Dan Czaplewski posted on February 14, 2008 13:32
I read a great article this morning entitled, “The Missional Leader.” I commend it to your reading:
Among other things, “The Missional Leader” talked about how churches can move members from being “consumers” of ministry to become “producers” of ministry. It is a provocative thought that challenges us to move beyond appealing to the narcissism of “felt needs” to connecting people to ministry that they accomplish.
I’m also working on my sermon for Sunday. The text is John 3:1-17, which includes the famous John 3:16 (“God loved the world this way: He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life.”)
For me, the connection between the article and the familiar words of John 3:16 is this question: am I a consumer of love or am I a producer of love? Do I just take in God’s love and develop a type of spiritual obesity or do I spread some of that love around?
That may seem like a funny question on Valentine’s Day (today). I can’t wait for the flowers I got my wife to get here (I paid extra for them to get here and it’s already 2 pm). I enjoyed seeing her face when I gave her two cards this morning. It is a great thing to be in love and to express that love.
But, God’s love is an altogether different matter. He loves the ones that don’t love back. He loves the indifferent, the unloving, and the hard to love. I can’t produce that kind of love, no one can other than God.
It is the nature of God’s love to transform. God loves you too much to leave you the way you are. He wants the best for you and by knowing Him we become more than just consumers of His love. God loves us so much that He makes us loving. He showed that love unmistakably in His only Son, Jesus who has given us the gift of eternity to experience the fullness of God’s love.
I hope that you have had a happy Valentine’s Day and that you have someone to love. More importantly, I pray that you know how much your are loved and how transformational that love is.