Encouraging, Empowering & Equipping Ordinary Christians To Live Powerful Missional Lives!
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Watch this video and receive empowerment from God’s Word to go live a life that reflects the glory of Christ back into the lives of those still trapped in darkness.
When I was a child growing up one of our families favorite T.V. programs was the game show, LET’S MAKE A DEAL. I always enjoyed watching it because of the thrill of watch people possibly winning something really amazing. You know what I mean. Right? The thrill of the win or the agony of the loss. I would always imagine myself as the big winner.
But wouldn’t it have been nice if you had some special knowledge in advance of what was behind Door #1, or Door #2 or even Door #3? If you did have that knowledge do you think it would have influenced what choice you would have made?
In this post we are starting a series that deals with options, consequences and admonitions about the kind of life goal you should establish that will guide your pursuit in life. Whether we know it or not we all have goals that guide how we live life and the kind of choices we make as we go through life. Our expectations is that these goals will help bring joy, fulfillment, excitement and happiness during our travels here in this world.
However, establishing bad goals can hinder the experience of that joy, excitement, fulfillment and happiness that we so desperately want in our lives. Making wise choices about our goal is going to be absolutely essential.
However, gratefully God, in the Bible, has told us what our options are when it comes to establishing a goal for life and even better news is that there aren’t 10 to 15 different choices! In actuality there are only 2 choices. One choice is good and the other choice is not good at all. So, in reality for those of us who are fully devoted followers of Christ there is only one life goal that is to be our choice.
Our series of posts will be taken from 1 Timothy 6:3-10 and today’s post is entitled:
Remember there are only two choices but this first choice is not the right choice. This first choice is the choice to avoid at all cost. It is the choice that will rob you instead of give you. It’s the one that will harm you instead of benefitting you. So, what’s that option? It’s the option that this world offers to you.
So, what exactly is in door #1? What is it that we should not make our life’s goal? To help us find out let us take a look at 1 Timothy 3: 3-5 and most specifically verse 5. It says:
“If anyone teaches false doctrine and does not agree with the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and with with the teaching that promotes godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing, but has an unhealthy interest in disputes and arguments over words. From these come envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions, and constant disagreement among people whose minds are depraved and deprived of the truth., who imagine that godliness is a way to material gain.” (CSB)
What is the life goal to avoid?
The pursuit of material gain as a life’s goal is one of the false teachings that was and still is part of the church and especially trying to use godly living as a means to getting rich. In verse 10 the Apostle Paul refers to people who make the amassing of material wealth their life goal as people who “Love Money”. Take a look at what it says,
“For the love of money is a root to all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” 1 Timothy 6:10 (CSB)
The reason why the pursuit of worldly riches or the love of money is a life goal to avoid is simply because it’s a heart issue. It’s a matter of what you “LOVE” the most.
In Luke 16:13-15 Jesus is teaching the people that it is impossible to serve two masters. You will either love the one and hate the other or visa versa. And then Jesus coined a quote that we still use today. It is:
“You cannot serve both God and money” Jesus Christ
Jesus said you cannot serve both God and money! He didn’t say:
“You can’t serve fully both God and money.”
or “It’s hard to serve both God and money”.
No! Jesus flat out stated emphatically stated that it is:
Why? Because the issue at play is all about the heart or it is all about what you love. God refuses to compete or share with anyone or anything concerning the love that is due Him as God Almighty.
Let me hammer the point in by asking you a question: What is the greatest commandment? That was a question Jesus asked some of the religious leaders of his day. It’s a good question that we should ask ourselves from time to time and the answer is something we should remind ourselves daily. What is it? According to the Bible it is:
The truth of the matter is that God wants our full and complete love! And God is unwilling to share it with anyone or anything. And one of the biggest competitors to robbing God of the love that is due Him is the love for money. Money is enticing and money is deceiving, People try to justify their love for money to make it sound acceptable or at least understandable.
But according to the Bible the love of money or the amassing of material gain is absolutely not the life goal for anyone who calls themselves a Follower of Christ.
“Therefore everyone who hear these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. ‘And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. ‘Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ‘The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell and great was its fall.” Matthew 7:24-27 (NAS)
Isn’t it interesting to note that both men had built a house and both men built their house on top of something. One was a rock and the other was sand. As it is true in building a house so it is also true in building your life - it will be built upon something. There is some kind of foundation upon which your life will be built upon. But the choice of what foundation you use to build your life is of the utmost importance. Why?
When it come to survival or destruction of your life the foundation upon which you build your life is the one and only determining factor. And because it is the one and only factor it becomes an essential factor. A person can’t go cheap on laying that firm foundation. A person cain’t afford to use inferior material in laying a foundation. And absolutely a person can’t even consider not laying a foundation.
As we already discussed in the previous post storms of life are going to happen. It’s not a matter of “if” they happen but just a matter of “when” they’ll happen. We have no control over whether or not trails, tribulations or persecution happen in our life. The truth of scripture is clear - they will happen. In addition, we also have no control over the intensity of the storms when they do arrive. It could be a mild storm or it could be a potentially devastating storm. We have no control over it. So in light of these truths the only sensible and prudent thing to do is to make sure you lay a firm foundation upon which to build your life.
It would be easy if there was only one option available to us for the foundation we use from which to build our life. But that’s not the case! In this story Jesus makes it clear you do have options. You can chose to use the options the world avails you (that’s the sand) or you can use the option that Jesus recommends (that’s the rock). The choice is yours but you need to choose wisely! Why?
Because the foundation is so essential you need to make sure you spare no expense, cut no corners and don’t be lazy in your efforts to the laying of that firm, solid and massive rock like foundation.
So as you begin to lay the foundation for you life be careful, give it your full attention and we wise. The foundation you choose will be the determining factor of whether your life is destroyed or stays strong after you go through the intense storms of life.
If you have not already read the first two blogs in this series you can hit the links below to check them out.
“George Müller (born Johann Georg Ferdinand Müller, 27 September 1805 – 10 March 1898) was a Christian evangelist and the director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England. He was one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren movement. Later during the split his group was labelled as the Open Brethren.
He cared for 10,024 orphans during his lifetime,[1][2] and provided educational opportunities for the orphans to the point that he was even accused by some of raising the poor above their natural station in British life. He established 117 schools which offered Christian education to more than 120,000.” Wikipedia
Do you know what they are? No! Then watch this training and start working in the fields God has assigned you!
In todays training we are going to look at the 4 places that define your mission field. This is going to answer the question "Who Am I Responsible For In Sharing The Gospel?" By answer this question you will know where to begin to share the Gospel of Christ and where to begin in making disciples for Christ.
Confidence In Offering A Prayer Of Faith
When it comes to living a powerful missional life that brightly shines the Light of Christ in our part of this dark world prayer is essential. But not just any kind of prayer but prayers where there is confidence that God will hear and answer it.
So much of our prayers is what I like to call, "I hope God will answer my prayers!" but there's no confidence that God will actually do it. We are praying with uncertainty that God will actually do what we are asking Him to do. On top of this lack of confidence there is just a lot of "BAD" teaching going on in the name of "PRAYING IN FAITH". To many people out there like to take just one passage of scripture and emphasis it to the exclusion of other essential and indispensable verses on topic. This is a very bad practice to develop! In learning to praying in faith we need to understand the full council of God. Failure to do so can lead a person into a practice that's not only unbiblical but potentially destructive to their faith.
There are 3 Indispensable Biblical parts for having confidence that God will answer your prayers the way you have asked him to.
Let me emphasis that they are essential and indispensable!
Why? Because they are like 3 legs on a stool! If you remove any of legs from the stool, leaving only 2 legs, the stool will fall down! ALL THREE LEGS ARE INDISPENSABLE! The ability to pray and know that your prayers will be answered requires us to have all three of these indispensable parts in place. Remove one of the parts and you no longer can have confidence and certainty that your prayers will be answered the way you are asking! But if you have all three parts in place you can pray with confidence and know you have what you ask for. So, what are they?
"Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight." 1 John 3:21,22
This is the part that makes sure that you the one praying is in a proper spiritual condition to come before God and ask Him to do something. Knowing that we are in a spiritual condition that allows us to come into God's presence and be accepted is a vital part to knowing that your prayers will be answered.
In order to know if we are in a proper spiritual condition to come before God with our petitions we need to do a spiritual inventory of our life. We need to see if there are any unconfessed sins that still need God's forgiveness. If their is sin then the activity that is needed is a prayer of honest confession from true repentance. In 1 John 1:9 God gives us assurance that our sins can be forgiven with this simple act. Read what it says,
"If we confess our sin that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Why should we think that we can receive anything from the Lord if our hearts are not right with the Lord. To have confidence that our prayers will be heard by God depends first and foremost if we are prepared to even ask for it.
Question To Ask Yourself:
Is There Any Unconfessed Sin In Your Life That Needs To Be Dealt With And Made Right With God?
"This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him." 1 John 5:14,15
This part deals with the actual request being made. Is what we are asking for according to God's will or not. This passage of scripture makes it perfectly clear that when our requests are inline with God's will we know God hears us and we know He will give us what we ask for.
If you are asking for something that is not according to God's will it doesn't matter how much, how often or even how passionately you ask God for it, it you will not receive it. Why? Because it wasn't part of God's will. In order to pray in faith with confidence you must know what God's will is! If you are uncertain what God's will is on a particular matter then before you can pray in faith about it you must first pray for God to reveal His will to you about it. Listen to what James 1:5 says,
"If anyone lacks wisdom you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to him."
What a wonderful assurance this verse provides us. If we ask God to reveal His will to us by giving us wisdom He promises to do it. NOW THAT'S POWERFUL! Once God reveals to you His will concerning the matter then you can begin to pray in accordance to God's will with confidence that God will answer it.
Question To Ask Yourself:
Do You Know What God's Will Is Concerning The Matter You're Praying About?
Once you know that you are able to go into God's presence to make your request and once you know what God's will is concerning the issue you are praying about, then you can make your request to God but you have to make it in faith and without any doubt that God will do exactly what you are asking Him to do. NO DOUBT!
"Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 'Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Mark 11:22-23
Praying in faith and without doubt is essential to answered prayers. However, this kind of faith that I am talking about is not a faith that controls God and makes Him do whatever we want. That kind of faith reduces God to be like genie in a bottle. Our God is not a genie that has to give us our three wishes. No! Our God is the Sovereign Lord of all creation. God doesn't do our will - we are to do His will! Biblical faith is not some kind of force that makes God do what we want.
Biblical faith is surrender to God's will and joining God in accomplishing His will! This prayer of faith is because you already know what God is going to accomplish, you have discovered His will on the matter, and through faith you are surrendering your will over to God's will and fully trusting that God will, not maybe, accomplish exactly what He said He would do. In other words when you pray a prayer of faith you have no doubt that what you are asking is going to happen because you know that God already has willed it to happen!
Question To Ask Yourself:
Once God Has Revealed To You What His Will Is Do You Have The Faith To Pray That It Will Happen Without Doubt?
When you are certain that all three of this parts are in place then you can have confidence that God not only hears your prayers but that you will also receive for what you have asked. Remove one of these three part or legs and the stool will fall. All three are essential and indispensable if you are to receive in prayer what you have asked God to do.
Here's one idea how you can quickly and easily shine the Light of Christ in your part of this dark world during Thanksgiving.
Powerful and effective Missional Living requires the wisdom! Where does that wisdom come from? Watch this short video and encouraged to be wise in sharing Jesus with others, making reproducing disciples makers and on shining the Light of Christ brightly in your part of this dark world!
We believe that ordinary christians are God primary choice for doing His extraordinary work. Throughout scripture we see God choosing to use everyday people to join Him on His mission of raising up, training up and unleashing them to become rapidly reproducing disciple makers. The Ordinary Christians intends to join God in that pursuit.
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