Search Results

Peter teaches how deeply Jesus values you and showers you with unconditional love, grace, joy and blessing for the good purpose of blessing others. Imagine the audience in 1 Peter. They hear these words and realize wherever they go, Jesus is goes them. Discover who you are in Christ and live in that power. Preached at Casas Church. Used by permission.

Altars are markers that remind us of God’s work in our lives. Four altars we can construct are for remembering God’s revelations, for remembering decisions we have made, for giving thanks and for remembering dreams of what God is going to do.

Wise Men followed the star. They jumped for joy, and they came bringing gifts. Mary and Joseph needed a miracle and it was provided by someone that God sent from 1,000 miles away. Your gift is someone else’s miracle. Step out in faith. Be obedient to God’s vision. Celebrate more and give all you have to God and others. Preached at National Community Church. Used by permission.

Kneel in pursuit of God’s presence. Don’t   bow down to something else. Kneel in repentance. Jesus never turns away from a sinner with a repentant heart. Kneel in submission. You can kneel now or you can kneel later. Surrender! Preached at LifeChurch.tv . Used by permission of lifechurch.tv/open .

We often get so caught up thinking about where we’d rather be and what we’d rather be doing, that we forget all the places God has already been with us. But there is a way we we can experience God’s presence wherever we are, wherever we go. Jacob’s story reminds us that the biggest obstacle to a fulfilling life is us! Preached at Elevation Church. Used by permission.

Pastor Francis Chan deals with the moral failure of a church leader in a wise, compassionate, godly fashion. Sin must be dealt with, but our focus in facing the issue of compromised morality in the church should be godly fear and self-examination rather than condemnation and arrogance.

We can learn to see through our enemies to see God’s presence. When troubles like fear, depression, or anxiety seem right on top of us, we can look through them to see that God is right on top of them. Without struggle would assume that the strength came from us instead of from God. But God wants to show Himself strong on our behalf by working in and through our weaknesses. Preached at Elevation Church. Used by permission.

Racism isn’t just the presence of hatred-it’s the absence of love. How do we “neighbor” others? By recognizing our own prejudices, seeking to understand others, and by loving those different than we. Preached at LifeChurch.tv. Used by permission.

Share 0 I talked with a young woman who viewed the Christian life as one of utter dullness. She knew that following Christ was the right thing to do, but she was certain it would mean sacrificing her happiness. Where did this young woman, who was raised in a fine Christian family and church, acquire such an unbiblical notion? What are we doing—what are we missing—that leaves many of our children and our churches laboring under such false impressions? Why do we think it would be unspiritual for the Christian life to be centered on what God calls the good news of happiness (Isaiah 52:7)? Celebration and gladness of heart have characterized the church, including the suffering church, throughout history. Scripturally, the culture of God’s people is one of joy, happiness, gratitude, eating and drinking, singing and dancing, and making music. It’s not the people who know God who have reason to be miserable—it’s those who don’t. Unfortunately, children who grow up seeing church as a morose, hypercritical place will turn their backs on it in their quest for happiness. Those who have found happiness in the church, and ultimately in Christ, will usually stay or return. If we want our children and grandchildren and future generations to seek God as the answer to their deepest longings, we must teach them the foundational truth that He is by nature happy. They need to see that the God who brings them the Good News really can (and longs to) “change their sadness into happiness” (Jeremiah 31:13, NCV). When we understand that the God of the Bible is both happy and powerful enough to overcome our greatest grief and suffering and to give us cause for eternal happiness, Satan’s arguments against trusting God will lose their power. Sadly, few churches teach that God is happy—or wants us to be happy. We are unintentionally silencing the biblical revelation of one part of God’s nature, at great loss to the church, families, and individuals. I believe it’s vital that we not leave our children and future generations of Christians to figure out for themselves that God is happy. Most never will. How can they, unless their families and churches teach them and demonstrate God-centered happiness in their own lives? We need to tell them that sin, suffering, shame, and unhappiness are temporary conditions for God’s people. We’ll once and for all be righteous, healthy, shame free, and happy. Once we’re in His presence, we’ll never again experience the anger, judgment, and discipline of God we see in Scripture (all of which are appropriate and important, but even now do not nullify His happiness or love). What if our children and grandchildren learned from childhood that to know God is to know happiness—and to not know Him is misery that propels us to search for happiness where it can’t be found? What if, without having to explore the world’s sin, as Augustine did, they could understand his prayer after his conversion: “There is a joy that is not given to those who do not love you, but only to those who love you for your own sake. You, yourself, are their joy”?[i] What if they understood Augustine’s words, “They who think there is another, pursue some other and not the true joy”?[ii] What if our children saw in our families and churches a breadth of Christ-centered, ultimately optimistic happiness and were taught that this happiness originates in God, not the world? How might it fulfill these words: “That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God” (Psalm 78:6-7, NASB)? Imagine if our churches were known for being communities of Jesus-centered happiness, overflowing with the sheer gladness of what it means to live out the good news of great joy! And what if when our families left church and went to school, work, restaurants, and musical and dramatic performances, they didn’t feel they were walking away from God but toward the same happy God they’ve been worshiping? Envision how contagious the doctrine of God’s happiness could be if taught and grasped and lived out. What if we really believed the gospel doesn’t just offer us and our children and our communities and our world what we need but offers us what, in the depths of our hearts, we want? What if when suffering came, we faced it with an underlying faith that erupted into genuine gladness and thanksgiving? What if instead of looking away or being paralyzed by the needs of this world, we—with humility and gladness—reached out to intervene for the hungry, the sick, the unborn, the racially profiled, and the persecuted? Wouldn’t our children be less likely to leave the Christian faith, push away church as a bad memory, and pursue the world’s inferior happiness substitutes that will ultimately destroy them? I’m not talking about contrived happiness as a pretense or a strategy for church growth, but the genuine happiness that naturally flows from God and the gospel. Jonathan Edwards said, “It is of infinite importance . . . to know what kind of being God is. For he is . . . the only fountain of our happiness.”[iii] Sadly, some imagine that following Christ boils down to, “Just say no to happiness!” My hope and prayer is that we can counteract that misconception in our families and churches with a biblical doctrine of happiness, built upon the happiness of God. May we teach them that “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). [i] Augustine, Augustine’s Confessions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 52. [ii] Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1900), 255. [iii] Jonathan Edwards, “The Importance and Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth,” Select Sermons. www.epm.org

Share 0 Have you settled for a mediocre faith? Is your prayer life mundane, expectations low. God is bigger than that. Steven Furtick preaches about childlike faith. “Paul said to not let anyone look down on you because you are young.” • I’m an expert on the idea of being dumb enough that God can do anything. Anything that is written in God’s Word is possible for anyone who believes. Audacious faith is the hope, the passion of my life and ministry. These words constantly inspire me: “I despair at the thought that my life might slip by without God showing Himself mighty in my life.” – Jim Cymbala. 2 Kings 3:9-20 is an incident in the life of the prophet Elisha. Elisha is an under-rated prophet. • Elisha did miracles everywhere he went. Fire from heaven, rain to heal a drought, defeating the host of prophets of Baal. There’s is nothing God can’t do. We can position ourselves, learn and get training, but only God can make it rain. After we’ve done all that we can do, we have to remember that only God can send favor, mercy, salvation, and healing. Only God can make it rain. Proverbs 3:5-6 states that… “in ALL your ways acknowledge Him.” We can’t expect God to show up in our work unless we do our work God’s way. You can do it. You can make it. When you attend conferences, or come together with other believers and Christian leaders, in at atmosphere like this it’s easy to get fired up, be inspired, motivated to act, etc. But we have to praise God for inspiration. But how will you get from inspiration to implementation? Having good ideas doesn’t make you a visionary, it makes you a daydreamer. The difference is having the audacity and courage to act. God gives you the faith to get started. If the size of the vision you have isn’t intimidating to you there’s a good chance it’s insulting to God. Remember Elijah’s faith. If you want to see the land filled with water, dig some ditches. Dig ditches in preparation for how God wants to use your life. You may not see rain or even see clouds, but don’t wait to get to work until you seethe evidence of God’s blessing. Faith believes it before it sees it. Pray for God to start a groundswell. Don’t let time talk you out of your dreams. Life can beat the audacity out of you. God is not done with you yet. Do it or die trying. True faith has a bit of ambiguity to it. No leader is ever 100% sure that they’ve heard from God. Just like Elijah, keep digging ditches. One of the reasons we struggle with insecurity is because we are comparing our behind-the-scenes with others highlight reels. If you will dig the ditches God will send the rain. If you will do what you can do God will do what only He can do. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like anything is happening, but you don’t know what God is doing behind-the-scenes. Hebrews 11:1 states that “Faith is the evidence of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen.” Expect God to do great things through your life. Don’t dig one ditch… make the valley full. Noah looked stupid building a boat until it started to rain. When the vision you see around you doesn’t match what God has spoken to you, you’ve got to close your eyes and hold on to what you’ve heard. Be a ditch-digger. Believe for God to do great things. Notes by timschraeder.com. Used by permission.

Revelation 2:8-9 8 “To the angel of the church in Smyrna write the following: “Thus says the one who is the first and the last, the one who was dead, but came to life: 9 ‘I know the distress you are suffering and your poverty (but you are rich). The city of Smyrna was one of the three cities in Asia Minor who competed for the status of being the greatest city of the region along with Ephesus and Pergamum. The name of the city itself simply meant myrrh – expensive fragrance, because in the ancient times this was the chief expert of the city. Smyrna just like Ephesus was a coastal city perfectly positioned for accumulating enormous wealth because of its port and central location on trade route connecting all other cities of the Roman province of Asia Minor. Out of all seven cities mentioned in Revelation only Smyrna survives today as an inhabited city. It is called Izmir and it is located in the West of modern Turkey. The city was founded twice. Once it around as a Greek colony in Western Anatolia (around 1100 BCE) and after its total destruction was once again returned to life and habitation under the regional administration of Alexander the Great (4th century BCE). Perhaps, it is because of this known history of Smyrna as being dying and coming back to life that Jesus in his message to the messenger in Smyrna highlighted this particular aspect of his own life: He was also dead and came back to life. In a series of statements regarding Jesus’ personal knowledge of the perilous situation of his followers believers in the city of Smyrna, the Heavenly Priest, who is able to sympathize assures the congregation in Smyrna that the suffering and financial difficulties of this community is known and understood by him well. Yet Jesus tells the people experiencing social and, therefore, economic sanctions/isolation from prosperous Jewish and Pagan communities of Smyrna that in all reality they are rich. This idea of “things are not what they seem” will reappear many times throughout the book of revelation. I also know the slander against you by those who call themselves Jews… The second affirmation of Christ’s intimate acquaintance with the difficulties of Jewish and God-fearing followers of the Way had to do with a slander against them. Slander is a criminal action of making a false usually a spoken statement damaging to a person’s or group of persons’ reputation. This section is extremely important in order for us not to swerve from the road we are currently on – rereading the Letter of Revelation as a Jewish Christ-following document. Here too again the standard theory preconditions/forces the reader to think by the later categories while reading first century texts. The traditional theory goes something like this: The Christian Church at Smyrna suffered at the hands of the Jews. The Jews thought they were the people of God but were actually they were self-deceived representatives of Satan. Christians were now the People of God just as Jews once were. Why are were these people said not to be the Jews then? It is simple, the traditional theory posits – They were Jews by race and religion only. But they were not spiritual children of Abraham. Paul made the point in his writings that: “A man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit” (Rom.2:29). The Christian Church now was the Israel of God, the “true circumcision” and “the true Jews”, who worshiped God through Christ Jesus. But there are all kinds of misconceptions and anachronisms that are present in this common and usually unchallenged reconstruction of what took place in the City of Smyrna. This reconstruction that I sought to briefly present above is usually offered together with a story of martyrdom of great man of God Polycarp (bishop of Smyrna), disciple the Apostle John. When he was offered life in exchange for a public denial of Jesus and acceptance of Roman Emperor as Lord he uttered now his iconic words: “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has never done me wrong; how, then, can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour!” The story of Polycarp’s Martyrdom, though being one of the greatest stories that inspired millions of Christians for the greater commitment to the Lord, may not be historical at some very important points. The earliest manuscripts of Polycarp’s Martyrdom are dated to the tenth century CE and come across as full of inspirational Christian interpellations. This becomes clear when the story in Martyrdom of Polycarp is compared to the account as told by Eusebius in his Church History written in the fifth century CE. The differences are considerable. There are other issues like literary parallels with the passion of Christ that are doubtfully coincidental. Moreover, by the fifth century CE the Christ-followers have already developed what can be called Historic Non-Jewish (and often-times anti-Jewish) Christianity and therefore it is doubtful that documents coming from under the feather of fifth century Christian historians such as Eusebius can be trusted completely, especially when they involve the Jews. My point here is not that nothing in Eusebius’ account of the Martyrdom of Polycarp is true. But that simply we do not have ideologically independent and reliable sources to establish the details of Martyrdom, especially involving the Jews of the city of Smyrna, claiming that they led the way and encouraged the murder of St. Polycarp. The accuracy of Eusebius’s account have often been called into question many times both today and in the ancient times. For example, in the 5th century, the Christian historian Socrates Scholasticus described Eusebius as writing for “rhetorical finish” and for the “praises of the Emperor” rather than the “accurate statement of facts.” (Socrates Scholasticus, Church History, Book 1.1) The so-called historical methods of Eusebius were criticized by many modern scholars, which show that at least his chronology was something between an exact science and an instrument of propaganda. My suggestion, therefore, is to leave the story of the dating and the authenticity of these materials to the scholars of later periods and not to allow those accounts of Polycarp (whether they are true, false or only partially so) to influence our reading of a much earlier text of Revelation. We need to be able to read the Letter of Revelation as a first century literary work without borrowed insights and inspiration from later often-times anti-Jewish theology. … and really are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. The translation choice of the overwhelming majority of Christian translations of the Book of Revelation for the Greek is a synagogue of Satan. This a perfect example of inconsistent and clearly anti-Jewish (though most of the time without any malicious intent) translation. By inconsistency I mean that in the cases when the word synagogue is positive or neutral in meaning it is translated as a “congregation” or as “assembly” (James 2:2 “For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes…”), but in the cases that it is negative like in this case it is translated not as congregation or assembly of Satan – something that in modern minds evokes strictly Jewish (vs. non-Jewish) affiliation – “the synagogue”. If we read this text as is normally done in the context of Christian Polycarp being practically murdered in the mid-second century by the Jews. We will not be able to see any other interpretive options here at all. We would actually, as our interpretations of this normally do, have to disagree with what Jesus may be saying. Jesus says that those who slander his followers in Smyrna were dishonest about their Judean affiliation. They were actually not Jews. They only pretended doing so. One way to look at it is as we discussed before. That is these people are Jews in ethnicity and religion only, but not really in their hearts. But what if Jesus was right literally?! What if these people slandering the Jewish believers in Jesus and those who joined them in following the Jewish Christ were not Judeans/Jews at all? What if they were recent converts to the Judean life-style package from the Romans – a well-known and problematic phenomena in the Roman Empire? Incidentally, the utter religious zeal is very much characteristic of a religious convert. A Greco-Roman writer Epictetus who was a Stoic Philosopher residing in Asia Minor at the time of the composition of the Book of Revelation wrote the following: “Why, then do you call yourself a Stoic, why do you deceive the multitude, why do you act the part of a Judean, when you are a Greek? Do you not how each person is called a Judean, a Syrian, or an Egyptian? And when we see someone vacillating, we are accustomed to say, “He is not a Judean, but he is just pretending.” But when he takes up the state of mind of one who has been baptized and made a choice, then he is a Judean in both reality and name. So also we are falsely baptized, Judeans in word, but indeed something else, not in harmony with reason, far from applying the principles we profess, yet priding ourselves for being people who know them (Dissertations 2.9.19-21 = Stern no. 254).” www.eteacherbiblical.com .

The disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! — John 20:19 Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared! — Luke 24:31 He was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. — Acts 1:9 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control. — Philippians 3:21 Christ’s resurrection body had an ability to appear suddenly, apparently coming through a locked door to the apostles. And “He disappeared” from the sight of the two disciples at Emmaus. When Christ left the earth, He defied gravity and ascended into the air. It’s possible that the risen Christ, who is man yet God, has certain physical abilities we won’t have. Appearing and disappearing could be a limited expression of His omnipresence, and His ascension might be something our bodies couldn’t imitate. On the one hand, because we’re told in multiple passages that our resurrection bodies will be like Christ’s, it may be possible at times for us to transcend the present laws of physics and/or travel in some way we’re not now capable of. On the other hand, it’s our God-given human nature to be embodied creatures existing in space and time. So it’s likely that the same laws of physics that governed Adam and Eve will govern us. We can’t be sure, but either way it will be wonderful. Our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies. — 1 Corinthians 15:53 Our resurrection bodies will never fail us. They’ll work in perfect concert with our resurrected minds. We won’t get sick, grow old, or die from either an accident or natural causes. www.epm.org . Used by permission.