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Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far has the LORD helped us.“ – 1 Samuel 7:12
Job well done by the creative crew at Elevation church to commemorate what God has done through their church thus far. I just thought this was so encouraging for me. I took hold of this scripture as a hypothesis on our current endeavors: Welp, thus far… God has helped us. It’s like the God already sent his Son. If anyone’s fully invested into you and your life, it’s Him! If he’s helped us… thus far… why would he stop now?
Chances are, if you’re reading this right now, Satan has already lied to you about something today. He’s already told you you’re not good enough, smart enough, skinny enough, strong enough, or spiritual enough to be who God created you to be.
You’ve got two options: 1.) Believe Satan. 2.) Believe God.
Everything you say today is in agreement with one or the other. And when it comes to our conversations with other people, it’s not our job to bring people back down to earth OR to puff them up to believe unrealistic things about themselves. Our job is to find out what God has told them… About them… And encourage that. It might even cost us a little prayer.
Believe the God who sent Himself for you. Satan has never done anything to deserve believing him.
As we try to keep in this Amazing Race called life, we are straight up busy. When you’re single, it’s about defining who you are with a solid career and finding Mr. or Mrs. Right. Once married and in your 30′s, it’s about having and raising kids and people will start asking, “Are you really gonna do ________ forever?” The pressure to be awesome and do something big with our lives has never been higher.
But, dude.
Check this: (God speaking)
“Hear now My words:
If there is a prophet among you,
I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a vision.
I shall speak with him in a dream. “Not so, with My servant Moses,
He is faithful in all My household; With him I speak mouth to mouth,
Even openly, and not in dark sayings,
And he beholds the form of the LORD. (Numbers 12:6-8 NASB)
Mouth to mouth? Hm. Another version says face to face. However you want to read it, it just speaks to the intimacy of God and Moses. And I don’t know about you, but in the midst of my Amazing Race, I can just forget that I was created to be intimate with God, and that’s made possible through my Jesus.
I just wanted to remind you today that no matter where you are and what you’re facing, we are adored by a God who desires to be so close to us and in us that other people would mistake us for him.
Our society celebrates solutions. We’ll sit down with professionals, mentors, and trusted counsel to get solutions life’s biggest questions.
Have you ever confided in one of those types of people or a best friend and just spilled your situation out to them… And they respond… “Well, I’ll be praying for you.“?! That is THE last thing you want to hear, but should be the only thing you need to hear.
Prayer has been belittled and dulled down to this notion that it’s not really all that powerful. You get cancer, and you want a cure. You lose a job, and you want a financial solution. We want answers! But calling on and connecting with the God who can do above and beyond anything you can imagine is better than any cure.
If someone tells you they’re going to be praying for you, rejoice! And you should be boost your level of faith in that moment because prayer is God’s system of communication. You are literally one prayer away from a completely different life.
And if you’re the person who tells someone you’re praying for them, then you call on God like it matters! Don’t toss that phrase around out of mere politeness. People matter. And your prayers can change everything.
Theoretically, here’s what the established 2012 church system should look like. First, you become a Christian. Second, you go through some sort of discipleship process i.e. small groups, mentorship, etc. Third, you volunteer for your church. Do well with the first 3 and you could find yourself crossing over into the life of a Professional Christian. And once you do that, things can often become… political.
Politics in any realm always seem to be a sticky topic. It’s hard for us to see politics in a positive light, but I’m gonna give it a shot today. There’s many parallels between our government’s politics and the church’s politics. There are always conspiracy theories floating around about ‘behind-the-scenes” crap that the American people wouldn’t stand for if we knew the truth. Same thing with the church? For if we, the people, knew the truth about what our pastors did behind closed doors, we wouldn’t stand for it. If we had a sneak peak into the meetings where they fired people, we wouldn’t know how to deal with that very well. What often times happens is that a small group of people find out about our pastors’ humanness, and they become bitter and cynical about the church. Justice isn’t served in their opinion and we chalk it off to ‘church politics‘.
As a person who’s never grown bitter at the church and has never been on the bad end of church politics, here’s just a couple thoughts to help you navigate through them in a healthy way.
1.) Church politics are inevitable. Most of our ideas are aimed at somehow fixing the church. Yeah, good luck. Stop being shocked when you find out Professional Christians that pray 5 hours a day still come out of prayer closet… human, flawed, and imperfect.
2.) You are the church. You don’t get to make statements about the church as if you’re not a part of it. We’re all in this together. We’re all on the same team. We’re all trying to win people to Jesus, right? In light of that, remember who you’re serving. Even Jesus had qualifications to be one of his disciples that cost them everything, and for those who would give much, Jesus still said to them, “Anyone who puts his hands to the plow and looks back is not fit for service in the kingdom of God.” And the guy he was speaking to simply wanted to go to his dad’s FUNERAL real quick. I can hear the people in the crowd snickering now… ‘That Jesus. Church politics.”
3.) Give grace to your church and your pastor. The amount of pressure they face on a daily basis would crush you in seconds. For they and God show grace to you all the time in scenarios that you are unaware of.
If you were to ask people to fill in the blank on the phrase: “Church should be about ________.”… the answers would vary across denominations, culture, and maybe even region of the country. Some would say the church should be about people. “Love God. Love People.” Some will criticize churches for their magnificent buildings and come up with great ideas of what they should have done with that 20 millions dollars and say, “They should have given it to missions.” And they’d say the church should be about missions. Or some live with the notion that the church should be about growing believers. They tend to refer to the Bible as “meat.” Then there’s churches who think the mission of the church should be to simply reach lost people. and they’d refer to the Bible as “seed”.
A worship leader might tell you church is about coming together and lifting up the name of the Lord. A children’s director might tell you church is about raising up a generation of kids that love Jesus.
And all of the above has a case in scripture. Come on. We can be lawyers any day of the week and defend any stance we want to win, but the key word in all of this is, “should.” Is the church about stellar communication and talented worship bands? Answer the question honestly. Another way of finding out the truth to the above question is answering a different one: Why do YOU go?
I’d be quick to say that church is NOT about numbers, but… I’d be lying. Name the last time you talked with a friend who planted a church and you asked, “So… how well have you guys been getting involved in the community?” On the surface, that would seem hard to measure, but asking how many they had in attendance tells us a much more intriguing story. The most politically correct phrase one professional Christian should use is, “It’s all about Jesus.” Except. It’s not. It’s about a whole lot of stuff with Jesus at the center of it all. Don’t say it’s all about Jesus and then go home and cry about YOUR circumstance. Clearly, it’s about Jesus… AND you. AND THAT’S NOT WRONG TO ADMIT. In fact, it’s silly to act like it’s all about Jesus, and not realize that the guy that it’s “all about”… died… for… YOU.
I don’t have this amazing statement that defines what the church should be about, but I do think we should steer away from terminology and phrases that simply make us feel insecure about our ministry block. Honor what other churches are doing. Respect what other ministries are trying to achieve. Reach lost people. Give to missions. Take care of the widow and the orphan. Worship with all your heart. Communicate like somebody’s soul depends on it. Make disciples. And in the midst of it all, keep your eyes on Jesus. Church is about all of the above… with Jesus at the center.
Perhaps one of the most influential phrases in the history of the English language that refers to what a true American should strive for is: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But as a Christian, shouldn’t our pursuit be on the path to holiness? I’m not saying it should be holiness INSTEAD of happiness, but I am saying holiness should demand higher priority in our lives.
Holiness almost sounds old school. Holiness isn’t trending in modern day culture, but it does trend in the Bible. The word “happiness” will deliver 6 results on biblegateway.com in the NIV Bible. The word “happy”: 20 results. The word “holiness” pops up 24 results, but the word “holy”… 551. Thank God for Jesus making us look so good now, but what motivates us should still have holiness prioritized higher than happiness.
In dating relationships or marriages, we ask, “Are you happy?”. Why don’t we ask, “Are you guys living holy?” I read that 78% of Christian couples have sex before they’re married. 100% of the 78% are trying to hide it. But as long as they’re happy, we’re cool with whatever they do?!?! I don’t think so. When it comes to a career choice we want to know if people are happy. It’s like we all want the dream job that makes us… Happy. But what if we made choices that helped us pursue holiness? I believe the daily choices we make in regards to the obedience of our Lord will lead to more happiness than anything we could strive on in our own ambitions.
Holiness isn’t us trying to prove something to God or other Christians that we are squeaky clean. On our best day we are still rags to the King, but in my opinion, holiness is just a response to the righteousness that has already been given, not achieved. And in our pursuit of holiness, I pray we would continue to simply respond to the God who gave everything to make us right with him.
What do you think?
Envy comes packaged natural and also discrete. All it takes for us to want what someone else has is for us to hear someone in authority compliment something they said, worked on, and even wore. When I hear someone say a friend of mine “killed it” with there sermon, I want to go preach. Whenever someone is being bragged about as a leader, a husband, a boss, or a singer, a new standard arises in our hearts and minds to simply be more than we are.
If there’s one word that a professional Christian hates to use out loud, it’s the word “help.” It sends the wrong signals. In a world that applauds having it all together, weakness isn’t very popular. We are far too busy chasing greatness. We want to live a life that is tweetable.
Heaven forbid we ever tweet that we could use an extra 20 bucks to make it through the week, or that our marriage is struggling, or that we’re feeling insecure about our gift, our career, or even our image. Why can’t we do that? Why can’t we say to one another, “help”?
It’s become way to easy for life to be a “do-it-yourself” activity. This habit will not only lead to an isolated soul, but it’ll effect the way you connect with your God; for we were wired to rely on his help not just in the time of need, but in every season including the times you think you could handle it.
Ask for help, man, and secondly, don’t be ashamed of it. It may not be popular to be weak, but there’s one guy I know up above… Who would give you a standing ovation for it.
It is a popular belief in a lot of Pentecostal circles that the initial evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues. Arguments and debates have gone down over this theology for decades, but I often wonder what people would say are the SUSTAINING evidence(s) of being filled with the Spirit are. I mean, after all, isn’t a spirit-filled life about what’s going on in you today on top of what had happened that one time in that service? I love the Bible. It always gives us a clearer perspective.
Acts 2:4-13 NIV All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongue”
I believe what should be the most glaring evidence of a Christian who is spirit-filled… is that they speak the language of lost people. Read that scripture with that thought in mind again. For you, what lost person is breaking your heart right now? And in your logical mind, you have no idea how to talk to them. And you shouldn’t. Darkness and light can’t coexist. Naturally, it should be difficult for you to talk to lost people. And that weakness should propel you towards Jesus and rely on his Holy Spirit to give you the words to speak to them.
When getting around lost people, the first thing out your mouth should be, “Holy Spirit, let me connect with them in a way that only you can bridge. Let me be speaking their language and may they be amazed all that you’ve done and all that you are.” A real touch from the Holy Spirit won’t just make you look more spiritual, it’ll make you more relevant.
Stop sinning.
Just kidding. I have to be kidding, right? We’ve already come to the conclusion that we’ll never stop sinning, so why bother? For it’d be considered outrageous to think that we’ll never tell another white lie in our lifetime, or disobey God in any form or fashion. So on our scale of minor sins to major sins, we resolve to stay on the minor end to keep our spiritual conscience fairly clear. You can admit minor sins because “everybody struggles with that”. We’re ok people being insecure because we believe that’s simple management of emotions that can be handled. If I told you I had a deep dark sin and that it was… drum roll please… gluttony, nobody would care. What’s even crazier is that we think God doesn’t really care all that much about that one. Almost as if “He’s heard worse.”
Sin is not something we manage. It’s something we stop doing. Sin dulls your perspective of who Jesus really is, and results in a dulled view of your identity in him. If you think your sin is something that is just in the corner of your spiritual world, it’s going to be the death of you. The thought that it hasn’t gotten out of control means it’s got control of you and not the other way around. We don’t see the ramifications of most of our sins, so in our mind, we merely give ourselves a slap on the wrist and thank God for the cross, but our effort to actually stop is up to OUR will. Sin brings your will power to a zero. That’s the point of sin. To keep you running in place. The “oops, I did it again” mentality will, first, paralyze you spiritually, and then second, destroy your spirit altogether. We cannot wait for rock bottom to believe it’s for real.
2 ways I think you can break the cycle of sin:
1.) Tell a few people that you’re in the cycle. The more people that know, the more humiliating it is for you. You need that breaking point of humility if you want to stop. Don’t worry about if you can “trust” them.
2.) Declare who you are in Christ moments after you sin. The point of sin is to put a gap between you and your God. By letting yourself know that you’re not gonna let that happen because of your sin, you remind yourself what Jesus did!
So why bother? Because he died for you. And I hope that’s enough.