Two Rivers Ministries

Porch and Altar
by: Jessica McClure

“For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”   1 Peter 4:17

Wow.  Reading this passage of scripture is not an easy thing for me.  Especially when I read it and really take it in for the reality that it is.  I don’t think I have ever heard a sermon preached anywhere about this particular passage before.  It certainly wouldn’t have been in my top ten favorite things to hear on a Sunday morning.  Lately, though, this declaration written to the churches of Asia Minor thousands of years ago is ringing truer to me than ever before.  Through this passage, I hear the Lord saying to me “Yes, the time has come.  And yes, it is for the whole church.  But, I first have to start in the hearts of individuals.  Are you ready for me to start with you?”

“Me?! I thought.  I mean, of course.  I would follow you anywhere, Lord, do anything.   I followed you here to Cairo, didn’t I?  This isn’t an easy place for me to live, ya know.  I sing songs saying ‘I am yours’.  I feel like I mean it when I say it.  So, O.K., God.  Bring it on.”
Ha.  I had no idea what I was asking for. 

Ever since I became a believer, I have not quite been at home in “church”.  Growing up as someone not walking with the Lord, I went to church pretty regularly until I was a teenager.  I saw many hypocrisies and injustices, even within my own congregation.  There were too many questions left unanswered, too many issues skirted around, while other issues were slammed down our throats with no explanation.  The church was pretty much an irrelevant entity in my life.  When I finally submitted my life to the Lord in college, those thoughts and experiences naturally came along with me as I tried to walk with the Lord.  And, yes, many of my issues with the body were relevant, were necessary to raise.  But, typical to my generation, I could wax very philosophical and idealist sitting with my friends in my dorm or in a coffee shop, but in the practicalities of my life, I was just as confused as the people I liked to critique.  I was no judgmental, closed minded bible beater, at least , I consoled myself.  I wanted to serve the Lord.  Of course I did.  I wanted something more than the superficialities of this existence, I felt in the depths of me there was much more to life than I was presently experiencing.  I wanted to show the love of God by serving others.  But, I still wanted to have my fun, live my life, and be “relevant” to the world around me.  

As I graduated from college and found myself in various forms of ministry over the years, this desire for more was still there and growing stronger.  I was doing everything I thought I could possibly do.  I lived among the poor, tried to love like Jesus loved, learned how to serve.  I flitted from experience to experience hoping to find an answer in all of them.  And, don’t get me wrong, I learned invaluable things from each one.  The Lord, in His mercy, meets us where we are at.  But I also knew there wasn’t something I was quite grasping. 

Fast forward to now.  As you all probably know, the biggest part of my role at Two Rivers is prayer.  I have spent more time in prayer over the past year and a half then I know I have ever in my life.  And naturally, as you spend more time before the Lord, asking Him things and letting Him speak to you, it becomes easier to hear what He is always trying to speak to us.  Because I have opened myself up to Him more, He has begun to change more in me.  The Lord is showing me how to be not just a hearer of the Word, or even an agreer with the Word, but a doer of the Word.  In Luke 6:46 Jesus says to his disciples “Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say?”  Jesus was not talking to Gentiles, or even to the Pharisees, but to his disciples- the very people closest to him.  They walked with him, were taught by him, and saw him do miraculous things.  Yet they still struggled with doing the Lord’s will.  They quarreled among themselves about who was the greatest, asked arrogantly to call down fire from heaven on rebellious cities, and in the end, abandoned him at his crucifixion.  And I hear the Lord saying the very same things to me. 

Why do I call him my Lord and God when I do not do what He says?  When He tells me in His word to “Be holy, because I am holy”(Lev 11:44), why do just shift uncomfortably in my chair and just continue as I did the day before?  Why do I still long to feel comfortable in this world when I know that I was not created for it and scripture states that I am to be set apart?  The finger I have pointed for so long is slowly turning around to me.  And, you know what?  It is the best place I could be right now.  Judgment is coming to the household of God.  I believe that is a biblical fact.  But, if it starts with me, or with you, what will that mean for the body as a whole?  As the famous quote by Gandhi states, I must first be the change I wish to see in the world.  It must begin in individuals to begin in a body.  At the end of the day, will I allow the Lord to truly have his way?  I pray that, by God’s grace, I will.  I also pray that same grace is extended to you. >