Coffee With The Lord

Important dinner guests deserve to be served on the best china!  At “state dinners” the very best is served on the very best table settings available to impress and honor the guests (see the pic)!  My mother had some really nice china and silverware that she reserved for special occasions.  It wasn’t for everyday use – it only came out for very special occasions!

As I read II Timothy 2:20-26 this morning during “coffee with the Lord” this thought entered my mind: Followers of Jesus should serve up authentic Christianity on their very best “china.”

Here’s what the passage says…

“Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be A VESSEL FOR HONORABLE USE, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.  So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.  Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.  And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”

Every person is precious and important in the Lord’s eyes.  As Christians, we have a responsibility to seek to influence them to become followers of Jesus!  To use the analog of the passage, we should seek to “serve up Christianity on our very best china!”  Our lives should be pure and clean and our behavior should be Christlike!  We should be “ready for every good work.”  This passage identifies several things that should set us apart for maximum influence:  Sexual purity, righteousness, faith, love, peace and a pure heart.  We should not be cantankerous or argumentative.  Instead kindness, patience and gentleness should characterize our lives.

Oh, here is the cry of my heart… “Lord, help me serve up Christianity on my very best china!” I want to make a positive impression on others for “following Jesus” with my life, don’t you?

Thirst is an incredibly motivating sensation… people will go to great lengths to satisfy it!  If you’ve never – or rarely – have been really thirsty you probably don’t identify with those who have experienced it.

Soul thirst – spiritual thirst – is no less acute!  I’ve seen people go without food and drink seeking to satisfy their sense of “soul thirst!”  It’s a deep, profound, sense of spiritual lack, need, and deficiency – a longing – an ache, if your please – for spiritual reality and fulfillment!  Sometimes It exhibits itself in attention getting behaviors, sexual promiscuity, abuse of liquor, drug addiction, greed, or workaholic tendencies.  And that is just a few of the telltale symptoms.

There’s an old gospel song that addresses the cure for “soul thirst” … It’s opening refrain goes something like this…

“The world may try to satisfy
The deep longing in your soul.
You may search the wide world over
But you’ll be just as before.
You’ll never find true satisfaction
Until you’ve found the Lord,
For only Jesus can satisfy your soul!

“Only Jesus can satisfy your soul!
Only He can change your heart and make you whole!
He’ll give you peace you never knew,
Sweet joy and love and Heaven, too!
For only Jesus can satisfy your soul.”

–Lanny Wolfe

Now I believe that… and Jesus declared it on more than one occasion.  I read His claims this morning during “Coffee with the Lord!”

Jesus spoke the truth to a sexually promiscuous woman searching for satisfaction in “relationships”…

“Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I give will never be thirsty again! The water that I give will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life!”  (John 4:13–14)

And how about this one…

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink!  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’  Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”  (John 7:37–39 ESV)

I mean just think about it… Not only experiencing deep, profound “soul satisfaction” to slake your own “spiritual thirst” … Out of your life “living water” from the Lord, produced by the Holy Spirit, will flow out to meet the deep spiritual needs of others!  Wow!  Like the woman at the well may this be our cry… “Lord, give me this water, so I will not be thirst again!”  Listen to me, I’ve tasted it – I’ve experienced it – and it’s the “real thing!”  His claims about it are true!  Satisfied with an “unsatisfied satisfaction!”

Sooner or later it will happen to us all… God’s word will say something we don’t understand… Or the Lord will require something of us that offends our sensibilities… Or something will happen to us – something God allows – that we have a terrible time processing! And the issue will be, how are we going to respond – what are we going to do about it? Will we continue to trust, follow, and love the Lord, or will we be offended, “abandon ship,” and drift away in disappointment and disillusionment?

It happened to some who had begun following Jesus in the New Testament – the fact is, some of the “apostles” were even at risk!

Jesus had said some perplexing things – some things that challenged the sensibilities of His followers – some things they found it difficult to process… “When many of His disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’ But Jesus, knowing in Himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, ‘Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life! But there are some of you who do not believe… This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.’ After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God!’”(John 6:60–69 ESV)

Listen, I am certain that somewhere, sometime, something will happen, something will come my way in my walk with the Lord that I don’t understand, something I find difficult to process, something that even offends me. What will I do in that situation and circumstance? Will I allow what happens to become an insurmountable barrier to my trust in the Lord? Will I in disillusionment draw back, distance myself from the Lord and cease to follow Him in faith and love? Oh, I pray I won’t! Instead, may my response echo and mirror that of Peter in this instance, “Lord, to whom shall I go! You are the One who has the words that lead to eternal life! I have believed, and have come to know – regardless of what life brings – that you are the Holy One of God!”