Discipleship Network Forum

I have been chasing after and not capturing the joy Jesus claims He can give us in our lives. Some have told me, and I think it is part of it, that I feel I don't deserve joy. What I keep being brought back to is that surrender is what brings joy, peace, and contentment.

That is hard, because being in control of your own life is hammered into us from a young age. Never surrender. Never give up. If it is to be, it is up to me. I don't know about you, but a lot of the things that are up to me just are not coming to be and won't, no matter what I do. This frustrates and shames me to no end.

I don't know that control is something I cling to because I am a control freak, but because I was taught that no one else would or should take care of me. Don't ask for help, because people won't, they'll just squash you and brush you off into the gutter.

If I can just work harder, make more money, do more stuff to help others, at some point I'll have the money I need, the fullfillment I crave, and that ever elusive joy. Nope....I keep going back to this formula and it keeps not working.

So...surrender already! Just say, "I cannot do this. I cannot make enough, I can't serve enough, I don't have the words to say to motivate my husband or myself to get out of this rut we are in."

So, Lord I surrender. I give over my finances, my hoped for career, the family I desire, the husband I have and everything I want for our relationship. I give it all to you because I cannot do anything more with it.

I praise you for all I do have: your extravagant undeserved love, the wonderful husband you have given me who loves you and loves me, the wonderful Angel of a dog you've given us, the ministries you've blessed me to be part of, the friends you've given.....

I rest now in you and wait for you to tell me what to do.

“I tell you, even if he won’t get up because the man is his friend, yet because of the man’s hutzpahhe will get up and give him as much as he needs.” (Luke 11:8)

What is hutzpah? It is a Hebrew word meaning shameless persistence. In the Greek, it is “aneideia” meaning impudence. It is a picture of a man who uses all thatis necessary, shamelessly, even taking advantage of his friendship to prevailon his request; even at the face of all that seemed reasonable and evenrefusing any denial. It reminds us ofthe shameless prayer of the Syro-phoenician woman in behalf of her demonizeddaughter for YESHUA to heal her (Matt 15:22-28). It also reminds us of the impudence ofAbraham in petitioning ADONAI in behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 18:23-33).

The LORD YESHUA is telling us to shamelessly persevere in our prayer to our heavenly FATHER knowing that He is “rich toward everyone whocalls on Him”(Rom 10:12). In everything,we are to pray according to His will and character and we are certain toreceive what we have asked.

To pray in the Name of YESHUA is not a formula. In Hebraic culture, the name is synonymous to the character and presence of the person. In this case, YESHUA meant that to pray in His Name is to ask accordingto GOD’s will and His holy word which embodies His character. The posture is one of shameless surrender tothe will of the One who is sovereign over all.

Hutzpah, anyone?

מלאך

"The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word." (The Best of AW Tozer)

Do we live with the commitment and confidence that we will never be ashamed of Jesus Christ? Do we have the freedom and the courage to bring glory to Christ in all that we do? Will our life honor Him no matter what, whether we live or die? These are the questions of ultimate satisfaction.

A Christian’s life is to be consumed with Christ. If we are living, we are living for Christ. We see His life in us, we see Him using us to produce eternal fruit, we’re satisfied to walk with Him every day, to commune with Him, to know we are His. And if we die, things are only going to get better. Because we gain the glory of eternity with Him.

In light of this, are we really conducting ourselves as citizens of heaven? Are we living in a manner worthy of representing Christ? Not in order to earn something from Him, but in response to who He has made us?

We've been given the great privilege of belonging to Christ, and not only the privilege of belonging to Him, but also the privilege of suffering for Him. We've been joined to Christ, and Christ’s victory came through suffering. We are eternally privileged to live for Him, and we are temporally privileged to suffer for Him.

Let’s be in the struggle together, strengthening one another in Christ. Holding one another up. Standing victorious together. And when the Lord of glory appears, all that He has for us, all that He’s made us, will become an instant reality.

Let’s live for Christ. It’s the ultimate satisfaction.

Pastor Dave

1. Ask the Lord to put on your heart 2-3 others who will meet 90 minutes each week to grow together to become dedicated disciples of Christ;
2. Focus on God’s love, His Word, relationship, trust, transparency, mutual responsibility, accountability, and when our Lord directs, release those individuals to begin their own core groups;
3. See step 1.

I love the stories of the Old Testament! Some people think they don’t apply to them because they happened so long ago. But God has treasures for us throughout every page of His book and they are just as relevant today as they were back then. Last week when I read about Gideon in the book of Judges, Chapter 6, I saw so many truths that I couldn’t wait to blog about it for the next couple of weeks as well!

Let me set the scene for you from Judges 6:1-10…. The Israelites had been disobedient to God and He had given them into the hands of the Midianites for seven year. The Israelites lived by escaping into mountain clefts, caves and strongholds because the Midianites were so oppressive. The Israelites tried to plant their crops but the Midianites with their sheep and cattle, and other enemies from the east, would come in like a swarm of locusts and ravage the land. The Israelites cried out to the Lord for help. So God sent them a prophet to remind them that God had brought them out of Egypt and out of slavery and He could do the same for them. God had told them not to fear and worship the gods of the people in whose land they lived, but they didn’t listen to Him.

So, you’re probably thinking… “What does the war with Midian and the Israelites have to do with me in this day and time? We don’t have wars like that here.” That may be true, but we, as Christians, have an enemy who can be very oppressive. He may even come in and ravage your home and send you into strongholds that you were not meant to live in. We can look at the spiritual parallels between now and then. So, the question is, are you being disobedient to God? Have you given Satan a foothold because of that disobedience? Has Satan run you into a stronghold of addiction, lust, pride, unforgiveness, etc.? The list can go on and on… God gave the Israelites to the enemy for a time because they were disobedient to Him. God disciplines those He loves. And He knows just what it will take to get us to cry out to Him, just like the Israelites cried out to God. God sent a prophet to tell the Israelites to remember Him and how He acted on their behalf in the past. Has God sent someone to you who is reminding you of how God has worked in your life? Or maybe you have a journal from your past that you can read for encouragement. It helps us to remember what God has done in our lives and in the lives of others so that we can have hope for what He’s going to do in our current circumstances.

When the Israelites cried out to God, He reminded them that He had told them not to fear and worship the gods of their enemies, but they did it anyway. Are there some gods of this world that you worship because you fear them? What about the fear of not having enough money, so you stay in a job that God has told you to leave? Or are you worshipping your job by spending too much time there and not enough time with your family? Are you afraid of what other people might think of you, so you worship their opinion? Are you worshipping the god of the economy because you’re afraid it will tank and along with it all of your wealth? Are you worshipping the god of pleasure, afraid that you will miss out on comforts you believe should be yours? Only God is worthy of our worship and our fear, or awe of Him. These other things are fleeting, and don’t matter in the end. God answered the cry of the Israelites and He raised up an unlikely warrior in Gideon. I suspect He can and is already in the process of raising up an unlikely warrior in you… Put away the gods of this world and turn to the only God who can truly change your life. He’s the only God who is worthy of our fear and our worship. Join me next week as we continue our journey into the life of Gideon, an unlikely warrior.

www.LVCMinistries.com

@Copyright 2010 LVM Ministries, Inc.

Earlier this month, the Small Groups Network has spent time discussing thepriniciples and approaches taken from Kim Engelmann's book - Shaping small groups"">Soul-shaping Small Groups.

Here are some of the highlights from both the book and conversations with small group practioners.

• Too often we fill our times together with words and noise, rather than intentional silence in order to hear from God. Is there intentionalspace for God to act and speak?
• The iniative of "inviting" God to be in our presence is to affirm and expect God to be and do. This addresses a healthy dependence on God.
• Contemplative spiritual excercises complement the learning styles we often use in a small group context.
• Need to have a wholistic appraoch to doctrine, prayer, Scripture and disciplines
• We are uncomfortable with silence. It is counter cultural to the activities and behaviours in our society including our interactions withother believers.
• There is risk in a group setting taken when we are asking God to show up in way that we can't control. This is faith-building andfreeing.
• Soul-shaping approaches & excercises need to be modelled, as most leaders and groups shy away from the untried.

If you lead small groups, I highly recommend you read this book. The main portion of the book gives her well-written treatise. The lastportion has practical excercises that most groups could practice quiteeasily.

"Church" (Ekklesia; Iglesia) needs a revelation to be grasped. Ekklesia is notthe Catholic, the Protestant, the Evangelical, the Pentecostal Church,or in fact, any identifiable institution. It is a group of people fromevery nation, tribe, and tongue, who are born again through faith inYeshua (Jesus) and led by the Spirit of God. Asher Intrater

Once, when I was flying from one small country to another, I had an experience with an airliner’s oxygen mask. Something in the plane was amiss, my head started to feel as if it would explode, and an oxygen mask was lowered from somewhere above me. I put it on and was able to breathe until we were back on the ground, even though my head was still under extreme pressure. But, in spite of the pressure and anxiety, it was comforting to know that I had a clear line to life-giving oxygen. Soon I was back on the ground where the oxygen level was natural—divinely balanced.

The memory of this experience was triggered when I read in a favorite devotional writer, “We are in great need of the pure, life-giving atmosphere that nurtures and invigorates the spiritual life.” If we are in need of such an atmosphere, then on this sinful earth this atmosphere must not be the thing
that we breathe naturally. The natural atmosphere of this world must be an impure, death-producing one.

For a moment, let your imagination fly up and see what this world might look like from God’s perspective. I think He sees it covered with a gritty, black, coal-dust atmosphere of smog (the atmosphere of sin). Unlike us, His dear children, who see just another sunny day, with maybe a few shadows.

But we know that the end result of the great controversy between God and Satan is that God will end this state of emergency, this death-producing atmosphere that kills His children, with one mighty
hurricane-force wind. Everyone who is not blown away will again be able to breathe naturally the pure, life-giving atmosphere of heaven.

So, what will keep us from being blown away?

Down come the oxygen masks—the means whereby we access the pure, life-giving atmosphere of heaven.

Even before the impure, death-producing atmosphere surrounded the world, God created oxygen masks and secured them safely in the compartment above us. They have been released and are now dangling there for our use. We accept the saving grace of these masks when we reach out and slip them over our noses and mouths and breathe again “the pure, life-giving atmosphere that nurtures and invigorates the spiritual life.”

In the real world of aircraft, I imagine you could reach up, pinch the plastic tubing, and cut off or slow the flow of oxygen. But once you started to pass out, your grip would relax and the flow of oxygen would begin again.

With the spiritual oxygen masks it seems that we often pinch the tubing, and instead of our grip relaxing as we pass out to spiritual things, our grip tightens all the more. And some of us are so accustomed to the coal-dust atmosphere that we think we can stand to breathe only a tiny trickle of the pure, life-giving air at a time. Perhaps we take only one deep breath every week (and hyperventilate at church), or at most, a tiny trickle every morning and evening.

How sad God must be to watch us suffocate ourselves.

In 1878 Edwin Hatch captured the importance of this life-giving atmosphere when he wrote:

More recently singer/songwriter Michael W. Smith summed up this concept with the words:

And, in “Mary’s Song,” Christian artists sing the prayer: “Breath of Heaven/Hold me together/Be forever near me . . ./For You are holy/Breath of heaven.”

So, I ask myself, What is my song going to be?

How freely do I let flow the pure life-giving atmosphere that nurtures and invigorates my spiritual life? After all, the flight attendants always close their safety demonstrations with these words:
“Please secure your own oxygen mask before trying to assist others.”

A thought or three and some questions have come to mind for me after a messaging conversation I had with a mentor of mine concerning discipleship. I will do my utmost to keep this as simple as possible, mostly because I have a tendacy to make something simple, complicated, or more convoluted than neccessary.

"Follow Me", is a phrase Jesus uses to herald our hearts and minds to become His disciples.

Our initial step to follow was a quick jumpstart beginning - for some of us. For others - accepting the call was a carefully reasoned step.We all made a choice to take a step from our usual and accept the call of Jesus to follow Him.

We are summoned by Him with two words, number one, follow.

My western formed thought process tells me this means we are not to lead, or walk abreast, but, simply to stay behind, take up the rear. Instead, this term used goes beyond that and takes us to a point of fellowship. Jesus was understood by His immediate audience to be making a call to discipleship and not just to go with Him from one place to another for the sake of being a company of numbers. A relationship is more akin to this word than a simple call to "walk this way" (no Aerosmith pun intended or Eye-gor from Young Frankenstein).

These men knew very well what this rabbi was considering before they accepted His call. They knew what was at stake for them if they accepted His invitation. The need to stop all that was in their lives, namely their livelihood and we find out their current religious understanding as well.

The talmidim of that time made a commitment to the rabbi, to give up their lives to become like the rabbi. A relationship like this was usually presented to a young man after careful scrutiny of that young man by the rabbi. These men Jesus called, were most likely not talmidim when they were younger and found a rabbi who wanted them to become one, later in their life.

The second word Jesus uses is, me.

Since the call from Jesus seems to be a discipling relationship, He presents the one called with whom they are to follow. It is certain from the Gospel accounts all of these men had one in some way or another taken notice of this rabbi. Whether it was from direct contact or second hand accounts, the person called knew who Jesus was, what He was teaching, the things He did and was doing.

Were His actions and teachings different then what was prevelant of the religious then? Yes. It is these things that made one take notice of Him. His actions and His words.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus regularly challenged the religious leaders and their conduct, and tells all listening to do as they say (words), and not as they do (actions). Maybe we should take notice both of these terms are to be mutually exclusive "with" each other.

Jesus tells these leaders their "traditions nullify the power of God". They are called "whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bodies". Their cups are filthy on the inside and the outside is purposely cleaned. This seems to be regular qualifier for Jesus, pointing out the actions and words that are not working side by side in these leaders. Taking this into account, as we read into the Gospels we notice, these disciples "who turned the world upside down" were/are a part of something that was not of the normal religious process.

With all these things in mind, Jesus' call to follow Him is sure to take one from the comfortable to most un-comfortable. To be a part of a community that goes against all that was/is well known, allowed for some, for others, something followed.

The call is and needs to be understood before accepted. It truly is not something to be hastened too.

Once the call is accepted, following becomes, will become, shall become, should become, normal, while the rest of the world is noticed as upside down.

Jesus tells us to take our eyes off all that has been a part of our make-up to that point and begin to focus on Him, alone. Jesus wants to be "the example".

The call is the invitation, and after acceptance the call is the answer to the question "now what?".