My Calling?

"Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with one who teaches." Galatians 6:6 ESV

When I woke up this morning, I did as I try to do immediately every morning, listen to Jesus. 

Since I believe His mercy is new every morning, I guess I believe that the first few seconds as I transition from sleep to wake are the best time to hear His voice and get my "assignment for the day".

Lately, even as He continues to fill me with His grace and mercy through the Holy Spirit, I've felt a little bit like a pinball, as He has sent me to and fro on various spiritual errands and learning experiences. 

Today, He seems to be saying that the pinball days are over for now, and He wishes for me to get into a routine.

Looking at what I've been doing for at least ten years with much of my free time, and I have a lot of it due to my fortunate financial situation, I've been visiting churches and forming ideas about them and how they contrast with my vision of ideal.

Sometimes the churches are called churches, and other times they are called schools and other times they are churches of one, Christian musicians or even bloggers.

I am interested in the work of anyone anywhere who is proclaiming the name of Jesus. My desire is not to judge people but to judge their work and institutions. I do not believe it is at all sin to do so, as even when you judge the work of an individual, often that work is separate from who they are.

This morning, Jesus has called me to start this blog, Letters to My Church. 

For the last few months, Jesus has been truly possessing me. As I have yielded more and more of myself to Him, He has given more and more of Himself to me, for the benefit of others. I truly believe that I am in Him and He is in me. Because of that I have consciously titled this blog, Letters to My Church, with the implication of using My rather than my that I am writing with the presence of the Holy Spirit in me. 

This blog is intentionally a modern day mirror of Paul's ministry. Paul wrote letters to churches that were publicly circulated. I make no claim to be an Apostle, but I do claim that I am called to apostolic work. Apostolic work, in my understanding, involves visiting churches and then communicating with them in order to build up the church universal, the Body of Christ.

It is in doing this apostolic work that the Body of Christ is built up and edified for the coming of Christ in each one of us, and the glorious final coming of Christ in all of us. 

See there, I just slipped some end time theology into this letter. 

I am sure that most who ever read this will be shocked by some of my theological observations. I claim no infallibility or anything like that. These are my observations as I perceive them through the Holy Spirit working in me. I hope to always keep the comments open and to respond to as many as He leads me to.

My theology is based on my entire knowledge of Jesus and His written and experienced Word. Some of what I say may be wrong and I welcome reasoned argument and believe I will say, "I was wrong", if a reasoned argument, tested by the Word and Spirit, tells me so. 

But the truth is that much of the controversial theology that you are likely to encounter here is only controversial because the conventional theology is right out of Fiddler on the Roof, "Tradition!"

Especially something as conventional as "Jesus died on the cross for our sins" needs to be examined carefully in light of what scripture actually says and our knowledge of the person of Jesus the Christ.

The probable style of this blog will typically be, visit a church and then write about that church, both commending and criticizing what is said and practiced. During the course of those writings, the theological points will emerge, just as Paul's theology emerges from his writings to the various churches.

And like Paul's writings, there may appear or even actually be small perceived changes along the way, for as I grow in my relationship with Jesus, I begin to know Him in a more intimate way. Every post here will be dated and I welcome comments that point out any perceived inconsistency in my positions. Once again, I may be plain wrong in some things, as there have been times in my life when I have listened to the wrong spirit. Even Jesus listened, but did not succumb, to the wrong spirit as is recorded in the Gospels.

If you are the pastor or other authority in any church that is written about here, please know my judgments generally will not be not of you but of your work. The exception being those cases when you and your work are intentionally different. I will not hesitate to point out those who say A in public and then act or say B in private. Hypocrisy is a horrible plague upon the Body of Christ, and readily apparent to those on the outside looking in. 

So who gives me the right to judge? That would be Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and all things therein, especially all people. For every word written here will be carefully considered in prayer to Him through the Spirit. 

Please compare these letters to the letters of Paul, and decide for yourself whether or not they are in the same Spirit. For just as Jesus' church needed apostolic guidance then, it needs apostolic guidance now.

I would not write but that I am utterly convinced by Jesus that I have been called to do so. I stand fully accountable to Him for every word. Many will condemn me and I begin with full knowledge of that. But many more will see His Truth coming through in reading these words. The living sacrifice of my time in glorifying Him is beyond worth it. For He is my everything, the reason I live and move and have my being.

Trey