Charting a course with our calendars...

As a church, we have been wrestling with the question "What does a person who has a growing and maturing relationship with Jesus look like"? In today’s culture, most of us do not use calendars; we use a blackberry, a palm, or some other portable time management system. Whatever system that you use to keep track of your time, however, the reality is that we can see what we love and are devoted to by looking at our calendars, because we spend our time doing or with what we love. And we see that to chart a course to spiritual maturity, we need to invest our talents serving God by serving others. A man named Paul wrote the following to a church in Rome:

"For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness." Romans 12:3-8


In these verses, Paul reveals for us that investing our talents serving God by serving others requires three things. First, Paul explains that investing our talents serving God by serving others requires the right attitude. It is not what we have done for God; it is what God has done for us through Christ that brings us into relationship with Him. And this reality should cause us to be self controlled in our opinion of ourselves and lead us to a life of humility. Second, Paul explains that investing our talents serving God by serving others requires partnership. As followers of Jesus we are not independent. While we live in a culture that values and celebrates independence, independence is not a Biblical value. And in a similar way, followers of Jesus are not to be in a place in our lived where we are constantly depending on others. Instead of the two extremes of dependence and independence, as followers of Jesus we are to be interdependent. Because the third thing that Paul reveals for us is that investing our talents serving God by serving others requires exercise. Just as our physical bodies need to exercise to grow and mature, we need to exercise in partnership with one another, with the right attitude, in order to grow and mature in our relationship with God.

So what does your calendar say about what you love and are devoted to? What needs to change on your calendar? What are you going to do in order to chart a course to spiritual maturity by investing your talents serving God by serving others?