JUMPING FOR JOY

What distinguishes you as a Christian? Not just what we say, but what we do, and how we act, and more importantly, how we react. Are you different than the world around you?

Philippians 4:4 – rejoice in the Lord always
1 Thessalonians 5:16 – rejoice evermore

It sure seems hard to rejoice when things aren’t going so well, however. Actually that is part of the problem, because what we do is we look to our present circumstance only to define our mental state. It is sometimes difficult to remain on an even keel when everything else is off kilter. What are we to do to remedy the situation?

Well, what many try and do is to “tip the scales” by seeking out fun things, things that will lighten the moment, things that they believe will bring a temporary sense of joy. Then this excitement will balance out the negatives, or so they believe. The problem with this is that joy is not a temporary thing. Happiness in circumstances is temporary, and finding pleasure in the present only leads to becoming addicted to “fun”, as if this is the real way to lasting joy.

It isn’t.

Fun is fun, but it is only part of the pursuit. Christians who have a biblical worldview (not all of them do) understand that fun things can be made more enjoyable because of out understanding of their place in life. Fun is fun, and things such as sports and such enjoyable and not necessarily evil in themselves, but their place is to point us to Christ. Yes, I said that. The glorious feeling we get when listening to Beethoven, the sense of wonder we get when looking at Michelangelo, the heightened imagination we get from reading Shakespeare, these all are only parts of the reality of the world we cannot see. These things point us to a greater reality, the reality of the spiritual.

Ice cream may be wonderful to a child, but what it represents is a simple picture of the delight we are to find in Christ. Earthly pleasures and pictures are only shadows of something greater. All art, writing, and music, etc., are essentially attempts to reach out and capture something of the majesty that we seek after, a yearning for something beyond our normal experience, even when these things point to normal experiences. A Christian who understands this will be able to enjoy temporal things with a better sense of their place, and not as the “be all and end all” of existence. They won’t have to succumb to the need to be entertained.

Many things give us thrills, but they do not last. I went to see Beethoven’s Ninth symphony performed recently, and I love that piece of music. Including the voices it was over 250 people involved, and there were three renowned vocalists taking lead parts, all singing in the native German. I may not have understood it all, but it was marvelous. “Ode to Joy” – it brings the goose bumps, but they go away. The question is, how do we get and how do we keep true, lasting joy?

Nehemiah 8:10 – the joy of the Lord is our strength
John 15:10-12 – it is the joy of Jesus (vs. 11), and we get it through loving one another (vs.12)

Psalm 16:11 – in the presence of the Lord is fullness of joy
Psalm 105:3-4 – seeking His face brings the joy and His strength

1 Peter 1:8 – joy unspeakable and full of glory
Romans 14:17 – the kingdom is joy, Thy kingdom come!

The devil wants to “destroy the joy” with circumstances, but we can have joy when the world cannot. This is what the world needs to see, that we trust in the goodness of our God and have joy despite circumstances. It isn’t, “okay under the circumstances”, it’s living above our circumstances, living from God’s perspective, it is prophetic living (James 1:2 / 2 Corinthians 6:10 / Psalm 126:6 / Psalm 30:5).

Joy is like a thermostat not a thermometer – we need to get the joy and let it permeate our lives, not react when we are happy, that is glee. The world substitutes thrill for true joy, thrills die out, and it is the nature of a thrill not to last, so you have people seeking thrills. Instead they ought to have true joy, it doesn’t go away, we need to seek it, and rediscover it.

Psalm 51:12 – repentance brings true joy
1 John 1:4 – Jesus restores fellowship with us so that we can rejoice
Romans 15:13 – joy comes through believing

The world needs to see us as Christians having as much fun as they are but only in a better way, and in a way that honors God, and in a way that doesn’t need to be entertained all the time. The world also needs to see us as Christians blessing God and not blaming God “when the chips are down”, and it needs to see us turning to Him instead of turning to doubt and turning to temporary excitements when the going gets rough. This will point others to Christ, when we have true joy. Amen.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Shifting Sand

The editor of Charisma magazine, J. Lee Grady, recently spoke to a group of Pentecostals about the shift he thinks needs to take place within Christianity. You will notice the “Barna-esque” call to dissolve the local church, the false cry of sacerdotalism, the confusion of so-called chauvinism, the carping about cash, and the clarion bell of dominionism, as well as a few straw men added on to make it seem as if he is building a cumulative case for what is wrong with contemporary Christianity. He is wrong; we will answer the points in the article individually. My comments will be in RED.

100 Years After Azusa Street: Where Are We Going?

3/14/06 – By J. Lee Grady

In April 1906 the Holy Spirit fell on a ragtag group of black, white, and Hispanic Christians who had gathered in the rundown Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles. They sang with fervor, testified of God's sanctifying power and spoke in tongues in a day when such behavior was considered fanatical. This now-famous revival, led by an unknown black preacher named William Seymour, was a defining moment in the history of Christianity.

Pentecostalism has now spread to every continent and in some cases is fueling the most staggering church growth on the planet. Yet at the same time many sectors of the movement have become musty, stale and painfully irrelevant. Some of us are stuck in a time warp.

The cloud of God's presence does not stay in one place too long. He is always moving forward. He wants to reach every generation and He loves to open a bottle of new wine when it's time for a new season. Meanwhile those who prefer the altars of old-fashioned Pentecostalism have rejected the new wine and sometimes have persecuted those who drink it.

A couple of weeks ago I addressed a group of Pentecostal scholars who had gathered at Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn., to celebrate the miracle of Azusa and to envision the future of our movement. I told them bluntly: It is time for us to move on. We must kill our sacred cows, tear down the old monuments and have some funerals. As wonderful as the past was, we can't live there. God says to us: "'Behold, I will do a new thing'" (Is. 43:19, ASV).

Here are just a few of the "new things" God is doing:

In answering these assertions, a few questions must first be asked. Where is the biblical basis for any of these assumptions? Or is the bible just another “sacred cow” that we need to have a funeral for? Some of these points have a seed and the sound of truth to them, but the answer isn’t to swing the pendulum to the opposite side.

Let’s take these points one by one.

1. He's shifting us from buildings to the organic church. Almost all ministry encounters in the book of Acts took place outside of religious buildings. Yet we still hang on to the outdated idea that God wants to live inside a brick-and-mortar temple. He wants to dwell among His people! Many of the people we are called to reach will never go near our buildings (which, by the way, sit empty most of the week). We must take Christ to the marketplace through home churches, workplace Bible studies, campus ministries, street meetings and into cyberspace.

Answer: He already dwells among His people (Colossians 1:27). We already are taking Christ to the marketplace in these areas he states. That doesn’t mean, however, that we are to forsake the gathering of ourselves together in churches, yes buildings. Many people we are called to reach may never go near our buildings, but many people we are called to reach will never believe, either! We should be doing evangelism and discipleship outside the “four walls”, yes, but we should also not abandon the practice of corporate worship and hearing sound biblical exposition.

2. He's shifting us from pulpits to people. The believers at Azusa Street celebrated the fact that God can use anybody regardless of class or religious pedigree. But we quickly fell back into the old mind-set that requires a vast chasm between clergy and laity. Every member of the church is a minister. We must equip the saints for the work.

Answer: This is a misrepresentation. The focus has never been on the pulpit alone, nor has it ever been the primary focus. That the pulpit equips the people is an important feature, nonetheless. Mr. Grady seems to be confusing the work of the ministry and the equipping for that work, yet he states the very reason we need the pulpit, so as to equip believers. He answers his own questioning by showing why we do need the pulpit to be stronger, not less so.

3. He's shifting us from racism to reconciliation. As much as we talk about our heritage of racial integration, the truth is painful: We are still too separated. (And it's not just white folks who harbor racist attitudes.) Jesus is serious about having a church that reflects the rainbow colors of heaven. We must think multiculturally. And we must sit at the feet of ethnically diverse leaders including those from the developing world and adjust our outdated Western paradigms.

Answer: Who is arguing against this? This is a straw man par excellence.

4. He's shifting us from male-dominated to egalitarian. We must allow full participation of women in ministry, and make room for their leadership gifts. We will never reach modern American culture if we keep our chauvinistic mind-sets. And we will never fulfill the Great Commission if we don't empower and equip the female half of the church that has been marginalized and neglected.

Answer: Marginalized and neglected? I suggest that Mr. Grady take a look at the work done by Piper and Grudem, and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. This is a heavily debated topic, for sure, but to confidently assume that God Himself is shifting us sounds like shifting sand to me. Where are the verses? Where is the exegesis? How do you back up your statement that we will never fulfill the Great Commission, and that those who are complimentarian are simply “chauvinistic”? And what exactly does he mean by “reaching” the American culture? Where do we want to reach them, Mr. Grady, in their dead spirits or their “victimized” flesh?

5. He's shifting us from hidden sin to healthy holiness. We have congregations full of people who are not whole. A large percentage of Christians struggle continually with addictions, bitterness, life-crippling beliefs systems, wounds from dysfunctional families and even occultism. We must become bondage breakers. We need another holiness movement but this time it must focus on the heart rather than on a dress code, and it must lead people to an encounter with the Father's love rather than into paralyzing legalism.

Answer: Another straw man. Using this does not in any way strengthen his case about the other points.

6. He's shifting us from human ability to supernatural power. We Pentecostals claim to believe in miracles, but we have little to show for it. Has our faith dried up? God wants us to rediscover New Testament, book of Acts-style Christianity. And that won't happen until we rediscover book of Acts-style prayer.

Answer: The old tried and true “we need to get back to Acts” mantra. Of course we need supernatural power, even cessationists agree on that. Your definition of what this may look like might be different than many others, however. Of course this is debatable, but again, it is really just a straw man. It is very easy to trot out these “obvious” flaws, so as to have them soften us up for the more radical points, such as #’s 1,2,4,7, and 8.

7. He's shifting us from poverty to prosperity. I'm not talking about a message that tells every Christian to expect a Lexus in his garage, or that causes preachers to chase after watches, yachts and Botox injections. We must dispense with that foolishness. But we must also reject the Pentecostal poverty mentality of the past so that we can have the faith to fund world evangelism. God wants to give us billions of dollars to feed the poor, plant churches, build hospitals and transform nations.

Answer: Once again, Grady uses a casual swipe at obvious abuses as a vehicle to swing the pendulum in favor of his view. He creates yet another straw man with the phrase “poverty mentality”. How we get the money and steward that money is prime, and are the real questions.

8. He's shifting us from escapism to conquest. So many of us have viewed the future with pessimism. We've been wimps rather than warriors. We thought everything was getting worse, as if Jesus simply wants us to "hold on" until the rapture. God is calling us to adapt a triumphant view of history. The Bible says we win. We need to start acting like it.

Answer: Pure dominionism. This statement could have been made, and has been made in one form or another, by C. Peter Wagner, Rick Joyner, or even Rousas John Rushdoony, for that matter. It isn’t that we are pessimists, Mr. Grady, it is that we follow what the Bible says about the end times and man and his depravity. Yes we win, WHEN CHRIST COMES BACK. Amen.

(J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma and an award-winning journalist. He writes his Fire In My Bones column for Charisma Online twice a week.)

DISCLAIMER: Church of God and Faith News (my source) does not necessarily endorse or sanction all or any part of this news item.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

How to Thank God

GIVING THANKS UNTO GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST

This is a brief, outline style synopsis of the last six sermons I have preached, all coming from Romans 1:8. The full messages can be seen by clicking on the "Romans" post. I hope these little nuggets will strengthen you.

We give thanks unto God through Jesus Christ by our STEWARDSHIP

Luke 16:10-12 – Three areas of faithfulness

1. In little things (Hudson Taylor) – A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness to a little thing is a big thing.

2. In financial things (Oswald Chambers) – The golden rule for understanding in spiritual matters is not intellect, but obedience.

3. In another ministry (Charles Spurgeon) – Those who have no master are slaves to themselves.


We give thanks unto God through Jesus Christ by our SINCERITY

In word, in deed, and in truth – Three verses

1. Colossians 3:17

2. 1 Corinthians 10:31

3. 1 John 3:18


By our prayer life – Three principles of powerful prayer –

1. Thank Him for what you have before you ask Him for what you need. He already knows what you need (Matthew 6:8, 32); what He wants is to hear how much you appreciate what He has already done.

2. You must see God in His power before you see Him in your problems. Until our hearts find their safety, satisfaction, and rest in God, they will have no rest. We cannot glorify God in the world until we have glorified Him first in our hearts.

3. Tell God what you have done wrong before you ask Him to make it right. God already knows what you have done wrong, but He wants you to live in constant view of the fact that He does know all that is going on about you, more than we know about ourselves. Realizing we are open to God (Hebrews 4:13) helps us to live a more holy life.


By taking our spiritual temperature – Three measures

1. What am I really like in secret? I may appear to others to be master of myself when in public; but what happens when I close the door and only the Father sees me? It is not visible service so much as my hidden life of devotion that is the index of my spirituality.

2. How do I react to the words “duty”, “obedience”, and “submission”? Sanctification, growing in grace, is not about a feeling; it is about the submission of our wills to the will of God. Love for God and duty are two parts of the same thing. True faith manifests itself through obedience.

3. Am I living with a sense of how visible my life is to God? The giants of the faith learned to live visibly, even in secret; they knew they lived Coram Deo (before the face of God). That one principle is enough to transform your whole life, and rid you of all deception – of others, of God, of self.


We give thanks unto God through Jesus Christ by our SANCTIFICATION

Three wrong ways –

1. P = Pietism. Produced by too much emphasis on the human side of the equation. Operative phrase: Go and get God.

2. Q = Quietism. Produced by too little emphasis on the human side of the equation. Operative phrase: Let go and let God.

3. R = Riotism. Produced by no emphasis on the human or the divine side of the equation. Operative phrase: Don’t go – forget God.


We give thanks unto God through Jesus Christ by our SUFFERING

Three realizations –

1. As a Christian, our suffering is never as great as our sins.

2. By His stripes we are healed, by our stripes He is revealed.

3. Weakness is the true path, the only healthy way.


We give thanks unto God through Jesus Christ by our SOLIDARITY

3 questions –

1. Do you have to go to church to BE a Christian? No.

2. Do you have to go to church WHEN you’re a Christian? Yes.

3. Are you a lively stone? (That’s up to you to answer).


We give thanks unto God through Jesus Christ by our SERVICE

3 issues – 2 negative, one positive regarding “Christian Success”

1. Acquiring – Sometimes your responsibilities for God can keep you from God. Instead of acquiring material we acquire ministry. If this is you, you need to realize that this isn’t the way to please God, by doing more stuff for God. Your ministry to God is more important, and comes before, your ministry for God. Indeed, many that are getting excited about the things of God don’t recognize the process God uses to grow us up. This is the order: obedience, submission, service, and then, and only then, leadership. Said another way, your actions, attitudes, availability, and then ability. Acquiring ministry is not the measure of spirituality.

2. Avoiding – If you try and control every situation, you are controlled by every situation. Psalm 90:12 – those who number their days carefully gain a wise heart. However, it is not numbering them by the clock, but by the experience. Living requires time management, true, but not the kind that attempts to quarantine most of what makes life what it is: the mess, the surprises, the breakdowns, and the breakthroughs. Why are we looking to minister only in the way and time we want to, like right after we come off the mountaintop? Be looking for God to send someone by at the “wrong time”. Your agenda is never as important as God’s.

3. Acknowledging – We must acknowledge God, in humility, in weakness and in strength, we must thank Him for all the things that come before us, and all of these things are opportunities to minister, or be ministered to. It isn’t about acquiring ministry, but about being ready and available for ministry, not as we see it, but as God calls us to it. 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.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©