Myths that Make Us Hypocrites

I just read this post from Pastor Jeff Leake from Allison Park.  I thought it was something that all Christians need to read and check themselves on so I reposted it here.  You can check out his blog here.

Myths That Make Us Hypocrites

I was reminded today of a message that I gave last summer about three common myths in the church world. Believing this false ideas has a way of making us into 'actors' or 'hypocrites' (that's actually what the Greek word meant in Jesus' day - one who plays a part on stage). What are those myths?

#1 - HOLY PLACE - In the Old Testament, there was a place designated as THE place of worship. It was the tabernacle or temple grounds. In the New Testament, the place of God's presence has changed. 1 Corinthians 3 & 6 declares that 'we are the temple of the Holy Spirit' and that God's presence rests on the hearts of every believer in Jesus.

People who believe that a church sanctuary is the 'holy place' living in a certain duplicity. When in the 'holy place' certain words, attitudes, or practices are off limits because they lack a certain spirituality. Outside of the 'holy place' anything goes.

Truth is - the Holy Spirit is with you all of the time. We should act in a way that recognizes His presence every moment of every day - being careful not to grieve his heart.

#2 - HOLY THING - You can see the falsity of this idea in the book of Exodus where Aaron makes a golden calf to represent the God who delivered them from Egypt. This is a superstitious idea where one associates a special power with a religious icon or artifact. We think if somehow we touch, hold, or are near a special religious thing - that our prayers gain a special power.

Prayer, however, functions in the context of relationship. So if you are not living in vital relationship with God, your prayers will be hindered no matter what icon you hold in your hand. But if you are confident that you are a child of God and are living connected to Him - you need no artifact to bring you special spiritual 'luck'. The promises of God are all that we need. Jesus said, 'those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth'.

#3 - HOLY MAN - This final idea elevates clergy or the 'anointed man/woman' to a other-worldly place of connection with heaven. When we believe this myth we think that we need this 'holy man' to pray for us in order for God to move. But the New Testament teaches that any answer we receive, we receive through Christ. We all have access to the Father because of the cross.

Each of us has the right to pray and believe for breakthrough answers. Yes, agreement in prayer is powerful. Yes, there are some people who have experience in prayer and pray with authority and anointing. Each of us, however, has the capacity to become that man or woman of God. We should seek that with all we are.

Let the Little Children Come to Me...

I find it so hard to blog everyday.  In fact, I find it hard to blog once a week.  But here goes me blogging about what's on my mind this second week in August.

Yesterday, I was preaching on the Armor of God.  At the end of my message I always give opportunity for people to embrace the cross of Christ, as I close in prayer.  There was a grandma there who had brought her grandchild with her.  (I believe she is 4 years old.)  The grandchild did not want to go to Children's Church so she stayed with her grandma.  As I gave the call to know Jesus, the grandchild's hand shot up to my surprise.  She was looking right at me with her hand raised.  I was caught off guard and not sure what to do or if she understood but asked the grandma if she could bring her up front.  I didn't want to scare her or make her nervous so I asked her if I could pray for her.  She said, "Yes."  I asked her if I could lay my hand on her shoulder and she said, "Yes," again.  So I prayed God's blessings upon her as she took this step.  I encouraged her grandma to talk with her grandchild and help her understand what it means to know Jesus as Lord and Savior.  I thought it would be better for her to be able to talk to someone she knows and ask any questions she may have.

Grandma reported to me today that her grandchild was so excited after church.  She went and told everyone in her family that she had blessings prayed on her at church.  Most of which do not know go to church.  This little girl and her excitement over having blessings prayed on her at church could be the key to her whole family coming to know Christ.  Pray and believe with me.  I find this such an awesome testimony on this Monday that has found me dragging a bit because of a sickness that I cannot shake.  I'm so blessed to pastor the New Life Center at such a time as this.  God is doing great things in young and old alike.  So pumped for what God is doing and going to do.

Also, check out our Back 2 School Blast at www.tinyurl.com/back2schoolblast.  It's an event that will be held in Ford City Park August 28.  Children from Kindergarten through 6th grade are eligible for free school supplies but they must be registered by visiting the site above.  Check it out.

Your Heart, Part 3...

Sometimes, as Christians, we can develop a resentful heart.  How?  When you are in ministry, whether pastoring or teaching or helping etc., you can get hurt.  People do not always respond the way you think they will when it comes to teaching and/or preaching.  This can lead to resentment.

As ministry continues, you can begin to look at that person, and others, and not see them the way Jesus sees them.  Vision can become clouded over with the painful thoughts of what they said and/or did to you.  That is why it is important to practice forgiveness.  It's important to lay the situation at the foot of the cross.  God will help you overcome what others do and say.  Our example is Jesus.  He looked past the fact that people had just crucified Him and asked God to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing.

Now I'm not saying that you go around telling people they just didn't know what they were doing when they said or did whatever they said or did to you, that can be very arrogant.  What I am saying is learn to let things go.  Recognize the fact that you have been forgiven and forgive others.  Resentment can develop very quickly.  So take steps now to recognize that hurts will come and know how you will respond to them, by placing them at the foot of the cross.  Prepare yourself now so that you are ready to defeat resentment when it comes your way.  It's easier said than done, but the truth is the truth, it must be done.  And it can be with Jesus' help.

Your Heart, Part 2...

We must also be careful of the Proud Heart.  Pride can hinder our intimacy with God.

Pride can also lead to self-reliance.  I notice it in myself.  Maybe you've heard people talk about how others can't do things the way that they can?  I admit that I've done it.  Why?  Pride.  Instead of giving others a chance to grow in ministry, I take that opportunity because I am so focused on me and what I can do and how I can do it.  Shame on me.  Especially, when I know that there are people out there that can do things 100's of times better than me.  That is not putting myself down, it is knowing the truth and we all know that knowing the truth will set us free.

People who minister can be bound by self-reliance so much that it can lead to burn out.  We can become full time workers at keeping our reputations instead of letting God do His thing that we burn ourselves out and quit our ministry or leave the church altogether.  Why burn out when the answers are sitting all around you... other people.  Don't worry about your reputation of always being on top of things or having things altogether.  Those talents of getting things done are God given for us to use for His glory, not to be abused by thinking we have some kind of super power that we can't let others be a part.

The Proud Heart must be repented of and humbling ourselves must become our daily routine.  Humbling ourselves starts with worshipping God and declaring that without Him we are nothing.  He is our source of strength.  All the glory and honor and power belong to Him.

Lord, forgive me of my proud heart.  Help me realize everyday that it's all about what You do through me, not what I can do.  I gladly lay pride down so that I don't burn myself out trying to do what I cannot do.  I don't want to try and keep up an appearance for the sake of my ego.  I confess and repent and accept Your forgiveness.  Amen.

Your Heart...

I was recently asked to help mentor someone through their internship class through Global University. What a privilege it is to help another person pursue the calling God has placed on them. I have taken this privilege as a serious responsibility. I believe this person has a great call and I know that Satan will do whatever he can to try and steal, kill, and destroy this calling.
In this class, I read through the same material that the person does, only my reading is abbreviated. The section that we are on now is "Turning from the Wrong Heart." What a powerful section. It has been hitting me hard and bringing me back to the basics of ministry, loving Jesus with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
The first heart mentioned in this section is the doubting heart. It is so easy to doubt in ministry. Especially, when people begin to question how you are doing things. And that happens, far too often. But it mustn't dictate the calling and direction that God is leading you. We must remember this. We are put in place to please God, not man.
Sometimes in our doubt we will begin to try and do things on our own, like Jesus is not moving fast enough. Picture Saul when Samuel didn't show up. He got impatient and offered the sacrifices, which was disobedience to God's command. He lost the kingdom. Lord, forgive me for the times I've gotten impatient. The times I doubted whether you were moving because my expectations were not met or someone else's expectations were not met. May the only expectations that count be Yours. May this lead to patience, knowing that God is truly in control. Amen.
As people question, may the calling of God become greater. People will not follow someone who doubts. So be strong and confident in what God has called you to do. We must know who we are in Christ.
"We must conquer our self-reliance, insecurity, fear, and any other reason that turns us from the action God has laid before us. In the life of ministry, people will seldom surpass their leader when it comes to acting on their faith." - pg. 15 Beginning Ministerial Internship - mentor manual

Monumental Event...

I have to say that in my short few years as a senior pastor our Easter Egg Hunt this past Saturday, March 27, was the best one day outreach that we have ever done. We, as a church, have done Easter Egg Hunts before here at the church. We would show a movie, eat some pizza, and find eggs spread throughout the church. This only ever attracted around 50 kids plus some parents. Not to bad but you are hoping for a lot more.
Well, this past Saturday, under the leadership of one our children's ministries leader, Tara Garris, we moved the event outside to Ford City Park. We had food, games, prizes, and of course, the egg hunt. We had advertised in the local paper, sent out postcards, and hung up posters. This lead to the greatest turnout ever. There were 180 kids ages 1-11 that showed up and probably close to 300 counting parents that accompanied the kids. Praise the Lord. At the end, we shared cardboard testimonies. We wrote on cardboard how God has changed our life. It went really well.
Our goal for this year has been to become better at reaching out to families. We want to give families a place to come and hang out and have fun. But most importantly, we want to see families come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. What a way to start.
I'm looking forward to other great outreaches that we do this year. Thanks to Tara Garris and all of the others who made this possible. The New Life Center Church truly came together to make this a success. Thank you all! Let's do it again for the glory of God!

Observation...

Numbers 13:31-33

31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” 32 And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. 33 There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”



As I read these verses, I can't help but wonder if we have done this in our church's? Do you know what I mean? Have we spread bad reports about our church and the city that we live in bringing discouragement and despair and squelching the power of God to overcome? There are so many church's that have closed down. There are so many church's that are close to it. Why?



Now I know that there may be many reasons that a church closed down, but maybe one of the main reasons that we fail to take into account is the bad reports that are spread among the Christians. You might have heard statements like, "Ford City is a dying community." "Kittanning isn't anything like it used to be." "You can't talk to people in this town because they are religious." These statements might be true but they are bad reports. That might be the outward perception but what is God's perception? In His eyes, these are bad reports. Yes, Ford City and Kittanning have had seasons of set back but there are still souls ripe for the harvest. There are still God ideas out there to see Ford City and Kittanning come to know Him as Lord and Savior. And that is what I'm pursuing.



I'm looking for some Caleb's and Joshua's (read all of Numbers 13) who will stand with me and take this land for Jesus. Yes, it may look difficult but whose eyes are you looking through. If you are looking through God's eyes, nothing is to difficult or impossible. And that is whose eyes I want to see through.



Lord, may you guard my lips and all of our lips from speaking bad reports about the land. There is still hope for this area because you are still on the throne and you always have another move. We are asking You for another move of Your Holy Spirit in this area bringing people to the foot of the cross and also jobs and properity. May I only spread God reports and not look at the giants that might stand in the way. Because there are giant slayers yet to be unleashed that will go forth slaying those giants through the power of the Holy Spirit. May You raise them up for such a time as this, Lord. Amen.

Use the Whole Brain Part 2

I wanted to add some more thoughts from the last post on using your whole brain when reading the Bible.

First and foremost, you need to be reading your Bible. J.I. Packer said, "Any Christian worth his salt ought to read the Bible from cover to cover every year." Reading the Bible is important if you are going to grow as a disciple and in your faith. Romans 10:17 says, "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." So we must lay a foundation of reading the Scriptures everyday, if we want to grow in our faith. But this must not just become a chore. Yes, it needs to be a habit, but it can not become boring.

As humans, we can get caught up in routines so much that a lot of life is lived out of habits. I fold my shorts a certain way so that when I pull them out of the drawer I can put them on without thinking about it whether there is a light on or not. But if my wife folds them a different way, when I pull them out of the drawer I will put them on backwards because I do not pay attention. It is such a habit to go to the drawer pull out my shorts and put them on that I don't even think about it. Folding them different creates an adventure because now I have to think. This is what I want to see when it comes to reading God's Word. It cannot become mindless ritual. It must be a new adventure everyday.

We will go through valley's as we read and we will have our mountain top experiences as we read, thats understandable. But sometimes we get so caught up in reading or praying in a certain place that we lock our creative juices up and it becomes a mindless ritual. The Bible is alive and needs to be read that way. We must unlock the David in all of us (read the Psalms). He had such wonder and awe for God. He asked questions and talked to God like He was a friend. And do you know what? God desires for you to think and ask and talk to Him like David did.

There is so much more in the Word of God if we would let it come alive. As we have been walking through our sermon series, "Love God..." based off of Mark 12:30 and a book by Mark Batterson called "Primal" it has challenged us to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. But what does that really mean? Most of us don't take time to ask God what it really means. We read over it and don't give it a second thought. We can quote it to others but we ourselves have no clue what it means. Let us question and meditate on His Word. He will reveal great truths to us as we read.

You may need to get Scripture on your MP3 player and go for a walk while listening to the Word being read. You may need to play Scripture as you are driving. You may need to get out of the office and read in the sun or by a stream. Don't get locked into mindless repitition. Let God unleash a desire in you for the Word to come alive.

So when I talk about reading creatively through the Bible, we must let the Bible be what it was written to be... Hebrews 4:12, "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." I don't want us to read the Bible out of mindless repitition like I put on my shorts and miss out on what God wants to say.

I am also by no means saying read your own thoughts and meaning into the Bible. I am simply saying that we need to let our minds wonder onto the wonder and awe of who God is as we read the Bible.

Use the Whole Brain...

I want to take time to encourage you to continue to creatively read the Bible. I shared this past Sunday about an observation made by someone that I had never even thought about before. They shared their thoughts on the Prodigal Son. If he was so hungry and longed to eat what he was feeding the pigs, why didn't he just eat it? Did he think the pigs would "squeal" on him? It was a great question. I believe it got all of our minds wondering about why? One of the reasons brought out was the thought of how he was raised by his father. Though he spent his inheritance on wild living, there was still a lifestyle ingrained into him that called for integrity and doing things right. He demonstrated that by not eating what he was feeding the pigs. What a great observation, and there are still more observations that can be made.

Things like that can go unnoticed until we begin to ask questions and read creatively through the Bible. There is so much more to glean from Scripture, yet we read it like we've read it before. Which is probably true, but the Word of God is not like other books that you read and reread. It is the Word of God. It is alive and sharper than any double edged sword. It comes alive everytime you open it's pages and begin to ask questions and read creatively. Don't just read the Word of God left brained (logical). Read it whole brained (using the right side, the creative side) as well.

And here are some ways to wake up your quiet time with God from Pam Farrel written for navpress and published in the January/February 1998 issue.

1. Write out and Personalize Scripture. Put your name into promises relevant to your life.

2. Praise Jesus from A to Z. Think of different words to praise Jesus as you walk through the alphabet.

3. Ponder Scriptures such as Phil. 4:8 asking yourself what is lovely to you? what is worthy of praise? etc.

4. Write about your relationship with God from someone else's point of view. This requires thinking about how we live and how that looks to others. This may give us much to pray about.

5. Dance before God. Put on some praise and worship music and dance for Jesus. This is can be freeing, especially when you add your kids in the mix.

There are many other ways to wake up your quiet time. What are some ways that you can add to this list? Leave a comment and let me know.

2010: The Year of Cultivating

As a church, we take time to seek the Lord on what He would want to do in our lives this coming year. We then name our year what we believe He is leading us to do. This year for the church as a whole, the Lord gave me the name: The Year of Cultivating." I am really excited about this. The past few years we have seen God lead us through some tough spots and now we are beginning to see the fruits from the struggles. And He wants to do more.

Cultivate, in the dictionary, has this as its definition: to loosen or break up the soil; to foster the growth of; to imporve by labor, care, or study; encourage; make friends with. I love that definition. I believe God wants to continue to break the hard ground in our lives (Hosea 10:12) to foster more growth and He will do that as we work for Him (getting involved), care for others, and study His word (signing up for our small groups and personal Bible time). I recently read a quote that said... "Christians are like manure, spread them out and they help things grow. Keep them in a pile and they will stink horribly." So true. We must let God begin to spread us so that we can grow and foster growth in others. We must break the pile mentality and step out into the unknown where Jesus is.

There is going to be an increase in seeing people saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit (personal prayer language), and the gifts of the Spirit manifested in all of our lives as we let God do His work in us. There has been to much hard, dry, ground in our lives for far to long that has stunted our growth. But God is going to begin to break it up, as we let Him, so that we can continue to grow. It won't be easy. I mean, who wants something digging up areas that are hard? It isn't pleasant. But in the end, it brings about growth and that makes it worth it. So get ready for all that God is going to do in 2010. And be encouraged to personally name your year.

A Winner's Attitude

I am an ex-basketball player (I still play but my college and high school days are over and I am not a pro athlete). When you play a sport you develop a winning mindset. You either want to win or you shouldn't play. It seems that in today's day and age that has given way to "Winning isn't everything" or "We're all winners" and other quotes like that. The problem is that those thoughts are not true. Whoever said winning isn't everything never won nothing. Second place is the first loser, so how can we all be winners? Now those thoughts can be taken out of context and developed into pride and a bad attitude, but in the right context should propel us.

I want to bring those thoughts into the church. I have been reading a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. In this book, he challenges the reader on how much do we truly love Christ. It seems like we don't love Him at all if you look at our actions. And hidden behind a lot of our actions is the excuse of I can't do it the full way so I will do it half way. Or in other words, "Winning isn't everything" or "We're all winners." The problem with that is, we have just shrunk God down. In the scriptures, He calls us to some pretty strict standards that we have watered down all in the name of not thinking we can win and not wanting to.

But winning is hard. You don't win unless you train and work hard. Sure we can water that down so that everyone feels like a winner but not everyone is a winner. Only those who are willing to "count the cost." Read this. We must start counting the cost of what it means to be a disciple. There is only one way to win and that is through Jesus Christ. And winning in this area is everything. There is no second place.

I am challenged by this because I can see where I have not kept myself disciplined in the ways of God. There is no longer any room for thoughts of "that was in the Bible but can not be done today." If Peter and Paul and the other disciples walked in it, then I can as well. And I will pursue God more and more until I am a walking example of the Gospel.

Don't let yourself tell yourself you can't do it. Or that only a few people will ever live the way Jesus called us to. We all can live that life if we are willing to submit to Him, discipline ourselves, and keep a winners mindset. Losing is not an option. We don't want to lose. There may be set backs but I don't want that to hinder us from staying on the winners path.

May Christ change the way we think when it comes to being a disciple of Christ. That we would know we can do it through Him who gives us strength. May we cast off complacency, lack of passion and desire, and selfish ambition and may we clothe ourselves with Christ. He is the only one that matters.

Let me know what you think.