Take Your Position and Stand

This summer, while at a camp speaking, I came to a place where I had no idea what to do next. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say and I wasn’t certain what God had been up to the previous night with the many distractions we had experienced on a night that I had thought would be HUGE for the Kingdom.

I found myself on my knees the next morning, begging God for some idea where He wanted me to take the group…desperate for the words to speak and the ideas to convey. As I prayed, the Holy Spirit impressed a familiar phrase on me…”the battle belongs to the Lord”. I stopped praying and turned to my Bible to find that phrase. My search led me to II Chronicles 20:15-17. King Jehoshaphat is faced with a vast army made from many nations all coming against his small country, Judah. He goes to the Lord in prayer…the Lord sends a prophet who says this to Jehoshaphat, “Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s…You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you…do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you.” I knew in that moment that God was reminding me that this battle was not mine, but His…that I simply needed to take my position and stand, and watch God fight for me on behalf of His kids. That night, God moved in a mighty way, beyond my ability and beyond my imagination.

Trying to live as God’s missionaries in our culture can be difficult and overwhelming at times. Trying to make a difference in the lives of people around us can be downright frightening. The great news…the battle belongs to God. He will fight for us. Let’s, at the very least ,take our positions and stand firm.

Christ in YOU

The New Testament Church understood what it was here for…to make visible and known the life and power of the Lord Jesus Christ as His Incarnate body here on earth. In other words, Jesus lives among or abides within His Church. He promised to do this when He said, “where two or three are gathered in my Name, I am in the middle of them.” This seems to be a different presence than the individual presence of Jesus that each of us experiences on our own, the Christ in us.
It struck me that if Jesus doesn’t abide in a church, then what good is it? If the church only does what other groups of human beings can do, then it really isn’t the church…but if the church lives and moves in the abiding presence of Christ, then Jesus becomes the source of power, life, and mission and Jesus directs the steps of that church.

Francis Schaeffer said it this way, when talking about the New Testament Church, “This abiding presence of Christ gave them a sense of power, of adequacy, of readiness to cope with any situation that arose. These men were never at a loss to know the thing to do. Infinite resources of grace and wisdom and strength were available fo them to draw upon…a reservoir in the unseen realms that could never be exhausted. Men who felt that all the resources possessed and excercised by Jesus in the days of His flesh were still waiting to be appropriated and used would not shrink from any task that challenged them. Neither should we, if we had a like simple faith and confident trust and an experience with a living, reigning, indwelling Lord!

The church we plant WILL be a place where the Lord abides in visible presence and power. When people are with us, our prayer is that they leave knowing they have been in the presence of the supernatural.

The Intimacy of the Table

My wife, Pam, is an avid reader…she found the following in a Henry Nouwen devotional book:

“We all need to eat and drink to stay alive. But having a meal is more than eating and drinking. It is celebrating the gifts of life we share. A meal together is one of the most intimate and sacred human events. Around the table we become vulnerable, filling one another’s plates and cups and encouraging one another to eat and drink. Much more happens at a meal tan satisfying hunger and quenching thirst. Around a table we become family, friends, community, yes, a body…the table is one of the most intimate places in our lives. It is there that we give ourselves to one another. When we say, “Take some more, let me serve you another plate, let me pour you another glass, don’t be shy, enjoy it,” we say a lot more than our words express. We invite our friends to become a part of our lives. We want them to be nurtured by the same food and drink that nurture us. We desire communion.”

“Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people…And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts 2:46-47…

NOW THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!