Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.(NIV)

As we look at all this world has to offer us we see idea’s that we believe will help us as ministers of the gospel and we wonder if we can harness this for God. One of these concepts that we have latched onto is the idea of Social networking. This is the idea of using things like the internet and other tools to make connections with people that will benefits us.

There is an inherent problem in this idea of Social Networking that all Christians should fight with every fiber of their being. Within social networking is the idea that we are out for ourselves. We use this so that the ideas and recourses of others can be helpful for us. Social networking such as twitter, facebook, and friendfeed, all have behind them the idea that we need something and we think the other person may be able to fulfill that need.

The problem for Christians is that we should, as Philippians 2:3 says, Do Nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. We should not be selfish in nature yet that is what Social Networking Implies.

So what do we do? Well for one thing I am not suggesting that we stop connecting but instead place more importance on our connections. We use to look at connections with other people as gifts from God but now it is just clever computer programming that has caused us to connect with these people. Let us lay aside this idea and change how we think and use Social Networking. Instead of thinking that we can get stuff from these people let us understand that God is in this.

God wishes us to care about each other instead of us trying to get stuff from for selfish reasons. We must quite social networking and instead reach out, get to know, and care about those that God has placed in our lives even online. We must make these connections mean something. We should desire to reach out and help each other. Pray for one another and their needs. Let us never neglect God’s providence in bringing us together. God is good to us in connecting us to each other so let us live for God even through Social Networking.

Perchance the name must change. Instead of being selfish in nature perhaps we should use a term that does not have such a selfish connotation. Perhaps we should say that we are sharing in one another’s lives online. “Life Connecting”. We are connected in Christ let us connect online with all of our selves. Let our lives connect with one another instead of just trying to manipulate others to get the stuff we want.

May God connect our lives together in a church that is greater than ever because of the connection He has given us

This left me remembering the events of Joseph as he was betrayed by his brothers. Then as Joseph was forced into slavery, a cheap Egyptian tailor doomed him to prison.

“We owe our salvation to a cheap Egyptian tailor.” Peter Kreeft C.S. Lewis for the Third Millennium

To think that such little things can change everything is just overwhelming at times.

As I watched the events surrounding the Valkyrie operation I wondered how God could have let this fail. What made this so important? It is one thing to study the facts surrounding an event but until you see them, they do not have their full weight. As I sat there in stunned silence watching as Stauffenberg first was unable to arm both explosive devices which were meant to end the life of Adolf Hitler. Then as I saw them turn from the bunker, which would have guaranteed success because of the explosive wave, to a conference room in a normal building where the blast would be weakened because it would not be contained. Then as I saw the final death nail to the plots, as and aid moved the bomb so it sat behind the leg of the table instead of in direct line of site of Hitler. My heart ached for those who I knew had died for these threads in the tapestry such minor things causing everything to unravel before them. To think that if just one of those things had not happened the whole of history would have been changed. My heart cried for justice and yet I knew Justice would not happen from the beginning. Why would this ever happen. Why would the evil in the world continue and the good righteous men die as martyrs?

Then as it seemed there was no explanation to the events of that day, I remembered something in both the movie and in the historical accounts of the event that gave me pause. First in the movie there is a simple easily missed line. As Stauffenberg is telling his fellow conspirators what will happen, he adds this little side thought, “And we will shut down all concentration camps.”(Sorry if the wording is wrong) In the movie this is almost a non-event yet in the mind of Stauffenberg, as we find in the historical accounts of his life, this was his driving force. He wished to end the oppression of the Jewish people by Adolf and his followers. It is this idea of ending the pain and suffering of the Jews that dooms this plan to failure.

Now let me be clear, what happened to the Jews in the concentration camps was horrible. It was not something that one can say was good but as Paul writes,

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 (NKJV)

And if we are going to say that any group is called by God it would have to be the Jews. There was a greater good which hits at the heart of God’s plan for the world which had to be accomplished, and the events of the Holocaust were the catalyst.

We must realize that in 1949 Israel did something that no other nation had ever done. From around the first century on, the Jewish people lacked a home. They were a nation of wanderers. Many other groups under similar circumstances fell apart and were never heard from again. Yet with the Jewish people they not only were able to survive they were able to hold on to their identity and even thrive. So for around two thousand years the nation of Israel, for the most part, was a group off people looking for a home. It started even before the first century A.D. We first see a conflict between the Greeks and the Egyptians which for hundreds of years the nation would be ruled by ether Greece or Egypt and it switched back and forth as they fought each other. Then there was an uprising lead by a family called the Maccabees. This was short, for after a time the Roman’s came in and conquered Israel placing Roman leaders in charge of the people. This rule continued through the time of Christ and even 40 or so years after but then there was an event that caused many Jews to leave their home land so that they might find safety. Now let us not forget that many Jews, even during this time of control by the Romans, did not live in Israel. For example there was a large population of Jews in Alexandria, Egypt. These were some of the brightest of their scholars for it is from this group of Jews in Alexander that we receive the Septuagint which is a Greek translation of the Torah. But the event that drove many Jews out of Israel was the uprising around 70A.D. This came to a climactic end at Masada, a fort which king Herod had built around what is now known as the Dead Sea. There a group of Jews, having food and water in great supply, kept the great Roman Army at bay for years. This fort was unassailable by normal means. You could not attack it because it was so easy to defend. Finally the general in charge, a man by the name of Flavius Silva, began to build a ramp that ran up the mountain which Masada sits upon. At first this was simply stopped by killing the workers but the general began to use captive Jews to build the ramp and the men and women that held Masada did not wish to kill their own people. As the ramp neared completion the people in Masada set fire to much of their food stores leaving on grain bin in place to let the Romans know that they could have lasted for years if they were willing to kill their own people. This group of heroes then took the lives of each other so that the Romans would gain nothing but their dead bodies. This event began the great dispersion of the Jews.

We also see at this time the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. It is from this point that we see the nation of Israel as a nation of wanders. The land was held by other groups after this. Many conflicts caused a ping pong effect in regards to the controllers of the land. The crusades and the ensuing counter attacks by the Arabs in an attempt to gain land they saw as their own caused a constant unease about the land. Then we see as the twentieth century approached that the land was held by a group called the Palestinians. But even the Palestinians did not have control over their own destiny for in England’s attempts to control the world they had taken Israel or Palestine, whatever you wish to call it, under their control and had say as to what happened to the land.

Then we see the rise of power of a man in Germany in the 1930’s called Adolf Hitler who saw this group of people called the Jews as his enemy. He tried to destroy the people. This is what Stauffenberg had opposed. Yet in this we see the salvation for the nation for after the second World War we see an outcry from the world at large that said the Jewish people deserve some sort of consolatory gesture recognizing that they were still a people. This is the cause of England returning the nation of Israel to the Jews.

This is one of those events that throughout history prophets had said would happen and yet many doubted it.

Ezekiel 34:13 “And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.” (KJV)

Here we see the words of Ezekiel predicting that the nation would return to the Jews. This and other prophecy’s like it had to be fulfilled. It is for this reason that the plot to kill Hitler by Stauffenberg and his conspirators had to fail. God had a way to turn even this seeming horrible event of the Holocaust to something that would bring Him greater glory. Thank God that we can serve such a great God that can turn the events of history so that He is praised in the end.

I surrendered all my dreams of conquest when I realized that all I would have to show for it is the World (Larry Fineheart, Numbers)

What a great quote. I think it points me to who I am and where I am in my walk with Christ. And more than that to the reason why I have a walk with my lord and savior Jesus Christ. When I read this quote I see in it a picture of a realization that there must be something more to life than this. Something that we can grab onto and point to as why we exist. I know my limitations. I know that for me, as the James Bond title states, the world is not enough. I need more. I need something to grab onto that will then grab onto me. Any of us that have found our passion know what that feels like. I have been taken completely and without remorse. God has me and I have Him. Paul says, "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12 (NASV) this is the imagery I cannot waiver from. I want to grab hold of the one who has taken hold of me. And then to think that one day I will get to grab hold of the one that now hold’s tight to me.

This cry rings in the heart of every man and woman on the planet. Is it any surprise that the song by Mercy Me, "I can only Imagine" did so well. We recognize this innate desire to be engulfed by something so great that, in our wildest dreams, we cannot even begin to fathom it. This is our God. This is the only dream worth holding on to. All other dreams must be laid aside compared to the desire to know, truly know, God.

Often we run into people who have not found this desire for something more. Yet do you not think that if we could communicate this passion for the creator of passion we would have no problem filling our churches and changing lives. Do we live this or is this just a way to get to heaven. I often wonder if many Christians view salvation as a way to heaven and Jesus as a nice bonus. If we, as Paul says, "lay hold of that for which also we were laid hold of by Christ Jesus" we can change first ourselves and then the world around us for then they shall see the one in us which we hold onto. Instead of just another Christian trying to be good they may just get a glimpse of Christ in our lives. So let us give up our dreams of Conquest and live in the dream of knowing God the way that He knows us.