When they’re empty you can’t keep them together!
CROSS PURPOSES #83
04 May 2007
When they’re empty you can’t keep them together!
Walking out of the Prince of Wales Hospital the other day I encountered a young man with a 4 wheel trolley who was ferrying a stack of those empty 15 litre plastic bottles back to his truck. His problem was that the footpath was bumpy in the extreme and, in any case it sloped off bumpy to the left. The bottles kept falling off, both sides, and rolling away. He was not happy.
As I passed by I muttered some words of comfort – something about a “tough job”. He looked at me and said, with venom, “When they’re empty you can’t keep them together”.
I went on my way full of wonder at that young man’s footpath theology. He spoke a truth Jesus would own about his followers. Isn’t it just true of the strength of the community of Christians that, “when they are empty you can’t keep them together”.
We long to be strong in community, effective, united, having a sense of committed togetherness, friendship and common purpose. For that to happen, to be our normal way of living, we need to be filled. It’s only as we are filled properly that we get well-bonded together and anchored in any storm.
Jesus made it clear that we must guard our hearts so that they are filled with the good oil of the gospel.
It’s not as though it’s beyond as. Paul prayed for the people he was looking after that they would be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3: 19). And he summoned that Ephesian church to the ongoing challenge of “being filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5: 18). He knew this to be important because the Spirit, the creator of our trust in Jesus Christ, the source of our freedom to give thanks and praise, is also the faith community’s source of unity.
He wrote, “Do your best to preserve the unity which the Spirit gives by means of the peace that binds you together” (Eph 4: 3).
As I wrote above, the Spirit is he who creates, builds, and maintains our trust in Jesus Christ. And of Jesus Christ Paul writes;… “for the full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity, and you have been give full life in union with him” (Col 2: 9-10). Not for nothing does John say, “…from his fullness we have all received” (John 1: 16).
So there it is. To keep coming, day by day, week by week for refilling. Of course it requires our emptying ourselves through repentance - turning away from what we know in Christ is wrong, sinful, even evil and wicked. As our “turning away” becomes a turning towards Christ – well, the filling to fullness continues.
Pastor Fred
04 May 2007
When they’re empty you can’t keep them together!
Walking out of the Prince of Wales Hospital the other day I encountered a young man with a 4 wheel trolley who was ferrying a stack of those empty 15 litre plastic bottles back to his truck. His problem was that the footpath was bumpy in the extreme and, in any case it sloped off bumpy to the left. The bottles kept falling off, both sides, and rolling away. He was not happy.
As I passed by I muttered some words of comfort – something about a “tough job”. He looked at me and said, with venom, “When they’re empty you can’t keep them together”.
I went on my way full of wonder at that young man’s footpath theology. He spoke a truth Jesus would own about his followers. Isn’t it just true of the strength of the community of Christians that, “when they are empty you can’t keep them together”.
We long to be strong in community, effective, united, having a sense of committed togetherness, friendship and common purpose. For that to happen, to be our normal way of living, we need to be filled. It’s only as we are filled properly that we get well-bonded together and anchored in any storm.
Jesus made it clear that we must guard our hearts so that they are filled with the good oil of the gospel.
It’s not as though it’s beyond as. Paul prayed for the people he was looking after that they would be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3: 19). And he summoned that Ephesian church to the ongoing challenge of “being filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5: 18). He knew this to be important because the Spirit, the creator of our trust in Jesus Christ, the source of our freedom to give thanks and praise, is also the faith community’s source of unity.
He wrote, “Do your best to preserve the unity which the Spirit gives by means of the peace that binds you together” (Eph 4: 3).
As I wrote above, the Spirit is he who creates, builds, and maintains our trust in Jesus Christ. And of Jesus Christ Paul writes;… “for the full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity, and you have been give full life in union with him” (Col 2: 9-10). Not for nothing does John say, “…from his fullness we have all received” (John 1: 16).
So there it is. To keep coming, day by day, week by week for refilling. Of course it requires our emptying ourselves through repentance - turning away from what we know in Christ is wrong, sinful, even evil and wicked. As our “turning away” becomes a turning towards Christ – well, the filling to fullness continues.
Pastor Fred
posted by PastorFredVeerhuis at 10:21 AM
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