Tag: dead works

Now Faith is!!

Faith.  It is something that is wonderful and powerful in the life of a believer.  But it is also extremely misunderstood as well.  So many people are under the belief that they don’t have enough faith.  And they live under condemnation and self ridicule because they cannot seem to get enough faith together to act, or to get God to act on their behalf.  Many Christians today can be heard to say ‘If only I had more faith.’

Faith is extremely important in our lives because “And without faith it is impossible to please Him..” Hebrews 11:6 ESV.  Jesus also said to the blind men who came to Him to be healed  “According to your faith be it done to you.” Matthew 9:29 ESV  So it is important that we have faith, and much of what God can do in our lives is because of faith.  But what is faith?

First we need to dispel the belief that is faith is a magical substance that we need to exercise like a muscle to enable God to work on our behalf, or that we need to pray for God to grow our faith or to give us more faith.  There is no specific ‘measure’ of faith given where some get a little and others get a lot.  There is simply faith, and you cannot grow it or strengthen it at all.

Faith is a gift given to us by God yes, ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God..’ Ephesians 2:8 ESV.  And the faith God gives you simply allows you to start your walk with Him and begin a life altering empowered relationship with the King of kings.  So God gives us faith.  We don’t exercise our faith or grow our faith because faith comes from God ‘ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.’ Romans 10:17 ESV.  Faith comes by hearing the “word” of God which when read in the Greek is a spoken word.  “Hearing through the word ‘rhema=spoken’ of Christ”.

Faith is a gift from God and it grows by hearing God speak and by acting on what He has said.  But we still don’t know what faith actually is.  So what is faith?

Faith is simply the confident quiet assurance that God is who He says He is and He will do what He said He will do.!  That is it.  No magical formulas,  no special efforts and no exercise and effort required.  Faith is believing God period.  Abraham was a perfect example of faith for us to follow.  James records Abraham’s faith when he wrote “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.” James 2:23 ESV  Abraham believed God and acted on what God said to do, and his belief was what pleased God.

If we go back to the rest of our original scripture in Hebrews 11:6 it says “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”  Faith is believing God is who He says He is and that He will do what He said He will do.  That allows us to walk forward by faith because our faith is in the nature and the character of God and not on our circumstances.  It allows us to weather any storm because we walk with a God who said He will never leave us or forsake us.

Faith is simply a confident assurance in the character of God allowing us to follow as He directs us to.  This also allows faith to deepen because as we hear God speak to us and act on what He says So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.’ Romans 10:17 ESV our understanding of His nature deepens and when we move forward into what God has said we then see Him doing what He said He would.   So our faith is in God, because He is faithful.

We don’t need to work up faith and we don’t need to pray for more or look for ways to grow our faith.  It doesn’t work that way.  We simply need to believe that God is who He says He is and that He will reward us because we are seeking after Him, and not looking for what He can do.  And as we step out believing what God speaks and directs us to our understanding of His nature grows which allows us to step out further as He leads and our understanding grows again and again and again.

Jesus said “For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20 ESV.  A little belief in God goes a long long way.  If we will stop looking for the magical essence that allows God to move and start getting to simply know God and allow He to show us His nature and to speak to our lives so we can act on His direction instead of our plans we would then see Him in action which would deepen our assurance in Him allowing us to see more of who He is and opening the door to God doing some very powerful things in our lives.

All it takes is for us to answer the question “Is God who He said He was, and will He do what He said He will do?”

Urgent Church: Nine Changes We Must Make Or Die

The following article was reblogged from https://www.sermoncentral.com

 

Many of our congregations must change. They must change or they will die.

It broke my heart.

Another church closed. This church had unbelievable potential. Indeed, it had its own “glory days,” but only for a season. But, 10 years ago, few would have predicted this church’s closure. Today, it is but another statistic in the ecclesiastical graveyard.

I know. We don’t compromise doctrine. I know. We must never say we will change God’s Word.

But many of our congregations must change. They must change or they will die.

I call these churches “the urgent church.” Time is of the essence. If changes do not happen soon, very soon, these churches will die. The pace of congregational death is accelerating.

What, then, are some of the key changes churches must make? Allow me to give you a fair warning. None of them are easy. Indeed, they are only possible in God’s power. Here are nine of them:

  1. We must stop bemoaning the death of cultural Christianity. Such whining does us no good. Easy growth is simply not a reality for many churches. People no longer come to a church because they believe they must do so to be culturally accepted. The next time a church member says, “They know where we are; they can come here if they want to,” rebuke him. Great Commission Christianity is about going; it’s not “y’all come.”
  2. We must cease seeing the church as a place of comfort and stability in the midst of rapid change. Certainly, God’s truth is unchanging. So we do find comfort and stability in that reality. But don’t look to your church not to change methods, approaches, and human-made traditions. Indeed, we must learn to be uncomfortable in the world if we are to make a difference. “We’ve never done it that way before,” is a death declaration.
  3. We must abandon the entitlement mentality. Your church is not a country club where you pay dues to get your perks and privileges. It is a gospel outpost where you are to put yourself last. Don’t seek to get your way with the music, temperature, and length of sermons. Here is a simple guideline: Be willing to die for the sake of the gospel. That’s the opposite of the entitlement mentality.
  4. We must start doing.  Most of us like the idea of evangelism more than we like doing evangelism. Try a simple prayer and ask God to give you gospel opportunities. You may be surprised how He will use you.
  5. We must stop using biblical words in unbiblical ways. “Discipleship” does not mean caretaking. “Fellowship” does not mean entertainment.
  6. We must stop focusing on minors. Satan must delight when a church spends six months wrangling over a bylaw change. That’s six months of gospel negligence.
  7. We must stop shooting our own. This tragedy is related to the entitlement mentality. If we don’t get our way, we will go after the pastor, the staff member, or the church member who has a different perspective than our own. We will even go after their families. Don’t let bullies and perpetual critics control the church. Don’t shoot our own. It’s not friendly fire.
  8. We must stop wasting time in unproductive meetings, committees, and business sessions. Wouldn’t it be nice if every church member could only ask one question or make one comment in a meeting for every time he or she has shared his or her faith the past week?
  9. We must become houses of prayer. Stated simply, we are doing too much in our own power. We are really busy, but we are not doing the business of God.

Around 200 churches will close this week, maybe more. The pace will accelerate unless our congregations make some dramatic changes. The need is urgent.

Hear me well, church leaders and church members. For many of your churches the choice is simple: change or die.

Time is running out. Please, for the sake of the gospel, forsake yourself and make the changes in God’s power.

By Thom Rainer on Apr 7, 2017

President, LifeWay Christian Resources

You’re such a Curmudgeon!

“You’re becoming such a curmudgeon!” one of mcurmudgeon-with-bow-tiey co-workers said to me a couple weeks ago.  I had to admit I didn’t know what he was talking about.  He grinned widely and said it means “a cranky old man.”  It’s a comment meant to be a joke but it has got me thinking.  Because the things we say we believe we don’t often live like we do.  Craig Groeschel wrote “The Christian Atheist”, a book which premise is that Christians today declare that God exists and is involved in their lives, and then live like He isn’t.

We live in a society which says that they are Christian.  For many it is because they go to church, at least at Christmas and Easter.  For others it is cultural, and while we are getting further and further away from a Christian culture many still see themselves as Christians.  And there are others who believe in the Christian message.  But it isn’t what we say we believe that matters.  In fact our lives declare more about what we believe than anything we may say.  And for many of us our lives are not declaring what we hope they may.  It is a fact I have been looking into in my own life.

It is not a bad thing to evaluate your walk with God from time to time.  If you don’t you will quickly become complacent and coast through life.  Paul wrote “Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it.” 2 Corinthians 13:5 MSG

Everyone of us needs to look at what our life is saying about our beliefs.  Are we following Jesus or are we saying we are Christian and living like He doesn’t exist?  Craig Groeschel wrote “Who do we believe in more? Ourselves or God? Our actions and decisions will reflect that.”  Our actions declare what we believe.  John Calvin wrote “the doer is he who from the heart embraces God’s word and testifies by his life that he really believes.”   Rick Warren said something similar when he said “You only believe the part of the Bible you do.”

Paul said three times in scripture “Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.” Philippians 1:27 NLT, Colossians 1:10, Ephesians 4:1.  Our conduct says a lot about us and about what we believe, and the world around us is watching.  Are we declaring the majesty of Christ, or the selfish whims of our own hearts.  What is your life saying about what you believe?  Is it agreeing with the words you say?  It is a tough question to ask, but a very important one to answer.