Alumnus of our Every Nation Campus Ministries chapter at FAMU, and good friend of mine, Octavias Daniels, uses his spiritually minded lyrics to promote Jesus Christ. Check out this spoken word and prepare to be both challenged and inspired. I hope you enjoy it!
This past weekend renowned author and theologian J.I. Packer was in town speaking at St. Peter’s Anglican Church. Dr. Packer has written over thirty books including the highly acclaimed book Knowing God.
During the question and answer session one of the attendees asked “what is a ‘healthy church’?” I thought Packer’s response was excellent, and wanted to share it here.
According to Dr. Packer a healthy church is a church where:
Though no church is flawless, are you currently in a healthy church? If not, is God calling you to prayerfully influence it towards health or to join a more healthy church?
Many people have ideas and intentions. Some even have goals and plans. Yet comparably few people follow-through and execute their plans to the point of completion.
In a “get-it-now” culture of fast food, smart phones and broadband internet we have seemingly become a society of people with A.D.D.
While I certainly appreciate the convenience of all these things, I’m afraid that many people either don’t recognize or won’t face the reality that most of life simply isn’t that quick and easy. Yet those who want to be more in life than mere consumers must embrace this truth.
Working with young people, I’ve noticed that many students want to respond and do something to get equipped for Christian service or take some leadership opportunity, or to attain a certain G.P.A, but too often their plan to do so is not followed through to completion.
I think many people do this at a grander scale as well. Furthermore, I don’t believe this trend is limited to only students.
Many people are captivated by visions and opportunities, but only to be siezed by a different vision a short time later and to move on to a different opportunity. Few are willing to stick with a job, marriage or even a ministry long enough to see it be truly great.
Most of life requires much focus, perseverance, patience and good old-fashioned hard work. If you aren’t seeing the immediate results you hoped for, give it some time. You may be surprised what happens.
This past weekend I ran my first ever Half Marathon – a full 13.1 miles! It was something I had been training for several months, and a significant milestone in my preparation to run a full Marathon. Nearing the end of the race I was carefully eying those around me as my real competitors.
With about a mile left to go I saw two women off to the side of the racing course tying their shoes. I thought about how I must be advancing in the overall rankings as these other people were obviously falling by the wayside in the final stretch. I was feeling good!
Yet about a quarter mile further I saw these same women jogging past me, but not within the bounds of the race course. They were cutting corners! “How unfair!” I thought. The injustice of these people passing me and getting a better time in the race by cheating got me upset. “Hopefully one of the race officials is watching”, I said to myself.
However as I thought about the situation and looked again at these women jogging by me about 10 yards away I realized that they didn’t have a race number on.
No numbers on their chests, and no tags on their shoes…
I then realized that they were not even in the race. Rather, they were just two people out for a Sunday morning jog!
I wonder how many times we do this sort of thing in other areas of life. How often are we comparing ourselves in unhelpful ways? How often do we compare ourselves to others who aren’t even in the race that we are in? Frequently those around us are living with completely different sets of values and goals from our own, but yet when we look over and see them “getting ahead” in some way we get frustrated.
This is one of the great dangers of comparing ourselves to others. We usually do so with such a limited perspective of the bigger picture that our comparisons are fundamentally flawed.
I am concerned that many people using the language of “stewardship” today are, in reality, operating out of greed. They mask their greed with a facade of spirituality.
In case I just shocked you by that statement, you should know that I do believe that the Bible has much to say about how we should handle our money, and I do believe there is great value in studying Biblical principles with respect to money. I have personally benefited from the widely popular and intensely practical teaching of Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace University .
Many other organizations and speakers also provide the service of educating people to manage their finances more wisely and motivating them to do so. In our time of financial instability many people are eager to learn how they can make their dollars go further.
While I am all for earning a decent income, budgeting, saving and investing wisely as a “good steward”, I have a growing concern that some of those who have adopted the language of “stewardship” are in fact motivated and motivating others by greed.
Recently at an educational seminar I attended I heard many speakers invoke God in some way and try to give credit to the Bible for their teaching on personal finance. They talked about their involvement in charity work, and their desire to help people. Yet one speaker flaunted pictures of his 40,000 square foot house, and another used pictures of luxury cars and speed boats to motivate people toward setting financial goals and achievement of those goals. In the end their teaching and references to God felt hollow.
In the prosperous West there seems to be so much confusion about the Biblical view of money among those who even care about following a Biblical view. Some seem to think money itself is evil, instead of “the love of money“, while others appear to make success and wealth an identifying mark of genuine Christian faith.
Both views are unbiblical. (For a fully developed theology of possessions see Craig Blomberg’s Neither Poverty Nor Riches.)
Though it’s certainly not my place to draw fine lines for others about exactly “how much is too much”, I do think all Christians should be much more discerning and on guard against the sin of greed. Jesus emphatically warned us to “Watch out! Be on guard against all forms of greed.” (Luke 12:15)
Paul lists greed right along with sexual immorality as things the faithful Christian should avoid. In the New Testament epistles Paul makes reference to the evils of greed eight times and Peter mentions it three times! In Ephesians 5:3 Paul says, “among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” In my experience, I’ve heard this passage quoted many times as a warning against impurity and immorality, but I can’t remember of even one time I heard it referenced as a warning against greed!
Paul says that “some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith”! (I Timothy 6:10) I fear that in our day, many unaware believers are being led astray in their eagerness to be rich. In doing so they begin serving a master other than Jesus. Instead of making much of Jesus, such behavior reveals to those around us what god we really serve.
In the end we should search our hearts as Christians, confess any secret sin of greed, and ask God to help us use the resources he entrusted to us in a way that most honors Him. May we say with Paul, “godliness with contentment is great gain”, and really mean it from the heart.
All across the U.S. ENCM members and leaders will be spending the next forty days in prayer and fasting (January 11-February 19th).
We need God to bring spiritual revival to our own hearts and transformation to our campuses! We can never do it by merely our planning, organizing, strategizing and creativity. Without a work of God’s Spirit, it simply won’t happen!
I want to invite you to join in praying and seeking God with us. Even if you have never fasted before, do SOMETHING in faith. (Ideas: You could fast one meal a week, one day a week, or even fast something other than food, such as T.V.)
Each day of the week we will be focusing on a different prayer point:
Mondays: Desperation
Tuesdays: Compassion
Wednesdays: Evangelism
Thursdays: Family & Ministry Partners
Fridays: Campuses & Youth
Saturdays: Leaders
Sundays: Miracles
If you are on Facebook you can visit the Fan page to interact with others participating. Comment and let others know what God is doing in you during this time!
Let’s cry out to God together for breakthrough…He’s listening! 1 John 5:14-15
Riley
Growing up I was totally clueless about dogs. Like every other nine year old boy on the planet, I wanted a dog, but we never got one. My parents opted for a more low maintenance option. A cat.
When I got out on my own in college I briefly entertained the idea of getting a Pug. I had a romanticized idea about how great it would be to drive across America in my car and to have my faithful, furry companion there with me sticking his head out the window, enjoying the breeze as we drove off into the sunset. That never happened either.
Reality quickly set in and I realized that my lifestyle was not conducive to a dog. I went out of town too much, and wasn’t home enough when I was in town. In addition, finding an apartment is tough enough without the variable of owning a dog.
Fortunately I was also smart enough to know that reality probably would be much different from my daydreams. One thing I knew for sure: they seemed to bark a lot and sounded (not just from barking, but from other people) like a lot of work.
My wife, however, is the epitome of a dog-lover. After much heated debate discussing the “dog question” during our courtship process, she reluctantly agreed to a dog-free household… At least that’s how I remember it happening. She has a different take on that story.
A few months into our marriage she was missing having a dog around and began to say so…frequently. Though stone-walling her suggestion for the first few months, I eventually decided to say “yes” to her emotional requests and beautiful pleading eyes. So we drove to the animal shelter and got Riley.
It has been a sacrifice. In the early stages Riley barked all night and totally messed up my sleep on several occasions. She was the most adorable puppy at 2 months old and only 7 pounds, but she apparently also had a bladder the size of an acorn! She needed to pee about every 10 minutes (which wasn’t always outside the house, much to her owners chagrin!)
She went through an incredible chewing phase in which she seemed to destroy bone after bone, toy after toy, as well as the occasional piece of clothing that was accidentally left on the floor.
She proceeded into her digging stage. (We still have pot holes in the back yard.)
And from there into her pulling-the-coffee-grounds-out-of -the-trash-can phase…
And here we are 9 months later, into our dog owning experience.
My life has felt like a scene from Marley and Me on occasion, (and I am not as phlegmatic about our dog destroying stuff as that family was!) Nevertheless, I have been glad to show sacrificial love to my wife.
And, while I may regret saying this tomorrow when Riley does something destructive or irritating, I think the pooch is growing on me too.
This past Thursday night we had our last campus meeting of the fall semester. I was driving in just in time for the meeting after being out of town for a two day leadership conference in Jacksonville.
Before my arrival our student leaders had done a great job handling all the set up on their own in our usual meeting room in a classroom building. As we started the meeting, music was good, and attendance was not bad considering that final exams were right around the corner!
After the music and singing I got up to preach the message, but after only about a minute the fire alarm in the building started going off. This was really strange, and has never happened in all our years of meeting in this building, but though a little surprised we all exited the building. People who were in other meetings in the same building were also exiting with us, everyone having that slightly dazed look on their faces, and wondering why the alarm was going off.
On my long drive to the campus meeting earlier that evening I really felt that God wanted to do something significant at our meeting, and my heart was really stirred by the Holy Spirit. I had spent much time on the drive just quietly meditating on God, and in prayer. My heart was awake and eager to be used by God that night. However, the fire alarm seemed to have ruined everything.
Then I had an epiphany. I thought maybe I could just preach my message not only to the students who were at our campus ministry meeting, but to all the students from the entire building who had come outside, which was about twice as many as were in our meeting alone! (I even saw the Student Government President and Vice President there outside.) Fear immediately came into my mind with thoughts of how I may potentially get into trouble, or of what accusations could be made against me, but my wife (who seemed to know what I was thinking) encouraged me to preach “John Wesley style”, and so I went for it!
I tried to shout out to the crowd to get everyone’s attention who was outside in front of the building. I went on to proclaim the Gospel message explaining Lordship and the need for repentance from sin, and urging them to receive Jesus Christ, who is our only hope. (Ephesians 2:12)
Though some looked at me with puzzeled looks on their faces, when I gave a call to repentance of sin over a dozen responded!
Glory be to God for granting me the grace to preach with boldness, as I ought to preach. (Acts 4:31) It was good to be faithful and not give in to fear in that moment of great opportunity. Thanks to all of you who pray for me and for this ministry to reach the younger generation with the Gospel!
In this short clip Steve Moore shares a very helpful perspective on what it means for the whole church, to reach the whole world, with the whole Gospel.
On reaching the “whole world” Steve rightly points out that “everyone has the same need for God, but not everyone has the same access to the Gospel“.
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Swamp Christianity
February 4th, 2010 No comments »This picture looks disgusting doesn’t it? It’s a section of swamp land that I often pass while running on a local nature trail. (I’m only showing it to make a point.)
Looking at this swamp while I was jogging recently got me thinking about what I’ll call “Swamp Christianity”.
Followers of Christ are instructed by Jesus to receive of his “living water” (John 4). However they aren’t supposed to let it stop with them. They are sent out on mission to take that “water” to others preaching the gospel in both word and deed.
Unfortunately too many Christians focus so much on getting more for themselves, that in essence they become spiritual gluttons. They take no real action to meet the spiritual drought going on in their communities, neighborhoods or campuses, but continue to try to soak up more knowledge and more religious activity for themselves.
They are like those who are “always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:7)
Just like a swamp, where water flows in but not out, these people stagnate in their faith. They don’t give-out the way that they need to in order to be truly healthy, and instead become a breeding ground for all kinds of unattractive things (ie. offense, rudeness, jealosy, spiritual pride).
Are you allowing the love of Christ and the spirit of God to flow through you, or are you a part of Swamp Christianity?
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Reflections, Running
Tags: spiritual stagnation