Rev. Jason Pankau
We begin this week with the fifth installment of a video devotional that we hope will encourage you to slow down and let Him guide you to the righteous life of abundance.
|
|
|
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” Psalm 23:5-6 (2:52) |
Rev. Jason K. Pankau and Michael Lee Stallard
Acts chapter 8, says that Saul agreed to and witnessed Stephen’s stoning. This began a great wave of persecution that scattered believers from Jerusalem. Saul traveled from house to house to find Christian men and women and throw them into prison.
From the perspective of a Christian living during the persecution of the early church, the future could have looked bleak. The Roman Empire had all the Earthly power and used it effectively to crush any and every threat. Praise God, that’s not where the story ended. The Bible tells us that scattered believers preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went. Then the Lord confronted Saul on the Damascus road and he was transformed into the Apostle Paul who went on to help lead the fast growing church. What an unlikely event! Who could ever have guessed that would happen?
Pondering this remarkable history gives us hope and makes us wonder: how might God use us during these dark days when news reports can make us feel our future is bleak?
To conquer an attitude of helplessness and hopelessness we need to stay close to the Lord, and to pray for and encourage one another like the members of the early church did. Together, we are a nation of priests with God-given power to transform the world. With the Holy Spirit comforting and counseling us, the body of Christ can transform every sector of society in every nation so that all glorify God. May it be so!
What part will you play in God’s plan for our future? Pray that He will guide your every step. Ask for the power of the Holy Spirit. Be in the Word to renew your mind. Obey His commands to maximize God’s transforming power in your life. Reject the temptation to love money, power and fame. Instead, put on the full armor of God, be strong and courageous and go into the world to transform it with the power of God’s love.
Jason and Mike would like to thank Ben Valentine of Trinity Church in Greenwich, CT, for a devotional he led that provided the inspiration for this edition of Devotional Thoughts.
Rev. Jason Pankau
We begin this week with the fourth installment of a video devotional that we hope will encourage you to slow down and let Him guide you to the righteous life of abundance.
Rev. Jason K. Pankau and John B. Donovan
The natural drift of our minds is toward independence and self-sufficiency. This is understandable since, in the ordinary processes of learning and growth, we aim to become independent of our teachers. If we want to learn a foreign language, for instance, we obviously want to move beyond the point where we need our instructor to be constantly on hand.
God’s purpose for us, however, is to be in a close relationship with Him and with our fellow Christians. As Basil W. Maturin, a British spiritual author of the early 20th century put it:
“We need to balance independence with our dependence on others…The man who is recklessly indifferent to others bears the mark of failure stamped upon him, and he who is wholly dependent loses all individuality and all power of influence in the world. This is true of those who are naturally strongest and weakest, and it applies equally to women and men.”
Without this awareness of our dependence on God and our interdependence with others, we will never come into our full strength. By extension, we as the church will never come into our full strength either.
For this to take place, we have to submit to a regimen we might call “sacred training.” C.S. Lewis put it this way: “Jesus works on us in all sorts of ways… Through nature, through our own bodies, through books… But above all he works on us through each other.” Let’s expand our vision of what God makes available to us through others.
Most obviously, we can relate to one another through acts of love and also through reactions, the kind of forbearance that reflects the love that the Holy Spirit “pours into our hearts” (Romans 5:5). Our reputation for this also has an evangelistic dimension: Christians have often won new adherents to the faith simply by the love they share with one another. It is said that certain ancient Romans would remark, “See how these Christians love one another!”
Service is another aspect of this. A friend of ours is involved in an outreach initiative that aims to exercise spiritual influence in a medium-sized city near his church. The regular meeting of prayer and planning for this have brought a new social dimension to his life. In addition, moving forward together into uncharted waters has added an unexpected measure of zest and zeal to the members of the group. As for potential impact, we have many examples, such as the Clapham Circle, a small group whose efforts resulted in many sweeping social reforms in 19thcentury England.
We can also engage in close and intentional spiritual relationships, particularly in the form of peer mentoring. We know personally of a number of examples where this has been transformative for people trying to cope with challenging family situations. In one case, when a husband was at his wit’s end, the influence of peer mentoring was mainly in the form of deep-level encouragement. In another case it was a matter of mentoring a man who was on the verge of leaving his wife. Only within the peer-mentoring framework was he able to accept a negative reaction about this, and it saved his marriage.
Other benefits of small groups have long been obvious, especially when they show signs of covenantal commitment and life-sharing. For one thing, they are valuable for personal guidance. We can seek guidance from others as often as possible and be open to their insights. As it says in the Book of Proverbs, “in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” (Proverbs 11:14).
More ways could be mentioned for rebalancing our lives between dependence and interdependence. God spoke through one of His greatest prophets when he commanded: “Awake! Put on your strength!” (Isaiah 51:9). Let’s move toward full strength. In addition to private prayer, let’s avail ourselves of our resources as church communities.
Rev. Jason Pankau
We begin this week with the third installment of a video devotional that we hope will encourage you to slow down and let Him guide you to the righteous life of abundance.
Rev. Jason Pankau and Michael Lee Stallard
In Ephesians, the Apostle Paul tells us that Christians must love and help one another develop Christlikeness so that we become united as one with the Trinity to form the church. Ephesians 3:10 (NLT) states that “God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”
Here’s one way to think about what Paul is saying. There are three types of cultures. The worst culture is the dog-eat-dog “toxic” culture were people with power try to control and dominate others. This is hell. War is hell. You can also see the dog-eat-dog culture in Nazi Germany, in drug and human trafficking networks, in communism and fascism, and in toxic workplaces.
The second type of culture is a “culture of indifference.” In these cultures people are so focused on themselves and on the tasks to achieve money, power and fame that they fail to take time to connect with the Lord and with other human beings. Because people are human beings and not machines, the culture of indifference gradually drains the life out of people. America today is primarily a culture of indifference. This is hell, too, as we are beginning to see in the level of dysfunction in America.
Unity among Christians living “in Christ” creates the Church where people are connected one to another. God calls Christians to connect with Him and His power and to rescue the world. By becoming Christlike and uniting as the Church, we will show the world that God exists as Jesus prayed for in John 17:20-21. We then live as His ambassadors of reconciliation in the world creating churches, workplaces and communities of love and connection (2 Corinthians 5:20-21).
20 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one-as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.
John 17:20-21(NLT)
20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:20-21(NLT)
Are you loving the Lord and your neighbors? God is calling us to save the world from the dog-eat-dog cultures and cultures of indifference. How are you responding?
Jason Pankau
We begin this week with a video devotional that we hope will encourage you to be still and restore your soul.
Jason Pankau and John B. Donovan
A member of the team at Life Spring Network recently undertook to review a collection of 100 book summaries in the field of psychology, some of them considered classics, and noted a theme that occurs more frequently than any other: the secret to success, satisfaction (or at least survival!) is reacting to life’s events and circumstances in a positive way.
What these writers have generally recommended is controlling the mind in a way that puts a positive spin on the implications of the events that we experience. From the Christian perspective the advice is not bad as far as it goes, but these suggestions usually amount to trying to control our own minds through self-effort, as opposed to controlling them on the basis of what is ultimately real, namely the providence and promises of God. (more…)
This week, we want to share an outstanding devotional written by Shawn McEvoy, Managing Editor of Crosswalk.com, American’s most popular website on Christian living. We’re sure you’ll find wisdom in Shawn’s devotional entitled “Men and Christian Friendship: It Won’t Just Happen on It’s Own.” To listen to the audio version, please click the link below.
Jason Pankau and John B. Donovan
On churches everywhere, we see the cross – perhaps the most ubiquitous symbol in the world. Have you considered that it isn’t only a symbol of an event from 2000 years ago but also of a deep spiritual reality with practical applications on an individual basis right here and now?
The atoning death of Christ may be understood as a practical source of power to be applied in temptation and other adversarial circumstances. Life is a battle that continually presents us with a need for victory. Few things tend to be more discouraging to the serious Christian than repeated temptation. The evil one wants us to consider these to be our own fault and to regard defeats as inevitable. There are, however, many people in heaven right now who have faced such temptations. But they believed in God’s mercy and power to overcome.
Part of the passage written by John Wesley about his own conversion speaks to this issue. “After my return home I was much buffeted with temptations, but I cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again. Each time I lifted up my eyes and he ‘sent me help from his holy place.’ And in this I found the difference between my new life and my former one. I was striving, yes fighting with all my might under the law, as well as under grace. But before I was sometimes, if not often conquered; now I was always conqueror.”
Always conqueror! The cross implies present victory over present sin tendencies. We are, as St. Paul has said, to be “dead to sin.” We can, in other words, appropriate the reality of the cross to put to death the power of our sin tendencies.
More than that, we are to be “alive to God” (Romans 6:11). We can move forward in life with the assurance of God’s present favor. According to John Knox, the founder of the Presbyterian denomination in Scotland, “Those who fall into diverse temptations would not judge themselves to be less acceptable in God’s presence. On the contrary, having the way prepared for victory by Christ Jesus, they should not fear the crafty assaults of that subtle serpent Satan; but with joy and bold courage, we may assure ourselves of God’s present favor.”
That’s not to say that new threats don’t lie ahead of us. We should maintain a mode of watchfulness. At the same time, we have to remember that our watchfulness can be relaxed and filled with trust. In fact, our state of mind might be likened to that of soldiers who, having to stay up much of the night on bunker duty, cannot afford to be in a state of constant high tension, since that would soon result in a state of exhaustion. What works is a calm alertness.
When a challenge comes, it is crucial to focus on the answer, to have faith for that, as opposed to focusing on the problem and thereby adding life and power to it. (It is quite possible to have “faith” for a problem by focusing on it.) After identifying the problem and facing it, it is time for a steadfast attention to the solution and to faith in God’s promises. That becomes our path of wisdom and victory – toward becoming, like Wesley, “always conqueror.”
