N is for NOW

“N” is for Now. I hope that even though this is the 6th daily message in this series that it will not be missed, because I think that it is the most important one. As we have looked at the subject of MISSION this week we have identified that our MISSION is Mandated by Jesus, that we would Intentionally reach out, empowered by the Spirit to Simply see Incredible things happen as we preach One Message of hope to a hurting and dying world. That is all well and good and will always potentially happen if we never get to today’s thoughts. The missing part of this week’s thoughts is the timeframe in which we can expect to see this happen. Today we answer that question by saying that the time to reach our neighbors in NOW.

In 2 Cor 6:2 we read, ‘I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.’ This is the day that the Lord has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it. We need to not put off our intentional outreach but instead we need to make our mission a part of our life. I have found that often in our middle-class society that we have that ‘it won’t happen to me’ attitude where we think that nothing bad will happen to us or anyone we know and love. What is certain though is that no man knows the future. One of the hardest things I have had to do was to talk to a family member who lost a loved one who did not know Jesus. The pain of knowing that according to the bible only those who know Jesus as Lord and Savior will reign with him in glory is tough to bear. We need to be gripped once again with such compassion and love for the lost that we can do nothing but tell people about Jesus. We need a new sense of urgency. I often compare outreach and mission with the latest medical breakthrough. When a group of scientists or doctors identify a cure for a certain disease the one thing that that group is sure to do is to spread the good news about the cure they have found. They appear on TV and radio, there are internet postings and blogs written, the world knows all about it. Just think how quickly the word spread about the recent swine flu. Well, we have the cure to death itself. We have the keys to eternal life. We know the truth and the truth will set people free. What should we do about it? Should we just keep it to ourselves and share it only with those who come to us and ask? Should we wait until we can create the right event at our church that the lost will come to? Maybe we should follow the Mandate given by our commander-in-chief, Jesus – “Therefore, GO…”

Just something to think about as you go about your day today.

O is for One Message

“O” is for One Message. I think that one of the most confusing things for non-Christians are the apparent contradictions in the message that is presented by the church. This is not a new phenomenon. The apostle Paul encountered this in 1 Cor 1:12 where he wrote, “What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas[a]"; still another, "I follow Christ." Even back then there were the makings of the divisions that we see so evident today. When Jesus returns He is coming for His bride – not brides. We are all part of one body and we need to have one message – the same message that Jesus spoke when He was on the earth.

Our main passage this week has been Matthew 28:18-20. We can see in the latter part of this passage that Jesus commands the disciples to teach everything that He taught them. His command was simple – go and make disciples – yet we seem to complicate this simple statement so much.

Have you ever thought about what the fundamental things are to someone becoming a fully devoted follower of Christ? What does it really mean? Is saying a prayer of repentance enough? Is there more to the conversion process? What about all of the different denominations? Does it matter if you gave your heart to Jesus in a Methodist church, or in a Baptist church, or in a Pentecostal church or in a Catholic church?

Romans 10:9-10 states, “That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” This almost seems too simple (remember the second ‘S’ from yesterday?) and we often want to make the salvation process so much more complicated. Jesus kept it simple – confession with your mouth, actually speaking it out, believing in your heart and the end result is that you will be saved.

The fundamental message is simple. Jesus is the Son of God who came to this earth to rescue a traitor race that rebelled against their creator. He is the way the truth and the life. You cannot connect with the Father, except through Jesus.

Just something to think about as you go about your day today.

I is for INCREDIBLE

So far in our study of MISSION we have learned that M is for Mandate, I is for Intentional, S is for Spirit Empowered and S is for Simplicity.

“I” is for Incredible. There are a couple of places in the New Testament where Jesus sends his disciples out on what we would consider to be short term mission trips. What is quite different about these mission trips from those that many of us have been involved in is the direction that Jesus gives his disciples. In Matthew 10 (which is a great chapter to read if you have the chance) we see Jesus sending out the 12 disciples on there first trip. What is incredible in this passage is the instructions that Jesus gives them.

In Matthew 10:7-8 we read, “As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' 8Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,[b]drive out demons.” There are 5 things that the disciples are instructed to do on this trip:

1. Preach a simple message, the Kingdom of Heaven is near
2. Heal the sick
3. Raise the dead
4. Cleanse those who have leprosy, and
5. Drive out demons

I wonder what response we would get if we pulled the StreetReach team together on July 12th at our first meeting and told them that the next week we would be doing 5 things – the list above. I am sure that the sense of dread and panic would be intense, however, I can also imagine the celebration and rejoicing that would occur if our team returned back to Mt Oak having done just one of these things.

Here is the question, why do we not do these things on our mission trips? Prior to Jesus sending the 12 disciples out on this trip he gave them the authority to do all of these things, That same authority He has given to you and me. If you recall Matthew 28:18 we read there that ALL authority in heaven and on earth has been given to us, that is why we can go and see INCREDIBLE things happen when we take the truth out to those who need to hear about, and experience God’s love.

Just something to think about as you go about your day today.

S is for .....

So far in our study of MISSION we have learned that M is for Mandate and I is for Intentional.

“S” is for Spirit Empowered. When it comes to mission and telling people about Jesus I think that most of us would follow the early disciples lead in the 49 days following Jesus death and resurrection. By all accounts they spent much of that time behind closed and locked doors trying to make sure that those on the outside didn’t know where they were. Have you felt like that? Have you gone to your office and prayed harder that people would not ask you anything to do with God than praying that they would? I have done that – I have been that undercover Christian who was more afraid of outreach than even non-believers were.

So how did the early disciples go from cowering in locked rooms to standing in the middle of a large crowd in Jerusalem proclaiming the truth about Jesus? The simple answer is the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2:1-4 we read that as the disciples were gathered together the Holy Spirit was poured out on them and they were filled with ‘power from the Holy Spirit’ as was described in Acts 1:8. Maybe it is time for us to seek empowerment from the Holy Spirit to give us courage, knowledge, wisdom, and passion to stand on a street corner and proclaim the truth. I would encourage you to ask God to pour His Spirit out on you in a fresh and a new way. I will speak more about this on Sunday morning.

‘S’ is also for simplicity. When the early disciples were empowered by the Holy Spirit they did spend time putting together a slick gospel presentation. There was no band, no powerpoint and no special effects. The stood up where the people were and spoke the truth. I am pretty sure that any one of us could do that – just tell people your story of how Jesus has touched and transformed your life. How many times do we make God more complicated than He really is? How many times do we place obstacles in front of people that even Jesus would not put there? How many times did Jesus just keep it simple and meet the needs of the peoples around Him? When people were sick, He healed them. When they were hungry, He fed them. When they were afraid, He brought peace. As we meet people each day maybe we should keep things simple and meet the needs we see and not over complicate the Good News. Mother Theresa said that Christians are called to be witnesses at all times, but they should only use words when absolutely necessary.

Just something to think about as you go about your day today.

I is for INTENTIONAL

Yesterday we learned that M is for Mandate – telling people about Jesus is Mandated.

“I” is for INTENTIONAL. Today as we consider mission I would like to suggest that our mission should be intentional. I don’t know if you are like me, but I plan things out – at least in my head. It may not look like it sometimes but there is usually some intentionality in everything I do. Mission and reaching this city for Jesus should be no different. As we prepare for StreetReach we are intentionally targeting one location in Bowie – the Pointer Ridge Section. We are intentionally developing postcards and other ‘give-aways’ that have our message on them and we can give out at events. We have intentionally identified events that we can meet lots of people – the parade, Bowiefest, a table on the concourse at a Baysox home game, June 13th Saturday StreetReach prayer walk and leaflet distribution in the Pointer Ridge section of the city.

Jesus gave the disciples some intentionality in their mission – they were told in Matthew 28:18-20 to go into all the world to make disciples, to baptize people and to teach them everything they had learned from Him – all because Jesus had all the authority and was empowering them with that same authority. In Acts 1:8 they were told to start their mission in Jerusalem, then to move outwards until they reached the whole world.

Jesus wants you to be intentional about your mission field too. Do you have one colleague who is on your heart more than others? Have you been praying for a family member more frequently recently? Maybe that person is who God wants you to focus your effort on at this time – to be intentional about reaching out to. As a 15yr old kid I had a friend who lost his hair because of alopecia (stress over his parent’s divorce). At the age of 15 my friend was bald except for 3 strands of hair. I became intentional about reaching him. I started to pray every night, some time during February, and asked God that by December 31st he would have restored my friend’s hair. For weeks and months I prayed alone each night – the same thing, the same prayer. For that year, that was my mission. As weeks became months my determination to pray intensified. My mom even told him that I was praying for him – I must admit, that was a little embarrassing.

By January 1st guess what had happened?

Just something to think about as you go about your day today.

What is MISSION?

With Rev Ray on vacation for part of this week, he has asked me to write the daily messages. As I was thinking about what to write I have been working on our upcoming mission week and so I thought I would write about MISSION.

M is for ‘Mandated’ – in the movie ‘Crimson Tide’, Gene Hackman plays the captain of a nuclear submarine which receives a message to launch a nuclear missile. Denzel Washington plays the First Officer who brings a partial transmission of a message which may or may not be an order to abort the launch. Hackman’s character is determined to go ahead with the launch because that was the last clear order he received.

In Matthew 28:19, Jesus gives his disciples a final order. Like the movie mentioned above, this final order has not been rescinded. It has not been over-turned by any subsequent order. Jesus’ final order stands as true today as the moment he spoke it. What was the order? To ‘go and make disciples of all nations…’ The final direction that Jesus gave to his disciples was what we know as the final commission. That commissioning remains our final instruction. We are called to go into all the world – and that begins within our own homes, extends to our neighbors, our work colleagues, our city, our nation and the whole world. We are MANDATED to go – that is our final order and until the Lord returns and rescinds that order or changes it we need to follow it.

For many of us though this order is the scariest thing in the world – “you mean we actually have to tell people about Jesus? Are you serious? Do you know what they will say?” Jesus never promised us a happy life. Jesus never promised us a quiet life. Jesus never promised us a long life. Jesus only promise to us was that he would never leave us or forsake us – and that includes those times when we take courage in both hands and speak out His truth.

As you consider the Mandate that Jesus made for us to reach this world maybe you could start by simply praying for those you are in contact with daily and asking God to provide opportunity for you to share the Good News – even if it is only through actions.

Just something to think about as you go about your day today.

The Scary Woman Behind the Desk - is Actually an Angel

Yesterday I had one of those meetings that I dread. One of those meetings where I have never met the person I am meeting with, have no background information on them, don't know what they think or how they will react to me. I dislike these encounters. I would rather have to meet with someone that I know doesn't like me than to step into the unknown.

Here is a little background. This summer we are hosting a week long mission event into our own city. We call this StreetReach as we are trying to reach this city with the love of Jesus. As part of this week we host a number of evening activities that everyone is invited to and this year to close it all off we wanted to hold a Christian concert in the amphitheater at our local park. When I talked to the people in City Hall they told me that this facility was not typically available to the public during the summer. However, if the event were co-sponsored by a city run group then there would be no problem. Now the question before me was who in the City offices would co-sponsor the event.

I was put in touch, via e-mail, with a lady who heads up part of the youth and community services branch of City Hall. She was the scary lady behind the desk. I had a meeting scheduled for 1pm yesterday afternoon, which I dutifully attended.

So, fast forward to yesterday. Imagine the scene. I am sitting in an office inside City Hall about to ask a government employee if their government office would co-sponsor a Christian concert. The angle I was approaching it from was that we were trying to reach teenagers and she had an anti-drug campaign aimed at teenagers. It could match very well. However, all I could think about was the 'separation of church and state' people who might well jump all over this in a heartbeat.

We greeted each other, she smiled - all was good so far. Then came time for my pitch, or as I looked at it, my chance to cast the vision of what we are doing with StreetReach. I went for it. I laid the whole vision out, from Belfast to Bowie, from yard work to heart work. No holds barred, here we are, this is what we do. As I was talking I noticed that she wasn't frowning at the words, but her eyes were getting bigger and bigger and bigger. She was nodding along with what I was saying and she was even agreeing with what we were doing.

I could feel myself getting excited because I thought, if she gets this then we will get the amphitheater. I finished my vision-casting and awaited a response. What happened next blew me away. Our God is an awesome God and He has all the plans already laid out. The first words out of her mouth were these, 'You know, as a pastor's wife, this sort of stuff gets me excited!'

Yes, indeed. God had set me up to meet with a pastor's wife who not only wanted to co-sponsor, she also took some of our fliers with her to see if any of the young people in her church would want to come and join us. She contacted the lady who oversees the booking of the amphitheater and we confirmed the date of Friday July 17th with a rain date of Saturday July 18th.

WE GOT THE CO-SPONSORSHIP AND THE AMPHITHEATER AT ALLEN POND TO USE TO SPREAD THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT JESUS!!!!

Needless to say I was pretty excited.

God is good, and God is in control. I have more StreetReach praise reports to bring soon.

Those Controversial Gifts

C. Peter Wagner defines a ‘spiritual gift’ as “a special attribute given by the Holy Spirit to every member of the body of Christ, according to God’s grace, for use within the context of the body.” As I read this definition I had a little uneasiness with the first aspect – the ‘special attribute’ part. I think the word ‘attribute’ has caused me some concern because it begs the question, “Who is it attributed to?” In other words, are spiritual gifts just an extension of our personality traits or are they separate stand alone tools that the Holy Spirit provides for each believer to use as they are needed? As I have been working on this series of teaching sessions for our college ministry, I have read a number of things that I have agreed with, many that I have not agreed with and a few that I am still making my mind up over.

I think that one of the things that I have read up on and have come down on the side of disagreeing with are the ‘Spiritual Gift’ tests or quizzes. I am sure you may have seen these and you may even believe in them. For me, I have found them somewhat lacking. Let me explain. As I have read through a number of these tests, answered the questions and even read the responses that I have achieved I have been impressed with their ability to identify my personality and my talents. They can even spot my weaknesses and deficiencies. The one thing that I struggle with though, is that there seems to be little difference between these types of tests and the personality tests I use in work with my students. The identification appears to be more about me and my personality than about the gifts that the Spirit has for me to use. When I look at those tests I wonder what some of my work colleagues would come out with as a result, even though they are Jewish, or have no faith at all. One thing I do know, unless you know the Holy Spirit you won’t know the gift He has for you, regardless of what the test says.

The bible does not tell us to take a test to find out our gifting, in fact it does not even say that you HAVE just one gift – to keep. Sometimes I think we believe that if we HAVE the gift of prophecy say, then it is like a little bottle of magic potion that we pull out of our pocket when we need it and pour a few drops on people. That is not how spiritual gifts operate, or how we should operate in our spiritual gifts.

I like this definition of spiritual gifts from AllaboutGod.com a little better, “Gifts of the Spirit are special abilities provided by the Holy Spirit to Christians for the purpose of building up the body of Christ.” The gift is provided by the Holy Spirit and it is an ‘ability’, requiring some form of ACTION, not just an attribute that can remain dormant. I have a number of great attributes, but if I do not put them into action then what use are they?

1 Corinthians 12:8-10 is the main passage used when discussing spiritual gifs. This list includes wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpretation of tongues. Other lists of gifts can be found in Ephesians 4:7-13 and Romans 12:3-8. Regardless of the location of the gifts the basic premise of the gifts of the Spirit are simply tools that the Holy Spirit gives out to enable believers to build up and edify the church. The gifts of the Spirit are given out freely, but only given out when they will be used to build up the church. You don’t walk around with your gift in your pocket next to your I-phone.

So, having said all that, the question remains, “How do I know which one I have?” The answer very simply is that you don’t HAVE any, but you have ACCESS to them all. The gifts are distributed by the Spirit as He sees fit (1 Cor 12:7-11). The reason for the gifts is to serve and build up the body. If there are sick people in the body then which gift do you think they require? Yup, healing. But if you “have” the gift of prophecy then how will the sick get healed? The gifts are tools, and every workman who carries a toolbox will tell you that if you have the right tool for the right job then it will be done easily. Each tool has a separate function, but under the operation of the craftsman they can accomplish a variety of tasks.

Can you imagine calling a plumber to fix your sink and 25 people show up carrying one tool each. They stand in line waiting to be called upon to loosen a bolt, then another to grip a fitting. Hopefully your plumber brings a toolbox with lots of tools and is able to use them all. So too with the gifts of the Spirit. (After all, when a sick person is healed who gets the gift of healing – the person who is praying or the one who is healed?) They are all available to each believer and are given out by the Spirit as they are needed. God has graciously allowed me to operate in the gift of healing when there were sick people to be prayed for. In the same meeting I have brought prophetic words to some, discerned different types of spirits with others and seen miracles occur. Do these gifts come up when I do a spiritual gift’s test? Do I carry these gifts around with me every day? Not at all. But I have access to them all at any time of any day. These are the tools of the Christian ‘trade’. The gifts are tools that allow us to be the difference that we can be in the world. The power of the Spirit is what enables the blind to see, the lame to walk and the deaf to hear. It is time that we took action and started to ask the Spirit to equip us to serve.

So you want to know what your Spiritual gifts are? Simple, do you see a need in the church? Then, do whatever you can to meet it. Is there a position in a ministry that is vacant and needs someone to step up? Ask God if He would have you fill it. If you seek God's will and obey His leading, He will always equip you with whatever gifts of the Spirit you need. If you are not serving the body, then why do you need a spiritual gift? As you serve, you will begin to meet things that require the Spirit’s gifting, that’s when you will begin to use your toolbox.

The Biggest Lie in the World

I recently heard a pastor give a message on being who God has called us to be. During that message he said this, "There is one big lie that exists in the world today. You have heard it, you have probably even spoken it over your children or even your friends. Many of you do not even believe that this is a lie, but fundamentally, when you get down to the bottom line, this is the biggest lie ever."

As you can imagine, I was pretty hooked into this message at this point. As I drove through DC listening to these words I started to think of some pretty big lies - there is no God, Jesus was not the Son of God, there is no devil, and many more that I could think of. As the speaker progressed with his message he put me out of my misery by answering his own statement. Are you ready to hear what he said?

The biggest lie today is this, "You can be anything you want to be"

I will pause for a moment to wait for the internal reaction that just went off inside of you to settle down. I wonder if anyone thought that having heard this that I should be more selective of the speakers I listen to. Let me unpack this particular speakers rationale for this statement.

"You can be ANYTHING you want to be" - sounds good, sounds encouraging, sounds liberating, sounds unachievable, sounds unattainable, sounds false. You may have told your kids this as they were growing up. You may have high hopes and aspirations for them, but are these aspirations realistic? Do your dreams for your kids match God's gifting and calling for your kids? If you have a son who grows up to be 5'5" tall and appears to have two left hands when it comes to ball sports, then no matter how much he WANTS to be an NBA star, he is most likely not going to achieve that ambition. If you have a daughter who WANTS to become an astronaut but doesn't understand elementary physics and gets motion sick when you reverse the car out of the driveway, then this WANT will not be achieved. When we get down to the harsh reality, we cannot be anything we WANT to be.

If you have continued to read, then you are either depressed or upset or intrigued. So let me bring an upside to this otherwise depressing posting. If we were created by God, gifted and anointed by Him, and placed on this earth then there must be a reason for Him doing that. The biggest problem I see with the biggest lie is that we have removed God from the equation. We tell ourselves and our children that they can be anything that THEY want to be - what about being who GOD wanted them to be? When we see a goal or have a dream we will spend countless hours pursuing that goal and trying to achieve it. Many of us will be successful in our endeavors, and we often call it God's blessing. We see our success as a validation that what we are doing MUST be what God wants us to do - otherwise we would not succeed. Why would we think that? We hear stories of married men who leave their wives and move in with another woman because they have a better relationship with the 'mistress' - therefore it must be God's will that we be together!! - Have you got rocks in your head??

God's call and will for our lives is not a mystery. He wants to tell you and to teach you how to be the best YOU that He made you to be. So many people struggle with knowing what God has called them to do or to be because they followed the biggest lie. You may find yourself in a position right now where you have been asking God to bless you in your work yet you are not seeing that blessing. could it be that you have followed the path to become the ANYTHING you wanted to be but you have forsaken the THING that GOD created you to be?

I personally have wrestled with this for a number of years. I did not see myself as a college professor when I was growing up. In fact, while I was still in physical therapy school I applied for a vacant youth pastor position at a previous church. I was sure that I would be working in full time (PAID) ministry. When I graduated and started my PhD I began to teach. I loved teaching. It fired me up. I have spent the past 16 years teaching. So what about that full time ministry position? Well, I now have a job where I can do what I love, I interact with young minds every day and have the opportunity to affect those minds with words, actions and prayers. I have a mission field that comes to my office with their questions and concerns. I have some students who even read this blog - and have now realized that I am talking about them. I have a position where I only have to go to my office 4 days a week - boss' directive. I have a job where I get 2 weeks off at Christmas, 5 days off at Easter and 2 months off for the summer - all paid. My work pays for my ministry. This work schedule has allowed me to devote a lot of time to ministry - to the church. What a blessing!

If I had taken that youth pastor job back in the early 1990's I don't know where I would be, but I don't think it would be here. What are your wants? What ANYTHING do you want to be? Does your ANYTHING add up to the SOMETHING that God has called you to be? Don't settle for just ANYTHING. Ask God what He has created you for - what good works he has created for you to do? Eph 2:10 says, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Are you doing the good works that God has already prepared for you?

What Does the Holy Spirit Do?

I began a short series last week looking at the person and work of the Holy Spirit. We started off by identifying that the Spirit of God was at work from the very beginning of time. As we read in genesis 1:2, “The spirit hovered over the waters..” Today, I want to continue our investigation by considering what the Holy Spirit does. Writing in articles such as this does not allow for a complete and sufficient discussion of this subject matter but hopefully you will take some time during the week to read the scripture passages mentioned and to allow the Spirit of God to be your teacher.


So What Does the Holy Spirit Do?
1. The Holy Spirit is involved in the new birth.
a. Jesus said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit…" (Jn. 3:5).
2. The Spirit lives inside believers
3. The Spirit sanctifies (I Pet. 1:2).
4. The Spirit convicts (Jn. 16:8, ASV)
5. The Spirit comforts (Acts 9:31)
6. The Spirit Counsels (Jn14:16)
7. Teaches (I Cor. 2:13)
8. Saves (Tit. 3:5)
9. Purifies (I Pet. 1:22)
10. The Spirit also exerts power (Rom. 15:13)
11. The Spirit brings truth (Jn14:17)
12. The Spirit empowers (Acts 1:8)
13. The Spirit gives gifts (1Cor 12:8).

Comforter/Counselor
In John 14:16-14:24 - Jesus makes a devastating announcement to his disciples – He is going to leave them again. He adds confusion to the devastation by saying that He HAS TO GO. He brings some comfort in that Jesus tells the disciples that even though He must leave He will send them another comforter, someone to come along side them. The Greek term used in the New Testament is ‘paraklete’ or ‘parakleton’. This word is translated as “advocate” in 1 John 2:1 and essentially it means “one called alongside” for protection or counsel. So the role of the Holy Spirit, as stated by Jesus, was that He would be one who would come along side to comfort and to counsel. Wouldn’t you just want that person with you every day, during every moment, assisting in every situation, counseling in every decision. In this passage Jesus also uses the word ‘another’. The word “another” used here is ‘allon’ (meaning ‘another of the same kind’) rather than ‘heteros’ (another of a different kind). Jesus was one comforter. The Holy Spirit was another comforter, but another of the same kind. Jesus is reassuring the disciples that the new comforter will be made of the same stuff Jesus was – to use an old expression, he would be cut from the same cloth. The Holy Spirit is our comforter, our counselor and He is just the same as Jesus – fully God.

An Indwelling Spirit
Jesus continues in this passage to tell the disciples that while He walked with the disciples, the Holy Spirit would dwell (live) inside of them. In verse 17 Jesus clearly tells them that the Spirit will live inside of them. Have you ever thought about that? The Spirit of God, who hovered over the waters at the creation of the world, lives inside of YOU! Everywhere you go, He goes, everything you do, He sees, everything you say, He hears. Now that probably doesn’t make you feel that good – especially if you have made some of the same mistakes I have made. Your body is the Holy Spirit’s address. Paul wrote in 1 Cor 3:16 that your body is a ‘temple of the Holy Spirit’. I think my temple is in a little need of repair – (time to drop some weight and take care of His house.) In John 20:22 Jesus appears in the Upper Room before the disciples, Thomas checks out the nail marks in his hands, and then Jesus tells them to ‘receive His Spirit’. This is what many authors consider the disciples conversion experience – they have seen Jesus crucified, risen from the dead and now have declared Him as Lord. After Thomas has had his questions asked Jesus fills them with the Holy Spirit. They are reborn. If you have accepted Jesus as Lord and savior of your life and have confessed Him as Lord then the same Holy Spirit has entered into your body too. You have been filled.

The Holy Spirit Insures Us and Assures Us
In Romans 6:16 we read that the Spirit of God ‘bears witness’ with our spirit that we are God’s children. The Holy Spirit is intricately involved in our salvation. While Jesus died on the cross and paid the punishment that should have been ours, He is now in heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, praying for you (comforting thought). Here on earth, the Holy Spirit is calling people by name, pointing them to Jesus, leading them to salvation. The Holy Spirit operates on a ‘spirit’ level and communicates with our spirit directly. Eph 1:13-14 tells us that when we heard the Gospel and believed that we were marked – with the Holy Spirit. You are a marked person – the Lord knows that mark, and the enemy knows that mark too. Those verses continue by telling us that the Holy Spirit is a deposit, securing our guarantee for a life with the King. What a beautiful image. Gordon Fee: wrote this, "The Spirit himself is the down payment...in our lives that guarantees our certain future...The gift of the Spirit is the first part of the redemption of the whole person". Now that really is ‘Blessed Assurance’. On the flip side, Romans 8:9 says this, ‘If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.’

Enables Us
John14:21 says, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”
1 John 3:24, “Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.”

John 14:23 “Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

It is clear here that the Holy Spirit lives in us and it is through His power that we can now live. Love is the only power that can draw a person to keep the Lord’s commands; they are too foreign to fallen human nature for it to be otherwise.

Provides Freedom
One of the things the Bible often associates the Holy Spirit with is freedom. The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:17, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." I want to look at four freedoms that the Holy Spirit produces in our lives. In 1 Corinthians 12:3 we read, “Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit. So we cannot even declare that Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit.

Empowers Us
Acts 1:8 – “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Here we see one of the verses that we will discuss in a few weeks when we look at the difference between ‘in-filling’ and ‘out-pouring’. If you recall from earlier we discussed from John 20 how Jesus appeared to the disciples and they received the Holy Spirit – an in-filling. After that occurrence they were instructed by Jesus to stay in Jerusalem and to wait for empowering when the Spirit came ON them.

What sort of power are we talking about?

Well if we read the end of the verse from Acts 1:8 we see that the empowering is for us to be witnesses. We are not empowered so we can be better Christians, we are empowered so that we can be His witnesses. We are empowered so we can carry out the great commission.

The Holy Spirit Gives Gifts – that is for a brand new post – coming next week

We Must Go!

Every now and then something comes up in my life that quickens this thought - "Am I going where God has called me to go?" From my teenage years I have had a focus on bringing the reality of the Kingdom of God to wherever I happen to be. Sometimes that has been more successful and diligent than others, but when I was a young man God planted that desire in my heart. It still burns strong today and I pray that that fire never goes out.

Recent events with Lindsay being at Invisible Children, with StreetReach looming large on the horizon, and with my cousin in Belfast launching a new charity to reach and rescue young children taken into prostitution have caused me to ask that question again.

"Am I going where God has called me to go?"

We are all called to "GO" - somewhere. At the end of Jesus time on earth, right before he ascended to the Father, he gave his disciples this command found in Matthew 28:19 'Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,' The final order from our commander-in-chief was to go and make disciples. There is more contained in these verses that I will unpack at a later date, but let's just hover over these few verses for a while today.

We were told to go - just like the disciples were told, we are also commanded to go and make disciples. As I have thought about this for the past week or so I have become acutely aware that we have taken this active word and turned it into a passive term. When Jesus told us to go He wanted us to, well, GO. We have an activity to do. We need to move from where we are to where He sends us. We have turned this around to mean that we will provide the best events, programs and/or services that we can so that the non-believers would be the ones who 'GO'. We somehow expect the non-churched to see some exciting piece of advertising that we produce and them to be so drawn that they would be the ones who perform the action of 'GOING' - right into our church. Why have we got this so backwards?

Jesus commands us to GO, so why do we sit? Jesus commands us to GO, so why do we open our doors and hope someone might stumble in? Jesus commands us to GO - why do we disobey by staying stationary?

We started StreetReach last year because of this very desire. Jesus commands us to GO - yet he has placed us here in this city. God has brought me to Bowie, for His purpose - and I am sure that His purpose will not be fully achieved unless I am GOING into the city to reach the lost. Through StreetReach we have an opportunity to do what our commander-in-chief has asked us to do - GO into our part of the world to make disciples.

We have tossed around the idea of taking the whole church out on a Sunday morning to reach out to this city. That would certainly be a start. And the best thing is that we need no special training. We do not need to be super Christians to walk through a neighborhood, to knock on a door and ask people if we can wash their car or cut their grass for them. We just need to be willing to GO.

Tim Hughes wrote a song with this chorus, "We must go, live to feed the hungry, stand beside the broken, we must go. Stepping forward, keep us from just singing, move us into action, we must go." This past week Pastor Charlie talked to us about worshiping with our whole bodies. What greater form of worship is there than to reach out to those in need, to follow the last command that Jesus gave.

We must go!

Who is the Holy Spirit?

It is amazing to me that so many Christians have a fairly good understanding of who Jesus is, they have a reasonable understanding of who the Father is, but they have little to no understanding of who the Holy Spirit is. In fact, the Holy Spirit has almost become a taboo subject in many churches. It is as if there are believers who do not want anything to do with the Holy Spirit in case something weird happens. Why would we think like that? What is weird about the Holy Spirit? What are we really afraid of?

Over the next few weeks I would like us to begin to look at who the Holy Spirit is, what He does and how He impacts our lives. My intention is to lay the ground work for us to prepare ourselves for Pentecost Sunday and to help us as a body to get ready to allow the Holy Spirit to be poured out in a fresh way in our church so that we can receive ‘power from on high’ and go out and do the things that we are called to do.

So let’s take a quick overview of some passages in Scripture where the Holy Spirit is mentioned.

The Holy Spirit is an active part of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit has been with the Father and Jesus from the beginning of time. Genesis 1:2 says this, ‘Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.’ So right in the very beginning when God the Father was about to open His mouth and speak forth all of creation, the Holy Spirit was there hovering over the waters of the formless earth.

During the time of Pharaoh the Holy Spirit was actively involved in people’s lives and this was a visible activity. In Genesis 41 we find Pharaoh in a little predicament. He has had a number of dreams and needed an interpretation. The person who came to assist him was Joseph. Because of the interpretation Joseph brought, he was put in charge of the land of Egypt. This is the criteria Pharaoh, a pagan king, used for Joseph’s selection – Pharaoh looked for a man like Joseph who the Spirit of God was inside of. Genesis 41:38 says, ‘So Pharaoh asked them, ‘Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God?’

When we think of the Holy Spirit today we think of fruit of the Spirit or we think of the gifts of the Spirit. Somehow we think that the gifts are a New Testament thing – but that is not the case. In Exodus chapter 31 we see that the Spirit of God gifts men with skill and ability. Exodus 31:3 says, ‘and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts…’ Again in Exodus 35:31 we read that the gifting of skill to be a craftsman was not something that was just attributed to a person, but it was attributed to being a gift from the Spirit of God. Moses said of the same man mention in Exodus 31:3, ‘and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts’ Obviously this gentleman was very good at what he did – but why should we be surprised by that – his gift was not something he gave himself, but the Spirit of God gave it to him.

In Numbers 11:17 we read God say, ‘I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone.’ The Spirit of God rested on Moses and the Lord says here that the same Spirit that was upon Moses would be put on each of the 70 leaders who were to assemble with Moses. The Holy Spirit enables leadership. In verse 25 of this chapter there is an interesting exchange. Moses prays for each of the leaders and takes the Holy Spirit and puts him on each leader. Their response is audible – they prophesied. Interestingly at the end of this verse it says that these leaders never did this again. I wonder if they were ever in the position like this where the Holy Spirit was on them, or if they even asked Him to come on them again.

Numbers 11:29 indicates that the experience of the leaders and the elders must have been a good thing because Moses says that he wishes that all the people could have the Holy Spirit ‘put on them’. It appears that at this time, the Holy Spirit was restricted on whom He could fall. Contrast that to the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 and the prophecy from Joel that Peter quotes from on that day and we see that the Holy Spirit ‘will be poured out on ALL flesh’. It looks like Moses’ request came true – just a few hundred years after his outcry in Numbers 11:29.

In Numbers 24:2 we read that Balaam experienced the Spirit of God resting on him. It was written of Joshua son of Nun, that he was ‘a man whom in whom is the Spirit…’ in Numbers 27:18. Judges 3:10 states that the Spirit of God came upon Othniel so he could be Judge. The same thing happened to Gideon in Judges 6:34. In fact if you read through the book of Judges you will see time and time again when the Spirit of God came upon a Judge.

Even this very cursory look at the mentions of the Holy Spirit in the early books of the Bible shows us that the Spirit was active in the creation of the world, He was involved in interactions between the Father and Moses, He came upon the elders and leaders and enabled them to prophesy, He came upon the Judges and gave them wisdom, victory in battles and strength.

The same Holy Spirit that worked at the beginning of the Bible is the same Holy Spirit that was poured out on the day of Pentecost, and is the same Holy Spirit that will be poured out on you, if you want it.

I would encourage you to take some time over these next few weeks to consider the person and work of the Holy Spirit and to prepare your heart and spirit for Pentecost Sunday. If God is pouring out His Spirit and gifting men then wouldn’t you like to be in that line to receive His gifting?