Awesome Jesus Moment

We had one of our youth speak for us Wednesday evening in service and she did a great job. Being only thirteen she preached her first sermon to the church like a pro! If she was nervous it was not noticeable! Her sermon was to the point and took all of about 15 minutes. She spoiled our congregation as now they will get bored with my thirty minute messages. Jesus told His disciples that it was not the length of prayers that made a difference but it was their motive in praying to begin with. I think the same could be said for sermons. As a pastor I have so much that God would have me to share with the sheep in my flock but I do not think He intends for me to share it all in one message. Perhaps if I could narrow down the points of a message, like this girl did, and challenge the people to respond to it, like this girl did, then maybe people would respond to it; as they did for this kid!

She had texted and asked several weeks ago if I thought God called young people to preach. I told her absolutely. God sees the heart of a person, not their age, height, gender, ethnicity, social status, or geographical location. Of course I never told her all that; I just said, "Sure He does!" We then began texting over a period of weeks about how God uses people and we even sat down in my office one morning during Sunday school and discussed how the Holy Spirit guides us and empowers (anoints) us to carry out His mission of telling the world about Jesus. She is lead by the Spirit and after her message last evening, I think she may be filled with Him as well.

The congregation was very impressed at her composure as well as her message. I think they may have been surprised to see a thirteen year old articulate her words, connect her illustrations with the Scriptures she used, and stay on point without forgetting or stumbling through her delivery (which I have been known to do). There was no doubt in any of our minds that she was delivering what she felt God had given her to say as at one point she stopped for an "Awesome Jesus Moment." That touched me in my soul! I saw this young, delicate, pretty, spiritual, little lady, acknowledge the fullness of the Spirit in her message and in her heart!

The devil does not have control over all the teens out here regardless of what the media may report. God is still reaching and using hundreds, even thousands of them, to show His power in the world today. I thank Him for sending many of them to our church and encourage other teens; come to Christ and allow Him to use you too. Parent's, take your kids to church, teach them about Jesus, and watch what He can do through them!      Watch the Video

The Boy Lied: But he Came Clean.

W

hen this young man was six he said he died and went to heaven; remember him? He and his father wrote a book which also became a movie. He describes in the book what he saw and it was very encouraging. Now he admits it was all fabrication. It all came from the mind of a six year old that wanted attention. Now before we get all red faced and mad at him, take a look at his letter here and let it teach us a lesson. Yep, I said us. We may get upset about those who lie to us and deceive us for personal gain as we should, but we must get upset with ourselves as well for believing everything that we can find a Scripture to support.

                                                            

 

 “Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short.  I did not die. I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible. It is only through repentance of your sins and a belief in Jesus as the Son of God, who died for your sins (even though he committed none of his own) so that you can be forgiven may you learn of Heaven outside of what is written in the Bible…not by reading a work of man. I want the whole world to know that the Bible is sufficient. Those who market these materials must be  called to  repent and hold the Bible as enough.     In Christ,   Alex Malarkey.”

 

 

 

I think we would have to agree that his letter is sincere. Repentance looks like this. It took a lot of guts for the kid to tell the truth, even if it did take him a while to do it. He would have had to consider the lawsuits and everything else that those who are upset with him may try to do to retaliate in order to sooth their anger for believing him; but he did it anyway. There were many who never believed it in the first place and there are many who may be let down, but as Christians we know that the Bible is true; even if a little boy made up a story of heaven and angels does not change the fact that heaven is real and so are angels. Thanks Alex for coming clean; your bold repentance will encourage others who are keeping secrets to come clean before God too.

 

     

Sermon Notes: The Holy Spirit in Everyday Living.

Several weeks ago I began teaching/preaching a series on the Holy Spirit in everyday living. I felt impressed by the Lord to explain how the Holy Spirit participates in our life. It started with knowing that when we are born again we therefore have the Holy Spirit sent into our heart by the Father. When we ask Christ to come into our hearts, He does; by way of the Holy Spirit. This is not the baptism with the Holy Spirit as the series will eventually lead to explaining what exactly that is. We covered the fruit of the Spirit, those characteristics of Christ which are imputed to us by Him being in our hearts and how we learn to allow Him to express Himself through us as opposed to us trying to express Him to others on our own. Yesterday we began a series within this series! Knowing that the Holy Spirit dwells within our heart we need to learn how to let Him lead our thinking and our behavior.  One of the ways we do that is to listen to our heart and not just our mind. We have the power within us to think any thought we choose. Many of the thoughts we think are not what the Holy Spirit would have us think. That is why I used the term learn. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit does not come naturally. The Bible teaches that the natural (hu) man cannot understand the things (thoughts, teachings) of God as these things must be spiritually discerned.[1] 

The session yesterday began with understanding what thoughts the natural heart thinks. You can find those in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 15[2]. That is why the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our hearts instead of our minds. His thoughts are totally different than those listed in Matthew’s Gospel. Once we learn the difference between what we naturally think and what the Holy Spirit thinks and imputes His thoughts to our mind, we will understand what the Apostle Paul was saying when he taught that we need to have our mind transformed.[3]

Our next session coming up will begin dealing with the heart; not the fleshly organ that pumps blood but that “core” of the human being. Jesus taught that people’s hearts fall into one of the four categories He described.[4] Some are soft hearts, hard hearts, distracted hearts, and “half” hearts. The heart type is directly related to receiving the Holy Spirit into it.

---

[1] 1 Corinthians 2:14

[2] Matthew 15:19

[3] Romans 12:2

[4] Matthew 13:4