Kirby Pines Retirement Community | The Pinecone

The Pinecone | May 2025 • 9 • Reflections Maxie Dunnam May Vesper Services | 6:30pm | Performing Arts Center Clement of Alexandria, one of the early church fathers, said all Christians should “practice being God." When I first read that, it shocked me. Me…practice being God? But the more I thought about it, the more gripping the idea became. Practice being God. Don't close your mind, thinking this is irreverent. Paul was talking about this in his word about reconciliation? “ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. ” (2 Corinthians 5:18) Do you see it? Paul said first, God reconciled us to himself … that’s what God does. Then…what are we to do? He has called us to do the same. Isn’t He talking about practicing being God? Come at it in a slightly different way. When are we most like God? We are most like God when we are most like Christ. And when are we most like Christ? We find our answer again in Paul. Preceding what he said about reconciliation, he wrote: "For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore, all have died. And He died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised." (2 Cor. 5:14-15) What an encompassing statement: "convinced that (Christ) has died for all." That means that since He has died for all He has died for each, and that is the great solvent by which the love of God melts our hearts. If Christ loves like that, and we are to love as he loved, to not forgive is never an option. Practice being God. Whether we like the language or not, at the core of the Christian faith is forgiveness. Who is a person you need to forgive whether they have requested it or not? Begin with that person as you practice being God. By PRACTICE BEING GOD May 29 Eric Brand Lay Teacher Advent Presbyterian May 8 Rev John Bills First Baptist Fisherville May 15 Sing and Praise Hymn Sing May 22 Dr John Enoch Covenant Baptist Church May 1 Philip Slate National Day of Prayer One of the joys of my life was to chair the Evangelism Committee of the World Methodist Council for 12 years. This gave me opportunity to travel the world and meet extraordinary Christians. One of those is Stanley Mogoba. He was the first black person to be elected the presiding bishop of the Methodist Church of South Africa. About the time Nelson Mandela was sent to prison, Stanley met with a group of angry students and sought to dissuade them from violent demonstration. Just for that – trying to avert violence -- he was arrested and imprisoned for six years on the notorious Robin Island. Mandela was already in prison there. His life and witness led to break the back of Apartheid, the awful governmental system of racial oppression. He and Mogoba became friends there in prison.. ,.” One day someone pushed a religious tract under Mogoba’s cell door. Parenthetically, don’t ever forget: Most persons who come to Christ do so not by big events, but by relationship and simple actions, like a person putting a tract beneath a prison cell door. I wish I had the time to tell more of his story. By reading that little tract and responding to the Holy Spirit, Mogoba quoted the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn to describe his experience: “Thine eye diffused a quickening ray I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; my chains fell off; my heart was free." God showed up, and something unexpected happened. Are you listening? Am I making the case? God who came unexpectedly at Pentecost continues to show up, in persons, on the streets, in the Church. Stanley Mogoba and Nelson Mandela