Sunday, March 22, 2009

Stop. Shut up. Move.

No more conferences with the hottest bands and the biggest name authors who will lead us through eloquent, dynamic speeches about how we should live better lives where we will take notes and go home and stay the same.

No more endless books to choke the shelves about how we should change the word and live better lives where we will underline and highlight and close the final page and do none of it.

No more Bible Studies. No more sermons. No more worship conferences. No more Christian Concerts, comedy shows, events, gatherings, seminars. No more shows.

If you stopped learning today you would never live long enough to put most of it into practice anyway. Loving your neighbor as yourself will take the rest of your life if you start now.

Stop.

No more blogs. No more debates over the nuances of the Kingdom or the correct inflections of dogma and doctrine. No more articles by experts who pretend to have the answers or hope to draw a crowd or sell their books. (Myself included).

Let the websites fall silent. Let the noise die down. Shut down your blog, your Facebook account, your Twitter feed, your MySpace page. Silence the endless blah, blah, blah. Be still. Be quiet.

Shut up.

Listen for the voice of the lonely crying in the darkness. They are there. They are living a few miles from your house. Perhaps even right next door to you or down the street. They have not heard the Gospel. They have not seen the love of God in action. They have not experienced love that was pure and holy and true and without strings attached. You could show them. You could demonstrate. You could speak. You could give. You could share what you have with them.

Listen to the voice of God. Begin to live a life of purpose. Let your actions declare the Glory and Mercy of a loving God. Love extravagantly. Serve passionately. Become an expert at servanthood.

Turn your face towards the Gates of Hell and start moving forward. Live a Kingdom life. Jesus is coming back, sooner than you expect him to. Be found doing His will, with your hand to the plow and your eyes set on the Kingdom of God.

Put all these countless sermons, conference notes, books and articles into practice. Do something that the local news can't help but talk about.

For example:

This

or

This

or

This

or

This

Stop. Shut up. Move.

"We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." - 1 John 2:3-6

-kg
**
P.S. - I'm not trying to start a debate or a conversation here. Comment if you like but please know that I will not be participating in any comments. Right now it's all I can do to start walking out my faith in my actual life. I'm tired of talking. I have resolved to do more "walk, walk" than "talk, talk" by the Grace of God.

Don't look for me on Facebook or Twitter or even here for a while. My hope is to do more serving and loving and practing my faith than I spend time talking about it.

Thank you for your prayers.

3 comments:

Mary said...

Ironically, your post is the crux of a conversation a friend and I were having just an hour ago...and then I read your post. Thank you for this!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for your post. It confirms what I have been sensing God showing me for a while now. Be blessed. Ann

Onewhocares said...

Thanks so much - I had exactly the same feelings on saturday, and apart from 'peeking' a bit at facebook and twitter, I've not posted or tweeted or whatever since then. It's so important for our focus to shift from ourselves and our 'social networking' worlds to the real world outside our front doors. Blessings.