Challenged

P 2958 When the Master is away …!

/ DVH

… That’s when the bad servants beat up the good ones and started stealing, plus they cheat others, and complain about some people getting more than them.  Once they even killed off the heir so they could have the lot! There’s my potted version of at least 3 of those parables. 

The Lord told over 30 stories about servants and masters … do you think maybe He had a point for us?? My thought for today is this: those stories, parables, illustrations of what NOT to do are written to warn us. We’re His servants —remember? Those things were written to alert us about the kind of stuff we can fall into when the Holy Spirit is not welcome. You think that’s an exaggeration right? Yeah, so did I until the Lord put His great big exclamation point right next to the title of this blog! 

Years ago, there was this hair product called Brylcreem. It fixed a guy’s hair in place like glue!! Forget gels … this stuff was shiny and it stuck your hair together into the kind of a shiny helmet that wouldn’t move in a Force 4 gale! Men loved it. Meanwhile, at the same time, the ladies were also supergluing their hair into teased up balls that stood about 6-10cms away from their heads. We did this stuff … be-ca-us-e…it was the fashion. How dumb can you get and still breathe? Actually you couldn’t breathe much at all – that hair spray left you coughing and spluttering for ages.

What has hairspray and Brylcreem got to do with the church? Any church can get stuck in a shape that comes from the past by doing what we have always done, simply because it worked in the past! That’s what. OR we can end up following the fashions of the mega churches around us – instead of finding our own place. Maybe we’ve stopped thinking about what the Master of HIS vineyard told us to do, and started to think that our church is ours… OR … we want to do everything the way our great granddaddy did it because ‘he founded this church and they had wonderful ‘praise the Lord’ meetings way back then. This church has great roots.’ 

Fabulous. So how is the fruit production going? Good roots mean good fruit right? 😳 Are we still excited about the faith we first had when we met the Lord? We were over-the-moon-passionate about those things He is passionate about. IE: PEOPLE! We have been exhorted, in the book, not to leave our first love behind… plus our faith is meant to grow and expand and affect everyone around us … until we leave here. 

To me that means we should be trusting God with more today than we did last year … because, to begin with, more stuff keeps happening in this world each year! Things change, our kids grow, and our problems are no longer how long will they sleep? They are: what time did they come home last night? Who are they hanging around with? Unless we listen to Him and He starts blessing our meetings in such a way that others come to believe, we can easily lose our way. – like the servants in those parables.  

They had meetings in the bible that were so incredible people got saved just standing near the participants. I know that some churches have over 4,000 people attending and bible studies and programs up to the ceiling and back – but how many laid-down lovers of Jesus do you have? How many people can you call at four in the morning to help you with an unruly drunk or druggie who needs help? The kind of people who will open their homes and take that severely disheveled, smelly person in. 

The thing that corrupted the workers in those vineyards etc. was this – time passed and the master did not come back. So people starting improvising how they thought things would work better for them. In the absence of the Holy Spirit’s convicting Presence we will simply go through the motions …and then one day we’ll wonder why our kids don’t want to come to church anymore! Would we even notice that we are just going through the motions, Sunday by Sunday? There is a way to reach into our neighbourhoods … He knows it and we need what HE KNOWS. Let’s ask HIM! Let’s ‘ask, and keep on asking’ about that!

I don’t have answers, I just have questions. I’m not even talking about miracles, signs and wonders, although those things are great! I’m talking about healthy, happy, growing, spiritual babies who have a testimony to the goodness of God every single time you speak to them. People who are devoted to glorifying Jesus in every situation. Plus mature people who happily spend their lives for His sake, even if life takes a bite out of them – and it will – their fruit just gets sweeter and sweeter.

So what can you do about this? Pray. Raise your level of expectation – expect to meet with Him and have your mindsets challenged and changed, every single Sunday. It is not the preacher’s skill that will change you, it is the attitude of your heart toward God fulfilling His purposes in your life. Big duh! here … don’t stay mad at anyone! Let’s not be the kind of servants who mess around and mess up! Even if we feel nothing, HE will always deserve all the glory. Amen! When the Master is away …let’s do what HE would do. Bye 👋

P 2914 Jesus lives in us.

/ DVH

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood.”John 1:14 “ …and yet the world didn’t even notice… …  they didn’t want Him.” John 1:10b; 11a. Imagine that. Jesus walked down their streets and at that time people didn’t even notice that God Himself had come into their world! That thought made me wonder what would happen if the Lord in me affected the people around me enough that they know that the King is in residence here – ‘here’ being inside me!

I like big spiritual thoughts, and … I kind of hate them, all at the same time!… They stretch me out of complacency. I am of the opinion that we have become so lukewarm that, at best, most unsaved people think of us as nice people. Kind people. Maybe even helpful people, or those people who are a little bit nutty and weird and go to church on Sunday. That led me into thinking how I can move on from being seen as a nice, kind and helpful person, into being a whole lot more like Jesus Who walked on water. The One Who condemned the Pharisees and their religious antics, and forgave obvious sinners! The One Who cared for those who were completely lost.

The bible is meant to be a challenging book. It isn’t just designed to be a soothing consolation prize when things get hard at our house. When we read the bible, we are feeding our spirits the kind of spiritual power that can and should transform our neighbourhoods. Speaking for myself, what I do, most days, will hardly blow up my letter box! His book is designed to be so solid inside us it will affect our outsides, as well as our immediate neighbours. Hopefully, not always adversely! I have noticed the only publicity about people of faith that I’ve seen lately is when Christians do something that this world regards as incredibly naive, idiotic, and harmful.

Yet Jesus lives in us. And the point I want to make today is that it is about time we let Him OUT! Where I live even our Christian government representatives compromise. They rationalise that being in power means they can influence others and do good over time. Personally, I think we have all compromised. We want to live our lives normally, and look like everyone else … only nicer!

The true Christian life has become an add-on. Maybe we tried to follow Jesus, prayed for people, helped them, maybe even saw some people healed … but somehow … it wore off! How can the power of God wear off?!? Maybe we are not living the kind of dedicated-to-Jesus lives that will attract … or repel people immediately. Good place to stop and think.

The people around us will not hear the good news easily from add-ons! Most people today could care less what someone else believes, they are too busy living their own lives, trying to scratch a better life out of hard work and a mostly good attitude. And the Body of Christ has so little OF HIS POWER – we scarcely make a dent on their lives. If what we do every single day is meant to represent Him, then we are all sunk.

It seems we represent Him when it is convenient, and most of the time, not at all, because ‘God understands that is hard for me and it never seems to be convenient.’  Sometimes I think we have so little of God’s power we could barely blow a hat off, let alone raise a roof or a ruckus. Compromise is flourishing. And yet the need for a Saviour in this world has not changed. It has, in my opinion, gotten even greater! When Jesus said:“The fields are white with harvest…” He wasn’t even  IN His own neighbourhood. I think the fields are ALWAYS WHITE, we just stay inside, curled up in front of the TV and try not to notice.

The Lord’s very Presence has been reduced into being something that is supposed to thrill us, Sunday by Sunday! He didn’t come to produce juicy feelings in us, the Lord Jesus Christ came here to save people. He left us behind so we could do what He did – and He specifically sent us the power to do it. To have the power of God present in our lives, we need to live this life, the only one we have, DEAD to what we want, and ALIVE to what He wants. We must stop hiding. I think we actually know we are not all we can be, instead we need to go after Him and His mission for each one of us. Witnessing is everyone’s mission.

I’m just going to say this out loud, and hopefully we will both be challenged by it. We have become a lukewarm people and lukewarm people get spat out!  We must change, because ... Jesus lives in us — and WE NEED TO LET HIM OUT!  Bye. 👋

P 2722 Our attitude to making mistakes, matters.

/ DVH

Galatians 2:11-16: “When Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”

These verses show us a number of things. The primary one I want to speak about today, is that this is an example of the way we can sort things out with another believer. Paul spotted Peter’s hypocrisy and said so. He didn’t give into social pressure, instead he called out what he saw, when he saw it. What I understand from that action is — because we love each other, we need to watch each other’s backs, so that none of us miss out on fulfilling our heavenly calling. The thing that matters in what Paul did wasn’t confrontation, it was loving concern for this fledgling church.

The issue Paul mentioned is an important issue. Grace or works?? Unfortunately Peter, the Apostle — fell down the hole of agreeing with something that was not the gospel, because of FEAR. We must note when we read this that Peter was not challenged by anyone of the people who were already around him, instead … he was actually leading others astray. The real subject was not theology – it was GRACE. Was Grace going to lead them?

Sometimes, instead of just accepting the norm, in the name of not being divisive, it becomes necessary to challenge it. This must be done in a true spirit of humility and for God’s glory — not just to elevate or manipulate.The key is that you do it to protect someone else’s back, not because you think you are smarter, more right, or more spiritual than they are. I put those verses here today because they are the kind of verses we can easily read and think … yeah yeah yeah, Peter got it wrong… yada yada yada … meh …Paul is showing us how to deal with error.

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Meanwhile, there is no truth to the rumour that if I do nothing I can’t make mistakes. Doing nothing IS a mistake, unless the Holy Spirit is guiding you. Mistakes aren’t the enemy, fear is, and sometimes fear of making a mistake is an even bigger enemy!  Peter’s personal enemy was often FEAR too. That stuff showed up once in a boat as the disciples were crossing Lake Galilee in a storm. Peter dared to believe he could do what Jesus was doing. He went really well, walking on the water … until the circumstances distracted him and he sank! (There were other instances as well, but I have no room here!)

However, the Holy Spirit transformed this man of God at Pentecost into someone who seized the day, wherever he was. It totally looked like fear had been defeated, but then popped its ugly head up again in today’s story. Fear is like that. It goes away and comes back wearing another hat! This time fear looked like being non-partisan. This stuff often runs many people’s lives and they don’t even know it is happening, because they don’t admit it or recognise it – even to themselves. It will not kill us to be wrong!… Actually it can help us to die to self. We cannot follow Jesus and not die to self. 

We need to realise that dying to self is a lifestyle, not something we visit and walk past. Much later on in his life, Peter says this in 1 Peter 4:8“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”This is the real point. It is not about messing up, it is about the kind of faith that gets up and goes on!. We need to stop hoping that everyone else will make an exception for me in my sad, sorry little life, and man up and start choosing to changing ME! Almighty God’s power has not been weakened by the evil things that have previously happened to us. Read the book!

Peter is someone who I really appreciate. There are times when he has a big mouth and blurts out stuff better left unsaid. We know He made mistakes because he made public mistakes. One of the blessings of Peter’s life for me, is that it was obvious he was not perfect. Paul’s lesson impacts every single one of us. When we leave God’s Love behind, we leave Grace behind. Our attitude to mistakes will rule us if we let it. But let’s always remember that LOVE WILL RULE US FAR MORE EFFECTIVELY.  Bye👋

P 2687 The bible is huge – it just keeps getting bigger!

/ DVH

The bible is constantly revealing more about our Lord and Saviour, and His Ways – it is like the universe, still expanding. As our knowledge of Him grows so does the power and content of this book! Our corporate or personal experiences should never be used to negate what His book says, because we don’t know everything … despite the way we sometimes present ourselves to this world! We can easily misunderstand what this book says, or we can accept someone else’s POV and take it as our own without even personally investing in it. It is folly to say “God doesn’t do that” or “He won’t do this,” based on the fact that He has not done whatever it is for us, personally. We dare not judge the scriptures by our own experiences. Our experiences are limited and He is a limitless God! 

We — as part of the whole body of Christ, must stop thinking that our little denomination contains the only people who know the truth, so what our church thinks and says, is the only way. Actually only liking a church because you agree with its theology can be a dangerous thing. We just limited God to whatever our church believes. That won’t lead to transformation … it could lead to all kinds of false expectation – some of it very unrealistic! We need honest uncharismatic leaders who simply walk with the Holy Spirit.

Just because Joe Bloggs goes to a little church on top of a hill in the country, and you or I go to a mega church that meets in the city – that doesn’t make our doctrine more right than Joe’s – or Joe more right than us. It’s great if our really big church has an evangelist, pastor, prophet and teacher and lots of functioning helpers etc!  Perhaps Joe’s church has a pastor who only comes once a month!! What does it matter, if he bows his knee to Christ and so do we? We are family. Personally, I think that as ‘the Lord looks on the heart’ then that’s where we should learn to look too! 

If we want to find a good leader then we need to find an honest man who admits he’s not all that, and he’s not there yet … (wherever there is) … and that honest person continually shares his personal growing edges from the pulpit. Meanwhile it is daft to leave everything, including pressing in, to the pastor, or the prophet or someone-Who-knows Jesus better-than-I-do. Otherwise we are putting undue pressure on the top. Reaching the world belongs to all of us not just to the guy out in front. He’s the Leader. That means he is the one appointed to give us direction. He gives the Lord’s accent on things that God wants us to carefully look at, as a part of the whole body … and that includes Joe’s church!

We simply must stop seeing our own little corner of this world, and what we have learnt, as the whole answer. Jesus Christ is everyone’s Answer!! If Almighty God gave any of us His whole answer it would blow our minds! And then we would end up running about like headless chickens trying to make whatever He said happen … when none of us can accomplish anything lasting. We have more resources than the generations that went before us, yet reaching the world still escapes us! While we are fragmented we are losing the incredible power of agreement. We need humble, respectful unity.

There is spiritual power available for any individual who has been trained by obedience, and learnt love while they are following Him. In the Bible, we have our best example of the power of an obedient man! During the temptation in the wilderness – Jesus told our enemy: “man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” After resisting the enemy’s temptations, Jesus went out into the world and lived out what He just said. How hard can it be? it ain’t rocket science, even fishermen eventually managed to listen and do!

The Lord Jesus lived minute by minute giving us an example to follow. If we insist on simply adhering to our denominational rules there is a strong possibility that even more generations will miss out on the POWER that flows through corporate obedience. This life isn’t just about giving the right answers, it’s about living out what we know, and what we are becoming, in our own small way. We are the Word of God that people can see, so everyone around us can know that Jesus Christ is real. We don’t follow religious rules, we follow the same Holy Spirit Christ Himself followed.

So every single day, individually, we personally go to God to get instructions for ourselves, for our own life. We read the book, pray over it, and then go out and do whatever the bible told us to do! And that’s why I think it is not good to shop around and join a church that preaches the kind of stuff we think we want to hear. Personal growth comes from being stretched and challenged. We need the person who is our leader to LEAD, let’s forget the popularity contest.

In many churches today, we have allowed popularity and/or fear to rule us. Jesus did everything He did for ALL of us, so it is a crying shame for the body of Christ to be ruled by inactivity, social programs and fear of error. While we are back-slapping ourselves over all the programs we are running, we are missing the point. People don’t have to be taught to be obedient, obedience is normal for Christians. That’s what becoming a disciple of Jesus entails. 

This means we repent, quickly. We stop thinking we know it all and we are better than the church down the road who only have a congregation of fifty. We listen with our spiritual ears open so we can hear what the Spirit of God is saying to me, personally. We don’t just listen for praise – we listen to diagnose why we are not effectual and fix stuff with the Holy Spirit’s help. That’s where true humility starts. At the same time we refuse to pledge allegiance to anything or anyone other than Christ Himself. Plus we acknowledge that we don’t know everything and we could learn something from someone else’s church.

The bible is far bigger than we have allowed it to be. Our disobedience and lack of love is costing us generations. Let’s start by obeying Him as individuals to see where He leads us all, corporately.  Bye.👋

P 2613 Make it your aim to speak life to others.

/ DVH

Part of living as a member of God’s kingdom, is to love and respect Him, as well as others by the way we speak to them. Our society is pretty free with its opinions – we tend to throw them around like we are sowing wheat. As His representatives, we don’t tear things down, we build them up.

Today, it seems to me that the news services go out of their way to highlight difficulties. In fact every day, with astonishing regularity, we seem to have some catastrophic circumstance or other that is impossible to solve, and it is always some authority figure’s fault! That’s when opinions fly about like leaves on a blustery day. The Lord has been repeatedly teaching me that what I say matters. Words are meant to be tools that shape His kingdom in front of someone else’s eyes. Speaking life is not just about communicating, it is actively breathing His life into others using words. 

Because we are His kids, the bible tells us we have His authority to speak to other people in such a way that they will go away from meeting us, lifted up, or challenged, or comforted. I am not always sure I get that bit right, but … I repent … then I press on…!!  Speaking life means that I am communicating with someone else so that they feel empowered. They want to do or try something they have never done, or tried before. They feel loved, not rejected. Encouragement is a great gift — I urge everyone to ask for it. It can lift someone else up when they are in despair, and help them so they can move forward.

However, I am not talking about flattery, that is temporal at best. Flattery can be really deceptive and destructive. Flattering someone often means I have an agenda, and I am trying to sell them something. But speaking life is about speaking out something that is good, right, and pure. These words are containers of His love. It is often something sweet that our Heavenly Father wants to say to us, or someone else. Personally, I have found when the Holy Spirit says to me: “Say this to that person” – it seems like I am simply taking dictation, as there is a spiritual component to it.

He whispers something to me, and I simply pass that on to the other person. It may be about how well they are doing their job. Or their friendly face. Just simple things. A lot of the time it comes out in my own words. It is not the same as prophecy, but it can contain elements of that in what is said. As an observer, it definitely seems to me like more oxygen comes into the room and I think that’s because Jesus always inhabits what He says! People stop being aware of their failings and become aware of His kingdom because His Presence blows the irrelevant things away. 

This quality has been illustrated wonderfully for me when my hubby talks to complete strangers. First of all they seem to be attracted to Him. I see them look up and instantly smile. Secondly, because what he says is not religiously framed, they accept it immediately. I think it looks like they actually feel God’s grace on hubby’s words.

Human beings can have all kinds of theories about Almighty God  – but there is no denying it when He steps into a room. His people know Him … even if they aren’t His adopted people yet!! They are still His… “Delightfully loved ones…  ”  That verse goes on to say: “…if He loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life!” 1 John 4:11. That’s great advice!

Hubby says that speaking out encouragement is like giving people courage. I like that idea – who doesn’t need courage? Some days I need it to get out of bed! What he says to strangers is personal, real and almost tangible. They often reply: “How could you possibly know that?” Then he says: “I don’t, but HE (points to the ceiling) does.” You know,  I have never seen the Presence of God make people anxious. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but I haven’t seen it. Our God IS love. When people encounter His unconditional love – there is no need for fear or striving – their heart has found HOME. 

Our daily task is to grow into that kind of generous, unrestricted love. That’s the only real assignment we have every morning. After that we simply pass on what we’ve been given. There are no agendas, no subtexts, we take the time to be His conduit toward that other person, as we relax into the fact that He loves us and them. … Then we just follow His instructions. Our words have power in them, they can build someone up – or leave them flat.

Jesus made His aim clear in John 10:10. “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].” Bye.👋

P 2492 The power in our choices.

/ DVH

Someone recently challenged me about how anybody can continue to do kind, loving things for people who are deliberately not sweet to us. To start with, if we do not tackle this kind of situation with our faith, we will fail. This scenario needs the Lord’s supernatural power, not willpower. This person asked me if I was asking them to lie – because they did not feel kindly toward the people involved, and they would be lying if they took the path I indicated. At the same time they thought that perhaps they were giving the person/s involved permission to stay the same, and keep on being horrible to them. First of all, we need to remember our flesh will complain at us – it doesn’t want to die.

Mine complained at me, yesterday, at 4.00 am! I couldn’t sleep because I needed to get up and make some notes about my thoughts. Hubby chose to get up with me, and I felt very guilty for depriving him of sleep. But he said something really interesting regarding the very early hour. He reminded me of this story: Jesus came walking on the water to the disciples while they were rowing their arms off in the middle of a huge storm, in the fourth watch of the night. Apparently Jesus doesn’t think 4.00am is too early!

The Lord actively encouraged me then, through my husband, despite my tired body, and despite my feelings of guilt – hubby is as tired as I am most of the time! He could easily have been grumpy at me for waking him up way too early, but he chose to respond lovingly, to support me. Feelings can be grossly overrated and motivated by other circumstances, or previous attitudes that are yet to be redeemed. I think that God wanted to teach me something. When I talk about choosing to love others who are unkind to us, I am simply repeating what the bible says. Actually, I personally hardly ever want to … “do good to those who despitefully use me!’  I do those things and follow His word as a choice. We are challenged daily with choices.

Christianity is full of these seemingly ordinary choices, to say no to ourselves and yes to Him. I love walking around with Jesus helping me, so, for me, it is not a hard choice. Hubby chose to walk with the Lord at 4.00am and that led to him reassuring me from the bible. He was blessed and so was I. If we make the wrong choices, it definitely becomes much harder to step away from those choices and go back to following Him. In those moments we will have to fight our own feelings and thoughts.

We may have to choose to suffer by making those hard choices … SO GRACE CAN BE RELEASED. Grace is undeserved by its nature, so releasing it must be motivated by our Love for Jesus and His Ways. However,His Grace changes everything! It enables us to see things that were not seen before. When you or I get into a bad situation with someone else, somebody is going to have to release grace – which is undeserved favour – in order to de-escalate that situation. We cannot do this kind of thing without the Holy Spirit helping us, and giving us His Word and His Grace. The thing is we will often feel nothing – OR still be very angry at the other person. It’s a sacrifice – you will die to self when you do it.

When we choose to love the people who aren’t loving us, we are entering into the Kingdom of God, and living by His edicts – instead of by this world’s ideas. That choice ushers us into a different arena. Now the things of this earth fade into the background, because something far more wise and powerful has come on the scene. I have found when God explains Himself it blows my mind. For example, for years I have looked at those two men hanging beside Jesus, dying on their own crosses and thought – ‘ Well, at least one of them was saved.’ But then the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said: “TWO men were saved but only ONE responded to Christ.” 🤯 God thinks differently than we do!

I was also reminded by the Holy Spirit that Jesus did not want to go through with His sacrifice. (Dare I say He did not feel good about what was going to happen?) We have an example in the garden of Gethsemane where He makes it very clear He did not want to go ahead with His appointed assignment. But He carried it out, and He let other people do to Him what they did, because of the greater good. Love was going to win – it always wins! This was, quite simply, the only way to redeem us. The innocent had to suffer.

We are given opportunities every single day to suffer for LOVE’S SAKE. Life is about those daily choices! We can enter into transformation in those moments, as we choose to believe what the bible says, over how we feel or what we think. Here’s what I’ve  learnt — 4.00am feels way too early to be awake …but when God is in it, suddenly it is not too early. Continuing to love others when they are spiteful or mean to me, often feels wrong. But the reality is, it is a CUE to release the Grace God gave me when Christ died in my place. That choice changes our view of what is really going on. Bye.👋

P 2396 The best support systems for faith.

/ DVH

Here’s a thought:  let’s all walk this earth, every single day, like we belong to Him. Not like undercover agents, madly hoping that no-one will notice that we are Christians, sliding under the radar. I wonder, do we hide what we believe because we are afraid we are not representing Him well? Or do we have some behaviour that we know isn’t great … and we kinda wanna keep it?? Maybe hiding what we believe gives us some kind of ‘cover’ and ‘plausible deniability?’😱 The church, our primary source of support for our faith, has kind of taken a real bashing. People are leaving it in droves.

Churches in the past, were seen. They were active and present in their communities. They used to be the glue that tied communities together. And caring fellowship was an important part of that togetherness. A church is not a club, meeting around a topic – a church is a community of believers getting together to worship Jesus and love others. I know there are some people who come and join our churches and I’m pretty sure they were sent by God to annoy the living daylights out of us. I think that’s because most Christians are stuck in the mud of self-complacency! However, a true body of believers is a witness to everyone around them, they are not just a bunch of people who sorta kinda believe the same thing.

Years ago, the church made itself responsible to bring about social justice, by caring for the poor and widows and orphans. Let’s keep doing that!! But I don’t believe caring for the poor should outweigh my devotion to Christ.  Right now, I’m hoping that the people who love Jesus are on the cusp of realising we are dodging the reality of what we believe, because we have no accompanying actions. The bible says we were saved to serve others – we are not here to have a happy life and then go home to God! Christianity began with a death and that’s the way it continues – with all of us deciding to die to self and live for Him … and others.

However, most of the time, instead of dealing with our internal attitudes, it has become much too easy to wander about, sometimes from one church to another, ‘shopping’ for someone in charge who believes my particular brand of theology. The real truth is, Christians actually hate change more than whatever it is that we are doing that isn’t in the book… and we want to keep right on doing it!

Postponing transformation in our lives of faith is deadly. Lemme tell you how I know that. One thing leads to another, and another, and before you know it – you aren’t going to ANY church anymore because you don’t like it, it’s boring, it goes for too long etc. etc.… you found better things to do!  Besides: ‘our pastor is dumb;  he preaches badly; he doesn’t really care about me and that’s supposed to be his job.’ That list goes on and on and ON.

Here’s a revelation: … we don’t go to church to be amused, we go there to meet with God as well as each other. To be challenged and comforted, as well as being led or shoved, out of our comfort zones. Having a church of ONE that meets in your garage is definitely not the same thing. BTW, our pastors have a duty of care to lead us into the Ways of God, they are not there to scratch our itchy backs, or pat us when we feel bad. They are not there to tell us things to help us feel good. That’s because the Christian life is one of progression – not stagnation. Pastors are part of the God-given support system sent to help us hone our faith into purity and devotion. 

A truly Godly pastor assumes you love the Lord enough to follow Him for yourself! He thinks you are coming to church because you want to know God better… Hmmm … maybe he’s deluded? Our leaders have stepped up into these roles to lead us into a greater maturity, so God can have what He wants. Whether you like your pastor’s style or not! We’ve become very used to critiquing how some poor guy does a job we don’t want to do, mainly because we like the freedom inactivity gives us!

Think on this: “Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.” 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 NIV.

Most pastors are overworked and undervalued.They too are a part of the support system the Lord has put in place to grow our faith in Him. Along with fellowshipping together, praying for each other, studying the bible and doing good to everyone around us! Going to church is not a chore – it is the centre of our devotion and activity for Jesus. It is a support system for faith. 👋🏻