There may be a lot of different things we can do, and a lot we can’t. But one thing is for sure we can and must reach out to as many lost as possible and bring the call from Jesus “Follow Me”. If you are a Christian it is your duty to witness to as many as possible. We must not give up hope and all ways realize that God is still in control. The Message remains the same. It must reach all over the world by any means. Jesus is the only way. 

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me…John 14:6 (Read all of John 14)

Bro Larry is asking as many as will to join with us and help spread this message…Mark 8:34 (Read all of Mark 8)>And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

I just finished spending an hour reading Ecclesiastes. The conclusion of Salomon: everything under the sun in meaningless. However, even with all his wisdom, Salomon did not foresee Jesus. So in effect Salomon, by laying out his dissection of life and concluding that all in meaningless, paved the way for us to conclude that life without Jesus (as in Salomon’s day) is indeed meaningless. Consequently, the true meaning in life can only be found in Jesus.

My recommendation to you is this: if your life feels meaningless, get to know Jesus better.

I seem to be continually challenged about not settling for the depth of relationship with God that I have, so when I read Luke 5 last night it was perhaps not surprising that I sensed God drawing me to this phrase: “Put out into deep water”

Are we willing to follow Jesus’ advice to ‘go deeper’ with Him? Although this passage doesn’t explicitly relate to our walk with God, it is a direct call for the disciples (and therefore, us!) to follow Him. Jesus has just finished teaching the crowds the ‘word of God’ (there’s a great place to begin digging deeper into God!) and he turns to the fishermen and tells them how to do their job.

As I thought about that I wondered how we would feel if Jesus started to tell us how to live our lives. Yet that’s exactly what he wants to do – he wants to show us how we can live more fruitful, fulfilling lives by doing things his way.

He wants to be your life coach.

He wants to be your spiritual director.

He wants to at the helm of the boat that is your life.

Whatever way we put it – he wants to be the one calling the shots by showing us how to live life his way.

He wants us to be his Apprentices.

Surprisingly, the fishermen do his bidding and are amazed and humbled at the result. The text tells us that they became followers of Jesus that day -that was the important result (rather than the number of fish caught!). This passage challenges me, and I hope it does you too (Luke 5:1-11).

Are we willing to leave our safe shores to “put out into deep water” so that Jesus can direct, humble and amaze us into being closer followers of Jesus?

Will we be apprentices to Jesus?

A middle-class, newly married woman approached me recently. She was someone I knew, but who isn’t apart of our community. Safe to say she goes to ’someone else’s church’. I knew about her story. She suffered from a medical condition that caused her to be in debilitating pain; pain so excruciating at times she was unable to care for her young family. In and out of hospital, surgery after surgery she became dependant on addictive painkillers… painkillers she did not want to take. She explained her situation to the doctor who understood and instead recommended she used cannabis or similar style drug.

This young, Christian woman (who puts my faith to shame) approached me neither for healing prayer, nor words of faith, nor encouragement to ‘be strong’ but to help her find cannabis. She knew me. She knew my ministry. She knew the kind of people I choose to call friends: drug dealers and drug takers, addicts and alcoholics.

This humble blog may or not be the place for a discussion on the Christian views on recreational drugs, but as much as I was saddened by her plight I was excited that she came to me for help.

Jesus came with a simple message of grace, love and forgiveness. He brought an opportunity to all to come into relationship with the Father. I am reminded He came not for the healthy, but for the sick.
If our mission is revolutionary then it cannot be sanitized. We must minister to the poor and the homeless and to the addicted. We must come to the rescue of the weak and disenfranchised.

That this young woman came to me should not be taken as an endorsement of my ministry, but an indictment of her church-leaders and peers who have removed themselves from the people our Lord came to heal.

We must be wise, but our Faith (if it is to be life-giving and dangerous) must be lived out in the presence of the sick rather than asphyxiated in the theory of the healthy.

I have been studying the words faith and belief. I have found that whenever there is a discussion of faith, believe is always stated as part of the meaning. John stated that he wrote words about Jesus that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. 20:31

It seems to me that many have complicated the truth by not accepting the simplicity of the word of Jesus. In English we have the noun faith which comes from Latin origin of fides. There is no verb form in English for faith. To describe faith it is always necessary to say believe. This is the verb that states the action of faith. There is also the noun belief which derives from the same root form gelaf. In the Bible the original Greek of the New Testament have the same root word for belief and believe: PISTIS and PISTEUO. There is not a distinction in the these words in the original. The action of belief is believe.

 Theologians have tried to convey a difference that the Bible does not offer. They tend to want to add modifiers to faith such as “saving faith” or “really believe” These do not help. The basic meaning of believe is to accept as true. What I have learned is that if you accept the claim of Jesus as Lord, Son of God, Savior as true then you believe. John 8.21 “Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. 22 Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. 23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”

Here Jesus makes a negative statement “believe not” results in “die in your sins.”

Jesus said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)”

Here He makes a positive statement with a qualifying contingent that results in the promise of the Spirit which gives life. It is not just “believe”, but “believe on me, as the scripture has said.” This is a very broad contingent, but it is a wonderful promise of life. We should seek to know what the scripture hath said if we would have living water.

Jesus qualifies faith here as something specific. Believe on Jesus as the scripture has revealed. Accept as true all that he has said and done. If Jesus died on the cross for my sins and was buried and arose alive on third day, then I must accept that as truth. If Jesus requires that a sinner repent then I must accept that as truth. Unless I am willing to repent of sin, then I do not believe Jesus.

 Some say, “…the devils believe.” Why are they lost? Because they do not believe on Jesus as the scripture hath said. They will not repent, nor will they follow him. 

As a conclusion to this first post, I would say that the idea of faith is often loaded with baggage that Jesus did not intend. If I believe what is written in the Bible then I will do whatever is needed to follow Jesus as Lord of my life. DER 20091101

Do You Have Assurance of Salvation?

God wants His children to have that calm assurance and anchored hope of eternal life. God’s love for people is truly marvelous. He wants us to experience life and have it abundantly. Our adversary, the devil, wants to create doubt, shame and guilt in our lives. Allow the truths of Scripture, not varying emotions, to shape your theology.

I John 5:11-13 states, “And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

Have you personally received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? If you have, then you also have eternal life. You can know that you are His beloved child for “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12, 13).

There are many passages of Scripture which give assurance to believers. There are also warnings given to show that not all people who “profess” to be a Christian really “possess” Christ in their hearts. The key? Where is your faith? Who do you trust in to save you? If you are trusting in Jesus Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead for your salvation, then you also have eternal life.

Paul declares, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39).

Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:27-30). You’re in good hands with our Lord.

Hebrews 13:5 states, “He Himself has said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.’” Remember, if God is for us, who is against us? You can rest in God’s gracious promise to keep you in His loving care.

Click Clip to Play!

Matthew 16:24

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

“To take up your cross” portrays the image of Jesus Christ carrying His cross. In Philippians 2:6-9, it states that  who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant,  being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Why would Jesus make Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being God yet becoming man to die on a cross?

• This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.
• Therefore through Jesus Christ’s obedience God has made us (Christians) alive together with him, having forgiven us all our wrong doings, thereby cancelling the record of punishment that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

So, how should I take up my cross?

• If you don’t go all the way with Jesus, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve Him.
• If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself.
• If you forget about yourself and look to Jesus, you’ll find both yourself and Him.

Therefore!

For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! All who walk by this standard are the true Children of God—his chosen people

]]> http://pastorblastor.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/the-choice-everyone-has-mark-115-20/ Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:07:26 +0000 pastorblastor http://pastorblastor.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/the-choice-everyone-has-mark-115-20/ http://missionalrevolution.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/following-the-son/ Sat, 22 Aug 2009 21:12:35 +0000 Stuart McCormack http://missionalrevolution.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/following-the-son/

I wrote last week about following the father.  The God we serve is (as we know) a missionary/missional God.  He is also only one member of the Trinity (Father, Son and  Holy Spirit).  He does nothing on his own – it is all done with and through Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

God is a missional God.  He is the one who sends into the world.  The first missionary he sent out into the world was Jesus.  But God did not end the sending there.  God the son sent his followers in the Gospels out into the world.  He asks us to follow him into ALL the world.  we cannot live as Christ followers with part of  our lives (Sunday services and Weds Home group/prayer meetings!) – we are to live with and for Christ in ALL our world with ALL our lives.  The world should know we follow Jesus through:

The words we speak

The things we do

The things we don’t do.

It’s time to get our hands dirty for Jesus!

By “all our world” I mean that our faith is to be lived out in school, at home, at University, on the dole queue, at the pub, at work, at a concert, at the supermarket – EVERYWHERE!!  Jesus did not compartmentalise his faith.  He lived out his relationship with the Father everywhere.  He lived out his prayers to ’see the kingdom come’.

As followers of the Father and the son we need to live this way.  Jesus did not just die to save us from sin and secure us for eternity.  He also lived to show us how we ought to live – he set us an example we should follow.  I hear people saying that this is a hard task – yes it is, but Jesus did not promise us it would be easy. 

If you are looking for easy ways to live out faith without taking risks, making sacrifices and taking up your cross then you are not looking to Jesus – he always made it hard (take up your cross; count the cost; in this world you will have hardships & trials;etc).  It’s time to get our hands dirty for Jesus!

Following the son yields blessings, but it is not the easy life many preachers have promised.  In my life as a christian I have been abused, marginalised, trodden on, laughed at – and all that by leaders and members of the Church!  Despite this I hold to the joyful truth that Jesus is the only one truly worth following.  Following Jesus is not easy, but it is the most blessed path one can follow.  It’s time to get our hands dirty for Jesus!

May we follow the Son into the presence of God the Father not just in eternity, but also daily in this life.  May we encounter God in tangible ways that revive our faith to be the living , transformational force for the world that God intended.

It’s time to get faith out of the building and into real life and get our hands dirty for Jesus!

Scripture:  Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.  (Matthew 16:24)

Observation:  The notes from the online bible that accompanies the daily readings on the USCCB website explains that Jesus is making a requirement of discipleship of following him up to an including the giving of your life for him.  As far as the denial of oneself, he is requiring that we completely disown our own interests and no longer see ourselves as the center of the universe.

Gentleness (Latin: mansuetudo):  Today is the last day of our Youth Camp for God.  I am looking forward to spending some quality time with my wife and my boys, by the grace of God I will be gentle in demeanor and spirit.  It is my hope that the fruit of gentleness will exhude from every part of me to show the love of God to everyone that I meet today and for the rest of my life.

Prayer:  Lord, help me to stay in your grace by not only allowing your will to be done but also to be in union with you doing your will for others that come in contact with me today and for the rest of my life.  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

There’s not much need for sheperds in the world I live in.  I move in circles of education and troubles teens.  I spend spare time with friends and family – I occasionally see sheep as I travel on the bus to Leeds. 

I’m on the bus. 

They are minding their own business in the fields.

I have had a few experiences recently that have reminded me that people are indeed ‘like sheep without a shepherd’:

 The first was a youth session where (on reflecting with the help of a our Church leader) I came to see that young people are in need of shepherds who will lead them into meaningful relationship with Jesus – shepherds that will give young people the gift of ‘presence’ and ‘time’; shepherds who will act and talk and respond with the compassion of Christ.

In Mark 6:34 we read that Jesus looked on the crowds with compassion – I can’t even pretend to clain I understand yet what that means (but I want to, so I guess that’s a good starting point!).  Compassion is a deep gutteral emotion that wells up from deep within us (it’s probably birthed in the very heart of God)

In my work (monday to friday – 9 till 5!! – I’m blessed!) I listen to the hopelessness my students feel and live with every day of their broken lives - I often feel my heart breaking and tears forming within me.  These young people are truly shepherdless!  They are the lost sheep of the Kingdom.  I believe that deep down they are looking for The Good Shepherd.

As Christians I wonder who we are ’shepherding’?  Who are we reaching out to with compassion?  Who are the sheep that we are longing ‘to seek and to save’ (Luke 19:20)  Who are we being Jesus to?  Are we shepherding the sheep to The Good Shepherd?

May we CARE for the lost as Jesus cared.

May we FEEL with the same compassion Jesus feels for the lost sheep.

May we ACT in unconditional love even when it hurts and feels like a waste of time.

May we SHEPHERD God’s lost sheep until they are safely in the pen of God’s kingdom.

Times and Seasons

There are times and seasons in our lives when you feel like you are pushing a mac truck up a hill…a little challenging. Then there are other seasons when you are playing ‘catch up’ because opportunities and favor are out in front of you and you are holding on for the ride. Both are apart of the journey of life but I can tell you which one is far more enjoyable and easier on you.

My Experience

In my own ministry I have faced seasons when I have felt like God was against me and there was no solution no matter which way I turned and then all of a sudden things dramatically shift and a new pathway is opened before me and I step into it and God brings me into a new and broad territory.

Open Doors

I received a word 10 years ago from Revelation 3:8 which says, “Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.” This remains a constant encouragement in my life and may it be so to you as well. Look for the open doors that God has already placed before you. Sometimes, like a plane in a holding pattern waiting to land at the airport, we too get into a holding pattern waiting for our moment to step into the open door that God has set before us. I’ve discovered that stepping through the open doors God has for you is an intersection of timing, God’s sovereign plan and our obedient faithfulness to doing whatever he asks us to do.

Follow Jesus

When God goes before you, you get signs that he is at work and that things are moving forward. Pay attention to these signs and go with the momentum that is building in front of you. After all we are following Jesus and he is out in front of us leading and paving the way. Sometimes Jesus is leading us to be still and wait faithfully. Other times he is moving so fast that you are hanging on for your life. Either way keep following him and get in the slip-stream of what God is doing in your life.

Lead the Change!

I’ve been reflecting on the idea that often Christians don’t have enough time to spend with not-yet-believers due to the fact that we often spend most of our time with other Christians.  Obviously, I’m generalising, so if you are not one who fits this generisation “well done” (we need to learn from you!).  Hanging out with other Christians is most likely an encouragement to our personal faith, but is this at the cost of living-out and sharing our faith with not-yet-believers?  Perhaps we don’t have enough time because we don’t manage our relational time as effectively as we could. 

Reading the Gospels we can see that Jesus didn’t spend his time with the religious elite – he was always hanging out with ’sinners’ and party-people; engaged with the blind man at the market; at the swimming pool with cripples; in streets with the maginalised, lonely and the infirm.  If you ask me, Jesus had no problem finding time to be with not-yet-believers – I’m sure this is one of a number factors about why people near Jesus became followers and believers.

Other factors of Jesus’ personal time management that affected his mission might be:

• He spent time ALONE with God
• He spent time equipping his closest followers
• He spent time with his family
• He spent time with people on the streets and in the nitty gritty of real life

One thing is sure – the time that Jesus ’spent’ was ‘invested’ in his mission of bringing in the Kingdom of God (it was never wasted).  As followers of Jesus his mission is meant to be our mission.  That means we need to prioritise our time and activities around the mission of God (as seen in passages such as Luke 4/Isaiah 61).

A few ‘Missional Time Management’ questions for us to consider:

• If it is true that we prioritise our lives and time around what is most important to us, what would this say about the priority we place on living-out and sharing faith? 
• Who are you ‘investing’ your time in?
• Are we reflecting the mission of God through how we use our time?
• Are we making time to connect with not-yet-believers?
• Are we spending time alone with God?

May we who Follow Jesus through loving God and loving others retain our time in ways that honour God and extend his kingdom.

Dear God,

Heavenly father, good evening. Lord God tonight I struggle with family relationships and I ponder what to do. Lord sometimes my relationship with my family is it odds with following Jesus. It puts me in situations that I feel my relationship with you is comprised if I continue to hang out with my family.

Lord I love my family dearly and pray for them often. However, I remember you telling us that we must chose to follow you regardless of what others think.  Lord I know this extends to our immediate family as well but that is very difficult. How do we leave our family when it affects our relationship with you? Lord I know my heavenly family is there to support me but this is very difficult.

Lord I pray that you help me.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

“Shrinking mainline Protestant denominations are turning to marketing to help stem decades of membership losses and stay afloat.” So begins an Associated Press article I recently read in my local newspaper. It seems churches, such as the United Methodist Church, believe large amounts of advertising dollars will help fill the pews again. The Methodists are spending $20 million on their ad campaign.

I can’t help but wonder, what would Jesus do if he were in charge of filling the pews? Would he throw money at the problem of dwindling attendance, or something else?

Jesus and his apostles were faced with a similar challenge around 2000 years ago; how to increase attendance. And yet in a single day, the church in Jerusalem added 3000 new members (Acts 2:41). Christianity spread throughout the Mediterranean in a phenomenally rapid manner, and without the help of television, the internet, or pesky telemarketers. How did they do it? What was their “marketing” secret?

The answers to these questions illustrate the differences between them and today’s mainline churches. The first church leaders devoted themselves to the truth. They were passionate about spreading the truth of the gospel. Their message was not always popular, and many lost their lives because of it, but that didn’t stop them from sticking to the truth.

Today’s mainline churches take a different approach. Many of them preach whatever they think would be a popular message, the politically correct message, with little regard for the truth. They have lost touch with Jesus. That is why they continue to shrink; they are no longer attached to the true vine. When a branch is cut from the vine, it shrivels up and dies. That is what is happening to many mainline churches today, and no amount of advertising will help. What they need to do is become re-attached to Jesus.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” (John 15:5-6)

I dare say that the $20 million from the Methodist Church would be better spent feeding the poor, rather than feeding Madison Avenue ad agencies.

Waste of space!!                                                                It doesn’t matter!!

They aren’t important!                                                                                                                         You’ll never amount to much!!

You’re stupid!                                  Loser!

You’ll always be a failure!!                                                                     You don’t know anything!

I’m on my soapbox today because these phrases really annoy me.  I’m working with a bunch of young people that have been hearing stuff like this every day of their lives and the damage these words do is immeasurable and unthinkable.  as I go about my work I’m trying to give young people skills that will help them in life, but more importantly I’m trying to rebuild the brokeness of their lives with words of life.

The truth is that EVERY PERSON MATTERS to God.  That means every person should also matter to me and to you.  I matter – my life is for a reason.

YOU MATTER – your life is meant to have meaning.  The soul that lies within the hidden part of who you are was specially placed in you by God.  Your dreams are blessings from God and they need to grow and spring forth into God-given life.

God believes in us – enough to put his son to death on the cross.  God died on the cross because you matter to him.  WOW! How amazing is the love of God?!

Every teenager I work with matters to God.  The more I pray for them the more I find they matter to me.  As I listen to their stories I find I am often fighting back the tears (it would be ‘unprofessional’ to cry!).  I find that I am wishing I could be there for them and tell them it’ll be okay – and increasingly I am there.

Who is in your life? Do they matter to you as much as you matter to God?  It strikes me that Jesus spent a lot of time with people that did not matter.  May our words bring life and healing to broken people who no longer believe they matter.

I was reading 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 a few days ago and I was again reminder that we are called to be ministers of reconciliation.  Say what?!

Minister of Reconciliation = a follower of Jesus who helps other people to be reconciled to God the Father.

EVERY follower of Jesus has been comissioned to lead other people back to God.  We are called to leave the ‘ninety-nine’ to search for the ‘one’.  we are called to look for the prodigal.  In the above passage Paul writes that we do this because:

• ‘Christ’s love compels us’ (v14)
• We are convinced that Christ died for everyone (v14)
• We believe that Christ has reconciled us to God (v18)
• Christ has given us the ministry of reconciliation (v18)

I love that Paul is not writing to a leadership team, but rather, to a broken and divided Church (the Church at Corinth has it’s problems!!).  He is writing to normal people like us – people with weaknesses and sins, but who in Christ “might become the righteousness of God” (v21).

Do you ever (like me) feel unworthy to share your faith because people are not blind to your mistakes and sins?  Jesus, who had not sin, became sin for us so that we could be reconciled to God, and so that we in turn might bring others into a reconciled relationship with their creator and heavenly Father.

One aspect of living missionally is holding out the word of truth to those who need the truth of God’s reconciling love.  May we, who have been marvelously reconciled to the Father, serve and speak, live and love in order to reconcile others to God – this is the ministry Jesus shares with us.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!   All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:   that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

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