Are you about God's business?

Joshua 1:8 "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success"

 

I remember I used to spend lots of time reading the YO-YO manuals and watch videos on how to do tricks. I read about it, think about it and even dream(I think) about it.You know why? Because I loved it and couldn't wait till the next time I got to do a new trick! Do you have some thing of similar nature that you are thinking about right now? It could be fishing, running, how to be a better business man, husband or wife.. or for some math =). Why do we put so much effort into these things? It's obviously because we love and want to apply it to our lives. If we can spend 1-2 hours on Math, on how to fish, or running, why can't we also spend that kind of time on God's word? Isn't it strange how we prioritize things the wrong way and not even know it?

 

If God really really meant something to us, our whole lives will be about His business. Something is definitely going wrong if that is not the case. It could be that we are just hearers and not doers, or just readers and not meditat-ers. Reading and listening to God's word alone will not work, we need to meditate on it constantly so that we can apply it to our lives! The Bible clearly tells us to seek God first, and yet we willingly refuse to obey it so many times. May God help us because we can't do this by ourselves.

 

Let us not say that we know God and call ourselves Christians if we do not love God. If we really love God, our daily and weekly schedules will reflect that. And the only way we can really know how to love God is by reading and loving His word. We cannot just read the word without asking the Holy Spirit to teach us because it doesn't work. Many people know so much about the Word that they forget it's the God that wrote the Word that they need to know. We need to pray every time we study God's word or listen to God's word, "Spirit of God, I recognize that I can't get anything out of my bible reading or this sermon by myself. Please illuminate some truth to my heart today." If that is your real heart cry to God, He will answer you and transform you!

 

I spent lots and too much time on Yo-Yo when I was a kid because it meant alot to me. But right now I know God commands me to love Him single-heartedly! To love or not to love God is not a choice at all. It is a command! Can we all just obey God on this when we make choices in life? Our schedules, conversations in church and home, reactions to ugly situations, interactions in work and school need to reflect that we love God. Everyone else can disobey that command but we don't have to! Don't do and follow what the majority is doing.  Joshua 1:8 is a promise given by a God who cannot lie but it's conditional. Be about God's business by loving Him and meditating on His Word today.

 

Matt 22:37-38 "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment."

Temperance 1.5 (final) - By Doc Rick Flanders

Two Things Every Christian Should Do

Everyone who wants to follow Jesus Christ should first commit himself to obey the Lord in all things. There must be the absolute surrender of discipleship. And there should also be some definite commitments made about many areas of Christian activity, service, and behavior.

We should forsake our sins, and plan not to go back to them. We should firmly resolve to do specific things about church attendance, Bible reading, daily prayer, witnessing for Christ, family duties, and other matters of duty. We should determine to live by patterns of behavior that shut the Devil out. Every one of us should forsake all and follow Jesus, and decide definitely to do it.

Then we should confess to the Lord that in our flesh dwells no good thing, and that in ourselves we do not have the power to keep the commitments we have made. Discipleship (with its discipline) fails without abiding in Christ. So we must start relying on Christ for the victory we need to live as His disciples. Read about that victory in Roman 6-8. Believe that your weakness is a platform for the display of His strength (II Corinthians 12:9). Get up in the morning with a new commitment to do what you ought to do, and then turn to Jesus for the power to do it

Temperance 1.4 - By Doc Rick Flanders

Two Errors About Following Jesus

We are to combine the two concepts of temperance in order to live the victorious Christian life. But there are those who miss the Biblical balance and veer to one extreme or the other.

There are some who talk as if they live for the Lord by faith without the element of discipline. I have met some who have made a mess of spiritual living by talking this way and living by this extreme standard. They have read the classics about the victorious Christian life. But the fact is that they have mostly misread or misunderstood them, and are infected with a strange aversion to any form of commitment or deliberate and planned activity. They are afraid that work done based on planning and preparation rather than on the prompting of the Spirit, may be of the flesh. Some who have rejoiced in what they have learned about living in Christ have a tendency to free themselves of responsibility to live a holy life. It is as if they tell Jesus in the morning, "I can't, but you can," and then at night say, "Well, you didn't do a very good job today, Lord." So-called faith without discipline is not right.

Then there are those who live by discipline apart from faith. These are carnal people who keep the rules and get a lot done, but are in some ways dead and frustrated and defeated. They lack the life of Christ, and really don't do as well as they say they do about living right either. They work hard, but they have little joy or victory in their lives. Their work is what the book of Hebrews calls (in 9:14) "dead works," driven by a guilty conscience and not based on the liberty our Redeemer purchased for us on the Cross.

Re: Temperance 1.3 - By Doc Rick Flanders

Two Views of the Christian Life

When Jesus called men to be His followers, the call involved commitment and self-denial. See the call to discipleship in Luke 9:23. "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." Of course the call to discipleship is repeated in many places and in many ways in the first books of the New Testament. Look up Matthew 9:37-39, Matthew 16:24-25, Mark 8:34, Luke 14:25-35, and John 12:25-26. See that the Christian life viewed as discipleship involves commitment to obey Christ, denial of oneself, and great sacrifice.

But Jesus seems to give a different view of Christian living in John 15, where He says, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye , except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." (verses 4 and 5)

The concept of abiding in Christ as the key to victorious living comes to us in the discourse of our Lord given to His disciples the night before He died on the cross. In that talk, and throughout that talk, Jesus tells about the coming of His Spirit to live in us, and about the difference the Holy Spirit will make in the life of the believer (See John 14:15-26, and then read all of chapters 13-17). It is the Spirit of Christ that enables us to live the Christian life. After three and a half years of learning to live the disciplined life of a disciple, the Spirit of Christ was sent to the disciples to give them the power to live it.

Temperance 1.2 - By Doc Rick Flanders

Two Views of Temperance

In I Corinthians 9 and Galatians 5 we see two views of temperance. Both of them are Biblical, and both of them are correct, although they seem to be in conflict. This is one of those wonderful paradoxes we find in the Word of God, mysterious contrasts in truth that, through close examination and meditation, reveal greater truth.

We are told in I Corinthians to exercise temperance in order to gain eternal rewards. Temperance is exercised by keeping our bodies in subjection to our minds. Other than God, the most important person to obey is oneself! Yet most people find it difficult to obey themselves all the time. The one who sets the alarm clock to wake himself up at a set time is the one who turns it off in the morning so that he can sleep later. Who set the alarm? You did. Who ignored or disobeyed the order to get up at that time? It was you. You wouldn't obey yourself. Failure in life can usually be traced to rebellion against one's own decisions! Unkept schedules, deadlines, and appointments undermine our credibility, and they arise out of failure to subject ourselves to ourselves. Budgets are blown and promises are broken for the same reason. There is real good in training ourselves to obey ourselves through doing the disliked task first or setting up exercises in self-discipline. Proverbs 16:32 says, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city."

The Galatians 5 view of temperance is connected to the teaching of the New Testament that living the Christian life is actually letting Christ live through us. This teaching is easy to find in Galatians. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (2:20) "This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (3:2-3) "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." (5:16)

We live for Christ by telling Him, "I can't, but you can." We cast away confidence in the flesh, and walk by faith in His indwelling Spirit. The Christian life is a supernatural life, not produced by determination and self-effort. But we read again the words of I Corinthians 9:24-27, and ask, "Which is it? Self-control or God-control?" The question of temperance is at the heart of our questions about the Christian life!

Temperance 1.1

By Doc. Rick Flanders

 

"Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." (I Corinthians 9:24-27)

In his first epistle to the Corinthian church, the Apostle Paul was inspired to speak of the role temperance must play in the successful Christian life. Like an athlete, we must be "temperate in all things." The passage in I Corinthians clearly connects temperance with self-discipline, as it speaks of the need to "keep under" the body and "bring it into subjection." Certainly a good Christian must learn how to tell himself what to do, and then get his body to do what he tells it to do! But in another epistle, Paul speaks of temperance in a different way: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23)

In Galatians, temperance is said to be the product (fruit) of the Holy Spirit's ministry in our lives. It is not the work of our flesh, as we can see from the verses that precede these. So how do we get temperance, through self-discipline or from the Holy Spirit? This is a very important question, as we will see as we look more deeply into it.

Study Bibles and Bible dictionaries usually define temperance as "self-control," and we can understand why from by reading the passage in I Corinthians. However, it will be important for us to note that the Greek word translated "temperance" in the New Testament does not have any indication about "self" in any of its prefixes or suffixes or other parts! The word is properly defined "restraint." And we all need it. How often a believer will respond to an appeal for repentance or another important commitment to Christ, by coming down a church aisle or kneeling at an altar of prayer, only to fail to keep his commitment because of his lack of temperance, the virtue of restraining his body to obey the decisions of his mind. Is the cause of his failure to be found in his bad character or his need for faith? What does the Bible say?

"Your head is in your way"

2 Cor 10:5-6 "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled"

 

Rom 8:6 "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

 

"Your head is in your way" Will that be said of us? From Adam and Eve to Paul, all have to deal with the same problem of wrong thinking. We are not spared. For Paul, it was hard to "kick against the pricks." Are we struggling in the Christian life, with other Christians and with obeying God in witnessing to others? Like Paul, we might just be kicking against the pricks because something is wrong somewhere! Some times it is just good to stop and ask God to show us (by reading His Word honestly) where we have been thinking wrong all these years. We might think that we are accomplishing God's agenda when in fact, we are really not. How much more sad then to live and find out most of our work will all burn up and count for nothing before God? It could be regarding evangelism, lifestyles and priorities and even the way things have been going all our lives. Satan has gotten such a stronghold in our human reasoning that we limit God's work so many times. While we are caught up in our human reasonings and fair speehes, souls around us are perishing and most of all, God's glory is being stolen because His agenda is not being carried out. Are we carrying our own agenda human reasoning, trying to reconcile God's Word to support us? I find myself locked in that many times and excusing it as fine because the rest of the pagan world is doing that as well. How terrible is that! Even in our dealings with other Christians ask yourself, "could I be wrong in this issue because my head is in the way?" If we cannot say that, we are probably suffering from a very chronic sin called PRIDE. Are there contentions among fellow Christians? The Bible clearly says in Proverbs 13:10, "ONLY by pride cometh contention.." Even in reading the Bible, we have to read it from God's perspective and not try to place our own meanings(from our way of thinking) into the passages. Only the Holy Spirit can help tear down all wrong thinking in our lives in light of His Holy Word. But the question is if we are willing to be honest before the Word of God? Only when we let go, then God can take over. Are we willing to admit that our head has been in the way? And say I have been wrong?  John 8:32 says, "The truth shall make you free." Freedom from what? From our unwillingness to admit that we have allowed wrong thinking to get in the way of God carrying out His agenda through us. Freedom for what? To live in unity with all Christians, to know that all our sins have been washed by the blood, to pray confidently expecting an answer and witness boldly to our family, neighbours, fellow workers & all people we come in contact with. Is you head in your way today? Let God set us free from bondage of wrong thinking that hurts not only ourselves, but other Christians and the lost (Rom 8:6)!

 

"Forsake the follish, and live; and go in the way of understanding." Pro 9:10

 

 

You are what you think

"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he..." Pro 23:7

 

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" Phil 4:8

 

The Lord has been working on my heart regarding my thought life. It's amazing to see how my outlook change as my thinking changes. As some will say, it's all in the mind =) That is true because the mind is the battle ground upon what our convictions and actions are produced. Do you struggle with silly and sinful thoughts that do not glorify God? Forsaking those thoughts alone will not help much. We need to replace it with something the Lord wants us to think about. It will help for us to study what the words "true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good report, be any virtue, be any praise" because all thoughts that come into our mind must pass through those filters before we can allow them to invade and pollute our thinking. Make the choice to do that today! If you don't, beware!  A idle mind is the devil's playground!

 

Christians are Soul winners Not Self-satisfied workers!

SOUL WINNING FOR CHILDREN

(Notes prepared for 'RU' Conference Workshop)

 

Introduction: Jesus Christ came on earth for the purpose of seeking and saving the lost (Luke 19:10). As we seek to follow Jesus, we must have the burden for the lost around us as well. As the heart for lost souls should consume adults, that heartbeat for the lost should also be in younger Christians. With the Holy Spirit's enablement, a child has the same fire and ability to win souls for Jesus. Thus it is important that we catch the fire ourselves and pass it on to the next generation!

 

 

I.                   Soul Winner's Priority (Matt 6:33)

-      The Glory of God

     

'If everything is important, then nothing is really important'

 

 

II.                Soul Winner's Prayer (Matt 9:37-38)

 

-      The Heart of Jesus

 

                        'The heart of compassion for souls can only be found in Jesus'

 

III.             Soul Winner's Power (Acts 1:8)

 

-      The Holy Spirit

 

'Only the Power of God can save souls'

 

 

Conclusion: If we teach the children all the principles and truths of the Bible and yet forget to teach them how to be soul winners, we will be depriving the children of something that is really close to the heart of Jesus. Therefore, it is vital that we carry the heartbeat of Jesus by placing prayer and effort specially on witnessing for children. When a child catches the fire of soul winning, we can pray and expect them to see the power of God that will surely transform their lives!