Walk in your calling

"If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow Me." - John 21:22 

Jesus has just revealed to Peter that Peter will one day die for his faith. Peter asked Jesus about John and whether he would die also. Jesus reacted sharply to Peter's comment. He basically told Peter to not worry about John. John's role or purpose in life was none of Peter's business. All Peter had to do was worry about doing what God had called him to do

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In His discussion with Peter, Jesus was getting at the very heart of the matter of a person's calling. Peter was worried about whether his friend John was going to get the same lot in life as he was. Jesus told him it should not be his concern. He was to concern himself only with one thing: his own calling before God.

Are you tempted to compare yourself with others? Be careful. The end of that is predictable. It will make you make you dissatisfied with the path in life God has called you to walk. "Man, that guy has it so much easier than I do. If only God would do for me what He has done for him." 

Don't worry about what God is doing with others. That is not your concern. Concentrate on discerning His will for your life. You busy yourself with that and you won't have time to think about what God is doing with someone else. And by the way it will keep envy from taking roots in your soul as well.

The tree that Jesus killed

Mark 11:13 Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again!" And His disciples were listening...........20 As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up.

Pat Mcarty preached at Bethel last night. If you did not have the opportunity to make it you missed a real treat. For the full treatment I urge you to go to the website and listen to the sermon. But I will recap. He preached on the fig tree that Jesus cursed. Pat did a masterful job of showing how the fig tree in scripture is often used as a representation of the nation of Israel. Also he pointed out that the fig tree was often used as a covering in their culture serving as sheltered protection from the harsh elements. In the story of the cursed fig tree in Mark 11, the fig tree represents the nation of Israel. The covering of the fig tree represents Jesus who came to the nation of Israel as Messiah and yet was rejected by them. Oh how Jesus longed to put His people, the chosen people under His protective covering. However, He could not because they did not bear the fruit of faith and repentance. But instead they rejected the Messiah and clung to their own selfish desires as opposed to having eyes to see what God was doing in their midst, all the while being convinced in their own minds that they were actually doing the will of God when in reality they did not know Him. The fig tree with leaves but no fruit becomes a picture of the nation of Israel. They looked good from a distance.....lots of leaves. But upon closer inspection there is no fruit. So Jesus condemns the tree.

This story becomes a warning to all who live religious lives but do not bear fruit. It is particularly applicable to a lot of church goers. On the surface everything looks good. They attend church regularly and live decent, moral lives. From a distance they look good, just like the fig tree with a lot of leaves in the story looked good from a distance. But upon close inspection you begin to see the reality. There is no fruit. Many church people go to service regularly and yet never lead anyone else to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Many who have been supposedly been Christians for decades have never even led one other person on the planet to Jesus. Hundreds of sermons, bible studies, Sunday School lessons over the years, and they have not led one single person to Christ? Someone who has never led anyone else to Christ has failed to put into practice what they have learned in all those bible studies.

May I ask you today, are you bearing fruit? Who knows God because of your influence? Who have you shared the gospel with lately? Are you regularly looking for, and taking advantage of opportunities to share your faith in Christ Jesus? Remember that Jesus is looking for fruit in our lives in the form of others who know God through your witness. He is not looking for the leaves of religious activity, He is looking for fruit. As believers our faith and our relationship with God is not just something for us to enjoy privately. God lets us experience Him so we can in turn share Him with others. Are you sharing Him with others or are you keeping your faith to yourself?

In your life, do not just grow leaves of religious activity....bear some fruit. 

Out of the comfort zone

Nehemiah 2:11 So I came to Jerusalem....

Nehemiah has a vision to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem that lies in ruins in order to bring glory to the Lord. Nehemiah leaves his comfortable position as a cup bearer to the King in Persia, to go to Jerusalem for that reason. The journey there was dangerous, and the task was enormous with many obstacles. Nehemiah was willing to move out of his comfort zone to do what God wanted him to do.

It seems to be a pattern in scripture, that every time something great is done for God, somebody in the story is called to do something that takes great faith. Great stories in the bible are great because someone in the story exercised great faith in a GREAT GOD, and moved in the direction He was leading in spite of the discomfort it caused them. 

As the story of your life is being written, God will continually ask you to move out of your comfort zone if you are walking with Him. "Stepping out of your comfort zone" takes on different forms for different people based on how God is working in their lives. For some it may mean witnessing to that neighbor that they have never talked to about Christ. For others it may mean moving into some new area of service to the Lord. For others it may mean taking a current area of service and expanding it to new levels of fruitfulness.

If you are walking with God He will stretch you. What does "stepping out of your comfort zone" mean in your journey with God?

Abounding grace

Someone shared their devotion with me this morning via email, and it blessed me so much that I wanted to share it with all of you:

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

When you relate to God you always deal with abundance, for God does nothing in half measures! This is true regarding His grace. The Lord is not miserly when it comes to providing grace to His servants. When you seek to perform a good work that God has asked you to do, you will always find an ample supply of God’s grace to sustain you. If you begin to lose heart in the work you are doing, God’s grace upholds you and gives you the love for God and His people you require in order to continue. When you face criticism and are misunderstood, God’s grace enables you to forgive your accusers and to sense God’s pleasure even when others do not understand what you are doing. When you make mistakes in the work God has appointed you to do, God’s grace forgives you, sets you back on your feet, and gives you strength to continue the work. When you complete the task God gave you and no one expresses thanks for what you have done, the Father’s grace surrounds you, and He reminds you that you have a heavenly reward where everything you have done in the Lord’s service will be remembered.
God does not promise to provide all you need for your dreams and projects. He does assure you that, for every good work you attempt, you will never face a shortfall of His grace in order to successfully complete the task God has given you.

Aim your conduct

1 Peter 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,

The bible teaches us to be intentional with our lives, not to walk through life aimlessly. We can simply let life come at us and deal with it as it comes. Or we can go on the offensive. The devil can come up with plenty of distractions to keep you from serving the Lord. What I have found is that serving the Lord faithfully requires a resolute spirit that says, "I am going to serve Him, no matter what!" Then when some distraction, difficulty, or drama comes along we are not swayed.

I know people who are always intending to get started serving God. But any little distraction that comes into their lives keeps them from serving. Then I know others who have decided that they are going to serve God no matter what. I knew of a man that used to attend our church (he is at home with the Lord now) who had major health issues. He had to get up at 4:30 am to start getting ready to come to church, and he came every Sunday on an electric wheel chair / scooter. He had every reason to stay in, but he had already decided nothing was going to stop him from worshiping. He had adopted a "whatever it takes" mentality. We need more people like that.....people that have said, "I am going to serve and worship God and I am willing to do whatever it takes."

That type of attitude produces conduct that is aimed at something. Aim at nothing and you will hit it. What is your conduct aimed at?

I am a proud Pastor

I am so proud of Bethel Baptist. I can't help it. Wow!!! 144 professions of faith at Judgment House...Stories abound of those who are Bethel members that invited family and friends who were saved. Glory to God.

One man stopped me who is a key lay leader in a sister church across town. He said to me something that really blessed my heart, "Please tell your people thank you. I cannot even begin to imagine the time, effort, and energy that it takes to pull something like this off. And you guys are making such a significant contribution to the body of Christ and the effort to bring in the harvest in this area through Judgment House. I am not aware of too many churches that are willing to pay the price that you have been willing to pay to do this. Thanks from the bottom of my heart."

Several others expressed similar sentiments. I just wanted those who participated to know that the entire community takes notice of the sacrifices you made to be part of Judgment House. Now I know that you did not do it for the approval of man.....I get that....but I hope it does encourage your heart to know that others in the community, particularly the other area churches were blessed by it. I talked to one staff member of a local church who brought about 30 people from his church who said, "Wow, we are going to have a lot of baptisms at our church. We brought 8 teens and 2 adults that got saved tonight!" That is the way it is when you serve God faithfully, even those around you get blessed.

The vast majority of the 144 people who were saved will never attend Bethel. A lot of them were brought by other church groups and will attend those churches. But that is okay. We are not here to build our kingdom......we are here to build His Kingdom!!! And as long as we make that our focus, God will send the people to us we need to get it done. He always has, and he always will as long as we make HIS goals our goals. Amen?!

Thank you Bethel for letting God use you to build the Kingdom. You are truly remarkable people.

Judgment House

1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God's fellow workers

I want to say a word to all my fellow workers participating in Judgment House. AMAZING!!! Best word I can think of to describe Judgment House at Bethel Baptist. One of the things that excites me about it is how the church pulls together and works together to accomplish the goal of pointing people to Christ.

There are some characteristics of the Judgment House participants that stand out to me.

MUTUAL RESPECT - Everyone values every other member and honors all roles. There are no insignificant roles. We need every single person who serves in every single role. We need the registration people, the tour guides, the set builders, the scene directors, the technical folks, the actors and actresses, the counselors......there are no unimportant roles.

COOPERATION - There is a willingness to pitch in and help wherever there is a need. I rarely hear anyone during Judgment House say, "That is not my job, I'm not doing that." There seems to be such a keen awareness of the importance of the mission, that people adopt a "whatever it takes" attitude. The "me" mentality disappears, and it becomes a "we" mentality.

SACRIFICE - People are willing to sacrifice time and sleep. It is exhausting. The hours are long. I hear no complaining or whining during Judgment House. The participants seem so focused on the mission that their own personal needs seem unimportant to them.

LOVE - There is a genuine love for the people who come through Judgment House, and there is a special connectedness that all the participants share with one another that is hard to describe unless you have experienced it. No matter what your role you feel a special connection to everyone else who is participating.

SYNERGY - One of my favorite spiritual concepts is the concept of synergy. The law of synergy states that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That means that instead of 1+1+1 equaling 3, it starts to equal 4 or 5. The idea is that the combined efforts of people working together produces a greater result than those same people working equally as hard but as individuals, not as a team.

To all of you who are serving in any capacity let me say to you.....WELL DONE!! And hang in there. The long hours and exhaustion are worth it. God is bringing in a harvest of souls and you are part of it. Remember that when you are so tired on Sunday night that you feel like you are about to drop.

Gird your loins

1 Peter 1:13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, 

When Peter says to "gird up the loins" it is the picture of the Roman soldier preparing for combat. He is saying, get ready to fight. Where is the battle ground? It is in the mind. That is where the battle for living the Christian life is. It is in your thoughts. The bible says to "be sober". What does it mean to be sober? It means to be controlled. A drunk has no control of his thoughts. He therefore has no control of his actions. Out of control thoughts = out of control actions. It works that way every time. That is why the bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 to "take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."

When you know you are having thoughts that are not obedient thoughts, that is when the battle is really on. Now the fight is full blown. Who will win? Will God be victorious in our lives or will we give in to the world, the flesh, and the devil? It all depends on whether or not we are able to take the thoughts captive.

Child of God, you have a choice what you think about. You have a choice as to what kind of attitude you adopt. You have a choice as to whether or not you choose to frame everything in your thinking in a positive way or whether or you can choose to be negative. Make no mistake....it is your choice.

May God grant you the grace to take your thoughts captive today.

Inquiry of the angels

1 Peter 1:12 To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven -- things which angels desire to look into.

Peter makes a most interesting comment about angels in this passage of scripture. He offers the notion that angels do not completely understand grace. How could they? They have not been saved. You and I have, so we have a perspective on the grace of God that comes from experience. We know what it is like to be the recipients of "so great a salvation", translated from the dominion of darkness into the Kingdom of God, cleansed by the blood of the lamb, and guaranteed a place in heaven when what we really deserve is hell!!!! HALLELUJAH WHAT A SAVIOR!!!!! Pardon me. Just had a spell. I'm better now.

This gives us insight into a very important aspect of grace. It is on some levels incomprehensible to angels. We must also say, on some level, it is incomprehensible to us. We have experienced it, yes.....but do we really understand it? I would say that as we mature as Christians, we continually grow in our understanding of it. I would also flip that statement around and say, we mature as we grow in our understanding of it.

Some have said, "I am saved now, let me move on beyond the gospel to the deeper things of the Christian life." I would submit to you the idea that such an understanding of things is misguided. My friend, there is nothing deeper than the gospel. There is nothing deeper than the amazing grace of God. When we all get to heaven all our eschatology will be correct. But we can go on for an eternity of eternities meditating upon the glorious gospel and never get to the bottom of that deep well.

So meditate today on the glorious gospel, what it means to be saved, and how much God loves you. And walk in the peace that passes all understanding, and walk in joy inexpressible.