Churches Have Personalities

Have you ever noticed that every church wants to emulate the details of success used by mega-churches around our country? They often try and fail even when they use the same formulas and ministries. 

The members are discontent if their church does not provide the same level of entertainment as these mega churches; yet, they are unwilling to serve in areas that would help their church to grow or to share the gospel with more people.

They criticize the leadership and nag the Senior Pastor about their pet peeves. They fail to give a tithe of their income and they go on more vacations and buy more "toys" than their lifestyle can comfortably support.

What people fail to realize, the leadership included, is that God gives each church a different personality, mission purpose and anointing. In Revelation, Jesus sharply criticizes most of the seven churches for not following His will for their ministry.

Unless the Lord builds the church, we labor in vain (Psalm 127:1). We spin our wheels and live in constant discontent, disillusionment and distraction. We get so caught up in the good things that we fail to fulfill God's purpose for our church life.

The church leadership needs a time of pray to develop their mission statement - not a catchy phrase to put on publications and electronic media, but an actual mission statement from God.

As a unified group, once they hear from God, they can equip the Saints for the work of their ministry (Ephesians 4:12-16). This allows the whole church to be on the same page with the same focus and the same passion.

If church leadership or ministries have divided or conflicting goals, the lack of unity will actually obstruct their prayers (1 Peter 3:7). We are also hindered by the end time mindset by which the love of many grows cold (Matthew 24:12).

However, there is still a remnant of authentic Believers hungry for doing the will of God with their individual and church family life. There is no price too great for them to pay in order to further God's Kingdom on the earth.

Prayer:

Father God, inspire Your authentic Believers who are gathered in local church bodies around the world to do Your will in their community. You may not want a particular church to be big; but You always equip it to be effective in reaching the people in its church field.

Help us to hear Your voice to know what You are calling us to do as Your local church family in the area in which You planted us. We do not want to spin our wheels, but we want to have traction to serve in the areas in which You created and called us to minister in Your name and according to Your will.

Thought for the Day:

God is calling us to put our time, talent and energy into true religion rather than programs and superfluous ministries that do not impact His Kingdom or change lives. - James 1:27

Fruitastic Personality

The Holy Spirit moves into our life at justification - when we repent of our sins and ask Jesus to save us from the penalty of them. He brings with Him the power, nature and fruit of God's character.

His fantastic fruit will replace our carnal nature and make us a new creation (Romans 6:22). However, the weeds of sin, the world and the devil will rob the soil of our life and starve the spiritual fruit, preventing it from growing.

It is our choice to allow or to hinder this from happening. Negative emotions will crowd out His fruit by dominating our thoughts and preventing God's Word from germinating (2 Timothy 3:2; Romans 1:30).

It seems to be easier to grow the weeds of sin than the fruit of the Spirit; but as we surrender our will and all of our human effort to God's Spirit, it becomes unpleasant to sin and joyful to walk in holiness (1 John 2:17; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

We discover that God's Spirit replaces hatred with love, discontentment with peace, irritation with patience, criticism with gentleness, backbiting with goodness, worry with faith, pride with meekness, and depression with true joy, as we are controlled and guided by Him.

What do these fruit actually mean to our life and personality? His love gives us affection for others; joy produces an exuberance in us for life; peace conveys a deep abiding serenity; patience provides us with the willingness to persevere.

Gentleness exudes compassion from our heart; goodness radiates kindness which pervades our entire being; faith comes from experiencing God's faithfulness; meekness makes us humble in our service to our King. 

When God's Spirit guides us each moment of the day, we have self-control in every circumstance (Galatians 5:22-23). It is a bit overwhelming to think of changing all of these attitudes in our life at one time. 

Actually, the Holy Spirit changes us from one stage of glory to the next, a little at a time, one degree at a time (2 Corinthians 3:18). 

We end up with a fruitastic personality; and we can share God's fruit throughout our lifetime with everyone we will ever meet. We will develop into a wonderful example of the love of God in an individual's life.

Prayer:

Father God, our old nature prevents Your fruit from growing in our life. Help us to lay aside those negative emotions and character traits, which so easily weigh us down and to allow Your Spirit to transform our life (Hebrews 12:1). 

Thank You for helping us to focus on the positive viewpoint in Your Word whenever negative thoughts assail us (Philippians 4:8). Help us to meditate on Your Word day and night as Your Spirit gives us the mind of Christ to replace the negative attitudes which come from Satan, the world and the flesh. 

Show us the root of every negative thought, feeling and outlook, so that we can surrender it to You immediately. This will prevent us from adopting a negative, complaining, stressed, depressed or grouchy attitude. Thank You for delivering us from our self.

Thought for the Day:

We can write verses pertaining to one fruit at a time and post them in obvious places where we spend time: like the bathroom mirror or kitchen window or refrigerator, or above our desk at work; so we can reread them daily as God's Spirit transforms our life with them.

Struggling with Our Faith - Part 2

 

 

Our struggles with our faith come because God does not meet up to our selfish human expectations. He does not answer our prayers or provide for us in the way that He does for other people who claim to preach His Word.

This faulty understanding of God is not scriptural, and must fail in time. Isolated verses from the Bible, taken out of the context of the verses around them and the rest of the verses pertaining to this same issue, are not firm enough on which to rest our faith.

Our faith only grows firmer and stronger as we increase our understanding of God and His ways by considering the whole Bible in its context (Romans 10:17). God’s Holy Spirit comforts, guides and nurtures us in our walk as Believers.

The Spirit of God within us is the truest proof of our relationship to God. We no longer live according to the dictates of our flesh, conscience or human instincts.

Our life changes; we grow discontent with this world and we look forward to serving God for eternity. Reading and believing God’s Word fortifies our faith and hope and fills our Spirit with spiritual food. 

Prayer:

Teach us to humble our self and to minister in this world as a servant for Your glory (Matthew 20:26-28). We will stand firm in our faith regardless of either approval or criticism from other people, or how or when You choose to meet our needs. We pray that You will strengthen our loved ones in their inner being, so that they can believe in Jesus through Your Holy Spirit (Ephesians 3:16).

Thought for the Day:

As selfishness, pride and flesh decrease in us, God can fill us through all of our being with all of His fullness. - John 3:30; Ephesians 3:19