Connection Church of Arlington Texas

Many of you have read the popular book of Tommy Tenny’s called “The God Chasers.” He also had one entitled “The God Catchers.” Both were very successful writings and were a very good read. The title reminded me of King David’s undertaking in bringing back the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem after being seized by the Philistines. David could not rest until God’s presence, in form of the ark of the covenant, was was returned to it’s rightful place. He chased down the ark and brought it home.

On the same turn, if we are to have the presence of God in our lives today …we must be willing to go after it … like David did! We may have to leave everything else behind in order to go after and possess His presence. It will depend on how much His presence means to us. But once we have captured God’s presence and his undivided attention … what then? 

(Matthew 20:1-16) The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a certain amount of money (a denarius, the wage of a Roman soldier) for the day and sent them into the vineyard to work. The landowner goes out again at 9:00 am, 12:00 pm, 3:00 pm, and again at the end of the day and sends more workers into the vineyard. When it comes time to pay for the day’s labor, the landowner pays all of them the same wage even though some have worked from early morning and others only an hour. Grumbling against the landowner the men who worked from early morning argued they were ”entitled” to more than the others. But the landowner asked them, “Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?”  Basically, “Didn’t we have a contract for a certain amount? And didn’t I pay you what we agreed on? Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?

Here we are on the eve of Valentine’s Day 2009. Valentine’s Day is all about expressing those “special feelings” for that “someone special” in our lives! And that is not always an easy thing to do. It seems no matter how hard I try I can never quite get across to my Valentine, that would be my wife you know, how much I love her. The Valentine card, the gift, and even the kiss and cuddle always seems to fall short of expressing my true feelings for her. But look how beautifully God expressed his love for us.