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On August 3, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Ephesians 4: 11 – 12

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.

These are called the five-fold ministries and God calls people to these offices. What I found so interesting about this list is that only one of these ministerial offices is directed towards people outside of the church and, of course, that would be the evangelist. Verse 12 tells us that God gave these offices, and people to fill them, in order to equip the church for her work. In other words, the saints, or the laity, are being equipped for the work of the church. You are the body of Christ.

Jesus told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Luke 16:15) but then when he gave the ministerial offices he gave four that were designed more for the church and only one specifically for the unsaved. These offices are appointed to equip us to go into all the world and preach the gospel. They are designated to teach us and build us up. But we are not supposed to only absorb the teachings for ourselves. We are meant to be the distributors of the good news of Jesus Christ. Now how do we do that? Well, this specifically means that we were not all called to preach since we are not all called into one of the five-fold ministries. But we are all called and equipped for “the work of service.” Your calling might be as a school teacher or a hair dresser. Or maybe you are a doctor or work in a laundry. You are the word of the Lord that is sent into the world and you are going to interact with a lot more people than the pastor at your church.  

You are the one who will be there when a co-worker has trouble. You will be the one they see day in and day out. You don’t have to preach at them. Just let the love of God show in what you do. Be loving and compassionate. Do your job with vigor and honesty. Let them see how a child of the most high behaves. Let the light, who is Jesus, inside you shine. It’s not about telling other people what they should do. It is about being who you should be and allowing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5: 22) to manifest in your daily life. That is how people will be saved, by love. Because God so loved, he gave . . . (John 3: 16).

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Big Guns

On July 16, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Matthew 5: 44

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

Okay, now we are talking about serious spiritual warfare. This verse doesn’t look like warfare though, does it? None the less, this is where the rubber meets the road. When the enemy is all around you and it feels like even the house is falling down on you then start praying. Sometimes the pressure on you is so heavy that it is hard to pray. I understand that. Just come up with something real simple that you can say each time you feel overwhelmed. Here is an example, “Father, I forgive them and ask you to forgive them. I pray that you bless them and meet their needs.” Then every time that feeling comes in your gut just turn your thoughts to our beloved Father and pray those words.

Jesus gave this scripture for us, not for them. He said “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16: 33 NIV). This is one of the ways that he is leading us from trouble to overcoming. Trouble comes but Jesus is our victory. He has already provided the means of triumph. He spent his time on earth teaching us those means. So when you read that you should pray for your enemies, take heart because Jesus is leading you to the victory. Glory!

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Spiritual Requirements

On June 17, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Micah 6: 8

He has told you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

It turns out that it really isn’t all that difficult to figure out how to be a good Christian. We have the words of Jesus. We listen to his words and do them. Even in the Old Testament days, before Jesus was manifested in the earth, God sent His word to guide us. Through the prophet Micah God revealed His will for us; walk humbly with our God, do justice and extend lovingkindness. Now what is difficult about that? 

Notice that God said to walk “with” Him. That is interesting. Many times I hear people say, “Walk humbly before your God,” but that is not what God said. His directive to us is to walk “with” Him. 

Secondly, be a just person. You can decide for yourself what that means but at a simple level it means to be fair to people. That is not really a difficult concept. I hear people say so often, “Well, life isn’t fair,” and they use that as justification to treat people unfairly. My response is, “Try to sell that land to God.” I don’t think He will buy that argument. He is a fair God and He requires us to treat people fairly as well. 

Last, be a kind person. Be kind to others. This one requirement is so broad, so vast in scope that it will cause us to reflect the essential nature of God in everything we do. Kindness is generated through love. In every single human interaction, be kind. That means be kind to your spouse, your children, your boss, your employees, the guy who cuts the grass, the woman who cleans the house, the clerk at the store, and on and on. Think of all of the people you come in contact with during a single day. Some of them you may not even particularly like but if you are a child of God you will show lovingkindness to every single one of them.

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Divinely Powerful

On June 12, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

2 Corinthians 10: 3 – 4

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

How easy it is to forget that, although we are in this world, we are not to war according to the world. But wouldn’t we really rather have divinely appointed weapons anyway? Paul is reminding his readers that we are not to walk according to the flesh and we are not to fight our battles in the flesh or as we learned to do. We are to learn a new way to wage war. That is in the Spirit. We wage war in the Spirit through prayer and by speaking the Word of God. Every time we speak a verse of the Bible over a situation, we are waging Spiritual war.

If you have a mountainous challenge before you right now, set your heart and mind to use your most powerful arsenal, use the divinely appointed weapons of the Spirit. They are prayer, God’s word and love. We do not want to hear that last one but it is the nuclear bomb of spiritual weaponry. You are allowed to use this bomb. Whatever challenge or enemies you are facing today, remember to pull out the big guns. Don’t fight your battles in the flesh. Use the weapons that God Almighty has provided you.

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Force for Good

On April 15, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Hebrews 10: 24

Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.

That is a new thought but worth pondering. How do we encourage others so that their lives become expressions of love and good deeds or goodness? We are meant to be inspirational. Isn’t that something? Our lives are not only about us. They are about the impact we have on others and the effect that impact creates in them for yet other people. But to call it by another name, we are forces for good. We purposefully do good to others and stimulate them to do good to still others. And while I haven’t thought about it exactly in these terms before isn’t this still the story of a seed? 

Jesus asked, “How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it?” (Mark 4: 30). He answered the question by telling the story of the mustard seed. So the kingdom of God is like a seed. This is one of the largest, most profound and yet overlooked messages in the Bible. Let me repeat it, the kingdom of God is like a seed. So, if we wish to participate in the kingdom, then we all must become farmers. If you are not sowing seed then you are not taking part in the kingdom of God. We sow into other people’s lives. That is the first step to stimulating others into acts of love and kindness. But the message of this scripture isn’t necessarily about what we can do to inspire others but rather that we should give consideration to how we may stimulate others. In other words, this is supposed to be a subject of thought and prayer. This would be a good question to put before the Lord so that we can find out his thoughts.

One might also see in here a domino effect. If we do good unto others and motivate them to love and good deeds then it seems reasonable that they will inspire others, and on and on. One seed produces a whole plant which might represent all of the people in your life. The fruit of the plant has many, many seeds within it. So each of the people in your life has an abundant opportunity to sow seeds themselves which ultimately leads to many seeds of love and good deeds being cast abroad. From one seed, a seed as small as a mustard seed comes many thousands of acts of love and goodness. Ponder, consider how we might encourage each other to love and good deeds. Perhaps share your good ideas on our blogsite. If we share a little and encourage a little maybe very soon we can cover the area in a garden like Eden.

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The Character of God

On April 3, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Galatians 5: 22

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

We saw yesterday from 1 John 4: 8 and 1 Corinthians 13: 4 – 8 that God’s essential nature is love. Today’s verse reveals the characteristics of God’s personality. As you look at them you can see that first is love but moreover that all the rest flow from love. The best way to get the full revelation of this verse is to put “God is” in front of each word i.e. God is love, God is joy….

These characteristics determine how God behaves and how He interacts with others just the same way as our personality traits predict how we will behave. So, God is always patient with us, always loving, kind and gentle. He exercises great self-control. Most of us can testify to the latter one.

Conversely, we can know what God is not by acknowledging His qualities. For example, we can deduce that God is not unkind or unfaithful. Can we not deduce a great deal more though? He is not cruel, vengeful, harsh, intolerant, hateful, spiteful or mean-spirited. He is all things which are good and none of those traits which are painful to us. He is ultimate goodness and kindness. He is neither over-bearing nor a punitive spirit. His intent, therefore, is not to punish us but rather to guide us with loving hands. And He is not scary. He is beautiful. He is warmth and sunshine.

We can know the Father of all personally, intimately and as we do we perceive greater and greater levels of His great kindness and affection. He is completely predictable in His goodness towards all creation. He loves us.

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The Essential Nature of God

On April 2, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

1 John 4: 8

God is love.

1 Corinthians 13: 4 – 8

Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes al things hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

God is love. It is His essential nature; what He is, what He is made of. Love is not an attribute of God, not one of His characteristics. It is the substance of who and what He is. We cannot separate love from God but many people, even those of the church, have lost the certainty of that statement. We understand with our minds that God is love but in our hearts we still hold onto a God who is vengeful and wrathful.

When we combine the two verses for today we get an accurate picture of God. God is patient, God is kind, and is not jealous; God does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; He does not seek His own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes al things hopes all things, endures all things. God never fails.

Our God is the perfect parent. Love drives everything He does. His love is sacrificial and unselfish. He is everything we want in a friend, spouse or parent and He is all those to us. He is perfect love. There is no fear in His presence because perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4: 18). Our God who is mighty in deed is as gentle as a lamb. 

We really must get a deep revelation of this lover who is our God. We need to hold deep within our hearts the absolute truth of the Father’s love for each one of us individually. There is no power until there is this abiding truth within us. Your Father loves you absolutely and unconditionally. Meditate on that until you cannot be swayed. Then you will soar with wings as eagles.

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