Christ and ?

Is Christ really all we need? How many times I have heard it said by well meaning individuals, "Jesus is all you need." Now being well versed in "Christianese", (the language of church goers), I know what that statement means but what about the homeless man or woman on the street who has not eat today or has no where to get in out of the cold? What about the person that has lost everything in a house fire or a tornado? What about the distraught parent's standing at the graveside as the minister reads Scripture over the coffin of their child? What about the teen girl that everyone laughs at because she is different in size, color, or culture? How would they accept that statement from us? "Well, all you need is Jesus." No, He is not all they need; they need for His servants to help them.

Yes, I know that salvation is the most important thing one has need of but we also have need of food, clothing, shelter, and someone who really cares about us. Oh, I know, "Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you," the Christian will say. Someone once said that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. We often associate that saying with teamwork. What if we applied it to the Kingdom of God? What do you think about this Scripture: And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh (Jude 1:22-23). What about that "Pulling them out of the fire" part? That kind of sounds like to me there is some work involved in having compassion. Saint James said, "If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?  Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead (James 2:15-17).

My point today is this; people do need Jesus but they need us too. Jesus not only died on the Cross that we may be saved, He also healed people, fed people, and showed them compassion without just telling them He had it. Lord, help us to do the same. Christ and us; the link that connects God to the rest of the world.





 

Are We Afraid to Ask?

Have you ever wanted to know something but were afraid to ask? I have even as an adult and especially as a kid. There was an old fellow in the town I grew up in that wore a patch over his eye and I always wondered how he lost his eye but was afraid to ask him. In fact all of us kids were afraid of that guy, he looked like a pirate and talked rough. He would catch us somewhere and would threaten to pull that patch off and we would fly!

The fear of asking questions goes way back to Bible times. St. Mark tells us that Jesus told His disciples that He was going to be killed but that He would be raised from the dead three days later and they did not understand what He meant, but were afraid to ask Him (Mark 9:32). I wonder why they were afraid to ask Him what He meant. We know what He meant . . . . now. We have the New Testament that explained it to us and we have the account of His death and resurrection; but they never had that. They only had His words at that moment.

Which brings me to the point of my message today; are there things we are afraid to ask Him even now? I mean, things like why did my mom have to get cancer and die. Things like why are You allowing all those Christians to be killed in Iraq. How about this one; why did you allow my spouse to leave me because they said they do not love me anymore. Maybe even, why did You allow my precious child to die. These are very personal and heart wrenching questions. I am sure we have asked why many times and yet we are like the disciples that day; we still don't know what it all means. We can all agree that there are things which He allows that we do not understand now but we know as people of faith that He is never powerless in any of these situations.

There are other questions some do not want to ask. Questions that we know the answer to but really do not want to hear His reply. "Am I praying enough?" "Am I reading Your Word enough?" To name just a few. We know that He loves us regardless of how He replies to those and because we know He loves us anyway, we kind of just don't ask them a lot.

Never be afraid to ask Him anything; yes, anything. He knows what we would like to know anyway but it sure does give Him joy when one of His kids ask!

 

Head, Heart, and Hands

"I just don't feel Him like I used to." Is that something you could say? Is it something you have said? I have a lot of people tell me that. I do my best to answer them and sometimes I think they accept it and other times I think they are still left unsatisfied with the answer. Our relationship with God and Christ can only be real if we have done what Jesus told the first disciples to do and continue to follow the instructions God has given us in His word.

The Apostle John wrote, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." To behold the glory of Christ, (The Word), was a marvelous thing for those first disciples. Jesus was with them in the flesh, day and night, morning and evening, in good times and in bad times. If He was not defending them against the Pharisees He was stopping a typhoon type wind that was splashing waves into their boat to keep them from drowning. They watched in awe as demons would come out of people at His command and blind eyes would be opened with just a word from Him. They must have questioned His sanity when He told them they would have to "Eat His flesh and drink His blood" if they were going to believe in Him fully. Then believing Him to be the Christ, the Messiah, they had to doubt their belief as they saw Him hanging helpless on a Roman Cross and still promising a man that he would be with Him in paradise that very day as the religious leaders paraded back and forth in front of Him shaking their heads and pointing their fingers as they ordered Him to come down from the Cross and prove He was who He said He was. They touched Him, they smelled Him, they hugged Him, they ate with Him, they watched Him, they listened to Him, they abandoned Him, and then they finally believed in Him with all their heart when the tomb was empty and He showed up in the private chambers and told them to "Touch His hands and put their hand in His side."

Here is my point; if it took His Bodily resurrection to prove to the first disciples that He was really alive and that He really was who He said He was; why should we expect to be any less skeptical than they were? That is why He told Thomas, "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." I am glad He said that. I am REALLY glad He said that! If being saved by Him is determined only by seeing Him, or feeling Him for that matter, then our faith is futile and we are still in our sins. It could be that we don't feel like we used to about Him and mistake our lack of feeling toward Him as His lack of feeling toward us. Huh? You think that may be it? If I lose my love toward my wife how should I expect to feel her love toward me? We are the Bride of Christ you know (the Born Again Church). If we fail to love Him as much as we used to and then wait for Him to prove He loves us before we will love Him that way again; it is very possible that we "Won't feel Him like we used to." If He is just in our heads we will never "feel" Him in our hearts. If we try to touch Him with our "hands" (good works) and never allow Him into our hearts (Born Again of His Spirit) we will not "feel" Him either. There you go; take inventory and then maybe you can answer the question: "Why don't I feel Him like I used to?"




 

Mental Overload: Is there a fix?

Another one of those days. You know the kind I am talking about. From the moment you wake up things begin to go wrong. You are still carrying the baggage from yesterday that had unresolved issues. As the day wears on more stuff gets added. Trying to keep everything in perspective and under control is getting harder and harder to do. You are not sleeping well and your eating habits are changing. Even your body feels the impact from all this mental stress as the immune system goes into overtime trying to resist the current virus circulating around. You have trouble relating to those you love and become irritable and short on patience which adds more issues to your already overloaded mind. If not resolved you can expect the red flags to start popping up; headaches or maybe chest pains. What is a body to do?!

About now you are expecting me to tell you just to turn it all over to the Lord. That is what most preachers do, right? That is easy for me to tell you to do but I know from experience that it takes more than that. Because I have turned a lot of stuff over to Him but it never left me for some reason! I have tried to leave things at the altar but somehow they are still with me when I get home. Then some would say, "Well, you really didn't turn it all over to Him." I have tried. I have tried to walk away from it and promised myself to let Jesus worry about it. Guess what? Yeah, still had it. I have prayed and handed it all over to Him as much as was possible on my part; but it never left. Therefore I knew there had to be fix, a fix that I had not found.

Philippians, Chapter 4

Then one day during a devotional reading in my study I came across this verse written by Paul the Apostle: Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Paul went through a lot. Risking his life daily to tell people about Jesus. For him to say this must have had a great impact on his life. Then I read this verse a little farther down in the text: I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Ah, there it is! There is the fix Paul found. It was not giving his troubles to the Lord. It was learning, yes learning, to live with them. I realized that even though all these things were upon me, they had not killed me! Christ had kept them from crushing me! I then began praying different. Instead of praying and asking the Lord to take all the things I asked Him to keep me strong as I worked through them. Today, I still have unresolved things going on that I would like to have complete fixes for but I have learned, as Paul did, to keep my focus on serving Christ and not fixing the problems. When I do that, the problems do not go away, but they sure look a lot more solvable!






 

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.

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[1] 1 Corinthians 2:14

[2] Matthew 15:19

[3] Romans 12:2

[4] Matthew 13:4