I am Wrong! How About You?

 "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. [Jhn 17:20-23 ESV]

These words from the prayer of Jesus have been ripping through me lately. When I read Francis Chan's book "Until Unity" a few months ago, it reinforced everything I felt like God was speaking to me about. I am praying that I can share my thoughts clearly. My goal is not to offend, though some may be offended. My heart here is to point out that Jesus desires a Church, a Bride, unified around a few simple truths, empowered by His Spirit, that has learned to encourage and support one another in our differences.

First, let us start with what is of vital importance. The basis of our unity is is found in the work and person of Jesus. Because man has been born into a sinful, fallen world and we have willfully chosen to walk in sin. We are hopelessly separate from God on our own. Jesus, eternally the Son of God, left the glory of Heaven to live as man to show an example of Godly living. He then, a sinless man, laid His life down willingly to redeem fallen man from His sinful state. He was buried and on the 3rd day, He rose from the dead and ascended to His Father. He then sent His Holy Spirit to lead us into relationship with Him. He left His written word to reaffirm all the work He has done on our behalf. His Holy Spirit and the written word are calling men to repent and to live with Jesus as the Lord of their lives. Jesus is the only way to the Father and to life. He has brought salvation to mankind through His finished work on the cross. We can now walk in right relationship with God and be part of His eternal family.

Like many of you, I have read the Scriptures through many times. Each time, I see something that I had missed before or a different passage stood out. Every time we read the Bible, if we are listening to God, it brings a new revelation. Just like for Israel in the wilderness, God brings the manna we need for the moment. Over the years, we tend to build a theological system from this manna. We believe everything in that system was truth from God. It mostly is. We have read authors and listened to sermons that confirm it. Eventually we wind up in a Church that affirms what we have learned. This is all good and right. God would have us hold fast to the truth that He shows us by the Spirit, in His word.

This does not pose a problem until we start limiting what we accept as truth our understanding, to what we have believed, or what our Churches or favorite ministries have taught. We need to guard the truth we have been given and it is right to do so. Where we are breaking down is when we start badmouthing everyone that is not in lockstep with our understanding of truth. How do we protect what we know to be true without bashing people that understand things differently?

We need to go back to the second paragraph. We must always ask if we have agreement in these fundamental truths. If we agree on these truths, we need to receive one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We may have disagreement. We may understand things differently. That is okay. There are countless reasons why this is true. God has shown different people different aspects of Himself because they have different calls, live among different people and have different ways of thinking. This does not mean we can call them heretics or wolves. There are real heretics and wolves in the world. Paul gave us several good ways to identify them starting with who they understand Jesus to be.1 Cor 12 is a good starting place to understand the variety of ways we understand things. Vs 3 tells us that "nobody can proclaim Jesus is Lord except by the power of the Spirit" or that "Jesus is accursed while speaking by the Spirit." I encourage you to dig into this chapter and pray about it.

The world is suffering. It is trapped in a hopeless situation and people everywhere are fearful. Every single aspect of life seems to be spinning out of control right now. As the Church of Jesus, we are called to bring His truth and love to hurting people, to proclaim hope to hopeless situations and to proclaim the Gospel into the darkness. Jesus said that His word wouldn't return void. Unfortunately, we have been destroying our witness by openly bickering over nuances of the faith, over secondary issues. If it isn't in the second paragraph, it is a secondary issue. We are called to love one another and to live in harmony, not to bicker over our secondary issues.

We must stop name calling. It is vitally important to the future generations that we start discussing our differences and look for areas of agreement so we can work together. We must lay down our right to be right and learn to communicate in healthy ways. We are the hope Jesus left in the world. We are the ones He called to evangelize and to make disciples. Our disagreements with one another are causing that to come to a screeching halt in some places and are keeping us from coordinating our efforts and allowing them to multiply their effectiveness. When we encourage and affirm the ministry of others, God will promote and prosper what He calls us to. When continually rebuke those who He calls to something different, we hinder what He wants to do through us.

We can learn from Paul. He was the foremost of apostles. He could have held himself up and renounced everyone that was not just like him. He did call out some that were perverting the Gospel for different reasons but he also affirmed the ministry of others that he may not have agreed with. He called himself nothing but a servant and refused to call Apollos anything less than himself. He pointed out that they were both merely servants and that Jesus was the one that was brining men to salvation. When he called out people, it was for clearly heretical teaching, that corrupted the Gospel and limited men's access to it.

In Isaiah 58, we see people trying to manipulate God and one another so they can be seen as right. To them, the most important thing is to be recognized and lauded for their rightness. God rejects them but He goes on to show who He will not reject. He even says He will cause people to come to them and see the light in them. It is those that love others and sacrifice themselves to meet the needs around them. They have come to God in humility and allowed Him to use them as He desires.  God promotes and prospers the work of those that are surrendered and their right to be right is submitted to the love of God and man. He makes them the centerpiece of what He is doing. They become the example to follow.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. [1Jo 4:7-12 ESV]

It is okay to have differences. It is okay to discuss our differences. It is not okay to attack those in the body we do not understand because they have a differing viewpoint. The world is calling out for hope and the Church is the one called to deliver that hope. Paul said to the Corinthians that he determined to know nothing among them except for Jesus and Him crucified. He certainly had a lot more to teach and say but he limited himself to what they needed, what was of primary importance and that was enough. He did not condemn Apollos for his teaching or focus. He just avoided arguing over differences or telling everyone why he was the superior apostle. It is time for us to lay aside our differences over secondary issues and focus on the simple truth of the Gospel.

God is bigger than me or you. His truth is bigger than our understanding. It is time for us to stop trying to build our kingdoms with our intellect and knowledge and to start recognizing that others have a part of the picture that we may not even understand. The kingdom belongs to God. he has revealed enough of His truth to me that I can follow Him fully but He has not revealed everything to me that you may need to follow Him as He is leading you. The Kingdom and its King are multifaceted. We are limited in our understanding. Let's ask Holy Spirit to reveal God in people and then ask Him how we can bless what He is doing in and through them. Unity is in Jesus but some of the hard work of walking it out falls on us.

The Nerve Center

 

Four years ago, the Lord started speaking to me about a ministry of encouragement to missionaries. Since that day in April 2018, the thought has never been far from my mind. I have had lots of ideas and considered several different ways to do that. As I pursued them, each time, they came up short of what I was pushing for. Just this week, in the middle of feeling sorry for myself because I couldn’t seem to put it all together, the Lord spoke again. He said He had showed me an end and I tried to start at the end. The steps I have been pursuing were in the wrong order. Hopefully, in the next few paragraphs I will be able to explain the journey I have been pursuing. I am praying that a few of you are finding yourself on this same road I am travelling.

While I was in mission’s school in Reynosa, I had a vision of providing missionary retreats so missionaries could come together, share their stories, and encourage one another. The idea was not to do a conference or a provide hours of teaching crammed into each day, but rather to provide a forum where they could come together, and talk about the work they were doing, look for areas of commonality and for ways they could support and encourage one another. This would all take place in a nice setting, a beach resort, or a mountain retreat so they could bring their families and have a time of fellowship, relationship building and rest.

As I prayed about how to make this all work, the Lord directed me to a step that needed to happen before any of this could work. Churches needed to catch the vision for supporting missionaries in a new way. In this day of instant communication and easy travel to almost anywhere in the world, missionaries often feel isolated. They have traded the known for the unknown. They have left family, friends, and careers to pursue God’s purposes for people they may have never even met. On the occasion that they are able to talk with the people from their old life, they often feel that the world is leaving them behind. They have missed out on big family events. They have lost contact with most of their Church family, and they are usually living on a substantially diminished income. They need an advocate to encourage the Church to pursue them and encourage them.

From this, I came up with a plan to speak to Churches and to their missions’ committees and help them formulate a plan to intentionally involve themselves regularly in the lives of the missionaries they have sent or are financially supporting. It is a must for a missions’ success that the Churches that sent missionaries stay involved in their lives. I equate it with when a child leaves the nest. They may no longer live at home, but they still need to know that they have a family behind them to encourage and support them as they pursue their dreams. The Church needs to do this for missionaries.

I talked to a friend in Guatemala about this and he gave me some good advice on how to pursue this idea. As I went back to the U.S. and started doing what he suggested, I realized that I was premature. I have a desire, a goal that I believe God planted in me, but it is easy to jump the gun. I have continually wanted to jump to the finished product but there are in between steps that I need to take if I am going to be faithful to what God is calling me to, which is to build a network of missionary support, not to replace their missions’ organizations, but to supplement them. The missionary needs their home Church family to be involved and to encourage them as they pursue God’s call on their lives and the Church needs to be involved in outreach on a local level as well as in missions.

I have been sensing God say that the first step is to gather information to support what I am seeing and hearing from many of my friends in the mission field. It is time to collect their stories and share them. The last 2+ years of Covid have created a challenging environment for many of them. Several have even left the field to go back home and work. Many have seen their income dry up and lots of projects put on hold. The teams that used to come and support them have slowed to a trickle. For many, everything they knew pre-pandemic has changed. At the same time, they have continued to adapt and change so they can be faithful to the call God has placed on them.

Over the next few weeks, I would like to solicit stories from missionaries. I am praying for the best way to disseminate them, but I know the Church, as a whole, and not just the local Church that sent them, needs to know what missionaries are doing around the world. There are many people that would help and support ministries because they are doing something close to their heart, but they do not even know they exist. They would love to encourage, support and even work with them but first they have to be made aware of the work and the need.

God often speaks to me through pictures. The most recent picture He gave me was for the body and the role of missions in it. Jesus is the head. We are all parts of the body with our own roles to play. Every role is important but none of them work well if we do not communicate. If the body does not know the needs of one part, not only will that one part suffer, but soon, all the parts around it will suffer too. The central nervous system connects all our body and tells other parts to slow down when one part is suffering. It communicates the need of the foot to the head and every part in between.

I feel God is building a network to build, support and encourage the body. It begins with the various parts sharing their story, their call, and their needs. As one shares, another can offer up the needed support and encouragement to lighten the load of the call and to help carry the burden. Not only has Jesus sent Holy Spirit to encourage, guide and comfort us. He has called us to come together and support one another. Networking is a key part of Kingdom life. I feel He is saying that now is time to develop the network, the nervous system of the body so every part can be well supplied and strengthened.

Stay tuned for stories from missionaries in the near future.

A Relentless Pursuit

 For many years I have seen everything God created in the natural as merely a metaphor for the spiritual truth that is just beyond our grasp. He did not just create man for relationship but also to write the story of truth. Within the Trinity there exists a oneness that wanted to find expression and we are the result of that desire. In man, God created a bride for the Son. The Father created Adam and then Eve to give a picture of His desire for the Son. When He created Eve He said that it is not good for man to be alone. That is an expression of a Father's heart for the Son He loves. Marriage was created to reveal eternal spiritual truths.

The last few days I have been feeling like I had missed a big truth about this. Song of Solomon is an early expression of the Gospel. There is a woman, She longs for a man that she sees as perfect and unattainable because she sees herself as lowly and broken. Her family does not value her and her friends often seem to mock her.

One day she catches the eye of the man and He is smitten by her. He pursues her relentlessly. She will let him come close only to run away and hide. She can't see how she possibly has value enough to attract the attention of such a prefect suitor. She even dreams that she has him and then he leaves and hides from her. In her dream she searches everywhere only to come up empty.

The man continually speaks to her of her beauty and worth. He reminds her of his desire for her and all of the things he loves about her. While some of the encouragements seem strange to us today, there is no mistaking that they are words of passion for a bride. The man will not stop until he secures the love of the one he loves. He will do anything to have her.

This is the Gospel in 8 chapters. Jesus came to earth and paid a great price to have a bride for himself. He lifted us from our pit. He spoke a new identity over us and then He sacrificed His own life to redeem His beloved. He promised to never leave or forsake His bride and then He went to prepare a place for her to live and a wedding feast to celebrate love.

We are to quick to build a religious framework and fill it with theological systems to explain a love story. From beginning of time until its conclusion, we are living the story of a man pursuing His love and redeeming her. The Gospel is not just good news that we can be saved from hell. That is too small to be the Gospel. The Gospel is that Jesus came to redeem us from our broken, sinful existence, fill us with the life of God, adopt us into the Father's family, make us co-heirs with Jesus and become an eternal bride for the King. The Gospel is that we have a hope and a future beyond our wildest imagination and it is paid for by the blood of the one that is pursuing us relentlessly.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. [Heb 12:1-2 ESV] 

Our right response to this pursuit is to lay down all the broken and false identities we have clothed ourselves in and become the one we were created and redeemed to become. The bride is the joy set before Jesus that these verses is talking about. It is not just His reunification with the Father. He never had to leave the throne to have that. It is the restoration of His beloved. Jesus gave Himself to buy us back because we bring Him joy.

It is a mistake to say the Bible is just about Jesus. It is the story of a God in Pursuit of His love. He relentlessly pursues because He knew that we were the joy of His heart. He lowered Himself to us so He could eternally raise us up with Him. Don't think you can belittle the bride or demean her place in the heart of Jesus and think you can call it humility. To try and minimize the role of the bride in the story is to reject the Heart of the Bridegroom. We must learn to love and cherish what He loves even when we do not see her yet in the splendor He created her for. 

Song of Solomon is a great lens through which to view the Gospel.

So Easily Distracted

 God has been speaking to me a lot lately about how easily distr..........Squirrel.............distracted I am. It may not seem like that big a deal. Everyone is trying to multitask these days and we go on rabbit trails quite easily but, with the number of times he has brought it to my attention lately it seems to be something I need to look at and maybe deal with too.

Because I do much of my reading on electronic devices, notifications popping up is a real issue. I use Blue Letter Bible on my computer because it has so many helpful tools. I read on my tablet because my Bible weighs 4,000 pounds. Because these both have active internet connections, it does not take a lot to distract from what I am doing. If I do not discipline myself and ignore the notifications as they pop up, I can be derailed quickly. It seems like they always pop up at really inopportune times also, like maybe it is a planned diversion just as Holy Spirit is about to open up something important.

I am not against electronic devices and they have made it much easier to dig deeper into passages of Scripture but I am seeing the need for self discipline in using them. There are other distractions to. The phone rings. We get bored and turn on the TV. None of these things is evil, on their own but they all are distractions. We need to take control of the things that distract us if we ever want to go to the place God is leading. We need to stay sensitive to His leading and be ready to walk away from the distraction as soon as we recognize that God may have something else for us.

So often, when I think of disobedience, I think of overt sin. Obviously the person that is caught up in alcoholism, drug abuse, deviant sexual practices, pornography, or even gossip and lying are being disobedient. But, lately God has been pointing out that when I get distracted and stop listening for His voice, I am disobedient too. I can only obey what I hear. While I can know the principles of God from the Bible, obedience requires knowing His current activity. It requires living a life in tune with the Spirit. It is really hard to do that when I am spending a day watching TV or surfing the net. 

Many years ago I read the book Practicing His Presence which is a combination of the writings of Brother Lawrence from the 1600 and Frank Laubach from 400 years later. They talk about learning to hear God's voice in the moment. Brother Lawrence said that he didn't like to go to morning vespers because they disrupted his day and he could feel as close to God in the kitchen scrubbing pots and pans as he did in the chapel. He shared how he practiced turning his thoughts to God every hour and eventually, every minute.

I have to say, I do not have a hard time hearing God when I work but all the electronic distractions are different. I am convinced they are more sinister than many of the things they carry. We reject much of the evil they bring into our homes outright but yet, we embrace the distractions. Watching a movie is not in itself wrong. On the other hand, putting ourselves in a place that we cannot hear the voice of God is. Paul called us to pray at all times. We are to keep our channel of communication with God open. If we cannot watch TV or be online while remaining sensitive to His voice, the distraction needs to go.

I want to issue a challenge to you, one that I am currently trying myself. Write down what God is speaking to you once an hour. While you are reading, watching TV, talking to others, having a quiet time with God, whatever the activity, just write down what he is saying. Record your activity at that time also. Look for a pattern. See if there are things that make it harder for you to hear His voice, Then ask Him for the discipline and self control to walk away from those things that are merely distractions.

Hearing His voice is the most important thing we can do. In Him is all wisdom. He has the words of life. Apart from receiving these from Him, we may be very religious but we are not living in relationship to the living God. I need to become distraction free and let the sound of His voice lead me at all times.

A Life of Fastination

 This morning, at 5, I felt God speak to me. He was pointing out that I had settled for a life of lessor fascinations. I can get sidetracked and distracted by so many things. I will be reading the Bible and go to https://www.blueletterbible.org/ and look up something I had a question about and before you know it, I am scrolling my Facebook wall or searching some unrelated topic on Google. I can get fascinated by the most minor, irrelevant to my life things and spend hours reading about them. It does not seem to matter. Almost any topic is fodder for my fascination.

Then I felt like He was challenging me. Why was I not equally fascinated with Him. If God is beyond my comprehension and He has all power and authority, all wisdom and truth are found in Him, how can I not spend every waking moment pondering His greatness? How can I not be consumed with thoughts of Him? It took me a while to ponder this. These are great questions. How can I spend so much time looking at things that don't matter a bit to my life at the expense of the one thing that is of ultimate importance? To be clear, I do try to give time to God and His word every day. What He was challenging me on was much more than this.

It took me a while to think and pray about this. I did not have a quick answer but when the answer hit me, it hit hard. I have settled for easy answers about God and His nature because then I can play the expert. If I limit my thoughts of God to a manageable size and timeframe, then I can be confident of the things I know. I like certainty and by placing limits, I can be certain that I am right. I can even be certain that those who disagree with me are wrong. I can pull out verses to agree with my position and dismiss those that you counter with as being out of context.

The challenge I felt was to give up certainty so I could step into something bigger, so I could step into the life of Jesus as Holy Spirit leads. Not quenching the Spirit has a lot to do with laying down all of our preconceptions so He can lead wherever He wants. He desires to challenge us in the areas we have put limitations on Him. He is tearing down the fortress I have built to defend Him so that He can teach me to allow Holy Spirit to defend Jesus, even when He is using my mouth to do it.

The problem is that I have to overcome my religious prejudices. Denominational thinking has corrupted my vision. I have learned to see God through a lens that is not His. I have rejected the things that fell outside the scope of my teaching. Doing this allowed me to master the subject matter. It also create a divide between me and other members of the body that had a different perspective. It hindered my ability to learn from them. God began to deal with this years ago when I started reading books from a lot of others that came from different backgrounds and learned from them. Today, He just blew my wrong mindset apart. He pointed out how much more there is to learn and understand. I am learning that the picture is bigger than I can see and sometimes, these others can add an important perspective that I have not seen before.

Man's thoughts about God will always fall short. Our doctrines will always be insufficient to fully explain who God is and what He does. There will always be more if we keep our hearts and minds open. God is calling us (me) to a life of fascination. He is so much more than I have allowed Him to be. He desires our fellowship with Him to be anchored in truth but that truth is more than we can fathom. We need to get out of the limits of our minds and allow ourselves the freedom to be led by the Spirit wherever He goes. We can trust that we have a Father that will protect us from falsehood. We have a Holy Spirit that is guiding us into all truth. Jesus is interceding for us. It is safe to explore with Him.

All of this does not mean that we can reject absolutes. God never changes. He is who He has always been. He does not mute part of His character to emphasize a different aspect of it. He is not balanced. He is infinite and eternal.  He is fully who He is. His love and judgment are not in conflict. He does not have to set His justice aside to show mercy. He is God and all of Him is in harmony. He is not compartmentalized. He is just more than we can grasp. Our explanations of Him are something less than the truth.

I want to challenge you today to listen to a teacher that you disagree with. Don't listen to critique. Listen to be taught. Ask Holy Spirit to teach you something new about God that you have never grasped. Allow Him alone to set off warning bells of falsehood. At the same time, allow Him to reveal truth that you have not grasped before. Don't try and judge the message or the teacher but ask Him for discernment. Let Him speak truth and reveal Himself as more. When we do this, we might just be surprised to learn that not only is God bigger than we have allowed but that a lot of people we disagree with know things that we don't. They have insight we don't.

Fascination with God begins with our recognition that we don't know everything about Him. It then recognizes the value of the insight and discernment of other parts of the body and concludes with humility. We can begin to explore the greatness and the bigness of God in new way. This exploration will draw us deeper into fascination with Him. The cycle will grow as we realize how little we actually grasp of God. Getting to know Him is an eternal project so we can't possibly be content with what we can learn of Him in our 80 years.

In Rev 4 we see the response of the elders and the angels around the throne of God. They, for all eternity live in this fascination. It is enough for them to bow in worship and proclaim His greatness for all eternity. We give Him 20, 30 or even 60 minutes a day and think we know Him. We know in part. We prophecy in part. Now we see in a mirror dimly. Then we will fully know just as we have been fully known. Let's give ourselves fully to fascination with what we cannot fully grasp and humble ourselves to admit we only know the few things we know.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. [1Co 13:9-12 ESV]

Follow Me (As I Follow Christ)

 

For many years, I missed the call of the Jesus on my life. I had lots of ideas and thought that I was doing a good job. I tried to do the things I thought I was supposed to but, in reality, they were just my thoughts and they didn't reveal Jesus in a very good light much of the time. They put demands on me and on others that were not from God. I would like to share some of those wrong thoughts.

I am responsible to save people. I should share the Gospel because it is good news for all men. People must get saved. I am just responsible to share the Gospel. At times, people might get saved but the outcome is not my concern. As soon as I make the outcome my reason for sharing, rather than the simple obedience to Jesus to tell others, I have stepped into Holy Spirit's role. Jesus said that if He was lifted up, He would draw all men to Himself. Just to avoid confusion, the following verse shows He was talking about His being killed on  the cross. While we are to share the truth. It is Jesus that is drawing men to Himself. Our job is just to be newsmen that report what we have seen, heard and experienced in Christ.

I am responsible too point out all the sins that separate lost people from God. People are not lost because they sin. They sin because they are separated from God and it is their natural state. Nobody goes to hell because they lied or stole, killed or gossiped. Sure, all of those things are outside of the will of God for them but that is not what separates them from Him. They do those things because they are separated from Him and those things, or at least some of them come naturally. Our desire for control and independence are what separates us from God. The author of Hebrews said that we cannot please God apart from faith. (Heb 11:6) Convicting the world of sin is Holy Spirit's job. Our job is to point people to faith in Jesus and His desire for relationship with them. Their specific sins are a secondary issue to their fallen nature.

(There are times were are to confront those in the Church about specific sin but that is as God gives us wisdom .We are not confronting from our offense. We are just letting Him speak through us the words that He has already said to those who have not heard it when He spoke to them.)

I am responsible to do a lot of things and serve people so they can see what it looks like to be a hard working follower of Jesus. I am called to serve but not for these reasons or in the way that showcases my hard work. I am to walk with Jesus as He walked with the Father. When I walk with Him, He will reveal His activity and invite me to join, just as He did the disciples 2,000 years ago. He is still at work and I am just here to be the physical manifestation of His love in ways that people can see Him. After all, our best efforts fall short of meeting the needs but He is sufficient in every way and He allows us to be there with Him as He works through us so we can experience His presence and others can see Him.

I am responsible to know everything, to be able to answer every question. If I can't, I look foolish. The reality is that nobody knows everything. God only reveals to us the things He needs for us to know. He allows us to search out other things but not so we can be affirmed by knowledge. He actually created us to need one another and he uses our lack of knowledge in some areas to make us dependent on others. Our need for one another creates a bond, a bond that he intended since the beginning when He created Adam and Eve differently. Their differences, when combined created a whole. The two shall become one flesh. Apart, they would both come up short. God said of Adam that it was not good for man to be alone and today, that is still true. I can't know everything but I was never supposed to.

If I am not supposed to save everyone. convict everyone, be a slave to everyone's needs or know everything, what am I supposed to do? I think that two commands of Jesus to His disciples answer that question for us today. First He said follow Me and I will make you fishers of men (Mt 4:19) and then He told His disciples to go and make disciples (Mt 28:19-20)

The first part of this is that we are called to become disciples. A lot of people want to reduce that to way less than it is. To many, being a disciple is just about gathering all of the information that they can. They believe that all they need is a good knowledge of Scripture but if that was true, Jesus would have made the Scribes and Priests His disciples. They would have had a head start. Instead He chose uneducated fishermen, a tax collector, and an anti Rome protestor. He did not just give them information but He gave them 3 years of His life. They saw all He did and heard all He said. They understood that He did nothing apart from the Father's plan. He lived moment by moment by entering in to the activity of His Father and did not do or say anything more. A disciple is a person that learns by living with and walking side by side with the master as He teaches.

Second, He called us to make disciples. Many have said that was just for the original 12 but both Jesus and Paul refute that. In Mt 28:20 He told the disciples to teach their disciples to do all He had commanded them. They were to make disciples of the whole earth. Paul, in 2 Tim 2 told his disciples to teach others all that they had learned from him and that those people were to continue in perpetuity. Disciples making disciples is God's plan for all believers for all time. It goes beyond all the activities we think of and creates relationship. We are to live life with people in a way that they come to understand how they are to walk out this life of faith in Jesus.

Some think it is arrogant to expect people follow them but Paul said in Phil 4:9 and 1 Cor 11:1 to follow his example. To do and teach the things they had learned from him. Paul understood that the Kingdom was like a family. In his day, a son would work with and under his father to learn the family trade. Then they would teach their sons in the some way. To be a disciple is to be an apprentice. You work alongside the master until you have mastered your trade. Once you are a master, you look for your apprentice. The kingdom is passed down from generation to generation and it is to continue this way until Jesus returns.

We are called to be disciples who make disciples. We are to live a life of submission to God and His purposes as we have been taught by those who discipled us. We have seen the example of their lives and how they brought glory to God as they walked in humility. The end result is that Jesus is seen and glorified and we get to stand back and marvel at what He was able to do with our short 50, 60, or 70 years. We are just a blip on the screen in the big picture but if we become disciples who make disciples, we can see Jesus change the picture for millions into eternity. 

By the way, unlike the picture above, we don't draw the attention to ourselves. A disciple of Jesus will always divert the attention back on Him because they know that He is the one that ultimately deserves all the attention and all the glory.

The Three Dependencies (Pt 3) Getting Connected

 When we think of missions, the most common question to ask is who they are going with. Most people tend to join some missions sending organization when they leave home to jump into the mission's life. When we think of Missions, we think of organizations like Wycliffe, CTEN, YWAM, and countless others. They all function a little differently but they all have the same basic focus. They exist to help the missionary adapt and succeed in their new home. These organizations provide numerous support and training opportunities for the new missionary. They provide what most Churches are not equipped to provide.

Anybody looking to go into missions should be searching out these organizations and asking lots of questions. There are some that exist within denominations and many more that are parachurch organizations. Depending on what you are intending to do, there are some that will fit your needs better than others. Some have a high degree of oversite while others allow more freedom and flexibility to pursue the work God has called you into. The organizational structure s vary but their purposes are the same. They are there to advance the Gospel and let God's love be seen in the missionary. Depending on your task and your temperament, you will find that you may need one over another. The most important thing to remember is that you most likely need one.

Stand back, I got this.

If you are not a self starter, you may need an organization with more oversite. If you are highly motivated and have a clear vision, you may prefer an organization that looks at your plans and then sets you free to run with them. There is no one right answer for everyone concerning what organization type you need but the missionary needs connection and support. These organizations tend to do those jobs better than ministries that are not specific to missions. They have the experience and insight that the new missionary will need. Find one and get connected

There is also a second important factor in this connection in the new country. The missionary needs to be connected to a local Church or a body of believers. This connection can come through their missions organization but they should not overlook becoming part of a local Church if there is one in their region. The local Church has local people and is an invaluable place to meet the community and learn to assimilate. When you connect with the non-missionary part of the body, you begin to find home. You are not just a foreigner, come to help and serve. You become part of the community.

As you begin to live in community, new opportunities arise. You get to know people and can draw local people into the work of God in their community. The work is no longer just about someone coming to do for us. It begins to be about a community working together to find the answer to their needs and to spread the Gospel to those that have not heard it. When we join the local body, it produces the Acts 1-2 moments where we see Holy Spirit make Himself known because the body is together in unity and He produces fruit through us that we never could on our own.

I have been writing to encourage new missionaries not to go it on their own. They need the fellowship and oversight of an organization and they need the connection to the local body of believers. As their home Church, you need to help them find that connection. It can be easy to feel cut out of the picture and feel like someone else has usurped your place. Get over that jealousy and continually encourage your missionary to pursue those relationships. Missions is a partnership. None of us fulfills the call of God on our lives in a vacuum. We need connection, We need Godly support and encouragement.

Success in missions requires Holy Spirit's leading, a good home Church to encourage and support and finally, a team of missionaries and a local Church in the new country. Independence can be deadly to a missionary. Don't let the young (or old) missionary fall into the trap of believing they can do it on their own.

The Three Dependencies (Pt-2) Our Role

 

Previously, I wrote about the need for Holy Spirit to be at the center of all missions work. He is the one that leads and guides all aspects of the missionary's work. Today I want to explore the second dependency that every missionary has and needs to embrace if they are going to be successful. Because nobody can serve well as a lone ranger, we all need a support group around us to fulfill the call of God on our lives. It is this second dependency that I am focused on these days. My prayer is that many Churches will gain a new perspective on their role in missions and that they will embrace a more active partnership with the missionaries that they support in the field.

Missionaries often times feel forgotten. They have been commissioned and prayed over, given a check and sent out the door. Now, to be fair, this is what they asked for. They asked a Church or a few Churches to help support them as they go off to another country (or another state or city) to begin working in a new mission. They may be going to work with someone or they may be launching out on their own to pioneer a new ministry. Either way, they are are moving away from the support network that they have known. This can produce 50 different emotions in them and the people they share those things with are no longer with them. Those friends are back home, a few thousand miles away. They are now processing the excitement, fear, anxiety and elation of stepping into something new without the support of those they used to share their lives with.

As time goes by, the calls and the messages from the friends and family tend to dwindle. The people that used to be their network are moving on with life. Just because someone moves away does not mean everyone else's lives have come to a standstill. Life has a way of moving forward. Connections that were strong can easily become tenuous or non-existent in just a few months. The people we swore we would stay in touch with forever become an afterthought in a busy life. 

When people leave to begin a new life as a missionary, they usually have a busy life. They are trying to define the boundaries where their ministry will function within, get settled into a new home and acquainted with a new community, learn a new language and navigate day to day life in a strange environment. All of these things take time. The things that they have always done without a second thought are now a major task. The things that seemed like a major task in the States quickly become an unmanageable mess in the new country. These things are stressful but because the new missionary is there on their own, they learn to become mostly self sufficient.

This newfound self sufficiency can be exhilarating. The first  time you are able to take care of your daily requirements without a helper, guide or translator feels incredible. In the process of learning to navigate the new life, it is easy for the missionary to forget to stay in contact with the people from their old life. It does not take long for the connection to old friends and the Church back home to begin to diminish. Unfortunately, by the time that the missionary realizes they still need the connection and support, it can be nearly nonexistent.

I have lots of things that I thought about writing but I think I want Paul to show us the need from His perspective. 

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. [Phl 4:10-17 ESV]

[1Co 16:17-18 ESV] 17 I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for your absence, 18 for they refreshed my spirit as well as yours. Give recognition to such people.

[2Ti 4:11, 21 ESV] 11 Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. ... 21 Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers.

As you read these words of Paul, you quickly realize that the greatest apostle needed people, friends to encourage and support him. He could not do the things that he did without the support and encouragement of others. Those that had been his tribe in the past were those that he turned to for comfort and support. If Paul needed to be surrounded by people that knew and loved him, the missionaries we send do too. They need us to stay in touch. to write, message, call and even visit. We all go through seasons when it is difficult to encourage ourselves or clearly discern the voice of God. In those times, we need our friends, family and Church to come along side us and hold us up.

As the Church and as individual congregations, we need to make the decision to intentionally encourage and support those we send off into missions. My prayer is that God would allow me the time and resources to spend the next 20 years of my life helping Churches learn to do this better while also going to visit and encourage my friends in missions. I am praying that many of you see this need and join me. 

When we work to encourage, support and build up those we send, we can see from Paul's writing in Philippians that it not only encourages him but it also helps build the Church that supports. It causes fruit to be produced on their behalf. God's intention has all along been to build us as one body and by supporting those we send, financially, emotionally, spiritually and physically, we strengthen ourselves and the whole body.

The Three Dependencies (Pt-1)

 If you have noticed the title of this blog, it is the Three Legged Stool. Today I want to start explaining the name and giving a little insight into where I am going with everything. I am praying that many will read this and begin to share the vision God has given me. While I am writing specifically to help develop a network of people and Churches to encourage missionaries, I believe that the things I am writing are also necessary for developing healthy Church communities. I will be writing about the first place we need to be dependent today. That is Holy Spirit and the written Word. I will continue with the other two places a missionary needs to be supported and encouraged, Those being their local, home Church family and finally, a missions' organization and/or a Church family in their new country. These three comprise the stool that supports the work of the missionary.

I am starting with Holy Spirit and the Word because they are the foundation that all ministry flows from. They cannot be separated. Holy Spirit was sent to lead us to Jesus. He came as a comforter, guide, counselor, and our source of wisdom. Jesus told us that it was necessary for Him to leave so another, Holy Spirit would come. When we neglect, or overlook Holy Spirit, we also miss Jesus and the Father. How can I say this? Jesus told us that Holy Spirit's job was to speak of and lead us to Him. The Holy Spirit came to witness of Jesus to all that have not seen Him in the Flesh. Jesus is the way to the Father so, without Holy Spirit, we will miss the Father and the Son.

"But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. [Jhn 15:26 ESV]

I connected the written Word to Holy Spirit because this is the primary place He speaks to us and testifies of Jesus. If we are not in the written Word, we will never come to know the Living Word. The truth concealed on its pages are filled with life and Holy Spirit speaks to us through them more than any other way. They are a place to learn to discern the ways God leads and speaks. A person who is not absorbed in the written Word will find it impossible to recognize and discern the leading of Holy Spirit.

As we allow ourselves to be washed and our minds trained by the written Word, we will find Holy Spirit opening us to new ways of seeing things and new ways of thinking. Romans tells us to be conformed to this new way of thinking. It is a way that has been trained and conformed to the mind of God brought to us by His Spirit and informed by His Word. Paul put it this way

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. [Rom 12:1-2 ESV]

As we present ourselves to God, it is so He can fully do His work in us. Part of that work is that we cooperate with Holy Spirit and submit ourselves to the study of His written word while He changes the way we see things. He begins to give us His mind and we start to discern His will. The fruit of this is that we will begin to look more like Jesus to the world and we will have more confidence in following His leading. You will find yourself guessing less and walking more in confidence that God is directing your steps.

For a missionary, this is the starting point. There will be many times that a missionary cannot see a way to accomplish anything. The purposes of God are beyond human reasoning. He gives us glimpses but it is only by His Spirit, working in a renewed mind that there can be confidence in stepping out in faith. If we want to make any real difference in the world, we begin in this place. The cross brought our death with Jesus but Holy Spirit raised Him to life and united us with Him in His resurrected life.

But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. [Rom 8:10-14 ESV]

Being a missionary requires wisdom and courage that only comes by fellowship with Holy Spirit. It requires discernment and knowledge of the written Word to walk in this fellowship. This fellowship is the relationship with the Living Word that Holy Spirit draws us into. It is this relationship that incorporates both our mind, will and emotions and also our spirit, made alive in Christ. It unlocks the wisdom of God for us. While the world is in bondage, we can walk in freedom and joy. 

Paul said it this way to the Corinthians. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." [1Co 1:27-31 ESV]

On our own. we can do nothing. In the natural, we do not think like God. His ways are so far beyond us that we cannot comprehend them. Even if we recognize them, we won't be able to accomplish them. They are not ours to do. God's work is His. His plan is His to fulfill. Our role is to walk with Him as a witness to tell of all He is doing. A missionary is one that proclaims what they see. We see from being united with Jesus by Holy Spirit and it is this union that empowers us to be where we need to be, when we need to be there to say and do what God gives us.

In my last blog post, I wrote about not being enough. not smart enough, not strong enough, not good enough to accomplish God's purposes and that trying only makes me tired and wanting to give up. That is the point we can begin to move with the Spirit. When we know we are not enough, we are in a place that we can finally acknowledge our utter dependence on Holy Spirit to lead and guide our every word, our every action so we can be in step with all He is doing in the world today. We can't lead the work. We can't cause it to be fulfilled. We can only get close enough to Holy Spirit to follow His lead. Then, as He is drawing people to Jesus, He will allow us to speak for Him and to act for Him in ways that will accomplish His work.

We are totally dependent on Holy Spirit to do anything of value. He is our first and primary need. In humility, we must submit ourselves to the position of dependency. As a practical matter however, He is not our only need. God made us to need other people and in the next two blogs, we will explore these other two needs to be able to walk in God's purposes.

I pray that you are enjoying these posts and being challenged by them. Please subscribe in the link below and they will come to your inbox. Also please share the posts and the blog homepage with your friends and social media contacts. Your help will help me reach a larger audience with the goal of creating a network of people to build and encourage the long term success of missionaries.

Not Strong Enough

 I don't know about you, but some days I just feel like I am barely hanging on. It can feel like this Christian walk is more than I can do. There are times when I know God is calling me to do things but the whole idea is overwhelming. Some days, it feels like there is no point in even continuing to work on it because it is impossible. I suspect that there are many out there that feel this way. You are in over your head and you know it. This feeling can make you feel trapped and leave you prey to an enemy that is looking for an open door to come in and destroy the things God has been building on you.

The truth of the matter is that if you are following the plans of Jesus, you are in over your head. His plans for you are bigger than your abilities on your best day. They are so far out of reach on a regular day that you probably can't even fathom that you haven't been left to drown in a sea of grandiose ideas. You feel like just treading water is success. I say you, but often it is me that feels this way. I look at the things God has put in my heart and the excitement that used to burn for them has turned to dread. I am not strong enough! I feel doomed to failure so why try.

I find that this feeling always brings me to a crossroad. I have a choice to make. If I choose to continue as I have, I risk defeat and despair. I am on easy target for an enemy that is stalking and tempting. I can admit the futility of it all and become depressed. This leaves me vulnerable to fall into every trap I used to fall into. The enemy will recycle things when we are in this weak and hopeless state and see if we are open to falling into the same old snares again. It is easy to fall into the things we used to go to for comfort when we are distressed. As disturbing as it may be to think, we are just a few wrong thoughts away from being victimized by a lurking, opportunistic enemy.

The other choice is to recognize that the success of God's plan has little to do with my ability. It is totally dependent on my willingness to abide in the vine. As long as I know my need and cling to the source of life, He will cling to me even tighter and fill me with all I need to do all He calls me to. Even Jesus, at the weakest point of His life. recognized that it was the connection with His Father and Holy Spirit that strengthened Him to be able to embrace the cross. He wanted to run from it but instead, He chose to press into His Father. In this place of intimacy with Father, while sweating drops of blood, he found the resolve and the resources to embrace the cross. We need to look at this example for our own call.

We cannot do anything of value in our own strength. We are clothed in frailty and weakness. We live in the finite world of our own body. God's plans are infinite and eternal. It only makes sense that they are too big for us. It is only by retreating into Jesus and living in fellowship with Him that we can find the place of rest that empowers us to fulfill all He calls us to. Look at the following passages.

[Mat 11:25-30 ESV] 25 At that time Jesus declared, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

[Heb 4:8-11 ESV] 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Too often, it is easy to look at the need around us and the call of God on us and feel like it is an overwhelming task. We feel the need to immediately get to work. We plan and network. We throw every ourselves fully into the job at hand, trying to utilize every available resources and we won't stop until we are finished. From a human perspective, that sounds incredible but from God's perspective, it is doomed to fail. He sees a bigger picture. He knows our limitations and weakness. He did not choose us because we were so strong we could do it, He chose us because we were weak and would have to live in complete dependence if we wanted to see any success.

The first step of undertaking any new ministry is to rest. We need to seek God until we are able to lay every outcome at His feet and trust Him. We must start from a place of rest and peace and not allow any circumstance to dislodge us from there. It is only by knowing that we are seated with Him in the Heavenlies and that He is in complete control that He can use us for anything. He does not need is to be enough. He needs us to be in His presence. Just like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, it was in communion with Father that He was able to step out in courage and destroy the works of the enemy. If Jesus, God's Son, needed to go off and find the Father's presence for the task before Him, how much more do we.

You and I are not strong enough but we were never meant to be. The call of God will incorporate our gifts, talents and skills but it isn't dependent on them. The only thing needed for God's plans to be fulfilled in and through our lives is for us to surrender to Him and rest in His presence. It is there that we will find the orders for the day, the task He is calling us to join Him on in the moment. You may have a big call but it does not depend on you figuring it out. It only depends on you walking in His presence and obedience to the specific task for the moment. He will empower you to do that. The picture is of the manna in the wilderness. There was always just enough for the moment and never more, except to provide for the Sabbath rest on the seventh day.

If you are feeling overwhelmed and the call is too big, retreat to God's presence. Let Him bring you to a place of rest. Stop pushing forward until you recognize that His plan is His responsibility to accomplish. You are a bit player and not the one carrying the weight of success. That is His job. You are not enough but you were never meant to be. His grace is sufficient to carry you into the fulfillment of His plans for your life.

[2Co 12:9 ESV] 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Life in Gehenna (the trash dump in Jesus' day)

 There are times, often at unexpected moments, where God grabs us and speaks to us in undeniable ways that rip right through us. In these moments, He reveals Himself in ways that we are not expecting and, even more, in ways that may take a lifetime to fully understand. He did that to me during worship this morning. He has been speaking to me about His love and judgment a lot in the last few weeks but I am not always to quick to apprehend what He is saying. Today, He said it in an unmistakable way and I want to try and share it with you though I am still processing it.

I was sitting during the last couple of songs during worship and focusing on what the words reveal about Jesus. As I sat, I saw a picture of a man and he was yelling down into a garbage dump at a man that was digging through the trash. He was telling him not to take things out of there because they were dangerous and contaminated. Everything in there was potentially harmful. The man was just looking to survive. He had grown accustomed to finding his food, ointments for his wounds and needed comfort items in the trash. Sure, they were not up to the standards of the man standing above him yelling but they met his need for the moment. It was not a good life but at least he was getting by.

As I pondered this picture, I felt like the Lord spoke to me about our taking offense at the sins of others thinking that we are doing Him a favor. We tend to believe that the sins in a person's life are offensive to God and have caused Him to reject them. We can be harsh when people don't listen to our directives and repent on our terms. As I saw this, I felt broken. I knew it was true. I was carrying offense on God's behalf that He is not carrying Himself. This is not to say that He does not have a right to be offended at men's sins, their blatant disregard for His grace and mercy. He has every right and He will judge sin. The issue is that He is not offended. Sin does not push God away from us but it does push us away from Him. Our sin cannot change His holiness but His holiness would destroy us if we hold on to our sin. He is perfect and complete regardless of how we act. His response to sin is for our protection, not His.

As I saw myself in the man yelling, I saw Jesus too. I was keeping my distance. I was shouting from the top of the dump. I wanted them to change without the risk of entering their world. Jesus climbed down in the dump with them and offered the man something better. Jesus offered Him a sample of the feast that He is preparing for all that will come. He offered kindness and compassion. He did it face to face and not from a safe distance. Jesus came directly to the man. He had compassion in His eyes. He knew that the man was not in the trash dump because He wanted to be. He was acting on a need to survive and many years ago, he had bought the lie that living in the garbage of the world was the only way he could do it. He could find a little food, a little alcohol or discarded drugs to ease His pain. he could find a few things to bring him comfort and so he had settled for much less than Father had created Him to be.

While Jesus offers a sample of a feast, we offer condemnation and criticism for his life choices while merely telling them that there is something better. We want them to follow us as we follow Jesus but we are misrepresenting His heart. Unless we are willing to take a sample of the feast into the dump and risk getting dirty, we cannot really represent Him. We are not protected from falling into the trap of the other man by simply not risking getting his filth on us. We are protected by walking into the dump in obedience, knowing that Holy Spirit has us sealed, that Jesus has written His name on us and our walking in obedience.

There is a huge garbage dump in Guatemala City. It cover a valley the size of 24 football field combined. It has a highly polluted  stream flowing through it. Many people "work" there every day. They wait for the trucks to come in and as they are dumping their loads, these workers are scavenging through the trash that is being dumped looking for anything that they can sell for a few cents. They will be there from the time the trucks begin arriving in the morning until the last truck dumps in the late afternoon. They can make $2 or $3 a day. This dump is unsafe and has seen many die in it over the years. Some have been crushed by the trash and others get sick from the unsanitary conditions. Over the years, this dump has caught fire several times and it can burn for many days. Unfortunately, for those that work in this dump. they see no other option to make a living. This place, to me, is a literal picture of hell, a place that it seems God is not, a place that desperate people are left on their own to try and find their way through a seemingly senseless life. This dump is where I saw the yelling man and Jesus. He has not abandoned any there but maybe we have.

The heart of the Father is to run to those that are lost and hurting. It is to lift them from the dump they are burying themselves in. It is to rescue broken and hurting people. He does not just tell them He has a better plan. He sent Jesus to reveal His heart. He came to give them a foretaste of what is in store for them, for us. It was His plan to reveal new life by giving free samples then inviting us to receive the whole package. We, in our desire to be safe and maintain our comfort have lost the power of the Gospel. We want to disseminate it to the Sunday morning crowd where it is safe. The Father is saying to run to the dump. Offer a sample of the feast He has prepared to those that are eating garbage. Help them get to the place they can be cleaned and their wounds dressed so they can be clothed in the proper robes for the feast. It is prepared and we are the ones being sent into the highways and byways to make the invitation. 

The question we must answer today is, 'Will we love like Jesus and go down into the dump to bring Jesus to them?' If we can't answer yes to that question, we cannot claim to represent Him to a lost and hurting world because He has already said yes to that question. He had all authority because He fully obeyed the Father wherever He was sent. His authority goes with those that are willing to be led into the places the broken reside and to sit with them and bring the touch of Heaven to their lives. You and I have a choice to make and our answer will determine the course of the Church over the next century. We will get close to the broken like Jesus and see revival or we will keep  a safe distance and see our congregations become irrelevant. There are no other options for us.

Around the Mountain Again

I don't know about you, but sometimes I am a slow learner. I can go through something and God shows me how he was faithful through it all and then, a similar crisis arises and I am panicing all over again. Circumstances can really cause me to take a step back and even start doubting what I know god clearly told me. Life often throws us curve balls and I, for one, feel ill prepared regularly.

Today I was reading in Matt 14 and 15. I find these chaptesr a great comfort when I feel like I am hopelessly missing God's leading. The disciples were out with Jesus and he was being followed by 4,000 men, plus women and children. They were desperate for a miracle. They stayed close to Him for quite some time watching, listening and trying to get close enough to touch Him. If I were desperately ill or crippled, I would be right there with them as long as I had the help I needed to get there.

This story follows shortly after the disciples had their eyes open to Jesus' ability to provide from abundantly from next to nothing. Before He multiplied the food Himself, Jesus told the disciples to give them something to eat. He was testing them and letting them know that they had the ability to do what He was about to do as long as they walked in fellowship with them. They did not understand what He was doing so they just questioned. Jesus, full of compassion for the hungry people had the people sit down and then He fed them all.

Right after this story, He sent the disciples out in a boat while He wrapped up with the crowd and then went to pray for a while. He came walking to them on the water and they were frightened. When they recognized it was Him, peter asked if he too could walk on the water. He did for a few seconds. In my mind, he got just out of reach ofthe boat and then he turned his eyes from Jesus to the circumstances. Jesus reached out and saved Him but then He chastised them all for their lack of faith. Peter was the most obvious failure but all of them were afraid as Jesus came walking up to them.

I do not think that you can separate these 2 stories. They were both faith building exercises for the disciples. Both of them revealed their weaknesses and lack of faith. At the same time, they were designed to destroy the disciples faith but to strengthen it. Jesus just walked them through 2 amazing faith building exercises.

 Unfortunately, I think we miss the message of these two stories just like the disciples did. Jesus was trying to create an opportunity for them to see Him move through them. Once again, Jesus did what we assume only He could do. Really, He was saying to them that they could have done this themselves. Becasue He was with them, they had the ability to multiply the food and bring glory to the Father. We have been given that same challenge. Jesus calls us to do things for His glory that we assume only He can do. What He wants us to see is that He will use us if we are willing to allow Him to work through us. He is not limited by our limitations. The unlimited power of God resides in us and wants the world to see Him through our obedience as we walk in faith.

I have now been unemployed for 3 weeks. In September, I felt like God was telling me that 2022 was a new season for me and I needed to cut ties to old things, work and leadership positions specifically so I could focus on the new season. In September, it was an easy thing to say I would do it but when the end of December came, I started questioning if I had made a mistake. Actually, there were moments that I was panicking. I thought through my bills and what things I felt led to do and I could not see how it was all going to come together. Life is expensive and I had just walked away from my only source of income.

God has been faithful to me for years. He has provided countless times. He used many people over the years to meet my financial needs and also to encourage me to continue pursuing what He called me to.  Sometimes experience does not teach us trust. If we don't recognize the hand of God in all we walk through, we will still try to do it in our own strength. We have to choose to continually walk in obedience and also acknowledge the past works of God in our lives so we can live from a place of expectancy and not fear. Worship is essential to build confidence that God is moving on our behalf because we have seen He already has.

I want to just introduce you to what I am moving into now. My heart has been to help missionaries succeed and to encourage them for about 4 years now. Much of that time I have been praying and asking God what that would look like. I have had countless ideas rolling around in my head. Some of them are going to eventually happen but for now, I will be working with Churches to help them prepare for sending missionaries and to walk with those missionaries through the transition to their new country. Then I will continue to work with the missionary and the Churches that sent them so that they can be ready for long term success. Missions is not just about the missionary going to serve Jesus but it is also about the Churches back home that are holding their arms up while they proclaim the victory of Jesus to the people they serve.

I am not looking to compete with missions organozations. They are an important part of the big picture for the missionary. They help guide them through things that the home Church has no experience in. They provide resources and encouragement beyond what the Church can offer. That being said, both of these are legs of the stool a missionary rests on. The 3rd leg is the leading of the Holy Spirit. I want to help make sure the home Church, the commissioning and sending Churches are not the week leg of the stool.

If this is your heart, please reach out to me. You can contact me at thegeokr@yahoo.com  I would love to hear from you/ Also please subscribe to this blog and share it with all your friends and your Church.

So Tired

 I don't know about you but I am tired. I am tired of politicians using every political talking point to divide our society. I am tired of hearing various "news" organizations spin stories to create fear. By the way, this happens on both the right and left. I am tired of friends breaking off friendships because they have differing views on how things should be handled; shot vs no shot, electric cars and wind power to save the planet vs continued use of fossil fuels, masks vs no masks, Republican vs Democrat. The list goes on forever and there are people working to make sure the divides only get larger. All of this is making me tired.

Today I was thinking about all that God has promised us. As you read the Scripture, God has revealed His nature, character and plan for us in the things He has promised. In 2 Cor 1 we are told by Paul that his words are not alwasy accurate. He has desires and expresses them but they do not always happen. He counters that with the promises of God. They are always yes in Christ because He is the fulfillment of all God has promised and we find our yes and amen in Him.

We are told that there is a path to overcoming all that is going on in the world and in our lives right now. When we are tired we need to pursue Jesus with all that is in us. When we seek Him with all our hearts, we are told that we will find Him, Jer 29:13. This promise was given along with the promise for Israel that God had plans for them. The context was that they were going to live in captivity but that they would still find God in the trial if they would seek Him with their whole heart. We live in times that kind of feel like that. We feel captive to many things right now but there is a path to overcome.

[Rev 12:10-11 ESV] 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

The devil will, one day, be ejected from the earth but, before that day comes, we can still live free of his torment. Verse 11 above gives us a key to overcoming all that is going on and living free of the torment of the day. First we must know that the blood of Jesus has set us free from his stronghold in our lives and learn to rest in that. Second, we must share all that God has in our lives. Sharing our testimony reminds us of His past faithfulness and fortifies us to walk with Him now. And finally, the one we often want to leave out. We can't hold to tightly to our lives in this world. When we live in fear that things could end our lives we are not free to take risks. It is only in knowing that this world our temporary and in living for eternity that we are set free from living for the temporal.

[Jhn 12:25 ESV] 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 

As we learn to release our hold on our lives, we are able to lay hold of real life. Our baptism is a sign of our total identification in the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. We have been fully untited with Him and He has overcome all the powers of the enemy. He has fullfiled every promise of God in Himself and opened it up to us. In Jesus we find the ultimate Yes to all God has for us.

One of my alltime favorite pictures and a perfect image of God's rest and joy

If you are tired, stop complaining. Stop letting yourself be influenced by the media, by politicains, be those that live in constant fear and focus on the person and work of Jesus. He is still Lord over all regardless of what you hear. Look for His activity in your life. Listen for His voice and rest in His promises. It is time to stop participating in the world's systems and rise above it. He will guide and direct you from a place of rest and peace. As a follower of Jesus, tired is not to be our natural state.

[Psa 127:1-2 ESV] 1 A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. 2 It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

[Mat 11:25-30 ESV] 25 At that time Jesus declared, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

The Christian life is to be one filled with the rest, joy and peace of God. Don't let anything rob you of it today.