Mobility

Dear Worshippers,

I have moving on my mind a lot these days. I have been unpacking boxes in my study in Warren for the last several weeks as my wife has been packing boxes at our house in West Virginia. A week from today we will load the truck to move our family to our house in Warren. The idea of mobility is very much on my mind.

But this is true for other reasons as well. As we think about the new thing that God is doing in our midst we must realize that it will require mobility. If God is going to do something new in us it will probably require that we get up from where we are and demonstrate our willing to go wherever He leads us.

This concept of mobility was ingrained in the Israelites whose encounter with God in the tabernacle we are pondering these days as we look at “The Heart of the Matter”. The entire tent of meeting was mobile. God was moving His people to the Promised Land revealing Himself along the way. You may be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with me?” Here is one way the Lord showed me the answer to that question last week as I prepared for Sunday’s worship service.

As I was making my final preparations for the media, I discovered a misspelling. The title of the message was “The Alter of Sacrifice”. As I began to change that to altar, the Lord showed me that it is at the altar that we are altered. Think about it in the context of Romans 12:1-2.

1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

The problem with living sacrifices is that they are mobile, they can climb down off the altar if you will. We of course are not speaking of an actual physical altar but rather a spiritual one. I believe the symbolism here is clear. Our heart is the altar, for it is ultimately where the altering occurs.

As you are being transformed today, because it is a daily process-not reserved for Sunday alone, where do you need to be mobile to go with God? As you are offering yourself to God wherever you find yourself, because it is not something you do only at church or at an altar built by men, where do need renewing to be more like God? As you are conforming to the mind of God, because you are no longer going to conform to the world, where do you need to think differently.

Be mobile. God with God. Get altered today.

In Christ,

Pastor Scott