Month: June 2015

Dualism has infected our minds. We unconsciously believe that there is a sacred / secular divide. Being a minister for Christ is NOT an activity, a profession, a position, a title, a “higher” or a “special” calling, and does not require lengthy and expensive training. It is NOT a segment of our life, but an integration of all that we are. It is not as much what we do, as it is who we are.
–Kent Humphreys

Kent was a business-man who decided that God had called him to be the minister to his workplace. He also wants all other Christians to realize their calling to be work-place pastors. I agree with him that when God calls you into a relationship with Himself, He is calling you into ministry to others. It is to be WHO you are, not just what you do. I pray that God will help you embrace this idea and begin serving those around you as a minister – looking for ways to meet their spiritual needs in the name of Jesus.

Mother Teresa (who cared for those with leprosy) once said, “We have drugs for people with diseases like leprosy. But these drugs do not treat the main problem, the disease of being unwanted. That’s what my sisters hope to provide.” The sick and the poor, she said, suffer even more from rejection than material want. “An alcoholic in Australia told me that when he is walking along the street he hears the footsteps of everyone coming toward him or passing him becoming faster. Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” One need not be a doctor or a miracle worker to meet that need.
–Philip Yancey

Christians are called to provide help to the hurting.
And since the greatest hurt in life that people are experiencing is loneliness, since the worst disease is the feeling of being unwanted, then we are all equipped to provide the cure.
Reach out to someone today in love and kindness.

In relation to our need to be connected to Jesus on a personal level…
      Someone may fear that we are magnifying private religion out of all proportion, that the “us” of the New Testament is being displaced by a selfish “I.”
      Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow.
      So one hundred worshipers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become “unity”-conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier.
–A. W. Tozer

Great Point!
We will not grow stronger in unity by simply trying to like each other more (we will still get irritated with each other). Instead, we will grow stronger in unity by individually growing closer to Christ. The closer each one of us becomes “in tune” with Christ, the more united we will find ourselves with others. It is only through Him (and our growth in becoming more like Him) that we will become people of love, charity, compassion, & patience, and therefore become the united Body of Christ.

Do you see the glory of God in His wisdom, power, righteousness, truth and love, supremely disclosed at Calvary, in the making of propitiation for our sins? The Bible does; and we venture to add, if you felt the burden and pressure of your own sins at their true weight, so would you.
–J. I. Packer

Too often I think, “I’m a pretty good person.” And in thinking this, I forget how serious my sin was – serious enough to require Someone else to die as a substitute in my place. It is seldom that I consider the true weight of my sin. And therefore, it is seldom that I truly consider how amazing the grace of God is, and how glorious He should be in mind. I should hold Him in the places of highest esteem at all times because of what He did to wipe out the consequences of sin for me.

Father, thank You for Jesus. Thank You for the cross. Help me to view sin as You do. Help me to better grasp the weight of my sin. And allow me to better understand Your great grace that was stronger than all of my sin.

Jesus never met:
      * a disease he could not cure,
      * a birth defect he could not reverse,
      * a demon he could not exorcise.

Forgiveness of sins requires an act of will on the receiver’s part, and some who heard Jesus’ strongest words about grace and forgiveness turned away unrepentant.
–Philip Yancey

Jesus can do amazing things in our lives if only we will choose to let Him work in us. Too many people resist the Lordship of Christ, they turn away from His grace and forgiveness, and they lose the opportunity to experience the abundant life He promised. Don’t resist what Christ desires to do in your life, even though it will require that you relinquish your will and your ways over to His control.