What's God Saying?????

There are times in our lives when we can hear God so clearly it's as if there's an audible voice speaking to us.  Then there are those times in our lives that we wonder what's God saying or is He speaking at all?  We all experience that.  Even those we consider closest to God go through times in their lives where they ask that question.  We feel lost, confused, almost shut out because we aren't getting a clear signal from God.  Why isn't He saying anything?  Or maybe He is.  Maybe He is speaking and we are so focused on ourselves that we can't hear Him.  Maybe He is speaking, but we've made life about us and we aren't listening.  Maybe He is speaking, but we can't hear Him because He's not saying what we want to hear.  The truth is that God is always speaking.  He speaks to us through His Holy Spirit which guides us through situations we come in contact with on a daily basis.  Situations that cause us to make choices that affect our daily lives.  And if we are listening to that "still, small voice" we will eventually hear what God is saying.  Do we automatically always know what God is saying?  Maybe not immediately, but the miscommunication isn't because God's not speaking.  Maybe it's because we haven't learned to "Be still and know that He is God...." (Psalm 46:10).  See, our faith isn't based or shouldn't be based on what God does for us.  Our faith is based on who He is.  So, let's take some time to be still and get to know God and be amazed at who He is and listen to what He's saying.

You Are His!

I've recently been reading for my devotional time the classic My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.  Everyday I pull out these inspirational statements from his devotions that hurt my head to think about.  Recently while reading I came across something that I recently have adopted as my life motto.  The statement is "Never consider whether or not you are of use-but always consider that you are not your own, you are His."  Wow!  1 Corinthians 6:19 says "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own."  So, if we are not our own then whose are we?  That's the big question.  If we are Christ followers then we are His.  What does that mean for us?  It means that anyone that belongs to Christ never has to consider whether or not they are useful.  Because everyone who belongs to Christ has a purpose and is useful in His Kingdom.  So, as a Christ follower that is something we never have to consider.  There are days I don't feel useful.  There are days that I feel taken for granted.  There are days that I feel like I've failed and everyone around me knows it.  But guess what, it's not about me or how I feel.  It's not about who I am.  It's about Whose I am.  If I remember that then I never have to wonder whether or not I'm of use.  I just have to remember that I am His.

Thoughts for the week!

There are so many thoughts that have been running through my head this past week.  As a minister, I struggle to balance family life, ministry life, and life in general.  At times you feel like your right on course and then there are times that you feel like your missing the mark.  I'm sure more than once in our lives we all feel this way.  One of the things that God has been showing me this week is that it is not by my effort or strength that I succeed.  When I try to do it on my own I never succeed.  I can't be the father I need to be, I can't be the husband I need to be, I can't be the minister I need to be when I try to do it on my own.  But when I rest in Him and allow Him to renew my strength it's at that point that I succeed.

The underlying premise that fuels this success is Love.  Not love as the world defines it which is conditional love, but love as God defines it.  1 Corinthians 13:8 says it all, "Love never fails!"  People are going to disappoint, we are going to disappoint, life is going to be frustrating at times; but as we seek to balance family life, ministry life, and life in general we must ask God to continue to fill us with an overflowing supply of His love that never fails.  His love never fails!  And when we love with His love which is a love that is different from this world, we see God accomplish in us and through us things we never could imagine.  Simple but true!

God shake us!

God has been speaking to me through Acts in my time with Him in the mornings. And it's amazing that this weekend @ DNOW David Nasser spoke on messages from Acts. This morning in Acts 4:23-31, I noticed a prayer that I have adopted to pray for my family, my students, and my leaders. It is a prayer of boldness amidst the persecution that comes from the enemy when God is moving. It is a prayer of perseverance to keep going although things may get tough. It is the prayer that the believers prayed for Peter and John as they strived to do God's will. "And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give your servants great boldness in their preaching. Send your healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus!" Acts 4:29-30 And I pray we will experience the same result they did-"After this prayer, the building where they were meeting shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they preached God's message with boldness." May God shake us to preach His message with boldness and win Alexander City for Him!

Can they tell we've been with Jesus?

Acts 4:13-"The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men who had had no special training. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus." Do people recognize me as a person who has been with Jesus? That's a pointed question we must all answer. I guess I have to start with another question, "Have I actually spent time with Him today?" As a minister, there are times I rush through my day and struggle for answers to questions and situations and then realize that I rushed through or didn't take time to spend with God. That's nobody's fault but mine. I've tried to blame it on schedule, people, and everything else; but it's up to me to take time to spend with God. And I can tell when I haven't and so can everyone else. My oldest son recently came up to my youth group. Yeah, I'm old! And the thought hit me right between the eyes. Am I teaching him to study God's word? For so many years I've poured into teenagers and now I have one living in my own home. (Any advice would be helpful!) But to make it as a father, husband, minister, and in life in general-I have to spend time with God. Because people will never be able to tell I've been with Jesus if I actually haven't been with Him. Just a random thought for today's journey!

Wrestlemania

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What does it mean to say that “if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation?”

The saving work of Christ is a mystery that can never be fully explained or understood by the human finite mind. It is something that theologians have tried to simplify and explain for centuries. The sheer thought that the God of the universe would make a way to redeem, let along want to redeem, a rebellious human race that has turned their backs on their creator over and over again is beyond comprehension. And not only initiate the redemption, but continue the process by which human beings become “new creations” in Christ just adds to the mystery. But herein lays the incomprehensible love and grace of this great God. So, to answer this question we must formulate our answers based upon two concepts: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and The Doctrine of Salvation and the Christian Life.
So, we begin our journey by looking at the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity through which God works to initiate the process of salvation, to continue the process of salvation, and to complete the process of salvation after death in the lives of people. As Gordon D. Kaufman expresses, “God’s Spirit is to be understood as his actual presence to his creatures in every situation, whether they consciously feel it or not. Thus, God is immanently at work in men’s lives, even before they are conscious of him or begin to respond with faith,...” So, the process of man becoming a “new creation in Christ” is one that is fueled and driven by God through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s presence is seen from the beginning of time in the Old Testament through the ministry of Jesus in the New Testament and his manifestation in the Book of Acts. Even so, he is present in this day and time doing the work of God through the people of God by empowering, purifying, revealing, and unifying. He is involved in the process of salvation through conversion (starting salvation), through sanctification (continuing salvation), through equipping, through intercession, and through assurance (class notes). We see him in every aspect from beginning to end.
Which leads us to our second concept in exploring our question of becoming “new creations in Christ:” The Doctrine of Salvation and the Christian Life. Salvation is the effect of the Holy Spirit’s application of the work of Christ to the life of the believer (class notes). So, one can clearly see that the Doctrine of Salvation and the Christian Life is directly tied to the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit for without the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of men there would be no realization of the need for God.
Speaking of the Doctrine of Salvation and the Christian Life, herein lays the process by which one becomes a “new creation in Christ.” This is seen through “The Order of Salvation” or the “ordo salutis.” Throughout the centuries there has been much debate between Reformed and Arminian theologians about how the process of salvation is initiated, carried out, and completed. We see Reformed theology expressed through John Calvin’s TULIP stressing the sovereignty of God, and we see Arminian theology which stresses the human freedom of choice. Kaufman’s explanation of salvation is that “salvation in the Christian view is nothing else than living as free though finite creatures under God; or, to say the same thing in other words, it is loving God and fellows; or, in yet another image, it is living in the kingdom of God.” When looking at salvation and the Christian life, whether taking a Reformed view or an Arminian view, one has to admit that the whole process is all initiated by God. “The Atonement wrought by Jesus Christ is the focus of revelation, the inner truth of the Gospel addressed to our sin-burdened and sin-poisoned race. In all the glory of His mediatorial character and in all the fullness of His mediatorial work Christ is the center and core of Christian doctrine.” The focus then of salvation and the Christian life should be that of Christ and the process of becoming “new creations in Christ” that is laid out in the Scripture. That “God does not love us because Christ died for us, but that Christ died for us because God loves us, and his sacrifice is an expression of this love” is a clear and focused statement of what becoming “new creations in Christ” is all about.
So, what does it mean to say that “if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation?” It means that we have experienced regeneration through the process of salvation that was initiated by God through the Holy Spirit and is continued throughout our lives until the day Christ returns or until our death. It means that we have experienced a new birth in our lives through Christ or been “born again” as Christ explained to Nicodemus. It means that we are no longer slaves to the sin of this world, but our old life of sin has been buried and we have been made new through the power of Jesus Christ. It can be summed up best by saying that “salvation is not merely a cure for sin but the redemption of the entire sinner. The work of salvation that God has begun in all true believers will be fulfilled in the resurrection of our bodies and the completion of God’s redemptive plan-a plan that includes past, present, and future.”

Enjoy the Journey,
Brett