Looking up!

Wow! James MacDonald had a good one this week in his Walk in the Word series. He reminds us that when the church began it was about praise. It was about recognizing the greatness of God and the fame of God's Son. He makes a good point that we spend so much time in our churches trying to understand and cater to its followers that we forget why we have come.

Here is the full article. Check out Walkintheword.com for more.

Look Up

...¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ²⁰ Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. —Ephesians 3:17-21

The other day I had on my desk 30 recent books written about the church of Jesus Christ. One word describes them all: Horizontal. Pretty covers, catchy titles—one theme. They are filled with practical counsel: How to understand your audience, how to impact the people around you, how to influence them, how to win them, how to assimilate them; what they need, what they want, what we think, what they think. And yet, most of them are based on a fatal flaw: They have reduced the Church of Jesus Christ to a man-centered, human-needs-driven, manipulate-able organization—a horizontal thing.

Here's a word you need to have at the forefront of your thinking: vertical. Somehow we've lost this in the church. We’ve replaced the Biblical idea of the church with the idea that the church is supposed to be about the horizontal—about us.

Before the purpose of the Church was ever soteriological (about salvation), it was doxological (about praise). Ephesians 3:20 says: "To Him be glory in the Church through Jesus Christ now and forever more." Everything we do has to resound with the fame of the name of God's Son. When that happens, everything else falls into place. Evangelism, discipleship, community impact, ministries of compassion, these things are by-products of a church that is passionately consumed with the glory of God. Vertical is a powerful concept that you need to have at the forefront of your thinking about the work of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The best reasons to be fully engaged in your church won’t be found by looking around, but by looking up! We begin obeying Christ by applying the great commandment to love God—the summary of the vertical relationship (see Mark 12:28-31). When we’ve got that clear, we can tackle the loving neighbor, horizontal thing. Let’s keep the two commands clear and in proper sequence! That’s vertical church. Look up!

My Cup Is Full but Not Overflowing

Unlike everything else around me that IS overflowing, somehow my words and thoughts haven't been lately. I'm going through a dry spell. God is definitely working in me and blessing me but in the last two months it has been with a very internal purpose. Things that others wouldn't necessarily understand or receive a blessing from hearing or reading.

God IS good. His love DOES endure forever. I'm having to learn about love, growth, change and lots of other hard stuff recently. We were so bless to have Barry Steed from Little Chapel Church (my home church) come and minister to us last night. My heart is overflowing from what was felt in the house of God last night, but I can't put it into words. It comes out in tears or in a smile wider than I've smiled in a long time. I'm sure that seed will bear fruit soon and I'll have something to say but right now all I can say is for everything there is a season and God's timing is perfect. And I'm perfected in Him. And so are you so just hang in there.

I do want to share something from James McDonald that comes at an appropriate time. As Barry said last night, the earth is shaking. All these disasters and all the hardship is painful to even watch, let alone experience. McDonald's "Weekly Walk" article this week was titled, "Will I Get Through This?" I know so many are asking themselves that question today and so many don't have the faith and hope in a savior to give them the comfort that they will. That is what makes me saddest today. So many are lost just beyond our doorstep and our church parking lot. How do we bring them in? How do we love them enough to get out of our recliners and bring the gospel? I'm still searching for these answers. But in the meantime I want to share this article with you at http://www.jamesmacdonald.com/ministries/walk-in-the-word/broadcast/will-i-get-through-this/#divAudioPlaylist-tab . This happens to be the audio version but you can sign-up on his site to receive the weekly email too. I download his podcast to my phone and often listen when I'm exercising. He has some good teaching. Be blessed.

A World With No Savior

I ran across this in my inbox a few weeks ago and have thought about it a few times. It is a weekly message from James McDonald and it brings forth the idea of "Where Would We Be Without Jesus?"

I don't have a lot to add to what he says about it so I'll link to the article and let you read for yourself, but as hopeless as the world seems sometimes, can you imagine how much more despair we'd feel without the saving grace of Jesus. I mean, talk about hopeless. No light of the world. No comforter in the Holy Spirit. Nothing but judgement and law. No grace. Had Jesus not accepted the cup that was His to bear, our lives would still be...but they'd be much different. A timely message as we consider the birth of our Savior.

OK, I was going to link to it, but I can't find it! So I'll paste the text from, "The Weekly Walk" email I received below. To visit James McDonald's site to to walkintheword.com

Where Would We Be Without Jesus?
"And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?' And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, 'Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that He can open the scroll and its seven seals.' " - Revelation 5:2–5

Revelation 5:3 says, "And no one in heaven (no angel) or on earth (no living human being) or under the earth (no dead human being, certainly not Satan) was able (worthy, had the weight) to open the scroll or to look into it." Now if Christmas had never happened, that would be the end of the story.

Take a minute and think about that. How dark would the darkness in this world be without the Light of Christ who is the Word of God? John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Jesus is the Living Word of God who tells about the written word of God. Try to imagine if Christ had never come. John 1:14 says, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth."

Back in Revelation 5, John says, "I began to weep" (v. 3). Not a child weeping; kids cry a lot. But an adult weeping at the prospect of being without the revealed Word of God, the Apostle John began to weep - loudly. The word refers to a very intense, bursting forth of unrestrained grief. That's what he felt when he considered the prospect that God's Word would not be known.
Revelation 5:5 “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered…” (has overcome; that’s a reference to His death and resurrection), so that He can open the scroll."

Jesus Christ, the Living Word of God is the only One who is worthy. Only He has the weight to bring the Word of God to us. Jesus Christ is the Revelation of God's Word to us.
That's why Isaiah 9:2 says this, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness on them a light shined." Where would we be without Jesus? Just think of it. We would not have the Living Word. We would be without the Light! We would not have the written Word. How dark would be the darkness? Impenetrable. Instead, we have great news: "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:4–5).

Waiting

For the bible study group this will be a preview and extension of tonight's lesson.

Wait. This is a word I've been hearing from Jesus the last few weeks loud and clear. We hear these phrases all the time, "I'm just waiting on God" or "I'm waiting on an answer." Even a commonly quoted verse is Isaiah 40:31:

31Yet those who wait for the LORD
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.

For a long time I would have said that I'm a person who "waits" on God. I pray about His plans for me. I try to discern through the Holy Spirit the right choices. I try to find His plan for me. Sometimes I've even followed the Holy Spirit into decisions I wouldn't have made on my own power or that maybe didn't seem logical to anyone else and I believe I was blessed for it. So why don't I feel like a seasoned "wait-er". Well, an assult on my thinking in the last few weeks has made me realize that I'm still missing a lot of what it means to wait. It is more than what we rationalize in our minds that waiting should be. So what does it mean to wait???

First, when I was exercising at the gym a couple of weeks ago I put on a podcast from James MacDonald. I love my smartphone btw. Having all these resources available when I have a little free time is very uplifting. But back to the topic, I started listening to a series called "Powered by the Holy Spirit" and it was a study of the chapter of Acts. In the first chapter, he was referencing verse 4 where Jesus tells the disciples to "wait" for the Holy Spirit (which they don't but that is another study).

Jesus says, "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about."

The gift He was talking about was the Holy Spirit.

In this study, James began to question what it means to wait. He gave the example that even though we are sitting at a red light in our car, we might not actually be waiting. One online definition of wait is To remain or rest in expectation.

I've been at a red light. I've seen others at red lights. How many of us, when the light changes, will give the car in front of us a little "honk" if they don't move within 6 seconds? Or maybe we are fussing and cussing to get moving because we are running late and the car in front of us isn't in the same hurry we are. Are we really "resting in expectation"? No way. We're planning, scheming, multi-tasking, fussing but we aren't really waiting.

So if we apply this to our time of "waiting on God" for answers, resources, directions, we probably aren't really waiting either. This is where my conviction began.

Maybe our lack of waiting doesn't look like the impatient driver at the red light but maybe it looks like this...

Scenerio: Your family is at the realization that you need or want a new vehicle. So you begin to look at cars online. You start driving through the parking lot looking. You ask all your friends and neighbors if they like their car. You decide what color you want. You decide what features you can't live without. You spend a lot of time on the car payment calculator. You decide how much you can pay. Now with all that decided you begin to pray, "Lord, if it be your will, please send me an '09 Ford Taurus with 20,000 miles in red or blue and it can't cost more than $250 per month. This is me. I've done this. Maybe not in so many words, but I've had all my plans laid out in my power and then asked God to bless it and say it is ok.

So what is the problem with this? Maybe nothing? Maybe we're just being good stewards in considering what is practical (this was always my reasoning)? Except, maybe we are missing what God really had planned. Maybe He really wanted to give you a raise at work to pay for a bigger car so you could help pick up your neighbor kids and take them to church too or because He plans to bless your family with another child. Maybe His plan was for something bigger and better but because we already decided on what we thought was possible, acceptable or desireable, we totally cut off His ability to provide for us. We didn't wait. We planned, we schemed, we decided and then we asked God to get on board. What if we did wait and started with prayer first? Who knows. Only God knows.

This is really hard. This goes against everything that comes natural to us. I'm so overwhelmed by this. I have so many thoughts on this. Too much for one post or one bible study lesson. I have so much to learn. I plan to share more on this subject soon. Be blessed.

Listen to James MacDonald at: http://www.walkintheword.com/Broadcast.aspx

Thankfulness

One resource I stumbled upon a few years ago was the Walk in the Word website. I was actually trying to find a sermon I'd heard by John McArthur and not really remembering the name ended up searching and finding James MacDonald. After listening to some of his sermons I really like his teaching.

He has a newsletter you can subscribe to at http://www.walkintheword.com/. It is called the Weekly Walk. The topic this week was gratitude. James talks about 3 levels - elementary school thankfulness, high school thankfulness and. graduate school thankfulness. Sometimes I fear my prayers put me at the elementary level. I'm thankful for the weather, my health, food to eat, a house to live in. It is like a grocery list that contains the same staples each week with really no thought to it. I can kind of do it in my sleep. But hey, I was thankful, right.

When we graduate to high school we begin to look for deeper things to be thankful for. Maybe we grumble a bit but we decide we can be happy about something. I had this happen at Burger King. I was taking lunch to the field for my husban and his helpers. I placed my order ending it with an order of small fries for myself (even though the fries really didn't fit in with my diet plan). When I got away from the drive-thru, I had no fries and a chicken sandwich instead!

Now at my adolescent level of gratitude I immediately thought, "Now who could get chicken sandwich from small order of fries! So now I had no fries for myself and an extra sandwich that I didn't need. Plus the sandwich cost a couple dollars more than the fries! I order off the value menu to save money not spend more! I started to turn around but I know what a pain it is to take something back to the counter. You have to go in. Wait in line. Get the frustrated look from the already busy employee. Plus they never act like they could have made a mistake. So I decided to go on.

I got to the field and explained to the guys I had this extra sandwich and come to find out Tim's dad would have rather had a chicken sandwich anyway, or so he said. And you know, in the long run I really didn't need the fries. They are not a healthy choice so my body was better off(and besides I stole a few of Tim's anyway). Knowing all this after the fact, I could then be thankful for the sandwich that I didn't order. But this is still only high school thankfulness.

This then brings up the idea of graduate-level gratitude that James talked about in his newsletter. He says,

"Ephesians 5:18-20 says, "Giving thanks to God at all times for all things." No matter what's happening; no matter how dark the moment is, God is in control. He can be explicitly trusted. He's working out a purpose beyond what you can imagine. Some of it you'll see in this life; some of it you'll see in the life to come. Give thanks to God. Go for it. Give thanks to God for the hardest part of your life. Just say, "Thank You God for this. You are good!" Watch the blessing begin to flow your way."

Now wouldn't that have been something new. If I truly lived by Eph. 5:18 I would have immediately thanked God for the chicken sandwich, not knowing yet who might need it and for sparing me from artery clogging cholesterol that might lead to heart disease! If only I had realized that God might be working in my best interest (who doesn't want a happy father-in-law) my attitude would have been one of gratitude.

This is a lesson I'll have to work on. This requires discipline and slowness on our usual reactions. God is working out a purpose beyond what we can imagine. Wow.