Great Faith-Part 2

Great Faith-Part 2

 

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is John 5:30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.  John 12:49-50 For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.  I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.  John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

 

Jesus will is the Father s will, and the Father s will is all about other people.  Jesus only does and says what is His Father s will; so it appears that He has no life of His own, yet here we are 2000 years later gathered in His name.  If you are wrestling with the authenticity of Christianity, how did this kind of stuff ever get out of the 1^st century?  Why would you even write this stuff down or follow anyone like this?  Jesus wakes up everyday and does the will of the Father and says what the Father says and accomplishes the Father s agenda.  If you ever try to intersect with Jesus words, you have got to know where He is coming from.  If at any point you are going to try and leverage the words of Jesus for your own benefit, you need to know where He was coming from.  It was not about that for Him.  Great faith resulted in great surrender.

 

Jesus is like a vehicle or a pipeline that God is just doing His work through.  What His followers understood is that as you surrender to the will of your Father; God is going to do extraordinary things through you, but they are not going to be for your benefit but for the benefit of other people.  This is not about you coming up with a list and saying, Okay, you promised. This is about getting on your knees and saying, Okay, What is next?  What do you want me to do, and where do you want me to go?

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Great Faith

Great Faith

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is Mark 14:38  Abba, Father, Jesus said, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.

Jesus was a man of extraordinary faith, yet His faith was not something He leveraged to get the world to work His way or to get God to do His bidding.   This man of extraordinary faith was also a man that was extremely surrendered to the Father.  Great faith is great surrender. 

 

Faith is confidence that God is who He says that He is and that He will do everything that He promised to do.  If you really believe this, then the logical response is not what can God do for me, but how can I serve God?  Great faith is not leveraging it for your own benefit, but it is absolute and total surrender.  Jesus does not leverage His faith or power for His benefit, but it is always for the sake of His Father in heaven. 

 

If you are considering becoming a follower of Jesus a big part of following Him is surrender.  Biblical faith is that we can ask God anything that we want to ask Him for; and sometimes He says Yes, and sometimes He says No.  What He has promised is that every time you come to Him you can experience His presence, grace and mercy in your time of need.  Where you have the most pain and trauma in your life is the arena where God wants to do His greatest work. 

 

Faith is not about getting out of pain and escaping the circumstances of life although that sells big in America.  It is simply saying, God, you are great, and I trust you.  My great faith is going to be manifested in this world as extraordinary and great surrender in your direction.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

 

What is Undeniably True

What is Undeniably True

 

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is 1 Corinthians 15:3-6 . . . Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas,and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time . . .

 

What is undeniably true is that a Jewish carpenter that Rome and the religious system tried to destroy is someone we know more about now than any other ancient person that ever lived.  Why do we even know His name, and why did these stories about Him survive?  Why did these people give their lives for a dead man that rose from the dead?  That is undeniable evidence!  It is not an American thing or a Jewish thing, but it is a universal thing.  The son of a carpenter, Jesus, said I am the light of the world; I am the Lamb of God that lays down my life for the sins of the world.  No one should have taken Him seriously; but they did because He rose from the dead, and 2000 years later we still worship and celebrate that fact in history.

 

It is also undeniable that there is a thirst in a man or woman that cannot be quenched by the stuff of this world.  There is a thirst that no relationship or amount of stuff, success or money can quench.  People generation after generation have tried to get themselves in position where they can lay in bed at night and everything be well with their soul and at peace in their heart apart from God.  They have tried and tried, but it is an unquenchable thirst.  There is something in human beings that desires something more, and it is undeniable that the thirst is never quenched apart from the creature being connected to the Creator through His son Jesus Christ.

 

There will always be pieces that are unexplainable, but there is so much that is undeniable.  The wise person shifts his or her focus from what is unexplainable to what is undeniable.  If you still are waiting and have more questions, know that you are not smart enough or have enough insight, or are not infinite enough to understand it all.  It is okay to ask and to investigate, but at some point you need to make up your mind and know that you do not have to understand everything in order to believe in something or in someone.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

 

When I Doubt

                                                            When I Doubt

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanely, and the Scripture is from Hebrews 11:1  Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

 

When I doubt is when I am focused on the pieces that are missing.  I doubt when I get all hung up on what is unexplainable and lose sight of what is undeniable.  I doubt when God does not act the way that I think that He should act.  When God gets outside of my little omnipotent box that I have crammed Him into, when He lets things happen that I do not think He should allow, when He does not answer a prayer, when He is unexplainable to me, or when He does not do what I would do if I was God, then I begin to doubt.  But when I shift my focus from those things that are unexplainable to those things that are undeniable, my faith soars even in the face of unanswered questions and mysteries in God that will not fit or stay in my little bitty box. 

 

What is undeniable is that we are here, that the only alternative to creation is that something came from nothing.  It is undeniable that there is a Creator, and there is a creation and all of the Earth shouts of His glory and presence and existence.  There is a God, and that is the starting point.  What else is undeniably true is that 2000 years ago a man showed up on the earth named Jesus.  He was a carpenter s son, a nobody that should have come and gone like everybody else of that age, but He began to teach strange things and perform miracles.  From Roman history this man died on a Roman cross, and He rose from the dead.  The eyewitnesses wrote about it and gave up their lives not because of what they believed or because of what Jesus taught but because they believed that a dead man rose from the dead.  What also is undeniably true is that this message spread throughout all of Europe and all over the world.  Today one third of the world s population believe that a Jewish carpenter rose from the dead; and the reason that they believe it is that at some point in their life they placed their faith in his death on the cross as the salvation for their sins, and they changed from the inside out.  You can go to every continent on this whole globe and you can find Christians in all kinds of different cultures speaking all kinds of different languages.  If you pressed them as to what happened they will tell you the same story.  I needed the forgiveness of sins and when I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior something happened on the inside and it has revolutionized how I have lived my life.  I have peace and joy, and my fear has disappeared.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining