Let my words be few

You know, I'm a talker. Those who know me know this fact. I'm a teacher / speaker / talker. It's built in (by Father my creator so it's all good).

The understanding of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes is that one is coming to the house of God because they know him. They have had the eyes of their hearts enlightened to see, understand and savor. So he says to let our words be few.

Words can be cheap. Words can be a replacement for action because words uphold our sense of self delusion while projecting a sense of significance to others. Delusion: trying to convince ourselves we are what we think we want to be. Significance: pridefully holding ourselves up to be more than we are so that others think we are really great.

Its like the disappointing fight in high school in the boys bathroom. The fight was billed as a great fight all day. They two talked trash all day. Fight time came and nearly all the 8th grade boys were in the bathroom hoping for a great show. The two combatants were ready. What did they do? They bumped chests and hurled insults at each others mother and extended family and even at each other. They even taunted each other to "come on", "jump". But that was it. The great fight was only words.

The Preacher says later on in Ecclesiastes 5 to pay one's vow because increased dreams and many words are vanity.

He seems to value action that backs up what the person believes rather than empty words.

Decisively put: faith produces actions. Faith is the result of seeing, understanding and savoring Jesus Christ. That faith results in action, not words.

Paul speaks of not seeing in 2 Corinthians 4:1-6 as man's lost state, and that at the work of the Evil One. The Gospel removes the blinding veil of the Evil One so that we can then see the light of the Gospel who is Jesus who is God.

Seeing Jesus (thus believing in and on him) is salvation and that results in following in his steps. Jesus says, "come follow me". James says this faith results in works.

If we have believed, then we must reign in our words and rev up our actions.

That is not to say that words don't have a place. They do. They have a significant place: preaching / teaching / encouraging / prayer / and on we could go.

The point is that our words should not be our actions.

It often seems like the church in Rome is like the 8th grade boys. We talk a good game, but we miss the nations and the local need.

The church is absent from the nations. Few know what UPG stands for. I'll say more about this in the next blog.

The church is absent from the social structure of our town in being an agent of healing to our city's issues. The church offers no viable solution to healing the social ills. The church has building funds for the people who are magically going to show up at our events. We have tons of money, but it is spent internally on people who already have plenty.

We say we believe Jesus can change the world but we, his ambassadors, are amazingly absent from it sequestered in our little kingdoms.

Let our words be few. Let us enter the fight. Let us throw the first punch at the needs of our town with the end that the Gospel would be preached to those who need to hear it.

Let our actions begin to outweigh our words and perhaps more will hear what we have to say.

Even better and more important is that our greatest audience is the God of all creation. Our actions are our worship (Romans 12:2). We do what we do because Father is glorified as we do in his name for the expansion of his kingdom.

Jennifer Scott (Open Door Home), Ross Collins (Director DFCS), and I are working on a model for the community to surround and support foster families to provide services for them with the hopes of recruiting more of them to the task from the local church. And the church serving these families. Do I need to tell you what the result of this work could be? This is huge.

I have pastor friends such as David Harper who are in with me. Others are coming along.

Let our words be few. Let our actions heal, then we can proclaim to a captive audience the Gospel.