Be Still
This last week,I was facing a situation that was really weighing on me. I tried everything in my power to get this situation resolved, and no matter how I tried, it seemed like I was getting nowhere. It was like talking to a wall, literally. I finally had to say, “God I have done everything in my power to get this resolved. I place this situation in your hands. I’m done.” The next day I found that the situation I was trying so hard to resolve was resolved! Praise God!
Before I go any further, I am not telling you to stop making an effort to deal with the various situations we face. What I am saying is that when you have done all you know to do, and worry yourself into a coronary, it’s time to cast our cares on Him “for he cares for you”(1 Peter 9:7). It’s time to allow God to move in our circumstances and situations. Isaiah 53:4-6 (King James Version)
4)Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5)But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
This scripture is so powerful! It is saying that not only did he die for our sins, not only did His stripes declare our healing, but HE HAS BORNE OUR GRIEFS AND CARRIED OUR SORROWS! This means freedom from anxiety and depression. This means that though we will face trials and tribulations, we have a God who we can bring these to and lay at His feet. You may say that you don’t know how to let go. I’m not going to tell it is easy. Some things are easier to let go than others. Some things the devil will throw in your face, every single day! Take things one day at a time. Have faith that God knows and He cares. If there is nothing you can do and you have done everything you know to do, declare to God “I trust You”. “I lay these things, these people, at Your feet.” God will move. Maybe not in your timing, but it wouldn’t take faith if you knew right?
“For What have I Done to You?”
1Kings 19:19 So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. 20 Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother good-by,” he said, “and then I will come with you.”
”Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?” 21 So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his attendant.
I know there are a lot of folks that probably think Elisha is nuts when he asks to go back and say goodbye to his family. Many people might think of Luke 9:62 where Jesus says:Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”This is not the point of this scripture in Kings. We miss what Elijah was telling Elisha. Elijah was being obedient to God and was doing what He told him to do. It was Elisha’s choice to follow Elijah or not. Thus the reason Elijah said” What have I done to you?” It’s God who calls us, not man. It is up to us to answer the call.
It would been so much easier on Elisha to have Elijah come up to him and say:” I have called you to be a prophet. You will do great and mighty things in the name of God if you will follow me around and wait on me.” It doesn’t say this at all! Elijah promised nothing. He told him nothing. Elisha knew he needed to follow this man. How did Elisha even know that this was the famous Elijah the prophet? Did they have newspapers? No! of course not! This was God moving in the heart of this man. He had no assurances of anything! He knew he needed to go and he wasn’t coming back!
This is like today, Pastors are asking (sometimes begging) for us to get involved in some way, shape, or form in what is going on in the church and what God is doing through it. You have folks that look at it like: “Pastor’s asking for volunteers again!I’m too busy to do anything!” “Pastor’s asking for money again! Must be pushing that prosperity message again so he can get a Mercedes!” and we are totally missing the whole point to it all! God is calling you to get out of your seat and serve! God is calling you to dig a little deeper in your wallet so He can take the body of Christ to the next level! If you don’t trust your pastor is speaking the Word of God from his lips, then it’s time to leave and find a pastor you can believe! “What has he done to you?” There are no guarantees that if you serve with all your heart that you will be praised in the annuls of Christian history! There is no guarantee that you will be an elder, or a member of the board , or you will get a title! Are you serving God, or are you serving a man?
The time has come be servants, not to look for how we can be served, or entertained. God is calling, will you heed?
Friday Night Source Group
If you are reading this, you probably didn’t come to source group. If you didn’t come, YOU missed out! “On what” you may ask? You will have to come to find out! Stop making excuses and get plugged into a source group! One night out of your week that could impact eternity. Don’t want to miss your favorite TV show? Get a dvr! You are missing a blessing and being a blessing! If you come once, you will come again. I’m done. Peace.
If you live it, they will come
I am so excited about what is happening at Church for all Nations and what is happening in the lives of the people in the church! I can see God moving in people’s lives and provoking questions in the people around me. “What is my purpose in life?”"What are my gifts and how can I use them for God ?” “How can I make a difference in my world/community?”
These questions have been asked long before I was born and are still being asked today. For many years, many churches answer to that question has been”sit down and shut up, and give us your money, we will do the rest.” This is the reason the church (as an institution, in many cases) has not grown. Since the 90′s and even up to today, we are seeing the decline of the “mega minister”. The pastors and evangelists that folks have been sending their money to are no longer the ones reaching the world for Christ. They are fattening up the pew warmers, the passive, and the apathetic. They are tickling ears rather than stirring hearts. God never meant for Evangelists and Pastors to be the only ones “doing the work of the ministry”. God has placed gifts and abilities inside you and people all around you in your daily life that He wants you to minister to. The world won’t be won by a guy on Christian T.V. (who rarely any unbeliever watches). It will be won by you and me, reaching one person at a time. Showing Christ’s love. Being an example to others, not of how to be perfect or religious, but how to show and walk in grace.
You don’t have to stand on a street corner and preach. Start with your friends, family, coworkers. These are the people He has placed in your life. They are there for a purpose. Change the way you see them. God loved them so much that He put you in their lives that they might know Him too! You might be their only hope! You don’t have to preach to them either. Let them see God in what you do and He will draw them to you! I have been amazed and thankful to see the people that God has brought in our lives! I am excited to see what He is going to do in their lives! Don’t lose out on your opportunity to show Christ’s love today. If you live it, they will come!
Death to Self
I have heard a lot of good teaching about this topic. I want to throw my angle on this topic. I have heard teaching saying that in order to die to oneself you have to give up everything you want to do, go find a cabin in the woods, and commune with God for the rest of your life. It is made out to have to be the most painful processes that we ever have to go through and it is the greatest sacrifice of a person for God. I would have to agree to a degree that it is not always easy or I think the word is more like “inconvenient” to do what God wants you do. It is inconvenient to get up a little early on Sunday to greet. It’s not convenient to have to “sacrifice” some of our tv time to read the Bible. It is not always convenient to call our brother or sister that you have felt like you are supposed to call. Doing these things does take putting your desires on the back burner and God is pleased by your obedience.
I want to talk about a slightly different death. I think death is not even a proper word for it. I will call it for lack of better term “life swapping”. You might say “huh?” but what I am talking about is not even a death as we think of it. It is a trading of life. A swap. You trade your desires that were totally focused on self and doing everything for yourself, and you take on a new desire that is not focused on “me” and what “I” can get. It is not about me anymore and you know what? It’s a sweet exchange! Do you really think that Mother Theresa was miserable helping the homeless children in India? It was her passion! It consumed what she did! She was raised in a life of decadence and most anything she wanted. She traded that life of self-centeredness and chose a life of service! It became her consuming passion and God honored her throughout the world for what she did for those children! This is an exchange of one life for another! A life swap! I’m not telling you to quit your job and move to India, what I am telling you is that if your heart is to love the One who laid His life down for you, you will begin to take on His personality and passions. You won’t even be conscious of it. It will become your nature. It will be as effortless as breathing. You won’t even realize that it took place!
Don’t try so hard to be perfect. Don’t strive to do it in your own strength. Seek the One who brings the change, listen when He calls you, and obey when He directs and you will understand what it means to die to yourself.
I Cor 15:22 For (AG)as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
Friday 1-25-08 Now What?!!!
I am really excited about our source group that started last Friday. I am looking forward to seeing God change lives, give birth to new relationships and bring a sense of purpose to believers’ lives. “How are we going to do this?” you might ask. Well, you are going to have to come to our next source group to find out! HA! If I told you now, you might not come! You will just have to come out for the first of a series we are doing called “Now What?”. We will see you on the 25th!
Friday’s Source Group
Well, my wife and I had our first source group meeting and it went really well! We went over what source groups are all about and the vision for our group. Normally folks don’t open up in the first meeting.It’s usually a get to know each other kind of thing, but God had other plans and folks opened up about things that were on their hearts and everyone contributed to making the night a complete success! ( The pigs in a blanket were awesome!) Some folks may not think that the food they bring is really contributing but anything that you give, make, or contribute to the whole experience is part of it as well! We are so excited to see what God is going to do next and look forward to many more Fridays!
Source Groups
I am so excited about me and my wife starting our source group this Friday! For those of you who don’t know what a source group is, it is a group of believers gathering together for fun, fellowship, encouragement, and teaching. It’s not just a time to make people hear what you have to say, but allow others to use the gifts and talents that God has placed in them.
It is a time to get to know each other more than you do on a Sunday. Let’s face it, most people only talk to each other( if your lucky) for maybe 2 or 3 minutes. Then, you don’t see them for another week. This is not God’s vision for the church. I also agree that God doesn’t want all of us shacked up together. I know I love people but I don’t want to see you that much! LOL! Source groups help you get to know one another, and form community.
It is a place for you to use your gifts in a more comfortable setting. (I am personally praying for some talented cooks to bring some off the chain snacks! Lol!) God has placed talents and gifts in each of us. Some have teaching skills. Some have musical skills. Some have the gift of encouragement. Some are gifted with the burden to pray and intercede for folks. What better place to start using these skills and God given talents! What better place to allow your gifts to blossom so they can one day be used in the church! I know what I have described sounds like what should be happening in the church to begin with but let’s really look at things objectively. You normally don’t have more than one person sharing the word on Sunday. You only have so many people that can play an instrument in a service. Source groups give people that may not have the opportunity to speak a chance to share their knowledge and experience. Source groups allow future ministers and ministries to be birthed from folks who may be asking “W hat can God do with someone like me?”
Source groups allow ordinary folks to be extraordinary in someone’s life. Maybe you don’t feel comfortable going up to someone and asking them if you can pray for them or offer an encouraging word, but In a small group setting, it makes it a easier to do that. You never know, you may be the answer to someone’s prayer!
Why are they called Source Groups? It is meant to be source of life to you and you to be a source of life for someone else. It’s not about you. It’s about what you are willing to bring to the table. You may think you have nothing to offer, but you will never know if you don’t go.
Your Greatest Mission Field
As some of you may already know, I am a father of 4 children. 3 are from a previous marriage, 1 is my stepson. I have to admit, it has been very difficult to blend the 2 families. My daughters from my previous marriage are resentful of my stepson getting to live with me all the time, and my stepson is resentful of the girls when they visit cause they take away the attention from him. I lived with my girls for years. They know how I expect them to behave, and (for the most part) do what i say. I would have never dreamed of how hard it would be to forge a relationship with a child that is not my own. I am used to raising girls first of all, and having another male in the house is a constant battle for dominance in the family. Every word spoken is a challenge for superiority. I am just as bull-headed as he is. I don’t back down. I can let my temper get the best of me. I don’t think every time how the way I react or handle a situation is going to affect our future relationship. I am learning as I go. I am making strides, but I still fail sometimes. I want to show him how a man should act, but I am still learning too.
I think that our homes is where we should be fine tuning our lives. Home is where we should walk in forgiveness, love, and respect. I think it is the most neglected. Sometimes it’s easier to forgive someone we don’t have to see everyday, but for some reason, it’s seems so much harder sometimes to forgive the one we see everyday. The one we said that we would love, cherish, and be with forever. We want to reach the world but we can’t reach our own families. Through years of neglect we ignore the mission field in our own homes and hope that the “youth pastor can get through to them”. You may feel that you have blown it with your children. I declare to you that today is the first day of the rest of your life and your family. Today is the day to make a step in the right direction. Today is the day to love those you have ignored. Do not quit if your efforts are resisted at first. What took years to make will not always be fixed in a day, but today is your chance to be the Jesus that you want your kids to serve. Today is the day to face hypocracy and start living the model for your children to follow. They may think you are being fake, but this is an opportunity for you share the grace of God with them. Make them understand what I am trying to convey to you ( and me) that today is a new day and your commitment to being the child of God that you want to be. Over time you may gain their respect and even if you don’t, you can say that you did everything you could to turn the tide. There is nothing worse than living a life of regret. Don’t do it. Make the choice today to reach your loved ones for Christ. It is never time wasted.
