Friday 18 March 2016

Living out of abundance

Matthew 10:8-10
Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously.
"Don't think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don't need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.

A huge part of the work in Path of Renewal will involve finding and investing in local leaders in our communities.
I was reminiscing with a colleague recently about the folk who invested in me, gave me opportunities to discover and develop gifts and continually discipled me in faith. And who were disappointed when God called me to serve in another sphere from that in which I was nurtured. 
The way ahead, with God, is rarely predictable and never restrictive.
We tend to perceive the gifts of God as a limited commodity and yet our communities are filled with people with gifts, some yet to be discovered, some needing encouragement and some simply waiting to be released. 
Imagining our communities as incubators for the gifts of God helps us to appreciate God's extravagance and to live out of that abundance.
Building communities around the gifts of people was an important element in the Church Without Walls report - operating out of abundance and not scarcity. 
Changing our perception from scarcity to abundance makes a vast difference in our faith and in our hope. And operating out of abundance rather than scarcity allows us to find, to invest in and to nurture others, to move them from the confined space of an incubator, releasing them to follow God's call wherever that may take them, knowing that we have done our part and that God who is faithful will continue to raise up leaders and servants to work for the Kingdom. 
Our investment is never wasted in growing, with God, those who will live abundantly in the extravagant Kingdom of God.
In the words of Matthew 10:8 (The Message version) we who have been treated generously, live generously.

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