Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey Your Word.

You are good, and what you do is good. Teach me Your decrees!

Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep your precepts with all my heart. Their hearts are callous and unfeeling, but I delight in Your Law.

It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.

The Law from Your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.

 Psalm 119:65-72

I am walking in this truth right now. Oh how rich this message is! Until we have a revelation of God’s love, it’s easy to see the Old Testament as an endless series of proofs of God’s anger and judgment and vengeful wrath. But once you experience even a small dose of God’s love, you begin to see that it is God’s patient and enduring love that allows suffering to come as a consequence for persistent sin in order to drive the suffering son or daughter back into the Father’s arms.

The prodigal son is the perfect example of this. He was given his inheritance, which he squandered foolishly. He then suffered the misery, humiliation, and hunger associated with foolish living. This was not God’s wrath upon him. This was what his choices had earned. And it wasn’t until he suffered that he came to his senses and realized that life would be better as a servant in his father’s house than as a starving free man with no skills or prospects.

In my own life, God has allowed me to come to my wits end many times. It is in this moment of helpless suffering that I have been roused out of my stupor and remembered to call upon the name of the Lord. He is quick to answer my call, but He longs for a better, longer, and more intimate relationship than one of mere rescue.

Have you called on the name of the Lord without holding back?

Now is the time to take a step aside and revisit what God is already saying to you.

Don’t worry about getting a fresh revelation from God today. Concern yourself with re-reading and re-hearing what God has already spoken.

Your only offensive weapon is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word (“rhema”) of God. That which God has spoken over you. It is yours to do warfare with it. To stand firm and declare and agree with. To bathe your synapses in its existence and reality.

Repeat the words God has already spoken. Stand in agreement with Him today. As we stand together, collectively, for that which the Lord has spoken over us, we will see doors crack open and slivers of light intrude upon our former darkness.

Be prepared to step into the light today. A new day is dawning.

I heard a pastor talk recently about how we choose which local church to attend. His premise was fascinating. He said that whether or not you are “being fed” by the Sunday morning sermon is the wrong foundation for basing your decision. And that people who base their decisions on this factor are just immature believers who haven’t learned yet how to get fed directly through the Word and their personal relationship with Jesus.

This only describes about 80% of the American Church, I’m guessing.

This pastor continued to say that his church’s home groups were the true lifeblood of their church. And that sounded great to me… at first. Then I got to thinking about it, and I decided that what he’s really saying is that his Sunday service is largely irrelevant.

1. Stay at your current church and serve regardless of how the preaching “feeds” you.

So if the weekly sermon, which is at 50-70% of the Sunday service, is irrelevant to my decision making process, then I hardly think the remaining 30% of worship music and announcements qualify as legitimate reasons for choosing. So then… if I spend two hours getting my family ready plus driving to and from a Sunday service that shouldn’t affect my affiliation with the church body , I’m going to be making my decision almost solely on the basis of the home groups.

2. Most of the important stuff is in the home groups.

If the real life of the church is the home group, and I can skip the service because it’s not worth spending 2-3 hrs preparing for, then why don’t I just attend a home-based church and skip the whole corporate long-distance drive and formality? If the Sunday service is less important than the home groups, why waste time on it? Why waste my tithes on building rent and salaries that aren’t the core of my church value?

3. The Church has some ‘splainin’ to do!

These are legitimate questions the Church needs to answer. And this doesn’t even REALLy cover the subjects of appropriate use of church tithes, whether God wants you to drive across the city to meet with your closest Christian brothers and sisters, or whether the pastor is really pastoring (or just teaching and administrating).

This is a bit of an inflammatory post. Understood. The Church has suppressed questioning for too long. We don’t need to do away with the Church or rebel against authority. We do, however, need to be relevant, applicable, and useful to the 21st Century human being. And if we’re not, we need to change.

What do you think about the importance of “being fed” by your pastoral staff? What is the primary benefit of a corporate church service vs a home-based church?

Ironically, both churches we’ve visited since moving to Franklin, TN began in someone’s home. It’s worth examining why a house church should become an institutional church. We’ll dig deeper into this soon.

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

There’s a man reading this named William. You’ve recently lost your job. Your spirit is crushed. I don’t quite understand the details. I get the sense that your job is directly involves investing/trading on Wall Street.

I see you have an entrepreneurial spirit. You’re sitting on an idea God has breathed into you to create wealth. You are a Kingdom financier.

Be encouraged. Be strengthened in spirit. Test the word. Pray over it. When He confirms and you have peace in your heart at the thought of stepping out, it will be time to lunge forward.

Blessings upon your new venture.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

Hebrews 11:1-2

Faith is perhaps the most talked about word from the Bible, yet most people don’t understand it. We’ve all heard that first sentence, but I’m guessing many of us don’t have the second sentence memorized.

It’s important because it provides CONTEXT. And context is important.

You’ve also no doubt heard the other most popular verse about faith:

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of Christ.

Romans 10:17

Uh… What? What does that mean?

Let’s take what we just read and let it add further context to the first one.

What is faith? It is being sure of what we hope for and it is what we are certain of yet do not see. How do we get faith? Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ. And this is what the ancients were commended for.

Case Study: The Life of Abraham

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

So Abram is approached by a voice. For all we know, he heard a voice and nothing more. This voice made him promises based on his obedience. And he was told to make four MAJOR life changes:

• Leave your familiar surroundings
• Leave your community
• Leave your extended family
• Go to a place you’ve never seen before

So Abram left, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

This, friends, is faith. Don’t confuse it with what some religious groups essentially call “wishful thinking” or “willing yourself to agree with something”. That’s not faith. There is a formula for faith. It’s quite simple, and if you let it, it will revolutionize your thinking by its simplicity.

God speaks + You hear + You believe + You obey = Faith

Whether it’s directly from God’s mouth to your heart, through a friend, or through Scripture, God is constantly speaking to you each and every day. Whether you’re listening is up to you. Whether you’re believing what you hear is more affected by the posture of your affection and desire.

But faith isn’t reasoning yourself into abstaining from cigarettes or alcohol. It’s not doing good deeds to feel good about yourself or to try to earn your way into heaven. Faith is believing what you hear God say.

That’s it. It’s that simple. Abraham was going about his life when God spoke to him and told him to leave his hometown and everything familiar. He trusted God and chose to go. He didn’t know what would happen along the way. He didn’t have a roadmap. He just obeyed. And he obeyed because he believed it was better to obey this God than to do what felt comfortable.

And it was counted as righteousness to him. In Hebrews, God commends Abraham especially, calling him “the father of all who believe.” We also know from Scripture that by faith Abraham was deemed righteous by God.

All throughout the 11th chapter of Hebrews, we read about men and women of faith. These people trusted God. That’s what the Bible means when it says over and over again “By faith, Noah…” and “By faith, Abraham…” and “By faith, Enoch…” God spoke to them, and they believed him.

That, my friends, is what faith is.

What has God said to you? If you’re not sure, pray this prayer right now with me:

“Holy Spirit, thank you for speaking to me. What are you trying to tell me through this article?”

Now stop. Just listen.

That happens because we adopt labels without considering their origin. To these people, “organic” might as well be “low fat” or “no carbs”. It’s just a ploy to get people to spend more money on their health.

Unprocessed, organic, real foods aren’t trends or fads like Weight Watchers. They’re foods in their natural habitats, unaltered by any chemicals or processes that would alter their molecular structure and which could infect a person during consumption. The most common toxic intruders are pesticides or genetically modified plants (GMOs).

Pesticide - a chemical preparation for destroying plant, fungal, or animal pests.

At some point, either the 1700s or the 1800s, pesticides such as arsenic became widespread in order to fight off pests and rodents. To preserve crops so the farmers wouldn’t lose money or starve. Later on came the scientific discoveries that made genetic modification possible.

Before pesticides, fruit was just fruit. Vegetables were just vegetables. Meat was meat. Salt was the preservative. Additional flavors were herbs and other spices found in plants.

In other words, food was ALWAYS organic because there was no alternative.

It’s not a fad. It’s not a gimmick. Put simply, man and woman ate whatever God placed on the earth.

You don’t add sugar into your gas tank and expect it to run just like it was on pure gasoline. Your body is a natural complex organism, made for natural food. Eat food without unintended additives and your organs can process the food just fine, without backing up or clogging or congestion.

It’s a simple concept, when you step outside your 21st century mindset.