Street living or grace living?

"I am going back to the streets," he said. I had to stop the converstation right there. I was talking to a gentleman who had come to our church one other time. He was a rough looking character but easy to talk to. He had been sent to leavenworth by a ministry in the mid-west that did a lot of homeless rehabilitation and mecry ministry. He was here to work in one of the ministry's extentions where he could be trained in a a skill.

This was the second time that I had picked him up to come to a Wednesday night service. To my suprise he said this was the last time he would be coming because he was leaving our town. Appearantly, his work conditions were just too much for him. The person he worked with treated him like a servent and the demands were more than he wanted. What instantly concerned me was that I remembered he came here because of the same reason he was now leaving us. The previous post where the ministry placed him had also proved to be too frusterating for him.

After telling me some details about his bad working conditions, he then said he was going back to the streets in another city. I couldn't believe my ears. He was leaving a place of work and shelter for the unsafe, uncertain streets.

He claimed that he was a believer so I told him that since this may be the last time I see him I was going to be blunt with him. Because all I knew for sure was that in his mind the work conditions were bad, this is in essence what I told him:

• You need to stay because it looks like you are fleeing difficult things
• God will put you in the very situations were you have a lesson to learn
• If you responded wrongly to the people who treated you wrongly, you must go and ask for forgiveness for your selfish actions.
• You must learn to live in difficult situations because you will be in them all your life. Learn to master them by the grace of God and you are set.
• If you chaff at being treated like a servent, that only means you don't have a servent heart. Jesus came to serve, not to be served. You can know whether you have servent heart or not by how you respond when you are treated like a servent.

There is one more thing that I wish I had told him. I would have had him answer this question. Will you be able to serve God better where you are now, or on the streets? In this fellow's situatin the answer is clear. The answer to that question is not always clear for all of us but I believe that it is a central question for determining God's will for us. The question demands that we evaluate the the gifts that God has given us, determine where those gifts can best be used, and depend upon the future grace of God to maintain the spiritual and physical resourses to keep serving the kingdom of God.

We all have the tendecy to run from difficulty. But grace teaches us to deny ungodliness (Titus 2:11-12) and the cooresponding selfish desires to flee hard things. Grace teaches us that there are blessings in depending upon a Father who provides all we need in every circumstance.

"Yes, Yes" and "No, No"

The Holy Spirit penned through Paul a statement that has made me stop and think numerous times. In 2 Corinthians 1:17 Paul writes, "Or what I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, so that with me there will be yes, yes and no, no at the same time?

God has been gracious to reveal what happens in unregenerate people and disobedient Christians. Specifically, they live inconsistent. They become a living, breathing contradiction. They say "yes" and "no" at the same time. The accusation against Paul was that he said, "Yes, I will come to see you" while at the same time thinking, "No, I will not come to see you." Paul says to do that is the way of the flesh.

And this is where unbelievers live. Non-Christians are defined in the Bible as being of the flesh, natural, and spiritually dead. Therefore, unbelievers are continually living a yes and no life. For instance, an unbeliever will say they want to be logical in coming to a decision to reject God. That is in essence saying, "Yes, I believe in logic" while at the same time saying "No, I won't live according to a God-created logic." The problem is there is no other kind of logic. They will say yes to logic, but no to logic if they don't like where it leads. Or again, an unbeliever will say, "Yes, it is wrong to own a slave" while at the same time saying, "No, morality is up to the individual." Individualistic morality is a non-morality. That is saying yes, yes and no, no concerning morality

Christians are not immune to this. Lets try to not be so shocked by the declaration that we become two-faced when we walk by the flesh. Think about it. When you walk by the flesh you start to do things like giving thanks to God for His provision while at the same time living miserly and hording resources. That is like saying "Yes, God will supply my needs" while at the same time saying "No, God can't be trusted to give me enough." Or getting thoroughly irked at the child who will not pick up the toys after you told him while at the same time having a great thankfulness in the patience of God. That is like saying "Yes, God is patient as I grow out of my rebellion" while at the same time saying, "No, your rebellion is worse and not worthy of patience."

Saying yes, yes and no, no is holding to two different things at the same time. Saying "No, Lord" is a good encapsulation of this mindset. You can't say no to a Lord. God's grace rescues us from this dungeon of unregenerate inconsistency at the point of repentance and faith. A repentant faith that clings to grace will keep us from further inconsistent stumbling. May God's grace keep us repentant and believing.