“From What If To What Is,” Pastor Steven Furtick encourages us to stop worrying about what could be and start trusting who God is.
We often define our lives by the big moments. But most of our lives consist of ordinary chapters. They may not feel significant, but ultimately end up changing everything. In our new series, The Book of Ruth, we’ll discover the hidden beauty of life’s small moments.
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James 1:2-3:
‘Dear brothers, is your life full of difficulties and temptations? Then be happy, 3 for when the way is rough, your patience has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, and don’t try to squirm out of your problems. For when your patience is finally in full bloom, then you will be ready for anything, strong in character, full and complete.’ LB
The hot-stove effect was first proffered by humorist Mark Twain: “We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”
Throughout life, be careful not to overreact to painful experiences. Failures, embarrassing moments, and hurtful events, if not properly processed, can have an inordinate impact on our lives and dissuade us from “jumping on the stove” again.
Carefully study and analyze experiences and put them into proper perspective. Even positive experiences, if not properly processed, can lead to unhealthy conclusions.
For example:
- You may abandon a helpful technology because your first experience with it was distasteful.
- Some divorcees feign the thought of marrying again because of the hurt they sustained in a former marriage.
- Not being accepted into your school of our choice may discourage you from pursuing formal education.
I have been a public speaker and teacher for 30 years, but two embarrassing moments in my early years might have derailed this aspect of my career.
When I was eight years old I was asked (with no prior notice) to stand in front of my Sunday School class and pray aloud. I froze…awkward silence ensued…kids giggled…I was embarrassed.
But the following week, one of my teachers took the time to meet with me. He spoke words of comfort and encouragement, helped me compose a written prayer, coached me as I practiced reading it aloud in the same room where the nightmare took place, and arranged for me to speak the prayer in the same Sunday School Class the next Sunday. All went well and I fully recovered from the debacle.
In high school, I was vice president of my senior class. Once, when speaking before the student body, I planned on using the phrase “hook, line, and sinker,” as in, “he was so naive that he swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.” But in my speech the phrase came out “sink, line and hooker.”
My classmates were unmerciful. Unfortunately, no one helped me process what had happened; fortunately, I thought carefully about the incident by myself and decided that though it was a bad experience, it need not be a life-changing one.
A wonderful way to love others is to recognize when they may be susceptible to the hot-stove effect and take the initiative to help them process the incident and put it into proper perspective. I will be forever grateful for my Sunday School teacher (I cannot even remember his name); he might have salvaged my future career.
Summary
What? – We often misinterpret and overreact to painful experiences.
So what? – You may suffer from the hot-stove effect, but you can recover.
Now what? – Individually, identify and study your life-wounds – both small and large – to see if you have overreacted to them. Based on a more accurate assessment, adjust your thinking and behavior. Look for opportunities to help other people negotiate their burned paws.
Leaders – Consider how your organization may be suffering from the hot-stove effect. A good place to start is to analyze past failures and trauma.
For as long as I can remember, I have found such great comfort and “faith building” in the Scripture passage of Isaiah 55:8-11. When I came upon these verses in the Bible years ago, I was at a place in my prayer walk where I wanted more… more of what God had for me… more of what He had promised me in His Word… and then one day a desire was placed in me to Start Praying God’s Word!
As the Holy Spirit led me to these verses, I felt as if I had discovered a hidden treasure of priceless worth. I saw that when I began to pray the Word of God, His Word began accomplishing what He designed it to accomplish. And I quickly started seeing results! Praying God’s Word was the “key” that would lead to a lifetime of powerful, fruitful “Getting Results” prayer…
Isaiah 55:8-11 so beautifully says…
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, but water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater,
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
How powerful is that! As God created the rain and the snow for one purpose… to water the earth AND to make it bring forth and bud so that crops and vegetation can grow and supply food. God created His Word for one purpose… for it to accomplish what He pleases and for it to prosper in the thing for which He sent it. The rain and the snow do not return to Heaven, but they do what they were divinely designed to do here on the earth… PRODUCE. So, the Word of God does not return to Him void but does what He divinely designed it to do here on earth…PRODUCE in our lives. Hallelujah!
Each and every Scripture has been divinely written and divinely designed to accomplish what He called it to accomplish. If you need a provisional miracle, He designed Psalm 23:1, Malachi 3:10-11, Proverbs 3:9-10. If you need the promise of divine protection, He designed Psalm 91. If you need to enjoy fear free living, He designed 2 Timothy 1:7 and Philippians 4:6-7.
Always remember when a Scripture verse speaks to you or your situation, if you will start praying it and declaring it over your life, over that circumstance, His Word will NEVER be barren or fruitless… it will PRODUCE and prosper in the thing for which He sent it, because His own life-source is in it! God’s Word is active and alive! It has been designed to do one thing… that is to bring about what it says it will bring about… to PRODUCE and prosper. And we can rejoice in this because the power in His Word will always fulfill the promise of His Word. Amen!
So Beautiful Kingdom Ladies, start praying God’s Word TODAY and enjoy the rich fulfillment that comes by Praying the Word. The benefits are so many… Your faith will be built, as you begin to see that His Word trumps over every situation and circumstance in your life and will bring what is needed to get the intended promised results. His Word ALWAYS changes the outcome… Hallelujah!
I’ve enJOYed my precious time with you today and pray you too will discover the hidden treasure of applying God’s Word to your prayer life. Have a blessed, peace-filled and joyful week. You are greatly loved and adored. I’m praying for you!
Joy.
The dictionary defines it as “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying.”
The apostle James tells us to “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,” (James 1:2).
Have you ever thought about how backwards that is?
Let’s put those together: “Take great delight in suffering.” Stop and read that again. “Take great delight in suffering.”
People often ask me how I can endure suffering and pain with a joyful heart and a genuine smile. I’m here to tell you that taking delight in suffering is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do…and I have to make that deliberate choice every single day.
But I don’t have to do it alone. When I ask, God continually reminds me that He is with me. He is the “exceptionally good” source of joy. And when I choose to remember what He’s done for me, on the eternal scale of salvation and on the small scale with earthly blessings, I am able to experience real joy.
This week, I’ve suffered greatly. The pain associated with my IV infusion was pretty brutal. It triggers a migraine that hurts so much I can’t see. Every joint swells and every muscle cramps for at least 48 hours after I finish. And I do the treatment every other Thursday.
So yesterday morning, I’d had enough. I started weeping. I kept asking God, “How much longer will I have to do this? Will I always hurt this much? I don’t think I can fight through the pain anymore.”
Then I heard a quiet voice in my heart, “You may suffer even more. But I’m here. I’ll be strong so you don’t have to be. I’ll endure when you can’t. And I promise, your suffering has a purpose.”
James 1 came to mind again: “Consider it true joy when you face troubles.” Why? “ “because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance … “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” James 1:3-4).
In other words, when we choose joy in response to suffering, we grow up spiritually. Ultimately, we become more like Jesus.
That’s what I want, more than anything else. I want my response to suffering to bring Him glory. I want enduring the pain with a joy-filled attitude and a genuine smile to point people to Jesus. My pain has a purpose.
Today, I will choose joy.
Our main verse… 1 Corinthians 16:13… Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
Matthew 24:42… Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.
Galatians 5:1… It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
1 Kings 2:2… I am going the way of all the earth. So be strong, and prove yourself a man.
1 Corinthians 16:13 is A GREAT CHRISTIAN “TETRAD” FOR ALL GOD’S CHILDREN
Tetrad describes a set of four things, especially four things regarded as a similar object or thought.
*Be on the alert, *stand firm in the faith, *act like men, *be strong.
This great exhortation from Paul to the Corinthians who needed correction has four “staccato-like” commands, each one in the present imperative…
The present imperative being: Continually or habitually follow this command! The Present Imperative is often a call to a long-term commitment and calls for the attitude or action to be one’s continual way of life (lifestyle)… giving four “opportunities” (necessities) to depend on the Holy Spirit to obey.
These four exhortations have a military tone.
• Believers must be as sentinels on guard, they must maintain their position, they must manifest courage, and must become strong.
And the exhortations were evidently needed, against insensibility to spiritual dangers, against desertion from the truth, against moral weakening.
The Corinthian church was replete with problems.
Paul had sent spiritual leaders and teachers among them with mixed results.
He now gives a few final exhortations which are concise but poignant.
In simple words, Paul is telling the Corinthian Christians to grow up and behave like men.
Paul’s commands were not merely to be memorized or written down—they were meant to be put into practice immediately and lived out continually.
So… Let’s look at our 1st command for victorious living:
BE ON THE ALERT!
WAKE UP!
Be on the alert… Greek verb: gregoreuo (gray-gor-yoo’-o) (be on guard, be watchful, be vigilant, stay awake spiritually, watch out)
Matthew Henry on Be on the alert… “That they should watch (KJV), be wakeful and upon their guard. A Christian is always in danger, and therefore should ever be on the watch; but the danger is greater at some times and under some circumstances. The Corinthians were in manifest danger upon many accounts: their feuds ran high, the irregularities among them were very great, there were deceivers among them, who endeavored to corrupt their faith in the most important articles, those without which the practice of virtue and piety could never subsist. And surely in such dangerous circumstances it was their concern to watch. If a Christian would be secure, he must be on his or her guard; and the more his or her danger the greater vigilance is needful for security.”
We are to be watchful and ready to respond to external influences, focused, alert for the winds of temptation or overt attacks of evil.
The first use of gregoreuo (gray-gor-yoo’-o) by our Lord is in relation to His Second Coming.
• Matthew 24:42… “Therefore be on the alert (gregoreuo (graygor-yoo’-o) is in the (present imperative: make this your lifestyle), for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.
He wants us to be alert for we do not know the hour when He will return, but we know He will return.
Most of the NT uses are in reference to the Christians’ being spiritually awake and alert, as opposed to being spiritually indifferent and listless.
1 Peter 5:8… Be of sober spirit (aorist imperative): Calls for a SPECIFIC, DEFINITE, DECISIVE choice. “DO THIS NOW, AT ONCE, ONCE FOR ALL and in one quick action (in contrast to present imperative which commands a habitual action). Often expresses a note of URGENCY.), be on the alert (gregoreuo – present imperative: habitually follow this command!) (WHY???). Your adversary, the devil, (present tense – continually) prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Yes, we can cast the burden of our anxiety and cares on God, but we are not absolved of the duty to remain sober and watchful.
God’s Spirit will enable us to carry out both of these commands but we are ultimately responsible to carry them out in loving obedience.
To sum up all of the commands given to us in the NT (of which there are in the range of 1000!), believers are 100% dependent and 100% responsible to obey!
Peter is saying you must “Do this now. Keep your head clear!”
So… Be of Sober Spirit… Be on the Alert!
Let’s look at our 2nd command for victorious living:
STAND FIRM IN THE FAITH!
Paul had warned of the danger of prideful “standing” writing “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed (present imperative: Continually, habitually follow this command!) see that he does not fall..” (1 Cor 10:12)
In giving the “definition” of the Gospel Paul alluded to “standing” in 1 Corinthians 15:1-2… “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, (perfect tense: ACTION COMPLETED at a SPECIFIC POINT of TIME in PAST (●) with results CONTINUING into the PRESENT) (So they took their stand by grace through faith and still standing) 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.”
Stand firm (be unmoved) in the faith… Make this the habit of your life.
The only way to “stand firm” is to be standing on a rock solid, unshakeable foundation and here the foundation is the faith, not subjective faith (believing) but objective faith (the object believed)
“The faith of which Paul speaks here is not the faith of trusting but the faith of truth, the content of the gospel.” (MacArthur)
Indeed, most often in the NT, the faith refers to the sound Christian doctrine, especially the Gospel.
Paul had just written “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand (perfect tense = your state) ” (1 Cor 15:1)
In other words…Paul is saying in essence keep standing firm in the Gospel of your salvation.
The Gospel saved you in the past (justification – past tense salvation), it continues to save you daily (progressive sanctification) and will “save” you into Heaven (glorification – future tense salvation) when you receive your new resurrection body.
In sum, the faith refers not to the ACT of believing but rather to WHAT is believed.
The phrase stand firm has three modifiers in the NT and all are critical if one is to stand firm…
(1) stand firm in the faith (1 Cor 16:13),
(2) standing firm in the Spirit (Php 1:27+)
(3) stand firm in the Lord (Php 4:1+, 1 Th 3:8+).
Matthew Henry on “Stand firm in the faith… Keep your ground, adhere to the revelation of God, and not give it up for the wisdom of the world, nor suffer oneself to be corrupted by it. Stand for the faith of the gospel and maintain it even to death; and stand in it, so as to abide in the profession of it, and feel and yield to its influence. A Christian should be fixed in the faith of the gospel, and never desert nor renounce it.
Galatians 5:1… It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm (present imperative calling for us to depend on the Holy Spirit to obey) and do not be subject (present
imperative with a negative) again to a yoke of slavery.
• Present imperative with a negative… ‘’STOP an action which is already going on’’. CEASE an act in progress. Keep on refusing to do this and/or, stop doing this if it has already started!
John MacArthur… “Satan cannot take saving faith away from us, but he can, and often does, obscure the content of our faith, the sound doctrines of God’s Word. If we do not hold fast to right interpretations of Scripture, we are certain to slip into wrong thinking, wrong belief, and wrong behavior.”
Here is an illustration of a man who was standing firm… At the height of WWII, Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was imprisoned for taking a stand against Hitler. Yet he continued to urge fellow believers to resist Nazi tyranny. A group of Christians, believing that Hitler was the Antichrist, asked Bonhoeffer, “Why do you expose yourself to all this danger? Jesus will return any day, and all your work and suffering will be for nothing.” Bonhoeffer replied, “If Jesus returns tomorrow, then tomorrow I’ll rest from my labor. But today I have work to do. I must continue the struggle until it’s finished.
Let’s look at our 3rd command for victorious living:
ACT LIKE MEN!
GROW UP!
Act like men… This command is “short hand” for “Grow up,” stop acting like little children!
The thought is for them (enabled by the Spirit) to be courageous like men as opposed to little children, which is how Paul had characterized many of them (this was when he was actually present with them the first time) writing they were “men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.” (1Cor 3:1).
And in 1 Corinthians 14:20 Paul had written “Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.”
They, the Corinthians, needed to set aside their fussiness, whining, and complaining and instead progress toward maturity in Christ, but they had failed to shed their dependence on the blankies, bottles, and binkies that had soothed them in their baby Christian days.
These “props” of comfort were closely connected to the secular world around them.
How easy it was for them to slip back into the secular crib of their infancy rather than learn to walk on their own two feet by the grace of God and through the power of the Spirit!
Matthew Henry on Act like men… “Act the manly, firm, and resolved part: behave strenuously, in opposition to the bad men who would divide and corrupt you, those who would split you into factions or seduce you from the faith: be not terrified nor inveigled won over by by them; but show yourselves men in Christ, by your steadiness, by your sound judgment and firm resolution. Christians should be manly and firm in all their contests with their enemies, in defending their faith, and maintaining their integrity.”
Act like men … andrizo… act in a valiant or courageous way, be brave, conduct oneself in a courageous way, behave oneself (middle voice) with the wisdom and courage of a man, as opposed to a babe or child in Christ.
LISTEN… Sexual immorality, relentless assault of feminism, overexposure to perversion, complete collapse of homes has just produced generations of bad fathers.
And the reality is nothing is more devastating to a society than that, nothing.
And on the other hand, the only hope for stability and the only hope for sanity, the only hope for peace in a society is masculine, virtuous men.
Evil abounds absolutely everywhere. How men respond to its presence determines the survival and well-being of a society.
No culture will ever rise above the character of its men.
Courage is the stock-in-trade of a man: courage in the face of danger, courage in the face of temptation, courage in the face of loss, couragein the face of suffering.
There’s nothing more manly than a man with consummate conviction, courage, and endurance, who is marked by love.
That’s a man – not weak, not vacillating, not fearful.
Let’s look at our 4th command for victorious living:
BE STRONG!
Paul taught that one should pray for spiritual strengthening even as he prayed for the saints in Ephesus asking the Father to “grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man (Eph 3:16).
Be strong… Paul is calling for spiritual, not physical strengthening.
In the physical world one might lift weights and so strengthen themselves, but in the spiritual world, believers cannot strengthen themselves for that task belongs solely to the Lord!
However, don’t forget that believers do have a role/responsibility in this spiritual strengthening… we are not just to “Let go and let God”.
The believer’s “job” is to submit [yield, surrender] himself or herself to God’s Spirit [believers can resist, quench and grieve the Spirit] in order for Him to strengthen us.
The Greek verb passive voice of ‘Be Strong’ conveys the idea that the SUBJECT is being ACTED UPON by an OUTSIDE force or power.
• SUBJECT is the RECIPIENT or the RECEIVER of the verbal action or effect.
• In English passive voice is usually indicated by the phrase “to be”.
So, with that in mind let’s look at this verse in 2 Timothy 2:1… “We can only “be [passive voice] strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might” , and “be [passive voice] strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus”
“The strength to obey the Lord is not connected to an Olympian physique. It comes by the power of God to the inner person—the unseen character, attitudes, affections, and passions that drive us toward the good and away from the bad.”
In Philippians 2:13… Paul lets us in on a secret about the inner power that transforms our outer lifestyle: “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”
Our responsibility is to take on the world’s challenges with strength,but we must do so knowing that our strength comes from the Lord, not from ourselves.
The person who thinks he is strong in himself is in the greatest danger of falling (1 Cor 10:12)….The supreme source of all spiritual strength, of course, is Christ Himself. “I can do all things through Him Who (present tense… continually) strengthens (endunamoo, (en-doo-nam-o’-o) me.”
In closing…
Psalm 27:14… Wait for the LORD; Be strong (act like a man!) and let your heart take courage, be strengthened in your heart.
Psalm 31:24… Be strong and let your heart take courage, All you who hope in the LORD.
*Be on the alert, *stand firm in the faith, *act like men, *be strong!
Welcome to this first message on the life of David, but we have to warn you that if you grew up just hearing about his stories in Sunday School, then this adult version may be a whole lot different than what you expect. David will not turn out to be the hero in this story, but rather a living example of how our pride, passions, and priorities can lead us far from the life that we desire the most. Sermon begins at 11:19.
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There are two things that can get us down in life: our own sin and the actions of others. This chapter is going to give us a detailed account of how to find success with both.
www.northcoastcurch.com.
Discouragement creeps up on the best of us. It’s lurking in the corners of a promotion. It’s hiding in the shadows of being passed over. It’s slinking through the bends of an unknown future. It’s ever-present, but it is not all-powerful. It’s all around us, but it is what defines us.
What is this thing we call discouragement?
A basic definition for this word is to lose heart.
A practical way to think about it is by watching America’s team, the Cowboys. Season after season, we watch “them Cowboys,” and, bless their hearts, they let us down again and again. Well, perhaps discouragement isn’t like watching the Cowboys, but at least we can say it is similar.
What’s a biblical way to process this emotion we all face at some point in time?
A good example is the Old Testament prophet Elijah.
In 1 Kings 18, he prevailed over the prophets of Baal as God miraculously acted on his behalf. To everyone’s incredible bewilderment, fire came down from heaven and consumed his water-logged altar.
Previously, he had prayed, “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again” (1 Kings 18:37). A simple prayer that the people might know God. And, God responds.
Following God’s supernatural act, the people “…fell on their faces; and they said, ‘The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God’” (1 Kings 18:39b).
A direct and immediate answer to prayer! Glory!
But the story doesn’t end there. Immediately after this demonstration of power, Elijah flees to the wilderness in fear for his life after he hears that Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, threatened his life by saying, “So may the gods do to me and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time” (1 Kings 19:2b).
One day he, with a strong heart, faces the prophets of Baal; the next day, he loses heart and runs for his life.
What happened?
Elijah was suffering from what many of us suffer from today—misunderstood usefulness.
Notice how Elijah’s exchange with God, he said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10).
Elijah is focusing on the “incredible things” “he” has “done” for the Lord.
God response? Show him incredible things (1) by rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks, (2) an earthquake, (3) a fire, and finally (4) a gentle blowing.
From the gentle whisper is where God speaks to Elijah. It wasn’t the magnificent manifestations but the everyday simplicity of a still small voice.
Elijah needed to understand that his usefulness to God was not bound up in what he did for God but in his nearness to God.
To this point, Oswald Chambers says, “The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.”1
The application?
- Don’t confuse busyness in good things for linear growth in grace.
- Don’t replace knowing God with doing things for God.
- May we say with the apostle Paul:
- “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service…” (1 Timothy 1:12)
Amen!
www.staffandstones.com.
All of us realize that we live in a broken world that is not getting any better, yet few of us are doing something ahead of time to prepare for when that brokenness hits us. Today’s two passages shed some incredible insight on what we need to do to prepare for the bad days that are sure to come.
www.northcoastchurch.com.
“Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal,” said Thomas Moore. But if that is true, why don’t we think more about heaven? Why do we only think and talk about heaven at funerals? How can the reality of our future home motivate our activities right now? If you were to think about your life in terms of chronology, how much time do you have left on earth? Let’s look at three categories of truth that will help us aim at heaven while we are living on earth.
www.skipheitzig.com.
Let’s talk about sharing our faith at work. The big point of our series is that our work itself matters to God and is part of his creation and redemption mandate. It’s not that our job doesn’t really matter, except that it is a platform to share our faith. Our work itself is part of our divine calling and therefore doing it well glorifies God and represents him well to others. All that is true. It is also true that work provides maybe the best opportunity to impact other people spiritually because most of that happens through relationships and most of our relationships develop at work.
Whether you know Jesus or not, you are on a spiritual journey or you wouldn’t be here. We all have a story to tell and if we are compassionate at all would love for other people to know how they could know Jesus, find transformation and meaning in a relationship with him, and know real hope. If we are loving at all, we realize we can’t just keep this to ourselves, and many of us know that we are in fact commanded in the New Testament to actively share that good news with others. Most people who become Jesus followers do so through a relationship with someone who is already a Christian, which is probably your story. That’s significant when we talk about work because most people develop their friendships with people they work with every day. So, how can we develop relationships in a way that can help other people in their journey?
That can be a challenging question, because we have all probably experienced well-meaning Christians in the workplace that did more harm than good by coming on too strong. I recently read an article referred to me by a pastor buddy in Boston, written by a Jewish lady about an overly zealous Christian coworker, where she says, “He’s the nicest person in the world but has the unfortunate habit of using the workplace as a recruiting center. When he approached me to discuss religion, I mentioned that I was Jewish. Big mistake. His face lit up, and I came to find out that converting Jews was his personal mission. I couldn’t get up without finding a religious tract on my desk when I came back. After many attempts at conversion, I finally convinced him that I was happy with my religion and nothing he said would change it. He reluctantly moved on and now tries his hand with our clients.” She entitled her article, “Keep the Faith, but Keep it on your Side of the Cubicle.”
We don’t want to be that girl or that guy, which can lead us to another mistake—just going completely silent and dark about our faith in the workplace. We hide our light so to speak rather than letting it shine, and just hope something good happens anyway. This is especially tempting because we don’t want to violate boundaries in the workplace in such a way where we could get fired or where we are just seen as a problem. We can easily become paralyzed in the workplace as Christians and hide the most important part of our lives.
It’s a little like goldilocks, one porridge too hot and the other too cold. What would “just right” look like? The great news is that the New Testament talks about this quite a bit, how we as Christians can influence and live out our faith in attractive way everywhere we are in culture, including work. Collectively as a church, we are told to create irresistible influence by doing good, by being the most loving and inclusive people on the planet, that creates curiosity and interest in our message. Individually as Christians wherever God places us, we are compelled to do the same—to be people of irresistible influence, to live such attractive lives as transforming Jesus followers that others are drawn to us and to the good news that is transforming our lives.
A great friend and fellow leader here at Chase Oaks, Mike Hogan, terms this in such a helpful way as creating pull, not push. If we as Christians try to push people toward our faith, by being loud and pushy, insisting on our own rights, sharing even when people don’t want to hear what we have to say, become argumentative and disrespectful, then we shouldn’t be surprised when people recoil. If you push me, I’m either going to stand my ground or push back. Nobody likes to be pushed (play with this?). Creating pull is what the New Testament tells us to do and is way more effective. It is living our lives in such a way that draws people toward us, creates curiosity and interest in what we believe. The NT talks a lot about this, and once we understand that God has placed us where we are on purpose, to be a light, then we must ask, “How do I do that? How can I live around people at work in such a way that creates pull?”
We are going to start with Paul talking to Christians in 1 Thessalonians 4, where he lays it out so clearly:
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anyone.”
The first phrase is such a powerful one, “Make it your ambition.” For those of us who are goal-oriented, we perk up with a phrase like that. “Make it your ambition—” a good strong command, and I’m ready to do whatever is next. Coach, put me in the game, and tell me what to do. “Make it your ambition”—okay I’m ready. But what comes next sounds so deflating, “Make it your ambition…to lead a quiet life…” What? That sounds like non-ambition. Try super hard to do nothing. But it isn’t nothing. A quietly attractive life takes tremendous intentionality and restraint. It is also very powerful.
He is saying we don’t have to be loud and proud in the workplace with our faith. We shouldn’t be pushy and rude. Instead, we create pull by doing our work well and by living our daily lives in a way that creates respect.
Quality work and an attractive daily life. Let’s talk about doing our work well, the quality of our work first. We’ve already seen in this series that our work matters to God, and that ultimately, we work for him and are called therefore to do our work excellently because it honors him. We should be the best workers at work because of that, but also because of this—by doing so we win the respect of outsiders.
It should be that when a hiring manager finds out the person they hired is a Christian, they feel like they just won the lottery, that they would say quietly to another manager, “Hey, I know this may be inappropriate to consider faith in the workplace, but I just found out the person I hired last week is a Christian,” and that the other would say, “Oh man! No fair! You always get so lucky. Those people are the best!”
With all the difficulties in the workplace over the last few years, the new trend replacing the great recession is quiet quitting, where instead of leaving your job, you just do the bare minimum and quietly skate by and stay under the radar. That is not what Paul is advocating. He is advocating quietly knocking it out of the park, doing your work so well that it wins the respect of others.
This is also true of Christian businesses, of course. It’s like when people put a fish sticker on the back of the car, or a church sticker like we have for Chase Oaks, remember that when you are on the road. Don’t be a jerk, and don’t drive slow in the left lane. The left lane is called a passing lane, so if you aren’t passing then don’t be in that lane—especially with a fish sticker. Represent Jesus well if you put a fish or Christian bumper sticker on your car. That’s even more true for those who let others know that your business is a Christian one. When I had just graduated from college, I was spending time with some high school friends who were a few years older than me and had been working a career for a few years. One of those, Don, was telling a story how he had just hired painters to paint his house, and that he had chosen them because they were called “The Christian Painters.” This was before Google reviews, when we still used these things called phone books and you made choices by looking at the yellow pages. So many of you are giving me blank looks because you have no idea what I’m talking about. But that’s the way things were before the internet. He had chosen them out of the yellow pages because of the name. Someone else in the group, who was not a Christian, immediately blurted out, “Oh no! They call themselves Christian? They didn’t also have a fish on their ad, did they?” Don said, “They did! It’s part of why I chose them.” Everybody laughed, without even knowing what had happened, and that same guy, “Oh man, I hope it worked out, but you have to beware of the fish. Any time you see the fish, run away and choose somebody else.” Don then shared, “Well, I wish you would have told me that sooner, because the guy had a sob story and asked for most of the money up front, and I have never seen him again, and he isn’t answering his phone.” This was not a very compassionate group of friends, so laughter erupted even louder, as people kept saying, “Burned by the fish!” How sad is that! We should win people’s respect and win a hearing by being the best of workers and the best of businesses. We don’t just represent us. We represent Him.
The same is true when it comes to how we live our daily lives. Remember quality work and attractive daily lives—let’s talk about our daily lives around our coworkers. Our social media team just did a survey of what my dream job would be if it wasn’t doing what I already do, and I said a professional skier—to get paid to travel to the best ski destinations in the world. Not realistic, but dreams don’t have to be realistic, right? My brother-in-law is a sales rep for Salomon skis, which does mean that I get good deals on ski equipment. But my real goal is to be officially sponsored by Salomon, to be a brand ambassador. That’s not realistic either because I’m not very good, but I love the thought of it.
I am, however, a brand ambassador, and so are you if you are a Jesus follower. We represent Jesus, and how people experience us will determine in large part what they think about him. The NT actually gives us that job, as we just read. Our daily lives will either attract people to Jesus or distract them from Jesus. In Titus 2, Paul commanded the Thessalonians that they should live out their faith in the workplace in such a way that:
SLIDE______________________) Titus 2:10
“Then they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive in every way.”
Titus 2 is all about how we in all spheres of life with outsiders should realize that we are brand ambassadors, that what people experience from us will either attract or distract people from Jesus.
I was significantly impacted as a teenager reading the biography of Sheldon Van Auken, an atheist student at Oxford who came to know Jesus while in contact with professor C.S. Lewis and other Christians at the university who won him over through exemplary lives. In one of his journal entries early in that spiritual journey, he wrote:
“The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians – when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.[1]”
– Sheldon Van Auken
As a new believer with mostly non-believing friends in my high school, I realized my job to represent Jesus as best I could, because the way people experienced me would either make them more open or closed to all that he wanted for them. That is true for all of us, however we interact with people outside the faith—certainly those at work.
We should intentionally be the most loving, humble, respectful, compassionate, helpful, and gracious people at work because we represent the brand of Jesus. When we pull that off, it makes people curious in a good way about what makes us tick. Our daily lives can create pull.
And then what? Peter, talking to Christians living in Rome, tells us what will happen and what our responsibility is. Creating pull with an attractive life will create conversations and opportunities. He says,
1 Peter 3:15-16
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.”
You and I are not on our own at work when it comes to spiritual impact. God is at work, pulling people toward himself, and wants to use you and me in the process. When we live lives that are compelling, as Jesus is transforming us, we will have opportunity to share our faith. That’s why we are told to always be prepared to give an answer when people wonder about the hope that we have.
Hope is a powerful thing. Hope gives us a why that others who don’t know Jesus do not have. Christian hope is what drives us forward, giving us the motivation to live differently by being the most loving people on the planet, to do our work well as unto the Lord, to be here for good people. So, when we love in ways that are remarkable or serve in ways that are sacrificial or work in ways that are above and beyond the normal or converse in ways that are remarkably respectful, don’t be surprised when people find all that surprising enough to become curious about what makes us tick or to come to us when they have spiritual questions.
That’s also true when we or others around us encounter the inevitable difficulties of life in a broken world. Our hope is not based in circumstances, but in the God above the circumstances, which is a surprising kind of hope. When we go through difficulties with hope in God, there is a strength even in our grief that is surprising to people who don’t have that hope. How can you keep going? How can you be so strong?
We create pull by quality work and attractive daily lives, enough that we need to be ready for those spiritual conversations to happen. That’s what Peter says, “Be ready!” But what does that mean? How can we be ready?
Let’s talk about being prepared and how we can share our faith when people want to hear about it or when people come to us in tough times for support. When someone says, “How can you always stay so positive in a work environment like this?” You could say something like, “Oh, I believe that God placed me here and that what we do really matters to make our world function the way that he intended, so even when work becomes difficult, it helps me to tap into that higher purpose.” Someone might say, “How can you keep treating customers, even rude ones, with such respect and patience?” You could say something like, “Oh, I believe every human is made in God’s image and worthy of respect always, and when people are at their worst, it’s an opportunity to show some love to someone who must be hurting in other areas of life.”
How about when people come to you in difficult times for support? Christians are still in our culture the go-to people when life gets hard, because we have a hope that is above circumstances. When conversations happen with people who are struggling, it’s perfectly okay to offer to pray for them. And if they wonder how you can be so strong, you can say someth8ng like, “Oh, I’m not strong. But fortunately, God is, and he is with me in all that I go through. Without him, I’d be a total basket case.”
That may open up more conversation and opportunity to invite someone to your small group where you find support, to invite them to take a step on their spiritual journey by joining you at church. Surveys of non-churched people consistently show that they would be open to going to church if someone they respected invited them…but hardly any of them have ever been invited. It’s how Philip, one of the twelve disciples, invited Nathaniel, a friend of his who would also become one of the twelve. Nathaniel was curious but had a lot of doubts and questions. Instead of debating him, Philip just said, “Come and see!” and brought him to Jesus. We design our church services to be come and see environments where we can easily invite those who don’t know Jesus yet and are curious. It’s one way they can encounter Jesus too.
You should also be prepared to share with someone how they can begin a relationship with God because of what Jesus did. He came here to take away the guilt of our sin by dying on the cross and being raised from the dead. He wants to not only forgive us but to be in a relationship with us that changes our lives. He invites us into a relationship with him that transforms us from the inside out. I think the best way to about that is to share your story of how you began a relationship with Jesus and the difference it has made in your life. It is not so threatening to share your story, because it is your story. You aren’t saying, “I’m right and you are wrong in what you believe.” You are simply saying, “This is what has happened to me, and why I’m so thankful to have found connection with God through Jesus, because it has made all the difference.” This fall we are doing Chase Oaks Road Shows at each campus, where a traveling group of facilitators will be showing up for a couple of weeks to offer classes designed to give us more confidence and skill in life, including this one. One of the topics will be how to share your story in an effective way.
That’s so important. You may have heard a quote by an ancient saint, Francis of Assisi, that says,
“Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.”
– Saint Frances of Assisi
Even if you haven’t heard it, it sounds really good. There are two problems with the quote though. One, he never said it. And two, it’s not true. Yes, just as Paul has instructed us and we’ve shared in this sermon, respectable lives are the most important witness of the reality of Jesus. But that doesn’t mean that words don’t matter. At some point, words are necessary to help someone understand what Jesus is offering them. Like Paul said in Romans,
Romans 10:13-14
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?”
How will they know if they don’t hear? How can they hear if we don’t use words? So be prepared to tell your story, like a before and after story, and if you aren’t, then the roadshow is designed to equip you to do so.
Our work itself matters to God, and therefore we should do it well in a way that glorifies him and helps others flourish. Our work also, because we spend so much time there, is usually our most strategic place to represent Jesus in such a way that we can help others know about him. So, let’s go back to work with this thought in mind, that we are there to win the respect of others, to love people with no strings attached and do our work well and treat people with respect, so much so that it creates spiritual pull. Imagine how exciting it would be to help someone in their spiritual journey, wherever you are at in your own. Imagine what it would be like to help lead one or two or ten others around you to a relationship with Jesus and sharing that journey with them? Imagine if all of us Chase Oakers, about 10,000 or so, started doing work the way we have talked about it in this series, how with that critical mass we could actually lift the whole experience of work for others?
Let’s ask God to help us be his people in the workplace in a way that can make a real difference. Let’s do our work well, live increasingly attractive lives as he is transforming us, and always be ready to share our story and the reason for our hope when people want to hear about it or come to us for perspective. He will help us do that, because he will always empower us to do what he commands us to do.
[1] Sheldon Van Auken, A Severe Mercy
Enoch learned to have heaven on earth, so it was an easy transition when God decided to take him right up to heaven. Transitioning to the eternal in death is easy when we’ve already made altars to give meaning into our lives. Who do you know who died well? Ponder why.
www.casaschurch.org.
Are you over 40, nearing 40 or on your way to 40, then you are part of the Caleb Generation. Caleb, on the brink of the promise land, at 85 years old said, “I was 45 years old when God sent me to survey the land…and here I am 85 years old and I’m still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out. I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now, give me my mountain.”
In the Caleb Generation series, you will be inspired to keep going on for God with a youthful, Caleb-like spirit. This teaching candidly and insightfully explores what it means to be part of the Caleb Generation in the 21st Century. Most importantly, it expresses, that those in the Caleb Generation must realize their day is not over. They must keep on playing and keep on fighting because they give faith and courage to the next generation through their wisdom and encouragement.
Transcript
Let’s all go to Joshua chapter 14, verse 6. Everybody say Joshua. Look at what the Bible says here. We’re going to read. I am starting a new series and it is called the “Caleb Generation.” It says in verse 6, the men of Judah approached Joshua in GilGal. “‘You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my brothers who went out with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘the land which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.’ ‘Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five more years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I am just as vigorous'” everybody say just as vigorous “‘to go out to battle now as I was then.'” Now give me my mountain. “‘Give me this hill country that the Lord has promised me. You yourself heard that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, with the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.'” What an amazing passage of scripture here. We read about a man whose name is Caleb and Caleb was forty when Moses sent Joshua and Caleb out to spy out the lands. Is that right? We know they wondered in the desert for forty years and now they are on the verge of break through and Moses sends Joshua and Caleb. I want you to notice that Caleb in this text is talking to Joshua. Moses does not exist anymore but Joshua is the leader. And he says Joshua, you yourself know that when I was forty you and I, along with others, were sent out to spy out the lands but when I brought back a report according to my convictions but my brothers who came with me made the people’s hearts melt with fear. So back out in the desert, another forty-five years and now we are coming back in forty-five years later. And here Caleb says I am as strong now as I was when I was forty. How many believe in God for that kind of strength in your life? I am just as vigorous and ready and willing and able to go to battle now as when I was forty. So I want to speak to our church about a Caleb Generation. I
wonder how many people here this morning are over the age of forty. Could I just see your hand for a moment here? Do not be afraid. It is ok. You are in good company. I am over forty. Praise the Lord. I want to speak to the Caleb Generation. Cal was reminding me several years ago it was when Cal first really came on team here as he came back from Bible college and he came in as an intern. And on two occasions, once when we were in a pastor’s conference and one of the pastors was dissing Cal because of his tattoos and because of his long hair and because of his earrings. And the pastor just basically really insulted Cal. I would not repeat publically what he said. You would not think a pastor would say it. And then another time, right here in Wave Church somebody walked up to Cal and said, now that you are a pastor, you really need to get rid of your earring, you need to get your hair cut and you need to start dressing like you are a pastor. Cal reminded me of this story. I forgot about it. He said Steve, that’s what they say. What do you say? And I will not tell you exactly what I said but I will tell you I said something along the lines of, tell them to go to blazes. I like you just the way you are. And I do not want you to feel like you Amen? And one of the reasons why I think we see just a great age difference and spread of ages in our church it is not just because we have young people. It is because we have a Caleb Generation that actually cheers on the next generation. And the reason why young people will come to a house like this is because there are people in this house who are of a Caleb age, who have a Caleb spirit and who have a Caleb mentality where we are still going for God and cheering on the next generation. But let me tell you something, one sure way to keep young people out of a church is to have a bunch of mean, old, cranky people in it. Come on, somebody say amen. Get your hair cut. Get your earrings out. I kind of like some of those things, to tell you the truth. Maybe I am the problem here. Praise the Lord. Or maybe there is not a problem at all. All right. I want to give you a few examples of people who are later in life, at that Caleb age. I want to speak to the Caleb people. Now anyone who is not yet forty, this message is for you. It is coming. You are on your way. Amen. But you can still learn from it. Smith Wigglesworth began his ministry at the age of forty-eight. If you do not know who Smith Wigglesworth is, you need to read about that guy. He is one of the most outstanding men of God, I think, literally in world history. But he only began his ministry at the age of forty-eight. How many of you have heard of Grandma Moses? She started her art career at the age of eighty. How about Ray Crock who initiated McDonald’s and the expansion of McDonald’s? Fifty-two years of age he was when he got that going. Sam Walton who owns Walmart, he started that at the age of forty-three. George Foreman won the heavyweight crown at the age of forty-five. I still have a year to go before I can go for my heavyweight crown. C.S. Lewis began writing the “Chronicles of Narnia” at the age of fifty-one. Tolkien began writing the “Lord of the Rings” at the age of forty-five. Wally Amos started his cookie company at the age of forty. Ulysses S. Grant, this one is amazing, forty when he left retirement for the Civil War. After a successful military career Grant resigned at the age of thirty-two. And then after dealing with drunkenness, depression and working in several menial civilian jobs, it was not until he was the age of forty that he was appointed the Governor of Illinois. And to lead an unruly volunteer regiment that was the onset of the Civil War. The rest is history. Forty years of age. Alex Haley published “The Saga of the American Family Roots” at the age of fifty-five. Henry Ford started his motor company at the age of forty. Come on, Caleb Generation, what are you doing? We are just trying to get to retirement. Well look here, Mary K. Ash started Mary Kay at the age of forty-five. Mother Teresa was forty when she started Missionaries of Charity. Ronald Reagan was in his fifties when he started his real political career. Vince Lombardi was forty-five when he got the coaching job of the Green Bay Packers.
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General George Patton was sixty when he took over command of the second armor division. That is awesome. Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest man ever to hold office as President at the ripe young age of forty-three. Michael Angelo was forty when he celebrated the sculpture of Moses. Leonardo da Vinci was in his forties when he did The Last Supper and his fifties when he completed Mona Lisa. Claude Monet was in his sixties when he did the Water Lillies painting. Neil Armstrong was sixteen days from his fortieth birthday when he stepped onto the Moon. I am telling you, the best is still yet to come for you, my friends. And here is Caleb and he is going come on, I was forty when Moses sent me in to spy out the land so we could come back and do battle, we could come back and figure out how to possess this land. And now here I am, eighty-five years of age. I am here today to speak to the Caleb Generation. Come on, your day is not over. You have to keep on playing. You have to keep on fighting. There is more for you to do. You can get a little more excited than that. Amen. Here is the key; you have to realize that you have to keep on playing. You have to keep on getting on the field. Somebody say amen. You cannot just give up. When we champion the cause in the next generation it does not mean we stop playing. It means we keep running our race and cheering on the next generation. We give that next generation faith and courage because we are older and we are wiser. Hopefully, in Jesus’ name.
I just want to give you a few keys here of what a Caleb person looks like, a Caleb Generation Christian in the 21st century looks like. Are you ready for it? Have a look at verse 7. It says, I was sent to spy out the land. “‘I was forty-five years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Bardea to explore the land.'” Or if you like, to spy out the land. In other words, he was sent to spy out the land, to bring back a report of how we can do battle against these giants. Have you got it? Here is the first key of a Caleb Generation. You have to know how to fight your battles. You have to plan your battles. You have to know which battles to fight. Do not be one of those Christians who are fighting everyone else’s battles that are not really your battles. Do not get one of those warfare mentalities where you are at war with everybody. Do not be one of those old shriveled up kind of people. And I do not mean old in the sense age is an attitude. Do not be one of those people who fight their neighbors about the blade of grass that they cut that is your blade of grass. There are some people who the only thing they have to do with their lives is to get on the street with radar guns to try and figure out how fast people are going in the neighborhood. Get a life. Amen. Do not get me wrong, I am not encouraging people to speed in places where they should not be speeding. But if your whole world is shriveled down to your little house and your little territory and defending what you have, you need to get out more. You need to get a bigger life. Plan your battles. There are kingdom causes, kingdom battles that we should be fighting. We should not be fighting battles like people’s hair and whether someone has an earring. Those are stupid battles to be fighting in the first place. Just a few weeks ago I was at a soccer game and I heard one of the dad’s talking to the other dad’s how many of you know I listen to other people’s conversations? How many of you have figured that out by now? I do all the time. I cannot help myself. I could be listening with this ear to what someone is saying that I am sitting with and with this other ear I am ambidextrous hearing. Just on Saturday I was at Sunrise Cafe having breakfast and I heard these men, young men I am always interested in what young people are talking about. So I listen very carefully. They were sitting there talking about how much they hate church. They had such a hatred for church. I will not name the name of the church in this area that they
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named but I can tell you that they did not have good things to say about it. And can I just tell you, here are these young men and I am thinking God, help us be the kind of church that people can come into and just love. This dad that is my age, maybe a bit older, was talking to another dad. I was sitting back a couple of seats and he was talking about, can you believe my pastor now wants us to give money so we can build more parking spaces in the parking lot? He said, how insensitive is our pastor? Does he not know about the rising price of gas and we are just barely trying to get by and here he is who does he think he is asking us to give more money to make more parking spaces? Now here is a guy who is fighting the wrong battle. I bit my tongue. That is when the spirit of slap gets on me. Here you are concerned about the rising price of gas and you are worried that your pastor is not concerned about the rising price of gas. He is giving you a way and a means to prosper. If you build God’s house, he will build your house. And here is a guy that is fighting the wrong battle. He should be joining with his pastor. He should not be fighting the purposes of God. He should be fighting with those things and for those things. A Caleb Generation are people who plan their battles. Have your leader send you to war. And I believe that is what that pastor was doing. He was sending his church to war. We were going to war against no growth. We are going to make more parking spaces so more people can come. We are going to war. And the leader was sending them to war just like Moses was sending Caleb to war. How so are people being sent? With a kingdom cause to battle. You have to plan your fights. You have to plan your battles. You have to make sure you are not fighting the wrong battles and giving all of your strength and focus and energy to things that at the end of the day do not have any kingdom consequence. Come on, somebody say amen. There are enough wars to fight without starting wars we are never called to go to. Amen? Give your energy and your wisdom to kingdom cause. Who can say amen? Number one, a Caleb Generation person is someone who plans their battles. I cannot tell you how many people have tried to get me involved in their battles. I could not even begin to tell you how many people would love to involve me in their battles. Jesus one time, when two brothers came fighting over an inheritance and they asked Jesus to sort it out, even Jesus would not get involved in that. And there are some battles I just do not get involved in. Someone says, can you come with me to talk to this person because they have really upset me and I really want to have it out with them? Then I go, have you talked to them? And they say no. So then I say I am not going to do it. The Bible says if anyone has something against their brother, go to them. It does not say go to the pastor and get the pastor involved in every single dispute. Well he’s so hard to talk to. I am sorry. Did Jesus say, unless he is hard to talk to? No, you go to him. And then is says then if you do not win him then you take a brother. Then is says then go to the church. I am your last resort, my friends. And of the last resort, I am the last resort. Are you with me here? Because once I am involved, where does someone have to go beyond me at Wave Church? So I will be the last person. But if I get involved, rest assured it is because I need to be. But if I am involved, it is a last resort. Someone say amen. I just want to encourage you, plan your battles. Do not pick up other people’s offenses and other people’s wars.
And this other guy listening to this guy having this conversation is saying yeah, that’s right. And then all of the sudden this guy now has an attitude with a church and the pastor he does not even go to.
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Second thing, look at verse 7 again. It says, so I brought him that’s Moses back a report according to my convictions. I love that, according to my convictions. I brought back him a report according to my convictions. Here is the second thing about a Caleb Generation. Listen to it very carefully. A Caleb Generation has the courage to swim against the tide. Did you hear that? I brought back him a report based on my convictions. Everyone else, except for Joshua, was bringing back a negative report. Everybody else was bringing back a report of defeat and depression and discouragement and it is not going to happen. But hey Joshua, you remember, I brought Moses back a report according to my convictions. I was not listening to what everyone else was saying. I was not going with the tide of popular opinion. I brought back what was in my heart. I believe that God said that we are going to go into the Promise Lands. I saw God, the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day. I saw the hand of God bring us out of Egypt. I saw God bring us through the Red Sea. I saw God provide supernaturally for us with food. I saw God bring water out of a rock. And I believe that if God is able to bring us out of Egypt and strike Pharaoh dead and if God is able to protect us in the desert for forty years then I believe even though there are giants in the land, my conviction was that we can do it. They are but bread for us. We will have them for lunch. They are just a snack. They are just a meal. I do not care how big the giants are, I have convictions that my God is bigger and we are well able to possess the lands. We are well able to do it does not matter the size of the obstacles, we are able to do it. And I am bringing back a report based on what I am convicted about. And I have to tell you, we have to swim against the tide of the naysayers. How many remember a man called Gordon Potter in this church? I remember when I first came to this church nine years ago; he was a big mountain of a man. He is a brute. He was like one of those lumber jack builds. And I remember Gordon was one of the key ushers in our church. He would be involved in church life and leadership and was a great worker, great volunteer. He had a family situation where one of his children was in a wheelchair and they had all sorts of challenges as a result of that. And the family themselves were somewhat vulnerable in a few instances but he was the mainstay. He was the support of that family. And one day I got a phone call and Gordon had fallen off of a ladder and had literally broken his neck and was paralyzed from the neck down. And the only mainstay influence in this family was Gordon. I remember thinking, what do you say to a man whose whole family is really dependent upon his strength and now his strength is gone? What do you say to a man? I will never forget when I went into the hospital to pray for Gordon I am thirty-five years of age and am going to pray for this manly, strapping guy. I am thinking, what am I going to say to this guy? I walked in there and he looked at me and said thanks for coming. And I had been in the church for not long, maybe less than a year. And we were working through changing some culture. And we were working through changing some things in the church. And I remember there were some people who did not like all of the change that was happening. I was going to go visit this guy. And he said, I do not know how I got to be in this place. I do not know how I could end up in this hospital bed. He said, but I tell you this, I am making you a promise. As long as I am alive I guess I have a lot of free time on my hands now that I did not have before. He said, as long as I am alive and as long as I am in this bed I am going to be praying for you, young man, that you will have the courage to keep doing everything that God has put inside your heart to do. Let me tell you Steve, I love what is happening in the church. I love the things that you are doing. He said, I think it is fantastic. I know some people my age have been critics. I know people my age have been naysayers. But I want to tell you Steve, as sure as I lay in this bed paralyzed, I will be praying for you that you will have the
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courage to keep doing what you are doing because we welcome it and I think it is amazing. And there have been some times when I think, God am I ever going to get there? I just remember Gordon and for no other reason the thing that sustained me from time to time was Gordon’s encouragement. This great man who had convictions, who swam against the tide. Come on church. We have to be a Caleb Generation person, have convictions of being positive. God is moving. Your convictions determine your reports. Whatever convictions you have, whatever they are, whatever is in you is what is going to determine what is coming out of you. And here this man, Caleb at the age of eighty-five, I brought him a report based on my convictions.
The third thing about a Caleb Generation is look at verse 8. He said, “‘but my brothers that came with me made the people’s hearts melt with fear.'” Listen, here is a thought: Not everybody that is with you is with you. It is not my point; it is just a thought. Not everybody that is with you is with you. There were others who were with Caleb, brothers, friends, family. My brothers who went with me actually brought back a different report and made the people’s hearts melt with fear. Is that not amazing? Here is Caleb making a statement to Joshua. Joshua, you remember because you were there. You and I were the only two that brought back a report based on our convictions. But here is number three, listen to it very carefully. You have to know the power of negativity. Caleb Generation leaders know the power of negativity. Thank you for the underwhelming response. Listen to this; you have to understand that negativity is one of the greatest killers on the planet today. It is more dangerous than cancer. It is more lethal than drugs. Negativity has the power to destroy faith, progress. Negativity can take faith right out of a person. It can suck the wind right out of you. Like I have said many times, some people are so negative that when you put them in a dark room, they develop. They are just negative. They just see something and think, that cannot be done. And Wave Convention Center, there were people saying, do you honestly believe you can build that building? I am going, yes. We would not be doing it if we did not. Are you with me here? Do you really think that Hampton Roads is an area that is big enough to handle a church that size? That building there is half the size of some of the larger church’s auditoriums. We are just doing multiple centers. Do you really think the population of Hampton Roads can handle another mega church? What I want to say to that guy is, do you really think I am going to let that spirit creep into my mentality and damn Hampton Roads to hell because I just do not have the faith and I am listening to you? I am not going to let that mentality you have to know the power of negativity. Negativity kills courage and faith and sucks the life out of progress. It causes people to stay where they are. And listen, my brothers who went with me be careful who goes with you. As a matter of fact, I challenge you to study this. The twelve spies that Moses sent out, he said bring back a report. When Joshua sent spies into the land, he said this is the report you will bring when you come back. Is that not amazing? There is no negativity coming back here. They are but bread for us. We can take them. I have been out in the desert for forty-five years because of those other people who made their hearts melt with fear. So when you go, I am telling you the report you will give when you come back will be the report I give you before you go. Is that not interesting? Where is my individuality in that? You are not going to go then. He learned something. He did not want to spend another forty-five years out there in the desert and have people’s hearts melt with fear. Sometimes you have to cut off the voice of negativity. Not everybody that is with you is with you.
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Number four, the fourth key to understanding how to be a Caleb Generation, look at what is says in verse 8, the latter part of verse 8. Because I followed the Lord wholeheartedly. I followed the Lord wholeheartedly. Number four, you have to keep your heart in what you are doing. You cannot be a person who ends up going through the motions, just going through the routine. Just been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Some people in a church like ours, if you do not keep your heart in what you are doing you could sit here and think ok Steve, what have you got for me today? You have been so spoiled with such good food and such a good diet that you are sitting there going, let us see if you can even earn and deserve my hearing ear. Can you move me today, preacher? Because I am not in a good mood. Maybe a guest speaker comes in. All right, what have you got? I will decide whether I am even going to listen to you. That kind of person is not going to receive much from God. But you have to keep your heart in what you are doing. When it comes to the worship, ok Bethany, what have you got for us today? Is there a new song? I am going to decide whether or not I am going to praise. What are all of these moving lights? Someone the other day said to Sharon, I went to your church because my kids went to your church. I went to your church and I really liked it. She said, but I have to be honest, it was way too loud. And Sharon went, I will be honest, we love it loud. She just gave it right back to them. Because that was actually quite rude to talk to the pastor’s wife and basically very nicely try to tell Sharon, we do not like the volume. Well excuse me, who do you think you are? So Sharon thought, if you are going to be that rude I am going to be that rude right back to you. I am going to put it right back at you just as nicely as you were to me. We love it loud. Sharon said, I particularly am the one that likes it the loudest and that is the honest to God truth. If I turn to Sharon, is this too loud? She says, it is never loud enough. So I have learned, I cannot even ask Sharon if the volume is too loud because she only thinks it is too loud if her ears are bleeding. Maybe all of these years of church life, she does not know what loud is anymore. But let me tell you something, a Caleb Generation keeps their heart in what they are doing. A person who does not keep their heart in what they are doing notices things they did not notice before. Are you with me here? When they came to church they loved the fact that there is great worship and great word but then all of the sudden it is like, what is this? That is a sign that your heart is no longer in what you are doing. And the Bible says here that Caleb, God kept him alive and kept him young because he wholly followed the Lord with all of his heart. Did you hear that? God will keep you alive and strong if you wholly follow the Lord with all of your heart. Do not be one of the people who shrivel up and get negative and critical. The reason why young people come to this church is because of the Caleb Generation people that celebrate. While they are still running their race they cheer on the next generation. That is why we have people coming into this house. Amen church. Do not stop running your race.
Dear Roger,
I was digging into the book of Hosea, and I don’t understand. Why would God tell him to marry a prostitute? God had called him to be a prophet. Wouldn’t doing that ruin his ministry?
I wasn’t surprised when Gomer ran away, back to her old ways. But how could God tell Hosea to go get her back? Wouldn’t her adultery be too much for Hosea to forgive?
Can you please explain what’s going on?
Love,
Flower
Dear Flower,
Let me tell you a story about Hosea the prophet and Gomer the prostitute. No matter how many beds that she crawled in and out of in her adulterous behavior, Hosea never gave up on her. His love for Gomer will blow your mind!
The Book of Hosea chronicles a story of divine, “agape” love. It’s a beautiful illustration of our God, who loves the unlovable and never stops. It’s an allegory of the relationship between us and our Savior.
We know little about Hosea except that his name means “salvation.” He was a prophet who preached for God in the northern kingdom of Israel about 750 BC.
He lived in an era of great prosperity, open debauchery, and disgusting vice. Ten years earlier, the prophet Amos had spoken a warning to Israel, calling them to repent. They ignored God, and by Hosea’s time the whole country is on the path to destruction.
God called Hosea to share His message of wrath;
When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.”
So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. (Hosea 1:2-4)
One day as Hosea was teaching, he saw a beautiful Jewish girl in the crowd. He said to himself, “I’ve got to meet her!”
After his preaching was finished for the day, he learned that her name was “Gomer” which means “perfection.” He sized her up and down and says, “God, you named her right.” She was perfect—soft round eyes, chestnut hair, great complexion. Not even her long robe could hide the gorgeous figure beneath.
After a beautiful courtship, they were married. Those were beautiful days in the prophet’s house. The young preacher was on the verge of a great career. He could hardly wait to get home on weekends to see his wife.
A man usually finds his earthly heaven or hell in the woman that he marries. In Gomer, Hosea found his hell.
I’m reminded of Socrates’s declaration; “Marry, by all means. If you get a good wife, you will be happy. If you get a bad one, you will become a philosopher.”
We’re not really told what went sour in Hosea’s marriage. Maybe Gomer was angry because he was so busy that his ministry became his mistress. Perhaps she felt she was too young and lovely to be cooped up as a preacher’s wife. There’s a good chance that he didn’t have enough money to support her lifestyle.
So, one day he came home from a trip. He went to the marketplace to buy her a surprise, and he overheard some slander. Two women were gossiping. He couldn’t believe the words he was hearing, because the words cast a shadow of sin upon his own home.
He began to get suspicious. When he returned from preaching, she was no longer meeting him at the gate. The warmth was gone. Communication broke down. She no longer asked him how his work was coming along.
The Bible says that a child was born into their family.
Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. (Hosea 1:6)
The word translated here as “daughter” really means “girl child” in Hebrew. She was not his daughter.
Months passed, and then another child arrived.
After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God. (Hosea 1:8-9)
“Lo ammi,” means “Not my child.” A boy child was born, but he was not a “son.”
Tragedy had come to the prophet’s house.
Hosea had married a girl who squandered away his love with adulterous lovers.
We don’t know how long it was before she left. Three years? Four years? But one day, he returned home, and Gomer wasn’t there.
Imagine this. The kids were crying, hungry, lonely. He found a note on the table; “You need not look for me. I have gone away with another who promises to make me happy.”
Finding the house empty and a note wanting a divorce is one of the worst blows that can come to a man or a woman.
Hosea tried to become mother and father to the kids. A new tenderness was in his voice. He prayed often, “God bless mother and bring her back.”
There is no sleep for a deserted husband. He tucked the girl child into bed. There is no resemblance to him, but she looks so much like Gomer. She had her mother’s face and eyes. Is that a strong man’s weeping that we hear?
During those bitter months while Gomer was gone, God gave a message to Hosea that He had never given to any other Hebrew prophet. Hosea was led to look deeply into the infinite love of God.
Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” they will be called “children of the living God.” The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.
One day, Hosea heard that the man who lured his wife away and who promised to make her happy had deserted her.
Worse still, he learned that he had sold her into slavery. That “princely white knight” who promised so much was only a deceiver. He promised much and delivered little. Gomer was outfitted with binding fetters and galling chains.
We just aren’t certain when the message came.
Perhaps it happened while Hosea was caring for the kids, changing diapers, or cooking for the family. God spoke, “Hosea, true love keeps on doing the duties of love even if the one for whom we do them doesn’t deserve it. Even if you’re bathing someone else’s baby. True love never stops. My love is like that.”
Or perhaps Hosea was sitting on the porch by house when he saw a full moon and thought of nights when he and Gomer had watched the stars together. Perhaps he prayed and cried, wondering where she was and what she was doing. Then, he heard the voice of God!
“Hosea, go get her.”
The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”
So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” (Hosea 3:1-3)
Homer went to the First National Bank of Samaria and took out his life’s savings, 15 pieces of silver and 1 1/2 homers of barley. Then he followed rumors and made the rounds of the slave markets in the Mediterranean world.
Through day after day of searching, Hosea began to realize how much God loved His people, Israel. They had gone whoring after other gods, but God still loved them and wanted them back.
Finally, Hosea located Gomer in a slave market. He saw a broken, stoop-shouldered Jewish girl. Thin, matted hair. Shame. Sin has left its mark on Gomer. Then He heard the auctioneer the cry out:
“What am I bid for Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim?”
Hosea faced the fear of rejected love. “Will she have me? She left me once; will she want me now?”
Just so, God faced the choice on Calvary. Humankind turned their back on God. Yet God still loved. Should He send Jesus? Would we still reject His love?
The auctioneer cried again: “What am I bid for Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim?”
Shaken from his reverie, Hosea and pushes through crowd and cried, “I bid 15 pieces of silver and 1-1/2 homers of barley.”
People gasp. There were no other bids. Some said, “He’s a fool to pay such a price. Her beauty and worth are gone!”
The bidding was all over. “Sold!”
I wish I could have seen Gomer that day. For months and months, she was used and abused. The only name on her lips was “Hosea.” She hoped beyond hope that somehow he would find her and bring her back.
Gradually, she raised her eyes: “Hosea, take me home.”
Even when humankind resisted the love of God and turned from Him in cool contempt, God didn’t utterly cast us off. In mercy, He refused to throw us away.
He went to the slave market and bought us back from the captivity of sin. But the purchase price was not 15 pieces of silver and 1-1/2 homers of barley … it was nothing less than the life and blood of His Son, Jesus.
Hosea’s message began to change after that.
He used to preach all wrath and the judgment of God. God as the “avenger.” Now, he begins to see a God of love. God says, “I drew men with bands of love.”
It doesn’t get more beautiful than that!
Well, Flower,
I hope this is helpful to you.
Love, Roger
Our doorbell rang – an odd occasion –I got up from the dinner table and walked toward the door. My step hitched halfway to the door as I realized it was likely a child selling something… too late. I opened the door and a high schooler stood in front of me, fundraising for his baseball team.
Being asked for money makes me uncomfortable.
There is something reasonable about being uncomfortable when we’re asked for money. The pang might speak to whether the cause is worthwhile, or whether the tactics are coercive. But the reality is that far too often that twinge of discomfort points not to the worth of the cause, but the grip money has on our hearts.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul tells us that God doesn’t want uncomfortable givers, he wants cheerful givers. The way to cheerfulness isn’t by willing ourselves there, it’s by reshaping our affections. Paul thinks that if our hearts can be moved by God’s big why for generosity, then our relationship with money will be reshaped. In this series, we’re going to unpack four transformative reasons for generosity and then unpack Paul’s instructions for how we ought to give.
Teaching Generosity to Messed Up People
2 Corinthians 8-9 contains the most compact teaching in the Bible on generosity. It’s odd that it is in one of Paul’s letters to the church at Corinth that we find concentrated teaching on giving. We might assume that Paul teaches his most mature disciples about generosity, but Corinth was far from earning that title.
In fact, the Corinthian church was Paul’s most troubled church. In his two letters, we discover a church with all sorts of problems. One member of the church was sleeping with his mother-in-law, and no one batted an eye or spoke up. The way communion was celebrated at this time was in the form of a potluck meal held at the end of the time of the community’s worship; however, at Corinth, those who were rich were separating themselves from the poor and not allowing the poor to eat at these meals. The church at Corinth was misusing the gifts of the Spirit and had even rejected Paul’s authority over them.
We tend to think about stewardship and generosity as something God calls us to once we’ve got it all together. But that’s not how Paul thinks about generosity. Paul invites the spiritually immature into generosity. Generosity is for everyone. Paul wants us all to experience the blessing of the grace that is generosity. He urges this church to step into God’s grace in this way.
Do you opt-out of godly generosity because that seems like something for you when you’re more spiritually mature? Paul would say, “if I call the Corinthians to generosity, I call you to generosity.”
The Grace of Generosity
After sharing the story of how God motivated the poor churches in Macedonia to give, Paul exhorts the church at Corinth to give. The first reason Paul exhorts the church to give is that giving is a grace. It’s to this mixed up, immature, and even rebellious church that Paul writes these words:
”Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace [participate in giving]. But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also.” 2 Corinthians 8:6-7
Two times in these two verses Paul refers to giving as a grace. He will hammer away at that word, using it ten times in total in chapters 8 and 9.
What is grace? Grace is unmerited favor; it is an undeserved gift. Giving is a gift. It is undeserved that we get to give. Giving isn’t first a duty; it isn’t first a burden; it isn’t first an obligation. Giving is first a grace. You are missing out if you don’t participate in it.
The Work of Generosity
God wants to give us a gift and our hearts reject it as a burden. When I was a teenager, my parents bought me a guitar and guitar lessons for my birthday. I don’t think I asked for the guitar or the guitar lessons, and, while the idea of playing the guitar was nice, the reality of practicing to achieve that end wasn’t so nice. I took the lessons and half-heartedly practiced. And then the lessons ended and my playing petered off to nothing.
I can’t play a single chord today. I so wish I could. I would love to be able to lead my family in worship, our connection group in worship, to be able to lead worship at funerals. I wish that I had seen that gift for what it was: a gift. Why didn’t I put in the time to learn how to play the guitar? Because I saw it as a burden, not a gift.
A lot of us play around with our generosity. We like it okay when the mood strikes. But it usually feels like a burden, and so we give intermittently and haphazardly. We are not generous. But just as I wish I could go back and tell my teenage self what a gift playing the guitar is, how much greater is the gift of participating in the grace, the unmerited favor, that is giving!
If we experience giving and generosity as fundamentally an obligation and a duty, we will never unlock the joy that God has for us in it. We have an opportunity to experience the unique delight of the heart of our God in giving. May we not miss out!
- How do you feel when someone asks you to give generously?
- Do you find it hard to give to God in a difficult financial climate?
- Are you afraid you won’t have enough?
Pray today for God to give you a compassionate heart. He will!
We live at the intersection of two theologies, two realities. The faithfulness of God is pursuing from the past—SO FAR SO GOD. And the sovereignty of God is setting us up for the future. We live forwards, but God is working backward. God is ordering our footsteps. God is preparing good works. We live in a fallen world, a broken world, but heaven is invading earth right here, right now.
We don’t believe in happily ever after. We believe in something so much bigger and better and longer—happily FOREVER after. THE BEST IS YET TO COME.
Sermon begins at 16:15.
www.theaterchurch.com.
James tells us that we can find joy in suffering because it causes us to be conformed to the image of Jesus.
www.newlifebiblefellowship.org
Queen Esther faced insurmountable odds as she courageously approached King Xerxes to save her people. God gave her favor and freedom for the Jews.
Team sermon with Kim Parrish. Sermon begins at 22:04.
https://www.newlifetucson.com/
God uses suffering for his glory and our growth. Sermon begins at 19:00
Preached at New Life Bible Fellowship, Tucson, Arizona.
Team sermon by Greg Lavine and John Beeson
Do you follow God or run ahead of Him? You may have heard the story of Deborah and Barak, but have you ever stopped and thought about their impact? Where are you on your faith journey? Be sure God is in front in all you do!
www.northcoastchurch.org.
GOD COMMANDS US TO BE FAITHFUL BECAUSE HE VALUES FAITHFULNESS.
Bible Reading of the Day: Read Proverbs 3:1-8.
Verse of the Day: “Many will say they are loyal friends, but who can find one who is really faithful?” (Proverbs 20:6).
“Man, he makes me so mad!” Corey glared at his former friend, who walked away from the restaurant counter where he worked.
“What’s up with you?” Ken asked. Ken was a year older than Corey, but they’d become good friends since Corey had started working at Mama Mia’s Pizza.
Corey nodded in the direction of his former friend. “It’s him. He and I used to be friends.”
“Used to be?” Ken asked.
“Yeah,” Corey answered sulkily. He thought for a moment. “It’s like, he’s your friend when you’ve got something he wants, but if you ever really need him, he’s got something better to do.”
Ken nodded. “I think I know what you mean.”
“I mean, we used to do all kinds of things together, but once, when Mr. Jacobs, the history teacher, told us after a big test that our answers had been almost identical, he said, ‘Well, Mr. Jacobs, I thought Corey was looking at my paper an awful lot, but I couldn’t very well turn him in, could I? After all, he’s my friend!’”
“You copied off his test paper?” Ken asked.
“No!” Corey answered angrily. “He copied off of mine!”
“So he betrayed you,” Ken said.
Corey nodded.
“He’s not a very faithful friend,” Ken said.
Corey blew a short burst of air out of his mouth. “You got that right!”
“And you think faithfulness, or loyalty, or whatever you call it, is pretty important.”
“Well, yeah,” Corey said. “Don’t you?”
Ken nodded. “Sure,” he said. “But it doesn’t really matter so much what I think. What matters is what God thinks. He commands us to be faithful, because he values faithfulness. That’s why most of us know that faithfulness is a good thing, an important thing—because it’s a godly value.”
Corey shook his head and smiled. “You sure do talk a lot about God.” Ken smiled. “Does it bother you?” “No,” Corey said. He smiled back. “I kind of like it.”
What does loyalty mean to you? To whom are you loyal? From whom do you expect loyalty? How do you feel when someone you trust isn’t loyal to you?
TO PRAY: Take turns praying something like, “God, please help me to value faithfulness. Teach me to be faithful to all my friends.”
www.josh.org
“TAKE CARE OF THIS FOR ME”
The Parable of the Dishonest Manager
Luke 16:1-15
If Jesus were here instructing Christians today, He would spend a major portion of His time emphasizing the Biblical truths concerning money. The portion of His recorded teachings which have to do with the subject of finances, material things, and the handling of money is amazing.
THE PARABLE (16:1-9): USE WORLDLY WEALTH TO GAIN FRIENDS WHO WILL WELCOME YOU INTO HEAVEN.
The teaching of the parable: The dishonest manager realized the imminence of his dismissal and diligently sought a means to secure his own financial future when he lost his job.
The moral of the parable: The people of this world are doing a better job establishing treasure on earth than we Christians are doing at storing up treasure in Heaven.
The practical application of this parable: Use your money so that when it is gone – or when you die – you will be welcomed, not into somebody’s house, but into eternal dwellings in Heaven.
THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLE (16:10-13): STOP THINKING LIKE AN OWNER AND START THINKING LIKE A CARETAKER OF GOD’S MONEY.
In simple terms Jesus reveals God’s four point contract with every Christian.
Provision One (16:10a): God entrusts to us His assets.
God says in Haggai 2:8: “The silver is mine; the gold is mine.” In Psalm 50: “The cattle on 1000 hills belong to me.” “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” We are not owners. We are managers. Many of us get off the track here. God entrusts to us His property and we take immediate possession. We think of ourselves as owners–and the moment we do we violate the terms of the contract.
Provision Two (16:11): The contract is for a set period of time.
Provision Three (16:11-12): Wise managers are rewarded.
Faithful management results in more to manage.
Good managers become owners in heaven.
Provision Four (16:13-15): Poor managers face serious consequences.
The danger of thinking like an owner is materialism.
The danger of poor management is poverty and loss of opportunity in Heaven (Matthew 25:28-30).
“Well, I don’t particularly care how much treasure I have in Heaven. I just want to get there.” There are whole bodies of Scripture which teach that Heaven is not a classless society. Remember Jesus said that the first shall be last.
Investigate to see how much money you really have. Give the top portion (the tithe) to God. Honor the Lord with your wealth. Make a budget. Don’t allow fear to cloud your judgment.
The only inflation-proof investment in the universe is investment in the Lord’s Kingdom (Proverbs 3:9-10).
What do you do when life gets confusing and hard? Or when things don’t seem to fit into a bigger, better plan? Joseph, the father of Jesus, wrestled with those same questions over 2000 years ago—and his response can inspire our own. Join us this weekend as Jeff takes a fresh look at the faithfulness of Joseph.
www.chaseoaks.org.
“Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants…Ephraim did not dive out the Canaanites…Zubulun did not drive out the inhabitants…Asher did not drive out the inhabitants…Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants…”(Judges 1:27,29,30,31,33).
What have you left undone in your life?
When God promised Israel the promised land he instructed them to drive out the inhabitants so that they would not be a snare to them in the future. They would plague Israel, causing them to worship other gods and adopted their evil practices. At first Israel was diligent to follow the command of the Lord, especially in the days of Joshua. But as time went by they grew lax and did not drive out the inhabitants as the Lord had commanded. The result was just what the Lord had said. “They shall become thorns in your sides and their gods shall be snare to you” (Judges 2:3).
Do you tolerate sin in your life? Maybe you don’t see it that way. Perhaps you violate your conscience from time to time or let something pass because your don’t want to deal with it at that moment. The book of Judges is not a book about Israel’s success in taking the land. It is a book about their failure, and God’s dealing with them as a result of that failure.
We all fail in what the Lord commands us. If a book could be written about us it would be about our failures and God’s faithfulness in dealing with our failures, leading us to repent—another key theme in the book of Judges.
Whatever you have left undone in your life is something to take control of, before it wrecks havoc.
Memory Verse
“If we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself” (II Timothy 2:13).
Application
Do a spiritual inventory of your life. Look for things in your life that you have left undone. Prioritize them so you identify which things are causing you the most trouble spiritually. Then resolves to repent and bring those to the Lord for solutions.
Being in any relationship for any length of time with any person is hard.
I mean, let’s face it: We all live this life through a lens focused on self, and self often doesn’t like it when self is being mistreated.
Truly this isn’t news to any of us who have lived in adulthood for more than a few years, but what can be news to some of us is that this “self lens” is a lie, and it is the source for more of our life-spun angst than we are many times willing to admit.
Just a few months ago, my husband and I had a little tiff. I write “little” a bit facetiously because it was more than just a little argument to me. It was huge. It took me to my knees, quite literally, into fits of sobs and cries in which I don’t often allow myself to indulge. As is generally the case, my poor husband wasn’t quite sure why this particular spat took me to such levels of despair, but as most of you women know, we pile stuff up.
A few misguided words here, an occasional misdirected look there, and before we or the people around us know it, we are spinning out of control in a hurricane of emotion. It often takes us completely by surprise, and when that happens, we are loathe to know how to stave off the inevitable storm.
This was one such time for me, but that’s not where I want to direct my story. Instead, I want to skip to the end, to my encounter with God as I fell apart.
I waited for Jeff to leave for the day before I lost it, and when I did, a lot of pain bubbled to the surface. I found myself crying out to God, as I often do in those rare occasions when I let tears come, repenting of my need for approval, telling Him how sorry I was that I let the words and actions of others dictate my joy. I cried and cried, wanting to feel better, waiting for my Father to soothe me in some way.
And He did, of course, but it was the way in which He did it that surprised me…at first.
I was sitting alone, crying and repenting, when I very clearly heard my Lord say to me,
“Am I enough for you?”
These words were unexpected. “Yes!” I cried even louder. “Yes, Lord, You are enough for me! I’m so sorry that I often act as though You are not.”
A slight pause, and then,
“Am I enough for you?”
“You are my strength and my shield, my Redeemer and my Deliverer,” I cried. “You are all I need! Please forgive my unbelief!”
Quiet, and then again,
“Am I enough for you?”
After hearing these words in my head for a third time, the comfort I was seeking so vehemently finally came. I didn’t answer Him right away this time, as I instead was taken aback by how much He loves me and the way in which He displays that love toward me.
I suddenly remembered Jesus’ words in John 14:21,
He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.
God will always comfort us by showing Himself to us. He brings peace by pointing us to Him.
It dawned on me after hearing His question a third time that God never strokes me or soothes me by making much of me or drawing attention to me. In all the seasons of my life when my Father has comforted me, He has done so by pointing my attention back onto Him.
He is the Author and Giver of life. He is the only source and manifestation of love. To look anywhere beyond or around Him does not, and will not, lead to happiness and satisfaction. My Savior, My God, gave Himself up for me so that I might live. He is the truest and most complete definition of love. How can He not be enough for me?
In that moment, my human heart wanted to be stroked. My human tears longed to be wiped away with words like, “I love you, Deb. You are my treasure and my bride.” And these words would be true words from my Savior. However, when my heart is breaking because I am looking anywhere else but to God, the only comfort He will ever give me will be Himself.
“Look at Me,” He will say. “Gaze upon Me, for I am life. I am joy. I am peace.”
My comfort that day came in the constancy of my Father’s character. It came in the constancy of my Savior’s sacrificial love. He never changes. He always remains the same.
He is constantly constant.
What amazing peace that brought me in those moments of despair! I belong to a God, the God, who is constant. His love, His salvation, His mercy, His grace—they are constant, no matter what else may come in this lifetime. That means no matter what I do or what might be done to me. He never changes.
Sisters, life is hard. There are moments in every single day where we might find ourselves sinking in despair. I say to you, as my Father said to me, “Look up! Look to the One who chose you and will keep you, but most especially, look to the One who is all that is righteous and good and loving.”
Stay in this truth. He is constant and He does not shift with the wind or with your crazy, out-of-control circumstances.
Sing with the psalmist in Psalm 121:1-3,
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made the heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved,
he who keeps you will not
slumber.
Let His peace reign supreme in your life right now. He has not left you. He will not leave you.
He is constantly constant.
www.debwaterbury.com.
Disciples’ faith in Jesus’ person and power enables them to fearlessly face natural and supernatural calamities.
“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Mark 4:41
When you look at it, the story of the stilling of the storm is impressive in more ways than one. Yes, the miracle is truly awesome, but tempestuous sea and stormy wind are rendered almost demonic by Mark. The censure of the wind is as if it were an animate being, not to mention the specific command to the elements to be silent, as though they were—as someone said—“one unruly heckler.” But this “great” storm of Mark 4:37 becomes, at the rebuke of Jesus, a “great” calm in 4:39. The dramatic transition from storm to calm demonstrates the power of Jesus, a mighty act of God.
So, through the storm, Jesus can sleep—a drastic contrast to the utter panic of the Twelve. The irony of the carpenter who is in slumber while the fishermen are in shock is not lost on the reader.
One wonders how the disciples could have forgotten so quickly the compassionate actions and words of Jesus throughout the first four chapters of Mark’s Gospel (1:31, 34, 39, 41; 2:5, 17, 27; 3:5, 10). Jesus’ exclamation expresses his frustration: “Do you still not have faith?” (4:40). They had forgotten all they had seen, all they had heard, and all they had learnt thus far—theirs was an abysmal lack of faith in his power. Even after seeing an amazing miracle of nature wrought before their eyes as the storm is stilled, they remain “afraid with a great fear” (4:41) at the end of this episode. “Great” storm might become “great” calm, but all the disciples can produce is “great” fear (4:41)! And they respond to Jesus’ question about their faith with a question of their own, “Who is this?” (4:41).
Then there is the pathos of the story of the demoniac. His incredibly horrific state is depicted in the painstakingly detailed description of his habitat, diagnosis, uncontrollability, immense strength, shrieking, and self-mutilation—pitiful situation, indeed (5:2–6).
There is comedy here, too! The demons recognize Jesus as the “Son of God Most High” (5:7). And that provides the answer to the disciples’ question of 4:41, “Who is He …?” What irony! The disciples had, for all practical purposes, forgotten who Jesus was—they needed help to remember … from demons!
But here is a hero (apart from Jesus). While his own countrymen (5:14–17) and Jesus’ disciples are afraid, the healed demoniac, seemingly fearless, wants to go with Jesus: “that he may be with Him” (5:18). This request of the healed guy is reminiscent of the commissioning of the Twelve in 3:14, “that they might be with Him so that he might send them out to preach.” While no disciple has yet done anything of the sort, this man proceeds to obey Jesus perfectly: sent by Jesus, he begins to preach about what Jesus had mercifully done for him (5:19–20)—i.e., about Jesus’ power.
Which was precisely the information that that slipped the minds of the Twelve: forgetting Jesus’ power, they accused him of being merciless, an uncaring God, insensitive to their travails (4:38). Unlike them, there is no fear on the part of the ex-demoniac—a model disciple, the nameless, “thirteenth” member of the group, one who has faith in Jesus’ power and who proclaims it fearlessly.
The blast felt like a furnace. Opening the door to greenhouse number seven, I could not believe I was going to walk into that atmosphere. The blazing dry heat confronting me was easily 120 degrees. A couple of shoppers came into the nursery looking for a peanut cactus, and earlier in the cool of the morning. I had spotted a flat blooming in number seven. Walking over to the third bay, I picked up a tiny cactus covered in hot pink blooms and quickly made my escape to the balmy 100 degree temperature found in retail. I hoped my customers were going to love this little beauty.
As they finished making their purchases, my co-worker asked them, “May I interest you in a bottle of ice-water?” Flushed and dripping in sweat they said, “Yes! Oh, that would be wonderful.” Whenever the temperatures started soaring, we were quick to push complimentary cold water because fainting into some thorny plant was just not a good business plan.
I loved everything about my job at the cactus nursery. I was born and raised in Arizona, but in serving my customers I found myself falling in love with the beauty of the desert in sweet new ways. I loved the lessons I was learning about growing drought tolerant plants. I love the camaraderie I experienced with my co-workers as we physically labored together. I loved the ice cream bars my boss stuffed in the freezer for a quick cool down delight. I loved it that someone was paying me to lose weight and I loved it that I was sleeping soundly after a day of physical exercise. But this was not the job I had dreamed of or the job I had trained for.
For thirteen years, I had planned my reentry into the work force by commuting from Tucson to Phoenix to pursue a master of theology degree. It usually doesn’t take that long to finish a seminary degree, but my schooling was often interrupted by the needs of my family. Praying out loud to stay awake on these late night drives, I would joyfully release my future ministry to God.
You can imagine my disappointment and confusion when I was the only person in my graduating class who did not get a job after seminary. Even the other women in my class found ministry positions. I thought I was doing what God had called me to do. And, while in the past I could have been nominated for volunteer of the year, I now needed to work. My husband and I had two children in college and I deeply desired to use my new education to help pay our bills.
If you had told me that God had planned next for me after graduation was to work at a cactus nursery, I would have never believed you. Sometimes, I find it is easier to obey God when I don’t know the future. Surprisingly, though, working at the nursery became a real blessing to me. It wasn’t long before I began to sense my time among the cacti was more than a job to help me pay my bills. It was an extension of my seminary training.
Bible verses that talked about living “in a dry and weary land where there is no water” began to jump off the pages at me. I knew from my schooling Israel’s topography was similar to the state of Arizona, but laboring in this dry heat was highlighting spiritual truths from a fresh perspective. One of those passages I fell in love with was Isaiah 35. Reading about a physical desert coming into bloom made me ponder what it would look like if my personal spiritual desert came into bloom.
I know I am not the only person who has struggled with disappointment and loss, with dashed dreams and unfulfilled expectations. Many have also lived for years with a dream or a desire that they fear is simply in danger of evaporating. As we go about our lives we may be privileged to experience a physical desert like Tucson. But all of us, whether we live in a physical desert or not, will at one time or another experience a spiritual desert; times in our lives when we feel dry, when we feel God is not speaking, when our spiritual lives feel like they have withered up and died.
Perhaps we don’t think of God at all and don’t know we are in a spiritual desert, but we know something is missing. Examining how life prospers in a physical desert will give us insights into how to bloom when we find ourselves in what we think is a spiritual desert.
What would it take to see a spiritual desert come into full bloom? This is our quest. Because of God’s amazing provision, we are going to be set free to bloom in places we once thought of as desolate. God is going to open our eyes to the beauty hidden in the desert. In the past, we have been tempted to label our lives as barren and in our narrow viewpoint, we may have missed the fact that God has moved us to a landscape free of mosquitos. We are not barren and neither is the place where we live. Maybe roses don’t grow especially well here during the month of June, but that doesn’t mean this is not a place filled with majestic beauty and rich nutritious soil when we grow the right kind of plant.
It is true that the heat has been a huge distraction for us in the past and always before we could not imagine blooming under these circumstances, but we need to get ready because refreshing water is coming to the desert, life-giving water. Water is always a game changer in the desert.
In our journey, we will discover there is a special irony about learning to bloom in a spiritual desert. Blossoming will feel good to us, but it will also bring God much pleasure. Flowering enables us to reach our eternal purpose and at the same time brings God glory. If God has taken us to a place that feels like a hot dry land, we need the assurance he has brought us here to bless, us not to curse us.
This is God’ promise from Isaiah 35:1-2a
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. ESV
God poetically equates blooming in the desert with gladness, joy and singing in this passage. In my early confusion when I read these words, I was tempted to believe that God must be using a different dictionary than me. I knew I wasn’t defining my desert experience the same way God was. How could dryness be a good thing? At the nursery, God introduced me to the incredible flowers which only bud on a cactus. From that graphic visual, I began anticipating what beautiful blooms might sprout from my disappointments.
Consider these questions about your spiritual deserts:
1) What circumstances make you feel spiritually dry? Make a list as long as you need to.
Before you move on invite God into each circumstance you wrote down or thought of. Don’t rush this process. If you need more than one day to process this dry and weary land it is okay. Ask God to receive glory from these circumstances which feel so lifeless to you. When you are finished with this exercise, go on to the next question.
2) What dreams of yours are in danger of evaporating?
After compiling your list, one by one give these dreams to God. Again take your time. Ask God to be exalted in your dreams. Ask God to bless you even if these dreams die.
In the coming days, begin reading Isiah 35 as often as you can. This chapter is only ten verse long and is a great source of living water for these days of drought. In the coming lessons, we will dig deeper into Isaiah 35 and the eternal purposes of God revealed in our spiritual deserts.
Esther had the courage to risk her life to save her people, the Jews. We can learn to have faith in the midst of tremendous obstacles.
Preached at New Life Bible Fellowship. Sermon begins 26:40.
Team sermon preached by Greg Lavine and John Beeson.
What we do today and the decisions we make are going to matter now more than ever. The power of living intentionally in Christ is a huge positive benefit bringing glory to God, benefit to us and encouragement to those that we love.
In this blog, and the one that follows, I’ll share ten life-changing reminders and practical applications as it has to do with how your past impacts how you live today. Let’s get started.
- Habits
- Habits: Paul says in 1st Corinthians 11:1: Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.Forty percent of our daily activities are habitual; we don’t think about them. Things like how we dress, how we drive, how we ride a bicycle. But even more importantly would be the attitudes we hold about faith, relationships, work, health and finances because of what we’ve learned in the past. Those good and bad habits impact us today.Take this little audit and ask yourself, “How are my habits impacting my life today in the five essential areas of life: your faith, your family, your finances, your health and your work?”Consider these questions:
- What habits are supporting you and the goals that you have?
- What habits are holding you back? (Satan I think loves to camp on the negative habits, the things that aren’t working in our life and reinforce them, keeping us from living the kind of successful life that God intends for us. It keeps us down. We never really fully experience all that God has for us.
- Regrets: Our regrets from the past will impact how we view life today. Ink.com showed that 72% of us feel regrets about our ideal self. We recite actions we wish we had taken. We regret more of what we didn’t do than what we did do in the past.Romans 8:1-3 says, “Those who enter into Christ being here for us no longer have to live under a continuous low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The spirit of life in Christ like a strong wind has magnificently cleared the air freeing you from a faded lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.”Maybe you have something that God’s laid on your heart to do. Something that you know is important and will bring glory to God. It may feel a little risky, but you know you need to do it.ONE THING you can do today – after you’ve wisely prayed about it and received good counsel, make that decision to act, so you don’t have regrets in the future about not acting today.
- Expectations: You’ve probably heard me say, “We judge ourselves by our intentions, but we judge others by our expectations. Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick but when the desire comes it’s a tree of life.”Your expectations have followed you into today and they impact how you are going to relate in life. Do an audit and ask yourself: “How are my expectations about others, about God, about work and about myself impacting how I’m going to relate today to others?
- Attitude: Pilots know what the word, attitude means. A pilot will tell you that an attitude, when they’re flying, is either nose up or nose down. The attitude is either lifting them to a higher level or it’s bringing them down.When we think about our attitudes we should ask, “Does my attitude about life, about others in these essential areas one that is filled with positivity, hopefulness, God’s goodness, and expectations of good things from him?” Or is your attitude discouragement, negativity, loss and defeat?Hebrews 9:27-28 says, “Everyone has to die once and then face the consequences.” Christ’s death was also a one-time event, but it was a sacrifice that took care of sins forever.
- Inertia: Inertia is the tendency to do nothing, for things to remain unchanged. If something is stopped, inertia keeps it from moving forward. If it’s moving forward in a straight line, inertia tends to keep things moving in that same direction.Inertia can be a very powerful force in the physical world, but it can also be a very powerful force in our spiritual and our relational lives.If at some point in the past, you got on the wrong path, going in the wrong direction and maybe you know exactly what I’m talking about, in your life, you’ve made decisions you now look back on and regret ever making those decisions, inertia will tend to keep you moving in the same direction even if it’s the wrong direction. Or if in the past you found yourself getting stuck. You started in a healthy direction, something happened, you got stuck in a pothole, it’s kind of like the giant train with a block of wood under its wheels.It’s virtually impossible to get that train moving, because of the inertia once it stops.
So, ask yourself, “Am I stuck? Where will I be tomorrow if I stay on the same path that I’m on today, or am I moving in the right direction?”How you answer these questions (and those in the next blog) can have a transformational impact at how you view today. Because today matters, what you do today is what intentional living all about.
When you set out with intention to fulfill God’s purpose for your life, you are going to face resistance and encounter roadblocks. They are inevitable.
Take Nola Ochs, for example. Her husband passed away in 1972, and she figured she would be gone soon after. For five years, she sat around, waiting to die. But then she decided she wasn’t done – and started living with intention.
First, it was tennis lessons. Then a few college courses, and soon she was pursuing a bachelor’s degree. At age 95 she became the oldest college graduate. Still not done, she earned her master’s degree at 98 years of age.
When you come to a roadblock, do you quit and go home, or find another way to reach your destination? “One thing I do,” the Apostle Paul said, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me” (Philippians 3:13-14).
Roadblocks may be unexpected, but resistance is a constant from birth to death, and it takes many curious forms:
- Fear. Don’t allow fear to overcome your intentions. “All men are afraid in battle,” General George Patton said. “The coward is one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty.”
- Criticism. Parents, teachers, employers and friends can beat you down. But if your goal is God-given, refuse to be derailed.
- Perfectionism. The message that you’re never good enough will sabotage your progress if you take your eyes off the prize and focus on your own shortcomings.
- Success. Sometimes success comes so early that it acts as a detriment. If you feel like a “one-hit wonder,” remember that with Christ, your future is always brighter than your past (Jeremiah 29:11).
- Age. Perhaps the greatest lie of all is that you’re all washed up. Nola didn’t believe it, and neither should you.
When you lean into life instead of lying back, you won’t be knocked off your feet by hardship or crisis. Commit your way to God, and press toward the goal He has for you, no matter what.
www.theintentionallife.com.
“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, that the Lord brought on me in the day of his fierce anger? From on high he sent fire, sent it down into my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long. My sins have been bound into a yoke; by his hands they were woven together. They have been hung on my neck, and the Lord has sapped my strength. He has given me into the hands of those I cannot withstand. This is why I weep and my eyes overflow with tears. No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed.” (Lamentations 1:12-14, 16 NIV)
Note the phrase: all you who pass by…
Israel has reached a place in its history where their pain and sorrow is beyond comparison, and can be seen by anyone who is looking. You can see Who is the author of this suffering — the LORD. And why are they burdened with such sorrow and suffering? Because of their sin. Worshiping false gods. Deserting and denouncing the true worship of the One True God. So, nothing new. Lamentations is a long litany of sin, sorrow and judgment. But in the midst of all this grief, there is a bright light — however brief — in chapter 3.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; is mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:21-23 ESV)
Later in the chapter, Jeremiah writes: Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD. (v. 40) In the midst of this pandemic turmoil, it can be easy to lose sight of the Lord. With all the fear, anger, anxiety and stress surrounding us, we can lose our way. But remember, The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.
www.theintentionallife.com.
Samson’s life story is in Judges 13-16, and John’s is revealed in Luke 1-3, Matthew 14:10. Central to Samson’s life is that “he will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.” (Judges 13:5 NAS) God’s plan for John’s life is that “He will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.” (Luke 1:16 NAS) With and without their obedience, God’s plan is fulfilled.
In Samson’s early years “…the child grew up and the LORD blessed him. And the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him…” (Judges 13:24b-25) In John’s early years we learn, “And the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts. “…his food was locusts and wild honey.” (Luke 1:80 NAS; Matthew 3:4a LB)
As we follow them into adulthood we see the example of John the Baptist who is a devoted follower, and Samson who struggles with obedience.
In his adult life, Samson epitomizes the prodigal son Jesus describes in Luke 15. Samson wanders aimlessly through life except for three times when the spirit of the Lord comes upon him for a specific purpose. In two instances, Samson uses the enormous physical strength that God has given him to rescue Israel from the Philistines. Other times he uses his strength for personal gain. Ultimately, in spite of his prodigal life, Samson does help his people as God prophesied.
On his own Samson make dubious choices.
—Because an “uncircumcised Philistine” woman “looks good to me,” he demands that his parents, “now get her for me as my wife.” (Judges 14:1-3) Normally the parents would arrange a Jewish bride for their son, especially true for one with a Nazarite vow.
—Samson sees honey in a dead lion, and he uses his hands to get the honey to fulfill his hunger. (Judges 14:8-9) As a Nazarite he should not touch anything that is dead.
—Samson returns to marry his bride and learns her father has her married to Samson’s best friend. Out of anger Samson kills many Philistines, not at God’s direction, and then hides. (Judges 15)
The spirit of the Lord helps Samson in three situations thus fulfilling prophecy.
—A lion attacks him as he walks; the spirit of the LORD comes upon him, and Samson rips the lion apart. (Judges 14:5-6)
—Because of a riddle Samson tells before the wedding and a wager of 30 linen garments and 30 sets of clothes, there are ensuing problems. (Read about it in Judges 14:14-19) Because of the unresolved problems, The “Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power.” Samson then kills 30 Philistine men. (Judges 14:19 NIV)
—The Philistines come to avenge the men Samson kills, and the “Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power,” and with “a fresh jawbone of a donkey” he kills 1,000 Philistine men. (Judges 15:14a-15 NIV)
Samson seeks God’s help for selfish reasons.
—“Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the LORD. You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” (Judges 16:18 NIV) God opens up a rock and water comes out.
—For the second time in his life, “Samson prays to the LORD, ‘O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.’” (Judges 16:28 NIV) Pushing on the pillars with all his strength, they collapse killing 3,000 men and women. Samson kills more at that moment than he slays during his lifetime.
This occurs in Gaza at the temple of the Dagon, the Philistine’s god. Samson is in the temple of Dagon because he is in love with another Philistine woman, Delilah. While Samson is with her, she convinces him to reveal the reason for his strength. Once he explains the Nazarite vow and his hair is surreptitiously shaved that night, the Philistines capture him and gouge out both of his eyes.
Samson spends his life without direction. However, his Nazarite vow and strength begin the rescue of Israel from the Philistines in spite of Samson’s lust for Philistine women and inability to follow God’s plan for his life.
Discussions about Samson usually focus on his strength and his destroying the pillars in the temple. Write down two areas in Samson’s life that are new to you and that you identify with.
Samson calls out to the Lord only two times. Both times are for selfish reason. How do you think God felt? Think about your own prayers—how often are they for selfish reasons? Do you need to ask God for forgiveness?
Have you ever made a vow to God? Are you married? That is a vow to God. Many say vows lightly, but does God still take them lightly? Look up Numbers 30:2; 6:1-8. Write down your thoughts.
The call on John’s life is like no other—he is to prepare the world for God’s only Son. From the womb, the Holy Spirit directs John that he will be great in the sight of the LORD. (Luke 1:13,15 NIV)
Later as John meets crowds of people at the Jordan River, they wonder if he is the Christ. He answers, “I baptize you with water…but one more powerful than I will come…” (Luke 3:15-16 NIV)
To the priests and Levites John says, “I am the voice calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’” (John 1:23 NIV)
Throughout John’s ministry his consistent message is, “He [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30 KJV) John expresses doubt only when he is in prison and sends his disciples to Jesus asking, “Are you the one who was to come…?” (Matthew 11:3a NIV ) Jesus replies… “…The blind receive sight , the lame walk…” (Matthew 11:4-5a NIV)
As John’s disciples are leaving, Jesus explains to the crowd that John is more than just a prophet in the desert. “Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’ Malachi 3:1
Jesus continues, “I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist;…( Matthew 11:7-11a)
John spends his life in focus with the call from God. His Nazarite vow and mission to turn many sons back to the Lord their God is accomplished. He receives the highest praise from Jesus.
Think about always being known as “the other one.” That was John’s life. Are you in a secondary position? How does John’s life encourage you?
Jesus must increase and I must decrease. What a wonderful life verse. Post it everywhere. Write ways to accomplish it in your life.
In prison John has doubts, but Jesus is not offended. Jesus says, look at the results of My life. It is okay
to have doubts and ask questions. Jesus says to you, look at my record—the changed lives around you and in my word, the Bible. Have you felt guilty about having doubts? Read Matthew 11:2-5 as a prayer to Jesus. Continue praying to Jesus about your feelings of guilt when you have doubted. Let Jesus pour His love
over you. Sing praise songs to Him. Bask in His love for you. If you continue to feel guilty, talk to your pastor or a Christian counselor.
We need to live lives that demand an explanation. Paul lived this life that didn’t make any sense. In Philippians 4, he is talking about joy and contentment while chained to a prison guard in jail. If you could write a letter to your loved ones in prison, would you write about happiness or complain? In Philippians 4:13 we have the most misquoted verse in the Bible. Evander Holyfield had it on his robe “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me…” and I am going to pulverize Mike Tyson. He wore the same robe to fight Lenox Lewis, and he bit the dust. Maybe you use this verse as a promise to ace a test in class when you didn’t study. “I can do all things through Christ.” We need to look at the context of the verse.
This is what Philippians 4:10-12 says:
“I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”
Have you learned Paul’s secret? “No matter what the economy does, I don’t care.” How many people have you met that have that attitude? They are suffering and others say to them, “You should be stressed out, you should panic.” In contrast, Paul says “be content.”
Christ is enough. You can have nothing and can be content. You can be rich and be content. I really encourage you to read the Bible with an open mind. Voltaire once said, “God created man in his own image and now man is returning the favor.” We want to recreate God in the way we want to be. I want a God okay with me sleeping with my girlfriend, I want a God who says, “my body, my choice.” One author wrote, “The American church has created a middle-class Jesus.” For example, they say that it’s okay to make your nuclear family an idol. When it comes to you and your kids, take care of them first even before your relationship with Jesus. You never find that in the Bible. Christ taught us to be willing to hate father, mother, wife, kids. He said my true brothers, sisters and mother obey my words. I’m not saying we shouldn’t love our family. It’s just that following Jesus comes first. We need a radical Jesus, the Christ of the Bible. We must not settle for a middle-class Jesus.
We learn from the courageous story of Daniel that:
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- Life Happens Unexpectedly (vv. 1-2)
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- The World Demands Conformity (vv. 3-7)
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- Commitment Begins Inwardly (vv. 8-16)
God honors such loyalty!
www.skipheitzig.com.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
Many Christians often seek God for their health, welfare, career, home/car purchase, in other words, the things that give pleasure. But are these the things that God cares about the most? Jesus said in Matthew 6:7, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” This implies that God is mindful about the things of life that we care about. But what are the things that God cares about the most? We have a strong indication from the following verses when Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray.
“Pray, then, in this way: Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:9-13).
Did you notice how often Jesus mentioned the material things of life that we need, in other words, what kind of priority God puts on these things? It’s the fourth item on the list. The first three give us an indication of what God is really concerned about: his name, his kingdom, his will.
How often do you think about those things? How often do you think about God’s reputation, his kingdom, and his will? Here’s a simple test. The scripture says that if we are true Christians we will “walk as he walked” (I John 2:6). What does that mean? It means that Jesus’ first concern in life was that which his father was concerned with: His name, His kingdom, His will.
My fellow Christian, if you live your life day to day and have little or no thoughts in your mind about God, the Bible, church, or your testimony as a Christian then can you say with all confidence that you are really one of his children? What does God expect of us? He expects us to live for him just as he lived for us. Jesus lived for us, not himself. Jesus died for us, not himself. Jesus rose for us, not himself. And he is working in the world today on our behalf, that we might know him intimately and become like him.
Memory Verse
“He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
Application
The one who truly wants to be a Christian, a real Christian, is one who has these priorities in his life. Do a spiritual inventory about your life’s priorities. How can you rearrange your life so that you make God’s priorities your priorities?
“My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody!” Psalm 57:7 (ESV)
I trust God. Until I don’t.
That doesn’t feel like a very Christian thing to say. But if I don’t acknowledge this struggle, I can’t address it. And I don’t think I’m the only one.
So many of us raise our hands high as we proclaim our God is a “good, good Father,” but then we find ourselves lying in our beds at night with tear-stained pillows, facing realities that don’t feel very good at all.
It’s hard not to feel suspicious of God when our circumstances don’t seem to line up with His promises. And it’s difficult not to doubt the light of His Truth when everything around us looks dark.
Which brings us to Psalm 57 — a passage penned by David in the midst of a season when his circumstances and God’s promises appeared to be in complete and total opposition.
At this point, David had already been anointed as the future king of Israel (1 Samuel 16:1-13) and had faithfully served King Saul. Sadly, though, Saul “rewarded” David for his service and obedience with persecution and death threats. David was left to run for his life and then hide out in a cave.
Scripture also reveals David wasn’t hiding alone. This anointed but not-yet-appointed king was leading a pretty discouraging group of men. First Samuel 22:1-2 describes these 400 men as in distress, debt-ridden and discontented. Not exactly the positive, resourceful and hopeful type of people you want to have with you during one of the darkest seasons of your life.
I wouldn’t judge David for one second if he had cried out to God in total frustration, saying, “I don’t understand any of this. I’m leading a bunch of unsettled and unstable people. We are hiding in a cave. And I’m feeling utterly defeated and completely hopeless!”
But the words he wrote in Psalm 57 are neither exclusively a psalm of lament nor a psalm of thanksgiving. David didn’t deny the darkness of his situation, but he also refused to allow his soul to get stuck in a place of despair. Instead, David chose to declare praises about the true nature and character of God. He reminded his soul of who God is — a God who fulfills His purposes (v. 2), a God who saves (v. 3), a God known for His faithfulness and steadfast love (vv. 3, 10).
Even though David’s soul was “bowed down” by his circumstances (v. 6), he allowed what he knew to be true about God to steady him. This enabled David to declare in our key verse for today: “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody!” (v. 7).
I love knowing the story behind this psalm. In a cave that surely felt like an end to all he hoped and dreamed, David acknowledged his distress, but he also lifted his eyes to praise God. David’s praise wasn’t in vain. It steadied his heart. And his painful circumstances weren’t wasted. God used those hardships to mature David. Yes, David had already been anointed to eventually become king. But it was in the womb of the earth where God met him and birthed in him a heart ready to lead.
Darkness was the perfect training ground for David’s destiny. And those difficult places we so desperately want to be done with can become good training ground for us as well. But we have some choices to make. Will we see this dark time as a womb or a tomb? Is it a birth of something new or the death of what we thought should be? Will we fix our eyes on the Truth of God’s goodness, or will we give in to hopelessness and despair?
Oh, friend. I know the dark places are scary. But let’s choose to believe there is purpose in every season, even the ones that don’t seem to make any sense. Let’s ask God to birth something new inside of us, allowing Him to do a work in us that will better prepare us to walk out His promises. And instead of being suspicious of Him, let’s lift up our praises to Him.
Praise may not shift our circumstances, but it will definitely begin to change our hearts. We don’t always get to choose our situations, but we can choose how we live through them.
Father God, thank You so much for reminding me I am never forsaken nor forgotten. You see me in this dark place, and You promise there is purpose here. Bring Your life and light where all hope seems lost, Lord. Show me how to live authentically today, making room for both sorrow and praise to coexist together. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
TRUTH FOR TODAY
Psalm 103:1-2, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” (ESV)
God has big plans for you.
He plants dreams in your heart—and they can bloom when the soil is fertile. Set your sights on what’s ahead and prepare your soul to chase new hopes and goals as we enter this year together.
Guest speaker:
Pastor Joakim Lundqvist is Senior Pastor of Word of Life Church in Uppsala, Sweden, with 3200 members and an international network including over 700 churches. Word of Life has an extensive international missions program and has produced millions of books and audio and video material containing faith inspiring teaching in several languages.
www.lifechurch.tv/open
Fall and Spring are my favorite times of year.
“For who hath despised the day of small things?”
Zechariah 4:10a
There’s something about a fire that draws me in (the sight, the sounds, the smell)…really it brings people together. Since the first strike and ignition, fires have provided many things, but warmth, cooking, cleaning, and protecting ourselves from harm seems to rise the surface.
Nowadays, for many folks however, a fire has been relegated to convenience, at best. What I’m trying to say is that a fire’s purpose for most of us today is ambiance. Now, I’m the first to say that ambiance is important. A fire sets the tone for any room or environment unlike any lamp or light bulb every could dream of creating. However, for most of us today, that’s the extent of a fire.
Over the years, I’ve burned a fire outside for the very reason of ambiance. If you know me well enough, then you know that the temperature doesn’t dictate whether or not a fire is burning in our outdoor fire pit. For that reason, I’m constantly foraging for wood that might burn well and keep the desirable environment all around. At the same time, we’ve looked for property that would provide the wood onsite as my source.
As the Lord would have it, my family and I moved just north of Denton to a little piece of property covered with woods. It was a dream for us for many reasons, but one of the main ones was bringing the old purpose of a fire–for warmth–to bear when the season turns cold. And so, as we renovated our new cozy little house, we added a wood stove that more than accomplished that desire.
One of the main (and inconvenient) challenges of a wood stove is lighting the fire. In my old house, I had a gas line that was used to get the wood burning. In my outside fire pit, I used lighter pine (fatwood) that my father-in-law and I foraged from east Texas. It’s a great natural starter, but puts off a lot of creosote, and thus should be used sparingly when burned through a flue. And so, the reality of starting a fire from scratch every time in my new wood stove can be somewhat daunting if not approached in the right way. A good fire start has to be built with varying thicknesses of wood. The easy part of having a fire is splitting the bigger burning logs. Most of us use a maul, wedges, or even a hydraulic splitter. I’ve used these and more to get the logs ready to season and burn. However, the more challenging step in getting a fire from scratch ready is gathering enough kindling without bark. This aspect can’t be overlooked, but it can’t be overstated. You’ll spend many hours trying to get a fire started without the use of kindling. It’s critical to the light, but it’s also tedious.
That, however, is exactly why I wrote this article. The tediousness of the splitting of kindling wood. As I was splitting and storing all the kindling that I’ll need for this year and beyond, I took a picture below of my set up.
The wood I’m splitting is virtually free of knots. It’s solid red oak that has been seasoned for a good bit. For all these reasons, the wood will start easy, it will burn long, and it will burn hot. Really, the kindling is the base of the fire, and without it I’m better off not even trying. As I was splitting this wood last night, I thought of being faithful in the small things to appreciate the greater things. It takes a lot of swings with my dead-blow mallet to get that solid red oak to cooperate and be shaped into proper kindling, and at the same time it’s fundamentally necessary if my family is going to enjoy the warmth of a consistent fire when the temperatures drop this season and beyond. And so, I split the wood, because I want the warmth and the ambiance of a fire!
How Does This Apply to Us Today?
- What in your life is so small, but so critical to experiencing a greater reality?
- What small things are you avoiding, because of laziness, apathy, indifference, or whatever?
- How are you handling your money…your passions for sexual intimacy…your casual relationships…your work responsibilities…your family responsibilities?
May God gives us the strength to see that the small things, because they lead to bigger things, are therefore just as important as the big things! May we then be faithful in the little things and not despise the day of small beginnings. Amen.
GOD CAME TO US AND OFFERED HIMSELF. HOW DO WE RETURN TO HIM?
Psalm 51, was penned by David immediately after Nathan the prophet had confronted him. It is one of the most powerful expressions of repentance in all of the Bible. The psalm is divided into five parts: the basic plea for God’s pardon (vs. 1ff), the reasons on which his plea was built (vs. 3-6), the plea renewed in great detail (vs. 7-12), the resolve to offer grateful service to God (vs. 13-17), and a prayer for the welfare of Jerusalem and the nation as a whole (vs. 18ff).
The introduction to Psalm 51 begins with “To the choir director. A psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him after he had gone into Bathsheba.” This introduction is inspirational for us as well, because after the king had fallen, repented publicly, and vulnerably shared his journey back to God, he gave his prayer to the choir director so that all Is- rael could sing it. No matter how far we fall away from God, he can use our failures to bless the lives of others.
Three Hebrew words for sin are used in this psalm. Pesha is rebellion, or premeditated disobedience. ‘Awon is twisting moral standards, or crookedness. Chatta’th is missing the mark for what God created us to be. David confessed to all three of these. In verses three and four, David agrees with God about his sin, and cries that he recognizes his sin ulti- mately was against Him. The repercussions for all of his wrong choices hurt two families and an entire nation. David is saying that his sin toward everyone else pales in significance to how he broke God’s heart. We would describe David’s statement as godly sorrow. He felt how God felt about his sin. Paul says that godly sorrow brings repentance in 2 Corin- thians 7:10-11:
“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear your- selves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.” NIV
Paul is simply describing the wonderful qualities that are developed when we truly repent.
Psalm 51:11 says “Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.” Why would David say that? He had witnessed firsthand the terrible mental anguish King Saul experienced when God had taken His hand off of Saul’s life. That memory of playing his harp while Saul was in torment was indelibly etched upon David’s mind. Finally David asks God to restore the joy of his salvation and to sustain him with a willing spirit. These are wonderful, hopeful words for us. God never leaves us. We leave Him. And the moment we turn toward Him in repentance, He will restore our joy and our ministry.
• In John Maxwell’s Book, Failing Forward, he gives some tips on how to handle failure in a positive way. What do you think? Which steps are helpful to you? Which ones can you implement in your life today? Give an example of what each step might look like in your daily life.
Steps to Failing Forward
- Mourn about painful experiences and receive comfort.
- Find the benefit in every bad experience.
- See failure as an opportunity for personal growth.
- Be proactive and reduce your fear.
- Don’t let the failure from outside get inside you.
- Don’t let your past define you.
- Change yourself, and your world changes.
- Focus on the needs of others instead of your own all the time.
- Allow God to use others to help you work on your vulnerabilities.
• Think about a time when you felt far from God. In Romans 8:31-39, Paul writes “Who shall separate you from the love of Christ?” List those obstacles that Paul mentions and meditate on Jesus holding you and protecting you from each one. Write down those verses on a card and place it in your car or in your home this week.
The COVID-19 global pandemic is a crisis we’ve never seen before. I started thinking about the word crisis and the different meanings for it. And the definition that really caught my attention: “a crisis is a time when a difficult or important decision must be made.”
When people find themselves in a crisis, they react in different ways. And it’s important to look at how we should be respond to a crisis in our lives. This month’s Intentional Living teaching with Dr. Randy Carlson, How to Biblically Respond to a Crisis, reveals snapshots from God’s Word that answer how we should respond to four different kinds of crisis in our lives:
- a national crisis.
- a group crisis.
- a family crisis.
- a personal crisis.
Let’s look at the first one – a national crisis – in the Book of Exodus. The children of Israel had been held captive in Egypt for many years. God calls Moses to free his people. The people of God experience His faithfulness in the Passover and in the preparation to leave captivity and journey to the Promised Land. They witnessed His faithfulness in these plagues and promises in their life. Eventually, Pharaoh is worn down. He frees them, but once they are on their way, he changes his mind.
Remember His Faithfulness
As the Israelites approach the Red Sea, they start to experience some of what they hope will be freedom in their life, but then realize their captor is in pursuit. “And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes and behold the Egyptians marching after them. So they were afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord” (Exodus 14:10 NKJV).
“And Moses then said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians who you see today you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace’” (Exodus 14:13-14 NKJV).
“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward’” (Exodus 14:15 NKJV).
When we reference the Bible commentary, we see God is really saying, there’s a time to pray, and a time to take action. God is saying to Moses – listen, I have been faithful; I have provided for you. I have made a way for you. Now, move forward, Israel!
As we go through this national crisis it’s important not to get stuck. God is always faithful to us. This is not a time to lean back, but to lean forward. It’s time to use the strength God has given us.
This is not a time to hide out, but a time to be very intentional, just like the children of Israel were commanded by God to move forward.
God honored his promises. The Egyptians were destroyed. “Israel saw the great work, which the Lord had done in Egypt, so the people feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant, Moses” (Exodus 15:31 NKJV).
Worship and Praise
Then the nation of Israel sang a song to the Lord:
I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously.
The horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation.
He is my God and I will praise him;
my father’s God and I will exalt him.
The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name.
Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has cast into the sea.
His chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea.
The depths have covered them, and they sank to the bottom like a stone.
What a word picture! When going through a crisis, we should worship God and give Him praise. What a powerful time to take the Word of God, to take music and to bring Him worship and give Him glory. The children of Israel did that at a time of crisis in their life, and it’s something we need to do in our nation today.
www.theintentionallife.com.
The truth is, we all have a sin problem. That’s why we need Jesus so much. But if someone you love is trapped in a pattern of sin or refuses to repent from sin, the stakes can seem sky-high. When I don’t know what to pray, I pray God’s Word. With that in mind, here are ten ways straight from Scripture to pray for someone stuck in sin.
- Pray for them to see their sin as God sees it.
But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear (Isa. 59:2).
- Pray for their hard heart to soften.
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26).
- Pray for them to recognize the kindness of God.
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (Rom. 2:4).
- Pray for them to have a desire for God’s Word.
But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matt. 4:4).
- Pray for God’s Word to do surgery in their heart.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12).
- Pray for the consequences of their sin to become clear to them.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment (Ps. 51:3–4).
- Pray for them to be surrounded by people who will speak truth into their life.
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins (James 5:19–20).
- Pray for them to recognize that only God can satisfy their deepest needs.
For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things (Ps. 107:9).
- Pray for them to know how much God loves them.
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:17–19).
- Pray for them to repent.
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2).
(Excerpt from https://liesyoungwomenbelieve.com/
Many times I’ve found–after the dust has settled–that things that seemed so significant at the time were really insignificant. The situations or issues weren’t trivial, but they really didn’t bear as much weight as I had initially thought.
Have you been there? Have you ever made a bigger deal out of something that looking back was not a big deal at all?
If you’re human you have.
Why do we do this?
We do it, because we can only see right in front of us–we’re forced to live in the present. Therefore, we can’t see tomorrow…we can’t see how things will work together for good…until we’ve lived past those present circumstances, trials, or struggles.
And so, we’re confined to the present, but not without hope!
What’s the Practical Application?
- Live in the present, but with the end in mind…!
- Moses reminds in Psalm 90:12 “…teach us to number our days…that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.”. What he’s getting at is a heart that understands their finiteness, is a heart that makes the most of their present circumstances.
- In other words, at the heart of someone who knows their days are numbered is a heart that acts in wisdom–daily. It’s a heart that understands that death is coming, and they can live ready for that day when they stand before God.
- One practical way to do this is by journaling. This is a simple way to remind yourself of how your day went, the pursuits you saw to fruition, and a confession of where you failed. It’s simple. It’s not easy. But, it’s value to recalibrate your life to the end of your life is huge!
- Live in the present, but believe God will one day reward your faithfulness to Him…!
- Jesus promised in Matthew 5:12:“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
- In other words, followers of Christ may suffer in the present, but there is a day when not only will the suffering end, but rewards will be given.
- One practical way to walk in this is by daily saying no to the flesh and yes to the Spirit. You know the Spirit through reading and living God’s Word. It’s a relationship wrought in love, from God as a gift, and lived out in obedience and confession. You are advancing the gospel in every sphere–forgiving, confessing, not judging, and loving as Christ love–sacrificially–and expecting God’s reward one day.
- Live in the present, but know that your present investment in God’s work is not weightless…no matter what…!
- Paul encouraged in 1 Corinthians 15:58: “…my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.“
- In other words, God’s work is the work that bears the weight of significance. Therefore, it is the most important work of all!
- One practical way to walk in this is by not letting the challenges you face in the work of ministry in any sphere–work, home, friends, etc.–keep you from walking in the steps of Christ. Your reasoning is something like this, “If Christ can do _____ for me, then I can do _____ for someone else!”Also, “If Christ endured ______ for me, then I can endure _____ for someone else.”
May we be followers of Christ whose aim is the Weight of Glory…pushing through the significant little insignificants!
www.dentonbible.org
Galatians 5:22-23 lists the qualities of “faithfulness” and “meekness” next to each other. Faithfulness has to do with the keeping of promises, and the courageous declaration of truth. The Greek word prautas, which is translated “meekness” or “gentleness” in Galatians 5:23 means mildness and gentleness in dealing with people. It can mean to be teachable (James 1:21) or just modest, generous, humble, and considerate toward others (1 Corinthians 4:21; 2 Corinthians 10:1; Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 3:12; James 3:13; 1 Peter 3:15.)
Many Christians today point to Jesus’ thunderous denunciations of the Pharisees (e.g. Matthew 23) as the paradigm of what it means to be faithful to the truth. There Jesus bluntly denounces the sins of the religious leaders. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of meekness there. Yet at the end of the famous parable of the prodigal son we see the father lovingly imploring the elder brother to come in to the feast.
British expositor Dick Lucas once preached a sermon on that text entitled “Jesus Pleads with his Critics.” The point of his sermon was striking. Since the elder brother represented the Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking (Luke 15:1-3,) the appeal of the father to the elder brother is really Jesus pleading with the religious leaders who were going to kill him. He was speaking strongly but tenderly to them, urging them to repent. Here are both faithfulness and graciousness combined.
The most remarkable example of faithful-meekness, however, is Jesus’ words from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) Here is Jesus saying that what his executioners were doing was sin, because it needed forgiveness and atonement. Yet he added, “They don’t fully know what they are doing in their blindness.” This is amazing. We don’t see Jesus saying, “Father, smite them for what they have done!” nor “Father, forgive those murderous, foul, despicable fools.” Instead he speaks with generosity of spirit toward the people who are wrongly killing him.
The rest of the New Testament leads us by example and direct exhortation to follow Jesus in this. In Galatians 6:1 we are told to not allow people who are “caught in a trespass” to simply go on sinning, but we are only to correct erring people with ‘gentleness.’ 2 Timothy 2 is another case in point. Paul tells Timothy to “keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God,” (v.14) yet in the same chapter says, “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead he must be kind to everyone…those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance…” (v.24-25.)
What does this mean? It means that while there are certainly seasons and situations in which faithfulness means strong speech it also means that an attitude and tone devoid of evident graciousness cannot be the default mode of the Christian. If you are always denouncing and declaring, and never speaking tenderly and generously to those who are in error, you aren’t combining faithfulness and meekness.
There are plenty of Christians today who interpret any effort to speak the truth with meekness to be—by definition—a lack of faithfulness. But Paul says that the two must be combined, and when they are combined it is a sign of supernatural grace in your life.
There are many people today (of a more conservative temperament) who believe that the main problem in the church is a lack of faithfulness—a lack of forthright speaking of the truth. There are also plenty of people (of a more liberal temperament) that think the main problem is bigotry and prejudice and they believe that Christians should not “condemn” anybody.
But the fruit of the Spirit—the Spirit of Jesus himself—always combines faithfulness and gentleness. No one has a temper or personality that safely balances these traits, however. Those of us of a more meek temper should be careful not to overly disdain the “faithfulness” crowd, since it is always possible that we are slipping into cowardice and compromise. But those of us of a more confrontational temper should also be careful not to overly disdain the “gentleness” crowd, since it is possible that we are slipping into pride and self-importance. Let us examine ourselves.
www.timothykeller.com. Used by permission.
Matthew 6:10
As a citizen of the United States of America, we have a commitment to a nation – a kingdom. We also have constitutional rights because we are citizens. Well, guess what? If you are a believer, you are a citizen of another kingdom. When you believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior, you became part of the kingdom of God. Matthew 6:10 states, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” When we use the word kingdom, we are talking about the comprehensive rule of God over all of His creation. God is king.
Your kingdom come means being in the Lord’s presence. Remember Moses? When Moses saw the burning bush, he took off his shoes. He realized he was experiencing something sacred, holy, or hallowed. Moses was encountering God. After he saw the burning bush and came face to face with God, that is when God showed Moses His program to go tell Pharaoh let my people go. The fastest way to get what God’s program is for your life, your calling, your purpose, your direction, is to get in God’s presence. It is in His presence that you find out how to be of service in His kingdom. Your goal in prayer should not be, Lord, I’m coming in your presence so that you can serve my kingdom. Your prayer should be, Lord, I’m coming in your presence so I can serve your kingdom. “Your kingdom come.” We want God’s will to be done.
Prayer is important because it is heaven that informs earth. When we pray “Your kingdom come,” we are saying, Lord, I want the invisible kingdom that I am relating to now in prayer to become the visible kingdom that I need in my experience (on earth as it is in heaven). I am asking for you to come out of the invisible realm of your kingdom into the visible realm of your kingdom. I am asking you to manifest your kingdom not only in eternity, but to make it visible to my five senses in time. I’m asking you to demonstrate yourself.
God’s plan or His program must be the preoccupation of our lives. Of course this starts with conversion. In Matthew 18, Jesus said that the kingdom of God is at hand. He said the kingdom is here and you must repent (have regret and turn away from wrongdoing), and you must come to me (Jesus) in order to get the king (God) and enter the kingdom.
You need not only to be converted, but also committed. You can’t experience God’s program for your life without being fully committed. You can’t be a part-time Christian. You want to have His power – the power of the Holy Spirit that is within you as a believer. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8a). Why are we so powerless if we’ve got all this God power in us through the presence of the Holy Spirit? It’s not a problem with access, but perhaps it is a lack of interest in God’s program. Or is it that some are so detached from God’s program, they cannot bear witness to His power.
Getting Started
- Before today, if you thought about the word “kingdom,” how would you describe it?
- Understanding now that when you pray “Your kingdom come” that you are talking about a king who rules a kingdom that overrules everything else, how does that make you feel?
Let’s Get Personal
- Have you ever thought about the rights you have as a citizen in the kingdom of God? Do you think you are fully taking advantage of the benefits you have as a citizen in the kingdom of God?
- Do you know your purpose or what God would have you do at this time in your life?
- How do you need God to demonstrate His power in your life right now?
- Do you feel that you are fully committed to God’s program in your life? What is preventing you from doing so.
Take the Next Step
- Bear witness to God’s power in your life by sharing with someone an experience of how He met your need?
- This week, pray that God helps you to be more committed to Him.
- Want to go deeper? Take a look at the following passages: Psalm 103:19; 145:13; 1 Chronicles 29:11- 12; Romans 11:36; John 18, Daniel 4; 2 Corinthians 4:18; Matthew 18; Colossians 1:13; Acts 1; 1 Peter 2; Isaiah 9:6-7
Renew Your Mind
For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Romans 11:36
Easter is the time when we celebrate Christ’s power. We celebrate this verse in Revelation, when He says “I was dead, and now I am alive forever.” I hold the keys to Death and Hades.” (Revelation 1:17-18) That’s what we celebrate-a Jesus of power. If we see Jesus as weak, it causes us to be weak as His followers.
People hated Jesus. Why do you think they nailed Him to a cross? Was it because He was kind and compassionate all the time? No, because He went against the culture of the day. He opposed the authorities of the day. It’s not a popular message. Why do you think He was crucified?
Jesus began His ministry with powerful words. In Matthew 5:20, when He launched His public ministry, Christ went straight to the religious leaders, the people that everyone respected and followed. They had so much status, and Jesus goes right after them and declared, “…unless your righteousness exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees, you’ll never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Do you realize what a bold statement that is? He basically saying that the religious leaders are going to hell. The disciples talked about the religious leaders, worried of their disapproval. Jesus said in Matthew 15:14, “Leave them alone. They are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
Jesus castigated the wealthy. In Matthew 6:24 Jesus cries, “You can’t serve two masters. Either you’ll hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.” “You cannot serve God and money.” He’s giving the people an ultimatum. You can’t have both. The very next chapter, Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus taught about judgment day. “On that day, many are going to say, ‘Lord, Lord. Didn’t I prophesy, didn’t I do all these things in your name?” He says “On that day, I am going to say to some people, ‘get away from me. I never knew you.” This is Jesus, starting His ministry, getting warmed up here. Matthew 7:28 says “…the crowd was astonished at His teaching. For He was teaching them as One who had authority.”
Jesus stilled the storm. Matthew 8:23-27 describes Jesus stilling the wind and the waves, controlling the weather by His power. The disciples, terrified, query “What manner of man is this that the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Jesus cast out demons. Chapter 8:28-33 reports the story of Jesus casting out demons in the Gadarene demoniac. The people of Gadara begged Him to leave. Why? Because He rocked their world. Matthew writes in Matthew 9:1-8 of the healed paralytic man who stood up and walked and freaked out the crowds who were in awe that God had given such authority to men. Jesus was no ordinary man. He was God Almighty.
Jesus holds the keys to death and hell. Christ speaks very plainly in verse 32. “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I’ll acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I’ll deny you before my Father who is in heaven. Whoever loves father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.” “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will find it.”
Every chapter in Matthew describes the mighty Jesus. Jesus was very direct. You love your sin, you love your stuff, then don’t even bother following me. I’m a great God. Take up your cross. Follow me. This Jesus, this powerful Jesus, turning over the Temple tables, brutally crucified and raised from the dead. This is the Jesus we worship.
Revelation 1:17-18:
“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”
It’s ten o’clock, do you know where your husband is? Apparently many Americans are asking this question, judging by the sales and buzz generated by The Script: The 100% Predictable Things Men Do When They Cheat, a book by Elizabeth Landers and Vicky Mainzer.
The book aims to educate women on how to see the “warning signs” that their husband is, to use the parlance of my Deep South upbringing, “running around.” The authors give a list of possible clues: a sudden interest in the gym, buying expensive gifts for his wife, emotional distance.
Of particular interest is the authors’ observations about the mind of the adulterous man. He rarely will admit to an affair because he wanted to have sex with an attractive woman. Rather he will use such language as, “I found my soul-mate.” Moreover, he will prepare the way for the affair by letting others know how cold his wife is, often by telling the wife she needs to lose weight or even see a psychiatrist. The woman who laughs at his jokes and plays with his hair, however, now she understands what he’s all about.
While reading the book, I couldn’t help but have flashbacks to thousands of incidents in local congregational ministry to families in crisis. These women have the situation sized up perfectly. I wonder, though, how much more susceptible our own congregations are to adultery, precisely because of the ways in which we picture marriage.
The “soul-mate” language is self-justifying and self-deceiving, as the apostle Paul tells us sin always is. The promise of the thrilling new lover is vaporous and, in the end, deadly, just as Solomon warned us thousands of years ago (Prov 7). But have we contributed to this with our endless sermon series on “Putting the Sizzle Back in Your Spouse” and “Ten Tips for Couples for a Hotter, Holier Romance”? For years, evangelicals have produced sex manuals and have counseled young couples to maintain date nights and romantic evenings.
No doubt fulfilling sex, romantic getaways, and loving affection are necessary for a Christian marriage. Still, have we been neglecting to teach young men and women the self-sacrificial nature of fidelity? Several years ago, an evangelical celebrity told a broadcast television network about her struggle after meeting her “soul-mate,” while married to another man. This was presented as an authentic spiritual dilemma.
Perhaps in all our talk of romance and candlelight, we should re-emphasize that sometimes the romance is deferred, sometimes the fireworks are postponed. Perhaps rather than always pointing to the example of a sexy young married couple, we should point our older teenagers and young married couples to the eighty-seven year old man who has been wheeling his wife into the congregation every Sunday for thirty years, since she lost the use of her arms and legs in a stroke, or to the sixty year-old woman who faithfully shaves the face of her Alzheimer’s-riddled husband, even as he curses and swats at a woman he doesn’t remember.
Fidelity is sexier than adultery. We know that. And we should encourage every young man to rejoice in the wife of his youth, indeed be intoxicated with her breasts, as the Scriptures tell us (Prov 5:18-19).
But adultery always follows a script, as the book reminds us, and this script includes the thrill of romance, a romance that is newer and thus more hormonally sparked than long-lasting love. The adulteress persuades a man, as a butcher slaughters a cow (Prov 7:22).
A postponed feast in the Father’s kingdom doesn’t initially seem as appetizing as stones-into-bread to break a 40 day fast (Matt 4:3-4). But why does Jesus defer the joy of eating until after a wilderness temptation–indeed postponing the messianic feast until after a grisly crucifixion? Because he wishes to maintain fidelity to his Bride, with whom he will eat and drink at his Father’s table (Luke 22:14-18).
That kind of Christ love must be emphasized by pastors and teachers who emphasize fidelity and sacrifice, and, yes, romance and hot sex too. And this means pastors and church leaders who are willing to reiterate: “Looking for your soul-mate? Her picture’s in your wallet.”
www.russellmoore.com. Original article HERE.
Are you an effective leader? If not, have you ever wondered why?
As a leader, there are things you do every day.
Some help—others, not so much.
I’ve found that as I’ve grown as a leader, I’ve regularly had to change how I think, how I lead and even what I say.
Fortunately, there are hacks you can learn along the way that will help you get better faster.
What follows are some things you can easily banish as a leader starting today. Eliminating all of them or most of them will give you immediate traction.
Here are 7 things you should stop doing today if you want to make progress.
1. LEAD BY INTENTIONS
Your kids aren’t going to remember your intentions. Neither will your wife or your church. The people who count on you only ever see your actions.
Which likely means no one’s going to stand next to your casket or urn and say “He wished he was nicer” or “He had always hoped to be more strategic” or “She really wanted to overcome her fear”.
Legacies never get built on intentions. They’re built on action.
So get over your intentions and start acting.
2. USE WORDS THAT START WITH “SOME”
If you want to get nothing meaningful done, just use words that start with “some” a lot. Like in every conversation or meeting you’re in.
What ‘some’ words? Well….
Somebody
Someday
Sometime
Something
These words end up sounding like this: Somebody should do something about that sometime someday.
Guaranteed zero action happens. Ever.
Leadership is not simply talk. In fact, talking about doing something again and again is not leadership, it’s delusion.
There’s only one ‘some’ word I can think of that I like, and that’s somehow.
Somehow can be an amazing word when you’re up against and impossible task and someone asks you “How on earth will we do this?” and you reply “I don’t know. But somehow we’ll figure it out.”
Now that’s awesome.
But someone somewhere sometimes means no-one nowhere ever. Trust me.
3. UNNECESSARY MEETINGS
The value of meetings once you get beyond the creative process, or meetings to nail down a few executional details or meetings connect for a check-in to sync up the team is pretty low.
For the most part, meetings are the enemy of work.
Far too many leaders waste their lives in meetings. Instead of doing what they’re called to do, they meet about what they’re supposed to be doing.
Dreams can be born in meetings, but far more often, dreams die in meetings.
Meetings are the enemy of work. Do your work instead.
4. FEAR
Fear is the thief of hope. It kills leadership. It murders courage.
Way too many leaders I know, live in fear.
The difference between effective leaders and ineffective leaders is simple: all leaders feel fear. The effective ones push past it.
So what’s the antidote to fear?
While there are a few, believe it or not, I think one of the antidotes to fear is the fear the right thing.
If you’re going to be afraid, I suggest you fear this:
Be afraid of never accomplishing your mission.
That will give you courage, or at least determination. And that in turn, will grow your faith.
5. THE DESIRE TO BE LIKED
Leadership requires you to take people to destinations they would not go without your leadership.
Stop for a moment and, if you would, re-read that sentence.
Do you see the challenge?
Leadership is inherently difficult because it requires a leader to take people where they don’t naturally want to go.
So you have a choice as a leader.
You can focus on leading people, or focus on being liked.
When you focus on being liked, you will instinctively try to please the people you’re leading. And when you do, you will become confused.
Pleasing people is inherently confusing because people don’t agree. One person wants it one way. Another wants it another way.
And soon, you’re bending over backward to make everyone happy, which of course means that in the end, you will end up making no one happy, including yourself. It’s actually a recipe for misery for everyone.
It’s also a recipe for inertia.
If you focus on being liked, you’ll never lead. You will never have the courage to do what needs to be done.
6. SELFISHNESS
Ambition can be a good thing. It’s great to have hopes and dreams for your mission.
But selfish ambition is a different creature.
Ambition kills servants of God and turns them into servants of themselves.
Enough said.
7. BLAMING OTHERS
It’s so easy to blame everyone else and everything else for your lack of progress as a leader.
If you want to keep not making progress, keep blaming others.
The opposite of blame is responsibility. If you think about the leaders you admire most, they’re probably the most responsible leaders you know.
Great leaders never assign blame. Instead, they assume responsibility.
www.careynieuwhof.com. Used by permission.
In the list of spiritual fruit in Galatians 5:22-23 “faithfulness” and “meekness” are listed next to each other. Faithfulness has to do with the keeping of promises, and the courageous declaration of truth. The Greek word prautas, which is translated “meekness” or “gentleness” in Galatians 5:23 means mildness and gentleness in dealing with people. It can mean to be teachable (James 1:21) or just modest, generous, humble, and considerate toward others (1 Corinthians 4:21; 2 Corinthians 10:1; Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 3:12; James 3:13; 1 Peter 3:15.)
Many Christians today point to Jesus’ thunderous denunciations of the Pharisees (e.g. Matthew 23) as the paradigm of what it means to be faithful to the truth. There Jesus bluntly denounces the sins of the religious leaders. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of meekness there. Yet at the end of the famous parable of the prodigal son we see the father lovingly imploring the elder brother to come in to the feast.
British expositor Dick Lucas once preached a sermon on that text entitled “Jesus Pleads with his Critics.” The point of his sermon was striking. Since the elder brother represented the Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking (Luke 15:1-3,) the appeal of the father to the elder brother is really Jesus pleading with the religious leaders who were going to kill him. He was speaking strongly but tenderly to them, urging them to repent. Here are both faithfulness and graciousness combined.
The most remarkable example of faithful-meekness, however, is Jesus’ words from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) Here is Jesus saying that what his executioners were doing was sin, because it needed forgiveness and atonement. Yet he added, “They don’t fully know what they are doing in their blindness.” This is amazing. We don’t see Jesus saying, “Father, smite them for what they have done!” nor “Father, forgive those murderous, foul, despicable fools.” Instead he speaks with generosity of spirit toward the people who are wrongly killing him.
The rest of the New Testament leads us by example and direct exhortation to follow Jesus in this. In Galatians 6:1 we are told to not allow people who are “caught in a trespass” to simply go on sinning, but we are only to correct erring people with ‘gentleness.’ 2 Timothy 2 is another case in point. Paul tells Timothy to “keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God,” (v.14) yet in the same chapter says, “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead he must be kind to everyone…those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance…” (v.24-25.)
What does this mean? It means that while there are certainly seasons and situations in which faithfulness means strong speech it also means that an attitude and tone devoid of evident graciousness cannot be the default mode of the Christian. If you are always denouncing and declaring, and never speaking tenderly and generously to those who are in error, you aren’t combining faithfulness and meekness.
There are plenty of Christians today who interpret any effort to speak the truth with meekness to be—by definition—a lack of faithfulness. But Paul says that the two must be combined, and when they are combined it is a sign of supernatural grace in your life.
There are many people today (of a more conservative temperament) who believe that the main problem in the church is a lack of faithfulness—a lack of forthright speaking of the truth. There are also plenty of people (of a more liberal temperament) that think the main problem is bigotry and prejudice and they believe that Christians should not “condemn” anybody.
But the fruit of the Spirit—the Spirit of Jesus himself—always combines faithfulness and gentleness. No one has a temper or personality that safely balances these traits, however. Those of us of a more meek temper should be careful not to overly disdain the “faithfulness” crowd, since it is always possible that we are slipping into cowardice and compromise. But those of us of a more confrontational temper should also be careful not to overly disdain the “gentleness” crowd, since it is possible that we are slipping into pride and self-importance. Let us examine ourselves.
www.timothykeller.com. Used by permission.
Dear Roger,
I have an inoperable brain tumor. The pain is increasing. I am on heavy pain medicines. It still hurts. I’ve read several articles on dealing with pain, done some study and used my coping mechanisms. They help a lot; however I would like your thoughts from a more spiritual setting to give me some peace. Can you help me? I’ve decided that the problem with pain is: that it hurts.
Sincerely, Chris
Dear Chris,
I am so sorry for your pain. I am sorry that the tumor is inoperable; and I grieve for you over your suffering.
I’ve had my share of pain. I have spent hours in the “devil’s grip” when my heart contracted so violently the strongest painkillers couldn’t dull the pain. I have ridden the “lightning” of a defibrillator at highest strength. I have been through multiple surgeries…I understand pain.
So, I’ll give you my thoughts about the things that matter most to me when I’m in pain. I’ve always found the book of James to be helpful in handling the subject.
FIRST, I REMIND MYSELF OF THE PURPOSE OF PAIN.
James reiterates the purpose of pain succinctly in James 1:1-4: “Count it all joy when you fall into all kinds of trials and troubles, knowing that the trying of our faith has a design.” God ultimately intends to mold us into the image of Jesus.
There is no growth apart from tension.
Spiritual maturity comes quite slowly when all is well. God knows that the best climate for making us just like Jesus is the crucible of fire and testing. After all, Hebrews 5:8 tells us that Jesus learned obedience through the things that He suffered. If His sufferings were instrumental in His maturity, why should we think it might be different for us?
“I walked a mile with Pleasure,
she chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser,
for all she had to say.
I walked a mile with sorrow,
and ne’er a word said she;
But, oh, the things I learned from her
when Sorrow walked with me.”
SECOND, I TRY TO FIND SOME JOY.
Of course, no one can be happy for their pain. However, both James and Paul declare that we can experience joy, even when we are walking through our pain (read Philippians chapters 1-4).
“Count it all joy” is an incredibly unnatural reaction! However, finding joy is supernatural…it is a gift from God’s heart to you and me just when we need it most (James 1:2-3).
When difficulties come to an immature Christian, he or she evaluates the pain and often gets angry, or bitter, discouraged and they say something like, “I quit” or “I’ll never go to church again.”
On the other hand, the mature Christian says, “The last time I had difficulty, I faced it and grew. I’ll see what God can teach me now.” This is joy!
The fence has two sides. On God’s side the language is Praise! On the self-side the language is “Gripe and Complain.” One side is joy and the other is misery.
One of my favorite authors, Pastor A.W. Tozer, wrote, “Suffering breeds compassion or bitterness. We must choose.”
In the midst of pain, we have a decision to make. We must choose one side or the other. Unfortunately, too many Christians try to do both. Remember, the only trouble with straddling the fence is that it always hurts in the middle! (James 1:5-8).
THIRD, I TRY TO REMIND MYSELF THAT THE WORLD IS FILLED WITH SUFFERING PEOPLE. I JUST HAPPEN TO BE ONE OF THEM.
Sometimes, we may feel like we are getting “picked on”, or that things aren’t fair, or that God doesn’t like us.
Think about this: In our immediate family we have three cancer survivors, heart and nervous system issues, countless surgeries, serious immune disorders and brain issues. Your family is probably the same.
God never promised that when we became Christians, all of our problems would be over. In fact, the Bible teaches just the opposite.
Pain, problems, and trials are not optional. They are essential. Pain and suffering are not an elective course that we can take or leave. They are required if we want to become more like Jesus.
FOURTH, I REMIND MYSELF THAT PAIN PRODUCES PATIENCE (JAMES 1:3-4).
We all want patience; but few of us want the process. The process for developing patience is fiery trials and troubles.
A student of Dr. Harry Ironside asked him to pray that he might have more patience.
Dr. Ironside began to pray, “Lord, send him troubles.”
The young student stopped Ironside in the middle of his prayer; “No! No! I didn’t say problems, I said patience.”
Ironside again begin to pray: “Lord, send this young man some problems.”
“No! No!” interrupted the young man. “I asked you to pray that I will have more patience.”
Ironside replied, “Don’t you understand. Problems and troubles are what produce patience.”
The Greek word for “patience” is “Hupomone”. This is the ability to bear great pain while turning them into glory.
We Christians are not without problems. Fortunately, we have the Problem Solver living within. Jesus can pour in the power and give us the grace to endure in the midst of our pain and suffering.
FIFTH, GOD PROMISED THAT IF I ASK FOR WISDOM AS TO WHY I AM EXPERIENCING A PARTICULAR PAIN, HE WILL TELL ME (JAMES 1:5-9).
James is saying, “Look, when we are in the midst of the troubles and we need wisdom as to how to handle it, ask God for wisdom and He will tell you what to do.”
I have a list of the questions I ask God when I am struggling with a pain.
- 1. Is this suffering designed to bring God glory?
- 2. Is this suffering the result of a sin I have committed?
- 3. Is this suffering to mature me to be more like Jesus?
- 4. Is this sickness the result of the fallen world in which we live?
- 5. Is this trial the result of some spiritual battle in the spirit realm?
- 6. Is this suffering the result of following Christ?
- 7. Is this suffering the result of doing good?
- 8. Is this suffering intended to keep me from future sin?
- 9 Is this suffering designed to increase my faith and dependence on God?
SIXTH, I TRY NOT TO WASTE MY EXPERIENCE.
How can we waste our experiences? We can run away from them. We can wallow in self-pity. We can get angry, bitter, depressed, or give up. We can waver back and forth trying to see whether or not we are committed to God and His plan, whatever it might entail.
Nothing ever says that we must understand what God’s purpose is in our lives. It simply sufficient to know that God has a purpose. That’s where we must rest our case. We are not smart enough to know all that He’s accomplishing. So it becomes a matter of trust.
SEVENTH, IT’S OKAY TO ENDURE SOME PAIN WHEN WE’RE HEADING FOR KING TERRITORY (JAMES 1:9-11).
Not until we come to the place where we can distinguish between the permanent and the perishability of things will our pain ever make sense.
I watched as the house of one our church members burned to the ground. He lost it all. Standing on the sidewalk, he cursed God, the fire department, the firemen, the fire, the neighbors for not getting a garden hose to help. Of course, he used language that I can’t repeat.
I watched his behavior, and I thought to myself, “What would I lose if that happened to my house?” If tomorrow I were to lose my personal possessions or my health, would I have anything left? The answer is, “Of course, I have something left. I have the treasures that I have laid up in heaven.”
When I was a boy, I played a lot of checkers. I considered myself to be the champion checker player of our neighborhood. However, one of the older children on our block was said to be best. I reasoned that was only because he hadn’t played me.
One day he challenged me to a game. Before he could say another word, I was seated at one side of board setting up checkers. He said, “You go first.” I thought, “Okay, I’ll set the pattern to the game.” We exchanged a few checkers.
Pretty soon he fed me a checker and said, “Jump me.” I jumped him. He fed me another checker, “Jump me.” I jumped him. Another. This was even easier than I thought.
To this day, I can still remember the smile on his face as he took a checker and went, plop, plop, plop, plop… “King me.” King me! He knocked every checker I had off of the board with one turn!
No good checker player minds losing a few checkers when he or she is headed for King Territory.
Here’s the best advice and comfort I could possibly give to you: “Count it all joy when you fall into all kinds of trials and troubles, knowing that the trying of our faith is designed to mature us to look just like Jesus!”
Again, to you, Chris, I hope this is helpful. May God give you great grace for the days ahead as he molds us to be like Jesus.
Sincerely, Roger
The most important influence to my pastoral counseling is from David Powlison. Powlison was a professor at the seminary my wife Angel graduated from and has had an indelible impact on her counseling. I had the chance to meet Powlison face-to-face a handful of times and was deeply impacted by his ministry both through Angel and through his writing. Seeing with New Eyes is the most important book I’ve ever read on Biblical counseling.
A month ago David Powlison died of cancer at age 69. He lived his last months as he lived his life: full of grace. In the midst of diminishing strength, Powlison used his trial with cancer as a trumpet for the gospel. In my Angel’s words, “He longed for God’s glory and God gave him that gift early.”
Weeks before Powlison died he wrote the closing comments at Westminster Theological Seminary’s graduation where they were delivered by his friend and colleague, Mike Emlet. Powlison’s call to step into God’s grace in the midst of our weaknesses is doubly powerful because it is a truth spoken in the midst of an extreme trial. It is a very picture of what he is speaking of: strength in weakness.
May we too be unafraid to be weak for the sake of the revelation of the strength of God.
Here is what Powlison said:[i]
I grieve not to be with you this afternoon. I very much looked forward to walking with you, worshiping with you, listening to our God with you, and cheering you on as you set forth into the next season of your life. After being diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer in November, I returned to work half-time at CCEF [Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation], serving a future that I am not likely to be part of. Part of why I have so looked forward to this graduation day is because it is something fully in the present tense of my experience. And I grieve. I truly grieve not to be present with you. But my health has become fragile and I recently entered hospice care.
I want to share words of encouragement with you. I first graduated from Westminster thirty-nine years ago! I still remember the specific details of one sermon that I heard in seminary chapel. Dick Gaffin was speaking from Romans 8:26 about how the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. He made a point I’ve never forgotten — that “weakness” is singular. It does not say “weaknesses” as if there were a finite list of sins A-B-C, and sufferings X-Y-Z in your life. “Weakness” singular is a comprehensive description of our human condition. We are perishable. We are mortal. We face a multitude of afflictions in our lives. And we are sinful, bent from the heart towards pride, self-righteousness, fear of man, and a multitude of desires and fears that beset us. The mercies of God meet us in this comprehensive condition of weakness.
Something I long admired about Pope John Paul II is that he was unafraid to be publicly weak. He was willing to be in front of people when it was evident that he was failing. I deeply respected that. It’s so countercultural to people who want to say, “We are STRONG!” and “You can do it!” On the contrary, we are fundamentally weak. That weakness is a most unusual door into all the ways God enables us to be strong.
One of my favorite novels is Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. I’ve always admired one of the characters. Msimangu is an Anglican pastor living in South Africa under apartheid. He is very generous to a grieving older pastor, Steven Kumalo. When Kumalo expresses deep, tearful gratitude for how generous Msimangu has been, he responds: “I am a selfish, sinful and weak man, but God has put his hand on me. That is all.”
Being unafraid to be publicly weak was true of King David. The end of Psalm 40 has always resonated deeply with me. This psalm contains a great deal of fruitful ministry and joyful worship, yet David summarizes himself this way: “As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.” David’s strength grew out of his comprehensive sense of weakness, and his confidence in God’s strength.
We see something very similar in the life of the apostle Paul. He pleads with God to take away a very distressing affliction, but the Lord says, “No, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Paul goes on to say, “I will gladly boast of my weakness as the doorway through which the strength of God enters my life.”
Supremely we see fearlessness of public weakness in the life and words of Jesus himself. The Beatitudes sound the keynote of Jesus’ keynote talk, the Sermon on the Mount. What Jesus says to us captures what he himself embodies. When we think about how the image of Christ is expressed in our lives, the Beatitudes show us how the right kind of weakness, a fundamental sense of neediness, then leads directly to the right kind of strength, a strength grounded and founded in need.
Think about the qualities of strength that the last four beatitudes portray.
· “Blessed are the merciful” — to have your life characterized by a deep concern for the welfare of others, to be generous, open-hearted and open-handed.
· Jesus says, “The pure in heart are blessed,” describing the ability to approach all people free from duplicitous motives, free of self-serving.
· Jesus says, “Peacemakers are blessed — they’re nothing less than the children of God.” Peacemaking is the ability to be candid, constructive, and caring; to pursue peace in a world that is full of war, dissension, conflicts, arguments, and avoiders.
· Jesus says, “Those who are persecuted are blessed.” He calls us to joyful purposefulness, finding courage in affliction, finding perseverance in opposition. These are wonderful traits. These are the traits of leadership and loving fruitfulness in Jesus’ life — and ours as well.
The right kind of strength comes from the right kind of weakness. The right kind of weakness is expressed in the first four beatitudes:
· “The poor in spirit are blessed” — those who know they need help outside of themselves. Jesus is described as one who, though he was rich, became poor. He became poor for you. He became utterly dependent, utterly needy. He died in the ultimate weakness and perishability of the human condition.
· Jesus is portrayed throughout his life as one who mourns: “He is a man of sorrows, acquainted, well-acquainted, deeply-acquainted, with grief.” “Blessed are those who mourn.” He mourns for your sake, he mourns his own suffering that he must face, he mourns all the things that are wrong in this world, and he comes on a mission of mercy to make wrongs right.
· “The meek are blessed.” Jesus describes himself as meek and lowly in heart. Meekness is not weakness in the negative sense. It’s weakness in the positive sense, being under the hand and voice and will of Another, heeding the voice of his Father. He was meek for you and for me, fully trusting God’s promises, fully obeying God’s will. He is the one in whose image we are to become.
· Jesus is blessed because he hungers and thirsts for righteousness. He makes right what is wrong. He makes true what is false. And he remakes what is evil for the good of His people. He who is all-righteous hungers and thirsts for righteousness for our sake.
So we see in the very life of our Lord that he is all these things. He is fruitful, he is strong, but he is fruitful and strong on the foundation of this abiding sense of weakness and need. And it’s that weakness and need that we see supremely exhibited at the end of his life when he goes to death in our place, casting Himself on his Father’s mercy and power. He was raised in strength, while retaining compassion and sympathy for our weakness and our need. He warmly welcomes us to the throne of his grace, that we might receive the mercy we need and the grace specific to whatever difficult situation we are in.
My deepest hope for you is that in both your personal life and your ministry to others, you would be unafraid to be publicly weak as the doorway to the strength of God Himself.
[i] https://www.ccef.org/a-special-note-from-david-powlison/?
fbclid=IwAR1r0FA76u7TWsU89_4CR3pp105cCilVCdRLda2iJUDLapcioS67Z_qpgGw
www.thebeehive.live. Used by permission.
We’ve all done it. We’ve all invested time and energy into someone or something and then come to the horrible conclusion that nothing is changing. Nothing we seem to do or say helps them or changes them or even seems to reach them.
When is it enough? When do we stop hoping, stop trying…stop praying?
The answer is never. Well, at least that’s the answer if you’re a Christian.
The truth is that we never stop.
We pretty much need to take on a snail’s view of prayer, too. Slow and steady, moving ever forward and trusting that the finish line is ahead, even if we don’t know how long it is going to take or how far it is ahead.
No matter how painful and useless our prayers and our efforts seem, God never gives us a pass on this one. As a matter of fact, the very act of persevering in our prayers and in our efforts is exactly what our Father requires of us. And we are to do so with absolutely no time constraints on either how or when He will choose to act.
No joke. This isn’t easy, but it is a fact. It has been said that a Christian is the only person on the planet who willingly sacrifices her present on the altar of her future. We have to do that on behalf of others, too.
This is often so hard as parents. It’s so hard to pray and pray and pray for our children, especially when they are in some sort of rebellion, and then just keep on praying as days and months and years go by with no change. Often it even seems to get worse. It’s certainly not that we want to stop praying; it’s more that we can get discouraged with God.
Why doesn’t He act? What is He waiting on?
These are difficult questions, and it gets increasingly difficult to persevere when nothing we say seems to make a difference.
I’ve experienced this with my own children, and I’ve often experienced it with the women I counsel. I get so downtrodden and frustrated with the lack of improvement. Eventually, I have to fight the urge to simply give up.
Yeah, I’ve wanted to give up plenty of times. There have been times when I saw a woman for years, every single week, telling her the same things and watching her heed not one of my words. I would think about changing what I told her. I would think about giving up, letting her go, telling her that our time had come to an end and that there was nothing else I could do for her. I’d get angry and frustrated and fight the drudgery of seeing her again and again, having the same conversations over and over.
Do you ever feel this way with others? With your children?
A friend and I were discussing this very issue the other day, and the example the Lord brought to my mind were His people, the Israelites. When God delivered them out of the hands of the Egyptians, He simply told them to go out into the desert. They would wander from place to place, knowing that the promise was for their land, but they never got much clarity about when they would receive it. The Lord only told them that they would get to it, but in the meantime, they were to keep walking.
“Just keep walking,” He told them. “I will bring you into the Promised Land. I will give you victory over your enemies. I will protect you as My people. You are to keep walking.”
As I thought about these exchanges, I thought about how they must have felt. We can sometimes be so critical of the Israelites. Indeed, they were a rebellious and fickle people, but aren’t we, too? I mean, think about it. They wandered around for forty years! Sometimes they literally wandered around in circles, in the middle of the desert!
And all that time, God never said, “You will see the Promised Land in twenty-two days,” or in twenty-two years, or in any time frame at all! God just told them to walk and that He would certainly do the work.
Why do you suppose He didn’t give them His schedule?
I’m pretty sure it’s exactly why He doesn’t give it to you and me either. If He did, we would begin to rely on the schedule and not on Him. We would come to expect God to work within the parameters of what we think and what we want rather than just obediently walking where He tells us to walk and then having faith that He will indeed keep His promises.
That, my friends, is faith, and faith is precisely the way we demonstrate our full reliance on a God who has given us everything.
So, we pray. We persevere for as long as it takes—for decades if necessary—not because we have to do so in order to see the fruit, but because our obedience and faith are how we demonstrate our love of and trust in God.
Why do we never give up? It’s because the work is not ours to accomplish anyway. Ours is to walk, just like the Israelites, because God has promised in His Word,
God is not a man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should
change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not
fulfill it?
(Numbers 23:19, ESV)
Additionally, the writer of Hebrews reminds us,
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering,
for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:23, ESV)
So, we keep praying. We keep testifying, and we never change our proclamation of the Gospel. In those words are life, and God will do His work—in His time. There have been occasions where I got to see God move in the women I counselled, even after years, and how marvelous it was to know that I didn’t give up! But there have been times that I did give up, and you know what? God still does His work; I simply don’t get the joy of being a part of it.
And with our children? Sisters, persevere! The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:9, ESV) He will do His work in our children, too. We do sacrifice our present on the altar of our future, and we do so for our children, as well.
We know that what we see does not determine what will be, and we know that God is right in the middle of what will be! Hallelujah!!
Trust Him. Pray to Him. Have faith in Him. Even if it’s hard, hold tight to Him.
If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2:13, ESV)
Why did the snail finish the race? The same reason we do. He persevered.
The older I get the more intense I feel about this. I think we do things backwards in the Christian church. We do these amazing things for God when we’re 18 to 25 years old. But as we get older we tend to mellow out. We get more comfortable, and we do fewer things by faith. I look at that, and I think that’s so backwards.
We’re in a race. There’s no time to celebrate, there’s no time to fight. Anything could slow us down. That’s what our lives should be like. But we do it backwards. We slow down as we get older. I get some of this. When we’re 18, we have nothing to lose. But as we get older, we get married, we have a career, we have some kids, and we don’t have the energy we had earlier in life.
I don’t want to slow down.
I don’t want to get comfortable.
I want to take bigger steps of faith every year.
To me, “Happily ever after” starts at my death, standing before God. That’s when I can celebrate.
Look at Caleb.
He was over 40 when he was sent to spy on the Promised Land, and he was one of only two who came back who was convinced that Israel could take the land. 45 years later, he’s 85, and he was ready to march in and take the land. That’s who I want to be.
2 CHRONICLES 16:9 – “The eyes of the Lord roam to and fro throughout the Earth, looking to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.”
Do you believe this? God is looking throughout the Earth. He knows my heart. He knows my mind. He knows yours. He’s actively looking to give support to those whose heart is blameless towards him. He’s looking for someone to support. We ask, “God, please support me!”
And he’s saying, “I’m looking. Is anyone’s heart really for me? Are you really seeking my kingdom?” Do you want my will?”
God sees that.
I want to be that person where God stops and says, “Okay, him. I’m going to strongly support him, like Caleb and Joshua. They just kept believing God and serving Him confidently and faithfully!
What I love about this verse is the context — the real story of this verse. These words were spoken to a king named Asa. He was an amazing king. When there was a good king, good things happened. But that was rare.
Early in King Asa’s reign, a prophet said to him, “Take courage. Do not let your hands be weak. Your work shall be rewarded.” As soon as Asa heard these words, he took courage. Think about that. “Take courage.” It’s something we have to take.
We see in 2 Chronicles 15 what Asa does. He rebuilds the altar, he removes the idols, and he makes a covenant with the Lord along with all the people. He even removed an idol that his own mother had made. Don’t you want to be a man or woman of God like that?
God rewarded his faithfulness. For 35 years, there was no war.
But in the 36th year, the King of Israel started a war.
At this point, Asa made a deal with the King of Syria, to help defend his kingdom. Most of us would think that this was a good idea. But in verse 7, Hananiah the prophet came and told Asa that because he had relied on the King of Syria and not on God, that Asa had acted foolishly and that there would never be an end to war.
Asa had changed his ways from his earlier years because he had gotten a little success. He’d gotten comfortable. It wasn’t like the early days when he cried out to God, and this prophet was reminding him of that. God’s looking for people who always seek him throughout life, but what does Asa do?
He’s been a king for 35 years, and he’d made other king buddies, so they’d join him. Asa was told that this was a very stupid thing to do. He would be at war from then on. The really sad thing is, after hearing this, did Asa change his ways? No. He got angry at the prophet and had him imprisoned.
In Asa’s 39th year, God gave him a disease in his feet. He still refused to pray to God, and he died. I’ve seen this happen in my life.
I speak to so many college-age kids, and they’re all longing for an elderly mentor whose life makes sense to them in light of the Gospel. I want my kids to model the same intensity that they see in me. I want my two-year-old to see an even more intense me than my 18-year-old did.
If I can hear “Well done” from God, that’s all I want. I want that for you. Is there anything you’re going to care about that’s more important than when Jesus says, “Well done”?
Older saint, Join me!
I’m going to take courage.
I’m going to turn around.
I’m going to live for God for the rest of my life, and I want to hear God say, “Well done.”
God will say, “You know I had something better for you, so come in and enjoy the riches of my kingdom.” There’s that “Happily ever after.” Live life faithfully and seek God’s rewards.
Taken from “Finish Strong: Caleb” by Francis Chan
Talk to any church leader, and they’ll tell you it feels more challenging than ever to get people to come to church on a Sunday.
Even in growing churches (like ours), the competition for peoples’ time, attention and devotion seems to get more intense every year.
You’ve felt it too.
So what’s up? And where is future church attendance heading?
I’m a firm believer in the future of the church and the gathered church. It’s here to stay not because we always get it right, but because the church is Jesus’ idea, not ours.
Still, with everything in the culture changing, how do you navigate toward a better future?
One step is to start asking solid questions.
Why? Because usually the future isn’t pioneered by the clarity of the answers nearly as much as it by the quality of the questions.
Ask the right questions, and you’ll eventually get the right answers. Fail to ask the questions, and you’re sunk.
Here are ten questions I’m asking right now and I’ve seen other leaders ask. I think they can help frame your discussion and move you toward better answers and a strategy to match.
I’ve also included my hunch when it comes to an answer to the questions, not because I’m certain it’s right, but because answering the question moves you toward a more strategic and proactive future.
So, with that in mind, here are 10 really big questions about future church attendance.
1. WILL INFREQUENT CHURCH ATTENDANCE BECOME THE UNIVERSAL DEFAULT?
If you grew up in church, you were likely raised never to miss a Sunday. Well, those days are pretty much gone.
Frequent church attendance (say 2-3 weeks a month) seems to be most prevalent among
- Volunteers
- Long time (and older) church attendees
- Families with very young children
- Some new attendees and new Christians (at least for a season)
- Quite honestly, lower-income families for whom travel is not an option
For everyone else, regular church attendance is giving way to non-engagement or online attendance.
As infrequent in-person attendance becomes more normative, it raises a series of other questions.
My Hunch:
Infrequent church attendance is usually a sign that people don’t see value in what you’re doing. And that’s a problem.
When parents who never ever miss their kids’ soccer practice regularly miss church, it’s a sign that they’re more engaged in soccer than they are in church. In other words, they just don’t see the value in attendance.
2. DOES INFREQUENT ATTENDANCE LEAD TO LOWER DEVOTION AMONG CHRISTIANS?
Some might argue frequent church attendance is not an indicator of devotion to Christ. But the bigger question is Is infrequent church attendance a sign of lower devotion to Christ?
Obviously, there is nothing that inherently says that’s the case, but generally speaking, people are less committed to things they attend less often.
Naturally, the goal of faith is to get people to commit to Jesus, not to a local church, but still, Christ and his church are intricately connected.
But consider this: showing up at the gym once a month rather than 3 times a week usually communicates something. Skipping a weekly date with someone you’re supposed to be in love with is usually a sign of something deeper.
People usually commit to things they’re devoted to. Until they’re no longer devoted to them.
My Hunch:
Infrequent attendance is almost always a sign of lower devotion. We participate in the things we value most.
3. WILL ONLINE CHURCH REPLACE IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE FOR MANY?
So if people aren’t attending church as regularly anymore, then what’s the new normal?
In addition to simply staying away, many are substituting online options for in-person attendance. The launch of Churchome’s Global App is one more step in that direction.
The last decade has seen an explosion of online options for Christians, most of which are free: from social media to podcasts and to services streamed both live and on demand.
The opportunities are endless and will only grow from here.
Even if your church doesn’t have any online presence, don’t worry—thousands of other ministries do. There’s no way to shield your congregation from a changing world.
And actually, come to think of it, there’s shouldn’t be. The church has always adapted to a changing world because Jesus loves the world.
My Hunch:
While I think that (at least at this point) increased in-person engagement almost always leads to higher devotion, for some people online will be their only form of church. I don’t love this, for reasons stated elsewhere in this post, but if you ignore your online strategy, you lose the chance to reach new people, even if it means some of your less-devoted people step back.
4. DOES ONLINE PARTICIPATION FEED CONSUMPTION OR DRIVE ENGAGEMENT?
One of the key goals for Christians is to engage the mission in front of us: to share the love and salvation of Christ with the world.
But does online participation drive Christians into deeper engagement with that mission or does it drive us deeper into consumerism?
The challenge with technology, of course, is that we are both its parent and its child. We shaped it, but we’re unclear on how it’s shaping us.
So, given the rise of digital options, are Christians increasingly seeing their faith as something to be consumed?
The Gospel by nature demands sacrifice, engagement, and risk.
Christianity at its best has never been about consuming much and contributing little. We shouldn’t start now.
In many respects, online consumption builds the kingdom of me. We’re called to build the Kingdom of God.
My Hunch:
When you design your online strategy, you can shape it to fuel consumption or to fuel engagement. While many churches will shape it to fuel consumption, the more effective churches will shape it to fuel engagement.
5. WHAT HAPPENS TO EVANGELISM IN A LOW ATTENDANCE WORLD?
Of all the things that concern me most about lower attendance patterns, this one is the highest on my list.
If you’re consuming your faith online and only attending sporadically, how do you invite your friends into that? That’s right, you don’t.
Sharing a pin on Instagram is not the same as personally sharing your life with a friend.
Sure, theoretically, you can share your faith around a kitchen table. But let’s be honest, not many people actually do that. And something tells me that most people who attend infrequently rarely share their faith.
Christians should live like the good news is good, not just for them, but for everyone.
My Hunch:
Many Christians will continue to see their faith as something to be enjoyed, not shared. But they won’t be the future church.
The future church will be followers of Jesus who unite around a mission to change the world through the love and hope of Christ.
6. WHAT HAPPENS TO DISCIPLESHIP IN A VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT?
Christian maturity is not marked by how much you know, it’s marked by how much you love.
And love has an outward thrust.
Sure, to grow as a disciple you need to consume. So listen to messages and podcasts, take online seminary classes… do what you need to do.
But consumption has never been the goal of true discipleship. Jesus never asked you to be a disciple; he called you to make disciples.
If your mantra in avoiding other Christians on Sunday and consuming what you feel like on Monday is to build yourself up, you’ve lost the mission.
My Hunch:
The future church will be filled with Christians who realize they’re called to make disciples, not just be disciples.
7. HOW MUCH OF A VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE ACTUALLY TRANSLATES?
With more and more congregations streaming their services, it raises the question of what happens on the other end?
First, I suspect the attention span of viewers and listeners is fractured and intermittent. Watching while running on the treadmill is not the same experience as being in the room live when something is taking place. Listening while cooking dinner and while the kids are running up and down the hall is not the same as being seated and attentive for a sermon. Sure, people have been distracted in church for centuries, but it’s a different kind of distraction.
Second, even if you sit in rapt attention to what’s being streamed on your device, is it the same as being in the room? If you only watched online for a year or attended for a year, would your faith be different?
Hunch
Because so online content consumption is often done while people multi-task, it will lead to a distracted discipleship if that’s the only form of church people experience.
8. IS A DIGITAL RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRISTIANITY ENOUGH?
As physical attendance continues to decline and digital engagement increases, will it be possible to have 100% or near 100% digital relationship with Christianity, much the way you have a completely virtual relationship with gaming, movies or Hollywood?
I really think something gets lost by a mainly digital experience.
A high percentage of couples today meet online. But no couple who meets online wants to stay online: the goal is to meet in person and (maybe) start a life together. Should Christians be different?
If the goal is to do life together, to engage in a mission together, to quite literally change the world together, well… that involves actual human relationships.
But in a world where more and more are choosing virtual connection over real, we’ll have to see what that produces.
9. WHAT HAPPENS TO KIDS WHOSE PARENTS ONLY ATTEND ONLINE?
This one bothers me more than most. Parents will often skip out on attending church because they’re busy or want a day off.
And parents can easily catch up on a message and maybe even still get to a small group.
But what about kids?
I think the Gospel is inherently relational.
You can’t download a relationship or a friendship.
When parents skip church, kids lose far more than the parents.
What happens to a generation of kids who grow up relationally disconnected? Actually, I think we’re seeing the results of that already. Just read the news.
10. WILL FRAGMENTED INDIVIDUAL BELIEVERS CARRY THE MISSION FORWARD?
Whether the future trends are toward more online engagement or just more sporadic attendance with no online supplementation, the question is whether fragmented individual believers will carry the mission forward?
The church has always been strongest when it’s been a movement of people gathered around a common set of mission, vision, values and strategy.
The hyper-individualism of our current culture (I’ll do what I want when I want to) runs at crossed-purposes to the Gospel and the mission of the church.
I realize many Christians argue they’re done with church, but that still doesn’t change my view that the only one who believes Christians are better off alone is the enemy.
www.careynieuwhof.com. Used by permission.
Dear Roger,
Most of the Christians I know, myself included, feel like our country is drifting further away from God’s principles at an ever increasing, accelerating pace runaway sin and mockery of the things of God. I’m afraid for my country.
The truth is, I am afraid for myself, too. I am beginning to see compromise and some drifting away from some of the beliefs and values that I hold dear. And it scares me.
Please give me some advice on how to arrest the drifting.
Sincerely, Amanda
Dear Amanda,
I’d be glad to share a few thoughts. Hebrews 2:1 summarizes the issue:
“We must pay more careful attention to what we’ve heard so that we do not drift away.”
Let me illustrate. My three-three year-old daughter, Bronwyn, and I were flying late one Saturday night from Dallas to Tucson. Believe it or not, only five people were on the American Airlines flight. We were playing chase all around the cabin. The flight attendant told us to sit down. So we did. Unfortunately Bronwyn was all full of vim and vigor and before I realized it we were up and running again.
She approached me from behind: “Okay dad,” she said with dripping scar chasm, “ if the oxygen masks come out, whose do you put on first?” I knew the answer to that; but I had to think for a moment.
“Why, mine!”
“That’s correct, but if it happens you won’t have that much time to decide.”
On my next flight I decided I’d better listen when the flight attendant gave instructions. I’ve heard it 1000 times. I grew up on airplanes! I looked around the cabin and everyone was ignoring her. I started listening again to the things that she was talking about, insignificant things, like where to go to get oxygen when there isn’t any.
The same thing can happen to us in the spiritual realm. It’s now happening to our country. It’s now happening in the church.
This generation, like no other, is characterized by people who are rewriting the standards.
Into many of our lives, seldom do we hear the watchword, “Thus says the Lord….” Now we hear, “let’s be reasonable.”
We are finding less sharp edges and increasingly more rounded corners.
Moral purity, marital commitment, ministerial integrity, issues like abortion and gay marriage, and biblical fidelity are things that are up for grabs to many Christians.
Our society is drifting away from our godly heritage and is turning its back on God’s dealings with mankind.
DRIFTING IS DANGEROUS.
The writer to the Hebrews continues in the next two verses:
“Since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?”
Hebrews 5:11-6:6 details another sobering warning:
“… It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen[c] away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”
SOME REASONS THAT WE DRIFT
1. A Shallow Work At The Beginning (Mark 4:13-20 And 2 Corinthians 7:10).
John MacArthur encountered a prostitute who said to him, “I need help. Please. I’m desperate.” She was at the bottom. She’d been through the drug scene and wanted to get free. MacArthur shared with her the gospel of Jesus and she prayed to receive Christ.
Then MacArthur said, “Do you have your little black book of contacts with you?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s just take a match and burn it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean just what I said. If you really experienced Jesus’ forgiveness and want him to be your savior, then let’s have a little party and burn the book and praise the Lord.”
“But that book,” she said, “is worth a lot of money…. an awful lot of money.” She paused and then said, “I don’t want to burn my book.” She put it in her purse, looked MacArthur in the eye, and said, “I guess that I really don’t want Jesus, do I?”
And she left.
She made a bad bargain. What she kept for a little while wasn’t worth anything compared to what she could’ve had in Jesus Christ forever.
2. Riches In This World (Psalms 73:3-9, And Proverb 1:32).
3. Inattention To Divine Warnings (Proverbs 29:1 And 1 Kings 13:20-24).
4. Blindness To Relative Values Versus Actual Spiritual Status (Like Laodicea In Revelation 13).
5. Hanging On To Favorites Sins (Ephesians 4:27).
Drifting Is So Easy, And So Damning
DEMAS IS THE PARAMOUNT BIBLICAL EXAMPLE OF DRIFTING.
God gives us three snapshots of Demas, three points on a graph, which show him drifting rapidly downward from “fellow worker with Paul” to apostate.
The first snapshot is in Philemon 23-24:
“Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow workers.”
Demas is a “fellow worker” with the apostle Paul. There are a few honors better than that. He is in the company of spiritual giants. He began with a hot heart. He surrendered to full-time Christian service. He decided to follow Christ at any price.
The second snapshot is in Colossians 4:7-14:
“Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord…. Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you…. Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.”
Eight individuals are mentioned in this passage and it is no accident that seven of them are pointed out for some good work while Demas is passed over in silence. I believe that at this juncture, Paul was beginning to suspect that something was wrong with Demas.
The third snapshot is 2 Timothy 4:9-10:
“Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.”
“Demas, my fellow laborer; Demas; Demas has deserted me.”
This is the story of a man who made a fine beginning but a poor ending.
It’s obvious that the qualities which make for a good start are not identical with the qualities that see life through to the end.
I’ve noticed that it’s easy for Christians to be like Demas and to love this present age. Many begin with Christ but then some comfortable corner of this present age invites us and we nestle down. Our Christian profession lapses and we do not amount to much in the end for Jesus.
If I should accuse some of us of being Judas, we would be indignant. We would never deliberately sell out. But Demas, how many of us have been that.
STAYING POWER: HOW NOT TO DRIFT
1. STAYING POWER IN CHRISTIANITY IS ALWAYS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF GIVING ONESELF COMPLETELY OVER TO JESUS CHRIST.
Demas had no staying power because Christ had never gotten that deeply into consent Demas.
Think about Paul and Demas. Paul was in with staying power. He could’ve had the simple life as a professor at the University of Jerusalem. He could’ve had all that Rome had to offer; but he set aside all of that and was willing to die for Jesus Christ. Demas was of another sort.
2. STAYING POWER IN CHRISTIANITY IS ALWAYS ASSOCIATED WITH COMPLETE FAITH THAT GOD IS STILL ON HIS THRONE AND IS CARRYING OUT HIS PLAN ON THE EARTH.
Of all the maddening things in history, with Nero on his throne and with Paul in his prison, can you think of anything more unlikely than that the gospel for which Paul stood would outlast the mighty Roman Empire.
Of course, that’s what got to Demas.
Who would ever have believed that one day we would name our sons, “Paul”, and our dogs,” Nero”?
I wish for every Christian a life of great convictions and staying power, which develop, expand, and elevate through life— fine at the beginning, but loveliest of all at the last.
Frankly, is there anything that we can better pray for ourselves than to avoid the opposite?
Well Amanda, I hope that you’ll find my thoughts helpful and that you will choose to stand with Christ at any price.
Love, Roger
Anyone who’s given himself or herself to prayer for a sustained amount of time has likely experienced the disappointment of unanswered prayer. But the more theologicall astute among you may not like that phrase “unanswered prayer.” You may call it a category mistake. I understand your point. In reality, there are no unanswered prayers. God is sovereign and giving us all what we would’ve asked for if we knew everything he knows.
And I’m sure David was told something similar when he penned Psalm 13: “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?” (v. 1).
Surely you know, David, that God hasn’t forgotten you!
I’m sure he knew.
David continues: “Consider and answer me, O LORD my God” (v. 3). Apparently, David hadn’t experienced an answer to his prayers for a while, and was asking God “why?” I trust you could give a quick, theologically accurate answer.
But David is a serial offender in the Psalms. Maybe you would even quote the Psalms to David and correct him! “He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see? (Ps. 94:9).
Still, David and other psalmists consistently ask the God who never forgets if he has forgotten them.
My Experience
Have you experienced this pain? I have. There have been days I’ve felt as if I could only pray, “Will you forget me forever?” Maybe you feel that’s overdoing it. Perhaps you’d say, “Well, maybe you should pray for something else. It sounds like you’re expecting God to do your bidding!”
Maybe. But I wonder if you’d be as quick to say so to a brother or sister struggling with addiction, praying 10 years for relief, longing for a wandering child, or to a congregation fearful of its doors closing.
I penned a poem about unanswered prayer once. I wince sometimes when I read it:
Where is your listening ear, O Lord?
Why have you ignored me?
All my prayers are swallowed up in the ceiling!
Is my voice too quiet for you?
It gets worse:
Where have my prayers gone, Lord? What have you done with them? “Ask me anything,” you say—“The desire of your heart!” All my desires have been crushed. All my groanings ignored.
Those last two lines are a sore spot for people who experience unanswered prayer. We read Jesus’s words of almost completely unqualified invitation—“Ask me anything and I’ll give it to you!” (Matt. 18:19; 21:22; Mark 11:24; John 14:13; 15:7; 15:16; 16:23–24; James 1:5–6; 1:17; 1 John 3:22; 5:14–15)—and wonder why he hasn’t answered us.
When will I get some relief?
When will my sighings give way to smiles?
I know where comfort comes from,
But you have locked its doors from me.
My smiles are like powder, my laughter like grass;
With a breeze, they are blown away.
Finding Companions
As I read the Psalms, I continue to find companions. Asaph considers his trouble and all the times he has prayed for relief: “When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints” (Ps. 77:3). He’s grown tired of asking. The morning comes, and it’s time to pray, but he’s too tired of being disappointed to ask for anything again.
Asaph continues: “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he shut up his compassion?” (Ps. 77:7–9). Asaph knows the answer to his questions. In fact, elsewhere he answers them. Even Jesus begs for relief (Mark 14:36), and when he experiences the Father’s absence, he cries aloud: “Why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).
The Psalms keep good company. They give me words when I’m at a loss. They open windows in the rooms of my heart I didn’t know were there, and they let in fresh air. That’s a grace for seasons of unanswered prayer.
When you sit patiently with these psalms, you find something more. You remember these aren’t just the words of David and Asaph; these are the words of God. Before David gave me the words, “Will you forget me forever?” God gave them to David. These complaints are God’s gifts. He knows how we are. When we are at the end of our rope, these words are his way of lengthening the tether.
Isn’t that something? God has inspired words of complaint and protest to say to him when we are confused and sad, angry and desperate. He gave us words to say into our pillow as we drink our tears. “Here,” he says, “these words will help. Go ahead. I’m not self-conscious.”
Fighting to Wait
There’s an old church father, Diadochus of Photike, who was part of the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. He was known for writing On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination, or as it’s best known, “The Hundred Chapters,” which is primarily on prayer. He introduces a term that probably won’t catch on with modern readers: “educative desolation.” Diadochus says “educative desolation” is God’s intentional hiding of his presence from the senses of his children. He hides the “experience of divine attention” in order to increase their desire for him. “Educative desolation,” he explains, “brings to the soul humiliation, grief, and proper despair in order that the part of the soul that seeks glory and is easily exalted may return to humility.” Such a soul that “seeks glory and is easily exalted,” he observes, “does not easily renew its love of God.” In infinite wisdom, the Lord uses various ways to awaken our longings for himself again.
I don’t know if this is why God sometimes doesn’t answer my prayers and makes me wonder if he’s near. But I’ve found comfort in these instructions and have tried to look for ways to stir my love for him. When I do seek him, I’ve often heard the whisper of the Lamentations: “You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear’” (Lam. 3:57). Notice he doesn’t say “Here’s your answer,” but “Do not fear.” I can use that.
Until then, Jeremiah teaches me to wait as he laments his exile: “The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him” (Lam. 3:25). He says so when all he can think about is his affliction, and he wonders if God thinks of him (Lam. 3:19–20). He knows the right answer. So he waits. And God says “those who wait for me shall not be put to shame” (Isa. 49:23).
The Lord is good to those who wait for him. In my heartache and confusion, my waiting is not in vain. He’s going to be good to me. He already has been.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-to-do-with-unanswered-prayer/
Used by permission of the author.
Is there a surefire way your marriage can be protected from adultery? Dr. Russell Moore gives us his opinion:
“Whenever one sees a marriage fall apart due to adultery, one of the first things one hears is, “And I thought they were so happy!” Often, we tend to assume that couples torn asunder by an affair must be secretly in felt turmoil for years. More importantly, we assume that those of us who are happily married are then protected from the same crisis. In a provocative new article, a marriage therapist argues against these assumptions. She argues that a happy relationship is no guarantee against vow-breaking. I think she might be on to something.
In the October issue of The Atlantic, Esther Perel looks back on the scope of her counseling encounters with marriages in crisis over infidelity and notes how rarely she sees adulterous people who cheat out of a desire to flee a bad relationship. Often, she writes, it’s just the opposite. She encounters people who want to keep their marriage, the way that it is, and who don’t actually want to leave it for the other relationship.
In certain ways, Perel’s argument is completely wrong. Most importantly, she sees adultery in almost exclusively therapeutic rather than moral terms. That aside, her larger point tends to line up exactly with what I have seen in thousands of cases of pastoral intervention with marriages in crisis over adultery. The affairs are usually not about a lack of happiness or a lack of sex.
There’s something else afoot.
Perel notes that many of the “other partners” chosen by adulterous mates are not at all the sort of person the cheating spouse would ever want in a life companion, noting the example of a straight-laced woman who recognizes the cliché of her affair with a tattooed motorcyclist. What’s at work is not a quest for a better lover or a better spouse but for “the unexplored self.”
An affair is not about sexual excitement, she contends, but about nostalgia.
The person who cheats is often looking to reconnect with the person he or she once was, before the daily responsibility of working a job or maintaining a household. This is especially true in the era of social media where, so often, affairs begin by “checking in” on someone from high school or college or a previous workplace. The issue is not so much that the person is pining for this old connection as much as the person is pining to be the person, again, that the old connection once knew. The question is: “Am I still the person I was back then?”
Here, I think, she is exactly right. A common theme I have found in adulterous affairs is that the one cheating is almost always seeking to recapture the feeling of adolescence or young adulthood. For a short period of time, the person is swept up in the drama of “I love you; do you love me” romance, without all the burdens of who is picking up Chloe from school or what day to put the recycling bin out at the curb or how to budget for the mortgage. The secret lover seems to make the married person feel young or “alive” again, until everything comes crashing down. The person is usually not looking for a sexual experience but for an alternative universe, one in which he or she made different choices.
She is also quite right that often our ideas and expectations of what makes a marriage “happy” contribute to the adultery. We are told to expect “the One” to meet every need of self-fulfillment. We restrict ourselves from having sex with others, she notes, not out of a sense of moral duty but because we have found the one who will make us happy. Happiness, though, in our imaginations is not how what happiness actually is. “We have conjured up a new Olympus where love will remain unconditional, intimacy enthralling, and sex oh so exciting, with one person, for the long haul,” she writes. “And the haul keeps getting longer.”
The best, most secure and stable marriages I know are not typically those that seem “happy” in the sense of self-actualization. They are instead those marriages in which, often through deep suffering, the husband and wife model self-sacrifice and care for the other. Like Christ and the church, their one-flesh union is forged not through demands for the other to meet needs but through a sense of common purpose. In those healthy marriages, one spouse does not look to the other to provide identity. Instead, both spouses find an identity in Christ. My life is not imperiled by comparison with other marriages or with my idealized younger life because my life is hidden in Christ. This gives the freedom to love. And, over the long run, this gives the sort of freedom in which there is the ability to take joy in the wife (or husband) of one’s youth.
A couple, even a Christian couple, should not assume they are immune to infidelity because they love each other, because they are happy, or because their sexual acrobatics are frenzied. The devil knows the way to take one down is not through a deficient spouse but through a deficient self. “Sometimes when we seek the gaze of another, it’s not our partner we are turning away from, but the person we have become,” Patel writes. “We are not looking for another love so much as another version of ourselves.”
That’s why the Scripture calls us to beware our own vulnerability. That’s why the Scripture tells husbands and wives to maintain sexual union with one another. It’s not because sex is an appetite that must be filled but because sex can connect us to one another, reminding us who it is that we are called to love and to serve. That requires, though, that one sees oneself crucified with Christ, alive in him. It requires that one sees an accountability to something, Someone, greater than even one’s marriage vows. And it requires that love is not a means of making oneself great but a means of pouring oneself out for another. It means that one must see that the arena of marriage is not a mirror but a cross.”
www.russellmoore.com.
Circumstances.
You face them every day, you are always reacting to them–positively or negatively.
Think about it. What situations in your life do you wish would change right now?
A different work environment that doesn’t suck the life out of you
Better health
A happier marriage
A closer connection with God
A more understanding boss
Less pressure
I mean, I get that. Few of us look over our life and pronounce things perfect.
I can let circumstances get into my head way too easily. It doesn’t even have to be anything serious to upset me. I can let the weather bother me, loud talkers in public places get under my skin or simply the fact that I feel like my to-do list is too long. Good luck to me if God ever wanted to truly test my character.
So far this year, both in my reading (I reread the classic 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leaders this year) and on numerous podcast interviews, I keep running into a recurring theme: that effective leaders handle circumstances differently than ineffective leaders do.
What’s the difference?
There are at least three deeply significant differences. If you want to imitate the great leaders when you face challenging situations, do these three things.
1.Refuse To Let Your Circumstances Define You
Far too often, we look to our circumstances to determine what’s going to happen next.
Today (and every day), you will be tempted to let your circumstances define you.
It shows up innocently enough:
Well, I can’t because…
That’s awesome for them but you need to understand my situation…
I’d love a chance at that, and yet…
I was going to do it but…
Well sure I would have more success if X wouldn’t be true…
I used to believe that was possible…
So what’s the critical mistake you and I will make over and over again unless we see it and address it?
You’ll let your circumstances define you. And….
If you let your circumstances define you, they’ll defeat you.
They will defeat you. I promise.
In fact, your circumstances will generate an excuse factory in your mind which will produce a thousand reasons why you can’t make the progress you were hoping to make.
They will convince you that you can’t change, that you can’t solve the problems you’re facing, that you need to surrender to an inevitable fatalism.
Let that happen, and you will lead more poorly. You will live more poorly.
If you let your circumstances define you, they will defeat you.
2. Stop Blaming God For The Obstacle. See The Opportunity.
The story of God’s people is always a story of God’s hope prevailing amidst tough situations.
The only time circumstances were close to ideal was in the Garden of Eden, and somehow we managed to mess that up.
Otherwise, God has chosen to use:
Dysfunctional families (have you read the story of Joseph??)
Enslaved peoples
A stammering prophet (Moses) who had to go up against the world’s most powerful king
Lion’s dens
Burning furnaces
Whales who love to eat humans
Death on a cross
Prisons and persecution
I always think if I was in one of those circumstances, I would wave a white flag and conclude God had abandoned me.
Which is exactly why you should never let your situation define you.
In each of these cases, God was writing a story that was bigger than any and all of it.
And leaders who realize that truth manage to transcend their circumstances to move into a better tomorrow.
Try to think of a great leader in biblical history or history as a whole whose legacy was a product of their situation.
That’s right. You can’t.
Because none of the great leaders we admire were made by their circumstances. They refused to let their situation define them. Instead, they overcame them.
They stopped blaming God for the obstacle. Instead, they trusted God for the opportunity. That’s what makes for greatness.
3. Don’t Let Success Seduce You
Of course, you know circumstances don’t always work against you.
Sometimes everything’s going your way. Some of you are in that situation right now. You can’t imagine things lining up better in your favour.
Which is exactly why you should still never let your circumstances define you. Because they will still defeat you.
Here’s how.
You will stop working hard. You’ll stop dreaming about the future. You will even be tempted to let your present momentum carry for forward indefinitely.
And it will carry you, for a season. And then things will grind to a halt.
Just ask any company that has to reinvent itself after a decade on top. Ask any happily married couple that hit cruise control only to discover they started drifting toward the ditch.
When you stop working on it and let circumstances define you, those same circumstances will eventually defeat you.
In fact, you will realize what every leader sliding down the far side of a success curve realizes:
The greatest enemy of your future success is your current success.
If you don’t constantly fight against your circumstances and seek to transcend them, they will defeat you. Even the good circumstances.
What do you do if all your dreams come true? Ask God for bigger dreams.
So What Circumstances Do You Need To Fight Against Today?
Well–the short answer is, all of them. At least at some level.
That’s why leaders are never content with the status quo. Progress requires we kick hard against the status quo, trusting all the while that if we follow hard after God and his truth, we will find a better tomorrow.
So how would you characterize your circumstances?
What do you hate (or love) right now that you can surrender into the arms of a loving and all-powerful God?
You will lead better.
You will live better.
And your circumstances will no longer define you or defeat you.
What are you learning about circumstances?
careynieuwhof.com Used by permission.
Know your Enemy’s strategy: temptation, lies and condemnation. Overcome by being tethered to the truth, led by the Holy Spirit and understanding the compassion of God. Only those who know Satan’s nature can uncover his schemes.
From www.creativepastors.com. Used by permission.
Dear Roger,
I got emotionally involved with a man at work. One thing led to another and before I knew it, our relationship became physical. It didn’t last very long. After several months of guilt and misery, I extricated myself from the relationship.
I love my husband and as a Christian, I want to make it right. I feel so guilty and ashamed. My conscience is killing me. I’d like to confess to my husband and get it off my chest; but, unfortunately, I’m afraid that if I tell him our marriage would be decimated and our children devastated.
Is it best to keep it secret or confess and hope for the best?
Sincerely, Susan
Dear Susan,
Let’s begin with the obvious. Don’t have an affair in the first place. I know that sounds trite; however, if you’ll saturate your mind with three chapters in the book of Proverbs your chances of falling into an affair are greatly diminished.
Proverbs chapters 5-7 clearly illustrate the stupidity and the consequences of committing adultery. Constantly saturate your mind with these chapters and having an affair will scare the living daylights out of you.
Let me illustrate with a few passages:
Stay away from your neighbor’s wife,
from the smooth talk of a wayward woman.
Do not lust in your heart after her beauty
or let her captivate you with her eyes.
For a prostitute can be had for a loaf of bread,
but another man’s wife preys on your very life.
My son, keep my words
They will keep you from the adulterous woman
with her seductive words.
“Come, let’s drink deeply of love till morning;
let’s enjoy ourselves with love!
My husband is not at home;
he has gone on a long journey.”
With persuasive words she led him astray;
she seduced him with her smooth talk.
All at once he followed her
like an ox going to the slaughter,
like a deer stepping into a noose at last night,
like a bird darting into a snare,
little knowing it will cost him his life.
There are numerous reasons why I’ve never been even close to having an affair, not the least of which was saturating my mind with Proverbs 5-7 on a regular basis.
Well, should I tell my spouse or not? In my experience, the people that I’ve counseled or queried split about 50/50 on the issue.
REASONS TO TELL MY SPOUSE THAT I’VE HAD AN AFFAIR
1. Pray and ask God for guidance before doing anything.
2. Consider seeking the advice of a trusted friend or trusted spiritual leader to gain insight as to how to best proceed.
3. Hiding my adultery may scorch my soul and sear my conscience.
David wrote Psalm 32 after Nathan confronted him with his unconfessed sin of adultery with Bathsheba:
“When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.”
Despite popular belief, people who’ve had an affair are not more likely to have another. With all the pain, shame and devastation involved, most are loath to put their hands in the fire again.
4. Confessed sin allows me to restore my relationships with God and with my spouse.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
“Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
5. Bringing things out into the open allows me to mitigate the possibility that my spouse will find out anyway with a more devastating result than if I had told my spouse in the first place.
6. If I tell my spouse what I’ve done, I can minimize the damage and hopefully we can proceed with healing our marriage as soon as possible.
Let Me Share Some Thoughts About How To Heal The Marriage:
•Apologize to the level of the hurt. A simple “Will you forgive me” is woefully inadequate. You’ve dumped on your spouse ten gallons worth of pain. Asking for a pints worth of forgiveness is ludicrous. You must allow her to tell you all the ways that you hurt her. When you get a sense for how much pain you have caused, only then can you ask for forgiveness and really mean it to the level at which your spouse can really forgive you.
•Get help. Restoring a marriage is not for the faint of heart. Your marriage is crumbling. Get to a counselor ASAP. Hopefully, you have some wise and trusted friends who can give you much needed support.
•Go to church. A lot.
•Don’t tell the children. They don’t need to see mom and dad fighting—too much resulting insecurity. If the marriage fails, strongly consider remaining together for the sake of the children. We’ve been told, “If you get a divorce, don’t worry about the children. Children are resilient. They’ll bounce back.” But, that’s a lie. Children never get over it.
REASONS TO NOT TELL MY SPOUSE THAT I’VE HAD AN AFFAIR
Frankly, as far as I can tell, there are no specific Bible verses that gives us permission to withhold from our spouse our sin of adultery.
Nevertheless, from an overarching perspective, telling your spouse that you’ve had an affair is risky, but several things are worth considering.
1. I believe that it’s fair to say that the Bible places emphasis upon not hurting people. If I don’t tell, I may save my spouse, children and extended family untold heart ache (as long as they never find out).
2. We are to confess our sins to God and to one another; but the Bible does not say that one of these “anothers” must be our spouse.
“Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
3. If I do confess my sin, I may feel better; however, my spouse and family certainly will not.
4. Not telling my spouse is incredibly risky. The success of choosing to remain silent hinges on the hope that my spouse and family never find out. If they do find out, the devastation will be worse than if I’d told my spouse in the first place.
By the way, it’s my experience, and the experience of our church counselors, that most men keep the affair secret. A significant portion of women eventually tell someone who then can’t keep the secret.
Susan, I hope that I’ve clarified some of the issues for you. You have a choice to make and risks are associated with either choice.
But that’s the point. Having to make this choice is one of the consequences of having an affair. By the way, which way will you go?
Sincerely, Roger
You are an investigative reporter. Every day you are collecting evidence. Your future story has already been written based upon the nature of God and His plan for you. Future fears will turn good news into a bad report. The spies looked into the Promised Land and saw giants. Only two saw the grapes. We have two witnesses too. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”
Preached at Elevation Church. Used by permission.
How do we learn to persevere in the challenges of our lives? We play hurt. In the world of athletics, the phrase playing hurt is used to describe an athlete who continues to play even though he or she is injured. It also describes a necessary life skill that we all need to develop—sometimes we must continue to function, despite pain and adversity.
Here are some interesting thoughts from an article by Peggy Noonan that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2002.
“There’s a small but telling scene in Ridley Scott’s ‘Black Hawk Down’ that contains some dialogue that reverberates, at least for me. In the spirit of Samuel Johnson, who said man needs more often to be reminded than instructed, I offer it to all, including myself, who might benefit from its message.
“The movie, as you know, is about the Battle of the Bakara Market in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993. In the scene, the actor Tom Sizemore, playing your basic tough-guy U.S. Army Ranger colonel, is in charge of a small convoy of humvees trying to make its way back to base under heavy gun and rocket fire. The colonel stops the convoy, takes in some wounded, tears a dead driver out of a driver’s seat, and barks at a bleeding sergeant who’s standing in shock nearby:
- Colonel: Get into that truck and drive.
- Sergeant: But I’m shot, Colonel.
- Colonel: Everybody’s shot, get in and drive.”
Everybody’s been shot. Everyone’s been wounded. All of us have suffered a deep bruise. It’s one thing we all have in common.
But don’t think your wound gives you permission to sit on the sidelines; it doesn’t exempt you from fully engaging in life and being responsible for outcomes.
Don’t be defined by your wound and don’t let it put you on the bench. When life demands it, play hurt.
I saw this steely resolve displayed in church one Sunday morning. Moments before the worship service started, my pastor received some tragic news about a member of his family. I watched with amazement as he carried out his duties (even preaching a sermon) with grace and dignity, never letting on to the emotional turmoil that was going on inside.
There will be times in your life when you must play hurt. You’ll need to clamp down on physical or emotional discomfort and continue to perform. That’s not denial; it’s courage, control, and fortitude in action.
Summary
What? – Often, we must continue to function despite hardships.
So what? – Develop the emotional fortitude to play hurt.
Now what? –
Jon Acuff’s best-selling book provides unique insights for you to progress from average to awesome. Here are some of his thoughts:
Over the last 100 years, the road to success for most everyone has been divided into five stages that mirror the decades of working life:
Your 20s are a period of Learning. This is the decade of trying a thousand things, exploring a multitude of interests, and discovering what really motivates you.
Your 30s are a period of Editing. This is the decade of sorting out interests, where you discover what you really care about and who you really are.
Your 40s are a period of Mastering. This is the decade of narrowing focus, honing skill sets, and becoming an expert in your field.
Your 50s are a period of Harvesting. This is the decade of reaping the benefits of good decisions and enjoying the highest income-earning period in a career.
Your 60s are a period of Guiding. This is the decade of mentoring, training, and encouraging others on their own road to success.
Every successful person has followed these steps regardless of their occupation. But three things have changed the path to success and erased the decades associated with them:
Finish lines are dead – Boomers are realizing that a lot of the things they were promised aren’t going to materialize, and they have started second and third careers.
Anyone can play – Technology has given access to an unprecedented number of people who are building online empires and changing their lives in ways that would have been impossible years ago.
Hope is boss – The days of “success first, significance later,” have ended. A new generation doesn’t want to change the world eventually; they want to change it now through the wells they kickstart in Africa and the TOMS they wear on their feet. The value system has been flipped upside down.
The result is that you’ve got an entire generation pushing down to start over, another generation pushing up to start for the first time, and in the middle of this collision, the tools to actually change the world.
Experience years now trump chronological age. And while none of the five stages can be skipped, they can be shortened and accelerated.
There are only two paths in life: average and awesome. The average path is easy because all you have to do is nothing. The awesome path is more challenging, because things like fear only bother you when you do work that matters. The good news is Start gives readers practical, honest, actionable insights to be more awesome, more often.
It’s time to punch fear in the face, escape average, and do work that matters.
It’s time to Start.
www.daveramsey.com/store/books/books-by-jon-acuff/cBOOKS-cacuff-p1.html
Daring to befriend someone takes courage. Jonathan humbly protected and encouraged David. We are capable of loving others because we are loved by God.
Part Two of the Daring Greatly Series. Casas Church, Tucson Arizona.
Caleb modeled radical faith into his later years. King Asa, in contrast, trusted in his allies rather than God. Instead of getting comfortable and complacent as we age, we should surrender more, release more, rely more upon God. Finish stronger than you started. Take risks and see how God comes through. The goal is to live “happily ever after” when God will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu. Used by permission of First Presbyterian Church.
Sitting on a friend’s porch watching a cloud-lit sunset is hardly the image you may have of how a savage rape occurs. But that’s my story.
As I waited for my friend Sally to return home, a strange man approached me. I said, “I’m sorry, Sally and her Mom are not home right now.” Immediately the rapist put a gun to my head, brutally dragged me by the arm into the alley and violated me. The shock, fear and pain was so incredible that it seemed surreal. I’m grateful I didn’t remember the details of the attack. Most of it was a blur. I only recall pleading with him not to shoot me because of my children. Left shaking and alone in the alley, police found my limp body lying in a heap and rushed me to the hospital. Endless questioning and medical examinations were terrifying and unnerving. I was humiliated and traumatized all at the same time.
I suppressed the terrible nightmare for twenty years, burying it away in my subconscious. I never told anyone. Finally, my past caught up with me. I received a subpoena asking me to appear for my rapist’s parole. The ugly truth finally surfaced. I refused at first, but then had to face the crime. My husband and I had never discussed the incident before. I told my shocked adult children and family members. Thank God I no longer had to carry the weight of this shadowy secret alone.
Relieved of my burden, I went to a Christian counselor.
That was over 10 years ago. Let me share what I’ve learned.
When I asked, “Jesus, where were you when this happened? He answered, “I was on the cross.” When I said, “Lord, why did this happen?” He said, “I gave freewill to all.” When I needed to know, how could there be such sin? He reminded me of the first sin. When I struggled to forgive, Jesus let me know my forgiveness was for my own healing. When I thought it was my fault (which most rape victims do), I could sense His pain for me as a victim.
The Bible is the greatest love story ever told. It is about the love of a Bridegroom for His Bride. The imagery of the holiness and sacredness of the physical union in the one flesh relationship of a husband and wife is portrayed in the spiritual intimacy of the love Jesus has for us. Individually and corporately we learn of the purity, the unity, the exclusivity as believers in the Most High God.
The sexual perversion that has existed since creation is a deliberate and calculated assault on destroying any understanding of the holiest of love by the Enemy of our souls. Perhaps that is how we understand why the Creator did not want us to have the knowledge of good and evil. However, we have the promise of a new heaven and earth when the Lord will make all things new when the Bride and Bridegroom will be one.
I hope by sharing my story other victims of sexual abuse would find healing as I did. Healing takes time, prayer, effort and the support of the people you love. Don’t try to do this on your own. Find a Christian counselor to help you work through these serious issues.
Don’t wait long as I did. Yet, just as grieving the death of a loved one, rape victims have to grieve their loss as well in their own way and time. Recovery is a process, but as the Bible instructs we should share in each others’ suffering.
I also learned to comfort others who experienced the same hellish trauma I did. Rather than let bitterness destroy me, I chose to help others by volunteering to fight sex trafficking. If my pain could be so devastating, I can’t imagine the awfulness of repeated assaults.
I want to ask so many questions now, here on earth.
But when I see Jesus face to face none of it will matter. I have learned to let Him carry my grief and sorrows and replace it with the fullness of joy as I remain in His sweet presence.
The name of the writer is anonymous for her own protection. Used by permission.
Courageous commitment doesn’t make sense and it never will. It didn’t in Daniel’s day and it doesn’t in ours-but as we learn in the unusual suspect of Daniel, because of his courageous conviction and commitment, we are still talking about him today! This kind of courage could change your life, your family and your legacy!
Preached at Hope Fellowship Church, Used by permission.
Proverbs three is a life map that we can’t avoid. This pithy chapter has keys to love, life and faith that will stay our course on our walks with God.
In my regular, daily Bible reading over the past year I read through Proverbs 3, a passage I’ve studied and preached through many times. But during this reading, I realized that in verses 3 through 12 we have all the themes of the rest of the book, and therefore a kind of mini-guide to faithful living. There are five things that comprise a wise, godly life. They function both as means to becoming wise and godly as well as signs that you are growing into such a life:
1. Put your heart’s deepest trust in God and his grace. Every day remind yourself of his unconditioned, covenantal love for you. Do not instead put your hopes in idols or in your own performance.
Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all your heart (Prov 3:3-5a)
2. Submit your whole mind to the Scripture. Don’t think you know better than God’s word. Bring it to bear on every area of life. Become a person under authority.
Lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Prov 3:5b-6)
3. Be humble and teachable toward others. Be forgiving and understanding when you want to be critical of them; be ready to learn from others when they come to be critical of you.
Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. (Prov 3:7-8)
4. Be generous with all your possessions, and passionate about justice. Share your time, talent, and treasure with those who have less.
Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. (Prov 3:9-10)
5. Accept and learn from difficulties and suffering. Through the gospel, recognize them as not punishment, but a way of refining you.
My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in. (Prov 3:11-12)
As I meditated on these five elements–rooted in his grace, obeying and delighting in his Word, humble before other people, sacrificially generous toward our neighbor, and steadfast in trials–I thought of Jesus. The New Testament tells us that the personified ‘divine wisdom’ of the Old Testament is actually Jesus (Mt 11:19.) And I realized that a) he showed the ultimate trust and faithfulness to God and to us by going to the cross, b) he was saturated with and shaped by Scripture, c) he was meek and lowly in heart (Mt. 11:28-30), d) he, though rich, became poor for us, e) and he bore his suffering, for us, without complaint. We can only grow in these five areas if you know you are saved by costly grace. That keeps you from idols, from self-sufficiency and pride, from selfishness with your things, and from crumbling under troubles. Jesus is wisdom personified, and believing his gospel brings these character qualities into your life.
For a number of weeks I have been spending time praying for these five things for my family and my church leaders. There’s no better way to instill these great things in your own heart, than to pray intensely for them in the lives of those you love.
http://www.redeemercitytocity.com. Used by permission.
Do we know how to restore disgraced Christian leaders? Do we emphasize the importance of purity and blameless character of those who lead our congregations? John MacArthur, in his blog from www.gracetoyou.org has much to say on the subject.
“The NFL’s doing a better job at it. CBS is doing a better job at it. Kmart is doing a better job at it. Virtually every institution on earth is demonstrating that they are doing a better job at restoring people than the Church.” These are the words of a disgraced pastor whose sexual sins made national headlines. It’s hard to find a clearer example of how worldly views on leadership exist among Christians.
God does not demand perfection from those who shepherd His flock, but He insists on men who are above reproach. The highest office ordained by God requires the highest standards in personal character.
And those standards are not obscure or mysterious. God’s Word is abundantly clear about the character qualifications for church leaders.
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. (1 Timothy 3:2–3; cf. Titus 1:5–9)
The overseer or elder must first be above reproach in relation to women. He must be the husband of one wife. The Greek text literally reads “a one-woman man.” Paul is not referring to a leader’s marital status—whether he’s married or unmarried. The issue is his moral, sexual behavior. Many men married to one woman are not one-woman men. Many with one wife are unfaithful to that wife. While remaining married to one woman is commendable, it is no indication or guarantee of moral purity.
Why This Standard?
Some may wonder why Paul begins his list with this quality. He does so because it is in this area, above all others, where leaders seem most prone to fall. The failure to be a one-woman man has put more men out of the ministry than any other sin. It is thus a matter of grave concern.
Various interpretations have been offered that evade the meaning of this standard. Some have argued that its intent is to forbid polygamy. A man could not, however, even be a member of the church, let alone a leader, if he was a polygamist. If that were all Paul meant, it would be an unnecessary prohibition. Further, polygamy was not an issue in Ephesus. It was uncommon in Roman society, in part because extramarital sexual encounters, as well as divorces, were easily obtainable. Nor was polygamy a feature of first-century Jewish society.
Others maintain that Paul here forbids remarriage after the death of a spouse. As already noted, however, this standard, like all the rest, refers to moral character, not marital status. Furthermore, Scripture permits and honors second marriages under the proper circumstances. Paul expected younger widows to remarry and raise a family (1 Timothy 5:14), and widows could be described as one-man women (1 Timothy 5:9). In 1 Corinthians 7:39 he wrote, “A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.”
Still others hold that this qualification excludes divorced men from spiritual leadership. That again ignores the fact that Paul is not here referring to marital status. Nor does the Bible forbid all remarriage after a divorce. In Matthew 5:31–32 and 19:9, our Lord permitted remarriage when a divorce was caused by adultery. Paul gave a second occasion when remarriage is permitted, namely, when the unbelieving spouse initiates the divorce (1 Corinthians 7:15). While God hates all divorce (Malachi 2:16), He is gracious to the innocent party in those two situations.
Since remarriage in and of itself is not a sin, it is not necessarily a blight on a man’s character. If divorce resulted from a man’s inability to lead his family (1 Timothy 3:5), however, then it is a disqualification.
Nor does Paul intend to exclude single men from the ministry. If that was his point here, he would have disqualified himself, since he was single (1 Corinthians 7:8).
A one-woman man is a man devoted in his heart and mind to the woman who is his wife. He loves, desires, and thinks only of her. He maintains sexual purity in both his thought life and his conduct. That qualification was especially important in Ephesus, where sexual evil was rampant. Many, if not most, of the congregation had at one time or another fallen prey to sexual evil. If that was before a man came to Christ, it wasn’t a problem (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17). If it happened after his conversion, even before he assumed a leadership role, it was a problem. If it happened after he assumed a leadership role, it was a definite disqualification.
Those same standards apply to men in positions of spiritual leadership today. Scripture makes it clear that sexual sin is a reproach that never goes away. Proverbs 6:32–33 says of the adulterer, “The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense; he who would destroy himself does it. Wounds and disgrace he will find, and his reproach will not be blotted out.”
Some time ago I listened to the deeply disturbing audio of a “recommissioning service.” It was for a pastor who had made national news by confessing to an adulterous affair. The man was returning to public ministry with his church’s blessing after little more than a year of “counseling and rehabilitation.”
It is beyond ridiculous to think that a year’s leave of absence and some counseling can restore a public reputation of integrity to someone who has squandered his reputation and destroyed people’s trust. Tragically, that story is not an isolated incident. The evangelical highways and byways are well covered with restoration teams waiting like tow-truck drivers anticipating the next leadership “accident.”
Like the pastor I quoted earlier, many confuse forgiving a repentant sinner with restoring them to leadership. While we should be ready to forgive, forgiveness does not requalify the man for leadership. There are some sins that irretrievably destroy a man’s reputation and disqualify him from a ministry of leadership forever. Even the Apostle Paul feared such a possibility: “I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27). By referring to his body, Paul obviously had sexual immorality in view (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:18). He was acutely aware that if he succumbed to sexual temptation then he too would be disqualified from leadership. Today the church needs to treat this poisonous sin with the same degree of seriousness.
www.gracetoyou.org. Used by permission.
The greatest seasons of faith in our lives don’t occur when we’re on the mountain top, when life is going as planned and God’s favor is most tangible. In reality, it’s when we’re in our lowest valley. When we push against our natural inclination to lock the doors of our heart and wait for winter to pass. It’s there where we learn to fight for our faith, battling our feelings and our circumstances, and allow God to work through our pain to draw us closer to Him.
Preached at Elevation Church. Used by permission.
God often uses our deserts to heal us. When we have been wounded, a quiet dryness is exactly what I need to heal.
Recently, at a routine mammogram, the doctors discovered that I had developed breast cancer. Since then, it has been a whirlwind of appointments, scans and surgery.
Even though the past days have been very tough at times, the Holy Spirit has brought me endless comfort and the Word of God is literally holding me moment by moment. My husband and children have been heroic and I can’t thank my family enough for their love and support through this. Our church leadership team have anointed me with oil and prayed with unity and authority, a band of trusted friends have helped me prayerfully and practically.
Through all of this, my heart is overwhelmed with God’s love and goodness.
This entire journey has truly been a mind game. Keeping my MIND focused on all God says, instead of how I am feeling, which is becoming a little fragile at times. In this, I keep going to my journal of promises from God’s Word. In this book are my list of scriptures that I absorb like a daily tonic. It is in this space that I find rest.
During this whole process, I have received so many great encouraging letters and emails from those who have walked through the fire and come out smelling smoke free at the other end. I cannot begin to express how this fuels my soul for the days ahead.
Today, I read the scriptures that Pastor Kirk Pankratz from Oklahama sent me that they spoke over their daughter last year when she battled a certain cancer. SO awesone to hear the great story of God’s victory in and through it all. Here are some of them:
Psalm 91:15-16 – He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him My salvation.
2 Timothy 1:7 – For God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
1 John 4:4 – You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
Romans 8:37 – Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
Phillipians 4:13 – I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Isaiah 59:19 – When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.
Luke 1 :37 – For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment.
Again and again, God’s word trumps our adversities. It’s His nature to heal and to rescue. Never forget that. It’s all based on His great love for us – not on anything we have done.
Would I rather NOT be walking through this? Absolutely, however what I am learning is that God is close to the brokenhearted in ways I only dreamed of and this brings me ENDLESS HOPE.
HERE ARE SOME TIPS FOR THOSE ON A CANCER JOURNEY
THE WORD. This has been my top priority. These scriptures lead me to continued HOPE and TRUST. Declaring scripture and reading it loud when my heart trembles or my emotions go AWOL. Through this treatment I have been super tired. SO, reading out loud has been awesome.
PRAYING FRIENDS AND FAMILY. There are times that I literally FEEL the prayers of the saints close and afar carrying me. And when I have been unable to utter a prayer. I know someone is praying. You have no idea the comfort this brings. When I am able, rest assured I pray for all of you. My hubby is my rock, my girls are fiercely loyal and covered by many prayers and supported by friends
WORSHIP. The word is clear about bringing our prayers, our worship, our songs, before, during and after any storms that may come our way. So I sit at my piano when I can and simply love Jesus. I open the Psalms and let my heart come out.
GREAT FOOD. Ok, this has been trial and error for me. AT first, I went FULLY raw food… juicing like a mad woman (which I still do a lot of) but with my type of chemo I have learned I must have my food cooked to keep germs at bay (white blood cell count alert!.. ended up in hospital a few times.. not intending to go again).
SO, lots of soups, tasty, wild salmon, and steamed broccoli with every meal.. basically, whatever I feel like, if it is good for me and I simply eat it when I feel like eating. AS your taste buds die off, its hard to always know, but doing my best thanks to family and friends cooking like champions for me AND my family.
EXERCISE. All my training, beach runs, lifting weights. I have not been able to manage. BUT, I am walking whenever I can. The sunshine is a great place to find yourself thanking God for every day, and the walking is a great way to keep your system feeling at its best despite everything.
LAUGHTER. Just making sure your friends feel ok to pop in, send you silly videos, sit and chat and laugh and cry is SO good for the soul. This is such an intense time, and doctors appointments can be very confronting, a merry soul definitely does good like a medicine. Thank You Proverbs 17:22!!
JUST DO WHAT YOU CAN. I have been busy in the home when I can, writing songs, playing with my grand-babies and cooking, all simply when I can.
Don’t push yourself just be kind to yourself.
AND LASTLY, JOURNAL.. Writing down the God whispers and even the days of silence. Writing down how my body feels on certain days so I am more prepared next treatment. Writing down scriptures that those I trust to speak into my situation have felt to share with me. This book brings me comfort and is helping my emotions to have an outlet. My journal also gives me somewhere to place random song lyrics, random thoughts, random ramblings and so on…
Thank You again everyone. I’ll be laying low this week, but my heart is good, God is faithful and I see the horizon and it looks GOOD!!!
Much love and prayers for Darlene at this time.
http://www.darlenezschech.com/blog/ Used by permission.
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Hi, Roger, I would like to know if it is a sin if a woman doesn’t cover her head when praying and worshiping the lord. Or even to step inside God’s church with her head uncovered? |
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Naki Hi Roger, Please explain “head covering” as in 1 Corinthians 11:5. Should women be covering their heads with scarves or doilies or is it referring to hair? Thank you. Susan Dear Naki and Susan, |
The problem with women’s hair mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11 is that some women were praying and preaching in church with their heads uncovered. They refused to wear a veil or to wear their hair long. Some of the men were praying and preaching with their heads covered. They were wearing caps or long hair.
At first glance the hair issue in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is totally irrelevant to us today. The problem with dismissing it out of hand is that Paul turns this into a theological issue. The reason women are to have their heads covered and men are to be uncovered is “because of the angels” (1 Corinthians 11:10).
If wearing the right or wrong hat might adversely affect angels then we had better get our head covering correct.
Only in recent times have women abandoned the practice of wearing hats and long hair in church.
Women of past generations all wore hats, shawls and coverings in church. I remember my mom and her friends would never go to church without a hat. Things have certainly changed. This verse has fallen out of favor and the teaching is generally ignored today.
In addition to Angels Paul brings up another theological issue when he wrote: “Does not the very nature of things tell us that it is a dishonor to a man if he lets his hair grow long? But if a woman lets her hair grow long it is her glory because her hair was given to her as a covering.”
This observation seems to transcend time and eternity.
Of course, Samson in the Old Testament took a Nazarite vow, part of which was for his hair never to be cut. Was his long hair wrong since the Nazarite vow was both a religious and spiritual vow of devotion to God? Apparently not.
Much of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is seen in the backdrop of the culture of Paul’s time. This letter is to the church in Corinth which was known as the most liscensous in the Mediterranean world. Women (and men) were breaking all bounds of decency. Too often the church becomes a reflection of society. That was the case in the First Baptist Church in Corinth.
Let’s try to get a relevant teaching for today from Paul’s instructions to both men and women.
To this day Middle Eastern women wear the “yashmak” which is a long veil leaving the forehead and eyes open but reaching down almost to the feet.
Veils had (and still have) four main purposes: respect, protection, modesty and submission. No respectable woman would think of going outside without it. (Of course, we are seeing more and more “veils” as Middle Eastern immigrants move into our country.)
Let’s talk about the first three: respect, protection, and modesty. The following story illustrates all three.
Julie and I got lost in the giant bazaar (shopping mall) in Istanbul, Turkey. I’m not surprised. It is twenty acres of covered shops and eating places with streets traversing, twisting, and twirling pathways of lostness.
We exited onto a back alley. Men were sitting around smoking and joking as Julie and I uncomfortably walked by. As we passed they began to make the most vulgar, inappropriate and crude sexual offers of what they wanted to do with Julie. I remember thinking, “Don’t they understand that she is with me. I am here to protect her. They ignored me and continued their sexual assaults on Julie.
When we were running a gauntlet. When we exited Julie went immediately to a street vendor and bought a scarf. All comments and innuendoes ceased as we continued shopping with her head covered.
Sir William Ramsey explains it like this: “In Oriental lands the veil is the power and honor and dignity of the woman. With a veil on her head she can go anywhere in security and profound respect.” On the other hand, without the veil a woman’s authority and dignity vanish.
Just like men, women need respect, protection and modesty. Wearing the veil in public provides all three.
Finally, the veil is a symbol of submission.
In the opening verses of this passage Paul wrote about the aspect of submission. In the opening verses he referred to the fact that man was created before woman and is thus “over” the woman: “But I want you to know that Christ is the Head of every man, and that the man is the head of every woman and that God is the Head of Christ.”
The significance of submission goes right to the heart of marriage. Please take time to read Ephesians 5:21-33 where Paul discussed this subject. He taught that the husband is the “Head” of his wife and thus is to love his wife as Jesus loved His church and sacrificed His life for it. The wife is then to respect her husband. When “headship” is properly conveyed in marriage the woman is protected and secure. Respecting a husband is easy when the husband expresses his headship by loving his wife with Christ as his model. This means that the wife comes first. It is the responsibility of the “Head” to take care of those “under” them. It is easy for a wife to respect a husband whose top priority in marriage is to love his wife like Christ loved the church.
No matter what time or culture we live in it is always time for our lives to be respectable, on the look out to protect those in need of protection, modest and full of sacrificial love no matter how short or long we wear our hairstyles or hats–or caps.
I recently attended a worship service where mom and daughter played a classical piano duet as part of the service. Daughter was a piano prodigy. Her playing was incredible. So were her legs. Whether or not she should have covered her head I do not know; but she at least could have covered her legs as she “tickled the keys”. Little worship occurred as everyone around me was whispering about her tiny skirt. What a contrast to the sixteen-year-old cellist twenty feet away who knew how to bring glory to Jesus by not focusing on herself.
Now about those angels. We move here carefully because we are talking about angels! No one knows for certain what Paul meant about these angels, but I imagine that Paul is referring to the strange story in Genesis 6:1-2 which described how angels fell prey to the charms of mortal women and so fell. It may be the idea that an unveiled woman is a temptation even to the angels! An old rabbinic teaching said that it was the beauty of women’s long hair which tempted the angels!
In a practical sense, in today’s unchurched–non-Christian culture making hats and hairstyles an issue will be of little help in reaching a lost generation for Christ. If the spiritually mature want to follow this teaching theologically, then by all means let them do so.
I hope this helps.
Love, Roger
Begin forwarded message:
Teams are important because of synergy. Churches get people to give them money to create volunteer positions for them to fill.
If you don’t know why something is working when it is working, you won’t know how to fix it when it breaks.
But leaders are generally bad at evaluating things that work. Leaders tend to be good at evaluating problems. This is why church leaders tend to blame things that break on people rather than systems. You might not need a new youth pastor; you might need a new system.
When you see something working well, ask, “Why is this working so well?” The reason things work well at churches is because of high performance teams. Regardless of the size of your ministry, you want and need high performance teams.
You need action-oriented people who have extraordinary clarity around what are we doing, why are we doing it, and why are we doing it here?
Irreducible Minimums for High Performance Teams
#1 :: Select performance-oriented people and position them for maximum people.
Recruit doers and not thinkers.
If you have to choose between a doer and a thinker, choose a doer. It is much easier to educate a doer than it is to activate a thinker. Jim Collins says, “If you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate people largely goes away.” Great vision without great people is irrelevant.
Put people where they can create their greatest contribution.
Albert Einstein says, “Everyone is a genius, but But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” You’ve got to figure out a way within your organization to get the best people in the right roles. It usually takes bypassing the politics of who deserves the role by tenure.
Everyone on the team needs to feel the interdependency of the team.
Speak to your staff and volunteers so that they understand the interdependency. The senior pastor depends on the children’s ministry volunteers in order to do what he does. Every role is essential to the whole ministry. Interdependency won’t be felt unless key leaders makes people feel valued and that their roles are important.
#2 :: Clarify the what and why.
Performance oriented people like to win.
You must clarify the win for every staff and volunteer position. When you clarify the win, it becomes the magnetic north for the energy and get-it-done doers of the organization. When you don’t define the win, each individual will define it for themselves.
Teams dissolve when the problems are all solved.
Conversations about change don’t begin around conversations about the problems. Conversations about change begin around conversations about a common goal.
You have to organize to the what.
Once you clarify the win/what, you must create an organization where all of the resources are allocated to that win. Don’t force your staff and volunteers to have to work around what your organization was structured for. Nothing frustrates high energy people more than having to do work arounds. The lion’s share of your time and money must go to getting critical mass.
#3 :: Orchestrate and evaluate everything.
Orchestrate means this is how we don it here until further notified. Great teams never depend on individual thinking and creativity. Great teams know exactly what the play is when it is called. Linebackers don’t get creative except when in trouble. Orchestration is the elimination of discretion. High performance teams stick with the playbook.
Orchestration brings consistency and predictability to all of your processes. Orchestration will make your organization seem more personal.
Evaluate everything.
Create a feedback loop.
As a leader you must stay close to critical events, or you will default to numbers, which get exaggerated. Figure out how to get close to key events in your church. Has your organizational growth pushes you so far back that all you see is numbers? Numbers are never accurate. See it for yourself as often as possible, and create meetings in between to learn more than numbers.
What you are doing is so important.
Notes created by Kent Shaffer from Catalyst Conference 2012. Used by permission of Kent Shaffer, www.churchrelevance.com.
Humor is like seasoning on food—everything is flat without it. But something was amiss here. I began to ask myself, the gospel have an effect on our sense of humor?’ The answer has to be yes—but why and how?
Your humor has a lot to do with how you regard yourself. Many people use humor to put down others, keep themselves in the driver’s seat in a conversation and setting, and to remind the hearers of their superior vantage point. They use humor not to defuse tension and put people at ease, but to deliberately belittle the opposing view. Rather than showing respect and doing the hard work of true disagreement, they mock others’ points of view and dismiss them without actually engaging the argument.
Ultimately, sarcastic put-down humor is self-righteous, a form of self-justification, and that is what the gospel demolishes. When we grasp that we are unworthy sinners saved by infinitely costly grace it destroys both our self-righteousness and our need to ridicule others. This is also true of self-directed ridicule. There are some people who constantly, bitterly, mock themselves. At first it looks like a form of humility, or realism, but really it is just as self-absorbed as the other version. It is a sign of an inner disease with one’s self, a profound spiritual restlessness.
There is another kind of self-righteousness, however, that produces a person with little or no sense of humor. Moralistic persons often have no sense of irony because they take themselves too seriously, or because they are too self-conscious and self-absorbed in their own struggles to be habitually joyful.
The gospel, however, creates a gentle sense of irony. Our doctrine of sin keeps us from being over-awed by anyone (especially ourselves) or shocked, shocked by any behavior. We find a lot to laugh at, starting with our own weaknesses. They don’t threaten us any more because our ultimate worth is not based on our record or performance. Our doctrine of grace and redemption also keeps us from seeing any situation as hopeless. This groundnote of joy and peace makes humor spontaneous and natural.
In gospel-shaped humor we don’t only poke fun at ourselves, we also can gently poke fun at others, especially our friends. But it is always humor that takes the other seriously and ultimately builds them up as a show of affection. “We are not to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.” (C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”)
So how do we get such a sense of humor? That’s the wrong question. The gospel doesn’t change us in a mechanical way. To give the gospel primacy in our lives is not always to logically infer a series of principles from it that we then ‘apply’ to our lives. Recently I heard a sociologist say that, for the most part, the frameworks of meaning by which we navigate our lives are so deeply embedded in us that they operate ‘pre-reflectively.’ They don’t exist only as a list of propositions and formulations, but also as themes, motives, attitudes, and values that are as affective and emotional as they are cognitive and intellectual. When we listen to the gospel preached, or meditate on it in the Scripture, we are driving it so deeply into our hearts, imaginations, and thinking, that we begin to instinctively “live out” the gospel.
I have definitely seen the gospel transform a person’s sense of humor, but it would be artificial to say that there are ‘gospel-principles of humor’ that we must apply to our lives. It just happens as we believe the gospel more and more.
www.redeemercitytocity.com. Used by permission.
God has given me the gift of recruiting volunteers. It’s not a splashy gift like prophecy, healing or miracles. Recruitment is not a spiritual gift but requires the use of many of them. I’ve enlisted thousands of volunteers for multitudinous ministries: missions, music, students, discipleship, evangelism and prayer teams. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way.
1. Love, love, love what God has called you to do! Enthusiasm is contagious. If God gives you the vision, He wants to provide the people to join you in His work. I adore sharing Christ beyond church walls. I brought my students to perform a musical in Watts shortly after racial riots ravaged that L.A. neighborhood. The black pastor and deacons wept when the kids finished. “No white person has ever cared enough to visit our church,” they said. “God bless these precious children.” Many students (and their parents) subsequently surrendered to ministry or missions in the ensuing years. If you need a particular ministry in your church and can’t be excited about it, find someone who will be.
2. Find a volunteer’s “sweet spot.” Every person is passionate about something. Music is a universal language. It crosses age, race and culture. Go where the people are. When I needed to engage musicians, I cheered from the bleachers at band competitions, accompanied graduate students at the University, and sat through symphony rehearsals. Enter their world and they will want to enter yours.
3. Value your volunteers. Each and every one. No helper is insignificant. If someone is absent from a meeting, rehearsal, or Sunday morning ministry, they need a call, text, tweet or e-mail. Call me old-fashioned, but people still like to hear your voice. It takes more effort to show them value and love when they hear your voice. Also enlist caring “shepherds” who will love your people.
4. Do ministry with excellence. No one wants to be a part of a shoddy organization. Set your teams up for success. Welcome ministry teams are the face of your church. Often members would love to be involved, but lack the people skills to effectively interact with others. Excellent resources like Dr. Don McMinn’s Love One Another book teach social intelligence-practical ways to meet, greet and put visitors at ease. Train workers well and God will honor your efforts.
5. Be persistent. Jesus said, “You have not, because you ask not!” Pray, then ask, ask, ask. Did I mention you must ask? Some pastors are shy about recruiting folks for ministry. They feel they are imposing. You probably have some lay recruiters in your church. Put them to work. Remember that you are giving others an opportunity to grow and be blessed by God.
6. Think outside the box. Our church was transitioning worship music from choral/orchestral to more contemporary worship venue. I love playing keys in a band, but I had a host of players who still wanted to use their gifts in an orchestra. So we changed venues: secular settings, host churches, mission trips, conferences-sharing Christ along the way. Our team used a closed door to see a new, creative open door for our volunteers.
7. Meet their felt needs. Affirm, appreciate, approve and accept them. Include lay leaders in your ministry that assist you in providing special care for your volunteers. Many of our students came from absent-parent homes. Our family always made our home a fun, safe place where teens were always welcome. In fact, we even adopted a few hurting kids along the way. (We still have one lovely little stray to this day…)
8. Don’t forget to solicit your power prayer team. Find intercessors who are mature and dedicated. Often, family members of participants on your teams will want to support their loved ones in this way. If God is doing great things, Satan is not far behind. Prayer cover is essential. Don’t leave home without it.
Give your volunteers permission to rest and re-group. Your ministry will be stronger and last longer in the long run.
Jesus loved inviting others to join Him in His work. You can, too.
Dear Roger,
Do you have to publicly become a Christian or can you do it in private?
Sincerely, Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
When I was growing up every worship service ended with a call for people to “surrender their lives to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.” People were invited to walk to the front of the congregation and publically declare their commitment to Jesus. They were thus identified as “new Christians”! The impetus for giving this type of invitation to follow Christ was Jesus’ declaration in Matthew 10:32-33: “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
Again and again I heard our pastor say, “Every disciple Jesus called, He called publicly. There is no such thing as a secret disciple. If you come forward now Jesus will confess to His Father that you are one of His children. But, if you don’t come forward He will deny that He knew you!” My pastor was on the right track, but his focusing on walking the church aisle and on the now or never moment was quite obviously off the track.
I believe that my pastor was on the right track, but He didn’t carry the meaning of Christ’s words far enough. Walking down the aisle of a church never made anyone a Christian! Becoming a Christian is a deeply personal, carefully considered decision of life-time devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ. This decision is made privately in the deep recesses of the human heart.
Following Christ is both a private and a public affair. Of course, the internal decision may be followed immediately by walking the aisle of a church and openly declaring faith in Christ. But, not necessarily. The internal decision may be expressed in a multitude of ways.
Jesus’ point is that the decision to follow Christ will not stay private. Following Christ results in an inner transformation which produces outward behaviors that reflect Jesus and His Kingdom on Earth.
If the private encounter is real, and our surrender to Christ is indeed a life-changing commitment, then Jesus will gladly declare to His Father that we are truly His children and welcome us into the eternal Kingdom. On the other hand, if the inner commitment is faulty or incomplete, then outside religious behaviors will not fool Jesus. With a broken heart He will tell His Father that we are not His. We will enter into an kingdom where we really don’t want to spend eternity at all!
The primary context of Matthew 10:32-33 is persecution. Jesus taught His followers that they would be called on to testify before powerful authorities to declare whether or not they followed Christ. On that day, true Christians will declare their surrendered relationship with Christ—even at the cost of their lives.
In practical reality, living under the iron fist of the Roman Empire, things were not nearly so clear-cut. There is little doubt that under intense torture the one being pressured can be made to say anything.
A problem arose in the church during the first and second centuries. Some of the Christians broke down and denied Christ under torture. Many in the churches “kicked out” of their churches those who denied that Christ by declaring that true believers would never for a moment deny Christ. Others wanted to forgive them and welcome their return. The issue was never resolved.
The Roman Empire in the early centuries was held together through the institution of Emperor Worship. People throughout the empire could worship as many gods as they wanted as long as they bowed down once a year and declared publically, “Caesar is Lord,” thus submitting themselves to the power and authority of the Roman emperor.
The persecution was merciless for those who instead declared, “Christ is Lord.”
I am reminded of Hebrews 11:32-40:
“And what more shall I say? … There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
PERPETUA was a young married aristocrat who lived in Carthage, North Africa. At the age of twenty-two she was tried before the procurator who asked, “Are you a Christian?”
“I am” she answered.
Her diary is preserved: “Then he passed sentence on the whole of us, and condemned us to the beasts…. Then, because my baby was accustomed to take the breast from me, and stay with me, I asked my father for my baby. But my father refused to give him. And as God willed, neither had he any further wish for my breasts, nor did they become inflamed; that I might not be tortured by anxiety for the baby and pain in my breasts.”
Then, she summoned her brother and spoke to him: “All of you stand fast in the faith, and love one another; and be not offended by our sufferings.”
The story is finished by an early Church father named, Tertullian: “For the young women the Devil made ready a mad heifer… Perpetua was tossed first, and fell on her loins….Then, having asked for a pin, she fastened her disordered hair. For it was not seemly that a martyr should suffer with her hair disheveled, lest she should seem to mourn in her hour of glory.”
Public Christianity may be costly but glorious! Private Christianity doesn’t cost much and is quite an ugly thing.
When we read of what they went through, our persecutions, if we have any, seem quite insignificant.
Well, Anonymous, thanks for asking the question. I hope my answer is helpful to you. May you shine like a city on a hill in the darkness of night.
Love, Roger
When we go to the movies we love happy endings. We want the right guy to get the girl. We want the world saved from extinction. We want the hero to win. The same is true in real life. We want a happy ending. Solomon, in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, tells us how.
Before I launch into this blog, I want to remind you that a difference between a man and a woman is not a value judgement; it does not expose weakness between males and females, rather it celebrates uniqueness.
So now let me tell you about a great structure that we (males and females both!) have in the brain called the insula. The insula helps translate physical sensations and thoughts in our subconscious mind into conscious thoughts with attached emotions. So working with the rest of the brain, the insula helps us anticipate what something will feel like before it happens, like the proverbial “gut-feel” or “6th-sense”.
The insula is larger in the female, which makes ladies more sensitive to existing and anticipated situations. A woman will quickly, for example, draw on past memories of financial situations (or any situation for that matter!) and bring them into the present scenario, which almost collapses time, making it more difficult for her to take risks. The male insula, on the other hand, is more geared to strategically reading the environment and actions, making it easier for him to take risks. These are complementary ways of thinking things through, so neither males or females alone will have the full answer; together we are exponentially better! A woman predominately provides the emotional colour and details, while a man predominantly provides the strategy and action.
Another area of the brain called the Anterior Central Gyrus (ACG) enables men and women to shift between thoughts, weigh up options and make predictions. The ACG is bigger in a female, which enables her to integrate and consider many scenarios; this is assuming she is not harboring toxic thoughts, in which case she will get “stuck” in an event or thought pattern. Men’s ACGs are smaller and operate in a more focused manner, getting “bottom-line-big-picture” information quickly. If a man is operating from toxic thoughts, he will not weigh up options sufficiently and will act too quickly. Thus, the smaller ACG helps men see reason and logic quicker, and the larger ACG in women helps them see detail and emotional nuance quicker–both are important in any decision making and in life!
So when we combine these two opposite, but nevertheless equal, types of thought and apply it to financial investment–whether it is between husband and wife or business colleagues–the best investment can be achieved.
This last week has been a fascinating mix: a TV taping with James and Betty Robison on the male and female approaches to finances; Praise the Lord’s doctors’ night with Matt and Laurie Crouch; a doctor’s seminar for TBN; a taping about Toxic thinking with Leo Shreven from All Power Seminars; training and filming teachers in my “Switch on your Brain Classroom”…whew, now I think it’s time to breath!
However, what struck me when I was considering these interviews and seminars was how experts are teaming up to speak about current global issues like finances, education, and our mental and physical health and providing information on how to manage these integral parts of our lives. In this process I, once again, have had the incredible opportunity to work with some amazingly talented and extraordinary individuals and, in doing so, was challenged to provide a neuroscientific perspective.
I really felt impressed to share a little of this information over the next several blogs because I believe it will help you as much as it has helped me. I am going to start in this blog sharing a little on males, females and finances, which is definitely a relevant discussion considering the global financial crisis.
Lets first look at the male brain circuitry. When it comes to decision-making and money, the male brain is geared towards considering the context and working towards the end result. The type of question males generally ask is: “Which option will work and which one won’t?” This leads men to, in general, be more comfortable taking big risks, whereas a woman might feel more uncomfortable with such a risk. Men see the big picture and the strategy that will get them there quickly in an almost compartmentalized way.
Women’s brain circuitry, on the other hand, is better at making decisions regardless of the context, and she will prioritize her personal preferences. The most important question that one should ask a woman in terms of a financial (or any) decision will be “Which option is most comfortable?” Women will, in general, opt for the safer, more familiar decision where she can see from the big picture to the detail, even when she has a surplus of money.
The reason for these differences has to do with the design of the male and female brains, which is based on complementary opposites and equal intelligence. For example, the male brain’s decision and processing strengths lie in the gray matter (the top part of the nerve cell), which a man has 6x more than a woman; this gray matter functions like numerous little supercomputers. The female brain’s strengths lie in the white matter (the tree-trunk like part of the nerve cell), which a woman has 10x more than a man, thus making a woman’s brain like the internet. This means gents tend to excel in tasks requiring more local processing, leading to that focus of “which option will work best”; while women tend to be above average at integrating and assimilating information from the distributed gray matter regions in the brain, which enables them to see detailed permutations. This will make her want to build her “nest-egg” safely and to always have a back-up plan. The fact of the matter is that without supercomputers the internet cannot exist; without the internet even the greatest supercomputer cannot achieve it’s full potential!
When it comes to finances and related management and decision-making skills, we have to talk about the Insula and ACG—I will discuss these in my next blog, so keep watching!
Every year, it seems, the amount of attention paid to the mechanics and outcomes of partisan politics grows. Thirty years ago there was nothing like this amount of attention given to politics. Many point out rightly that the 24-hour news cycle and the internet creates an appetite for political analysis. But I think there is more going on. It’s not just that the political is given more air time, but that it’s now seen as far more important to human life. The politically fragmented media, with outlets ranging from very liberal to very conservative, only seem to agree on one thing, namely, that nothing matters more than which American political party wins the most seats.
R.R. Reno recently wrote a blog post at the First Things: On the Square website that “Culture Matters More than Politics”. He points out that, in Marxist theory, economics and political power are the fundamentals, while culture is “epiphenomenal.” Literature, poetry, music and the arts are merely the supportive apparatus for power interests. Therefore, politics – who controls state power – is the factor that most sets the course of human life. On the contrary, Reno states, the deeper sources of public life are what we believe about human nature, human destiny, and the meaning of life. These beliefs are carried out into life by religion and philosophy, by high culture and popular cultural domains, by a huge variety of human institutions, the vast majority of which are not part of the government. These shared beliefs shape a people’s vision of a good human community and a good life, and politics largely follows on from that.
James D. Hunter has been making the same point for years, though he invokes Nietzsche, rather than Marx. In On the Geneology of Morals, Nietzsche argued that Christian moral claims – of the primacy of love, generosity, and altruism – were really just ways for the early Christians to grab power from the people who had it. Christian morality developed out of the “ressentiment” by the weak of the strong and as an effort to wrest their position from them. This view will also lead to the conclusion that politics is what life is really about.
Hunter argues that ressentiment – “a narrative of injury” – has now come to define American political discourse. Both conservatives and liberals make their sense of injury central to their identity, and therefore in each election cycle it is only the group out of power, who therefore feels the most injured and angry, who can get enough voters out to win the election. Politics is no longer about issues but about power, injury, and anger. How Nietzschean! Hunter goes farther and argues that the Christian Right, the Christian Left, and even the neo-Anabaptist (think Dobson, Wallis, Hauerwas) are “functional Nietzscheans” in the public square, either because they see politics as too all-important, or (as in the case of the neo-Anabaptists) they think wielding political power is inherently non-Christian. In each case, Hunter says, Christians are being too shaped by Nietzsche’s view that politics and power is fundamental.
We should not conclude that, really, politics is unimportant to culture. Hunter makes the case that culture is formed and passed on more by institutions than by individuals, and he calls Christians to maintain “faithful presence within” the cultural institutions of our society, counseling them to be neither triumphalistic nor withdrawn.
Reno and Hunter warn that culture matters more than politics, and I agree with them. We must reject the growing belief that power politics is what really matters. Nevertheless, Christians must not over-react. The government is one of the key institutions among others that reflect and shape the underlying beliefs that are the deepest source of public life. I recently wrote an introduction to a book, The City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era by Michael Gerson and Pete Wehner. The authors plead with Christian readers to not under-value the role of politics in culture-making, even as they acknowledge the danger of over-valuing it. It’s an important plea. James Hunter makes the intriguing case that those Christians who counsel withdrawal from politics may have as nihilistic a view of power as Nietzsche.
Christians should be as involved in politics and government as they are in all other realms of life.
Samson: what a sad end to such a promising start! He had taken for granted all that he had going for him, and used it only for himself. He never connected to his bigger purpose. God still used him to weaken the Philistines, but did so despite Samson, not in partnership with Samson. With the unique start and status of Samson, he could have been the most amazing leader in the history of the nation of Israel. His story could have been the greatest of all the Old Testament stories—but it wasn’t. Do you ever take God’s grace for granted? Are you wasting the unique calling He has given you?
In the beginning God designed man to be decision-makers, creators, givers and contributors. Work was joy until man rebelled against God, his boss. Redeem work God’s way by cultivating an environment where people can express their unique gifts as a means to glorify God.
Why should we attend church? We all have our reasons. My gleaming Sunday School perfect attendance pin was the pride of my charm bracelet collection. My third-grade year, it was my all-consuming desire to win the pin. Practically perfect, the blue and silver shield had “perfect attendance” emblazoned upon the front like a banner from heaven. In order to receive the coveted award, I not only had to show up every Sunday on time without fail, I had to read the weekly Sunday School lesson and bring my offering envelope.
On the Sunday before Labor Day, Mrs. Brumit marched Randy Phelps to the front of the classroom and announced he had won the coveted prize-the perfect attendance pin. He proudly stuck out his chest and Mrs. Brumit penned his award from Jesus to his freshly washed IZOD polo shirt. Applauding wildly, I had a revelation from the Almighty. When I looked at Randy’s bespectacled face, for one brief shining moment I thought I saw a halo encircling his blonde buzz cut. I determined that morning that the next year I would stand before God, the angels, and the cheering crowd sporting that silver emblem on my gingham dress.
But “perfect attendance” wasn’t an easy feat to perform. Three Sundays in November I hacked and sneezed all over Sandy French because I wasn’t going to let the asian flu keep me from my trophy. In April I puked twice in church after eating too many donut holes before the lesson started-or was I sick? I can’t be sure. After my breakfast preceded me, everyone looked a little green around the gills. Debbie McCoy and Vicky Palmer contracted the virulent strain of intestinal flu I so graciously shared with the class. Undaunted, I came week after week after week after week……
Twice I almost lost the competition because of an errant offering envelope. One windy March Sunday, it fell out of my pocket when I hopped out of the Pontiac and onto the pavement. Sweet Mrs. Bentley saw the little white square under the car and returned it to me in the nick of time. The second envelope fiasco came the Saturday night I decided to hide it in my Bible between Nahum and Habakkuk. I hoped the fiery minor prophets would hold it fast until I arrived at class. When Sunday School started, I frantically thumbed through the Bible pages hoping to locate my nickel for Jesus. Where did it go? I scoured all of the “ah” prophets: Isaiah, Hosea, Ezra, Jeremiah, Jonah, Nehemiah, Zephaniah and Zechariah.. My tithe envelope was nowhere to be found. Suddenly I recalled a Lucky Strike commercial from the night before. The book had something to do with tobacco-no, it was Habakkuk. I found Habakkuk and placed my envelope in the offering plate and breathed a sigh of relief. After twelve months of hard work, I reached my lofty goal and wore my heavenly treasure, my Baptist banner, with pride.
God was not interested in my “goody two-shoes” to-do’s. My obsession with pleasing God through works, receiving accolades from my Bible-toting buddies, was flawed. God first and foremost wants us to worship Him because He is delightful and He delights in us. David’s words in Psalm 122:1: “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go up to the house of the Lord.” David loved worshipping God. He loved it so much that he danced in the streets in front of the Ark of God. In this verse from Psalm 122, David reminds us that worshipping God is just plain fun. We revel in His presence, remember His goodness, we receive His forgiveness and we connect with His people. Go to church because you love God and He loves you. Forget the brownie points.
A little boy had a part in the school play that read, “It is I, be not afraid.” He came out on stage and said, “It’s me and I’m scared!” Fear is an emotion common to humanity. Even the Apostle Paul testified to his struggle with fear: “For when we came into Macedonia…we were harassed at every turn…conflicts on the outside, fears within.” 2 Corinthians 7:6; and he shared with the Corinthian church that, “I came to you in weakness and fear and with much trembling.” 1 Corinthians 2:3.
Initial feelings of fear can be normal and even healthy. But fear, if left unresolved, can become detrimental. Fear can cause physical symptoms such as increased heart rate, high blood pressure, chest pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, lightheadedness, panic attacks, or intense headaches. Fear can also impact our behavior toward others. For instance, we can become controlling, intolerant and critical of others, and unable to take on the challenges we face. Like the rabbit in headlights, we remain frozen.
What are our sources of fear? From where do they originate? Past hurts can lead to present fear. Any traumatic event-a painful divorce, a car accident, a debilitating illness can cause us to fear what’s ahead. The hurt we experienced must be properly dealt with before the fear will subside. Lies from Satan and our own self-talk can immobilize us. Satan is called the father of lies (John 8:44), which implies that he tells a lot of them, and he’s good at it. Often, his lies are intended to make us fearful. For example, you will read an article in the newspaper about teenage drug abuse and Satan will suggest, “Your kid will become part of the drug culture.” Lies can often be self-inflicted. Our minds will wander aimlessly, inadvertently attach to a random thought and embrace and embellish it. Perhaps you live with the nagging thought that you will never amount to anything. You live with the fear of failure every day. We can also fear the unusual and the unknown. Perhaps the disciples were feeling anxious about the unknown when Jesus announced that after three years of being together, He was going to leave them. Anxious thoughts no doubt raced through their hearts: “What are we going to do after Jesus leaves? Just fish and collect taxes again?” Jesus, sensing their anxiety, said to them, “Do not let your hearts by troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me.” John 14:1.
So how do we gain victory over fear? Here are a few simple suggestions. The mental dimension of fear is ministered to by truth. (John 8:32). The emotional dimension of fear is ministered to by perfect love. ((1 John 4:18). The volitional dimension of fear is ministered to by faith (Luke 8:25). John 8:32 says that the truth will set us free. When our fear is based on lies, truth will help bring relief. 1 John 4:18 teaches that “Perfect love casts out all fear.” Perfect love can be expressed by a reassuring presence from a loved one, a concerted effort to write, call or visit the person on a regular basis. Don’t leave them out in the cold. Perfect love is expressed by caring involvement. Helping the person to drive again after they have been in a car accident, being trustworthy for a friend who has been betrayed, listening to them as they process their fearful emotions are ways to show “perfect love.” As we look through the future, we can view it through the lens of fear or the lens of faith. Just as fear is future-oriented (we do not fear the past), faith is future-oriented. God promises, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Philippians 4:6. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…your Heavenly Father knows what you need…But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:25,32-33.
Never face your fears alone. Jesus is there to meet you in the midst of your fear. God wants us to bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) and that includes sharing and bearing the fears and anxieties of those who are paralyzed by fear. Wouldn’t it be profitable to share with someone who loves you, all the fears and anxieties with which you struggle, and to be able to do that on a regular basis? This is God’s design and will!
Ferguson, David, and McMinn, Don. Emotional Fitness. Irving Texas: Intimacy Press, 2003, pp. 69-78.
Easter Sunday is the pastors’ Superbowl Sunday. Countless kiddies hyped up on Cadbury chocolate marshmallow bunnies and shocking pink peeps are forced to wear itchy petticoats, stiff, squeaky new shoes and hairbows the size of helicopter propellers. Mom and Dad won’t listen if their progeny aren’t plugged in. Normally on a leisurely Sunday morning, these rugrats would be sleepily scarfing Lucky Charms while older brother plays Duck Hunt on Nintendo. So what’s a pastor to do?
My husband Roger learned valuable preaching tips during his bus ministry/children’s church days. Humid spring Sunday mornings began early. We jumped on rickety blue un-air-conditioned buses and collected 500 wiggly kids to attend Northway Baptist children’s worship. A thousand pairs of eyes were trained on the stage for at least sixty seconds. The goal was to teach about Jesus in such a captivating way that no one poked, kicked or pinched his neighbor, snored, climbed under his chair. Mass exoduses to the bathroom were also a sure sign of failure.
So here are Roger’s four commandments of preaching.
- Preach with passion, power and proper preparation.
- Put the cookies on the lower shelf so that everyone can reach them.
- Be simple yet profound.
- Never, no never ever, ever, ever be boring. Jesus wasn’t. Why should we be?
I had a short attention span in big church when I was a little nipper. That’s why I’m so picky about preaching today. I was the antsy little kid sitting on the second row.
Passing time during “big church” was a bit of a challenge. If my posterior wiggled or squirmed too much, I got the “silent pinch” from Mom’s left hand. My Dad, on her other side, got the “silent elbow poke” when he drooled and snored through Leviticus.
However, I found some parts of big church fascinating. Mrs. Bates, the organist, donned a perky new flowered hat each week as she tore into a lively chorus of Bringing in the Sheaves. Because we had a clothesline, it occurred to me that bringing in the “sheets” inferred My mom’s favorite saying, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
Watching Mrs. Bates’ brown, bedecked bun was only half the fun. Melva Shofner, the sixty-something soprano in the choir, felt she had missed her calling as an opera star. No matter what piece the choir warbled, Melva stood out from the crowd with her painfully loud high notes. Shy Patsy McCormick hung her head in humiliation, as if guilty by association. Jim Palmer, the choir director, always pumped his arms with unmitigated gusto as he led the congregation in a rousing version of How Tedious and Tasteless the Hours. That’s a real hymn!
The “welcome” of guests was a Sunday morning staple. If Laney Johnson, the fiery young associate pastor, welcomed the bunch, he intimidated the visitors by cheerily bringing them to their feet to yell their names for the entire world to hear. Pastor Gaddy was much more sedate. Visitors quietly sat in their spots while the rest of the congregation greeted them in hushed tones. Either way, we all got a gander at the newbies and hoped they’d hang around until Easter.
Next on the agenda was a “responsive reading” from a gold-embossed tome the size of a telephone book. The heavy hymnal was full of these congregational responsive readings. The pastor intoned a passage in a rather dramatic manner and we hollered back a Bible verse or an enthusiastic “Amen!” Thank God we were reading English. I couldn’t yell as loudly in Latin. Responsive readings were the only part of the service where kids could talk out loud—a nice change of pace from sitting in stony silence on a hard wooden pew.
One Sunday morning I was particularly pesky and decided to keep chattering after the reading had concluded. I was on a roll. Apparently my banter was incredibly clever, because my sister Kathy giggled ‘til her tummy hurt. My mother was livid. She gave me “the look” that could curdle milk. I blithely ignored her withering glance. Mom subsequently tried finger-pointing, knee-slapping, and other subtle warnings, but I still never got the message. Our church was pretty small, and the pastor was so distracted by my antics, he lost his place and dropped his notes. My fate had been sealed. Daddy threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and stomped down the aisle headed for the parking lot. As I was whisked away to certain judgment, I flailed my arms and pleaded with the ushers, “Pray for me!” They didn’t. I couldn’t sit down for a week.
The “special music” followed the reading and allowed Melva a shining moment in the spotlight without the other choir members “bringing her down” (in her own words). “God gave me this song,” she chirped. The rest of the congregation was thinking, “Please dear God, make her give it back.”
Some hymn lyrics she belted made no sense at all. Melva warbled, “Here I raise my Ebeneezer.” Who was he and how could she lift him? “That saved a wretch . . . ” Wretching, really? I thought that meant throwing up. I’m glad God saved me from that! I was also mystified by all the “. . . ation” words: justification, sanctification, propitiation, fornication, playstation . . . oops. That last one wasn’t in the bunch. At the conclusion of every song, Melva decided to take the melody up an octave to a range that only dogs could hear. We stumbled out of church deaf and disturbed by her performance.
‘Passing the plate’ was an essential part of the service the pastor never forgot. We knew he’d command us to “bring all the tithes into the storehouse.” He slipped up one Sunday when he was groggy on cough medicine and cried, “Bring ye all the tithes into the whorehouse.” It was the biggest offering we had all year!
Pilfering from the velvet-covered offering plate was a temptation for my buddy Donnie Scott. He could just imagine all the Double Bubble and G. I. Joe’s those crisp dollar bills would buy. I, however, loved the offering time. Daddy taught me that everything belongs to God, so giving Him money was the least I could do. Offertory songs were cool because it was the only time one could hear the piano or organ unhindered by vibrato-laden choir singers.
They allowed me to play the offertory song when I reached the age of ten! Mrs. Bates was my piano teacher and had great faith in me. I practiced for weeks. Sweaty-handed, I plunked my way through I Surrender All and played it without a hitch. God was merciful. It was a marker day in my young life.
On holidays, the youth pastor preached a children’s sermon. He summoned all the little people under the age of ten to sit Indian-style on the carpeted stairs and listen to a Jesus puppet encouraging us to share our toys. I had trouble sharing my spot on the carpet . . . much less my worldly belongings. But I did feel mildly convicted about chopping off my little sister Kathy’s ponytail while she slept through the sermon last Sunday. So I repented in dust and ashes and apologized.
Pastor Gaddy’s sermons had a hypnotic effect. He could make any Bible passage sound boring. I called this phenomenon preaching with his “elevator voice.” Laney was flashy and compelling. He started with a joke to loosen up the crowd and then proceeded to dramatize an exciting Bible story like Elijah calling fire down from heaven. I sat on the edge of my seat, mesmerized. Pastor Gaddy soon changed professions and became a psychologist. Then only one person at a time had to be bored.
Pastor John Schwensen followed Pastor Gaddy. He had a big booming voice like James Earl Jones. I closed my eyes and imagine God Himself was speaking with that powerful baritone timbre. Preschool bulletin-coloring turned into note-writing with my friends, which evolved into hand-holding with my boyfriends. In spite of my persistent efforts to avoid theology, many times the preacher stopped speaking and the Holy Spirit talked just to me. I looked around to see if anyone else heard the still, small voice I did. Then I knew, in my heart of hearts, God longed to have a relationship with me, His little child.
Pastor, the goal for this Easter Sunday is to preach in a way that the listeners hear the Holy Spirit speaking. Listen for His prompting. Pray for God to move. Watch Him work and when He does, give Him the glory.
“He whose walk is blameless will minister to me” (Psalm 101:6).
God is not just seeing worship. He’s seeking worshipers (John 4). Otherwise, we could just listen to praise music on our iPods, put it on continuous play, and be done with it. God would be appeased and we could do our own thing. But it’s not that simple. God is looking for worshipers – people.
And, of course, He’s more interested in the condition of our hearts than the position of our hands and in the choices of our volition than in the beauty of our voices. Yes, God enjoys our singing, clapping, and kneeling, but it does no good to bend the knee before God if we have not first bent our hearts.
A pastor who serves in the Midwest had a dream. He had been praying about the spiritual worship of his church. He received a very cogent answer which showed the difference between going through the motions of worship and really getting in touch with God.
“I was sitting in my usual place – in the church auditorium, on the platform in the chancel area. The organist was playing the prelude to an empty auditorium. Soon, the back doors of the auditorium swung open and my parishioners began to enter the auditorium. From a distance, everyone looked normal – the ladies were wearing their stylish clothes, and the men were dressed in pin-striped suits, heavy-starched shirts, and designer ties. Everyone looked happy, as usual, and there was the normal exchange of courtesies. When asked ‘How are you doing?’ everyone responses, as usual, ‘Just fine, and how are you?’
“But as they came closer, I noticed that something was wrong. Their skin was emaciated and drawn, their bodies were weak and feeble. It looked like all the vitality and nutrients had been sucked from their bodies. The sanctuary was soon filled with well-dressed, mannerly people with decrepit bodies.
“The worship service began and everyone proceeded to work through the order of worship – singing the hymns and choruses, prating when called upon, giving when the plates were passed, reciting the responsive readings – everything, as usual.
“I asked the Lord the meaning of this peculiar dream. The Lord said, ‘I am letting you see the spiritual condition of the people. Instead of seeing their outward appearance, you are observing the condition of their spirits. On the outside, they are prepared to play church, but on the inside, they are not ready for worship. Those who worship Me must worship Me in spirit and in truth.'”
It is important that we prepare for worship. What we do during corporate worship, regardless of what form our liturgy takes, is irrelevant if we have not adequately and properly prepared for the worship experience. Many cymbals are crashed, hands raised, chords tuned, poems eloquently spoken, and memorized prayers recited in the name of worship, but they are received as dissonance and muddled syllables by the Almighty if our spirits are not right.
“The acceptability of any act of worship is determined by the acceptability of the worshiper.” – Ron Dunn
The battle is at hand. We must carefully avoid compromising our faith and drifting away from our relationship with Christ. Walk intimately with Jesus every day by holding firm to the tenants of our faith. The best way to avoid apostasy is to live a well-intentioned, vibrant, living, growing and maturing Christian life.
Jesus knows about the afflictions, poverty and persecution the church at Smyrna has endured. This has not changed for us today. He intimately knows our pressures, needs and misunderstandings, but we can walk through these fires beside Him. We can rejoice with confidence because of our reward in heaven.
Dear Roger,
I believe that I’m a +3 on my spiritual journey. I want to propel myself on the scale. What specific steps or what should I be doing to move on to step 4?
Sincerely,
Questioner #1 from Casas’ “What’s Next Class.”
Dear Roger,
I feel I am at a +5 but I still have the question of how do I get to the point of having Jesus as my complete foundation? How do I completely be in love with Jesus?
Sincerely,
Questioner from Casas’ “What’s Next Class.”
Dear Questioners,
I will gladly give you some direction regarding your spiritual growth; but, first, let me set the context for our readers by explaining the meaning of “+3” and “+5”.
We utilize the “Engel’s Scale” at Casas to help people determine just where they are on their spiritual journey. The scale moves from -10 to 0 to +10. A -10 describes someone who has never heard of God or Jesus Christ. A -4 describes a person who is seeking to find truth about Christ. A -1 is someone on the verge of accepting Christ. 0 is the moment of conversion. In the positive direction, +1 to +2 describe spiritual babies; +3 to +4 describe spiritual children; +5 to +8 describe a spiritual young men or woman; and +9-+10 describe spiritual mothers or fathers (See 1 John 2:12-14 and 1 Corinthians 2:14-3:3 for some of the Biblical support for Engel’s Scale.).
New Christians are often told three things about what to do in order to mature in the Christian life: (1) read the Bible; (2) pray; and (3) go to church. These are three are just as essential for +1s as they are for +10s. Here is why. The Bible gives guidance and maturity as the Light of God’s Word (Psalm 119:105). We find God’s plans and intentions here. Prayer brings us into relationship with the Living Christ (John 7:37-39). Going to church brings us into the Light of God’s people (Matthew 5:14-16). The Christian life is never an individual thing. It is always lived out in the context of relationships.
Bible study can be done in many contexts from individual to group to sermon experiences. Prayer is both talking to God and listening to Him speak to us. Church settings allow us to have our needs met in a loving environment and to use our skill and gifts in meeting in the needs of others. Over time, these three essentials will move us steadily along in our spiritual journeys.
Please use books and resources like commentaries, dictionaries, maps and concordances to help in Bible study. These will make the Bible come much more alive in your heart. Take notes. There are two kinds of Bible students: those who take notes and those who do not. One group tends to get farther along in the journey faster than the other.
Prayer can be a continual thing. You don’t have to get on your knees in a quiet place all the time. The farther along in our journeys the easier it is to imagine Jesus sitting right beside us in the car as we drive. He enjoys a good sharing time, even as we move down the road—with our eyes open.
Choose your church carefully. Look for a functional one filled with openness and grace and where conflicts are never allowed to go underground. Find one with a worship setting you can enjoy. Consider that you want to sit at the feet of a man or woman of God who consistently teaches and/or preaches the Bible with integrity and truth. Evaluate the leadership. Is the pastor autocratic? Do several men or women “run the church”? Stay away from those places. Do you sense the Spirit of God in the people as well as in the pastor? A.W. Tozer advises: “Listen to the people who listen to God.” Those thoughts give some insight into is the kind of church you are looking for.
Let me add another thought. Watch for God’s hand at work in your life. God may surprise you in how he works in developing your maturity and guiding you into His plans. He uses all sorts of tools in His processing us to maturity. In every event in life—from good to great to stress-filled to painful—and everything in between—don’t miss the hand of God at work. He is everywhere and continually working to move you along in your spiritual journey.
Let me add one more thought. Every evening when you go to bed and ever morning when you awaken pray for God to mature you into a spiritual mother or father at any price. This is one prayer He is certain to answer.
Well, questioners, I hope these thoughts not only give you some direction but also help in taking you on to maturity.
Love, Roger
Genesis 41 describes Pharoah’s problem and Joseph’s promotion. Pharoah’s dream has religious overtones because the Nile and cattle are worshipped as gods. We are challenged to emulate Joseph’s mature character by being patient, faithful, humble and content.
2 Corinthians 1 deals with the defense of the apostle Paul for his blameless conduct and his confidence. God affirms him in his stability, commission, security and guarantee of salvation.
Psalm 32 and 51 are twin poems that describe David’s prayer of brokenness and repentance. Psalm 32 paints a portrait of his emotional pain and how he became healed in the arms of his Heavenly Father.
The ability to work is a gift from God. We should do our work as unto Him, reverently, diligently, loyally and with excellence. God will reward our labors.
For more sermons by Brad Tuttle, go to http:www.theharvestchurchinternational.com
FRIENDSHIPS ARE ESSENTIAL TO LIFE
From the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, God declared, “It is not good for man to be alone” even though He walked in fellowship with Him. God determined that human companionship and friendship was one solution to address man’s aloneness. If we are to subsist well in life, we need God and other people to be our friends and guides. We can find these positive relationships in communities that God designed: family, marriage, work, church, ministry, and in other walks of life.
Throughout the scriptures we see how friends are essential, and what we can learn from them. Friends impact our lives both positively and negatively. Solomon had watched his father David amass a whole host of intimate friends during David’s life. The friendship between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul, was legendary (1 Samuel 18:1-4). In spite of the years that King Saul hunted down David like an animal, and Saul’s daughter Michal rejected David early in their marriage, David’s loyalty to Jonathan still gave the warrior king grace to show kindness to Saul’s family (1 Samuel 20:15). King David’s remarkable example of loyal friendship must have deeply impacted his son Solomon (1 Samuel 20:41-42).
- Do you have an intimate friend? How has that friendship impacted your life?
- Who has modeled deep friendship for you?
This devotional will consider Solomon’s perspective on the value of friendships, providing background information that will help you as you study Proverbs.
SOLOMON’S VIEW OF FRIENDSHIP
King Solomon penned these words in Proverbs 27:10:
“Do not forsake your friend and the friend of your father, and do not go to your brother’s house when disaster strikes you—better a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.” (NIV)
Solomon’s best ally was his neighbor King Hiram, the friend of his father David. 1 Kings 5:1 affirms this fact:
“When Hiram king of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king to succeed his father David, he sent his envoys to Solomon, because he had always been on friendly terms with David.” (NIV)
As soon as Solomon ascended the throne, King Hiram of Tyre sent messengers to the young king to offer assistance and support. Hiram played a major role in supplying goods to build God’s temple.
Solomon had also learned from his father to be wary of his brothers. Adonijah, Solomon’s step-brother, tried to steal his throne by goading Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, to wrongfully advise her son. Bathsheba asked Solomon to give Adonijah Abishag, one of David’s concubines, to be his wife. Solomon wisely saw the intrigue and explained to his mother that taking the wife or concubine of the king was a proclamation to the world that his cagey brother was claiming the throne of his father, King David (1 Kings 2:13-22). Solomon had learned to be wary of his brothers because he watched his older step-brother Absalom attempt to treasonously overthrow David years earlier (2 Samuel 16:21).
- Think about the people in your life who were trusted allies. How did they support you?
- Were you ever hesitant to trust someone? Why?
- What have you learned about relationships from watching your parents or significant role models?
FRIEND OR FOE?
In 2 Samuel 15:30-37, King David encountered a problem that caused him to feel heart-sick and angry. Ahithophel, who was his trusted counselor, betrayed the king by spreading vicious rumors about him, conspiring with Absalom against David. Tragically, some trees (friendships) wither and die. In 2 Samuel 15:30-31 we read:
“But David continued up the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went; his head was covered and he was barefoot. All the people with him covered their heads too and were weeping as they went up. Now David had been told, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” So David prayed, “O Lord, turn Ahithophel’s counsel into foolishness.” (NIV)
David should have had the discernment to see that Ahithophel, Bathsheba’s father, might still hold a grudge. After all, David had committed adultery with his daughter and surreptitiously murdered his son-in-law, Uriah.
In contrast, King David had a friend who rose to the occasion like a strong sheltering tree to bring him comfort. Hushai the Arkite stood faithfully beside David throughout his reign. In 2 Samuel 15:32 we read:
“When David arrived at the summit, where people used to worship God, Hushai the Arkite was there to meet him, his robe torn and dust on his head.” (NIV)
Hushai was loyal to King David when many in Israel were ready to overthrow him. Hushai the Arkite is the good friend that David needed at that time in his life. He grieved with David. He met the King with his coat torn and dust on his head. Had he been in a fight? No! In ancient times men expressed grief, total bankruptcy of the soul, in this way. Hushai met David bearing the marks of compassion, and David was comforted and blessed (2 Samuel 15:13-37).
THE BLESSING OF FRIENDSHIP
Friends are compassionate and willing to do what needs to be done. Through their actions, we are assured that we are not alone.
- Recall a time in your life when you needed a friend to show empathy to you and they responded to your pain. How did their kindness make you feel?
- Have you suffered betrayal by a trusted friend? How did you get past the hurt? Did you mourn the hurt with someone and receive comfort, or did you minimize the pain and try to forget it ever happened?
- Can you remember someone who stood beside you when everyone else was against you? Does God have someone He wants you to stand beside and help now?
“It is not good.” These are words we don’t like to hear, yet God said that about Adam being alone. God takes friendship seriously. On Day Two we’ll look at the benefit of friends giving us good counsel though there is the risk they might betray us.
APPLYING THE TRUTH
Read I Samuel 15-19; I Kings 5:1; 2 Samuel 16:21; Proverbs 27:10; 2 Samuel 15:30-37; Proverbs 17:17; Proverbs 18:24
In the area below, write out the Scripture(s), thought(s), and question(s) from today’s devotional that you want to spend more time thinking about. What will you apply to your life?