Redeemed

Last night, I went to a wedding reception for my bosses and it was beautiful (see above for blurry picture taken on my phone). I was incredibly blessed to get to be a part of this momentous event in their lives. The purse I brought to the reception was the same one I toted around Bangkok back in August during our initial vision trip. As I was scrounging around the bottom looking for a dollar to pay for my stay in Fredericksburg's only parking garage, I found a few treasures from Thailand:

Treasures? Really? A 7Eleven receipt and the equivalent of 0.30 USD in Baht. Yes. Treasures. Every time I find something that I got whilst in Thailand, I hang on to it--ticket stubs, receipts, coins, and other miscellaneous scraps of paper. They remind me of the brief time I spent there and the radical work that God did in my life leading up to the trip, during and continues to do in the time after the trip.

This morning at Encounter and tomorrow evening in small group, we're discussing the word "Redeemed" as a means of understanding the God we worship. It seems appropriate that the remnants I found in my purse are things used in a pecuniary transaction (of or relating to money). The word "Redemption" in a nutshell means "to buy back." To buy back? Did God lose a bet? No! Through Adam's first Sin and my own Sin, I sold myself into slavery; slavery to death, Sin, destructive habits, emptiness, worldliness, etc, etc. I lived in open rebellion against a perfect and Holy God.

But God desired me. He wanted me to be His daughter. "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are." 1 John 3:1

Before I went to Church this morning and heard Doug deliver his message, I was getting really excited about a Facebook status that one of the Lifepoint Bangkok missionaries posted on his wall about all the exciting stuff going in their Church and their ministry. I was excited really just about the stuff, not God being made famous through the stuff.

Near the end of the lesson, God gripped me and convicted me of this wrong attitude. Doug posed the question, "Am I becoming more of a worshipper of God?" I felt that the answer to that question couldn't be "yes" until I reoriented myself to the cross, to the magnitude of the God I worship, and the fact that missions and evangelism won't endure. 10,000 years from now, I'm going to be standing before the throne of God joining all the nations, all the angels, His Church in glad worship!!

"No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him. They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever." Revelation 22:3-5

Being excited about "God stuff" is not the same as being excited about God. God is going to do awesome things in Bangkok to make His name famous. However, the reason that God redeemed me from my empty life was not just to do good works; it was to love and invest in the Church and in those that God desires to be part of His Church to bring glory to God.

I pray that this week every action, every thought, and every word reflects that notion and in so doing glorifies my AWESOME GOD.