Christian Success (Radio / Podcast)

…Then you will be prosperous and successful.
(Joshua 1:8 – NIV)

One sign of spiritual immaturity is the desire to minister before the time is right. People start to “get right” with God, they finally attend church regularly, and then they feel like they are supposed to go out and conquer the world for God. A person starts to really believe, and they want to put into practice the things they are learning, and that is good. They should be sharing their faith, yes, but not starting some “big idea” ministry. The problem lies in the fact that they aren’t as equipped as they think they are. They are well intentioned, but they are not ready to lead. They may be great leaders in the world, but that doesn’t mean they are ready to lead in the kingdom of God, not yet at least.

They need to learn more than simple desire for God. You have to learn to lead, and it is a process. They need to learn to serve before they can learn to lead, and they have to learn to submit before they can learn to serve. They need to learn to obey before they learn to submit. That is the order: obedience, submission, service, and then, and only then, leadership. Said another way, your actions, attitudes, availability, and then ability.

Most people understand how material stuff has a way of keeping you from God. Well it is the same with ministry stuff. We go from one bad thing to another, we trade one love of stuff for another, we feel like we have licked the covetousness bug concerning material things, just to turn around and find that bug right back on us regarding ministry things. Instead of acquiring material we acquire ministry, and we are blind to the fact that God still doesn’t have our heart, not in that area, at least.

If this is you, you need to realize that this isn’t the way to please God, by doing more stuff for God. Just as your money doesn’t buy influence with God, neither will that big plan you have. What God wants, and requires, of you is that you stay humble, and worshipful, repentant, and submissive, and in order with your family life, loving your wife or husband and respecting them, giving to your children’s lives before you give to your church life, building your personal and family spiritual life before you build your ministry life, and so forth. That is Christian success. No amount of ministry success will change that.

I challenge you to redefine what you think is Christian “success”. Have you truly replaced your understanding of worldly success with a biblical one, or are you just using the same standard and “baptizing” it with words like ministry, and victory. Look again at “acquiring” and “avoiding” – this is what most people, even after they become Christians, think victorious living is about, and they are wrong, dead wrong. Faith without works is dead, yes, but works without faith is death itself. Trying to acquire in order to please God is not faith, and doing for others without caring for home is not faithfulness. Avoiding is not faith its fear. It’s not care, its control.

Remember what Jesus said about faithfulness in another ministry (Luke 16:10-12)? What makes you think you can have this pulpit or parachurch ministry when you cannot even commit to the ministry of the local church, or your ministry at home? Learning to serve means learning to do what the church already knows it needs, not coming up with something you want to do and calling that service. Acquiring ministry is not the measure of spirituality.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Christian Success (with audio)

USE THE PLAYER ABOVE TO LISTEN TO THIS POST

…Then you will be prosperous and successful.
(Joshua 1:8 – NIV)

One sign of spiritual immaturity is the desire to minister before the time is right. People start to “get right” with God, they finally attend church regularly, and then they feel like they are supposed to go out and conquer the world for God. A person starts to really believe, and they want to put into practice the things they are learning, and that is good. They should be sharing their faith, yes, but not starting some “big idea” ministry. The problem lies in the fact that they aren’t as equipped as they think they are. They are well intentioned, but they are not ready to lead. They may be great leaders in the world, but that doesn’t mean they are ready to lead in the kingdom of God, not yet at least.

They need to learn more than simple desire for God. You have to learn to lead, and it is a process. They need to learn to serve before they can learn to lead, and they have to learn to submit before they can learn to serve. They need to learn to obey before they learn to submit. That is the order: obedience, submission, service, and then, and only then, leadership. Said another way, your actions, attitudes, availability, and then ability.

Most people understand how material stuff has a way of keeping you from God. Well it is the same with ministry stuff. We go from one bad thing to another, we trade one love of stuff for another, we feel like we have licked the covetousness bug concerning material things, just to turn around and find that bug right back on us regarding ministry things. Instead of acquiring material we acquire ministry, and we are blind to the fact that God still doesn’t have our heart, not in that area, at least.

If this is you, you need to realize that this isn’t the way to please God, by doing more stuff for God. Just as your money doesn’t buy influence with God, neither will that big plan you have. What God wants, and requires, of you is that you stay humble, and worshipful, repentant, and submissive, and in order with your family life, loving your wife or husband and respecting them, giving to your children’s lives before you give to your church life, building your personal and family spiritual life before you build your ministry life, and so forth. That is Christian success. No amount of ministry success will change that.

I challenge you to redefine what you think is Christian “success”. Have you truly replaced your understanding of worldly success with a biblical one, or are you just using the same standard and “baptizing” it with words like ministry, and victory. Look again at “acquiring” and “avoiding” – this is what most people, even after they become Christians, think victorious living is about, and they are wrong, dead wrong. Faith without works is dead, yes, but works without faith is death itself. Trying to acquire in order to please God is not faith, and doing for others without caring for home is not faithfulness. Avoiding is not faith its fear. It’s not care, its control.

Remember what Jesus said about faithfulness in another ministry (Luke 16:10-12)? What makes you think you can have this pulpit or parachurch ministry when you cannot even commit to the ministry of the local church, or your ministry at home? Learning to serve means learning to do what the church already knows it needs, not coming up with something you want to do and calling that service. Acquiring ministry is not the measure of spirituality.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Familiar Ground?

Then he said, "Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
And the commander of the LORD's army said to Joshua, "Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.
(Exodus 3:5 / Joshua 5:15 – ESV)

Both of these scenarios were transformational encounters, we could say, but they were for corporate movement. God calls us as individuals for our corporate mission as well as our personal holiness. We see that we are not holy and not worthy to lead but God cleanses us and equips us to do what He wants us to do. God is still in that business today. That is why we have holy ground moments, because God is not trying to give us a thrill, but to lead us on.

God was near, in a special way for a special purpose. We may not ever have a burning bush or mountaintop moment, but God will still expose us to His burning light that He might change us and we might change our world – Ephesians 5:13-15 – God was revealing something about Himself and about us – we must know our true state. He doesn’t deliver us from bondage without us first understanding our own weakness to deliver ourselves. God was speaking to them then and He speaks to us now by His written and preached word. This ground is also holy.

When God is working something is changing and we have to start to change to get it. Moses and Joshua had to take off their shoes. This is not a ritual to be performed in approaching God. Rather the shoes represent protection for the sensitive flesh. Holy ground is where no flesh shall glory in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:29). It is also the place where sins are exposed, for God sees our hearts. It is taking away self-sufficiency, which is blasphemy before the Lord. The bible talks about the beautiful feet of those whose are wearing the gospel of peace as their shoes.

We must continue to set ourselves apart for God’s work as He is working in us (Leviticus 20:7-8 / Philippians 2:12-13). We can become too familiar with God – consider Moses and the rock (Numbers 20:10-12). Even if God has called us, failure to sanctify ourselves in His sight will lead to consequences. If we fail to take off our shoes when we know He wants to do a work in us, we will fail to see Him work, and we will become bitter against God and others as we become envious of what we see elsewhere when we could have seen that in ourselves if we would continue to sanctify Him in out hearts (Hebrews 12:14-15). Moses did sanctify himself to deliver the people out of Egypt but it took years. Don’t give up on God, continue to sanctify Him in you heart and He will deliver you.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

How Could He?

Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword
(Joshua 6:21 – ESV)

It is often misunderstood as to why God had ordered the Jews to kill all the inhabitants of Jericho and certain other people they were warring against. It happened more than once. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey'" (1 Samuel 15:3). These slaughters are often used as an objection against Christianity, or at least against the “Old Testament God”. If one is not careful it can seem like a good argument. Many Christians I have known have not known how to answer this accusation. How can God be so good when He ordered His people to slaughter innocent babies? If He is loving and righteous, how could He?

Well, lets look at this from a different perspective, a more complete understanding. First of all, this wasn’t always the case. Also, have you ever considered that God also allowed most of His own people to die in the wilderness, before they entered the Promised Land? God was against rebellion and unrighteousness, and meted out punishment against His own people, before they ever crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land. More than 1 million souls that didn’t believe they could take the land, because of the giants (Numbers 13-14), died in the wilderness, save those under 20 years of age, and Joshua and Caleb, who believed in God’s promise.

Now the people of Canaan, like the Amalekites and others, were guilty of abominable sin and had filled up the cup of God’s wrath already, so it wasn’t like they were innocent. But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God (Deuteronomy 20:16-18). Perhaps by having children killed, God was sparing them worse punishment than they would have had if they had grown to maturity and committed more injustice and gross rebellion. Even so, before we can ask, “how could He” about the Canaanites, how about His own people? God allowed all those deaths in the wilderness.

Why does God order the annihilation of entire nations in the first place? Some were peoples who possessed the Promised Land, which God gave to Israel. The primary reason stated above is that these peoples are exceedingly wicked. If they are not totally wiped out, they will teach the Jews their sinful ways and thus bring them under divine condemnation. God was against rebellion, and was preserving the birth line of the coming Messiah, both by filtering the Jews, and the killing of the others.

That may seem like a wholly unsatisfactory answer to you. However, consider this: this slice of redemptive history must be looked at within the overall context of God’s plan. And that plan included pouring out His wrath upon His own Son to pay for our sins. So before you can ask about the Canaanites, and the Jews before them, how about the fact that God poured out His wrath upon the sinless Son of God?

Love must be seen in its full context. If you had a child learning to ride a bike, and you were that day going to remove the training wheels, you would realize that they might fall, and skin their knees. They would be hurt, and would be very angry with you. However, you know that in the long run it was good for them. You knew the big picture. They might be mad for a while, perhaps a long while, but when they learned to ride that bike they would be glad you helped them learn how.

God gives us the big picture of redemption, and all we have to do is look at the cross to see that God is vitally concerned about punishing sin. Yet he allowed His own Son to pay for that sin because He is also vitally concerned about demonstrating His love. So instead of looking at only those early moments in redemptive history, be sure to look to the climax of it, Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, dying on a cross to reconcile you to a loving God.

So there is an answer to, “How could He?” It is because He loved us.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©