. “Wow… um… isn’t that a little grandiose, Chris?” Hear me out. The Bible is the revelation of how God relates to every human being. While the Bible is a collection of 66 different books that tell a wide range of stories of God’s involvement with people, there is one overarching narrative--a word picture if you will—of God relating to every individual through how He relates to one specific family. That word picture is the backdrop of every story of the Bible: God chose a family and made a covenant with them. The relevance to you? God chose you and made a covenant with you. The family God chose was a wildly imperfect one, just like you and me. Abram and Sarah were a salty old couple with a mountain of troubles and ultimately a pretty whacked out bunch of kids and grandkids that came along late in life. We’ll spare the details for this letter; but suffice it to say that when God renamed His chosen family, He aptly called them “Struggles with God.” In Hebrew, that phrase is simply the word “Israel.” Their new name was their identity. You might be tempted to hear this as a negative identity. But for God, it was a revelation of how profoundly valuable they were to Him. In raw slang, we might say God named the family, “yeah… they got problems.” But in giving that name, He is also saying, “but wow… I love them. And I know exactly what I am going to do with them… and it is beautiful!” Israel’s God-defined identity immediately presented an honest assessment of both their flaws and their beauty. Their flaws would be dealt with in the first phase of the covenant—a call to obey His leadership (called “The Law” in the Old Testament). It would be followed by a promise to redeem those flaws by His own shed blood (called “salvation” the New Testament). It was a new phase of His promise—a “new covenant.” In our study of the Book of Romans, “Uncharted Territory: Taking Life Where You’ve Never Been”, we purposely skipped over Romans chapters 9 through 11. We did this to first understand the new covenant of God’s mercy and grace. But now, let’s look over our shoulders and grab the backstory. According to Romans 11, you and I have been grafted into this beautiful and yet whacked out family called “Israel”. And it defines everything about our present story. First read through, I imagine you’ll feel a bit lost. Those three chapters are really dense, and there’s a ton of unfamiliar history embedded in them. Let me help you make sense of it this Sunday. Be prepared to understand yourself in a whole new--and profoundly honest—light. Flaws and beauty combined. This Sunday, 10:00 a.m. in-person (best!), or online livestream (if you need… but be sure to say “hi” in the chat feature!). Much love to all… Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend
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