A Time To Stand

My heart is both sad and challenged as I write this blog. I believe that June 26, 2015 will stand as a day of great significance in the history of the Church of Christ in the United States of America. On this date, the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges, by a 5-4 majority, that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out of State. I love our country and I am fiercely loyal to our nation and what it stands for in this world ... but I cannot stand in agreement with this interpretation. I find myself in the position of the apostles of old as they faced oppressive pagan authorities who attempted to thwart the spreading of the Gospel - “I must obey God rather than man.” Acts 5:29 In my opinion, this court has disregarded thousands of years of defining marriage as a God-ordained union between one man and one woman, and the affect it will have upon our culture will be broad and impactful. In the light of this monumental interpretation by the highest court in our land, we must articulate what we believe about marriage. We must not define marriage in terms of values or culture alone. Our challenge is to talk about marriage the way Jesus and the apostles did. Marriage must be seen as a picture of the union of Christ and his church (Eph. 5:32). Scripture defines marriage solely in terms of the union of a man and a woman (e.g., Matthew 19:4–6; Mark 10:5–9; cf. Genesis 1:27–28, 2:20–24; Ephesians 5:21–32). Not only that, Scripture prohibits same-sex intercourse (Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10; cf. Leviticus 18:22, 20:13). When it comes to same sex marriage, the Scripture stands clear and uncompromising. So then, must we. At the same time, we must lace our convictions with love. We must stand with conviction and with kindness, with truth and with grace, with strength and with love. We must hold to our values and love those who hate us for them. We must not only speak Christian truths; we must speak with Christian love. We must make certain that we convey our truth with mercy and with an invitation to new life in Christ. The early church ministered under an oppressive pagan empire and grew in power, strength and numbers. We can too. Lastly, we must intensify our prayer for this great nation. I am reminded of the challenge found in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” (NLT) So, let us stand ... let us love ... let us pray! Can you say amen?

God Help Us To Reach Out

We live in a sea of people who do not yet know Christ. There are enough people in our community to fill up every church fifty times. This is one reason that I find transfer church growth so distasteful. It is critical that we are more interested in reaching the lost than growing our church. I am not sure how interested God is in growing our church; but He has proven how He feels about reaching the lost. He proved His heart at Calvary. It is a matter of priorities. Let’s face it, if we reach the lost we will not be able to stop our church from growing. If on the other hand we strive just to grow our church we may find ourselves wandering lost in the forest of other peoples’ methodologies and miss altogether God’s plan for reaching the lost in our own culture and more specifically in our own community. When I speak of community I am not just speaking of people who live near our church. In today’s society, community has more to do with culture and less to do with geographic proximity. I believe God wants to reach the lost in our community more than we do. If this is true then it stands to reason that He has a plan to reach them. This is why we developed Connecting Points in our church. I believe that the principles of Connecting Points will lead you to that specific plan. Every believer is a minister of God. As we embrace this powerful truth, we can expect our Wonderful Lord to direct our path. We can reach our sphere of influence. God help us to Reach Out!

Let’s Talk Potential

Let’s Talk Potential! God made us with different levels of potential. This is made clear in Jesus’ story of the talents in Matthew Chapter 25. Here the Master, before going on His journey, left one with five talents, one with two talents and yet another with one. The first point is found in verse 15. He gave every man according to his “several ability” or, stated differently, according to his potential. God is the one who gives the potential and everyone has different levels. The second point is that God only requires productivity that is proportionate to the potential that He gives. The scripture declares “To whom much is given much will be required” (Luke 12:48). God did not require five from the one He gave two. The one who produced two received the same accolades as the one who produced five. It is clear that the man who was given one would have received the same if he had produced only one more. Why? They each have different levels of potential. What does the Lord require of us? The answer is to reach our full potential by simply being what God made us to be and doing what God made us to do. Our potential is always changing. Notice the three men in Jesus’ parable. Focus on the fluctuation of their potential. The man with five worked to reach his full potential and developed another five. Now he has ten. The one with two earned two more. His potential is now at four. Their potential has grown because of their faithfulness. The man with five grew even further because the master gave him one more. What about the man with one? His potential decreased. The master took his talent and gave it to the faithful man that reached his full potential. Can you see the pattern? The principle goes like this. If we are faithful to work hard and reach our full potential; our potential actually increases. If we just stand by and embrace status quo; we lose the potential we once had. Use it or lose it! You can see that the possibilities are endless. Imagine with me the man with five talents. He reaches his full potential and he now has eleven. What will happen if he now reaches his full potential with eleven? Now he has twenty four. He’s faithful with that…well, you do the math. The point is it really starts to get exciting when we reach our full potential.