The Warfare of Marriage (and Relationships)-A Spiritual Editorial

I’m going to try to make this one brief.  Given the topic I may very well fail.  We’ll see though.   Let’s make this a series, no? Let me first say that no I'm not married and I give commentary based on the Standard that comes from on High.  Don't believe me? Reference it. I encourage you to actually (see last week).  Now, let's get going'

The idea of a healthy marriage is for two folks on the same page to get together and spend the rest of their lives together.  Throwing in the God context, it’s designed to be the prelude to a family, in which the two folks pass on their “on the same page” Godly Values to the next generation so that their legacy can be propitiated and they can genuinely multiply (Genesis 1:28). 

Well, this is awesome because two (or three) folks coming together in Christ’s name means Jesus is in the midst of that (Matthew 18:20).  And Jesus can pass his Values onto the man, the man to the woman, and the parents to the kids (1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 6:1-10).  If every family acted like this, we’d be awesome right? Right. 

The problem with this is that this is the ideal, God’s default Model for how a family should be...and like with a lot of things God wants by default, we fall short of it (Romans 3:23).  Our heritage, experiences, and stereotypes pollute the marriage.  How you figure?  Outside influence.  Primarily by Satan’s schemes.  The last thing that Satan wants to see is two folks who come together (in the context of marital best friendship) to advance God’s Kingdom and Glorify Him not only through what they do, but what they are.  Next to relationship with God, the relationship with a spouse is the most important and most intimate relationship out there.  Hence outside influence being a bad thing.

Now everybody need somebody right?  I mean God gets all His stuff done in the context of relationships (i.e., Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. etc. etc.).  However, marriage is the kind of relationship where ideally the only person that should be allowed in that “joint closet” is Jesus.  Often in our iniquity and pain, we let everyone but Jesus in that closet, forgetting we share that closet with someone and it should be sacred.  I like to call this “Haywire Matrimony”.    It comes in two tiers:

Tier I: Someone who knows God AND is competent to help who we can trust.   Non-ideal but not all that bad.  So long as the person who seeks the outside help has enough discernment to understand what it means to give Godly counsel and tear down principalities, this one isn’t so bad.  Problem with this one is pretty much that whomever is seeking the help doesn’t have enough power directly from on High to hash it out without the help.  This is a process; many people go through this.  This one isn’t necessarily all that negative.

Tier 2: Gossip.  Gossip bad.  Very bad.  This is where the person seeking the outside help just wants to vent and someone to listen.  This is where they find that route to attack their spouse because they don’t feel like they can engage their spouse directly.  Sometimes they’re right.  A lot of people who land here have bypassed the advice from on High and that from folks in Tier 1.  Furthermore, a lot of people doing this wind up cheating.  Others overcome this (because Jesus IS a redeemer after all) and reconcile their marriage. 

The point is that marriage is war.  We have to fight.  Satan wants that marriage to go into the toilet...and we have to pray, forgive, and engage effectively to keep it afloat.  It is a labor of love, but it is labor.

Let me address the men.  If you can read this and you want to get marriage, keep this in mind.  All of it.  And that you’re supposed to lead.  If you can’t meet this challenge, go into the duck off with the Lord as opposed to wasting your time, and the time of any ladies you come across because without understanding these things you will fall on your face.  And hard.  Now, if you don’t see it here, stay tuned because I’m going to address the men over the next several weeks.   Have a good weekend, folks!

Errors? Where?!: A Multi-Pronged Commentary Toward the Inerrancy of Scripture (or Sola Scriptura)

*digs up the old blog*

Man it has been a while.  I normally blog over on Facebook now (http://www.facebook.com/360Encouragement)

However, I found it advantageous to upload my document here.  I hope you like it.

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Greetings:

What I wanted to do with this particular snippet is discuss the inerrancy of Scripture.  I have a previous commentary on the matter over in main blog, Weekend Encouragement, Unit 11 (Because Accursedness is No Fun) conclusion.  However, I wanted to take that commentary a little bit deeper.  First, let’s begin with the fact that the Bible if God’s Word without error and just analyze this right here for a moment. 

Introduction

Remember that the Bible is a book about morality, and a book about history, heritage, and identity.  It is, first and foremost, a game-planning book for God’s Comprehensive Will from the beginning to the end of time.  Analyzing it from this perspective, it can be better seen why certain things were necessary so that God the Father can be all in all.  Next, let’s discuss how God operates.  God swore upon Himself to the people because there is nothing greater than Him in the universe.  So His Standard is the greatest Standard.  And thus, God only honors what He does (what is in line with His Moral [the Standard He set in Scripture] and Comprehensive Will).  The key to this point is that there are no other authorities that demonstrate or describe how God operates other than the Bible.   Therefore, first off, the remaining essential doctrines of the Christian faith all come from Scripture (which came from God Himself). And furthermore, if we want to know the gold standard, we must read and understand Scripture.  To this end, we should check our “self-help” books.  If it’s not in a Biblical context, it’s not helping us all that much.  As far as reflecting that Standard, well I’ll get into that later. 

Attacks on Scripture

As with the remaining doctrines of the Christian faith, Scripture comes under attack.  I would argue that the primary reason that Scripture is attacked is because there was never a historical report of a book falling from the sky or something to that effect.  Well, I consider that silly for the reason I mentioned earlier: The Bible is a book about history, so let’s kill that argument (not shared by too many), and go to the others.  Let’s break what I feel are the top three arguments down.

Argument 1: The Bible Isn’t Relevant Today

The Bible was physically written by around A.D. 400, 500 or so.  So I guess at first glance you could say the Bible is dated.  But let me break down and break apart this argument.  First, from a practical perspective.  Let’s look at some of the concepts of the Bible.  First off, Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, having been told they would surely die.  They committed the first sin, and they and everyone since them has died.  Lazarus was raised (but died again) and Jesus was raised (because He’s the Messiah).  Everyone who can read this is going to die someday.  Of course, this is unless, Jesus comes back beforehand.  But otherwise, everyone else is dying.  Second, the Sodom and Gomorrah argument.  Those towns were so egregiously immoral God used a divine move to wipe them out.  Roman Empire?  Well, they were so mired in sexual immorality it was ridiculous.  There were places the affluent in Rome could just roll up in somewhere and just have sex with some folks.  And there’d be no problems with it.  And the slaves?  Marched for hundreds of miles from their native lands to Rome butt naked.  Come on man, really?  And their leader considered himself divinity.  Their own sin (lust/pride/envy....yep, those) caused their downfall.  And today....people’s lusts, pride, and envy are causing them to go down left and right.  Are some people “getting away with it”?  Well sure.  But that human power is bound to fail them. 

What’s my point?

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecc 1:9)

The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).  While this pertains to spiritual death of separation from God, 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 puts more of a duality on it, in that watching ourselves we avoid spiritual and physical death. 

Conclusion: It happened then, it’s happening now, and it’ll keep happening until Jesus comes back.

Argument 2: The Bible is chauvinist and women had no rights

If you take a look at the old testament, a few things stand out.  One person brought up to me that female slaves were held in a lower context than male slaves.  Slavery was to pay off debts in the Old Testament.  And today?  Well, they can put you in jail over not having paid your bills so what has changed? And once those debts were paid, folks had the choice of sticking around or moving on.  And another brought up to me that if a woman was raped she had to marry her assailant-the Deuteronomy passage.  Time to debunk this myth.  First off, the law never binds a woman to marry her rapist.  In these times, a woman was under the authority of her father or patriarchal familial figure until that person turns over authority to the husband (even now men traditionally ask for the dad’s blessing before marriage), and what loving dad is going to turn his girl (because women married younger during this time) to some raper man?  Exactly.  He paid a fine.  (Ref: Deut 22:28-29, Exodus 22:17).  And if they married, the man had to take care of his wife and was disallowed to divorce her for any reason (Deut 24:1-4, Matt 5:32, 19:9).  And if a man raped a woman promised to another man, well...off with his head (Deut 22:22-27).  Even today, laws are incredibly biased toward women.  And they should be to an extent.  A rapist need to be prosecuted, fined, everything really.  But I mean women who falsely yell “Rape!” are often just let go to roll on down the lane.  Again, what else is new? 

Let’s go to the other side of this argument and the other elephant in the room.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. (Ephesians 5:22). 

I bold the last part because men often abuse this verse, and women often shut down when they hear it and want to choke us out.  But is because of generational sin and a general deviance from God’s Model for life that men demand by-default submission and women resist this to their last breath.  But a lot of folks don’t even understand that first off, the woman only submit to a man in the way she submits to God.  If the man isn’t godly, the woman should not submit to the ungodly principles that man may be displaying (each responsible for their own salvation, Philippians 2:12).   She should encourage and enlighten him in her nurturing nature, but nobody is allowed to follow something that isn’t of God (Matthew 6:24).   We also forget these verses like it.

Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. (Ephesians 5:21)-God wants peace in every relationship.  Should you be “right”, or should you be moving toward harmony?  Trust me, the harmony takes care of the “right”-ness.  Which is why God put it here like this.  Because God wants to be our gold standard, we do the submission for Him, and then He sends the Power to deliver that person over to us.  It’s the Biblical context of  “attracting more bees with honey than vinegar”.

 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word  That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:  (Ephesians 5:25-29)

First off, I want you to notice that God gave way more instruction to the man here than he did the woman.  That’s a tall task; for a man to have to be like Christ in this specific way to be a functional husband.  But thus, that is the submission standard.  And while this is instruction to a man, it’s also like a cheat sheet to a woman.  If your man does this, it’s alright to submit to him, in order to gain greater harmony with God as two becoming one flesh. 

A lot of people would try to discredit Paul as in his epistles he often writes about the man being the head of the woman, and that women should not have authority over a man.  Well, it’s not like Paul came up with that idea from thin air.  In the church of Corinth the gender roles had become distorted.  The women were dominating the men and the men were acting sheepish.  Those passages were not to demean women, but rather to invigorate the men, to get back to their “as Christ loved the church” roles as spiritual leaders.  Not to mention that is says no authority, not no teaching (although a man should be going to a man who has been where he currently is on how to be a man, but I digress).  I could go into a whole commentary on Biblical gender definitions, but I’ll save that for another time.  And I will just say these two points.

Women were made to help men do what God gave them (Genesis 2).  For a woman to even know what this is, she has to have her own separate purpose independent of the man, so that the two come together in one hybrid purpose within God’s Order (1 Corinthians 11:3). This is why God gave both the man and the woman dominion (Genesis 1:28).  Women were also created to uplift other women, and be powerful and productive in their own right.  Ragab was a prostitute but still understood who God was and why those scouts were there.  She stood up for God’s Standard and her people were protected.  Mary is probably the most important woman of all time.  Jesus was born through her starting with the Immaculate Conception.  And last but not least, when Jesus had risen and the men had scattered, Jesus used the women to go tighten the men up.

Conclusion: The Bible protects women.   It protects everyone, as God doesn’t play favorites.  The Word is designed to produce powerful and productive people, male and female, playing their role.   And there’s nothing like a godly woman to get and KEEP a man on his toes.

P.S. For those of you who only see women being powerful in the context of helping men, you tell me when God ever did something without someone first submitting to Him and what He was doing, male OR female?  Everything gets done in the context of relationships, so get relationships fortified and glorifying God.

Argument 3: Men wrote the Bible

In a sense, this argument is right.   Men took to the papyrus or what have you and wrote the words.  However, they got the instructions from on High.  Also, for one say that a man could distort the words of the Supreme Being of the universe, multiverse (basically if it exists, God has authority over it), gives man far too much credit. 

We all know the 2 Timothy 3:16-17 argument about Scripture being sacred for teaching, reproof, and etc. right?  Well, there’s another verse like it that more directly touches on my point.

¹⁶ For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. ¹⁷ He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

¹⁹ We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. ²⁰ Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. ²¹ For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:16-21)

That is the divine inspiration argument.  But it could be (and has been) argued that this was indeed cleverly devised and placed in Scripture.  But let’s put this in perspective.  To say that these things are not true give one of 3 arguments, all of which I will debunk or prove asinine to even bring up.  That (1) God does not have the authority He speaks of, (2) God is not real at all, or (3) God cannot be defined because a book didn’t fall from the sky..

Let’s tackle (1).  I'd like to think I already have.  Everything written in Scripture, the types of phenomena that occur, both positive and sinful, have happened, keep happening and will happen.  Something has to be causing all of that right?  Well, it’s someone.  The Father in Heaven in His Comprehensive Will is sending this world to a place of destruction, but has provided a way out through His Son Jesus Christ.  If you don’t know about Him, you should go see Him.  Soon.

And (2).  God isn’t real.   I don’t think anyone in this camp should be reading this.  But in case you are, why must a being that in your mind and according to your worldview does not exist to you be discredited and debunked?  Simple.

³ For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. ⁴ They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

Yep.  Calling you out.  Why else would you want to disprove a being who embodies Orderly Love?  A being who seeks to protect and empower against things that hurt us?  One with every bit of knowledge there is to know.  And every bit of power and authority there is to have.  One that if you have Him, you can’t lose? Because your standard of love, prosperity, and victory are different from His most likely.  Open your mind, and come see about His Son.

With the way the world is, if God’s not real...grab an M-80 and start the revolution.  Because humanity surely isn’t going to fix the crap in this world.  Open your mind.

And before you call me a Bible thumper, everybody has sin (Romans 3:23).   The difference between those in the world and those in Christ is that we have a gold standard by which we can recognize and overcome our iniquity. And we desire it through motive, word, and deed.

And (3) God cannot be defined.  Well, the Bible defines Him.  How can you have a God at all who is not defined?  One who is dynamic and can change (looking at some of those other faiths).  Who would want a supreme being who had opinions and not facts?  That’s just no good.  But how can you have boundaries without a definition?  How can you have order without boundaries?  Must we all just fly by the seat of our pants and just do whatever’s clever?  Yeah, that’s worked so well for humanity leading up to now. I personally would prefer not to have a God-free world inundated with chaos.

Conclusion:  God is God, and has dominion over all.  Your argument is invalid.

I just want to wrap this up by saying this.  Knowing the Bible never got anyone into Heaven by itself.  There is no substitution for the saving grace of Jesus Christ (John 3:16), and the sealing of His Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14).  And once you get the “Yay I’m not going to Hell!” part out of the way, then you can move on to gaining a deeper knowledge of God through both the reading of Scripture and direct contact with him through prayer and supplication (Philippians 4:6-7).  And pray in the context of the Lord’s Prayer, in that we submit to what God wants for our world as opposed to a whole bunch of things we want.  Remember, God only honors what He does, but His comprehensive Honor upon our lives will make you wonder why you wanted ANYthing else. 

That’s my spin in on it.  Thanks for reading!

Jesus is Alpha and Omega Ministries Presents the Healthy Family Walk!!!

What is a Healthy Family Walk?

The Healthy Family Walk is the walk that allows families to walk as a united front to dispel the attacks of the immoral society that seek to invade their homes. It is about spiritual leaders passing on godly values to the next generation. The Healthy Family Walk is a walkathon in support of a larger initiative to fortify families and bring them together so that they are powerful and productive. Proceeds from the Healthy Family Walk will be used to help support Jesus is Alpha and Omega Ministries’ (JAOM) Healthy Family Initiative, which seeks to pass on the values necessary to build powerful families that build strong communities.

Who Participates?

Men, women, and children are encouraged to participate as family teams, sponsors, volunteers, and walkers. Whether they walk as individuals or as part of a team, walkers are encouraged to ask friends, family, business associates, and others to sponsor them by making a donation to Jesus is Alpha and Omega Ministries. Others are encouraged to volunteer their time to register walkers, staff checkpoints, and offer refreshments.

Teams represent families, churches, companies, unions, schools, associations, clubs, and can range from five members or more.

Why Join the Healthy Family Walk?

The year 2012 will mark the inaugural year that Christians from all walks of life will come together in a spirit of unity to fortify families through JAOM’s Healthy Family Walk. We believe that more than a hundred families will participate in this “first of its kind” family walkathon.

When you and your team participate in the Healthy Family Walk, you will not only be contributing to history, but you will also become a co-laborer in Christ. The Healthy Family Initiative of JAOM needs your team’s assistance to help fortify families that have been fractured and divided by opposing worldviews, depression, and lack of godly empowerment. Participating means that you are aware of the spiritual decay that is devastating our families and seek to join a united front to defeat it.

How do I give?
If you choose to walk as an individual, the registration fee is $100, attainable through as many pledges as necessary. Teams, whether they be families, co-workers, friends, or colleagues, are in groups of a minimum of 5, and may register at $500. Individuals raising over $200 will qualify for a free t-shirt, where teams of 10, 15, or 20 that raise $2,000, $3,000, or $4,000 respectively as collectives will qualify for special prizes. To qualify for these prizes, your pledges must be received no later than, Sunday, May 13, 2012. Alternatively, you may simply donate toward the cost of the Healthy Family Walk or our Healthy Family Initiative. All monies toward the Healthy Family Walk itself are due by Friday, May 25, 2012

In America, there is a highly advanced attack on the family. Divorce rates are at an all-time high and many children are growing up in single-parent households where the dysfunction is so profound that many alternative family models are being sought. Other attacks, such as violence in schools, drug abuse, sexual immorality, homosexuality, and economic hardship only make the problem more profound. While there are many questions and problems, the solution appears to be much more difficult to comprehend. Only the knowledge of and connection to Jesus Christ can provide all the appropriate answers to these questions which cause emotional anguish to so many people. Therefore, it is imperative that we convey this message to a dying world.

There are many noble causes that raise thousands or millions of dollars that never tackle the root of an issue. Please prayerfully consider teaming up with JAOM’s Healthy Family Walk to make an impact in the lives of family members both in time and for eternity.

Teaming up with JAOM’s Healthy Family Walk is an excellent way to help reverse the attack on American families! Please make the prayerful consideration to walk to unify families against these immoral times for the Kingdom of God!

For more information, click here:

http://jaom.org/?p=721

Walking With God Chapter I, Part VIII (Finale)

Greetings folks:

This week we will wrap up our current unit with the reconciliation of the Galatians 6:1 principle with the Matthew 28:17 principle. We understand that God wants His Image and Likeness propagated. And that He passes down this Power for us to this in the context of friendship and love. This produces the need to love God with all of our hearts and very being…and in-turn love our neighbors. In other words, we cannot propagate God’s Image and Likeness (Genesis 1:26, 28), if we ourselves aren’t giving the selfless love first to Him and to those around us. To do this appropriately, we must also give reproof, as the Word of God is designed to both uplift and convict. So we must do so in a spirit of gentleness (also part of the Fruit of the Spirit we use to love one another, Galatians 5:22-23). We get unmet expectation levels, and “surprise circumstances” (they at least surprise us when our connection with God isn’t as tight as needs to be), and this can kill our desire to fellowship with God and give Him the time and love with Him He desires out of us. And when this becomes part of the behavior pattern we fall into humanism…either secular or religious. Now understand this…humanism, especially religious humanism, is not reflective (in of itself) of whether or not someone is saved, but rather, how empowered they are (see the next unit). Humanism essentially is, “Because of ‘xyz’ that happened or didn’t happened to me, I’m going to trust in ‘abc’ over God.” Can humanists be unsaved? Yes. But it is also reflective of a the power source the person is operating out of. The fundamental issue of these alternative power sources is that when the appropriate God of the Bible is removed from the picture, and is substituted out as the fellowship and power source, it is impossible to give appropriate reproof in love, or give love to others. And laying one’s life down for their friends (John 15:13) is also out of the window. Keep this and the other teachings in mind, and when you find yourself in an alternate power source, confess, get forgiveness, repent, and get BACK IN THE SPIRIT. Next week we’ll start a new unit on the nature of Salvation. Have a good week folks!

Walking With God Chapter I, Part VII

Greetings folks:

Last week we went over a set of case studies for different power sources. The last case study involved a recurring character and his young mentee. We had five answers and we wanted to discuss which one was correct. In case you do not remember:

“So you had that great marketing idea that you could launch man…weren’t you like a mathematician? You could use that stuff and get at these youth…get into these schools. What do you think?” The younger guy sighs and says, “Man I just have so much to do here…sometimes it feels like if I don’t know it, it won’t get done.” Our friend is kind of stunned. He’s never heard his young friend talk like that before. He knows he needs to connect to the Spirit for the next thing he says and do it just right for our friend. <> What do you think our friend should say?


A. “Well do what you have to do that is that hard? You don’t do anything here!”
B. “I think you’re just afraid to move on out on your faith.”
C. “It won’t get done? How little faith do you have? You need to tighten up on that! You’ll never grow with that attitude”
D. “Alright man, let’s sit down and lay out what you got over here and make sure we can make sure you get your stuff established. I’ll call in the rest of the team and spread this weight around if you like.
E. None of the above.

So let’s look at how effective all the answers are:

A. A religious humanistic response. 1 Corinthians 12 says that everyone has a role in the Body of Christ and none of those roles are inconsequential.

B. Also pretty religiously humanistic. Who’s to say that the young man is afraid to move out on his faith. And even if that’s true, language like this isn’t going to help. Also, the Word of God is designed to uplift and convict, and if our words are to reflect the Word of God, they must do the same.

C. Is even worse. Perhaps the young man should have more trust in God. But remember he’s early in his spiritual walk. And as a wise man once told me, “You don’t get on a person for not bringing home a paycheck when they are in diapers”.

D. This seems like the Kingdom right? Actually, it’s not. Think about this. Our friend didn’t even take the time to figure out what all he was doing before taking the work off of him. We in the Kingdom are supposed to always be on offense, but we are also always supposed to have our prep work done (through genuine prayer for those in our lives and subsequent insight given by the Holy Spirit). By pre-emptively taking work away from his mentee, which may actually go against God’s Will. We who are spiritual must lift up a brother in a fault in gentleness (Galatians 6:1), but must also carry our own load (Galatians 6:4).

E. So none of the above? Well I’m sure you’ve figured that out. Here is a response from my friend Brenda….

“I don't think any of the answers suffice, especially if he is a mentor. He should lift up his pupil, and offer his assistance in helping his young friend carve out a ministry to reach young folk."

Good work Brenda. If he’s that concerned about it, then he must make genuine provision to help him perform his tasks. Because he has his role in God’s vision for his mentee. Remember that there is an overall vision for God’s Kingdom, and each ministry seeking to advance it has an individual vision. And furthermore, we also have our own visions and our roles in our own visions. We must give our all for our brothers and sisters in Christ (as fitting to the Lord), for “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13, ESV).

I hope you enjoyed these case studies. Next week we will go into the reconciliation of the Galatians 6:1 principle and the Matthew 28:17 principle.

Walking With God Chapter I, Part VI

03/19/2012

Greetings folks:

Last week we talked about three fundamentals that distinguished the Kingdom from other power sources. This week I want to talk about a fundamental of all power sources, and that’s the transfer of power. If everyone is on the same page, something will transfer, good or bad. Jesus’ Prayer, The Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6, is Jesus’ primary desire, “Thy Kingdom Come, on Earth, as it is in Heaven”. Both Christ and the Father wish to see image and likeness passed on. Well, image and likeness get passed on to the next generation whether it’s the Kingdom or not (unless SOMEone plugs into Christ and breaks this cycle). Kingdom-driven empowerment, however, is always love-mediated. If there’s no love, there’s no empowerment. Let’s look at some case studies.

Example 1: Let’s say there’s this guy who claims Christ. And he goes to a church and he’s getting the Word every Sunday and participates in a men’s group one a month. He comes across a friend of his, who has been saved for 10 years already. The friend asks him, “Hey man, how’s it going? It’s been a while I missed ya! I’ve been busy man, going over and taking care of my mother; you know she hasn’t been feeling well. You know my daughter has been kind of sad since that guy dumped her. You remember the one I was telling you about. So I’ve been comforting her. In my Word deep too; I’m so glad I have God in my business. What’s new with you?” The first guy tells him, “Well you missed a good Word man; you should really come to church more often. There’s no excuse man; we have to connect to God daily.”

So, who’s in the Kingdom, and who is the religious humanist? Easy one, right? God is omnipresent. Abram didn’t set up contact points with God within a church. He did it as he moved so he could stay connected to God. The connection was more important…and it eventually paid off with the Abrahamic covenant. While church is nice, and the babe probably needs to be there, God will judge us contingent on how genuine our connection is with Him (so that we can go do His Work), NOT how often we are in church.

Example 2: Let’s use the second guy from Example 1 again. On top of being saved, he’s married as well (only relevant for this example). He has a buddy at work who wants to go out with him. They go out to a pool hall and shoot some pool. The work buddy notices that a woman is checking out his boy. “Say man, that chick is fine! You should holla at her!” Our friend kind of shrugs him off, saying, “Nah man you need to focus on this here game ‘cuz I’m pickin’ you apart!” The work buddy comes around and whispers, “Man I know you and your wife been kind of fussing lately; she don’t look at you right. Ol gurl is lookin’ at you the right way. Look man; you bailed me out at work a few times. Let me bail you out. I’ll pay for you to use the Super 8 ‘cross the street if you can get at her, and I’ll cover for you.” Our friend puts down his pool cue and looks at his work buddy. “Come on man; this got to be the most disrespect thing you’ve ever told me. Look man; my marriage ain’t perfect but it’s doing what God wants it to do. It also got a purpose. I’m gonna say this once; don’t ever come at me like that again.” The work buddy, taken aback, asks, “Why you had to pull God into this?” Our friend says, “Because I was on my way to hell but God had other plans. Maybe God can have some for you if you turn away from this foolishness.”

Kind of obvious again, right? Our friend has a secularized work buddy…don’t wanna hear about God. But while our friend was upset, he didn’t attack the guy moreover as he attacked the mindset/worldview he had. He may not get any immediate fruit from it, but that may very well be in work buddy’s head 2 and 3 days later.

Last example:
Our friend is involved in his church. He does some of the finance budget balancing and they recently let on a new staff member. Younger guy who is single with no kids. Enthused about the Lord but not a lot of his own stuff established so that he could have his own ministry to edify the Body. Our friend has established a solid friendship with the younger man, and the younger man looks up to our friend as a big brother figure. Our friend goes to the younger guy and asks him, “So you had that great marketing idea that you could launch man…weren’t you like a mathematician? You could use that stuff and get at these youth…get into these schools. What do you think?” The younger guy sighs and says, “Man I just have so much to do here…sometimes it feels like if I don’t know it, it won’t get done.” Our friend is kind of stunned. He’s never heard his young friend talk like that before. He knows he needs to connect to the Spirit for the next thing he says and do it just right for our friend. <> What do you think our friend should say?

A. “Well do what you have to do that is that hard? You don’t do anything here!”
B. “I think you’re just afraid to move on out on your faith.”
C. “It won’t get done? How little faith do you have? You need to tighten up on that! You’ll never grow with that attitude”
D. “Alright man, let’s sit down and lay out what you got over here and make sure we can make sure you get your stuff established. I’ll call in the rest of the team and spread this weight around if you like.
E. None of the above.

Answer away in the comments. We’ll go over all FIVE answers next week. Have a good week folks!

Walking With God Chapter I, Part V

Greetings folks:

Last week I discussed the different types of power sources and how they contrast from one another. So we all understand that God wants uninterrupted fellowship with us. This is so that the power (His Power) may flow freely through us and do His intended Work for us. I’ve also discussed how all have sinned and thus fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and how we can confess our sins and receive forgiveness (1 John 1:9) in order to get back tight with Him (reconciliation and restoration). I’ve even taken some time in discussing the practicality of recognizing when we are faded away from God and confessing and repenting in an expeditious manner.

Well today, I wanted to take a look at the danger of religious humanism, at least from the perspective of those who are presenting another “gospel” other than the one as laid out in the Word. God is a God of Standards, Order, and Boundaries (Exodus 20:4-18, 1 Corinthians 11:3, Galatians 5:19-23; Ephesians 5:18-6:10), and He wants our lights to so shine that God is Glorfied…in other words, He (1) wants us to spread His Image and Likeness (Genesis 1, particularly 1:29), and He wants people to see His Son (Image, Hebrews 1:3) when they bump into us.

But what happens when those in religious humanism are not doing these but are still perceived as “representing God”? Remember that the Word is designed for teaching and reproof (2 Timothy 3:16-17). But there are three fundamental things that must be genuine to make God “practical” and emotionally desirable.

(1) The “First and Greatest Commandment” (Matthew 22:35-39): Jesus tells us that loving God with everything that we have is the first and greatest commandment. While this Commandment not necessarily designed to replace the Law of Moses, it is designed to supersede it. When we do this, we get Grace as opposed to bumping into the Law. The other Commandment that is like it, loving thy neighbor as thy own flesh is also very important. They are alike because it starts with loving God which will capacitate us to love our neighbor unconditionally as well. It’s when we fall out of this that we get grumpy with folks and disenfranchise them from the things of God (if they are not already well-rooted). We only FALL out of love when we are too wounded to have the courage to love, whether that be love for God or love from others. If we act like this, visibly in humanism because we want to justify behavior patterns, towards someone with question marks about God, we don’t give that person the right answers and God is not Glorified through us.

(2) “Only useful for building up” (Ephesians 4:29): The entire passage is Ephesians 4:25-32 and it is also very important as well. We must watch what we say because (1) from the outflow of the heart so the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34) and (2) we will have to give account for our careless words at judgment time (Matthew 12:36). But even more practically, the passage of Ephesians 4:25-32 tells us to also “not grieve the Holy Spirit” and “not let the sun go down on our anger, giving Satan a foothold”. Give Satan a foothold? How? Well if we are giving things that aren’t useful for building up, then we aren’t in Kingdom power system. After all, when have we ever seen God use fluff, let alone something that deliberately bashed someone for the sake of bashing them? So if God doesn’t do that, and we do, we misrepresent Him, hurt others, and again, do not Glorify Him.

(3) “Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay his life down for his friends (John 15:13): A wise man once told me, “Me and God are best friends.” Some of you have either met or heard of this man, but that’s not my point. My point is that Jesus said that we may put ourselves to the side for the sake of our fellow man. Coupled to Matthew 22:35-39 and Galatians 6:4, we fulfilled the Law of Christ. And as Christ is God, then loving like Him allows us to represent God. Should you go get nailed to a cross and die? Well no; John 3:16-18 isn’t talking about you, now is it? LOL But that being said, selflessness is next to Godliness. And if we can’t do this, then we aren’t being Godly.

But hey, can’t I just do these things through my deeds and be alright? Well, other than God not being mocked (Galatians 6:7), we also will have to give an account for our motives as well as our deeds at judgment time (1 Corinthians 4:5 for motives, 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 for deeds). So we have to be genuine in this. God is a Holy God through and through, and there’s no holiness without genuineness. Next week I’ll give some (purely hypothetical) case studies on how this operates, perhaps a little interactiveness too. Have a good week, folks!

Walking With God Chapter I, Part IV

Greetings folks:

Last week I went over the different power sources. Now I’m going to go over how each source orients us into walking with God. Let me just start by saying that these power sources don’t necessarily determine whether or not we go to Heaven, they just determine how we are growing in relation to God and how we are growing spiritually (see next unit). These are just different power sources. There’s one power source left over, and THAT one may be determinant of Salvation, but I’m not going to discuss that one.

Remember when I said that both forms of humanism use certain techniques to justify behavior patterns? Well if you look at the behavior pattern, you’ll find the power source. Let’s take a look.

In secular humanism, remember that God has been removed from the equation and that people are trying to fix their flaws in an earthly system. When this doesn’t work, they get depressed and move into circles that justify their behavior patterns. Think about the man who is fussing with his wife. They are both saved but the wife wants him to step up in his masculinity and he’s shrinking away from the task. He’ll find comfort in the arms of a group that will tell him his wife is wrong, or he’ll just go find himself an extramarital affair. But that would be the actions to justify behavior patterns…not necessarily the behavior patterns. This man (not an actual man) is clearly running away from God’s Call to him as a husband/spiritual household leader to justify the things he’s not doing right (in his mind). And once he gets in deep with his other sources, he’ll find sources to justify that behavior. It’s a very interesting application of the fruit of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21). Spirit and flesh can’t be in the same place; they will clash. This is the choice that the flesh flees from the Spirit (of God) and seeks to do it’s own thing. The prime flaw in this is that people operating out of this power source will be temporal, and thus, always have some sort of worry or “not-peace”.

The Kingdom says that we are no good and we need a Savior (thank God we have one [John 3:16-18], amIrite?]). I’m doing this one first because if you asked someone in the third power source, they’d tell you Kingdom (although it’d be a throwed idea of the “Kingdom”). In this idea, all things come from God. And there’s an innate set of understandings that (1) God loves us no matter what (2) He’s the best thing for us and (3) There is no greater source of authority than Him. The Fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Long-Suffering, Kindness, Meekness, Self-Control (Galatians 5:22-23)…all these are within God’s Standards. Spirit and flesh clash…and this is the choice that involves the Spirit booting fleshly things out. This is where that Peace of God (Philippians 4:7) comes over us and supercedes all understanding (like humanism). There’s an innate genuineness in the Kingdom Power Source. While the King is perfect, the Kingdom itself is eternally working toward His Ideal Model but you could take any snapshot in time and see flaws. The primary difference between this and the secular humanism is that submission to God leads to the “fixing” of the flaws (which themselves play a role in our need for a Savior both from damnation and from ourselves [Philippians 2:12]).

Religious humanism is arguably the most complex of the three power sources. Why? Because it talks about God. Well, sort of. There’s nothing about the God of the Bible necessarily because God is the First and the Last and there is no other God beside him (Isaiah 43:10, 44:6). And if we have an immutable God of the Bible, a God that can change to justify behavior patterns is a false God. God has a set of Standards as laid out in Exodus 20:4-18, but there are also a set of essential doctrines (later study) that provide boundaries for the Kingdom and who God is. Again, people are justifying their behavior patterns, but they throw a God on it to divinate them. The issue with this is, is that these are the same people going out and evangelizing into false faith systems and leave the lost with more question marks than they had before. Or, they leave them with exclamation points. How? By using the Word to wound as opposed to uplift and teach (Galatians 6:1, Ephesians 4:29, 2 Timothy 3:16-17). This disenfranchises folks to anything with “God” attached to it and drives them into secular humanism or some other religious humanism that justifies their behavior pattern.

Walking With God Chapter I, Part III

This week we get back on track with walking with God…and more specifically, different types of power sources. I want to explain some things first though.

First off, why is the knowledge of different power sources important?

1) We have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:15-16). This essentially means that God has given us the ability (although it has to be grown into) to discern all things (including people around us). Why do we want to do this? When we figure out what’s going on we can show them the love, teaching, and reproof necessary specific to them, to show God to them so that God may be glorified and the person be…encouraged.
2) Piggybacking off of number 1, all things that they do will flow from the power source they come from. Think about it. The fruit (or works) of the flesh are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,[drunkenness, revelries, and the like (Galatians 5:19-21, KJV) while the fruit (or works) of the Spirit love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). See the stark contrast between Spirit and flesh?

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Why human reasoning? Because all those things seem pretty humanistic when we think about it. Every time someone in the Bible (or throughout history) was left to their own devices some sort of humanism came up. Well there are two essential kinds of human reasoning, and they are as follows:

Secular humanism: Secular humanism is a mindset of human reasoning that disallows God to show up in the business. They don’t desire God, but view humanity as “basically good” but has to work up a few flaws. What’s the flaw in this system? When someone goes back and works through the same set of flaws over and over again in humanism, they find themselves “broken” and immediately go into circles that would lead them to justify their behavior or allow them to blend in or fit in.

Religious humanism: Religious humanism is much different (and more dangerous than) secular humanism in that many operating out of religious humanism think they are connected to God. Based on that trip to the judgment seat after we die (Hebrews 9:27), that’s going to be a rude awakening for these folks. Why? Because religious humanists take a “god”, any “god”, and they use this “god” to justify their behavior patterns (to again say they are “basically good”). God has a set of Standards (Exodus 20:4-18, the Ten Commandments) and Matthew 22:37-39, but yet we can never meet them (Romans 3:23, Romans 7:7, 1 John 1:8-10). We must rather make our behavior submit to God, as opposed to the other way around…and have the appropriate God as represented by His Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17). In other words, the Word is designed to both uplift AND convict.

Godliness/The Spirit/Kingdom: The Kingdom says that humanity is no good and needs a Savior. It also says that those who received this Savior (Jesus Christ) will have everlasting life and have a guarantee at the judgment seat (John 3:16, Ephesians 1:13-14). The Law (see above) shows us how much of a “joke” we are next to God’s Standards. Even Adam, who had direct fellowship with God, couldn’t maintain his dominion over all things around him (this was the first commission Genesis 1:28-29, and the first commission to have self-control, Genesis 2:16-17). So thanks to Adam, we shall surely die…unless we get some Christ in our lives and plug into the Power.

Next week I will discuss how the different power sources orient us next to walking with God. Have a good week folks!!

Walking With God, Chapter I Part II

This week I want to go into 4 (not all the) really base fundamentals of our spiritual walk...

First of all….what is the spiritual walk? Well to put it simply, it is the day-in and day-out activities we have with God…whether it be us spending altar time with Him (altar time to be discussed later), prayer, fellowship with Him, fellowship in general, or anything we do that we freely allow God’s Order and Standards to penetrate our minds and shape our imagery, and thus, our behavior patterns. So how do you keep a solid spiritual walk? Later units will discuss more rote details of this process, but here are the four basic fundamentals.

1) We must know precisely where we are in our walk. The Word of God is designed to uplift and convict. If it’s only doing one or the other then we must look deeper into ourselves. The purpose of doing this is to know the very nature of our fellowship with God and get the most out of it. We have to freely let this be guided by God based on His Word (for example, the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20, or Christ’s Commandment in Matthew 22:37 [see previous unit about godly love]). Unless we comprehensively know both our strengths and our weaknesses, we cannot truly edify the Body and know our role in the Kingdom. Therefore we must examine ourselves at the time of fellowship, and there is no greater (as in more intimate) fellowship with God than Communion, which gives us the very charge to make this examination. (Ref: 1 Corinthians 11:27-32)

2) Know that whatever we do, it’s not enough. We inherited our default nature and bodies from the 1st Adam. We all know how that piece turned out…he was so focused on what God had given him (Bone of my bone flesh of my flesh anyone?) that he lost sight of what God wanted him to do. Genesis 3 God sets out the first punishment for sin after the first sin has been committed. And taking a closer look at the Bible, EVERY “great figure” fell (but Christ). Abraham (went into his concubine), Moses (lost his faith), David (slept with another man’s wife), Solomon (had a harem)…and the list goes on. Christ walked the ONLY sinless walk in recorded history, which makes sense because he’s God the Son. The rest of us? Well Romans 3:23 says we all have sinned and have fallen short. So no matter what, so long as we inhabit our physical bodies our PRACTICAL RIGHTEOUSNESS says “We a joke and we need Jesus”.

3) Know that it’s “okay”. No God doesn’t want you to sin. But He knows it’s going to happen…probably a lot. Our God is a long suffering God and gave us His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8). Salvation comes by Grace through Faith in Christ (John 3:16-18). We shouldn’t be sinning but even if we do, we have a mechanism of forgiveness to re-establish fellowship (1 John 1:9, to be discussed in several weeks). However, beating ourselves us is just as deceptive as the sin that brought us to that point. Romans 8:1 explains that there is no condemnation for members of the body (those in Christ Jesus). So we shouldn’t sweat that we sinned beyond comprehensively examining the sin and putting it and the cares that brought us to it to God. And thus we shall receive the power to defeat our iniquity by getting empowered by the Spirit (Romans 8, Galatians 5:22-23, Philippians 4:8)

4) Seek out God for everything that we do. Have you ever heard that term “What would Jesus do?” As cliché as it sounds, that should be our default setting. It clears up a lot of our insecurity and gives us a lot of insight. God is a faithful God and He gives grace and knowledge to those who genuinely seek Him out (Psalm 119:1-40). The very charge itself made by Christ is to seek out the Kingdom and its righteousness. (Matthew 6:33). A similar charge is to let our let so shine (Matthew 5:16) As any given Kingdom is a representation of the King, this is how we get close to the King.

Next week I'm going to talk about different power sources. Have a good week, and pardon the late send!

Walking With God, Chapter I Part I

I will start off with just with a brief introduction. Do you know what it means to be a powerful and productive believer? More important, did you know that this is what God wants for us all? Did you know that God wants us all to produce after Himself How do I figure? Let me show you.

There are two great commissions that God discusses in the very first chapter of the Bible. To go out and do two things: subdue/take dominion, and to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28). God is the wisest thing He knows, and as we already discussed, God is love. So God loves us enough in order to give us these things that He knows in order so that we reflect His Image (Hebrews 1:3) and Likeness (Galatians 5:22-23). However, in order to do these things we must walk with God and defeat the things in our business that separate us from Him.

If we take a look at 1st and 2nd Corinthians, as well as many of the epistles, Paul takes a deeper look at the mechanism of things that separate us from God….you know, sin. However, we sin because our belief is not fortified in Him. Why do I say that? Because Philippians 4:6-7 tells us so. When we worry, we lose security (faith) in Him, so that leads us to sin, but when we go to seek Him out and defer the totality of our business to Him, then we get that peace that empowers us to go do whatever it is we need to do (Philippians 4:13). Let me just take a moment to give you a bit of a nugget to munch on. When reading Phi 4:13 in the amplified version, it says that my sufficiency is in the sufficiency of Christ (paraphrase).

Check it out on www.biblegateway.com if you don’t have access to an AMP Bible. It’s some good stuff to know that Christ is all you need.

The Duck Pond: A long overdue post.

Matthew 6:33: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (ESV)

We've all heard this verse right? No problem. It's a great verse that we should default ourselves to everyday.

Speaking of everyday,

Matthew 6:11-12: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And what to do everyday?

1 Timothy 6:17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy
So seek ye first the Kingdom and it's righteousness , go get DAILY bread, and God gives us what we need to enjoy Him.

Everyone got it? Good.

"But Professor, there's no commentary!!!"

Shush I'm coming to it. I had to throw some Scripture out there, some of which I've used before, to set this one up. Now roll with me for a moment here.

A few months back I had a friend talk to me about a guy she was interested in. She was concerned about the direction of where it was going. A legitimate concern. And I thought about a duck pond where she was living, and this is what I said to her:

"You see a duck pond. You like the duck. The duck entertains you. It pleases you. It's fun. You're having a good time watching the duck. But if you mess around worrying about 'Where is the duck going?' or 'Is the duck hungry?' or 'Is the duck looking for its baby ducklings?' or 'Where will the duck be in a day/week/month/2 months/year?', you KILL your experience by messing around worrying about it. So sit back, enjoy the duck, and get your nature on."

**I am not telling people to date ducks or fornicate with them (or other people)**

Matthew 6:34: Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (ESV)

So today's issues are enough to be troubled about eh? Have YOU ever been in a courtship or relationship worried about what tomorrow will bring in it? No answers please, just think about it.

Philippians 4:6-7: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

And let's not forget Psalm 23:1 "The LORD is my shepherd I shalt not want." and Psalm 27:1 "The LORD is my light and my salvation; of WHOM shall I be afraid?"

Take "whom" and add "or what" to those verses. So where am I going with this? Well these concepts are not lost in any aspect of your life, but in courting/dating, it's best to not worry about tomorrow at the cost of today.

But Professor, what if the "duck" and I get along VERY well? I want to plan for tomorrow, right?
Deferring to God, yes. In your humanism? No.

Why? Because God's Comprehension is better than ours and He knows tomorrow today. He'll let you know what you need to know. But don't WORRY about it.

Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." (ESV)

But if you wanna know something and don't know what to do, first you must seek the Kindgom (Matthew 6:33), set your mind on things above where Christ is at the right hand of God (not earthly things (Colossians 3:1-2), and if you don't know something still...

Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. (ESV)

God will give you direction toward what He wants you to do with that "duck" just like everything else in your business. Remember, God created both you AND your "duck" and He has the best thing for each of you.

The next section unit will talk about what happens when you DON'T plug into this model...and what you should do when you figure out that you aren't plugged in. Hope this helped! :)

A Solid Godly Church: What Do YOU Expect church to do for YOU?

What do you expect church to do for you? Is there an expectation level?

Remember when I talked about spiritual leadership? One of the requirements I mentioned was this:

2) Make sure the ministry message drives congregation to get God for themselves and is serious about doing it, and making sure that he doesn’t, either deliberately or accidentally, put himself on the throne reserved for Christ). (Genesis 2:26 (God’s default Model) Matthew 6:6-12, 33-34; Colossians 1:28)

Do you want God for yourself? No answers please…just think about how much you want God.

A while back in church we talked about in Deuterotomy 6:1-7 and how it applies to our Biblical Reasoning to lead our families. I’m going to put a slightly different spin on verse 1 (obey God’s Commandments) and verse 5 (love Him with everything that you have). Well how do we do that? Why do we do that?

First, the how: By sowing to the Spirit. When we get saved we get the mind of Christ and the sealing of the Spirit. We get it and it protects us from eternal damnation, but it also gives us the tools to grow in Him. This will be evidenced with us giving less of our fleshly nature (Galatians 5:19-21) and more of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Our good works grow so that we can get what we need to represent and abound in Him.

Now, the why: Remember that John F. Kennedy quote: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”? Well the same thing applies. What we can do for the Kingdom is grow in Him so that his Image and Likeness be spread and we are the most powerful thing in any given situation we land in. (Genesis 1:28).

And on this day, I pray each of you follow Him so that He can grow you up for what He has planned for you.

A Solid Godly Church: Why do YOU go to church?

Greetings folks:

First of all, we will not forget. Take a little time out to thank God for the perspective you gained for 09/11/2001, as well as Jesus taking care of any overhanging loose ends when He returns. He will serve justice to all, and His Justice, no one can subvert.

Now that I’ve said that, I want you to think about something regarding our unit. Why do you go to church? I’ll wait….

Matthew 22:37-40 “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. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Think about verse 40. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Do you love God? Rhetorical question. If you love Him, obey His commandments, and all

“But Professor, it’s not stated in the 10 Commandments that we should go to church every Sunday.”

Ah, yes, but they do state core basics we need to live off of to avoid sin, grow spiritually, and get closer to Him.

While God is greater than even his Church, church is the primary place where you learn these things (see entries on church leadership and hierarchy). Not necessarily your church, but we should desire our church to give this kind of love and grow in it so that we may keep His Commandments. Be sure to check yourselves though (1 Corinthians 11:28), and make sure you have genuine motives on going to church.

Romans 14:23 And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

If you fail to be genuine in your love and your faith when you go to church, if you don’t have the faith that you will get something from God that will better equip you to serve Him, then you need to roll out of where you are and seek Him directly, or repent for how you feel, because you’re wasting your time going to church, if the love and faith are not there. Have a good one folks!

A Solid Godly Church: Hierarchy Fundamentals

Last time I discussed what a spiritual leader should reflect in a church that’s worth joining. Now, since it take more than a good leader to make a church go (Collective Body, 1 Corinthians 12), I want to take a look at the church “hierarchy” , or the power structure. WARNING: The Scripture will largely be similar. The structure of the church “hierarchy” should:

1) Also not be into a whole bunch of titles (Matthew 6:5).
2) And if they have the title, they look at it as a calling and not an entitlement…and their walk reflects that (1 Timothy 3).
3) Whatever their field within the church, only derive what they do from the Word of God…in other words, it’s all Kingdom-driven (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
4) Will accept you as you are, while at the same time, uplift you so that you reach the fullness of your potential…and check on you to make sure you’re pushing toward that mark (Ephesians 4:25-32).
5) Make you feel at home, like family. I’m not saying that you make every member of your congregation your brother or sister, but I AM saying that you should make every member of your congregation your brother or sister, and they should accept the same with you.
6) All be solely focused along with the leader of the church to be the church that the gates of Hell cannot prevail against…and have a singular direction in their teachings in whatever field they are in (Matthew 16:18)
7) Have “senior level” members that have been walking with God long enough so that you don’t have to go to the pastor in order to get good growth nuggets (Proverbs 27:17). The pastor should not be the only person in the church with an iron sword. There should be a variety of swords in the church, all going back to the Truth of the Spirit, the Word of God (Ephesians 6:20).
7a) There should be a general church nucleus with Supernatural intellect-ability to navigate the invisible arena on all levels and know the nature of temptation and spiritual warfare (1 Corinthians 10:13/2 Corinthians 10:3-6)
8) Happy with you so long as you are pressing toward the mark to answer the call God put you here for, helping you cultivate that no matter where it physically lands you (Matthew 28:18/Philippians 3:10-17).

A Quick Spiritual Nugget...with some Special Sauce: Why is Phi 4:8 as important as Phi 4:6-7?

You know that Philippians 4 is nigh commercialized in different tidbits...bumper stickers, pictures, paintings, Tim Tebow's face...well Tim Tebow, who put Phi 4:13 on his face during a college game (over the tape under his eyes) and beat the other team, may be inclined to tell you that that whole chapter works together. Phi 4:13, and also Phi 4:6-7 are nigh commercialized, but what about Phi 4:8?

Alright, so the short answer is "It's in the Bible like everything else that's sacred for teaching and reproof (2 Tim 3:16-17).

However, let me tell you why Phi 4:8 works as scaffolding for both previous verses:



Phi 4:6-7 (AMP): Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.

And God's peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Phi 4:13 (AMP): I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am]self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency].

Am I the only one who is fired up now? I hope not.

Take a look at these verses. I used to AMP to get some extra emphasis on the verses. Look at the bolded parts. God's Peace builds a fort around our minds and hearts in Christ Jesus, who also empowers us to be self-sufficient in his sufficient.

Well, think about it from the other verses in the epistles
"My grace is made perfect in weakness"-2 Cor 12:9
The fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23)
"We must take thoughts captive to obey Christ" 2 Cor 10:3-6

Remember that our God is a God that empowers His Work. And that last bolded (summarized) Scripture tells us to take thoughts captive to obey Christ. Well how can we approach the throne if we are unwilling to check thoughts?

Answer: We can't! So we can't go to the throne, we don't get the Peace, and we don't get the Power.

So, that brings me to the point...
Phi 4:8 (AMP): For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them].

Fix our minds on all these things...the reverence of God, honorable things, just things, things of love and kindness and graciousness, things WORTHY OF PRAISE.

Well, taking thoughts Captive to obey Christ would involve focusing on those things. Who that is saved would NOT revere at the prospect of not going to Hell and getting the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:15-16)? Or revere at being taken care of (Nahum 1:7)? Or the prospect of being strong and courageous through Him who does not abandon us (Joshua 1)? Or the opportunity to take dominion and go out and be the vessels necessary to spread God's Image and Likeness (Genesis 1:28)? The same God that gave us the Standards in Exodus 20:4-18 (and throughout the Word really)? That's a lot to revere in right there but this post is getting long so I'm going to just continue...

We get justification through faith in Christ (and thusly He is just), Christ is God and is Love (John 1:1-8/Heb 1:3/1 John 4:8), who was more excellent than someone who died as a ransom for all sin of all time? Christ is definitely worthy of PRAISE.

So...it connects like this...if we are taking thoughts captive to obey Christ, THEN we aren't worrying. We get that Peace from making requests and thusly God empowers up to do the things He intended us to do (He works through us). And that's my take on how Philippians 4:8 works as a scaffold for Philippians 4:6-7 and v13 (among other things).

Hope you enjoyed!

A Solid Godly Church: Leadership Fundamentals

Hey everyone! Haven't forgotten about the blog. Been thinking about what to write after spending so much time on Functional Masculinity. I guess you could call this entry an "application" on functional masculinity: finding a nice solid Godly church.

Before I go on, most of you who know me away from Blogspot know I'm a bit "peculiar" (to say the least). My current church home embraced my personality (as they were only concerned in my desire to grow in and serve the Lord), and let me do my thing otherwise (the growth and servanthood thing is MAD REQUIRED though). I was skiddish about joining a church BECAUSE I'm so "different". Many churches only see Christians in a certain light. And I don't like that model. And neither does God. Something that bugged me a while ago was that someone I knew was tired of their church and didn't feel like they were growing. I told her that if that church isn't helping you get God for yourself you need to BOOK IT! I still agree with what I told her, but I thought about it, "What ELSE does every good church need to build up powerful and productive believers? (shout out to Jesus is Alpha and Omega Ministries (http://www.jaom.org), hopefully merit is seen in my assessment in the eyes of the LORD.

Before I begin though, I put this in terms of the pastor/leader of the church. I felt this would be best because in any given church a pastor has to take the most ownership over the direction of the church (fellowship, fundraising, servanthood, visits to other churches, getting contemporaries on one godly page, etc.). I understand it takes a solid leadership structure to make a church work, and those things need to be tight too (see future blog entry). Now this list probably isn't comprehensive, but I wanted to just start with these items:

If a church is suitable for growing folks up in Christ, a spiritual leader must:

1) Refer to the church as God’s church and the ministry objective is clearly following that notion. (Isaiah 43:10; Isaiah 44:6, Matthew 16:18)
2) Make sure the ministry message drives congregation to get God for themselves and is serious about doing it, and making sure that he doesn’t, either deliberately or accidentally, put himself on the throne reserved for Christ). (Genesis 2:2 (God’s default Model) Matthew 6:6-12, 33-34; Colossians 1:28)
3) Only teache from the Word of God. (Revelation 22:18-19)
4) Not be into a bunch of titles and be approachable (within reason) in that his identity is in Christ and understands what that means (stewardship, servanthood). (Matthew 6:5, Matthew 28:18; John 13:1-17; 2 Timothy 2:19;Hebrews 11:24-25)
5) Allow congregation members to be themselves so long as it lines up with the Word of God, allowing for each to use their own gift to edify the Body. (1 Corinthians 12)
6) Have content is taught in a fashion where it uplifts, convicts, and triggers change in the congregation (at least the members who are serious about following the message). (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
7) Be only concerned with that which uplifts those around him, both inside and outside of church. (Ephesians 4:25-32)
8) Have a message lines that up with his own walk and it is evident that he got into this position of leadership in an orderly fashion. (1Timothy 3)
9) Not be obsessed with getting in a whole bunch of topics and teaches the depth of Scripture. (1 Corinthians 2:15-16; 2 Timothy 2:19)
10) Talk with (and sometimes to) his congregation and not at it. (Luke 7:29)


Anything I miss? Anything you disagree with? DISCUSS!!!! And have a great day folks.

Functional Masculinity (7 of 7: Summary)

In wrapping up the unit on functional masculinity, I wanted to talk in closing about the topics that we have covered in the process of this…

1) The Ephesians 5 Principle-The “die to the self” principle we as men must have and grow into during the dating process (not right when we get married) and must be prepared for when we decide to date. All comes down to treating women as Christ treated the church (Ephesians 5:25).

2) Sacrifice-Being effective leaders in our household in servanthood. Allowing ourselves to be conscientious about the needs of those in our household, and making impact by passing on God’s Image (Hebrews 1:3) and Likeness (Galatians 5:22-23)

3) The “Woe is Me” Principle-How not to be a functional man. Men who handle their business and do so begrudgingly, as well as men who spend all their time complaining and take no action. Taking charge of our thinking and not only making it obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-6) but also making sure it only uplifts those around us spiritually (Ephesians 4:25-32).

4) Boundaries-Making sure that we as men know our roles in the lives around us and do not move or even think outside of the roles God has designed us to have for those around us. That God has an Order for everything in our business (Colossians 3:1; 1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5 & 6/Colossians 3:20-4:2). We must continue to check ourselves (1 Corinthians 11:27-32) through systematic fellowship with God and reading the Word of God (which is designed to uplift and convict, and as it is written in 2 Timothy 3:15-17, the gold Standard for our business).

5) Legacy-How will we as men impact the communities around us? About how we must building one another up through fellowship (Proverbs 27:17, Matthew 18:20), and make sure that we follow Christ’s Great Commisssion (Matthew 28:18-20) along with God’s first Commission (Genesis 1:28), to go out and make disciplines in order to propagate the world with God’s Image and Likeness. After all, He is the best thing for us.

But what does all of this mean?

The charge to men: We have to be kind but harsh at times to those around us. You ever heard about “tough love”? Well heck God is the epitome of tough love. He loves us all, and prefers for even the wicked not to perish, but to rather to tighten up and dump their wickedness (Ezekiel 18:21-27), but yet some are “destined” for damnation (not all who say “Lord, Lord” will enter in the Kingdom of Heaven and etc.). We often have to be fathers and father figures to those we have not sired, relatives, friend’s kids, stepkids (I hate this term by the way), and in extreme cases, future wives (yes there is an element of discipleship and security building that goes into romance). We have to do these things and PUT OURSELVES last. We have to model Christ, and through this, we have to have His Authority, His Love and Nurturing, but most of all, His Servanthood.

The goal: Ultimately to get that “well done” (Matthew 25:23). Why? Because we will have reflected the things that I mentioned in this series as well as the totality of functional masculinity, following all these godly precepts in propagating godly models wherever we go in our lives. “This is my Son of whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) That’s where we ought to be shooting, men.

Hope you all had as much fun with this as I did.