God Up in My Grill (Perry Noble)

This is a great post by Pastor Perry Noble of New Spring... had to share...

God Up In My Grill

Posted: 05 Jun 2008 07:16 AM CDT

The other night I was sitting on the couch & browsing through internet world when I saw a friend link a blog that had taken a shot at him…

So…I went to see what was said. (Why do I do that?) And, while reading through the comments I saw someone take a shot at me. What in the heck? What did I do? I felt like the guy watching the fight & one of the people decided to sucker punch me!

So…being the incredibly mature Christian that I am :-) I automatically began to prepare a “response” blog post in my mind. And…I’ll have to say that it was awesome. Seriously, if I had been in middle school it would have caused the boys around me to say “ohhhhhh!”

I had decided that I was going to post in the next morning and make the world a much better place by calling out my critic and exposing the fact that I felt like he was a complete moron…until…

I was walking down the hall towards the bedroom when God clearly spoke to my heart and said, “Matthew 12:36.”

“What?” I asked!

“Go and read Matthew 12:36–NOW!” He said.

So I did–and BAM…I was busted! (If you haven’t read it by now–seriously, Matthew 12:36!)

God reminded me that one day I will stand before Him and be held accountable for every careless word I have spoken (and blogged!)

WOW–that’s huge for me because…well…in the past I have OFTEN lashed out and said things before really thinking and praying through them…you know…spoken very carelessly, and, according to Jesus…that has only added to the very long list I will one day give an account for.

(Vince’s post on being frustrated with this is excellent…and I think he did an excellent job of not naming names BUT rather exposing the problem!)

A couple of days after this event I was visiting a couple of church planters blogs when I saw people taking shots at me for how I dress and the way I write on my blog. Seriously…

Once again I wanted to lower the freakin’ boom…but God said to me, “Matthew 12:36.” AHHHHHH!

I can’t spend my time attacking people and or ministries. False doctrine and anti biblical philosophies–yes, but not people or churches because, well, Scripture says that IF God is at work in the person or ministry that I am attacking…and IF what is going on is Spirit led–then I am committing blasphemy, which Jesus doesn’t speak highly of.

I must speak truth; however, if I do it carelessly then I will give an account for it one day–that has caused me to slow WAY down and think before I speak!  Direct and bold confrontation MUST be used in the church…but careless conversation has no place.
So…there you have it…my confession. I will always defend this church…but I need to spend WAY less time trying to defend me. John 3:30 and Galatians 2:20 speak to that.

So…don’t know if that helps anyone…but it felt good to say it!