Can it be that complex?

I've had this long-standing project to put up a bird feeder. That's gotta be easy. So I figured out where and then did the How. It had to be squirrel proof and I figured I would make it easy for the birds by attaching actual branches, making it as homey as any bird would want. Then as a special treat I put old Panera bread on it. What more could a bird want, right?

So two days later....the bread is still there and no birds.

So now I'm going back to all my church planting thoughts

Do I just need to be patient...surely they'll find it
Do I know enough about where to put a feeder?
Do they like Panera bread?
Did I do this for me or for them?

It made me think that one of the easiest things for Christians to do, is to assume they know what unchurched people need...largely because they don't know any or many, and that the first thing to do is to find them and ask them what They want.

Who needs Leviticus?

Thoughts about the OT reading today. 

Leviticus 20 looks like a lot of God preferring the best of the best of the best.  No losers allowed. If you have a disability, you can’t be a high priest.  If your birth maimed you, your mother dropped you, the other kids wrecked you, you’re out. So what is God saying? 

Thankfully much of it was for Israel during that time of their history to give them visual aids on how God regards sin and wants us to live separated lives.  They were to be a blessed people before all nations, so God built in all these things so when the other nations came because of the blessings and saw the weird customs, they would be struck by the result of treating God seriously as Holy and Loving.

Later, Jesus tells Peter to eat pork chops.  Later Jesus tells priests it is Ok to touch a dying man in order to show God’s mercy.  Jesus says to help someone on the Sabbath was never in violation of the Law.

Isn’t it nice that we don’t need Leviticus?  Isn’t it great that Jesus is our good buddy, that in the middle of our prayers we can burp, multi-task, and God could care less?  We can come home after a prayer meeting and view a couple minutes of porn without effect.  We can enjoy a great worship experience on Sunday morning and never show the Love of Christ to our wives on their terms, listening, hanging out, nurturing.  Isn’t it great that God will accept anything we whip out, spit out, shake out of our sleeves, empty out of our pockets.   The old boy is happy if we check out his show for a couple of seconds when we’re channel surfing.

And so I read in John 15, abide in me….live, dwell, lodge…and you get it all…Jesus’ closeness, joy, glory to the father, fruit in seeing others come alive and get rescued, a life that means something, but you have to live, abide, dwell, lodge, every minute in Jesus…or you get nothing.  I guess if we abide in Jesus, we just can’t dance around in our bad habits.  It’s like he’s really a king so maybe I shouldn’t burp loudly and repeatedly when he’s standing there talking to me.  Maybe he totally accepts me, garbage bag abs and all, but says, “you need to treat me and this life and all I’ve given to you a little more seriously.

Ok, Lord, you’re maybe right…I’m really getting nothing out of this, just like you said in John 15, and I really think I want the other stuff.  You’re here to live and I want you in here, so I’ll try to be couth, but what can I look at that will show me something about your holiness in contrast to the convenience / thrift store view of you I’m getting at church?  What?  Read the first 5 books in the Bible?  Even Leviticus?  Pray for me!