I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES

One of the most difficult obstacles to Faith is understanding why God does not, at times, intervene in adversity and affliction. I believe God is absolutely sovereign... that nothing happens to His children without His allowance... His permission. I believe... absolutely, that God heals, and have personally experienced His healing power. And, I believe that small, mustard seed size faith can move mountains, “if we ask according to His will.” So, for example, when a saint’s child is suffering with the final stages of cancer and the healing God does not intervene... well, that is hard for my faith to overcome. We live in a time when most of our proclamations of God’s healing power are nebulous declarations involving assorted aches and pains. The serious stuff... cancer and such, usually prevails, or we declare God’s healing after a costly stay at some clinic, coming under the edge of a surgeon’s knife. And many of these “wins” are really delayed losses, as time so often demonstrates.

 Maybe our tendency to rely on man’s healing power, adding God as an afterthought, is part of the problem.  We take aspirin for our heart, Tylenol for headaches, Aleve for pain, Nyquil for colds, Z-Pac for the flu, an assortment of meds for blood pressure, cholesterol, etc., and, of course, we go to the dentist for a cavity or tooth ache. No wonder we run to man for help when we get something really bad, letting God play second fiddle... if He is allowed to play at all, it is the habit we have formed... conformance to the ways of the world. Of course God can use doctors to heal, but the scripture basis for this as His methodology of choice is nonexistent. This position is all too convenient... and safe, implying we are more comfortable when man takes the lead and God just “helps.” So, our faith in the healing power of God is eroded by our ongoing daily experience... is it not? Perhaps, to see a real unadulterated miracle one must be willing to die in faith of God’s healing power rather than be “healed’ by conformance to the world’s ways. Maybe... just maybe, this exemplifies Jesus’ command to “Have faith in God.” Could this be why the first century church experienced healing miracles as a way of life, because technology had not advanced enough to allow man’s medical science to supplant God’s power?

Adversity and affliction know every saint’s address for we are, as Paul stated, “appointed to this”... it is called “life.” We will all face these decisions at some point in our journey home to Him. Maybe, in the final analysis, we are far too concerned with the length and quality of our earth-life, and not focused enough on the Blessed Hope we have in Christ. For the saint, to be allowed to go home... at any age... by any manner, is, as Paul put it, “far better” and should be cause for rejoicing, for to be forever with the Lord is the greatest miracle of human experience. And yet, with the speaking I realize these words are still in my head, and not fully in my heart. I am not advocating anything with this thought, only sharing the rumblings of a heart in hot pursuit of knowing God.

HAVE FAITH IN GOD

“I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH”

This thought is dedicated to the Ekklesia... the called out ones... the mystical assembly of all the redeemed... “The Church which is His Body.” Ekklesia must be understood two ways in scripture, the Church “big C”, just described, and the church “little c”, the individual assemblies of the redeemed gathering together at any point in time. These churches make up “The Church.” The Church is the leaven of the Kingdom of God, ceaselessly spreading God’s Kingdom through the dough of humanity. Stripped to its spiritual essentials the church functions as a purveyor of God’s Kingdom through “the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry”, which builds up the Body of Christ. The “work of ministry” is the enterprise of each member of the church who are “joined and knit together by what every joint (i.e., person) supplies” to work effective when “every part (i.e., person) does its share”, growing spiritual maturity as it builds itself up in love. Equipping the saints covers a lot of ground including teaching/mentoring spiritual growth, empowering to minister, encouraging ministry, providing a forum for ministry development, and providing essential help including facilities, equipment and resources. Individual ministry is identified, developed and released within the sanctuary and nurturing environment   of the church, moving out into the marketplace as spiritual leaven when it has matured.

 Every member of every church has a personal ministry... something to contribute to the Kingdom of God. When these personal ministries are quenched and grieved rather than nurtured, ignored by a misplaced focus on rigid liturgy and the “One man Show” syndrome, spiritual growth of the church ceases as an attainable reality. The real measurement of church effectiveness is not church size... quality trumps quantity every time in God’s Kingdom, but rather the effectiveness of the equipping of its saints for the work of ministry. Why do people become so prideful and elated simply from getting humans into a building?  Man driven church growth becomes a stronghold that burns out pastors while filling the pews with lukewarm Self-centered “Christians” that God has already said He will spew out of His mouth. Focusing on church growth... size, rather than growing spiritual maturity through the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, is simply a prideful form of Godliness that denies the power of equipped saints to leaven the world. (Matt. 16:18; Eph. 4:11-16)

“FOR THE EQUIPPING OF THE SAINTS

FOR THE WORK OF MINISTRY

FOR THE EDIFYING OF THE BODY OF CHRIST”

UNDERSTANDING GOD’S WILL

Paul’s message in Romans 12:1 is all about lordship and submission.  All Christians know Jesus as their Savior but that is only half of His commission.  “God has made this Jesus ... both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), “Lord and Savior” (2 Peter 3:18). As Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, He brings salvation.  But He is also the Lord God Almighty, and total submission as a bondservant... love slave, to His lordship is not only mandatory, it is reasonable rational intelligent service... “a living sacrifice.”  What matters now and in Rome two thousand years ago is not that we are Christians.  What matters is that we are Christlike.  Gods’ goal is not a label... Gods’ goal is a lifestyle, which brings us to Romans 12:2 where Paul addresses this issue with two commands and a promise:

* Commandment One: Stop living, thinking and acting like the world.

* Commandment Two: Start living, thinking and acting like Kingdom people by the renewing of your mind.

* The Promise: “Then” you will understand, test, and approve God’s will, His good, well pleasing and complete will for you.

Do you want to know God’s will? Here is the only recipe given in scripture: "PRESENT your bodies a living sacrifice." STOP living, thinking and acting like the world. START living, thinking and acting like Kingdom people. THEN you will understand God’s will. It takes a thorough understanding of God’s word to differentiate between the world’s ways and Kingdom ways, equipping saints under the Lordship of Jesus to complete the recipe... setting their minds on things above moment by moment, day by day. Overcoming life is life lived in the will of God... His good, well-pleasing and complete will...

GODS’ GOAL IS NOT A LABEL...

GODS’ GOAL IS A LIFESTYLE...

LIVING HIS WILL...

MAN IS A WORSHIPER

In a tropical rain forest a tribal chieftain bows before a crude figure fashioned   from sticks and stones bound together by jungle vines.  In St. Louis the CEO of a major corporation spends all day Sunday with a group of wealth power brokers, conspiring how to drive stock prices up.  Somewhere in Asia in a fantastically ornate temple a young man burns incense before a lavishly decorated Buddha.  At a gym in Denver a man moves from pose to pose, admiring the mirrors’ reflection of his years of grueling training and drug use.  In the heartland of America, a small group of locals meet in an unobtrusive building in a small Nebraska town to sing and pray together. On the ninth tee a Miami golfer trashes his clubs in a fit of golf-rage. A minister in Dayton slips silently into his study at 2:00 A.M. to Google the sensual desires of his heart. In New York a grossly overweight lady spends her day with her best friend... junk food. A group of LA high school kids meet their suppler in a parking lot before hitting the rave party circuit.  A man in the suburbs of Detroit spends the entire morning meticulously washing and waxing his foreign-made sports sedan, while his teenage daughter spends hours in a poster-plastered room listening to CDs by her favorite rock superstar.  In Seattle a lady spends three hours meticulously primping and grooming herself before leaving for work.  All of these people are worshiping.

Man is a worshiper by nature whether we acknowledge our worship, understand that we are worshiping, or recognize the object of our worship as deity, we all worship something.  The Apostle John called our idols Lust of the Flesh... Physical Appetites, Lust of the Eyes... Material Appetites, and Pride of Life... Emotional Appetites. The object of our worship may be money, possessions, career , goals, ideals, hobbies, talents, education, power, position, prominence, control, desires, pleasures, goodness, self-esteem, our body, sex, drugs, food, other people, thrills, etc., - we all worship something: The question is...

WHAT ARE YOU WORSHIPING???