Renewed Mind

I've realized that I've looked at God's order all wrong. I'm encountering him now more powerfully because I've begun to lift my restrictions on how I think he should speak and does speak. The cross wasn't just to get me to heaven it was for a relationship now. I've always had a relationship with him, but I was limiting the communication that makes the relationship stronger and more intimate. He's showing me that my past views on it were not his wisdom, but instead what I was comfortable with. I have a feeling a LOT of Christians are stuck where I was. Assuming he doesn't have anything important to tell me, instead of assuming that he has so many important things to tell me. Now I operate assuming he is talking instead of that he isn't. I realize our churches have put God in a box. We don't want anything "wierd" happening in church. We don't want to scare people off and have them think we are crazy. Out of fear we have shut the door to God's supernatural ways. It has occured to me that a God that moves powerfully, is a God that people want to follow. Otherwise he is the distant God that is simply there to stamp his approval on our entry ticket into Heaven. There is to be order to things. But order is meant to accurately express who God is, not restrict him. Otherwise Paul would have said stop using spiritual gifts, but instead he explained how to do it so that the church body was edified. So many churches have restricted biblical gifts! In fact, many never even mention them. Why?! If God has a gift for me I want it! If he has a Word for me I want it! If he would want to use me to encourage someone else, I would be honored. Why are we telling people how God loves them instead of showing them through his power?? This is my new prayer for the church. That God would break out of their box to demonstrate he is the Living God who desires us now...not just when we get to Heaven and that he would bring with this revelation, Wisdom to apply it in his definition of order.