Reconciliation

God saves a person according to His grace (and not our works) in order to fulfil His purpose/plan, which is to have Himself and mankind reconciled. The purpose and grace that was given Paul and other believers “in Christ Jesus before the world began” was not exclusive to them but also given to the rest of the world. God’s purpose of redemption and the grace involved in it is for “ALL PEOPLE.”

As unflattering as it may be to the human ego, the coming of Christ was not only to save us from our sins. According to Ephesians, our salvation is not the ultimate purpose of the coming of Christ. God’s eternal purpose is the “summing up of all things in Christ.”

All of us are called to belong to the new people of God. Wherefore this people, while remaining one and only one, is to be spread throughout the whole world and must exist in all ages, so that the decree of God's will may be fulfilled. In the beginning God made human nature one and decreed that all His children, scattered as they were, would finally be gathered together as one. It was for this purpose that God sent His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, that He might be teacher, king and priest of all, the head of the new and universal people of God. For this too God sent the Spirit of His Son as Lord and Life-giver. He it is who brings together the whole Church and each and every one of those who believe, and who is the well-spring of their unity in the teaching of the apostles and in fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers.

Related articles

• Lent: The Acceptable Time

Strategy of Suffering

 

In his work called Apology, the Latin apologist Tertullian made this now-famous comment: "The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed." Somehow, the suffering of some Christians spurred others to more faithful living. The apostle Paul noted that "most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear" (Phil. 1:14). Through all the terrible persecutions of the early centuries the church continued to grow.

"I have never been the same since sitting at the feet of Richard Wurmbrand. It was literally at his feet. He took off his shoes and sat in a chair on the slightly raised platform at Grace Baptist Church in south Minneapolis. (I learned later it had to do with damage to his feet during the torture that he had received in a Romanian prison.) Before him -- and below him -- sat about a dozen pastors. He spoke of suffering. Again and again he said that Jesus "chose" suffering. He "chose" it. It did not merely happen to him. He "chose" it. "No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own will" (John 10:18). He asked us if we would choose suffering for the sake of Christ."  from Desiring God

Others too have given their lives and God uses this for His glory. Christians in Islamic contexts are often persecuted. Throughout history suffering has been part of Christian witness and vital to the growth of the church. Dietrich Bonheoffer said that “when Christ calls a man he bids him come and die.” Josef Tson put it this way: “When the ambassador of Christ speaks the truth in love, and meets death with joy, a strange miracle occurs: the eyes of unbelievers are opened, they are enabled to see the truth about God” The grave speaks louder than life itself.

Jesus seemed to be saying that the kingdom of God would come, not through human strength, but through weakness, not through military victories, but through apparent defeat, not through hatred, but through sacrificial love. How could this be possible?

Why do I suffer persecution?

“And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offense of the cross ceased” (Galatians 5:11).

Paul’s Gospel had teeth. It bit hard into the kingdom of darkness and ripped chunks from it wherever it came. He didn’t make his message smooth and soft in order to suit the fancies of the religious majority. His Gospel was a sharp word that exalted Christ, lifted the cross up high, proclaimed total commitment to Christ the King, and utterly stripped people of all self-reliance, shattering self-righteousness, tearing down false religion, and leaving people stripped bare before God in utter dependence on His free grace alone to save them.

And of course, with a Gospel like this, Paul suffered persecution wherever he went. Yet he didn’t dare water-down the potency of the truth of God. He didn’t compromise his message in order to make it more acceptable to the people. He didn’t pervert it to make it look pretty. He proclaimed, “This is the way, the only way! Walk ye in it!” and pronounced a thundering “Anathema!” on anybody that dared to tamper with the message and preach another gospel (Gal. 1:6-9).

They who have this faith live in the hope of the revelation of the sons of God and keep in mind the cross and resurrection of the Lord. In the pilgrimage of this life, hidden with Christ in God and free from enslavement to wealth, they aspire to those riches which remain forever and generously dedicate themselves wholly to the advancement of the kingdom of God and to the reform and improvement of the temporal order in a Christian spirit. Among the trials of this life they find strength in hope, convinced that "the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that will be revealed in us" (Rom. 8:18).

Relate and Investigate

Relate Christianity to contemporary world views as much as possible without compromising doctrinal integrity. We err when we are either divorced or married to a contemporary world view. When we are divorced from it, our gospel is not heard as being relevant to modern life. When we are married to it, our gospel becomes outdated as soon as the next world view comes along. This is a very difficult balance to maintain, but we must strike that scriptural balance of being in the world without being of the world (John 15:19, 17:15-16). We must be all things to all people that we may win some (1 Cor. 9:22), yet not compromise the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3). It means we must relate intelligently to modern scientific paradigms without resorting to materialism. It means we should be concerned with practical results meeting needs in human life without making pragmatism the final judge of truth. It means we must have compassion for those driven to the underculture without affirming their values. It means we must demonstrate the rational evidence for the Christian faith rather than retreating into obscurantistic pietism, yet without making reason the final arbiter of truth. It means we must emphasize the individual's appropriation of truth without denying the objectivity of truth.

Investigate other world views continually as a part of your witness preparation.We might have made the evangelistic harvest much more manageable by arbitrarily cutting out a large part of the harvest. If you are going to make use of the opportunity to witness to someone from another world religion, and how helpful it would be to know the basic concepts of that world view. That was not an essential part of witness training a few decades ago, but it is now.  In fact, because someone has an Asian or Hispanic surname certainly did not guarantee that they were not a Christian. In fact, some of them might be better Christians than we are! But if they indeed weren't Christian, then what is witnessing about? Is it not bringing the good news of salvation to those who need to hear it? We must be prepared to witness to a much more diverse world than in the past.

Fundamentalists, faithful to the clear one-way teaching of Christ, often conclude from this that pagans, Buddhists, et cetera, cannot be saved. Liberals, who emphasize God's mercy, cannot bring themselves to believe that the mass of men are doomed to hell, and they ignore, deny, nuance, or water down Christ's own claims to uniqueness. The Church has found a third way, implied in the New Testament texts. On the one hand, no one can be saved except through Christ. On the other hand, Christ is not only the incarnate Jewish man but also the eternal, preexistent word of God, "which enlightens every man who comes into the world" (Jn 1:9). So Socrates was able to know Christ as word of God, as eternal Truth; and if the fundamental option of his deepest heart was to reach out to him as Truth, in faith and hope and love, however imperfectly known this Christ was to Socrates, Socrates could have been saved by Christ too. We are not saved by knowledge but by faith. Scripture nowhere says how explicit the intellectual content of faith has to be. But it does clearly say who the one Saviour is.

A cursory glance at ancient history shows clearly how in different parts of the world, with their different cultures, there arise at the same time the fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? These are the questions which we find in the sacred writings of Israel, as also in the Veda and the Avesta; we find them in the writings of Confucius and Lao-Tze, and in the preaching of Tirthankara and Buddha; they appear in the poetry of Homer and in the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles, as they do in the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle. They are questions which have their common source in the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. In fact, the answer given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives.

The proclamation of the apostles and evangelists rests on their association and encounter with Jesus before and after Easter and on the work of His Spirit who opened their eyes to Him. Our faith rests on their proclamation, to which the Spirit opens our heart. Our faith is based on the encounter in the Spirit with our Lord and Saviour who lives and who lived on earth. In that respect, the question of whether the factuality of all the details of the gospel story can be demonstrated with historical research is of less importance.

When we articulate our faith in Jesus Christ, we listen carefully and reverently to the Bible and as well deal with the questions which present themselves today. We listen with an eye to those questions and try to answer them from Holy Scripture. Fortunately, we have more than Scripture and the questions of our own time. We are part of a community of faith which transcends the boundaries of our own time and place, namely the church of all times and places. We are not the first and only ones who believe and confess. Many have gone down this road before us. We are conjoined with them. We are thankful for what they have transmitted to us. We recognize in their faith and their struggle our faith and our struggle. Their words inspire and hearten us, give direction to our search and serve as a touchstone for the question of whether we are still on the right path. Therefore we listen also to these fellow believers and precursors and are willing to let them have their say. We can and only want to believe in fellowship with the confession of generations who came before us.

Can one believe without subscribing to dogmas? Indeed, our faith is not in dogmas but in the living Lord. Our faith lives from the biblical message, not from parsing dogmatic concepts. For ourselves we can do without dogmas to experience and articulate the faith. However, if we want to share the faith with others, we have to define it and deal with the question of what can be said and what not. That makes rules for discourse indispensable. Therefore we make thankful use of dogmas to ascertain whether the sharing of the faith within and outside of the church is in harmony with the Bible. The church community cannot do without reflection on the faith. If we were to drop independent and critical scrutiny of what the faith is about, it would eventually evaporate into a vague and nondescript emotion. It would mean losing touch with the surrounding culture and intellectual world and we would no longer be able to articulate our faith in understandable language. The discipline of systematic theology is an exercise in talking clearly and intelligibly about the faith, inside and outside the church, without being able to mark precisely the boundary between inside and outside.

"Jesus Christ is Lord" is a foundational biblical, personal faith-confession that corrects the traditional pluralist, inclusivist, and exclusivist positions held by Christians concerning other religions and calls God's missionary people to be mobilized by the Holy Spirit to participate in Christ's mission which is culturally pluralist, ecclesiologically inclusivist, and faith particularist.

 

Related articles

• Should Christians be tolerant?
• Book Review: The Next Christians by Gabe Lyons

Strategic concentration of prayer

 In a time of war, battles are won by strategic concentration of force (prayer).
 
Demons are the force operating behind false religions, idolatry, magic and witchcraft (Deut.32:17; Ps96:5; 1Cor.10:19-20; Rev.9:20-21).

Satan and his demons are in a state of continual war against the church and God’s people individually. All believers are exhorted to combat all levels of evil spiritual forces in the unseen realm (Eph 6:10-15), till we have the victory and breakthrough in the level God has allowed us to battle in for victory.
 
Worship is prayer and prayer is worship. Worship Him with a purity of heart and clean hands. Lift your heart to Him and glorify His Name. Sing to Him in a new song,  rejoice, and worship in freedom without a concern of others around you. Your only audience is God. 
 
"Even them I will bring to my Holy Mountain, and make them joyful in My House of prayer …… for My House shall be called a house of prayer for all nations."(Isaiah 56:7)

This scripture actually speaks of an intercessory song. This scripture is a key to us. The words of prayer in Isaiah actually mean 'Tephillah', which in itself means a prayer set to music and sung in formal worship. The word 'Tephillah' occurs 77 times in the Old Testament. You could safely interpret the verse this way. 'My house shall be called a house of prayer and praise.' Music cannot be separated from prayer in most of the Old Testament.
 
Many intercessors go around with long faces. If we as intercessors don’t maintain joy in intercession, the enemy will take our strength from us. Satan loves to break down intercessors through grief and sorrow over all the problems they pray about. If they allow this and do not allow themselves to be released from their burdens, filled with God’s Spirit, and refreshed with His joy and strength, they will become wounded burden bearers.

Since prayer and praise are linked together in the Word of God, they lead us into the courts of God, into the Holy of Holies. Here is a scripture, relating worship and prayer, leading into warfare.

Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, and His praise in the congregation of the saints …. Let them praise His name with the dance; let them sing praises to Him with the timbrel and harp…Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute on them the written judgment – this honour have all His saints. Praise the Lord! Psalm 149:1,3,6-9.

In the above passage, praising God executes vengeance upon the heathen. It binds kings with chains, and nobles with fetters of iron, and executes judgment. Pretty powerful intercession! In other words, worship is spiritual warfare.
 

Aggressive, strategic prayer is an essential component in reaching unreached people groups.  Unreached peoples are, by definition "churchless" people. However they may be delineated by ethnic, linguistic, or social features, unreached peoples are those which do not yet have a flourishing church planting movement announcing and demonstrating the gospel of the Kingdom.

 

God intends for churches to be an open display of obedience to

Christ. Satan works to deny that obedience by trapping a people in society-wide presumptions about reality.

 

We're not sure how these strongholds get their start; probably by trapping people in their own high-minded speculations as they pursue self-sufficiency. But we can see that in settings in which Christ is not obeyed - where there is no church - such strongholds go unchallenged, sometimes for centuries, gaining strength with every passing generation. Bold, determined spiritual warfare is required to weaken and dislodge these fortresses of presumption which are blockading "the knowledge of God" and denying "the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor 10:3-5). No amount of human persuasion can liberate an entire people from such darkness.

Prayer is utterly essential. Only God can move by His mercy to open such society-wide blindness to the light of Christ.

In 1993 Piper published Let the Nations Be Glad, which he famously began with the lines:Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship

doesn't.  When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their face before the throne of God, missions will be no more. Missions is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Piper goes on to affirm that worship is the goal of missions:

In missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God's glory. The goalof missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God.

 

and also the fuel of missions:

Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can't commend what you don't cherish.

 

There is nothing outside the scope of God's Kingdom. It represents a total, global transformation. It is a vision of the entire cosmos, purified of evil and full of the glory of God. This is the end to which the Kingdom advances.

 

The Kingdom of God is any realm where Christ the King reigns – where His will is done. His Kingdom is God’s total answer to man’s total need, and that is good news. The nature of the Kingdom of God and its members provides a framework for personal transformation that will move outward bringing transformation to communities and nations.

 

The Son, therefore, came, sent by the Father. It was in Him, before the foundation of the world, that the Father chose us and predestined us to become adopted sons, for in Him it pleased the Father to re-establish all things. To carry out the will of the Father, Christ inaugurated the Kingdom of heaven on earth and revealed to us the mystery of that kingdom. By His obedience He brought about redemption. The Church, or, in other words, the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery, grows visibly through the power of God in the world. This inauguration and this growth are both symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of a crucified Jesus, and are foretold in the words of the Lord referring to His death on the Cross: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself". 

 

All of us are called to this union with Christ, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and toward whom our whole life strains.

 

 

 

 

Related articles

• Intercessory Prayer
• Idol worship in our hearts

The cross is a victory

It is worth noting that scholars have not only claimed that the Gospel of John portrays a suffering-free crucifixion, but also that John does not see Jesus' death as an atoning sacrifice for sin, as do Mark and Matthew (e.g. Mk. 10:45). In John it is simply a victory. To this we may respond that John does indeed stress that the cross is a victory: it is a victory over Satan, who is called 'the ruler of this world' (14:30). The picture is of Satan having hijacked God's world, and of Jesus in the cross confronting Satan and Satan confronting Jesus. The confrontation is a dark moment, but the outcome is 'the judgment of this world' (i.e. of Satan's kingdom) and the 'casting out of Satan' (12:32). The gospel which fails to describe any of Jesus' individual exorcisms still has the idea of Jesus casting out the evil cosmic ruler through his death.

The Kingdom of God is God's reign defeating His enemies, bringing people into the enjoyment of the blessings of the divine reign. The final victory occurs at the end of the Millennium when death, Satan, sin are finally destroyed and the Kingdom is realized in its ultimate perfection. 

"As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God. On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and talked abusively against what Paul was saying. Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: "We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us: "'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'" When the Gentiles heard this, they

were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed." (Acts 13:42- 48)

 

Related articles

• "Beat it, Satan!" ~~Jesus
• Lesson 10 - Facing Problems And Dangers - Lesson
• Can one-legged weightlifters be saved?

"for My name's sake"

The one point of focus for us is the phrase, “for my name’s sake.” The motive that Jesus virtually takes for 

granted when a missionary leaves home and family and possessions is that it is for the sake of the name of Jesus. That means for the sake of Jesus’ reputation. God’s goal is that His Son’s name be exalted and honored among all the peoples of the world. For when the Son is honored, the Father is honored (Mark 9:37). When every knee bows at the name of Jesus, it will be “to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:10-11). Therefore God-centered missions exists for the sake of the name of Jesus.

The first two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are perhaps the clearest statement of all in the teachings of Jesus that missions is driven by the passion of God to be glorified among the nations. “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come” (Matt 6:9-10). Here Jesus teaches us to ask God to hallow His name and to make His kingdom come. This is a missionary prayer. Its aim is to engage the passion of God for His name among those who forget or revile the name of God (Ps 9:17; 74:18).

To hallow God's name means to put it in a class by itself and to cherish and honour it above every claim to our allegiance or affection. Jesus' primary concern-the very first petition of the prayer He teaches-is that more and more people, and more and more peoples, come to hallow God's name. This is the reason the universe exists. Missions exists because this hallowing doesn't.

 

Compassion for the lost is a high and beautiful motive for missionary labour. Without it we lose the sweet humility of sharing a treasure we have freely received. But we have seen that compassion for people must not be detached from passion for the glory of God.

 

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that will propel them into bold evangelism. It will never happen. It is impossible to love "the lost." You can't feel deeply for an abstraction or a concept. You would find it impossible to love deeply an unfamiliar individual portrayed in a photograph, let alone a nation or a race or something as vague as "all lost people."

Don't wait for a feeling of love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of a compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God. The Bible says in Ephesians 6:7-8: "With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good

anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free."

Humanity does not deserve the love of God any more than you or I do. We should never be Christian humanists, taking Jesus to poor sinful people, reducing Jesus to some kind of product that will better their lot. People deserve to be damned, but Jesus, the suffering Lamb - John Dawson, YWAM

 

 

 

 

Related articles

• I Am Going To Be A FOCUS (Catholic) Missionary

Worthy of the Gospel of Christ

As the life of the "children of God": "recognizing in the faith their new dignity, Christians are called to lead henceforth a life 'worthy of the Gospel of Christ' (Phil 1:27).

This vocation to perfect love is not restricted to a small group of individuals. The invitation, "go, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor", and the promise "you will have treasure in heaven", are meant for everyone, because they bring out the full meaning of the commandment of love for neighbour, just as the invitation which follows, "Come, follow me", is the new, specific form of the commandment of love of God. Both the commandments and Jesus' invitation to the rich young man stand at the service of a single and indivisible charity, which spontaneously tends towards that perfection whose measure is God alone: "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus makes even clearer the meaning of this perfection: "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful" (Lk 6:36).

When we talk about walking in the light, there seems to be an attempt to set freedom in opposition to truth, and indeed to separate them radically, is the consequence, manifestation and consummation of another more serious and destructive dichotomy, that which separates faith from morality.

This separation represents one of the most acute pastoral concerns of the Church amid today's growing secularism, wherein many, indeed too many, people think and live "as if God did not exist". We are speaking of a mentality which affects, often in a profound, extensive and all-embracing way, even the attitudes and behaviour of Christians, whose faith is weakened and loses its character as a new and original criterion for thinking and acting in personal, family and social life. In a widely dechristianized culture, the criteria employed by believers themselves in making judgments and decisions often appear extraneous or even contrary to those of the Gospel.

The light of God's face shines in all its beauty on the countenance of Jesus Christ, "the image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15), the "reflection of God's glory" (Heb 1:3), "full of grace and truth" (Jn 1:14). Christ is "the way, and the truth, and the life" (Jn 14:6). Consequently the decisive answer to every one of our questions, our religious and moral questions in particular, is given by Jesus Christ, or rather is Jesus Christ himself.  "In fact,it is only in the mystery of the Word incarnate that light is shed on the mystery of man. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of the future man, namely, of Christ the Lord. It is Christ, the last Adam, who fully discloses man to himself and unfolds his noble calling by revealing the mystery of the Father and the Father's love".

To imitate and live out the love of Christ is not possible for us by our own strength alone. We become capable of this love only by virtue of a gift received. As the Lord Jesus receives the love of His Father, so He in turn freely communicates that love to His disciples: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love" (Jn 15:9). Christ's gift is His Spirit, whose first "fruit" (cf. Gal 5:22) is charity: "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us" (Rom 5:5). Saint Augustine asks: "Does love bring about the keeping of the commandments, or does the keeping of the commandments bring about love?" And he answers: "But who can doubt that love comes first? For the one who does not love has no reason for keeping the commandments".

The moral prescriptions which God imparted in the Old Covenant, and which attained their perfection in the New and Eternal Covenant in the very person of the Son of God made man, must be faithfully kept and continually put into practice in the various different cultures throughout the course of history. The task of interpreting these prescriptions was entrusted by Jesus to the Apostles and to their successors, with the special assistance of the Spirit of truth: "He who hears you hears me" (Lk 10:16). By the light and the strength of this Spirit the Apostles carried out their mission of preaching the Gospel and of pointing out the "way" of the Lord (cf. Acts 18:25), teaching above all how to follow and imitate Christ: "For to me to live is Christ" (Phil 1:21).

Related articles

• Who You Yield to is Who You Serve (Galatians 2)

Worship is the fuel of missions

Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord...I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High” (Ps 104:34, 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.

The deepest reason why our passion for God should fuel missions is that God's passion for God fuels missions. Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God's delight in being God. And the deepest reason why worship is the goal in missions is that worship is God's goal. We are confirmed in this goal by the biblical record of God's relentless pursuit of praise among the nations. "Praise the Lord, all nations! Extol him all peoples!" (Ps 117:1). If it is God's goal it must be our goal.

 

With the foundation in place, how do we look at defining the task of planting a church?  

 

First, the place. In today's day and age, who is worshipping with you on the website, following your web stream.  When a group of people begin to clearly pursue worship with you, a purposeful relationship begins to unfold. Over time, contact only then increased, and after a personal visit to that community, it may seem clear that God is calling you to that city.





Secondly, the man. To plant a church anywhere you need a senior pastor. Always be on the look out these men, to help assess, train, and equip them for the task that God has called them to. This isn’t a quick process.  It’s even slower when you prepare to head to a new country.



Thirdly, the support. Give support - more support than you can possibly give.  Through encouragement, care, prayer, training, counsel, and a financial grant to help towards the plant, bed a blessed planter!  Because the support is relational, it “moves” with you! You haven’t headed out as lone rangers into a foreign land. You go as part of a family who are standing beside you and eager to get in the trenches with you.



What does that mean for us? “Here are eight practical exhortations and implications aimed at pastors of churches:”

• Focus your mission efforts on church planting.
• Consider who you are sending out.
• Consider what you have trained them to do.
• Consider how you are going to support them.
• Build into your church culture a desire to see the kingdom of God expand in your area and beyond.
• Encourage other evangelical church planters around you.
• Consider reclaiming existing churches.
• Pray for the spread of healthy churches.

Here are five things you may want to build into the culture of your church:

• Discipleship
• Personal evangelism
• Missions
• A desire to strengthen other churches broadly
• A desire to encourage gospel growth in your own area

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUuj3QFMBOc&feature=colike



 

Related articles

• Worship supersedes Missions
• Sisters, skin-color, and sustainability in church planting
• Who are you trying to reach?

God pursues His orginal promise

Romans 8:24- 25 says that we are saved by hope and wait for the unseen with patience. We have a promise from God. Although we have not yet seen a perfect man or a perfect Earth, we wait with perseverance, doing all that we have been taught by the Holy Spirit, because of hope. It is important that we spend time in worship and edification so that God can take us to a place of allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us into victorious intercession. It is in these places in the Spirit that hindrances are broken, revelation given, and purpose discovered.

Isaiah 56:6-7  New Living Translation (NLT)

⁶ “I will also bless the foreigners who commit themselves to the Lord,
who serve him and love his name,
who worship him and do not desecrate the Sabbath day of rest,
and who hold fast to my covenant.
⁷ I will bring them to my holy mountain of Jerusalem
and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer.
I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices,
because my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

 

This passage is often used to encourage prayer on behalf of the nations.  This is fine, but it may miss the point of Christ's passionate teaching and temple-cleansing: the hope that the nations themselves will pray in full-hearted worship.

 

The Lord wants us to see His glory! He has created an incredibly beautiful and marvelously expanding universe to proclaim His glory and omnipotence! He has given us Jesus Christ to reveal Himself to us. He does not withdraw Himself, cover Himself and hide Himself. He is bringing a revelation of His glory throughout all His creation, and He will be seen in all the earth. This is the beauty of the gospel message!

 

Luke 11
1 And it came to pass, that, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.2 And He said unto them, When ye pray, say Our Father Which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.3 Give us day by day our daily bread.4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

 

Christ the Lord, High Priest taken from among men, made the new people "a kingdom and priests to God the Father". The baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated as a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, in order that through all those works which are those of  Christians they may offer spiritual sacrifices and proclaim the power of Him who has called them out of darkness into His marvelous light. Therefore all the disciples of Christ, persevering in prayer and praising God, should present themselves as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.  Everywhere on earth they must bear witness to Christ and give an answer to those who seek an account of that hope of eternal life which is in them.

 

 

Related articles

• Prayer: Make my will be Yours, Father.

Your life is significant

The Bible does not paint a picture of a religion that is always the same, simply a conformity to exact patterns of worship that have never changed and never will.

Instead it covers the history of God’s relationship with His people, it shows a progression and expansion as God draws ever nearer to His own, and it finishes with a glorious climax when He takes the initiative to redeem His people and invites them to a living, personal relationship with Him.

The passion of our Lord overflows, as an inestimable privilege, into the bodies of His followers in order to conform them ever more perfectly to His own likeness.

So we respond to that passion with our own passion - a heart set free to pursue that which is truly worthy - the glory of God - living lives with joy-filled abandon.

Related articles

• Out of Answers? You\'re Not Out of God.
• Hello God, It's Me!

Redeeming His Promise

At the time of the birth of John the Baptist, God was once again working actively to redeem His promise (vv. 72-73). Zechariah praises God, for He has come and has redeemed His people.

God is doing what H promised. His word will come to pass. These events are as He said through His holy prophets of long ago. The promise involves rescue: God will save His people from their enemies and from all who hate them. Such salvation reflects the mercy of God and the recollection of the covenant made with Abraham.

All six of the requests in the Lord's prayer concern God's kingdom. The prophets predicted that when God acted decisively, these developments would take place: He would be recognized as holy, His kingdom would come, His will would be done, daily bread would be given, sins would be forgiven, deliverance from evil would be granted. When Jesus offers this prayer to those who are listening, then, He is saying that God's kingdom is breaking in even now.

The Lord told the prophets that He would act to establish His kingdom in a new and better way through a new and better king from the line of David, who would vanquish evil, redeem His people and reign in righteousness (Isaiah 9:6, 11:1-5).

We long for Him to vanquish evil and reign in righteousness, but we do not realize that the evil is in our own hearts. The kingdom we envision is one that defeated our enemies; Jesus came to defeat the enemy within - Satan, who had exerted such influence within our hearts that we were no longer interested in following God.

When we pray that the Father's kingdom would come, we again are praying dangerously. It means we are praying for Him to vanquish evil, to remove even the smallest spec of dust that does not bring honour to Him.

Bread is not as important as forgiveness, nor is forgiveness as important as deliverance from evil.

One who prays this prayer today, then, acknowledges their deeply rebellious state, that they are prone to be influenced by the evil one away from the call of the kingdom, away from the devotion to the king, away from "the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3). It is an acknowledgment that they cannot deliver themselves. It is a prayer that casts oneself on the mercy of God.

When Satan caused the death of Christ on the cross, he not only lost his power over those he held captive in death, but he also demonstrated the extent to which sin had corrupted him. He was willing to murder the source of health and strength for all mankind to accomplish his selfish purposes. In this he lost any sympathy he might have had from all who had remained faithful to God. He proved himself worthy of eternal destruction.

It was part of God’s plan and purpose for the salvation of man to allow Jesus to be tempted by Satan. The activity of Satan is therefore governed by God. The purpose of God in allowing His Son to be tempted was two-fold. In the first place, ‘God displayed in the Person of His Son, as on a brilliant screen, how hostile and persistent an adversary Satan is against the salvation of man.

Secondly, that Jesus willingly underwent the temptations, and met the devil in a trial of strength, ‘that

by His victory He might win us the victory.’

 

 



Related articles

• Rescued and Redeemed, walk in it: Colossians 1:13-14