Dwell on THESE things....

I was recently listening to John Piper's sermons on the past Puritan preachers/pastors/godly men, and man they're pretty crazy...and what's interesting about every single one of them is not how famous they are or how many books they've written, what amazes me is the passion that each and every one of them had to be WITH God. To be in communion with God. Their journals talk about how intimate their times were and how sweet their prayers were with God. That was always at the forefront of their minds. That's what they thought about, talked about and lived: a satisfying, joyful relationship with God.

When i hear that I sometimes feel ashamed b/c a lot of times when me and my pastor friends get together, we want to talk about "ministry," What kinds of programs are you doing? What's your vision? Are you building up leaders...all of which are important things to talk about...but it gets a little uncomfortable when we start talking about GOD himself....

imagine a conversation like this with your friends at lunch:
"Hey man, I just had the best time with God today...i was reading his word and meditating on Scripture and you know what thought came into my mind? How faithful God is! Man spending time with God is so sweet!"

...awkward...WHY?!?!?!

we can talk about sports, purses, animals, clothes, people, gossip, even partying and all the taboo Christian things, talk until our heads fall off...but why can we not talk about our relationship with our Father?

Isn't this part of growing together as brothers and sisters towards Christlikeness and an intimate relationship with God?

Is the world influencing us so much that b/c its taboo to talk about our faith in the workplace/school, that its taboo to bring it up with brothers and sisters?
Are we so filled in our minds with secondary things that the primary thing stops becoming the priority?

AH!

Philippians 4:8 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-- think about such things.

--> If God is our utmost, our minds and hearts belong on him...