Seize the Day!

"Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, or that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again" (Philippians 1:20-26).

Paul encourages us to live every day as if it is our last. We have heard this often in our lives, but we seldom do anything about it. Consider the things you have done this week. How often have you found yourself pondering the fact that you have wasted parts of your day and not accomplished the things you set out to do. Probably, more times than not, we have not even set out to do the right things. Be honest, if you knew that this week would be your last week on earth, would it not change your priorities? Could it be that our hearts do not cry out for God because we believe that it will be a long time before we see Him face to face? Most of us do not think about death and dying. We primarily believe that we will live forever (not really, we just act like that is our philosophy of life).

We would be amazed at how much deeper our walk with God would be if we truly expected to see Him soon. Maybe that is why Paul's life was a continual heartcry for God. He fully believed that Jesus was going to return in his lifetime. Later, when he realized that he was going to die soon, he wrote a letter to Timothy (2 Timothy) and shared with him some of the most vital things in ministry. Maybe we should realize that we do not have any guarantees and we do not know our Sovereign Lord's timetable. We do know that we are a part of His divine purpose and He calls upon us to live our lives to the fullest each and every day for His glory.

Joe Thorn relates the following in his book, "Note to Self," "Consider that God has ordered your days. He has given you a certain number of days to use for his glory and the good of those around you. What are you doing with the time you have?" I believe that is the question of utmost importance: What are we doing with the time we have been given? Are we living if for the glory of God? Come on my friends, Seize the Day!

The Missing Link

After pastoring churches for over 26 years I still struggle with the anomaly of people living under the umbrella of "Christians" without having a passion to pursue Christ. Today, the term "Christian" has come to mean one who goes to church and lives a pretty good life. In fact, the average person claiming the name "Christian" only attends church once every other week, does not read his Bible daily, finds it difficult to make time to pray, has never shared his "faith" with another person, and gives only 2% of his income to the work of the church. No wonder our churches are declining and our witness is non-existent. I used to spend hours a day wondering when the hearts of God's people were going to change. What was it going to take to start a passionate fire burning in the hearts of Christians? I wondered what was the missing link?

The last several weeks I believe that God has begun to reveal to me the missing link that is hindering God's people from ardently pursuing Him. The reason this link has been so difficult to discover is because every time it comes to light it is put to rest by those with the privilege and position to implement it. God has revealed to me that the "church" today does not passionately pursue Him and long for a radical change in their lives because their leaders do not passionately pursue Him. Now, here me out. I am not condemning the deacons and elders of our churches. I believe that just as we must look to the spiritual leader of a household when things are out of order, we must look at the spiritual leader of the church when it is out of order. Yes, the missing link is the Pastor!

Again, I am not pointing fingers at the pastors of other churches all across the world. I do not know their hearts nor do I know of their walk. The only pastor I know intimately is myself. While I could stroke my ego and profess that I do read the Bible daily, find time to pray, share my faith, and give a tithe of my income; God also reminds me that often these things are done out of habit or obligation and not from an intimate pursuit of Him. In most cases, the people will not go deeper in their walk than their spiritual leader. Too often as pastors we look at our congregation and pray that "they" would have a radical change in their hearts, when what is really needed is for us "pastors" to be radically changed.

Beginning tonight, my heartcry is no longer, "God change 'their' heart," but "God change my heart." I am the one who needs a fire lit in him. God is calling me to pursue Him with my whole heart. He is calling me to die to self, take up my cross and follow me. Lets be honest pastors, how many of us are truly dying to ourselves and taking up the way of suffering for Jesus? If Christ loves the church and died for her, then what does that say about His expectations of the pastor? If we really want to experience revival, the real missing link is staring at us in the mirror every morning . . . when I humble myself, turn from my wicked ways, pray,and seek His face, then He will hear my heartcry and bring healing. Our question is how bad do we really want the glory of God to come down and fill our land? Bad enough to be honest before God and cry out for Him to change us from the inside out?

Willing to Die for Love

If the key to loving God is obeying His commands, then my guess is we don't really love God as much as we claim. Oh, it's easy to shout and holler and sing praises gathered with other Christians in worship. And yes, it's easy to tell of our love for God when we share a testimony at church. But I wonder, does that really say much about our love of God? I believe the real test of our love for God is our commitment to walk in obedience to His commands when no one is there to cheer us on. I believe we learn more about the depth of our love for God on a rainy Monday morning at work than we do at worship celebration on Sunday morning.
Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that if they truly loved Him they were to obey His commands (John 14:23; John 14:24; John 15:10). It seems the real test of love is to live our lives in such a way that we carry out the Lord's commands. So, what does a deep love for God really look like? It's not evidenced by how many "Christian" bumper stickers you have on your car, or by how often you wear "Christian" t-shirts. A deep love for God is demonstrated when we love our neighbors as ourselves, when we put others first, when we lose ourselves in serving others. In fact, when you truly love God, you begin to look more and more like Jesus. True love for God is measured by how our lives are daily conformed to the image of Jesus. Do you really love God? I mean really? Because, if you do, it will cost you your life. Those who truly love God lay down their lives for Him . . . and never pick them up again (John 15:13).

Whatever Happened To Sin?

Have you noticed the trend in America to eliminate sin? No longer do we identify sin as that which leads to immoral behavior. No, we have become much to proper for that. Instead we blame our surroundings, our background, the people we hang with, our parents, some emotional instability, or call it deviancy. Today our society scratches its head and accepts the moral decay of America as a phenomenon that simply arises. This is not a new occurance. In 1979, psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote, "I believe there is "sin" which is expressed in ways which cannot be subsumed . . . as 'crime,' 'disease,' delinquency,' 'deviancy.' There is immorality; there is unethical behavior, there is wrongdoing. And I hope to show that there is usefulness in retaining the concept, and indeed the word, SIN, which now shows some signs of returning to public acceptance."
Despite Menninger's hopes of the terminology of sin being once again prevalent in our culture, such is not the case. We continue to give it other, more acceptable labels that tend to distance us from the accountability of our actions. Unfortunately, many churches in America have chosen to follow suit and remove the terminology of sin from their pulpits. One prominent televison preacher who speaks to tens of thousands at every service told Christianity Today, "sin is not on the menu at our church." His reasoning was that people did not want to hear about their sin, they wanted to find words of hope and encouragement. The problem with this type of preaching is that there is no hope and encouragement until we acknowledge our sin, turn from our sin, and embrace Jesus Christ as our Lord.
In his book, The Disappearance of God, Albert Mohler calls this rejection of the notion of sin by our churches an abdication of the gospel. He remarks, "where sin is not faced as sin, grace cannot be grace." If we are going to have revival in our churches and across America then we must get serious about our sin problem. The church must lead the charge in once again calling sin, sin. We must recognize our sin and take responsibility for it, and repent of it. We cannot expect the world to take sin seriously until the church does. Whatever Happened To Sin? Nothing, it's still prevalent in our lives and separates us from a Holy God. Now is the time to confess our sin and be reconciled to God.

America In Crisis

We have been blessed over the years to live in a land of plenty. Americans are, by far, the richest people in the world. Our dilemma is not can we find something to eat, but rather what shall we eat today. We live in houses with air conditoning and heat, electricity and running water. We are indeed a very rich people. We drive to the grocery in our relatively new automobiles and walk down the aisles and choose what we would like to eat for the coming week. After we have purchased our groceries we stop by McDonald's, choosing not only to have a hamburger, but we pay someone else to fix it for us. Stocked with our groceries and filled with our hamburgers, we stop by the video store to rent a movie to watch on our television.
No wonder much of the world pays little attention to our cries of economic crisis. When 53% of the world survives on 2 dollars a day, its hard for them to muster up much sympathy for us simply because our choices have been adjusted from filet mignon to hamburger (still paying for someone else to fix it for us). While much of our world truly struggles to survive and deals with life and death struggles daily, we continue driving our cars, enjoying our latte's and watching our televisions. We may have a crisis in America, but it't not an economic crisis.
The crisis that America is facing is a spiritual crisis. We believe that the world exists for our good pleasure. We have been mistakenly taught that we have achieved our success. We are the reason that America has prospered. Good ole American ingenuity got us to this pinnacle of economic success. Decade by decade we have swallowed this lie and now we believe that everything that exists, exists for our pleasure. We believe we deserve the good things in life. We have taken the luxuries of life and renamed them "necessitiies."
We would do well to remember the words of Joshua to Israel for they are powerfully relevant to America today, "I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant. Now, therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness" (Joshua 24:13-14a). The crisis we face is one of our own making. We have forgotten who our God is. We have placed our trust in our own resources, intelligence, and wealth and have abandoned the God who has blessed us in the past. Christians, it's time to once again return to the Lord and place your trust in Him. Life is not about your pleasure; it's about honoring and glorifying God. We must quit crying about our economic "crisis" and take note of our spiritual crisis. Return to God and live for His glory!

The Church: Called to Display The Glory of God

In reading the Scripture we know that the task of the church is to display the glory of God to the world. This sounds like a clear answer until one begins to consider how one goes about doing this. How do we as individuals display the glory of God? What does it mean to display the glory of God? John Piper defines the displaying of the glory of God as holy perfection going public. I believe this is where the church misses the mark. No one would deny that we are to make Christ known to a lost world, nor that we are to display the glory of God.
The problem arises in that many Christians believe that these tasks are accomplished through our worship services. While it is true that our worship services must display the glory of God and should definitely magnify His Name; this is not what is meant by "holy perfection going public." I think what God has in mind is more in keeping with the statement of Jesus that we are to ". . . let your lights so shine before men that they might see your good works and glorify the Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).
The church is made up of baptized believers. Each one of us make up the church. If we are to display God's Glory then we must each take the holy perfection, that has been imputed to us through the blood of Jesus Christ, public. We must start walking worthy of our calling as Christians. We are called to be set apart, holy, different from everyone else. The church must begin living out the faith we profess. Its time for the church to take God's Holy Pefection public by walking in the Word and living our lives in such a way that the world sees Jesus in us. Our world has yet to see the glory of God manifested by His Church. Now is the time! The church must rise up and walk in holiness so that the glory of God will shine and the world will magnify the Father.

Whatever Happened to the Church?

I've been reading a lot lately about mission work and church planting across the world. As I read and study the strategies these missionaries and church planters use to try to establish a connection with their respective communities I began to wonder why the local church is not more effective in doing the same thing.
It seems everyone gets excited and pumped up about going on a short-term mission trip to evangelize an area in Africa or some Indian village in the Southwest, but very few will even take a small amount of time out of their day to come together and devise strategies to do these same things in their own ministry field. I know of many associations and churches that are really pushing establishing new church plants. While I am all in favor of planting churches, in fact, I am in the process of leading our church to plant a church in a surrounding community, it seems to me that we are quick to send our resources to help start a work in a different area, while dragging our feet in our own local churches.
When we think of church plants we think of discovering the community in which the church will be planted, planning carefully how we are going to go about reaching this community and engaging in numerous evangelistic efforts to reach these people. I want to argue that if we would stop what we are doing (or not doing) and seek the heart of God and pray over our present community just maybe God would reignite a passion for the people in our neighborhoods. The church needs to become the church again. We need to develop a strategy to reach the people in our own community, plan and implement evangelistic events to reach the lost in our neighborhoods. Once we become a mission-minded church seeking to reach our local community, then we will be much more effective at planting churches in new areas to reach another segment of people. Whatever happened to the church? We grew stagnant and lazy. Its time for the church to rise up and develop a strategy to reach our neighborhoods.