Stuart, Where Are You ?

Stuart, Where Are You ?

This is the question I have been asking myself as I awake each morning for the last few days.  

Today the answer was "Hmm, I am in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico."

Last week I was in Belize City, Belize, Central America.  Next week I will be in Cuenca, Ecuador.

Despite the hours sitting in aircraft and waiting in airports and going through immigration and customs procedures I am finding brothers and sisters in the Kingdom of God in many places.

Some of these siblings are new friends like a lovely lady in Belize City who every year takes time from her busy work schedule to help American Christian  youth and Belizian Christian youth build relationships with each other while they work together in a project to help a small rural village.  Other of my spiritual siblings are old friends whom I have known for more than ten years.

I am reminded of a lesson Holy Spirit taught me many years ago:

At the time I was driving around the Washington, DC, beltway having a discussion with Him about His idea that I needed to change the ways I was treating people.  In response to Him I exclaimed, "Well, if that is what you want, I will need a whole new mind set about people."

In response He asked me, "How does the Apostle Paul write?"

I knew immediately what  He meant.  Paul as a writer often presents a seemingly impossible problem followed by God's answer to it in the next paragraph.

In Romans Paul exhorts us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  He tells us if we get our minds renewed we will become experts on what is the perfect will of God.However, I had heard many preachers talk about the importance of being transformed by the renewing of my mind.  But, no one ever told me an effective answer as to how to get my mind renewed. 

I know a young woman who was a very, very, difficult teenager for her Godly parents to raise.  She became so difficult that for a period her parents were forced to put her into a psychiatric care center for teens.  If there were an immoral or dangerous thing for a teen to do she would be doing it.  When she went away from home to go to college about an hour drive away she continued her rebellious ways.  She became pregnant.  The day she discovered she was pregnant: She stopped smoking. She stopped drinking.  She stopped 

using illegal drugs.  The following weekend: She went home to her parents and was reconciled with them.  

Why this sudden change?  Why did she suddenly develop a whole new mind?  For her the explanation is simple and obvious.  She became aware that her foolish choices were no longer only damaging her life. Those choices were now also threatening the life of the child who was growing within her body.  Good decisions that she was not willing to make for her own well-being she was suddenly committed to make for the benefit of the child who was  unable to escape growing within her.

Immediately after Paul exhorts us to get our mind renewed, he points out that we are all members of the Body of Christ and we belong to all the other members.  Therefore what happens to one of us happens to all of us.   So, even though you have never met Luke or Jonathan, my friends who are African apostles in Kenya and Zimbabwe, whatever you do also affects them.  If hidden in a hotel in a strange city, you pick a path of self destructive sin.  You are also being destructive to every other member of the Body of Christ.  

Why?

Because we all belong to you and you belong to all of us.  If, instead, you choose to serve God and build your faith by a period of praying in the Spirit, you will certainly build up the faith of the whole Body of Christ.  The other members of the Body of Christ can not escape being affected by your decisions just as the unborn child can not escape being affected by the mother's decisions.

This is the reason that it is so important to Paul, and to Jesus, that you do not think of yourself more highly than you should. With sober judgement consider the effect you are having all across the World.  Consider the children of  God whose lives you will change.  Then your mind will truly be renewed.

His, thus Yours,

Stuart