I'm 69, I am past the point where you would expect me to still be asking what I want to do with my life. Or, more importantly, what does God want from me? I am a firm believer in Jeremiah 29:11 where God says "I know the plans I have for you, plans for you to prosper......" So there is a plan and I think it is high time I lived up to it.
I am currently struggling with the difference between what I am doing and what it is I feel I should be doing. In prayerfully looking at this I find myself thinking about what leadership is. When I think of leadership I am tempted to think in terms of the ability to plan, organize and complete projects. I don't feel that I really have a lot of the strengths needed to lead in that way.
There is another way to look at leadership. It can also be about setting about modeling something in a way that makes other people want to follow. So, if I feel it is important that people learn the value of arriving to Sunday School class on time ready to study, then I must model that behavior so that when I talk about it the response will be positive because they have seen me doing exactly that.
Before I continue talking about how I respond to this understanding I need to make it clear that I do feel called to lead. And I feel God has given me specific areas in which I can make a difference and fulfill God's plan for my life. This may be the first time I have ever expressed this in a public way. God has called me to minister and be an influence in three particular area's - prayer, fitness & health and one to one ministry.
I will continue this in my next post.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Monday, August 3, 2015
Obedience trumps legacy
OK, guilty. I have spent too much time worrying about my legacy. I have realized that I need to be more concerned about my daily obedience in following Christ.
Our Discipleship Class is studying the life and epistles of Peter. In our lesson this past Sunday morning was this statement: "Suppose God wants to teach you to say, 'I know how to be abased' - are you ready to be offered up like that? Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in the bucket-to be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served?"
Now look, I don't want to have my life considered insignificant. To the contrary I would like to die knowing that my life made a difference, at least to one or two people. I want people to think of me and remember the good person that I was and the positive things I represented and did for people. To be 'abased' does not sound like fun at all. Just look at these synonyms for abase - humble, humiliate, belittle, demean, lower, degrade, debase, cheapen, discredit. I think I can safely say, unlike Paul in Philippians 4:12, I do not know how to be abased. God does not expect me to like being abased for His name, but He does want me to be willing if that is what comes my way. He is more concerned that I follow Him in obedience day by day without concern for what history may say of me. I must be willing to be insignificant in the eyes of the world in order to be significant in His world to come. In fact, maybe when people look at my life and see that I was an obedient disciple that would be the ultimate significance.
Our Discipleship Class is studying the life and epistles of Peter. In our lesson this past Sunday morning was this statement: "Suppose God wants to teach you to say, 'I know how to be abased' - are you ready to be offered up like that? Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in the bucket-to be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served?"
Now look, I don't want to have my life considered insignificant. To the contrary I would like to die knowing that my life made a difference, at least to one or two people. I want people to think of me and remember the good person that I was and the positive things I represented and did for people. To be 'abased' does not sound like fun at all. Just look at these synonyms for abase - humble, humiliate, belittle, demean, lower, degrade, debase, cheapen, discredit. I think I can safely say, unlike Paul in Philippians 4:12, I do not know how to be abased. God does not expect me to like being abased for His name, but He does want me to be willing if that is what comes my way. He is more concerned that I follow Him in obedience day by day without concern for what history may say of me. I must be willing to be insignificant in the eyes of the world in order to be significant in His world to come. In fact, maybe when people look at my life and see that I was an obedient disciple that would be the ultimate significance.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Running against resistance
While thinking about this during my workout I was reminded how much like the life of Christian discipleship that is. Paul encourages us in Hebrews 12:1(NLT) "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us." In The Message it is even stronger - "Do you see what this means-all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running-and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins."
Running the race in life is just like running in the pool. Our forward progress in living the life of discipleship is constantly resisted. It is resisted by our own lack of faith. It is resisted by those around us who don't understand our journey. Most importantly it is resisted by Satan whose job it is to make sure we never reach the finish line where Jesus waits to reward us. Sometimes it seems that the harder we run the more resistance we meet. At this point we just need to push harder, listen to those who blazed the way who are cheering for our success and keep our eyes on the finish line.
You can't run the race too hard, but you will lose if you fail to run at all
Friday, May 15, 2015
Finding My Way
for years I have been struggling to find my way. what is my purpose? What does God want from me? What does God want for me? God has a plan for all of us but I have never been able to quite figure out what it is me. This quote from the book Spirit Bridge may be a clue.
It certainly is requiring me to pray
The most potent attack of the enemy will always come against our identity. He does not want us to know who we are. He does not want us to know our talent, our true heart’s desire, our destiny, our path. For if we know these things and live out of them with passion, we become extremely dangerous to him. If we live in our true, free, Spirit-infused identity, he will do everything possible to thwart our realization of that knowledge
It certainly is requiring me to pray
The most potent attack of the enemy will always come against our identity. He does not want us to know who we are. He does not want us to know our talent, our true heart’s desire, our destiny, our path. For if we know these things and live out of them with passion, we become extremely dangerous to him. If we live in our true, free, Spirit-infused identity, he will do everything possible to thwart our realization of that knowledge
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
One chapter, twenty-four admonitions
Allow me to first list the twenty-four life-improving admonitions I see in this chapter. Then, in future blogs, let me deal with each one of them individually and maybe we can get a better picture of how we should live as disciples and follow Christ. So here they are:
- Offer my body as a living sacrifice
- Do not conform to the world
- Be humble, not proud
- Use the gifts I have been given
- Hate evil, love good
- Be devoted to my church
- Honor others above myself
- Have fervor for the Lords work
- Be joyful
- Be patient
- Be faithful in prayer
- Share with the needy
- Practice hospitality
- Bless those who persecute me
- Rejoice with those who rejoice
- Mourn with those who mourn
- Live in harmony
- Don't be proud
- Don't be conceited
- Do what is right
- Live at peace with everyone
- Don't take revenge
- Feed my enemy
- Don't let evil overcome me
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Recently it was my pleasure and privilege to be one of my church's delegates to the annual District Assembly. I had been in the previous two years and knew that it would be inspirational, but I am not sure I was ready to be so greatly blessed and challenged. District Superintendent Rob Songer started by presenting us with 7 essentials to have a successful, discipling church. Here they are:
Meaningful worship
Theological coherence
Transformational leadership
Intentional discipleship
Church development
Passionate evangelism
Purposeful compassion
Each one of these could generate several sermons. Instead of sermons, each essential was presented by pastors and church leaders. They shared with us how there particular essential was at work in their church. For example, church development, Pastor Guadalupe shared that no sooner had she established a new work in Farmersville than God began to speak to her about a new work in Orosi. She stated that doing so was not a money problem, only a vision problem. Pastor Jason presented purposeful by, in part, talking about how their church adopted every school principal in town and prayed for their school and their leadership, culminating in inviting them all to a Thanksgiving dinner. It was truly inspiring to hear what was going on in our district to further the cause of Christ.
One of the great things about assembly was the worship, especially on Friday night. I haven't heard such enthusiastic congregational worship in some time. At Friday nights ordination service we worshipped together singing We Believe, a recent hit of the Newsboys. The worship was so electric that when the song was finished, Dr Busic (our General Superintendent) asked the worship leader to do it again. We nearly got Pentecostal as our voices raised in worship. Truly a memorable moment.
If that wasn't enough, my wife Debbie, as our local missions president, was a delegate to Saturday's Missions Convention. There we were priviliged to hear from Missionaries Mark and Linda Louw. Highlights from that:
Mark Louw - Mission is not a something, its is you-here. When you are sent there, your there becomes your here. Think about it.
A man named Kevin (leader of a house church in a coountry where Christian churches are forbidden) - my only fear is not doing what God called me to do
Mark Louw - we are each in our own mission field, is your presence making a difference?
Mark Louw - Integrity, if you say it you must do it
Mark Louw - is your heart broken for the world or is church just something you do?
And finally, Martha Lundquist (District Missions President) spoke straight to me when she said - Let's no think about what we can do, but what God is calling us to do.
Meaningful worship
Theological coherence
Transformational leadership
Intentional discipleship
Church development
Passionate evangelism
Purposeful compassion
Each one of these could generate several sermons. Instead of sermons, each essential was presented by pastors and church leaders. They shared with us how there particular essential was at work in their church. For example, church development, Pastor Guadalupe shared that no sooner had she established a new work in Farmersville than God began to speak to her about a new work in Orosi. She stated that doing so was not a money problem, only a vision problem. Pastor Jason presented purposeful by, in part, talking about how their church adopted every school principal in town and prayed for their school and their leadership, culminating in inviting them all to a Thanksgiving dinner. It was truly inspiring to hear what was going on in our district to further the cause of Christ.
One of the great things about assembly was the worship, especially on Friday night. I haven't heard such enthusiastic congregational worship in some time. At Friday nights ordination service we worshipped together singing We Believe, a recent hit of the Newsboys. The worship was so electric that when the song was finished, Dr Busic (our General Superintendent) asked the worship leader to do it again. We nearly got Pentecostal as our voices raised in worship. Truly a memorable moment.
If that wasn't enough, my wife Debbie, as our local missions president, was a delegate to Saturday's Missions Convention. There we were priviliged to hear from Missionaries Mark and Linda Louw. Highlights from that:
Mark Louw - Mission is not a something, its is you-here. When you are sent there, your there becomes your here. Think about it.
A man named Kevin (leader of a house church in a coountry where Christian churches are forbidden) - my only fear is not doing what God called me to do
Mark Louw - we are each in our own mission field, is your presence making a difference?
Mark Louw - Integrity, if you say it you must do it
Mark Louw - is your heart broken for the world or is church just something you do?
And finally, Martha Lundquist (District Missions President) spoke straight to me when she said - Let's no think about what we can do, but what God is calling us to do.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
What are you waiting for?
Once again I have been challenged by one of my pastors. Let me just start by saying that when I write these posts I really do want them to be helpful and inspirational for my readers. But be clear that when I say 'you' the you is inclusive of me. I am far from mastering discipleship 101 let alone earning a degree in discipleship!
That being said, what are you waiting for? Many of us struggle to determine what it is God wants to do with our lives, some of us for many years. We keep waiting for that 'magical something' that will make it crystal clear what we are to do. Waiting is hard. The Jews of Jesus' day were waiting for a messiah who would overturn the Roman government and seize control. They thought Jesus was that kind of answer when He began His ministry. When He was killed they were taken aback because they had been looking for a conquering warrior who would assume some sort of throne of power. They were waiting for the wrong kind of king.
Two angels asked "Why are you looking into the tomb, He is not here" They probably thought that meant that He was going to set up His kingdom any moment. Another time they asked, "Why are you gazing into the heavens". They were expecting that maybe he had ascended to gather His army and that He would soon be returning to overthrow the empire.
The church never got off the ground until the disciples returned to Jerusalem, waited in prayer and understood that this is what God wanted all the time was for them to wait prayerfully to be filled with the Holy Spirit. They re-traced the steps of Jesus in prayerful waiting. Once they did that - well, read Acts chapter two for the rest of the story.
So maybe our problem is that we don't know how to wait. Don't wait for a miraculous sign. Be sensitive to the prodding of the Holy Spirit while you prayerfully wait in His presence. God does have a mission for each of us, we must be willing to wait in the right way by retracing the steps of Jesus leading up to the cross and following His example of prayerfulness.
Nobody likes to wait, waiting is hard. Waiting becomes even harder when we are waiting for the wrong thing.
That being said, what are you waiting for? Many of us struggle to determine what it is God wants to do with our lives, some of us for many years. We keep waiting for that 'magical something' that will make it crystal clear what we are to do. Waiting is hard. The Jews of Jesus' day were waiting for a messiah who would overturn the Roman government and seize control. They thought Jesus was that kind of answer when He began His ministry. When He was killed they were taken aback because they had been looking for a conquering warrior who would assume some sort of throne of power. They were waiting for the wrong kind of king.
Two angels asked "Why are you looking into the tomb, He is not here" They probably thought that meant that He was going to set up His kingdom any moment. Another time they asked, "Why are you gazing into the heavens". They were expecting that maybe he had ascended to gather His army and that He would soon be returning to overthrow the empire.
The church never got off the ground until the disciples returned to Jerusalem, waited in prayer and understood that this is what God wanted all the time was for them to wait prayerfully to be filled with the Holy Spirit. They re-traced the steps of Jesus in prayerful waiting. Once they did that - well, read Acts chapter two for the rest of the story.
So maybe our problem is that we don't know how to wait. Don't wait for a miraculous sign. Be sensitive to the prodding of the Holy Spirit while you prayerfully wait in His presence. God does have a mission for each of us, we must be willing to wait in the right way by retracing the steps of Jesus leading up to the cross and following His example of prayerfulness.
Nobody likes to wait, waiting is hard. Waiting becomes even harder when we are waiting for the wrong thing.
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