A friend of mine and I were having coffee this evening at a local Starbucks, surprise!  And the topic lead to getting ahead of God in our confidence when things are going well.

We spoke somewhat about a brake that God puts on me when I can feel myself inching my way into a greater degree of pridefulness.   I keep this scripture in mind when I feel the Lord is far from me.  When I am alone or lonely, and I am asking the question, ” God where are you?”   How am I asking and why?  Am I broken ?

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. – Psalm 34:18

There is frequently a new nearness from God when I am weak, when I tell God how I work, motivated by my flesh today, and throw my hands in the air and give my fears, troubles, and doubts to Him.  When I am crushed by the weight of my own pride, and the walls near me on all sides there is but one place to go again today, and that is to the cross.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.            – Psalm 51:17

This thing of works, that often “I think” I must do “or else” are not acceptable sacrifices for the Lord.  We are not sufficient in and of ourselves, yet we play trickery all the time with ourselves.  We have nothing to offer God, nothing…. it is Christ alone who saves, and grants us the ability to believe.

We must remember that He is near to us when we are broken.  Embrace trials, don’t look for them, but embrace them, they are here because your Father, “if you’re  a Christian” has allowed them to you for your own good and His glory!

You can see pictures here!  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57397&l=8ba6980509&id=165527183472804

What we saw was a group of men from different walks along the way who had a sincere, and real passion to see people come to know Jesus.  We were especially blessed by seeing how some of them, answered God’s call to be missionaries and plant churches in what would seem the most unlikely thing to do, or impossible odds from the perspective of men.

What we saw was men who have a heart for God, for the gospel, and the lost who have a passion for Jesus.  This was not what we were expecting.  I can see that things for the MBC are turning a corner in church planting and I believe they are beginning to change their stripes from some of the stereotypes of the past!

May God use them, and grant us the opportunity to grow from their experience, may we always seek a dependence upon God in spite of our frequent desires to strategize as we work out our salvation in fear and trembling.  We continually covet your prayers as we grow in our Mission to bring Jesus to a lost and dying world.

I would like to share a couple of things I have gleaned from God’s word in the bible that have helped our family with the raising up of our children. By God’s grace alone we do not seem thus far to have children which desiring to sow their wild oats, or whom have explicit rebellion toward mom and dad.  Not perfect children by any means, but I believe God has been rewarding specifically for obedience to his word.  We become overwhelmed sometimes at God’s hand in their lives, and so very thankful for what He has accomplished in them.

I do know there were times when “Spanking” seemed like it wasn’t the “right” thing to do and I’m not opposed to spanking + however God effectively gives a couple of scriptures which make it clear this is how to handle our children from His word.

One verse in proverbs that is frequently mis-quoted is, “If you spare the rod you spoil the child.”   When the verse in Proverbs 13:24 reads, “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”

It in fact doesn’t mean “Spoil” as if it will go bad, but it puts the onus on the parents who in fact “hate” their children if they do not use the rod.  This is significant in the eyes of God, in the same way he disciplines us he teaches us the model of discipline for our children.   In other words if I love my children I will serve them by spanking them because if I do not I am sending them a completely different message, and that message is there is no consequence for sin.  There is negotiation, or there is bribery, or there is whining, or there is if I pout long enough they will feel sorry for me, but at the heart of spanking there is the desire for your children to feel pain briefly to recognize their own sin.   This is how God teach us and trains us to train our children.  Its purpose is a gospel purpose that when we offend a Holy God there is a consequence.  If we fail to teach these lessons to our children while they are young they will inevitably learn the reality of real life when they live out in the real world breaking laws, and having to serve time for the consequences of their sin.

The worst consequence of all is that of eternal separation from God.  Spanking in and of itself is meant to bring one to an understanding of the brevity of their sin, and there with the spanking comes in the fear of the father.  I believe that one of the things that I have learned in child rearing is that there needs to be a healthy fear of the father.  In other words if dad is a push over, if Dad is soft on discipline and children do not fear the consequence, in other words if the spankings are taps and there is not a sting, there is no brevity felt, there is no fear of discipline.  Without this fear, it is in essence, as if there is  no fear of God before them.  They take discipline lightly and see it as a challenge more than the sin they need to repent from.  When I ask my children, are they afraid of me they will say, “yes, when we do something wrong.”  Does that mean they don’t love me? No.  When I ask if they love me they say absolutely, and thus fear doesn’t mean a lack of love, but simply they fear the consequence and understand the brevity, we pray only that this external fear from their father turns into the training of their conscience which the Holy Spirit uses to accuse them of sin later, as they fear God.  It is precisely because of the discipline, that they know we love them.  This should also be explained to them as they get older.

Needless to say the goal when they are little is simply sinful action, immediate rod, consequence.  So many parents are prone to wait in social settings or because they are tired, but the looser the discipline the looser the behavior.  Children need to know their boundaries and what’s acceptable and what is not and they learn from Mom and Dad.  Each one of you parents are their model, and that old saying, “children get more caught than taught” is true.

As they become older and understand the gospel more and more, it is time to take them to the gospel and have them own each of their sins whether that is between each other or individually.  The attempt is to always get to the cross, and the heart of the matter, to have them contemplate their sin.  At some ages this will not really occur but the pattern still needs to be established based upon their ability to comprehend, and as they grow and by God’s Holy spirit and Grace the light will come on.

Therefore to summarize, the bible teaches that the rod is an important part of child rearing, and that all other methods of discipline by themselves alone are foolish for most ages, because if you do spare the rod you are demonstrating your hate for your children.  Some people will say that the “Rod” simply means discipline, I believe by God’s mercy and Grace we can say our experience confirms God’s way and the rod being the rod I believe is the correct interpretation.  Our oldest daughter Kayla is 14 and we are blessed by God’s hand on her life, as well as our other two children.

Let me say this, before I forget, it is always important to respect your children.  I have failed at this so many times, but give them an unconditional respect.  When doing this, you are extending what you expect them to do with others.  Never discipline in anger, ( I have not always been successful here either) yet when we are unsuccessful we need to do the same in owning our own sin before our children and repenting before them.  Modeling these same behaviors before them when we ourselves sin, so that they are not always seeing themselves on an island where only they sin, but you are on the island struggling in sinning along side of them, and yet repenting of your sin willingly before them as well.

Above all pray for your children and with your children, share your heart and vision with them as you pray for their spouse, whom they may not meet for 10 to 15 years.  Most of all love them and remember your times with them, put yourself in their shoes/perspective and know that you are creating memories right now that they will remember for the rest of their life.

It is ultimately about their heart and how we point their heart toward the gospel. Out of the heart flow the issues of life, and a series I would recommend is, “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” by Tedd Tripp

The road is not over for me yet so still parenting here and much to learn, but God’s word is clear, the question is do we believe Him?

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.. – Romans 6:12

One thing that God has been teaching me, and in my own daily experiences, all times that I can think of when there is strife, pain, difficulty in this life it’s rooted in a few things.  Primarily sin as and in our reaction to sin, the sin of unbelief in the gospel, and at its base it is all rooted in pride.  This is easily seen in the unbelievers life, as I went over Matthew 7 with my children at the dinner table last evening, we discussed the different kinds of fruit.  We talked about the differing natures of the two kinds of trees the fig three and the thorn tree, as they symbolize Faith, and Unbelief.

However once we are believers and Justified, why is it that we continue to sin?  And there are somethings, some pains, some remembrances of sin that hinder our growth.

I have been meditating on hurts and pains of so many and then their reaction to the sin of others.  We have in each decision a choice to make.  Wow God does give us a choice as believers, we will either be a slave to sin or to righteousness, and it says in Romans that if we are believers WE are no longer slaves to sin!!!

If we’re no longer slaves to sin why do we still have sin going on?  I believe that in our justified state, we often times lose sight of the cross.  Some do this  in their laziness and apathy, others forget what Grace means and really is, just like the Israelites failed to remember what God had done, when things get hard or difficult we delve on the circumstances of our own lives and we are failing to look at Christ.  We in fact look at whatever problem, or difficulty in light of our own flesh and we focus on ME.   I heard a preacher on the radio say the other day, I’m not sure who to attribute the quote to, but he said repentance is turning from Self and Faith is turning toward Christ.   We must in our moments of pain, difficulty, and strife, turn away from self-pity, self-crying, and though somethings hurt us to the core of our being, we must turn to our only hope Christ in faith and belief.

I was reading a Spurgeon Sermon that helped me in this regard.

We have seen that God justifieth, that He justifieth the ungodly and that He justifies them through faith in the precious blood of Jesus; we have now to see the condition these ungodly ones are in when Jesus works out their salvation. Many awakened persons are not only troubled about their sin, but about their moral weakness. They have no strength with which to escape from the mire into which they have fallen, nor to keep out of it in after days. They not only lament over what they have done, but over what they cannot do. They feel themselves to be powerless, helpless, and spiritually lifeless. It may sound odd to say that they feel dead, and yet it is even so. They are, in their own esteem, to all good incapable. They cannot travel the road to Heaven, for their bones are broken. “None of the men of strength have found their hands;” in fact, they are “without strength.” Happily, it is written, as the commendation of God’s love to us:
When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6).
Here we see conscious helplessness succored—succored by the interposition of the Lord Jesus. Our helplessness is extreme. It is not written, ” When we were comparatively weak Christ died for us”; or, “When we had only a little strength”; but the description is absolute and unrestricted; “When we were yet without strength.” We had no strength whatever which could aid in our salvation; our Lord’s words were emphatically true, “Without me ye can do nothing.” I may go further than the text, and remind you of the great love wherewith the Lord loved us, “even when we were dead in trespasses and sins.” To be dead is even more than to be without strength.
The one thing that the poor strengthless sinner has to fix his mind upon, and firmly retain, as his one ground of hope, is the divine assurance that “in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Believe this, and all inability will disappear. As it is fabled of Midas that he turned everything into gold by his touch, so it is true of faith that it turns everything it touches into good. Our very needs and weaknesses become blessings when faith deals with them.

We have seen that God justifieth, that He justifieth the ungodly and that He justifies them through faith in the precious blood of Jesus; we have now to see the condition these ungodly ones are in when Jesus works out their salvation. Many awakened persons are not only troubled about their sin, but about their moral weakness. They have no strength with which to escape from the mire into which they have fallen, nor to keep out of it in after days. They not only lament over what they have done, but over what they cannot do. They feel themselves to be powerless, helpless, and spiritually lifeless. It may sound odd to say that they feel dead, and yet it is even so. They are, in their own esteem, to all good incapable. They cannot travel the road to Heaven, for their bones are broken. “None of the men of strength have found their hands;” in fact, they are “without strength.” Happily, it is written, as the commendation of God’s love to us:
When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6).
Here we see conscious helplessness succored—succored by the interposition of the Lord Jesus. Our helplessness is extreme. It is not written, ” When we were comparatively weak Christ died for us”; or, “When we had only a little strength”; but the description is absolute and unrestricted; “When we were yet without strength.” We had no strength whatever which could aid in our salvation; our Lord’s words were emphatically true, “Without me ye can do nothing.” I may go further than the text, and remind you of the great love wherewith the Lord loved us, “even when we were dead in trespasses and sins.” To be dead is even more than to be without strength.
The one thing that the poor strengthless sinner has to fix his mind upon, and firmly retain, as his one ground of hope, is the divine assurance that “in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Believe this, and all inability will disappear. As it is fabled of Midas that he turned everything into gold by his touch, so it is true of faith that it turns everything it touches into good. Our very needs and weaknesses become blessings when faith deals with them.

And it is to the other side of the pain or difficulty we must look.  We must raise our eyes to look into truth, and preach this truth to ourselves, because our emotions and feelings fail, and are often tainted with sin, when not accompanied with truth.  May God grant us the ability to believe, help our unbelief Lord!

I like CJ, would say I am and expert on Pride. I pray God would grant Humility.

A friend recently responded to an email when I sent it out about a need.  This is so true, God is faithful when we are faithless.  It was true of the Israelites and it’s true of God’s people today.  I start off this post by saying this, because sometimes I wonder how we make it through, short answer is the fact that we wouldn’t if it weren’t for God’s faithfulness to us.  We have been in this church plant for going on a year, and we attended a seminar recently on “Biblical Suffering” held at our previous church.   One area where it helped ‘re-establish’ God’s perspective, was the fact that ALL of the difficulties and trials we face are for our training and our Good.

We are facing difficulties as a small church plant but one thing that God has revealed to me is the fact that we are in a Living Seminary.  The kinds of thing going on with us because of our circumstances and situations wouldn’t, and could never be learned in a Seminary.  These kinds of difficulties only come when you press into living out your faith, being purposeful and intentional to encourage and build one another up, and to wash feet in times of great sorrow or distress.  Last night we’re sitting at a leadership meeting and lots of small trials going on, and I think I got a glimpse of understanding in James 1 and Romans 5

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,  for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. -James 1:2-4

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:2-5

I remember someone saying recently, I think it was one of the Tripp brothers, that it’s out of our own sense of brokenness that we can find ourselves ministering one to another.  It is in our own weakness that Christ is shown strong.  It is by God shaming the wisdom of this world, and in a practical hands on way sending His people to “hands on Living Seminary” where He can mold us to be the people of God He needs us to be.  God is far greater at molding our character than we are at learning it in a classroom.

I am so grateful for our Living Seminary, so many people run from difficulty, and yet there has been an abundant Grace in the midst of these difficulties.  A grace we would not have known had we avoided the hardships put before us, God is faithful! And I have such great Hope in Christ that he is molding each of us to be better equipped for the ministry, things which without these experiences we would never be in a place to minister in the same way.

We desire to be about as Living Faith Fellowship these things:

1. Loving God, with all of our heart mind soul and strength!

2. God’s Word ( Proclaiming,knowing, studying, and clinging to sound doctrine. ) ( Part of the first one)

3. People, both Lost and Saved ( We are to love our neighbor as ourself, and we are to love our enemies / those who are enemies of God )  This would include but not limited to sharing the Gospel with both lost and saved.

4. We are committed to the equipping of the saints.  ( This means the ministers do not do the work of ministry but they equip the saints for the work of ministry, the church is doing the work )

5. We have a heavy emphasis on Discipleship and the desire not only see men raised up to a maturity in Christ but also raised up into ministry, that they may raise others up. In this we are comitted to mulitiplication of both disciples and church planting, missions both here and abroad.

6. We are committed to Godly families, and although we would not consider ourselves family integrated we are definately family friendly holding that the parents are the primary discipliers of their Children, yet we also know that there are many spiritual orphans who are in need of discipleship.

7.  We are comitted to the Gospel which is by Grace through Faith alone, and not of works.  We believe that there is nothing we can do to earn salvation, favor, righteousness, acceptance, or love of God but that God in His mercy chose a people for himself, and it is available for those who believe.  It is out of this finished work on the cross and because of it that we then walk in the works God has prepared for us.  We are not saved by works but we are saved for good works.  God has a mission for His people this leads to point 8.

8. We believe we are the people of God called out for the purpose of God, to proclaim His glory to the nations until the whole earth is filled with His glory.

9.  We believe the best way to do this is in the context of Gospel Centric Community.  This means we must spend time with one another, and this time spent with one another is part of the sanctification process where we practice speaking the truth in love as we all become conformed to the image of Christ.  We do not believe that you must live in the North East part of Kansas City, to be part of this community, this is our hub and where many of our families live, but we believe that Jesus came in the form of man, and they called Him Emanuel, “God with Us.”  It is in this example that we have a sympathetic high priest who is with us.  We in turn come together in community and intamacy knowing full well that being with one another isn’t easy but it is what is profitable for our Good to be conformed to the image of Christ.  We need one another for this purpose which lends it self to the last and final point.

10. We desire as a church to me marked by living out the gospel, but in Humility.  We are determined to fight pride and cultivate humility.  We believe that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble, and we desire in our innermost being to be recipeients of God’s abundat Grace at Living Faith Fellowship.

I’m not sure this is complete, I think something is lacking  just not sure yet.

This is what I have do I have any word smith’s out there who desire to help?

One of the things I noticed is that we seem to enjoy and like to put things in boxes, I think somehow we can think about them better if they’re all separated out.  One of the difficulties is that when we think like this the argument can become difficult because it can be based upon some false assumptions like, there are actually two things going on. 

In using my favorite authoritarian source to quote, Wikipedia sates:

 Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity, where the scriptures often describe “evangelism” as “spreading the Gospel”.

As they continued speaking and I believe they were coming to the same conclusions that “Church Planters” and I would take it a step further, all Christian’s have a mission.  Some may be particularly gifted but we are all called to this one thing “Make Disciples.”  They were coming to the conclusion then that it was not an either you evangelize or you befriend only in the context of relationships, but the conclusion was that you do both. 

One thing that I think we continue to have a problem with in America is we draw up boxes and put ourselves in them to often justify our behavior either to be active about something or inactive, and the latter is generally more often the case. 

If I say that some will knock on doors, and others will meet someone at work and both will openly share Christ not to earn anything from God but because of what God did in sending His son to die on the cross and take all the wrath that we deserve,  if our motivation is this, then we are all called to evangelize and make disciples in the way God designed us.  It will look differently but will require personal boldness and faith. This is our calling as believers in Christ to both bring one another the gospel of Jesus Christ and the cross in repentance when we are struggling with sin (Sanctification), and to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world for the unbeliever, in repentance and faith as a new believer.  It’s not either be evangelistic or be relational but it’s be evangelistic and be relational. 

This reminded me of a blog that I read not too long ago about “Gospel Fluency.”  It talks to us about rehearsing all the time the gospel so that whatever situation or circumstance either believer or unbeliever, that we will be equipped to share the Gospel in any capicity with any circumstance we are faced with.

As for Church planting it was interesting to hear the balancing of all of these things from the seminary professor and students. 

It lead me to tweat these thoughts soon after;

I would like to have spoken with them a lot more, yet I didn’t want to impose.  I did say however that one of the difficulties of seminary for me, I think it is profitable, yet there is no one from seminary giving there life away down in the city.  I say that and I know there is a church plant from and a pastor who is working hard to be a pastor in the city, yet the students go back to the dorms at night, very little cost to come down preach a sermon, sing songs, and go home, what about shepherding….?  When will seminary begin to incorporate hands on ministry in it’s curriculum?

One last thought?   Seminary exist because the Church has failed to raise up men to full maturity in ministry.  Where are the ministers mentoring / discipling men into ministry?

Seminaries are essential now but the hope would be that true revival in the churches of America would take place and that Churches would raise and plant from their own congregations raising men to have a seminary and beyond level of education.

Some of the quotes -

“The Danger now is that when we gather in our church buildings to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the bible, Instead we may be worshiping our selves.”

“The price is certainly high for people who don’t know Christ and who live in a world where Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith. While Christians choose to spend their lives fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives proclaiming the Kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the gospel remain in the dark.”

Somehow we believe we can still serve God and mammon.

“We are afraid that if we stop and really look at God in his Word, we might discover that he evokes greater awe and demands deeper worship than we are ready to give him…. So the challenge for us is to live in such a way that we are radically dependent on and desperate for the power that only God can provide.”

I am only in Chapter three of the book, I have many pages left, but I am already stirred to re-examine my life. I pray God grant me more grace.

I find myself now settled in the city, and after reading part of this book to be re-examining my own dependence upon Christ.  Once we set back in our creature comforts inside our homes, the suburbs and the city don’t look a lot different inside the house, it’s only on the outside things are different. On the inside our dependence upon our schedules, upon our material things, dependence upon our own ideas settle in and our dependence upon God is weakened. We begin again our self-indulgence vs. our self-denial, and we attach to this world as we consume and consume and consume.

Here’s what the sick part as I read the book, we use Jesus to indulge ourselves in Christainity vs. as a motivating factor of denying ourselves. There is a time to study the word, and much time needed, there is a time for retreats, there is a time for conferences, there is a time for music, and preaching, there is time for these things. Yet if these things don’t motivate us to LIVE the self denying life are we denying ourselves picking up our cross and following Jesus? If we are consumers of God’s word only and are not doing what it says what brings us to a different place that some other self-indulgence that we have.   The scary thing is we heap condemnation upon ourselves because we are accountable for what has been made known to us.  We know so much.

However, of we are not taking risk for His Kingdom, His Glory, His purposes, then are we walking out the faith we are consuming Him for ourselves?

Has it gone beyond the mind, has it moved to the heart? If it has in any degree someone’s going to think “You’re Crazy.” What’s wrong with them, they have all of this opportunity for “STUFF” for “SELF-ASSURANCE” for “MONEY”, “SECURITY” yet they deny themselves, what’s wrong with them?   

The world, and even most of the American church will think you’re out of your mind if you live this way.

Two bystanders hurt in gas station crash

Question:

Why would you move somewhere unsafe?  Why would you move to the city?

Answer: Jesus