No Retirement

Re: Verse reading–Acts 2:42-47; Romans 12:3-13 (day four)  We are one body in Christ…the church.  Our scripture tells us that each of us has gifts, given to us by the grace of God.  It also tells us that we are to use our gifts…to exercise them in the body.  What is your gift or gifts?  Are you using them for the good of the body?  For the church to function to its full potential, each member must be at work.  Working in the church is not an option. God places each member in the body to fulfill a specific task or tasks.  Prophecy…service… teaching…exhorting… giving…leading…showing mercy…each of us must find our place to serve.  Our scripture also tells us that our attitude when we serve is important.  Love without hypocrisy, abhorrence of evil, brotherly love, honor, diligence, hope, perseverance, generosity, and prayerfulness…the Christian life is never static.  It is always active.  There is no retirement from serving the Lord or His church. 

Together

Re: Verse reading–Acts 2:42-47; Romans 12:3-13 (Day Three) 
“Honor one another above yourselves.” Part of what it means to be human is to live with others.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew well the necessity of fellowship, and he warned, “Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.”  The most dreaded punishment devised by the human mind is solitary confinement, for it is in isolation that we find no one to help us carry the burdens of the weight of our fallenness.  It is never easy to live with others, but that’s not because fellowship is an optional component of our existence.  Rather, it is because we are sinful.  But it is when we live with others—working out conflict, revealing our motives, forgiving one another, learning from one another, confessing sin to each other—that we grow as Christ directs us to grow.  There is no substitute.

Community

Re: Verse reading–Acts 2:42-47; Romans 12:3-13 (day two)
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. Acts 2:46-47

We were made for community. When we come together around a meal we create a community of sorts that is a picture of the body of Christ. We share our provisions, which nurtures everyone around us. We talk, laugh, and become closer through our fellowship. This picture can extend to our times of worship. One of the functions of corporate worship is to build community. When we come together we join our voices with the saints around us and are strengthened. As you come for worship next week consider getting to know someone you don’t currently know. If they came to your house, you would certainly learn their name, so do the same here. Sit in community with others, gain from the beautiful fellowship of singing, praying, and growing together.

A Jolly Good Fellow

Re: Verse reading–Acts 2:42-47; Romans 12:3-13 (day one) 
“For he’s a jolly good fellow (repeat twice more), that nobody can deny.”  It is a song we sing to recognize friendship.  More than friendship, fellowship.  Fellow comes from the same root word as follow.  To follow the same commander (in the military sense), or the same Lord (in a religious sense) is to become a fellow to other members of your unit or church.  Not something that happens automatically.  Effort is involved.  “They DEVOTED themselves to the apostle’s teaching and to fellowship.”  (Acts 2:42)  Probably means that they were careful to include, to learn names, to spend time together, to listen, to forgive, to “do life together”.  Friendships require time and effort.  Fellowship even more.  Maybe we should add a song to our hymnal.  It would remind us of this gift from God, this proof of the Spirit’s presence.  “For he’s a jolly good fellow. . .”  I  look forward to seeing you on Sunday.

Super natural

Re: Verse reading–2 Chronicles 20:1-4, 13-15; Matthew 6:16-18; Acts 13:1-3 (day seven)
“He fasted forty days and forty nights.” (Matthew 4:2)  “It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.”  (Luke 6:12)  “And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping.”  (Matthew 26:40)  God is supernatural.  ABOVE nature in power and worth.  Glorious and good and eternal.  The ancients, therefore, understood that at important moments it is beneficial and wise to place His concerns ABOVE normal (and legitimate) human needs. Not standard practice, but acceptable under certain conditions. Needs like eating or sleeping were subordinated.  Prayer ABOVE food and sleep.  The importance of fasting needs to be recovered in our day.  Remember the disciples in the garden?  They wanted to support, but in their immaturity had not yet learned to seek the spiritual ABOVE the physical.  Only Jesus can make us supernatural.  It is still His desire to do so.

If my people will humble themselves. . .

Re: Verse reading–2 Chronicles 20:1-4, 13-15; Matthew 6:16-18; Acts 13:1-3 (day six)
“Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah.”  (2 Chronicles 20:3)  The human heart is naturally proud.  Self-centered.  No instruction required.  Big problem with God!  Intimacy with Him (and help from Him) requires a “pride-ectomy”.  Fasting can be helpful.  Self-denial from a meal or a pleasure can be a strong signal to the human ego that someone/something of higher priority is present.  Fasting temporarily puts human desires and demands below the pursuit of God on the ladder of priority.  It humbles the constant craving and ceaseless demanding that so often shouts its way into soul control.  The squeaky wheel . . .  “If my people will humble themselves” is a familiar line of Scripture.  What is often lacking is the practical  understanding of the path toward this beneficial goal. Fasting may be a helpful place to start.  How could you, today, say “no” to yourself in pursuit of God?

Clarity

Re: Verse reading–2 Chronicles 20:1-4, 13-15; Matthew 6:16-18; Acts 13:1-3 (day five)

14 Then in the midst of the assembly the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah

I have heard it many times already this week as we’ve been at camp- teenagers that have had a clear unmistakable “word” or insight from The Lord.  (I will sit at breakfast this morning with another one-  He’s wants to “talk”)  It always amazes them when it happens.  It’s a reminder to me (hopefully us) that when you peel away many of the stresses, pressures, activities, responsibilities, and distractions that compete for our heart’s attention and affection, the still small voice of the Holy Spirit becomes louder, stronger and more recognizable.  It’s a discipline that must be repeated and recaptured often.  Fasting is one way to facilitate the possibility.  The result is the sweetest thing we could hope to hear and understand-  the voice of the Living God speaking into the human heart!!

Seek First

Re: Verse reading–2 Chronicles 20:1-4, 13-15; Matthew 6:16-18; Acts 13:1-3 (day four)  Crisis has a way of bringing out our true colors when it hits.  Jehoshaphat had a crisis.  Word came to him that a mass of armies was headed his way and they were not coming for a friendly visit.  Verse 3 says he was afraid.  The first thing he did was to turn his attention to seek the Lord.  When crisis hits in your life, where do you turn.  Do you begin to figure out your next move?  Do you begin to calculate your own resources?  Do you start contacting potential rescuers?  Jehoshaphat made the right move…he sought the Lord.  We may want that to be our first response, but in the middle of the crisis, we just don’t think about it.  2 Chronicles 19:3 says of Jehoshaphat, “and you set your heart to seek God.”  Jehoshaphat had determined beforehand where he would turn in time of crisis.  Don’t wait until crisis hits, decide before to seek the Lord!

Voice

Re: Verse reading–2 Chronicles 20:1-4, 13-15; Matthew 6:16-18; Acts 13:1-3 (day three)
“Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah.”  The indulging of bodily appetites become habits—but these habits are at their core spiritual habits, born as they are out of a longing for certainty, safety, love, joy, intimacy, dominion, community.  These habits are attempts to fulfill these longings, and they will prevent us from placing our bodies before the Lord and listening to him.  We cannot, by direct effort alone, hear God; our habitual practice has not trained to hear him but to hear our bodies instead.  When we deny our bodies in a fast, the demands of our bodies grow louder at first, then weaken to the level at which we can isolate the Lord’s voice and listen to him.