People are so different.  We come in all shapes and sizes and colors.  We all have many similarities but each of us is unique, too.  Each of us pursues life and processes information in our own way.  We have our own opinions and ideas about everything.                                                                                          

The human condition doesn't change when it comes to spiritual things.  Jesus names four different types of responses people make to the Gospel.  He describes them as being people of "the road…the rocky places… the thorns, and… the good soil ."                                                                                                   

The people of the road don't understand the Gospel, and the enemy shuts it down in their lives.  The people of the rocky places hear and receive the Gospel but have no depth and when affliction or persecution comes they fall away.  The people of the thorns hears the Gospel but the pressures of living in the world, particularly when it comes to money, overpower them and the Gospel remains powerless in them.  The people of the good soil hear and understand the implications and ramifications of the Gospel, embrace it fully, and let the fruit of God flow through them.                                                                                              

These folks are not four different kinds of Christians.  In Jesus' list there is only one who follows him and it is the one of the good soil.  "He who has ears, let him hear" (Matt. 13:9).                   

It is our conviction as Christians that the Gospel is so real and powerful that it trumps everything in life.  Therefore we embrace Jesus as Savior and Lord, and we live in the power of His life.  The ways of God are our ways, too.  In Him we live and move and exist (Acts. 27:28).  We say YES to what God is about in the world.

In Weakness Made Strong

Each of us is powerless to be effective for Christ in our worlds. We simply don't have what it takes to touch a disinterested and distracted world for God. However (and this is huge), we don't have to have what it takes. We simply need to be in Jesus because as we abide in Him He is able to release the power of God.

Apart from Jesus we can do nothing but in Him we will be like a healthy branch in a healthy vine, bearing the fruit of God's amazing love. In this way we will bring glory to the Father, Jesus will give us His joy, the Holy Spirit will be able to freely work in and through our lives, and our joy will then be complete. Stay close to Jesus and enjoy the journey.

WHEN GOD SHOWED UP

God's In-Christ people, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke "of the mighty deeds of God." Result? The people "were amazed and astonished." 3000 of them joined up and became followers of the One who amazes and astonishes. What a mighty God we serve.

Oswald Chambers spoke to my heart today, so I thought I would pass it on.

The Explanation For Our Difficulties

My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers

May 22

. . . that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us . . . —John 17:21

If you are going through a time of isolation, seemingly all alone, read John 17 . It will explain exactly why you are where you are— because Jesus has prayed that you “may be one” with the Father as He is. Are you helping God to answer that prayer, or do you have some other goal for your life? Since you became a disciple, you cannot be as independent as you used to be.

God reveals in John 17 that His purpose is not just to answer our prayers, but that through prayer we might come to discern His mind. Yet there is one prayer which God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus— “. . . that they may be one just as We are one ... ” (John 17:22). Are we as close to Jesus Christ as that?

God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn’t ask, “Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?” No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own way. The things that happen either make us evil, or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy. If we will pray, regarding our own lives, “Your will be done” (Matthew 26:42), then we will be encouraged and comforted by John 17, knowing that our Father is working according to His own wisdom, accomplishing what is best. When we understand God’s purpose, we will not become small-minded and cynical. Jesus prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself, just as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far from this oneness; yet God will not leave us alone until we are one with Him— because Jesus prayed, “. . . that they all may be one . . . .”

A Time For Prayer

People sometimes say to me that they don't know how to pray. My response always has something to do with them just sharing their honest heart and thoughts with God. More importantly, however, is that we start by praying what we know is God's will for us.

Let's look to Jesus and remember some obvious ways we all might pray. These prayer thoughts come from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6-7). They are simply turning some of His teaching into prayer:

O God, we pray

➢ Your will be done! (Matt. 6:10)
➢ Give us this day our daily bread (Matt. 6:11)
➢ Help us to be forgiving (Matt. 6:12)
➢ Deliver us from evil(Matt.6:15)
➢ Help us to store up treasures in heaven (Matt. 6:20)
➢ Help us not to worry (Matt. 6:25) 6:25)
➢ Help us to seek first your kingdom and Your righteousness (Matt. 6:33)
➢ Help us not to be judgmental (Matt. 7:1)
➢ Help us to pray, trusting in Your Fatherhood (Matt (7:11)
➢ Help us to treat people as we want them to treat us ((Matt. 7:12)

Here is one more prayer you might consider. It is a prayer of the apostle Paul. "I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding" (Philippians 1:9).

S. D. Gordon said, "The greatest thing anyone can do for God or man is pray."

BEING THE CHURCH

In one of his sermons the apostle Paul tells us that Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).  If this is true, and we believe it is, then it is a principle by which we must live. 

    

Francis of Assisi says, “It is in giving we receive.”  That means we don’t receive by receiving; we receive by giving. Then, the giving comes back to us in ways that only grace and mercy can explain. In contrast, Dorothy Solle wrote, "If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive." Jesus sets us from the entanglement of it all.

    

How does Jesus work in our lives?  He teaches us to give; to be givers.  We live with open hands and un-clinched fists, and we do it because Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”  It is how He lived His own life and it is the kind of life He instills is those of us who love Him and follow Him.  

As we give in response to His self-giving, the Spirit of the Lord works through us and makes us to be Bridge-builders and Grace-Givers in our living, our interactions, and our relationships.

    

A life of Christlike self-giving brings us to the place where Jesus can work His works in our own lives, and because we are being shaped and formed by Him we then, together, become a church (the called out) people of God.  In His grace we become people of grace. 

    

Someone once said that a church grows because of the size of the heart of the people.  That’s why Jesus is always working on our hearts.  He stretches us to be great givers, givers of grace, and in so doing brings His wholeness into us.  And, then we know, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Reasons to be involved in a Local Church

I have been thinking about how important it is to assimilate into the body of Christ everyone who has heard the voice of Jesus and has responded to His call to forgiveness and service.  I have also tried to understand why it is important, and to discover key reasons  I might use to help others see the need for this kind of life response.

The statements below are not the final statements about why it is important for followers of Jesus to be a part of a local congregation and to serve God from with that context, but it is fairly exhaustive.    My list has seven dimensions to it.  What is your response to asking for reasons as to why the church (the called out, the body of Christ, the living tabernacle) is present to love people and to invite them into the fellowship of fellow sinners who have been saved by grace.  What does your list look like?  Here is mine!

Reasons to be involved in a local church:

1.        ENCOURAGEMENT...and who of us doesn’t need our own hearts encouraged?

2.        SUPPORT...and who of us doesn’t need that special group of support people who love us and accept us as we are?

3.        FELLOWSHIP...and who of us doesn’t need a community of people who share our goals and dreams?

4.       PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH … and who of us would say we have arrived spiritually? So here is an opportunity to grow in Christ and to seek to become all that He would have us be.  It is a step taken in response to grace that has been lavished upon us (Eph. 1:8)

5.       ACCOUNTABILITY...and who of us doesn’t need someone with whom to share our spiritual journey, someone who will hold us accountable to our confessions, pray for us and believe in us, even as we are doing the same for them?

6.       OUTREACH...and who of us has a friend, a neighbor or a loved one who needs Christ?  We are sharers of Good News. 

7.        LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT...and who of us is Jesus calling into places of leadership where our lives can influence other people?  ALL OF US.  So here is an opportunity to develop our faith and go deeper into the things of God, seeking HIS MIND on the matters pertaining to our lives and future, and giving ourselves to be better equipped to do His will.

Scripture Foundation:

“There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts. 4:121).

“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18).

“We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God so that we may know the things freely given to us by God” (I Cor. 2:12).

“Let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (I John 3:18).

“You are from God, little children, and have overcome them [“every spirit that does not confess Jesus”]; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (I John

4:2-4).           

“… you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.  ⁷But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness;  ⁸for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (I John 4:6-8).

⁴"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. ⁵"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing (John 15:4-5).