Oh Very Young One

 

Greetings In the Name of the Lord:

Jeremiah 1:6-9 (NLT)
⁶ “O Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I can’t speak for you! I’m too young!” ⁷ The LORD replied, “Don’t say, ‘I’m too young,’ for you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. ⁸ And don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and will protect you. I, the LORD, have spoken!” ⁹ Then the LORD reached out and touched my mouth and said, “Look, I have put my words in your mouth!

This Sunday at New Life we are blessed to be ministered to by the young people from Xtend Youth Ministries. They are an incredible group of young disciples and I am incredibly proud to be their Pastor. They are some of the most faithful and committed group of people that I have ever worked with. Today they will perform all aspects of the service; from leading worship to preaching and praying for people at the altar. I am fully confident in their ability to carry out all of the aspects of our service. We must remember two things. First, they are not the future of our church; they are the present of our church. Many of them are directly involved in many aspects of our church right now, and we are blessed to have them among us. Second, just because they are young does not mean that they are not capable ministers. Just as the Lord told Jeremiah, “Don’t say I am too young,” for God can and will use anyone that is willing. Age and ability are insignificant when it comes to being used by God for He can make something out of nothing, and give power to weak. I was reminded this week of how young I was when God began to use me. It was the summer of 1982 when I traveled half way across the world to the country of Holland. At that point in my life I had barely been out of the State of Ohio, let alone out of the country. At the time I was only 20 years old, and to say the least, I was still wet behind the ears! However, God took me and a group of young people to minister to those who were hurting and in need of God’s love. You see God is able to use whomever is willing and open to fulfilling His will for their life. God is able to, and will do, amazing things through these young people; we are blessed today to be ministered to by them.

In Christ,

Pastor Mark

 

Getting Gifts

Greetings In the Name of the Lord:

1 Corinthians 14:1 (NLT)
Let love be your highest goal! But you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives—especially the ability to prophesy.

Paul had just finished talking about the supremacy of love in the life of the Christian. Here, however, he expresses that while love is the ultimate thing, it is not the only thing. He tells us that we should desire spiritual gifts. The word desire here is a very strong word that means to “desire eagerly; to desire earnestly; to be zealous and ambitious for; to show a great interest in” (Practical Word Studies in The New Testament). Spiritual gifts are to be desired. We are to pursue love first, but this does not mean we are not to seek the spiritual gifts of God. On the contrary, the more we love God and men, the more we covet the gifts of God so that we can minister to the world of men more effectively. All too often people read this verse this section of Paul’s letter and come to the false conclusion that Paul is saying, “all you need is love.” Nothing could be more contrary to what Paul is trying to communicate. Long time Bible scholar and teacher Stanley Horton said of this verse, “All believers are to pursue the way of love, strive to act in love. But this does not mean we can then afford to despise or neglect spiritual gifts. Both love and the gifts are from the same Spirit (Horton, I & II Corinthians). Judging by what it is happening in the church at large today this message has been largely forgotten. There is a major lack of the exercise of the gifts in church services today, and judging by the importance that Paul put on spiritual gifts it is no wonder that the church is struggling. If the gifts of the spirit are there to help and empower the church, and we are struggling to accomplish our mission, doesn’t it make sense that we should be tapping into this power source? Shouldn’t we be following the advice of Paul and be zealous for, ambitious for, and show great interest in the gifts of the spirit? Holy Spirit renew and empower the Church of Jesus so that we can do His work more effectively.

In Christ,

Pastor Mark

Are The Gifts of the Spirit Still Available?

Greetings In the Name of the Lord:

1 Corinthians 13:10-12 (NLT)
¹⁰ But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

When I was very young in the faith my spiritual life was radically changed by an experience known as the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I discovered this experience quite by accident at a 2nd Chapter of Acts concert in the late 70′s. During a time of worship, I began to sing in a language I had never studies, learned, or been taught. This was a traumatic experience, and afterwards I had a new passion, excitement, and spiritual empowerment. Since then it has baffled me that some Christians believe that this experience no longer exists, and some even teach that is it evil. This is the main text that they use to support their belief. They presume that the “full understanding,” usually translated “perfect or complete” refers to the completion of the New Testament at the end of the first century. They teach that since we have the New Testament we no longer need the gifts of the Spirit. Really? Is that what Paul is talking about? Would his readers have understood it that way? I don’t think so! Pentecostal as well as many non-Pentecostal scholars refute the notion that Paul is saying anything like this here. It seems more in line with the context that here Paul is looking forward to the Parousia, or second coming of Christ, not the close of the canon. Also, in these verses Paul is not even writing about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. His statements really have little if anything to do with the question of the availability of a distinctive baptism experience today (Horton, Systematic Theology, 445). Furthermore, Paul’s audience would never have understood it that way. They would not have understood Paul to be saying that “perfect” had to do with the completion of the New Testament, a concept that would have been foreign to them. Moreover, if Paul were talking about the completion of Scripture he would have been more explicit than implicit. Additionally, why would he spend so much time (three chapters) talking about something that in a short period of time would be extinct? It seems to make much more sense that Paul is talking about the second coming of Christ. After all, it is only then that we will understand completely. It will only be then that we will see with perfect clarity (face to face, NIV). Do we still need the gifts of the Spirit today? Absolutely! Are they still available today? You bet they are!

In Christ,

Pastor Mark

Be Healed: A Personal Testimony

Greetings IN the Name of the Lord:

1 Corinthians 12:9 (NLT)
The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing.

There are those that advocate that God is no longer in the healing business. Well, I know better! While I firmly believe that God works through those in the medical profession and whole-heartedly support those in it, even they have limitations. Now I am willing to admit that there have been those who have abused this gift, however, that doesn’t negate the fact that God is definitely still in the healing business. In this verse both gift and healing are plural. This indicates, “there are various gifts to heal various kinds of sicknesses and diseases (Horton, I & II Corinthians). It also seems to indicate “that the Spirit’s gifts will heal not just one item of sickness or disease but everything that is wrong. He wants to heal the whole person” (Horton). This brings me back to the whole idea of limitations. Perhaps you have seen the television commercial for COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). It states that there is no known cure for this disease. Really? I know one, and his name is Jesus Christ! Most of the people at New Life are familiar with my dear friend Charlotte Powell’s testimony, but for those who are reading this on the Internet let me share it with you. She was diagnosed in 2004 with COPD, and had more recently been told that it was getting worse. Physical activity was becoming more difficult for her and going out in cold weather was completely out of the question for her. In May 2010 we had a week of revival services, and on the Monday of that week she came to altar for prayer. To make a long story short, she hasn’t had her medicine since that day and has never felt better. She now serves as my personal assistant at the church. God did what medical science was unable to do. Does God still heal people? You bet He does. Can he heal you? You have not because you ask not.

In Christ,

Pastor Mark

 

 

Messiah Is Risen!

Greetings In the Name of the Lord:

 1 Corinthians 15:17-20 (NLT)

¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins.¹⁸ In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! ¹⁹ And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. ²⁰ But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.

 Have you ever wondered what was the most important day of the year?  Most people would probably say Christmas if you asked them.  However, in my humble opinion, I would say it is Easter Sunday.  Think about for a minuet, if you will, we set aside one day a year to celebrate Jesus birth, but it takes us a whole week to celebrate His death and resurrection.  Consider this, if Jesus had just been born, lived an exemplary life, performed a few miracles, but that was it we could say He was like a number of people in history.  Moreover, if he was just born, taught some great principles, and then died a horrible death He was just another religious fanatic.  On the contrary, if He was born, lived, taught, healed, died on the cross and rose again on the third day, as He predicted He would, then He is what He claimed to be:  the Son of the Living God and Savior of the world!  The resurrection is so vitally important to the Christian faith that without it we are all out of our minds.  If Jesus has not risen from the dead, as Paul wrote, than we are to be pitied more than anyone in the world.  But the fact is, and it is fact, that Jesus has indeed risen from the dead.  In his blog on Biblical Preaching, Peter Mead wrote, “This Easter season, let’s be sure to clearly communicate that the Christian faith is founded very firmly on historical fact.  The biblical record carries an unparalleled historicity.  If Jesus rose from the dead, then the implications are massive, but if he didn’t really rise, then let’s give up and do something else with our lives.”  His resurrection changes everything, and it gives us both meaning and hope.  It is what sets us apart from the other religions of the world.  According to author Josh McDowell, “All but four of the major world religions are based on mere philosophical propositions. Of the four that are based on personalities rather than philosophies, only Christianity claims an empty tomb for its founder. In 1900 B.C. Judaism’s Father Abraham died. In 483 B.C. Buddhist writings say Buddha died “with that utter passing away in which nothing whatever remains behind.” June 6, 632 A.D. Mohammed died. . In 33 A.D. Jesus died but came back to life appearing to 500 people over a period of 40 days (McDowell, Josh. Evidence That Demands a Verdict. 180).   So rejoice today because Jesus has truly risen and in doing so has opened up for us a new and living way into the presence of God.  Happy Resurrection Day!

In Christ,

Pastor Mark

Supernatural Faith

Greetings In the Name of the Lord:

1 Corinthians 12:9 (NLT)
The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing.

We talk a lot about faith in the church, but we usually talk about faith in generic terms. We look at as believing in God or for Him to do something. However, what we sometimes fail to see is that there are differing levels of faith. In this instance Paul is referring to “another” kind of faith, and more specifically “another of a different kind.” What Paul is referring to here is not saving faith, “but must be taken as a gift that will help or benefit the whole local body. It might be taken as a special gift of faith for a particular need. Some define it as “mountain moving faith,” bringing unusual or extraordinary manifestations of God’s power” (Horton, I & II Corinthians). The NLT appropriately translates this as “great faith,” as it means a supernatural kind of faith. There are times when ordinary faith is simply not enough, and that is when the Holy Spirit supplies “great faith” to someone in the church to meet a specific need. Maybe you have an extra-ordinary need in your life and you need supernatural faith to meet that situation. If so, the Holy Spirit is able to supply that need, even if He supplies the need through someone else in the church. The point is that the Holy Spirit is able to supply, but He does so in His own way.

In Christ,

Pastor Mark

 

Word Up!

Greetings In the Name of the Lord:

1 Corinthians 12:8 (NLT)
To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge.

It is my firm belief that if people really understood the gifts of the Holy Spirit they wouldn’t be nearly as freaked out by them. So let’s take a look at some of them, and let’s start where Paul starts with what has traditionally been called the word of wisdom. According to my friend Bible scholar Stanley Horton, “This is a proclamation or a declaration of wisdom given to meet the need of some particular occasion or problem. It is not dependent on human ability or natural wisdom but is a revelation of divine counsel. Through this gift supernatural insight into both the need and into God’s Word bring the practical application of that Word to the need or problem at hand” (Horton, What the Bible Says about the Holy Spirit, 271). Are you hearing the practical nature of it? It is wise counsel to meet a specific need based on insights and applications from the Scripture. Is it supernatural? Yes it is. Is it super-freaky? No, it just God using someone to speak into the life of someone in need based on illuminations of God’s already inspired Word. Dr. Horton goes on to explain “Because it is a “message” of wisdom, it is clear that only enough is given for the need. This gift does not raise us to a new level of wisdom, nor does it make it impossible for us to make mistakes. It just lets us draw on God’s unlimited storehouse (Romans 11:33).” Again, the gifts are supernatural in nature, but practical in act and deed. The question is are we willing to let God use us in this gift, and are we willing to take the step of faith to use it?

In Christ,

Pastor Mark

 

 

With A Little Help From My Friends

Greetings In the Name of the Lord:

1 Corinthians 12:7 (NLT)
A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.

Here I think is a very true statement: nobody likes a phony! People don’t want you to pretend to be something your not just to convince them of something or to win their approval. This leads me to an important question, isn’t that what we are doing in the church today? The church world, at least in America, has bought it to the idea that in order to get people to come to Christ or to our little corner of the church we have to pretend to be something we are not so we don’t scare anybody off. We behave under the assumption that if people really see what we’re like they go running for the hills. Please don’t take me wrong, I fully subscribed to the concept that we should make church a welcoming and accepting place. When people visit New Life I want them to feel as though they are part of the family. On the other hand, however, I have no intention of hiding who we are or act as if we are something we are not. In other words, if you’re Pentecostal act like it. We shouldn’t try to hide the fact that we are people of the Spirit because we are afraid if people find out who we really are they will run away. That is what Paul is saying in this verse. According to bible scholar Gordon Fee, what Paul is talking about here is not the fact that everyone has a spiritual gift, but rather that the gifts are “manifestations” of the Spirit’s presence among. He concludes that if Paul intended to say that everyone has a spiritual gift he would have said “every single one.” He also states that Paul emphasis here is not on the gifts themselves, but the One who gives the gifts (see v. 4) (Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 163-164). So perhaps we should look at the gifts not as something to shy away from because they might freak out a visitor to our church, but rather they should be embraced and celebrated as tangible evidence that the Holy Spirit is in or midst. Personally, I think people don’t want a concept of God, on the contrary, they want to experience Him first hand. Let’s not be afraid to let people experience God’s presence.

In Christ,

Pastor Mark

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

Greetings In the Name of the Lord:

1 Corinthians 12:1 (NLT)
Now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us. I don’t want you to misunderstand this.

One of the greatest tragedies of the modern church is that there is such a poor understanding of spiritual gifts. On the non-Pentecostal/Charismatic side of the fence there is either total ignorance or even worse the false assumption that they no longer exist. On the Pentecostal/Charismatic side we seem to concern ourselves with tongues, thus assuming that is all there is, and therefore we don’t need to know about the others. So we are either totally ignorant or disinterested. What a tragedy! As we will see, according to Paul (and the Holy Spirit), we need to educate ourselves on the things of the Spirit. He wanted the Corinthian church to not only have a firm grasp on what the gifts are, but also how they are to be used. What he doesn’t want us to misunderstand are “Spiritual gifts,” which is one word in the Greek pneumatikon, a word used for the totality of the spiritual gifts. This emphasizes two things: 1) the gifts are supernatural in their essence, and 2) they emanate from the Holy Spirit (Horton, I and II Corinthians). What Paul is trying to stress to them, and therefore us, is that because they are supernatural and from the Spirit we must hold them in the highest esteem. We must not use them in a way that is contrary to the purpose for which they were intended, and we must not use them to draw attention to ourselves (which was a major problem for the Corinthians). The Holy Spirit always wants to honor Jesus and draw our attention away from ourselves and onto Him. Furthermore, since they are supernatural, from the Spirit, and intended to point us to Jesus, we must not be ignorant or misinformed about them. We must study them, understand them, and most of all, use them to their fullest extent. What a slap in the face it must be to both the Holy Spirit and Jesus that we either ignore the gifts they have for us, or show a total lack of concern about them. What are the gifts of the Spirit? How should we use them? What is their purpose? Don’t you think it’s time to find out?

In Christ,

Pastor Mark

 

What’s Your Purpose?

Greetings In the Name of the Lord:

1 Corinthians 9:26-27 (NLT)
²⁶ So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. ²⁷ I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.

We talk a lot about purpose. We have purpose statements, purpose emphasis, and study about being purpose driven. Yet do we live our lives with purpose. The definition of purpose is “the reason for which something is done or created or for which it exists.” When we say we are living with purpose as Christian means that are lives are based or driven by our desire to be closer to God. It also means that we do not live haphazardly in our spiritual lives and that everything we do is geared toward reaching that goal. What Paul is saying is that he did not “run… aimlessly.” He kept God-given goals before him. He did not fight the battle against sin, evil, and unbelief by random human effort. He aimed where the Spirit directed him to (Horton, I & II Corinthians). Furthermore, he was not going to allow his physical desires to derail his spiritual progress. He disciplined his body so that it would fulfill his purpose to serve Christ. He didn’t want all his efforts to come to nothing because his physical desires over-ruled his spiritual purpose. He was aware that if he continually gave into his physical desires it would consistently lead him into sin. We need to see sin’s effects kind of like rust on a car; by the time we see it’s there it’s too late. Paul is very aware that if doesn’t live life with spiritual purpose he could lose everything he had worked for, including his own salvation. Let’s live our lives like we have purpose, and if we do, we will receive the prize we long for.

In Christ,

Pastor Mark