Inspiration

Celebrate Your S.H.A.P.E.

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by Rick Warren

“Oh, yes, you shaped me first inside, then out …. You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit… Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.” (Psalm 139:13-16 MSG)

God never wastes an experience. Romans 8:28 reminds us, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (NIV).

At Saddleback, we help people consider five areas of experience that will influence the kind of ministry they are best shaped for:

Educational experiences: What were your favorite subjects in school?
Vocational experiences: What jobs have you enjoyed and achieved results while doing?
Spiritual experiences: What have been the meaningful or decisive times with God in your life?
Ministry experiences: How have you served God in the past?
Painful experiences: What are the problems, hurts, and trials from which you’ve learned?
Your S.H.A.P.E. was sovereignly determined by God for his purpose, so you shouldn’t resent it or reject it. “What right have you, a human being, to cross-examine God? The pot has no right to say to the potter: ‘Why did you make me this shape?’ Surely a potter can do what he likes with the clay!” (Romans 9:20-21 JB)

Instead of trying to reshape ourselves to be like someone else, we should celebrate the S.H.A.P.E. God has given to each of us.

Understanding your S.H.A.P.E. builds self-esteem. There’s an epidemic of low self-esteem in our society today. Most people do not like themselves. One reason, studies have shown, is that more than 50 percent of all people are in the wrong jobs. I believe that genuine self-esteem — as opposed to pop psychological self-esteem — is built on two biblical truths. It’s not about raising yourself up by your boot straps or thinking positively or the “I’m OK; you’re not so hot” philosophy. Genuine self-esteem is built on your relationship with Jesus and knowing what he created you for.

Make Your Prayers Other-Centered

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by Jon Walker

“He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene …” (Isaiah 59:16 NIV)

Most of our prayers are of the low order, or maybe more like the fast-food order.

We pull up to the drive-thru and yell out our requests to God and then expect him to have our order ready by the time we pull up to the window.

Yet, God’s view of prayer seems far above the utilitarian. He calls us to a violent form of intercession, where we take on the spiritual forces of darkness on behalf of our race, once invaded, now occupied by the prince of darkness.

Paul teaches us to put on the whole armor of God. If you follow the sequence of his instruction, we’re suiting up for battle so we can stand firm in prayer (Ephesians 6).

We pray for others like Jesus would pray for them, thinking about them the way he would think, covering them with prayer, protecting them through prayer, and advocating for them in the same way Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father and advocates for us.

It is other-centered prayer on the extreme end of “other.”

Isaiah describes God as “appalled” that no one was interceding for his people. We have the ability — more appropriately, the duty — to intercede on behalf of our brothers and sisters (Isaiah 59:16 NIV).

And we do not do this alone, for the Lord is already interceding, and we are simply joining him. Like the armor Paul describes for us, the Lord is suited for battle. Isaiah says: “He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak” (Isaiah 59:17 NIV).

We Must Give Our Lives for Other Believers

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by Jon Walker

“We must give our lives for other believers.” (1 John 3:16 GW)

In calling us to sacrificial service, God doesn’t ask us to do any more than Jesus, who came “as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God … if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other” (1 John 4:10-12 MSG).

Yet, as Rick Warren regularly teaches, any believer familiar with John 3:16, “For God so loved the world …” (NIV), must also become familiar with 1 John 3:16: “This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves” (MSG).

The point is service cannot be separated from sacrifice.

And so the life of a maturing Christian must shift from little or no sacrifice to a willingness to sacrifice any and all that may be required to help others grow into spiritual maturity.

The poet-king David understood this, and so he wouldn’t offer a sacrifice to God that cost him nothing: “But the king replied to Araunah, ‘No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.’ So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them” (2 Samuel 24:24 NIV).

The cost of sacrificial service runs past mere notions of money. It may mean giving up dreams, expectations, reputations, retirements, whatever God asks in order to lovingly enrich the lives of others.

We benefit today because saints before saw that service includes sacrifice. It is now our time to do the same for others, living like the poetic King David, who served his generation before he died (Acts 13:36).

Love Finds Meaning in Sacrifice

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by Jon Walker

“Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:2 NIV)

When Mary used her hair to rub perfumed oil down between her Savior’s toes, the disciples only whiffed the aroma of waste: “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor” (Matthew 26:9 NIV).

But Jesus suggested such a great sacrifice leads to great influence: “I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her” (Matthew 26:13 NIV).

Perhaps Jesus could smell the sweet fragrance of Mary’s sacrifice because he knew that love finds meaning in sacrifice: “We understand what love is when we realize that Christ gave his life for us. That means we must give our lives for other believers” (1 John 3:16 GW).

Perhaps, in Mary, Jesus could smell “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God,” a life “poured out like a drink offering” (Ephesians 5:2; 2 Timothy 4:6 NIV). We become living sacrifices when we no longer see the waste of giving to others; instead, we see the gift we give to others.

The Holy Spirit presses us toward radical transformation, where, instead of seeing sacrifice, we see opportunities to love; instead of seeing perfume wasted on the floor, we see ourselves like Jesus, prepared for burial, ready to be “crucified with Christ,” so that “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Matthew 26:12; Galatians 2:20 NIV).

You may be hitting one of those “I can’t, but God can” moments, but our brother, Paul, reminds us that God gives us the grace required to become living sacrifices, and he places the Holy Spirit in us to create us holy and pleasing to God.

“Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2 NIV).

God Covers Your Faults with His Perfect Love

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by Jon Walker

The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father’s only Son. John 1:14 (TEV)

The love of God is intimate and personal. He came up-close in Christ, and that means we cannot hide our imperfections and faults from him. He knows about them anyway.

This model from God means we need to love each other intimately and personally, looking past the faults and weaknesses of one another, seeing the handiwork of God in each one of us, knowing that we also have weaknesses and faults but that God is active in our lives, too.

When we know and believe that God is determined to love us no matter what, we can stop being concerned about our faults and conform to Christ instead of our fears (Romans 12:2). When we don’t believe that God loves us no matter what, we try to put on masks that make us look perfect in order to hide our faults. When we try to hide behind masks, we undermine God’s plan that we live together in transparent, loving communities, such as small groups.

The reality is, God’s love is perfect, and he wants to cover our faults with Jesus Christ.

God goes beyond merely diagnosing our problems or judging our faults (Psalm 103:10); instead, he steps forward to address the areas of our lives that are broken:

  • Into our emptiness, he brings fullness and completion (Colossians 2:9-10).
  • Into our deficit, he brings supply (Philippians 4:19).
  • Into our death, he brings life (Ephesians 2:1, 5).
  • Into our separation, he brings reconciliation (Romans 5:10-11).
  • Into our imperfect love, he brings perfect love (1 John 4:10).

The more we’re conscious of God’s love, the less self-conscious we become about ourselves. We spend less time and energy looking to appear perfect and have a life where everything is exactly the way we want it to be; instead, we invest more time and energy pouring ourselves into other people, who, along with us, make an imperfect community, but one infused with God’s love.