Seeing the impossible become possible

My heart is overjoyed this morning because we added a new person to the faith family. No, we didn't have a baby or get another dog, but we had a student last night accept Christ. It amazes me to see God working in the lives of students. You can see that they are living out the Word of God. I am seeing more and more that I can't control who comes to know Christ. The Father draws men unto Himself and the Holy Spirit opens the eyes and hearts of students. Lord, knows it's not my preaching that draws students! But it is awesome to see students living out their faith and seeing the fruit from it.

Last night we talked about how "through our eyes all things are impossible but through the eyes of God all things are possible". Sounds profound doesn't it? Well, it came from the Father but anyhow, we talked about how we as Christ-followers forget that we have been given the Living Spirit of God once we accept salvation. The power of God dwells within us to go out and do the "impossible" things, through our eyes, that Christ is calling us to do. We looked at two stories in Luke 9:1-6;12-17 the first being when Jesus sent out the disciples with "power and authority" to heal and share about the Kingdom of God. They were given a taste of the Holy Spirit to do the work of the Kingdom. But when they came back they were faced with a moment of truth, a moment of trust, a moment where they lacked the faith in Jesus, a moment of impossibility.

You see we forget that God has empowered us to do some impossible things such as, when I say impossible I am referring to the way we look at things through our eyes. Here are some examples: sharing our faith, having a personal quiet time, removing activities that pull us away from the Father, leaving some friends to go and share your life with those who have none, and the list can go on and on. The problem is that we lack the faith when we understand and see these things in Scripture. The disciples were given power and authority to do amazing things but failed to realize that Jesus was the One they needed to put their trust in. Why?

We have heard the story about the feeding of the 5,000 people, actually it was more like 20,000 people but when Jesus told the disciples to "feed the people" they protested and said "that's impossible." After they had done amazing miracles for the Kingdom they say "that's impossible?" So my thinking is this: how many times when we hear the Word, see the Word, feel God moving us to change something about our lives that we actually jump up and do it or how many times do we sit back and say "that's impossible?" We are no different than the disciples were that day. We neglect the power and authority that Jesus gives us for a comfortable life. We look to other sources instead of the Father when we are faced with impossible life decisions such as Oprah, Dr. Phil, facebook, T.V. etc.

So the question that I am asking is this: If you could do one thing that is impossible in your eyes and allow God to show you that it is possible through Him, what would it be? 
Maybe we need to stop looking at the impossibilities and start trusting in God to make things possible in our lives.

Three things:

1) We have been given the power and authority to do great things for Christ

·      2 Cor. 5:5 and John 16:12-15 (Holy Spirit)

·      “Feed them”

2) When God calls us, don’t’ focus on the impossible because God beckons us to make everything possible for His glory

·      Romans 8:1-2 and Phil. 4:13

·      “feeding of the 5,000 really 20,000 people”

·      Salvation is impossible through our own power; God made it (possible) through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (impossible in our eyes)

3) Christ calls us to work alongside Him using whatever resources are available to magnify His goodness and power.

Luke 9:11-12 "Jesus was doing miracles and teaching about the Kingdom when the disciples returned"

·      2 Cor. 3:16-18

·      “5 loaves of bread and 2 fish”

A

Splinters from logs

Love doesn't judge; love doesn't condemn; love forgives and love gives.

I find myself evaluating my lifestyle today because I don't want to be a hypocrite. I am seeing alot of facebook replies that are talking about "this person said this or that" or "I hate you because you did 'xyz'"
I realized that I have made this mistake before. I rarely use the word "hate" but I might as well use it when people "tick" me off. But I was reminded this morning about how Jesus looked at this issue. Reading from Luke 6:37-42 I was quickly reminded about how I should respond.

The passage talks about using a certain measure. I came to the conclusion that this has two approaches: 1) the measure or standard is something set by me or 2) the measure or standard is set by Christ. Many times, I like to set the standard because I want to "get back" or "say my thoughts" about something someone said or did to me. But, I quickly realized that whatever my measure is, whatever my standard, either my self-righteousness or the standard that Christ shows, will be returned to me. Maybe not today or tomorrow but sometime soon. I think like most of us, we choose the first standard.

It's like this: I am a Christ-follower. I can't lead people, if I am blinded by my own self-righteousness. It's like Jesus said, "a blind man can't lead a blind man." I look at my life as a leader, pastor, husband, etc. and understand that I can't lead any of these areas if I, myself, am blinded by my own self-righteousness. I mean who are we to lead others or give council or show love, if we can't lead ourselves?

That's where the whole log in the eye comes from. How can we as Christ-followers tell others how to live if the splinters from the logs in our eyes are causing others pain and they turn away from Jesus? We can't. I think this is why Jesus was telling this to his disciples. You can't lead others or see others accept my forgiveness if you can't see your wrongs first. It reminds me of Romans 3:10-18 when it says that "no man is righteous; not even one." For many of us, we think that just because of our titles and prestige, we have the authority over others. We have been doing this longer than others. Wrong! We are in the same boat whether we have Christ or not. I am not righteous, far from it. So what would happen if more Christ-followers removed the logs from their eyes and healed the wounds that the splinters have caused in the lives of others?

We must first allow the only person that can fix us, fix us and that person is Jesus. Secondly, we must be forgiven of our wrongs before forgiveness can be received by others. So let's stop the self-righteousness, admit when we are wrong, show love the way that love was shown to us and make the standard of our lives the standard which Christ gave us: "love the Lord with all you heart, soul and mind and love you neighbor as yourself." ok?

A

Today is a new day

Today, I decided to open up the book of Romans and start from the beginning. As I started reading the opening part of the letter, I found myself experiencing a fresh fire to the purpose that God bestowed in me. Going to college and finishing my master's degree was something that I wanted to do ever since I started my undergrad degree. Long before that I knew that God called me to some form of ministry, which come to find out in the early years was student ministry. But even before that, I made a decision to let Christ control my life, my desires, my plans and in return I would have the privilege to spend eternity with Him. While I was reading verse 5: "Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name"I started to think about the way the church views this. How I view this. I feel that many people have forgotten that in our lives, new lives in Christ, that we have been given the privilege and authority to speak the love of Christ anywhere. So why is it so hard to do this? I personally believe it's pride. We are a society that holds dear to things that mean something to us. We hate sharing, we hate opening up to others in fear that people will judge us, we hate the fact that we have to speak to other people. I kept reading on and came across verse 14: "For I have a great sense of obligation to people in our culture and to people in other cultures, to the educated and uneducated alike." Wow....coming from a man who hated Christians to a man who loves Christ now, this was his desire! His whole life's purpose, Christ's purpose for all who call him Lord, is to have a sense of obligation, desire or passion to tell others about Christ so that they can have an opportunity to believe and obey the Risen King. What if this was our attitude every morning? I am obligated because Christ has given me the power and strength (privilege) and authority to tell of His great love! IF this could be our attitude then we could easily say this: verse 16: "For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ." 

Just something to think about as we get closer to Passion Week. Will you do whatever it takes?

A