I Wonder Where _____ Has Been?

Just a quick post...

I find myself throughout the week always wondering where "so and so" is? I remember when I first received Christ and then baptized and joined my first church. As I think back, I don't believe anybody ever told me that I was to be faithful to a church.

I figured that if God saved me and there was this group of people called the church, where we gathered, worshiped, prayed, served, and learned more about the Lord and one another that it was where I was supposed to be. My wife and I never had the conversation whether or not we were going to go to church, we just went. It was the same after we had our children and I don't ever remember any of our children asking, "Are we going to church...?"

We even planned our lives around what was going on at the church. If there was a special service or activity, we always adjusted our schedule and unless providential hindered we were there. Yes, there were times that we really didn't particularly want to go. But we went anyway as we understood that someone had planned, prayed, and spent a lot of time putting together a special gathering or ministry opportunity.

It really comes down to the Great Commandment, doesn't it? If we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we would love what God loves. Surely, he loves his church. He demonstrated that when he died for his bride - The Chruch. If we love God, we would love others and even prefer them over ourselves. God gave of himself so it's only the right thing to do the same and die to self and live and prefer others.

So where are you? I know this, your pastor and church family would be thrilled to see you sometime this week.

A Rant on Relationships - Our Priority as a Parent

Do you have any limits on your children? Do they know what they are and the consequences for going outside them? Not much of that type of parenting anymore. It seems that parents would rather be “friends” with their children than a parent and what it takes to parent – a whole lot of resolve and help from almighty God! But wait; there is another aspect that is even becoming more extinct than setting limits. What about questions like “Do you know where your children are spiritually?” Is little Bobby biblically literate? Does Suzie know the difference between virginity and purity? Are your children on the road to responsible Christian adulthood, or are they part of an alarming new trend that has seen the overwhelming majority of so-called Christian children walk away from the faith? A recent survey conducted by the Barna Group, a leading research organization whose focus is on the relationship of faith and culture, found that less than 1 percent of the young adult population in the United States has a biblical worldview.

Where are the churches (pastors) and parents willing to teach and challenge young men and women to live up to and expect nothing less than the biblical standard when considering relationships and marriage? Most children unfortunately never will even receive such a challenge and few even know what the standards are. When I do counseling, I always ask about relationships, as everything revolves around them. Most are in a wrong relationship and don’t have any or know of anyone that would be a good relationship. This problem is exasperated when our children leave our home and go to college. Research tells us that at a minimum 8 out of 10 leave the faith by their second year of college.

Our country is in total chaos and we are no longer considered a “Christian” nation.  And the church is scrambling, and rightly so, to revitalize and plant new churches. However, that isn’t going to solve the foundational problems that our country has. Before we can ever have strong churches that will impact our nation with the gospel, we must have and begin with strong families. While our children and teenagers may appear very religious, unfortunately it is largely ambiguous with no strong biblical foundation. This ambiguity is due in large part to the lack of time and attention devoted to spiritual matters compared to other activities. Think about it parents, how much time, energy and attention do you give to those activities compared to spiritual activities? It’s not just about showing up at church, but are you committed and actively serving in your church? What spiritual activities are you doing at home?

Let me go ahead and drop the bomb that I hope will rock your world and wake us up! The problem is not that these children are leaving Christianity. The problem is that most of them, by their own admission, are not Christian! Hence their leaving makes complete sense. The apostle John put it best when he wrote: “They went out from us, but they were not really of us…” (1 John 2:19). Thom Rainer’s research among Southern Baptists indicates, “nearly one-half of all church members may not be Christians.” It is as though Christian parents have been lulled to sleep while the thief has come in to steal, kill, and destroy our children right under our noses (John 10:10).

But it’s not just the parents but the church too has failed to be the equipper to come along side the parents in emphasizing our roles as parents to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We too have become more about activities and pizza parties than about teaching our children that it’s not about a religious activity but about a relationship. That relationship is with the Person and work of Jesus Christ. It’s a relationship that our children should be willing to give their whole life to. To deny themselves, and to pick up a cross and follow Him (Matt 16:24). That relationship will then affect all other relations and their lives will then be one where they out of love submit to boundaries in their lives. Although I put a lot of blame on the church, ultimately the biggest impact and influence on any child’s life comes down to the home. Our priority of relationships must once again return to Christ, spouse, than family. Our greatest identity is in Christ (Mark 12:30). Than husband or wife, followed by parents. To be a mom or dad is much more important of an identity than any profession you might have.

So how is your relationship with the Lord? How is your relationship with your spouse? And how is your relationship with your children? If we get those relationships right, we will begin to see a great movement of God in our churches, country and the nations. Let's get back to a biblical view of a our relational priorities - our priority as parents! 

Prayer, or the Lack Thereof

I have been looking at prayer in great detail over the last few days and I continue to come to the same conclusion that little or nothing is really going to change without it. In reading Galatians you find that after beginning with the Spirit, Paul gets after them and confront them with how they are you now trying to attain their goal in ministry by human effort?’’ (Galatians 3:3). Their service lay in fleshly outward performances. They did not understand that where the flesh is permitted to influence service to God, it soon results in open sin.

So he mentions as the work of the flesh not only grave sins such as adultery, murder, and drunkenness but also the more ordinary sins of daily life: anger, strife, and arguing. Then he exhorts: ‘‘Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. . . . Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit’’ (Galatians 5:16, 25). The Spirit must be honored not only as the author of a new life but also as the leader and director of our entire walk. Otherwise we are what the apostle calls ‘‘carnal’’ or fleshly.

The disciples asked the Lord Jesus: ‘‘Why could we not cast the devil out?’’ His answer was: ‘‘Because of your unbelief.’’ He added: ‘‘Howbeit, this kind goes out only by prayer and fasting.’’ If the life is not one of self-denial—of fasting (letting the world go) and of prayer (laying hold of heaven)—faith cannot be exercised. We have no power in our religious motions of prayer because we refuse to see our true sickness of living in the flesh. We really don’t believe the Bible because if we did we would surely obey it…or at least be in the battle as Paul obviously was over the flesh. In a life lived according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit, we find the origin or sickness of the prayerlessness of which we complain.

The place of private prayer is the key, the strategic position, where decisive victory is obtained.The Wicked one uses all of his power to lead the believer, and most definitely me the preacher to neglect prayer for just about anything else…even the good necessary good things of study and Bible reading. Satan knows that however admirable the sermon may be, however attractive the service, however faithful the pastoral visitation, none of these things can damage him or his kingdom if prayer is neglected. 

When the church closes herself in to the power of prayer (in the Spirit!), and the soldiers of the Lord have received on their knees ‘‘power from on High,’’ then the powers of darkness will be shaken and souls will be delivered. In the church, on the mission field, with the preacher and his congregation, everything depends on the faithful exercise of prayer. It’s incredible how so many distractions come, wandering of my mind, and sometimes even plain unbelief in what I’m praying invades when I bow to pray. May we (I) hold fast with the weapon of prayer as I see my Lord do in the Garden. There is no doubt Satan was attacking with all the demons of hell and so Jesus prayed until blood began to spill out of his pores. Dear God teach us to have a great faith and hold fast to prayer!

Murray, Andrew. Living a Prayerful Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Bethany House, 2002.

"Lovest thou Me?"

I believe as many of you do that if anything is going to happen in our lives, families and our country that there must be a crying out to God in repentance. If we are honest with ourselves there is very little of "God" in our lives, families and country. In the south the sin is "nominal Christianity" which is NOT Christian but religion. In the north you have secularism, which is the systematic removal of God from every aspect of our lives, families and country. We must stop complaining and start confessing with a divine Holy Spirt wrought contrition! May we do as Peter did in denying the Lord, "And Peter went out and wept bitterly" (Luke 22:62). 

I have been reading a couple of books by Andrew Murray, one on prayer and the other on having a deeper Christian life. This is an excerpt that has helped me and my prayer is it will stir in you as well.

Dear Christians, do you not long to be brought nigh unto God? Would you not give anything to walk in close fellowship with Jesus every day? Would you not count it a pearl of great price to have the light and love of God shining in you all the day? Oh, come and fall down and make confession of sin; and, if you will do it, Jesus will come and meet you and He will ask you, “Lovest thou Me?” And, if you say, “Yes, Lord,” very quickly He will ask again, “Lovest thou Me?”—and if you say, “Yes, Lord,” again, He will ask a third time, “Lovest thou Me?”—and your heart will be filled with an unutterable sadness, and your heart will get still more broken down and bruised by the question, and you will say, “Lord, I have not lived as I should, but still I love Thee and I give myself to Thee.” Oh, beloved may God give us grace now, that, with Peter, we may go out, and, if need be, weep bitterly. If we do not weep bitterly,—we are not going to force tears—shall we not sigh very deeply, and bow very humbly, and cry very earnestly, “O God, reveal to me the carnal life in which I have been living: reveal to me what has been hindering me from having my life full of the Holy Ghost”? Shall we not cry, “Lord, break my heart into utter self-despair, and, oh! bring me in helplessness to wait for the Divine power, for the power of the Holy Ghost, to take possession and to fill me with a new life given all to Jesus?”

 Andrew Murray, The Deeper Christian Life (Chicago; New York; Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1895).

Disciple & Discipleship???

I have been hearing, reading, and studying about discipleship since my salvation in 1985. The unfortunateness of this is that is basically all that has been done. There is no doubt that the mission of the church, the primary emphasis in all we do, where our energy and budget should be placed is on “making disciples.” However, in our church culture of today it’s an “all you can eat buffet.” Here we can pick and chose from the different ministries of the church that will serve and satisfy us the best. We have subdued true discipleship for a superficial self-serve “community” that is program-driven and superficial at best. I put community in quotation marks because there is no authentic community absent the mandate to make disciples. Real, authentic community always happens around and centered on the Scriptures. There is a clear biblical call that discipleship doesn’t happen alone and we all grow as we learn from Jesus Christ and one another. Making disciples, as easy as it sounds, requires a high level of commitment and work. Our fast-food, instant-access church culture model may grow a church numerically, but it only scratches the surface and remains in the shallow end of knowing God versus delving into the depths and often dangerous depths with God.

Discipleship means, “If anyone would come after me (Christ), let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Discipleship is a costly endeavor as Jesus again admonishes us to count the cost (Luke 14:26-35) and very succinctly states is verse 33, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” All of this to state the obvious that churches are involved in many activities that could not be classified as disciple making. The one main thing is not the main thing if it’s even a “thing” at all.

We do, however, every now and then talk about and even emphasizes rightly evangelism. I’m all for that, but think about it for a minute. How many of those that are “evangelized” are in our churches? How many of them do we even get into the baptismal? By the way, there is no need to baptize someone unless they have become a follower of Jesus…right? Jesus also included in the Great Commission: “… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (v. 20).

What the culturally comfortable church has done and is doing is sure, people can be a “disciple” and carry a Bible and have Jesus bumper stickers, and even post one man and one woman on Facebook; they could even teach in a small group or be a “professional” pastor if they so desire. What all that adds up to is a people who believe in Jesus as far as a mental assent to His teachings and to that of the doctrines of their particular denomination. They can do all this and decide NOT to follow Jesus. Many of our so called churches have relented to the ideals of what they have created culturally in their church – they have checked the block on the facts of the gospel, got their sins taken care of and have got their ticket into glory. But all of that does not come close to fitting what Jesus describes as His disciple.

The culturally comfortable church has reduced the gospel and hollowed out a new disciple’s natural response to the gospel, which is to follow Jesus and build his or her life around His practices. Receiving Christ as Savior is the beginning line, not the finish line. It means, “Whatever it takes.” What did salvation cost Jesus? His life! What does it cost me? My life! My life, then, is an answer; it is an offering, a living sacrifice. As Bonhoeffer so eloquently said, “We must not make cheap what cost God everything.” (Bonhoffer, 48).

What is the gospel? Does it have the power to save and to transform lives? Hull states, “The most common view of salvation does not require or include transformation. It creates the disturbing question for congregations, ‘Who is saved and who is not?’ or, more troubling, ‘Who is not saved and who has been taught falsely that they are” (Hull, Making Disciples, 12)? In other words, what Hull is saying is we make a mockery of the gospel when it does not require repentance and desire for a new life. The gospel has the power to make and keep those who are truly disciples. I would submit to you based on Scripture that those who made some kind of profession, signed a card, walk an isle and yet are no longer able to be found are indeed NOT a true disciple. Paul says, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain” (1 Cor 15:1-2). The text is clear and needs little commentary, they have “believed in vain.”

I’ll stop ranting and sum it up this way. Our problems that we have in our lives, families, church, and in this country is that we are not Making Disciples. We must get back to what Christ defined as a disciple and those that are not going hard after that definition, I would ask you to “examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Cor 13:5). And as for the local New Testament church, it needs to get back to making the main thing the main thing – Making [true] Disciples. That means we Go and preach and baptize and teach them to obey everything that Christ’s and the gospel commands.

Bibliography

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. New Your, NY: Macmillian, 1963.

Hull, Bill. The Disciple-Making Church: Leading a Body of Believers on the Journey of Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2010.

Are You a Spiritual Person?

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one” (1 Cor. 2:14-15).

Spirituality is something that everyone wants but what does that look like for a Christian? In that sense, the word ‘spirituality’ focuses on the ‘spiritual person’ (pneumatikos anthrōpos), the person who has placed their faith in the risen Christ, and is in the process of being renewed through the work of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures. The big question to ask oneself is “I’m I becoming more like Christ in the way I think, feel, and act?” We call that spiritual growth and development, which includes all aspects of our life in Christ. We don’t get to pick and choose, as Christ demands all of us as He has demonstrated and given (Matt. 16:24-26; Luke 14:26-27). In light of this a ‘spiritual person’ will develop ways of reading and engaging with God’s word that will promote spiritual nourishment to sustain the life of faith, enabling him or her to grow, to include any and all conditions. In fact, our greatest growth comes through trials and tribulations (James 1:1-13).

The ‘spiritual person’ will be a focused person. First, with all that this world is trying to get us focused on the primary focus must be on the person and work of Christ. This in part is what it means to be an Evangelical. The focus is on the ministry of Christ, the way in which he interacted with people through compassion and love. Focused on his suffering and death on the cross – a costly redemption in which Christ drank fully the cup of the wrath of God for our account.  Then there’s the resurrection, ascension, and the coming again, the sure hope that spurs us on to live a life that glorifies the Father. This is far different than other “spiritualties” that are out there on the American landscape.

This brings us again to the obvious conclusion that this ‘spiritual person’ will put an emphasis on reading, studying, and meditating on Scripture. This is where God has revealed himself and tells us about someone who matters more than anyone else – as well as us mattering to Christ as well. If there is no desire to learn more about this person, so you can draw closer to him then he has not initiated (grace) that relationship with you. In other words you are not saved. You only have a “form of godliness” in which these are people that we are actually to stay away from (2 Tim. 3:5).  Scripture is what helps us to understand more about God and his purpose for us in glorifying him fully and how we are to keep Jesus centered and as our vision for our faith. So then, what did you read, and study this morning? What Bible study groups are you in to learn, share and strengthen our faith? I firmly believe that small groups are the backbone of the church and our faith.

The ‘spiritual person’ will have as well an appreciation for hymns, commentaries, and other tools to help come along side the Scriptures. These are not substitutes for the Bible but they are like magnifying glasses to help us bring clarity to biblical ideas and principles.  We understand that we stand on broad shoulders from our past as the Holy Spirit worked through great men and women to bring about our rich Christian heritage.  We love the hymns that focus on the person of Christ and the majesty and character of our great God and Savior.  Evangelicalism has no place for writer of book, commentaries or songs who point us away from Scripture or Jesus Christ. The dependability and trustworthiness is to be determined by the extent to which these writers are centered on Christ and focused on the Scripture.

We must face the reality that we often take our faith for granted; we loose the awe of our great God and it becomes commonplace in our lives. We become culturally comfortable in our Christianity. This must be shaken off and a restoration needs to take place in our lives where we again and again reignite a passion for Christ. If we our to be ‘spiritual people’ and our faith is going to work, it must have both nourishment and enrichment. So in conclusion, are you a biblically spiritual person? Does your life reflect Christ? Is the word of God prominent in your daily life?  

Give Me More of God

I have been unsatisfied as of late of my desire and attitude toward God. These "feelings" are hard to put into words but I think most of us have found ourselves there at certain times in our walk with Christ. For me, it's been an overwhelming sense of despair and that feeling I often got while serving in the military when I put my 120 pound rucksack on my back. Then realizing that I would be jumping out of a plane with it and humping it in the jungle for the next several days - Ugg!

After my study and messages on Romans yesterday, talking with my wife last night and then my devotions this morning, I realize that there has been some discipline(s) that I have not exercised as fervantly in the last few months as I have in the past. Specifically they are fasting and prayer. Yes I have been praying but my sense of urgency and desperateness has not been what it demands. In light of where I'm at in my walk and the sense of being overwhelmed by a myriad of circumstances my greatest need is more of God.

In reading Romans in these last weeks, chapter 13:11-14 have come out of the inspired pages of Scripture as a desperate prayer as we plow through this most influential letter to the Christians at Rome. The time is now to "wake up out of sleep!" The urgency of my sense of despair as well as our circumstances in the snowballing affects of secularization in America; not to mention what is going on in the world around us requires a series wake up call to action.

That action must start on our knees before the Creator God who is the only one who can give the grace to increase our faith to cause change (beginning with my heart) through the Gospel. The answer and solution is always by grace through faith in him.

The fasting part deals directly with our desires. My desires have been far to concerned with the things of this world and even my own despair and sense of being overwhelmed. And so my desire needs to change to being overwhelmed by the presence and glory of God. Piper puts it like this, "The fight for faith is a fight to feast on all that God is for us in Christ. What we hunger for most we worship" (A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer. pg 10). 

The above quote is also the book I'll be reading to assist in fasting biblically and in the right attitude. So through prayer may his grace let my will respond to my Lord, knowing that power to obey is not in me, but that his free love alone enable me to serve him. So here then is my empty heart, fill it with your grace!

Philippians 3:8-11 "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith - that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."