November 12, 2010

Hellbent or Heavenscent?

I recently tweeted a phrase:
"Why is it that we are more Hellbent instead of HeavenScent."
Clearly I was looking to start a Christian brand of cologne. I have recently been in a number of conversations that typically revert back to the things that we are doing wrong; as a church and personally. Don't get me wrong, I am all about sharpening each other and becoming more and more like Jesus. I totally understand that sometimes the best way to do that is to point out our faults and our failures that others want to lovingly correct. But, I'm not sure we smell too good when that's all we do.

Paul said it in 2 Corinthians 2:15:

"For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,"
We are to have a flavor, an aroma, or Christ to God. That means we are to have a Heavenly scent among us. The problem is that we have taken Proverbs 27:17 and blown it up to try and correct everything. We have started to smell a lot like metal and not so much like Heaven, I'm afraid.

The point is that we are really good at finding the faults of ministries, people, places, events, etc. When are we going to be more focused on the positives in life? When do we start to see the things that Jesus is celebrating in Heaven? When do we stop seeing a punk kid that tore a door of hinges and start to see a kid who has decided to give church a chance? (I know why we can't see the positive here, it's the $330 missing from your budget) When do we start to point people to the HOPE and FUTURE that we KNOW is coming? We can't do that if we're simply looking negatively at all the problems we see.

I love this clip from Patch Adams to illustrate my point:


I'm committing to seeing the solutions in life. No more crazy, bitter old men.

What problems are you choosing to see instead of seeing solutions?

GC

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