Leftovers

I recently started playing the social game Famville and have been playing about three weeks now. It's like the other social games on Facebook requiring social interaction with other "farmers" for success. The game is pretty simple. You lay out a farm, plant and harvest crops, raise animals, collect eggs and milk, and other chores associated with a farm. In the short time I've been playing I have become ashamedly consumed with this game, checking on my farm multiple times a day, calculating the net cost of one crop over another, and working my schedule around harvest times. I even lost sleep one night because I had a crop ready for harvest in the middle of the night. The sad thing is in light of my last blog "Lukewarm," I now see myself as a lukewarm Christian. Really, lukewarm and Christian can't go together. Only being mentioned one time in the Bible, it's still very clear how God feels about the lukewarm church;

"So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth." Revelation 3:16

It's clear God isn't happy, choosing to "spit" the lukewarm out of His mouth. In the Greek the picture is more like a "vomiting" out of God's mouth. It's a picture of extreme disgust. That's not where I want to be in the eyes of God. Unfortunately, the next chapter in Crazy Love, by Francis Chan, is a continuation of the lukewarm theme and it's titled Serving Leftovers to a Holy God.

Basically, the chapter deals with how we give God our leftovers. The leftovers of our time. The leftovers of our money. The leftovers of our service. The truth is God loves us and He really only has one true requirement and that is to love Him with all our heart, mind , and soul. Since God is not a beggar and won't force to do anything, anything less than "all" is simply leftovers. The Old Testament is filled with stories of people offering the leftovers as sacrifice. Going all the way back to Genesis when God wasn't pleased with Cains offering.
Chan finishes the chapter talking about love and what true love is. He uses it as a transition into the next chapter but in this chapter the picture is: If we love God as we say then He won't get the leftovers of our heart. The loved ones in our lives almost never get the leftovers of our lives. At least I hope not. That needs to be the mindset in our relationship with God as well.

So where do I stand? Having put things into perspective I realize there is a lot of work to do. And having read the next few chapters it's not all bad because the subjects of grace, love, and forgiveness are in the air. Until I get the chance to write again be good and remember God loves you too.

God Bless,
Vernon