April 1, 2009
James 2:26 (NLT) says, “Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works”.
This is a life and death situation! We would so freak out if we were suddenly made aware that we could not breathe. We would freak out because we would be dead in a matter of minutes without breath in our bodies. My question is this: What would happen if through what ever avenue, you were suddenly made aware of the fact that you claimed to have faith but no good works to follow. I am guilty of this at times. Am I as freaked out by this notion as I am the realization that I cannot breathe? If I am not … I certainly should be! Because according to God’s word, what faith I have is as good as dead without good works to accompany. Good works is to faith as breath is to life. There is no escaping that fact.
Just to be clear though, good works are not what gets us to heaven. We cannot work ourselves into heaven, contrary to what some would have you believe. It is not the missing ingredient in the salvation formula or anything like that. The formula for salvation is one thing… Jesus Christ. It is the belief and acceptance in the heart of man that a personal relationship is possible with God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is salvation!
However, good works (serving others just as Jesus served others) is a crucial part of the formula of personal transformation and sustainable life change. You see, the reason God wants us to have good works in our lives is not to benefit him. He is still God, the creator of the universe without our silly good works. His motivation for our good works is pure and complete love for humanity (us). It is so others can experience the love of God in a real, tangible, and transparent way through our good works. Our service is a reflection of His love! Oh yeah…to top it all off, it benefits me as well. Faith produces good works and good works produces more and deeper faith. This cycle is unending when put into practice and completely revolutionary to our lives. So what are you waiting for? If you have any faith at all there is no use in letting it suffocate.
Go use your faith to do some thing good for someone today in the name of love. Smile at a stranger and say hello when you would normally act like you were busy or look down as you pass by. Help a person to their car with groceries. That struggling mom at the grocery store with the three wild kids… tell her what an amazing person she is and thank her for being a mother to her children. Let the older gentlemen behind you in line go in front of you. Help a neighbor with an outside chore in this busy season of getting the yard back in shape. Cook a meal for those neighbors you have yet to connect with. You get the idea here… “Do unto others…” Start a love revolution. It may start small but who knows where is could go from one small act of kindness.
March 25, 2009
Some time ago our church did a series about breaking through a drought in your life. You see, at the time we were and still are experiencing a level-4 drought in North Georgia. In this series we talked about the story of Elijah concerning a long standing drought the nation of Israel had been experiencing. Elijah had prophesied that there would be no rain in the land for a few years and that the rains would not return until he gave the word as the Lord had instructed him. This was happening because God was issuing judgment over King Ahab for doing evil in the sight of the Lord. In other words, he was not a God honoring king, did some really nasty stuff and he sucked! Eventually, after a few years Elijah gave the word that the rain would return and the drought would end and he prayed for rain to come on the land. In his words “a mighty rain storm”. The funny thing here is that as he prayed for the rain he sent his servant out ahead of him to look towards the sea expecting that a storm would be coming in at any time. He sent his servant back to look out towards the sea a total of seven times. The first six times…nothing! This would have shattered most people (including me) but Elijah had great faith in the promise of God that he would send “a mighty rain storm”. So, Elijah sent his servant back a seventh time and upon his return he asked his servant what he had seen and the servant replied, “I saw a cloud the size of a man’s fist”. Instant deflation! Or at least I would have been deflated. How in the world can we have “a mighty storm” with a cloud only “the size of a man’s fist”? You see, what Elijah understood, and what we often forget, is that the great moves of God start small.
Jesus in Matthew 13:31, gives us yet another parable (he often taught in stories like this. See my previous post “Knowledge without Wisdom”). The story here is about a mustard seed. The mustard seed is the smallest of seeds and at first glance, can be taken for granted or even discarded because of its size. The important thing to remember though… The mustard seed eventually grows into such a large plant that it is referred to as a tree. It is big enough that birds come and nest in its branches. This is the truth about the fulfillment of God’s promises in our lives as well. The great things God has promised you and I are on the way. They are being prepared for us. But guess what? When they start to come through they will almost always start small. Our job: Don’t despise the small beginnings. Great and mighty things will come from small beginnings! And, if you your patience is starting to grow thin or you are growing weary in waiting for the promises of God to come through, I leave you with these words from Steven Furtick… If you are wondering why things are not happening as quickly as you think they ought to be happening remember that, “God is busy preparing you, for what he has prepared for you”!
March 23, 2009
So here are some links to some great blog posts that got me thinking deeply last week. Maybe some of them will provoke some deep thinking for you as well.
This post from Seth Godin about Fitting in or Standing out.
This post from Tony McCollum about mentors.
This post from Steven Furtick.
This post from Ben Arment where he talks about grooming an audience. He gives a shout-out to my pastor Tony McCollum in this one.
March 19, 2009
I want to preface this post by pointing out that this is a major struggle of mine, so I am not pointing fingers here . This idea is definitely not new and is not even my idea, but I think it is worth talking about. See thing is that we are constantly told in the business world and in other areas of our lives that we should spend our valuable time trying to do a lot of different things, some of which are not even beneficial to us or anyone else for that matter. The problem with this strategy is that you will become an inch deep in a lot of things without actually doing any of them with excellence. If there is one thing that is an absolute pet peeve of mine, it is mediocrity. The ironic thing about this… I find myself being mediocre on a regular basis by trying to be an expert in too many areas or trying to be great a too many things. Go figure! I see a lot of companies and people trying to be all things to all people as well. They try to offer a million products or a million ideas hoping that one of them will stick.
After thinking about a few major players in the business world today, who are successful even in this turbulent economy we find ourselves in, I have noticed a certain marker to their success. This may not be the only marker but it is definitely a key one. The companies I want to mention here are: Google and Apple. You see, they focused on one idea or solution and excelled at it before they decided to attempt launching another product or service. I can almost guarantee you that they were not concerned with trying to do all things well, at first. They focused on their strengths first. For Google, they wanted to provide the worlds leading search engine… They succeeded! Now, they have a plethora of services and products that most would agree are exceptional. They built their business one product at a time. For Apple, it was building reliable computers… not necessarily cheap computers. They focused on providing a stable platform and uniform construction unlike their competitors, currently referred to as PC (we’ve all seen the commercials). While PC was opening up their platform to all who wanted to make parts or computers so they could make the cheapest and highest profit margin computers possible… Apple on the other hand told everyone that they could write software if they wanted but the computers would all be built with same parts on the inside and they gambled on the fact that quality not price would eventually lead to their success. They understood that developers could write and provide reliable and stable software for consumers because the software would be predictable in all machines built by Apple because the hardware was the same in each machine. The result was stability, and though they did not see as much revenue in the 1990’s as PC…who is taking it to the bank now? People everyday are making the switch to Apple/Mac because they have proven to everyone that their choice to focus on one thing at a time resulted in reliability. Not to mention they are genius’ at marketing. What this has done for the Apple brand is allow them to now offer an array of products that once again, considered by most to be exceptional.
Of course, there is always going to be the temptation to try to do too much no matter who you are! The biggest payoff to doing one thing at a time though, and doing it with excellence is that once that one thing is successful it allows you to then add one more service, idea, or product and give it the same time and attention you gave the first one. Who knows, when it is all said and done you may have many things that are successful as a result of tackling one thing at a time.
My challenge to us is this: Are we trying to do too much? Are we becoming an “a mile wide and an inch deep” as they say?
March 18, 2009
In the book of Matthew found in the New Testament section of the bible, Jesus was speaking to his disciples about a story he had just told a large group of people. Some of the people did not understand the story he was telling because although they were present, they we not really listening. They were there just to be a part of the crowd. Jesus spoke in large crowds often. Because of this his disciples (a close group of his followers) asked Jesus why he used these stories to speak to the crowd. This is what he had to say, “To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge.” Matt. 13:12 (NLT)
For me personally, I want KNOWLEDGE, so I will definitely be listening to the teachings of Jesus. While reading this though, I was struck by the fact that knowledge is a great thing and I am on a never ending quest for it, but does knowledge itself leave something to be desired? The answer is, YES! What knowledge doesn’t always come with is WISDOM. Wisdom is the ability to make application of the knowledge that I have been given. So the point of all of this is… I can have all of the knowledge in the world, but without the wisdom on how to make application, the knowledge is useless.
My hope for all of you is that as you gain knowledge of all kinds, that you pray for a heavy dose of wisdom to accompany!
March 17, 2009
It occurred to me today that, although I am Irish in decent I never really spent much time, if any, understanding why we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. So with a little digging (about 2 minutes on google) I got some really helpful info on the man, the myth, and the legend. As it turns out… St. Patrick was a man after my own passion, and that is seeing people changed by the power of the Gospel. St. Patrick is surely one of the great early church planters! And as far as multi-site…he had it down! Nearly 300 churches planted by him during his years of ministry. In his time as a missionary to Ireland, (that’s right he was not an Irishman, he was actually born in Wales in the fifth century and captured by the Vikings and sold into slavery and sent to Ireland from age 16-22) he had a vision from the Lord telling him to escape his captivity and so one night soon after this dream he did. When he reached the shore there was a boat waiting for him. I do not think it coincidence that it was there waiting for him. Most of his life after this was quiet until he was around 40, when he had another dream from the Lord telling him to return to Ireland to teach and preach the Gospel. He saw around 120,000 pagan druids become followers of Christ and planted over 300 churches in Ireland. How did he accomplish this? Easy, it was said that he would simply walk into the smoky nightspots of the Chieftains (he met them where they were) and share the good news with them.
I hope this sheds some light on the man we celebrate this and every March 17th. I now know and you as well, why we celebrate such an amazing man whom God used to change the landscape of an entire nation. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
