The REST...

This morning, I was having a "great experience" reading the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 4! This rather dry section of scripture is illuminated by the couple verses (v.9-10) that so many people have been focused on in the past couple years...where God blessed Jabez and answered his prayer.

Although I noticed these verses, and although they were a challenge to me to live honorably, it was the last verse in this dry chapter that really grabbed me. Here's what verses 42-43 say, "And some of them, even of the sons of Simeon, five hundred men, went to mount Seir, having for their captains Pelatiah, and Neariah, and Rephaiah, and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi. And they smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped, and dwelt there unto this day."

The words that jumped out at me were "THE REST". Apparently years earlier when the people of Israel were instructed to wipe out their enemies, the Amalekites, they didn't do a thorough job, and some escaped. No doubt these "rest" ended up causing serious problems to them, so one day a group of God's people decided to finish the job. (good for them!)

Let's say that the Amalekites represents sin in your life. God told you to wipe it out of your life, and you did...uh, kinda! Now it's time to finish the job and take care of THE REST!

Standards...the saga continues!

Thanks everyone for the good discussion tonight. I really appreciate everyone's openness to discuss this very important issue. I feel for those of you who are struggling with this topic, and I'm praying for you.

For those of you have this issue resolved, thank you for your support tonight. Please help come along side those who are still struggling. We can get through this together!

Please comment on your thoughts from tonight.

Standards

Tonight, we began our open discussion about the current debate surrounding standards in our church. I really appreciate how open everyone was tonight, and I'm sorry that we ran out of time, but I'm looking forward to continuing our discussion next week. Please be thinking about this between now and then, and be in prayer that God would knit our hearts together on this sensitive topic, so that we can move forward to serve Jesus effectively, and without division.

Here's the list of open discussion questions that we started on tonight. We'll continue dialoging them next Wednesday, along with any other questions that come up. If you'd like to add a question for me to present to the group, please e-mail it to me. (I can keep you anonymous if you'd like.)

1. What is more important, taking care of the inside of people or the outside?
2. Does God care at all about the outward appearance?
3. Why do we sometimes say, “I wish people would stop worrying about the minor things, and focus on the major things”?
4. When someone in leadership points out faults, why is it called “judging” instead of being taken as insight?
5. Does personal conduct and appearance affect our mission as Christians here on earth? (in other words, does it effect our ability to witness for Him, to proclaim the gospel, to edify believers, build the church, etc.)

I love you guys!!

Doing the Wrong Thing

Over the past couple months, several of us have had the distinct impression that something isn’t right. We’ve felt depressed over it, we’ve felt like quitting. We’ve questioned if the whole ‘Christian thing’ is worth putting as much energy into it as we have.

However, over the past couple weeks, I’ve had so many messages from God enter my life. As Darlene and I recognize and discuss these messages, we are certain that they are of God. These messages say:
1. it is worth the it
2. God is working in hearts
3. Satan fights in the place where God works
4. let go of pride, and recognize God’s hand in everything
5. there are many others who are fighting the same fight
6. many are looking to us as an example

In my cry to God for help and direction, God placed in my path the book, “The Lord, The Devil, And You”, subtitled, “The way to victory over the world, the flesh and the devil.” The main passage in this book is Isaiah 58, which talks about fasting.

We’re going to explore the idea of ‘fasting’ in a couple weeks, but first, I’d like to show you some things that have changed my outlook on life in recent days:

Verses 1-5 lay the foundation.
v. 1 – God states that there is sin among the His people
v. 2 – notice the word “as”. They were doing the motions of Christianity as if they were right with God, but they were not.
v. 3 – the people complain that although they were doing all this ‘stuff’ for God, God didn’t acknowledge it as pleasing to Him.
v. 4-5 – God attacks the way they serve Him. He says in 5b, “wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?” …slam!

THEN, in verses 6-7, He sets them straight. Notice the 6 things to which He says “Is not this the fast that I have chosen?” For a moment, let’s put aside any pre-conceived thoughts about fasting, and listen to what God is trying to say here:
1. to loose the bands of wickedness
- ‘bands’ are referring to things that have you shackled...wicked things that have control of you.
- John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
2. to undo the heavy burdens
- these are things that you are carrying that you don’t need to
- 1 Peter 5:7, "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you."
3. to let the oppressed go free
- to be oppressed is to be miserable
- Psalm 35:9, "And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD: it shall rejoice in his salvation."
4. that ye break every yolk
- in light of Matthew 11:29-30, this is obviously talking about breaking evil yokes
- "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
- What evil things are you yoked to? BREAK THEM so you cannot go back to them.

NOTICE 4 OF THE 6 THINGS HAVE TO DO WITH FIXING BAD STUFF…NOW YOU’RE ABLE TO SERVE:

5. to deal thy bread to the hungry
- look for opportunities to meet the needs of others
- John 6:35, "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."
6. that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house
- read the rest of verse 7…this is sacrificial
- this is where you make a difference in the lives of others!

Next time, we’ll look at the rest of this chapter. We looked at 6 things that God asks us to do. In return there are twice as many things He will do for us. See if you can find (verses 8-12) them before we meet next week.