5 things churches do that break my heart

 

No church worships perfectly. Mostly, because redeemed fallen flawed beings are still flawed this side of Heaven. One day,  we will worship in Glory and finally get it right. Until that day, where we choose to do corporate worship will impact our spiritually. 

Over thirteen years, after serving in various positions of three different denominations, and being a guest speaker in over thirty pulpits in seven different denominations, I have noticed actions that bring strength and weakness to the body of Christ.  Even if there is no such thing as a perfect church, here are a 5 things that churches do that breaks my heart. 

Dwelling on their past.  I am not suggesting they forget everything they accomplished.  On the contrary, we should learn from it and build on it. 

We just should not long for the good ole days.  Ecclesiastes 7 10 Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.

It’s just not wise to assume that it brings us closer to God by living out the song, “ Old Time Religion “. 

Many churches have sacrificed whole congregations and an entire generation on an alter of tradition. The scriptures and doctrine must not change, but an unwillingness to change music or methods will eventually  kill membership. All to often, we’ve drawn spiritual lines in the sands with our preferential tones rather than the truths of scripture . 

Getting attached to a singular place. Sometimes the energy and finances goes into keeping up a property rather than expanding the kingdom of God.  Your church building is not Mount Sinai. It has an expiration date. Do not let the bricks and mortar that your grandparents laid become a memorial for their ministry. Or the place where yours never happened.

The church is not a building. 

Ephesians 2...19

and of the household of God;

 20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

Targeting specific people groups. Many people will disagree,  but how can we have a diverse church if we target specific groups? A better question, is there a scriptural basis for targeting anyone ? So many times, people leave church forever feeling worthless and unloved. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out John 6:37

Exceeding scriptural mandates. Like when God’s word says it’s a shame for a woman to have a shaved head  , but when the church says she can’t even cut it.  Sad many never know the spirit of the Lord brings  liberty. These mandates reminds me of what Jesus  said this about the religious leaders of his day  Matt 23:4 For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders;

Focusing on the numbers

That’s not an assault on large churches. It just means large churches have to be extremely careful not to let the numbers change your ministry to please people.  It is great that you baptized lots of people, but can or will you disciple them?  Matt 28: 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, (step1)baptizing them (step 2) in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 

It’s not the order we are use to make is it? The church is called to discipleship first. A church needs a solid plan for the ongoing training of people, not just programs  and wonderful worship services.  When a church is so focused on numbers its leaders cannot be sure what people are being taught,  it has lost its ability to minister to the entire congregation. 

The church should want people to come today who for whatever reason didn’t make it yesterday. And bring someone with them. It should not care what their demographics are if God calls you there or planted you there Their color, age, financial status, exactly wear they live, isn’t important. 

The church should want anyone and everyone, even the nobodies to come and feel like somebody loves them. It shouldn’t put people, especially unsaved people, under man made spiritual microscope. 

But most importantly a church should 

Want To Help People. Follow Jesus. 

Until Everyone Finds Life. 

The Time I thought God called me to plant a Church

 

I thought God had called me to plant a church. I felt convicted about it.  I prayed about it. A lot.  I had a mission and vision and I started pursuing it. Under the direction of another church planter, I prayed God would send me help. You know, cause a plumber/ electrician and hardware guy can help you hook up a dishwasher but he stinks at starting a church. It’s not the first time God called me to something I couldn’t do. Thank God some men from the SC Baptist association and SEND network found me and took me under their wing.

 

I asked God for a vision and a purpose for this church.

I could see a church, small enough to be personable, reaching into its community, welcoming anyone and everyone, while focused on solid biblical teaching and disciple making. I foresaw a church Helping People Follow Jesus, Until Every Soul Finds Life.  I remember asking God for a name for this church.  God gave us the name Purpose to remind us to find our purpose in living life walking in simple daily obedience to Christ. Although we have been regularly meeting for eight months, with the help of people God placed in my path, I discovered somethings along this wild journey.  Here’s a couple of things God has shown me.

 

First off,

less can be more. I know, cliché but it is true.

No, I am not compensating for having a small congregation.

Still, I realize that the larger the congregation becomes the less intimate the relationship will become between pastors and parishioners. Right now I am enjoying the unity that comes with smaller groups.  I am not enjoying the lack of many talents that come with larger groups. Still, there’s lessons there too.

Nobody loves worship more than I do. I love praise music be it contemporary or old hymns. The more instruments the better. I can’t wait for live music to become part of our Sundays. But if the lack of it stifles our worship, then we have missed hearing the music in His word. We failed seeing the works of His hands, all of Creation constantly sings His praises. There’s a refreshing aspect in worshiping without the experiencing sensory overload we have come accustomed to. I’m benefiting by connecting to God, with less distractions, of things I never considered distractions.

 

Secondly,

God didn’t call me to build a church. Jesus said “ …I will build my church…” Without Him I can do nothing.  While I have known that for some time, I’ve  learned God wanted me to lead this church plant, not necessarily plant it.

 

People don’t plant churches.

 

Churches plant churches.

There’s a case to be made planting churches is a role, a responsibility of a church. Often, that never becomes a focus for churches. Truthfully, there’s often a spirit of competition among churches or at least their leaders. I’ve even battled with thinking competitively. I pray I never think like that again. No one Church could ever reach everyone but they can help other churches that help other churches creating a domino effect investing in the Kingdom. So far, there have been four other churches that have directly had a role in planting Purpose. I pray for more, but I also pray for new ones for us to pour into. In a small way, we have already invested in a new church outside of Purpose.  I hope we always meet the needs of those inside our doors and encourage the congregation to be faithful to Christ’s command to go outside those doors with a hunger to serve Him.

 

Finally ,

Success cannot be measured by attendance. This sounds like a no brainier, but the way we get indoctrinated about the world view of success made this the hardest paradigm shift I have experienced. Jesus commands us to go tell the world about Him. He discipled twelve men and together they turned the world upside down. When we create places that become dependent on a great number to operate, we tend to focus inward. So, what if we measured our success in how many we send out rather than keep? What if we made that idea part of our churches DNA from the start?

 I remember when I thought God had called me to simply plant a church. And I remember the moment when God showed me His call was so much more. God has called me to be a disciple making church planting pastor who focuses on harvesting rather than venues.

I pray for new faces. People, who God calls to Purpose church .Some that are looking for a mission. Some who will grow and go when God calls them to
a mission filled with His purpose. I hope it’s you.

 

Separated Christmas

 

If 2020 had a theme word, it would be Separated. We’ve spent this year social distancing, quarantined, masked in virtual isolation. Now many of us are uttering the old cliche. “ It doesn’t feel like Christmas”.

The great irony of Christmas is that came because of separation.  Disconnected from our creator, eternally distanced from Him, mankind found themselves waiting and hoping for light to penetrate the darkness. As the years turned to decades, and centuries morphed into millennia, hope either forged into faith or faded impatiently into loss and disbelief.

Then the  Light of the World was wrapped in swaddling cloth as God showed up with an answer to His promises. Jesus said he had came “ to set the captives free”. 

This year, many of us are separated from family friends because of covid.  Some us are starting to feel like “captives”.

Missing out on those precious special events with those we love, that become Christmas traditions over the years, makes us feel like prisoners . In these times, once again hope wanes in the darkness. Only now, those of us who have Christ, don’t feel alone. We remember these words of Paul.

8We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 2 Corinthians 4

Because of what started that first Christmas, we are no longer separated from Him.

Paul was convinced we couldn’t be.

35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...

37Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 8

All because the Light of the World was laid in the manger and grew up. And now more than ever we need to be reminded the Light of the World called those that belong to Him “the light of the world”  too. It’s time for us to shine.

May Love and Joy come to you.

Merry Christmas 

In These Uncertain Times

In These Uncertain Times

No words have become cliché faster than "in these uncertain times". We can see and hear them everywhere reminding us just how crazy the world has become in less than half a year. Usually, proceeding the new adage, comforting words of certain assurance in someone or some organization in which we can place our confidence. I get it, we all just want to to get back to “normal” .

But the truth is,  our “normal “ was

never a time of certainty.

Seriously, with wars, diseases, famines, when has there ever been certain times for man?

From long ago, a seduced mankind forfeited their security in a lust for knowledge. Evidence of this is found in the risk of destroying ourselves has increased directly proportional with our advancement in knowledge. We play God and with every benevolent advancement comes sinister applications. Then  declare a God , many can’t believe in, evil for allowing us to play with the universe’s building blocks with a knowledge of evil He warned us not to obtain. So, in losing our trust in God, for our own mistakes, we misplaced our trust into the worst possible place . Ourselves. Now, thousands of years latter, in our diversity, beautiful as it is, we have placed our confidence into everything except the only one who could give it. 

So, if things ever get back to normal, where we might die from anything from mosquitos bites to lightning strikes, the only “certain” time we all have is our check out time. In our normal, everything, even time itself as

we understand it, has a designated ending. 

In the meantime, here’s some comforting thoughts.

The Bible teaches we were made “for such a time as this”. Even if we are uncertain about the times, God isn’t. He designed us precisely for this time and placed us here for a purpose.

These uncertain times were part of His plan. Even if we can’t see it yet, these times will bless His people and advance His Kingdom.

Jesus promises to be with us “always, even to the end of the age”. The end of the age, like when time runs out and can’t be quantified except to call it forever. God never leaves or forsakes His people and is causing all things to work together for the good of His people. 

Jude 

24Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, 25To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

In this life, the world will never provide us with times of certainty. If we follow Jesus, we can have hope in this life for and endless time of certainty in the next.

I pray He holds you up, that you find peace and purpose in following Him, in these uncertain times. 

Things I Don't Know About Easter.

When it comes to Biblical study, conjecture is something I do my best to avoid. In the search for truth, being objective is key. Often, the endeavor’s greatest challenge is to remove, as much as possible, the passions and prejudices that make us who we are, without losing our ability to imagine the details of the events.

Yet, my mind can’t help but wonder about the events on the Saturday between The Cross and The Resurrection. 

Not much is recorded in the Bible about that Saturday. Obviously, being the Sabbath, they would have rested as recorded by Luke Chapter 23. Matthew’s Gospel records that the Pharisees placed a stone and a guards in front of the tomb in a response to Jesus’s predictions of returning from the grave.

Apparently, the disciples of Jesus had forgotten those predictions.

Perhaps, the events of Friday had eroded their faith. In any case, Saturday, must have been heartbreaking for those closest to Christ.  It’s obvious from scripture they didn’t know Lockridge’s sermon “Sunday’s a Coming”.  Jesus had led them on a journey of changing the world. God had already began to use them through their relationship with Jesus to literally save it, but they didn't know that. Jesus had introduced them to hope. They had been sure he was the Christ. All they knew,  their friend and leader was dead. Their hopes and dreams were crushed. Their expectations of a messiah had expired. Once again the world seemed lost. They probably wondered if they had been wrong about Jesus.  Surely, they must have wondered why hadn’t He done one of his miracles to save himself? Jesus had came and left.  The sun had rose and set. He was gone and nothing would ever be the same again.

If you’ve ever lost someone you love and look up to, you know that first 24 hours are the darkest. It’s like you’re heart and mind are playing ping pong with gigantic boulders. Back and forth it comes close and you slap it away. No one can win and you just want to stop playing. So that maybe the boulder would fall on you. Except you’re afraid if you do, you’ll forget something about that special someone you don’t want to. It’s emotionally exhausting.

And none of those people we lost were Jesus. Imagine the sorrow the disciples felt, without the belief of a resurrection.

 The church has the luxury of viewing Friday from victory. 

The thing about luxury is it’s rarely satisfied. Great minds that study the scripture aren’t content with simply knowing about where Jesus’s was Friday and Sunday. 

Great thinkers question where was his spirit and soul on Saturday ? For hundreds of years, brothers and sisters have debated whether Jesus’s soul was in hell or heaven on that Saturday. Men proclaimed two separate mysteries as truth and caused some to question the things we are sure of. 

I know the arguments, the scriptures involved, and even lean more one way than the other, but I don’t know. No matter how convincing theories get explained, I don't know that anyone knows.  And I don’t want what I don’t know to distract me from what I do know. 

I know I never want to  experience my life lived without Jesus. Praise God, I know I don’t have to. I know that some people are. I’ve seen the sad eyes of those who haven’t been set free by God, held captive by the unanswerable mysteries we don’t have to know to belong to Him. Mysteries from the past, or the ones we face now, or the ones we may face before Jesus comes back again, aren’t our salvation. It’s the Truth, He died, conquered the grave, and is coming again for those who belong to Him.

I know He called me to tell those that are living without Him about that Friday and Sunday. Lord willing, I’ll do that today and tomorrow. And everyday after that. 

Happy Easter. 

He Lives! 

He Reigns! 

Too Much Christmas?

 “ Christmas is getting to be too much,” an acquaintance of mine shouted to me as he hurried after his wife and their quickly filling shopping cart. I wonder if that’s true? Can celebration of our Savior’s birth become “too much” ? The short answer is no, but truth is much has been made of Christmas that isn’t Christmas. 

Music has been composed. Songs have been written and sung. 

Characters have been conjured from  imaginations. Yarns were spun, fables were told and retold. Wonderous legends where carved into our hearts. When man gazed at sacred truth and perceived something malleable, we fashioned a Christmas spirit. Century after century we pounded on an amplified inflated dramatized versions of facts. Traditions have been held and are kept now as if the survival of the species depended on them. The season marries the talent and effort of those who would help you see what they see or feel what they feel, or at least wish they could, about Christmas. 

Christmas will always be a loftier  

event than our ability to communicate it. 

So, we deflect our attention from celebration to decoration. We made our plans and got busy. Effectively, running back to chains Christ unshackled us from.

I wonder what plans Mary had just prior to the Gabriel’s visit?

Maybe a grand wedding. 

What dreams did she lay aside to be obedient? Did the memories of what we call Christmas console her visions the crucifixion must have left her with? It's in her words I find the spirit of Christmas.

Luke 

38Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”

Christmas ushered in a new era of man's ability to serve something greater than our primordial pleasures. Jesus became our spiritual food to curve our emotional and sensual appetites so that we could feast rather than starve. As long as what we celebrate truly is the first coming of Christ, we will never be guilty of overdoing Christmas.

  God's word reminds me we’re to be living sacrifices. Never trade His vision for your Dreams. Never exchange His purpose for you for your passion. For those who cannot break free of those desires, Christmas will always be ”too much”. If through Christ you can declare, ” let it be to me according to your word, Lord” it will be enough. And Christmas will always be as it should be.

May the season afford you peace in every blessing. May Love and Joy come to you. 

Merry Christmas,

Clint

When They Walk Away: 4 Reasons People Leave the Faith

Does the name Marty Sampson mean anything to you? If your like me, you never heard of him until last week. However, if you attend church, chances are you’ve heard his music. Sampson has been a singer-songwriter and musician for Hillsong United since the group began in 1998. He has written and performed lots of songs. Earlier this month in an Instagram post, Sampson said he was, “ loosing his faith and was ok with it” . Later, after pressure from his audience and colleagues to clarify, Sampson said he wasn’t renouncing Christianity but described his faith as on “shaky ground”.

 Sampson isn’t by himself.  Joshua Harris, the former pastor of Covenant Life Church, a mega church located in Maryland, and the founding church of Sovereign Grace Ministries, “walked away from the faith” following his divorce. Grace Family Fellowship’s pastor, Dave Gass, renounced and condemned the Christian faith after 40 years in the ministry. If you’d like to know more, just look them up on the net.

These kind of stories break my heart for all those who have been effected by the apparent “falling away” of church goers and teachers. Christians will grieve their absences and question the outcome of having followed their teaching. The collateral damage is potentially crushing to relationships. Marriages and friendships may or may not endure, but the comfortable atmosphere will have eroded. The adhesion will have lost some of it’s grip. Trust will now teeter on mortality where forever had once tied an eternal bond. While there are unlimited scenarios surrounding the circumstances of the individual quandaries people find themselves in, nearly all of these kinds of disaffection for God have similarities. If you investigate the stories you’ll find these common threads:

A loss of faith in humanity. The realization that mankind is a hopeless case bent on destroying itself.  It means coming to the understanding, in the name of survival or self preservation, humans have a tendency to become savage beasts. Knowing 

sometimes the best people, the people you know and love the most, will hurt you deeply. So, to them a perfect God could never be real. Ironically, it is this truth that leads many to search for a God, who can fix this, in the first place.

A revelation from Scripture. The understanding that the God of scripture is uncontrollable. He isn’t a galactic cuddly version of Aladdin’s genie. When people discover He has done some things they don’t like, they judge Him as evil. Deciding He cannot be Holy, by their standard, they choose to believe at the very least He shouldn’t exist.  

A loss of faith in themselves. Many times, those who walk away are guilty of some moral failure that has come to light. Since God allowed their sin to come to become public, something His Word promises, they conclude a loving God would never allow them to fall. So, He must not be there for them, nor could He be for anyone else, since they are the best.

A faith in science: When people becomes convinced collectively mankind has obtained enough intellectual knowledge to dismiss the spiritual elements of life and conscience, he will arrogantly determine there is no God. Then he can do as he pleases in the name of advancement. Science, can offer nothing but a satirical faux-hope to mankind. It celebrates individuality, leaves man to law, but gives them no moral code. Science has given the world wonderful advancements in medicine, agriculture, and communications. It also gave us mustard gas, agent orange, and nuclear weapons. While science, as wonderful and benevolent as can be, cannot produce life, it has mastered producing death.

Christians don’t have a faith in humanity either. We believe what we do in this life has eternal consequences. We believe the God of the Bible is all powerful and cannot be controlled nor are there any reasons He should be. We have lost all faith in ourselves, so Jesus now controls us. We believe in scientific facts, but realize they do not disprove God’s existence. We don’t stand on “shaky ground” we stand on the rock of our salvation. We stand on a solid foundation of hope in someone stronger and more intelligent than ourselves. Someone who created individuality, and a morality to temper the laws. We stand on Him who causes science to work and creates life. We believe Him when he said,”...My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness..." (2 Corinthians 12:9).

1 John 2:19  says They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. 

These words are a reminder that not everyone who calls Jesus Lord actually knows Him. (See Matt 7)

It’s heartbreaking when dynamic influencers walk away from the faith.  The great work Jesus did for us makes walking away inconceivable if it were even possible. Based on what the Bible says here and various other places, many of us believe they never had a faith to walk away from. Still, some of the faith will interpret this as a change of mind and heart in a once upon a time believer. A problem easily remedied by another decision. Others will say they can never return. Here questioning becomes it's designed purpose, a distraction from the evil one. Debating rather than serving is the great sin of our time. The farther away you are from a tragedy the easier the words flow. The closer you are to a tragedy the easier tears flow. From compassionate concerns to angry condemnation, people will respond any and everywhere in between. Meanwhile there's still the mission God called us to. Making disciples.We have not been called to figure out all the mysteries of the universe. We have not been called to a speculation of individuals’ futuristic relationship status with the Almighty. We’ve been called to tell the story of Jesus. 

Humanity’s only Hope is Jesus. My only Hope is Jesus. Your only Hope is Jesus. Run to Jesus for Hope. Run to Jesus for Life. Run to Jesus and Live.

Less is More

I don't know if you can have too much of a good thing or not, but the older I get, the more I believe " less is more". Most of us, who grew up in America, were sold a "bigger is better" philosophy. It's sown into our DNA, the notion success is measured by quantity or sheer mass. We have been told "go big or go home". Christians need to stop buying it.
So many of us think we need to do something "big" for God. Somehow we forget that God does much with little. He created a universe from nothing except His words. Started a nation with one man named Abraham. God used Gideon and 300 men to scare an army to death. In John Chapter 6, He fed 5000 with five loaves and two fish. The very next day, He cut the size of His following down to twelve men, who would change the world. He miraculously saved countless through the sacrifice of one man named Jesus.

 For some reason, we engineer everything we do and measure everything we accomplish by the numbers. Large numbers are rarely associated with quality. Mc Donald's might have sold the most hamburgers, but I don't think many would argue McDonald's hamburgers are the best . They aren't. The best hamburgers are sold in the little hole in the wall restaurants. Ministries now borrows themes  and tactics from some the biggest and best marketers. If we have to sacrifice  the details to reach the masses, so be it.  Somewhere we forgot small things matter to God.

 In Jesus's concern for the "least of these" , He did not suggest a complex solution. He suggested we supply food and drink for those in need, and a visit for lonely isolated souls. No branding, no marketing. No entertainment. Just one simple strategy. He equated the importance of those considered "the least" to Himself. In other words, the source of life itself.


 Jesus taught in Luke 16:10
 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much... 

So you could say, following Jesus means you might have to sweat the small stuff.
We serve a big God, who cares about the little things.
He even cares about each and every little sparrow. 
That's Good News for us. He is faithful.

Who Will Find the Nativity

Every year at Christmas, Millions of people, from all walks of life, sing ”O Come, All Ye Faithful.” In unison, they collectively beckon the joyful and triumphant to vicariously visit the God in the manger. During this festive advent, representatives from most political parties and practically every vocation will visit a model of Christ’s Nativity. If you were to ask someone to describe the invitation to the original Nativity, you might hear words such as: glorious, spectacular, wonderous, or beautiful. As mesmerizing as the angels must have been, let’s not forget the selectively few invited to that First Christmas. 

Excluding Mary and Joseph’s obvious roles, the Christmas caste was an interestingly short list.

Unlike the Wise men, who may have been there or may have come later, Shepherds did not decipher signs or scriptures before searching heaven and earth for Jesus. Shepherds received a divine invitation. 

Shepherds were  given a heavenly assignment.

Their mission was planned out. God had declared ”you will find”.

Not you might, not you can. You will. When they found Him was determined, where they found Him was determined. Most importantly, was the understanding of who it was they'd found. Christ, The Lord.  Emmanuel, God with us, the King of Kings and Lord of lords, but He is also the Alpha and Omega. He who is, who was , and who is to come.

In His infinite wisdom, planning throughout eternity past, God chose shepherds from one nation of peculiar people as the singular profession invited to birth of His only son.

 He didn’t choose doctors to heal or attend to them. Neither did he bring  lawyers to help them understand or keep the rules.  God didn’t enlist guards to protect them. He didn't get an interior decorator to . He didn't hire performers to entertain or dynamic speakers to preach. He didn't invite cool cowboys, He only invited humble shepherds.

 Here in the west, many have confused the metaphorical shepherds of the Bible with metaphorical cowboys. The differences aren't subtle. Shepherds lead the flock, and the sheep follow. 

Cowboys drive the cattle. They choose a direction for an exciting adventure and head off into the sunset. Occasionally, a stampede happens but a cowboy stays safe in the rear. The chaos leaves a carcass or dozen in the desert, but the drive goes on. At the end of a hard day, Cowboys bed down for the night . 

 Shepherds are called, not only to feed the sheep, but to watch their sheep. Though the night brings prowling lions, shepherds guard the flock.  Sheep, as it turns out, are easily scattered and lost. Christ says, ”Shepherds will leave the ninety-nine to find a stray one. A Good Shepherd will do it even at the cost of his life.” Then He died on a cross to prove it. Shepherding is a dirty, humiliating job society saw as demeaning.

 It isn't an obscured, eternal, celestial viewpoint God chooses from. In the most precious moment of history, when the most gracious, wisest, and powerful King this world has ever known, was born, God was orchestrating more than choirs of angles. He has purpose. He gives purpose. He knows exactly who He calls.

 Shepherds did not randomly stumble into the presence of God, on that first Christmas. Neither can we randomly find ourselves there today. God must call us, and we must answer.

At the manger, God, as He often does still, brought those society had discarded to come into His presence to worship Him. 

1st Corinthians 1

28 He chose the lowly and despised things of the world, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast in His presence.

Despised unto humility, who better than shepherds to announce the birth of the Lamb of God? 

2000 years later, despised shepherds are called to carry a message. That message echoes from the Nativity, where the virgin wrapped her newborn in swaddling clothes. Free from the inherited stain of man’s sin, Christ, from the manger, doesn't simply initiate the first Christmas. From this miraculous birth, God certifies the work He is to do at the Cross and validates a defeated grave. Here He qualifies the sacrifice that will redeem believers from a deserved firey torment for the eons of eternity. From here begins the consecrated life lived to lead souls to heaven. 

As the sun sets, the cowboys ride, the herds will leave. When the lights taken down, the Nativity set is boxed away for another year, a new song will be playing in the background. The flock will face the temptation to temporarily stifle the marvelous awe found in the truth of the manger's mission, but there will always be a Shepherd, who will face bears in the night, even the grave itself, to carry the news of what began that night in Bethlehem.

May Love and Joy come to you, in knowing The Good News.

Merry Christmas,

Clint

Suffering: Hope's Romances

Pick up a book written by some modern evangelical pastors and we will find the romanticized version of evangelism. Story after story of  lost souls coming to faith through their conversations and interactions. Of which some, I’m sure are true and unarguably a treasured source of hopeful reassurance. Most of us cherish those moments of much needed inspiration. What we won’t find between, in, or on the majority of those pages is broken heartedness, frustration, and helpless concern any person of faith feels for those who are lost or strayed from the faith. Especially for, but not limited to, those we are closest to.

It’s not the sorta exciting world changing glamour that sells books ...or anything else for that matter. It’s just an emotional reality known, all too well, by those who believe and share the gospel. We just can’t nonchalantly take the “you win some, you lose some “ stance when it’s the eternity of those you know best on the line. No matter where our doctrinal beliefs fall in the theological perspective, it simply just isn’t up to us. Suddenly, this glorious knowledge of the free setting truth make is us realize we are in unshackled chains without the ability to free another soul.

We mourn for those we love who are still chained. Though Christ has empowered us through His  death and resurrection, when we are close to those who are squandering grace, we can feel spiritually paralyzed. If God planted our Hope within us, then spiritual paralysis is Hope’s great fertilizer. Organic fertilizer. In other words, it feels like crap dumped on us to make us grow.

Proverbs 13:12 says

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.

Understanding who we are and who God is, is the key to hope in this life and for the next one. Nothing of this world can destroy our hope if we don't find it here or keep it here. 

Hebrews 10:23Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised God keeps His promises.

Do we know all of those wonderful commitments He has sworn to Himself on behalf for us?

To maintain hope requires a connecting focus on God's word. 

Psalm 119. 114 Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word

Most of us Christians avoid disappointment and emotional suffering as if it were the plague, but the Bible teaches us to rejoice in suffering. 

Romans 5:3 but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

Suffering, is when God frustrates the attacks of the enemy, for His glory, to grow us into something more powerful and beautiful than we were before it attacked.

If we are to share the gospel, we must overcome the fear of disappointment. In short, you must have hope.

Psalm 42:11

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

 If I were to define Hope, it would be: practicing the emotional goal setting to intentionally think differently now about circumstances, in order to keep from being blinded to the potentially positive outcome of those circumstances in the future.

To hope, you must have more than just a need for it.

You must have faith to go with it.

The well known biblical definition for faith found in Hebrews 11:1 confirms:

...faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 

Sometimes, when we've bared our soul, prayed our hearts out, made our concerns known,  hoping is the only thing we can do. When all we can do is hope, it becomes a catalyst for testing our faith. These verses bare, not only a reminder, to not lose hope, they teach us God is the God of Hope.

Romans 15:13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

When we were not connected to the creator, we were not connected to the source of this life and had no hope for another.  But God’s grace gave us Hope. Sometimes, most times, the best thing to do for ourselves and those who doubt is Hope. Hope in God. He is a good God. He is merciful. 

If you'd like someone to pray for you or someone you know who needs hope, feel free to contact me.

Psalm31:24

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.