http://www.five02.com en-us http://www.five02.com N/A matt@webfiresolutions.com Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:39:38 EST 20 http://www.five02.com/blogs/8/Give-us-this-day-our-daily-bread.html We have continued our journey through the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6.  "Our daily bread"What exactly is it?  A fair question especially if we need to know if we're getting it or not.  Proverbs 30:8-9 puts it this way (sort of)...that if I have too much I'll forget God and if I have too little then I'll be tempted to steal and so dishonor God, so give me only my daily bread.  What I wrestled with is all the quantitative language surrounding this line of thinking.  Perhaps though, thinking in those terms would give us the idea that 'our daily bread' is a measurable amount so as to gauge our blessedness.  And that's not such a great thing...What do you think of as your daily bread?  Is it the food on your table?  Perhaps the money in your wallet?  Is it even the clothing on your back?  Jesus told Satan that man doesn't live on bread alone, but on every word from God.  Jesus even called himself the bread of life.  Jesus teaches us that when we break the bread at His table that is symbolizes His body broken for all of humanity.  So, perhaps we ought to try the line as 'give us this day a thought of how You're working in us.'  As we remember how God is active in our lives, it makes the next few lines of the prayer easier pills to swallow.  Perhaps a bit easier to forgive others.  Perhaps a bit easier to stand strong in the face of temptation.  We ask God to reveal Himself to us in our surroundings and dealings to make it easier for us to see His activity.  And it's that activity that might just be 'our daily bread.' Ryan Clements Mon, 09 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EDT http://www.five02.com/blogs/7/Your-Will-Be-Done.html ...on Earth as it is in Heaven...This particular snippet of the Lord's prayer made me really think about how I perceive Heaven.  Basically, for me to understand how our roles on Earth differ from that of Heaven, it became necessary for me to think about it.  Maybe you might want to also.  For me, I often think about the stuff I'll DO in while in Heaven and sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get bored there.  And then there's that whole doing God's will thing; it begs the question, how is God's will lived out in Heaven.  Or stated another way, what is there to be done in Heaven?But didn't God design us each in a way to fulfill a certain function?  A function in the body, or community, or church (whatever you want to call it)?  I don't think that God wanted us to become alike in every way.  Certainly there are behaviors that we all ought to replicate like read our Bible, pray, etc., but being a part of the body doesn't mean we conform to each other in every way.  We weren't designed that way.  When we realize that God has relentlessly persued us with His love and grace and peace, we ought to be freed to be the person God created us to be in the first place.So, what if we looked at God's will for us is to be the body?  And in Heaven, the body functions properly while here on Earth there are some kinks to work out.  What if we were more focused on being the body rather than doing things.  Being versus doing.  Does being the body mean we 'do' stuff?  Sure it does.  But we don't do it for the sake of doing it.  We do things in an effort to be the body.  Maybe that's why the story of Mary and Martha is such a powerful one.  That story if often used to illustrate how we can miss what's important to us as followers of Christ; and rightly so.  But here we also see that Mary was focued on being and Martha on doing.  Were there things that Mary 'did' while 'being'?  Of course.  Jesus also reminded Martha that Mary had chosen what was better.  God's will being done on Earth as it is in Heaven just might be a command for us to be the body of Christ rather than doing things to become it.We already are.We just need to start living it. Ryan Clements Sun, 01 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EDT http://www.five02.com/blogs/6/Your-Kingdom-Come.html God doesn't have control issues as we think of them, and this statement is certainly not mindless submission to God's soverignty.  Far from it actually.  In order for us to truly be Kingdom-dwellers, it is pretty important that we understand that what we do now has a lot to do with the future.  Jesus reminds us that God kingdom is a special kind of environment.  Jesus tells us what it is like without being explicit...maybe so we can all dream about it; one thing is becoming clearer though.  God values something altogether different than we do.  If God valued money, we'd all be rich.  If God valued material things, we'd all have the 'stuff' we want; God wants to pour out his blessings on us.God values the people He created us to be.  I think God wants us to get to know that fingerprint that He put on each of our hearts.  God values the immeasurable parts of our soul.  And because God gave each one of us (whether we know it or not) that fingerprint, we all have a place to belong in God's Kingdom...and that is good news.I also don't think God is so intent on establishing a new kingdom.  I think God's more interested in re-establishing the one He started in the Garden.  No wall, no bounds, every piece part of the whole and every piece knows it.  Think about what life in the Garden may have been like...That's what life with God is like...That's what the Kingdom is like...God sets us free to be the person that He created us to be.  Not some replicated Jesus drone.  God wired us to be distinct and I don't think that God ever meant for us to lose our flavor.  Your Kingdome come... Ryan Clements Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EDT http://www.five02.com/blogs/5/Our-Father.html We can't always identify with all the characteristics of God, like God's infinate presence, or God's timing, or even God's choice of who gets what and when...that makes God hard to understand and even harder to explain to people.  The reality is though that God probably isn't asking us to prove His existance to people...The folks in the Bible seemed more interested in helping folks to understand what God is like.  Why?  Because people get that.  I may not be able to explain to someone exactly how God intervenes and God's motives fully, but I can tell people what God is like because I know what Jesus was like: compassionate, gentle, healing, generous gracious.Our job isn't convincing people that God is real, like God is somewhere else.  Rather it's our job to help folks see that they're already a part of God's family and to show them the parts of their uniqueness that reflects what God is like.  When we say Our Father, we are saying that God is everyone's father...even the people who are only spacially related to God.  That's some good news......at least I think so Ryan Clements Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EDT http://www.five02.com/blogs/4/Visit-for-a-spell.html I'm glad you've taken the time to click on the link to this blog!  This is Ryan, and from time to time people will refer to me as the leader or director of the Five02 community.  In some sense, that is what I am...but not really...The truth is that God is, and anything good that comes from me is evidence to God's grace and good work in me. God is our source of...well...everything.  Sure I can take some credit from time to time; we're friends like that.  God invites us all to be co-recreators in God's redemptive purpose in the world.  God isn't just fire insurance.  God has plans for the here and now and wants us to partner along side so that all people can know God's love and transforming grace......and that grace allows us to live wide open lives.  Live expansively trusting in God's and God's grace.Check back right here when you have a few minutes to catch up.  Love to hear from you.--rc Ryan Clements Wed, 06 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EDT