I am excited to honor our mothers tomorrow. The title of my message is Oh woman, great is thy power!
Mother’s Day 2013
May 11, 2013 — Craig T. OwensOrdination
May 11, 2013 — Craig T. Owens
On Wednesday evening the Assemblies of God officially conferred upon me the designation of ordained. I am both thrilled and humbled, honored and slightly overwhelmed.
For this next chapter of my life, this prayer of John Wesley is my prayer too—
“Lord Jesus, if You will receive me into Your house, if You want but only me as Your servant, I will not stand upon terms; impose upon me what condition You please, write down Your own articles, command me what You will, put me to anything You see as good; let me come under Your roof, let me be Your servant. … Make me what You will, Lord, and set me where You will. … I put myself wholly into Your hands: put me to what You will, rank me with whom You will; put me to doing, put me to suffering, let me be employed for You, or laid aside for You, exalted for You, or trodden under foot for You; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing, I freely and heartily resign all to Your pleasure and disposal. … So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.” —John Wesley
Thursdays With Oswald—Moral Choices
May 9, 2013 — Craig T. OwensThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Moral Choices
Jesus Christ revealed what a normal man should be and in so doing showed how we may become all that God wants us to be. … But Jesus did not come to show us what a holy life was like: He came to make us holy by means of His death.
… When we partake of His life through the experience of regeneration we are put into a state of innocence towards God, and we then have to do what Jesus did, that is, transform that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices.
From Bringing Sons Unto Glory
There’s a song that says, “Now that we’ve found love, what are we going to do with it?” The Holy Spirit asks regenerated Christians the same thing: “Now that you’ve been declared innocent in God Almighty’s sight, how are you going to live?”
Every day you and I are faced with moral choices. Will we try to find the loopholes or the easy way out? Will we justify our ungodly choices? Or will we do what Jesus did and obey God fully?
Now that you’ve been declared innocent, what are you going to do with it?
Lifewalk 2013
May 8, 2013 — Craig T. Owens
I am grateful for Alpha Family Center in Cedar Springs. They provide resources for our community to promote life, including pregnancy testing, counseling, and other parental resources for young families in our community. They stand solidly for life.
And I want to stand with them.
Lifewalk is the annual fundraiser for Alpha. This one event brings in a significant amount of the annual budget that Alpha needs. Will you consider sponsoring me as I walk in Lifewalk?
If you would like to sponsor me or make a donation, please comment below or email me by clicking here, and I’ll get more details to you.
Thanks for helping me walk for life.
Gods And Goddesses
May 8, 2013 — Craig T. OwensWhen I saw this video, I thought of the words of C.S. Lewis—
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one of these destinations.”
What are you doing to help others see themselves as God sees them?
14 Quotes From “Smith Wigglesworth On Healing”
May 7, 2013 — Craig T. Owens
I hope these quotes from Smith Wigglesworth On Healing will excite you to read this book. If you’d like to read my book review, please click here.
“Never listen to human plans. God can work mightily when you persist in believing Him in spite of discouragement from the human standpoint. … I am moved by what I believe. I know this: no man looks at the circumstances if he believes.”
“There are times when there seems to be a stone wall in front of us. There are times when there are no feelings. There are times when everything seems as black as midnight, and there is nothing left by confidence in God. What you must do is have the devotion and confidence to believe that He will not fail, and cannot fail. You will never get anywhere if you depend on your feelings. There is something a thousand times better than feelings, and it is the powerful Word of God. There is a divine revelation within you that came when you were born from above, and this is real faith. To be born into the new kingdom is to be born into a new faith.”
“You must be yielded to the Word of God. The Word will work out love in our hearts, and when practical love is in our hearts, there is no room to boast about ourselves. We see ourselves as nothing when we get lost in this divine love.”
“You can never pray ‘the prayer of faith’ (James 5:15) if you look at the person who is needing it; there is only one place to look, and that is to Jesus.”
“Hard things are always opportunities to gain more glory for the Lord as He manifests His power. Every trial is a blessing. … The hardest things are just lifting places into the grace of God.”
“The Master does not want us to reason things out, for carnal reasoning will always land us in a bog of unbelief. He wants us simply to obey.”
“You must come to see how wonderful you are in God and how helpless you are in yourself.”
“May God help us to see this truth. We cannot be ‘to the praise of His glory’ (Ephesians 1:12) until we are ready for trials and are able to triumph in them.”
“God is never tightfisted with any of His blessings.”
“Jesus was manifested in the flesh to destroy the power of the devil (1 John 3:8). What does that mean? It means this: He is God’s example to show us that what God did for and in Jesus, He can do for and in us.”
“The reason the world is not seeing Jesus is that Christian people are not filled with Jesus. They are satisfied with attending meetings weekly, reading the Bible occasionally, and praying sometimes. … It is an awful thing for me to see people who profess to be Christians lifeless, powerless, and in a place where their lives are so parallel to unbelievers’ lives that it is difficult to tell which place they are in, whether in the flesh or in the Spirit.”
“There is no such thing as the Lord’s not meeting your need. There are no ifs or mays; His promises are all shalls. ‘All things are possible to him who believes’ (Mark 9:23).”
“Faith is just the open door through which the Lord comes. Do not say, ‘I was saved by faith’ or ‘I was healed by faith.’ Faith does not save and heal. God saves and heals through that open door. You believe, and the power of Christ comes.”
“I clearly see that we ought to have spiritual giants in the earth, mighty in understanding, amazing in activity, always having a wonderful testimony because of their faith-filled activity. I find instead that there are many people who perhaps have better discernment than the average believer, better knowledge of the Word the the average believer, but they have failed to put their discernment and knowledge into practice, so the gifts lie dormant.”
Serving On Sunday
May 7, 2013 — Craig T. OwensA couple of years ago a fellow Cedar Springs pastor told me about his plan for Service Sunday. His idea was to shorten his church service, so that his church could go serve in the community. I loved the idea so much that I said, “We want in on that too!”
So this past Sunday was our second year being involved with a couple of other churches in serving our community. I led a group that sang some old hymns at the Metron nursing home, others provided full service gas station attention for local motorists, others washed the windows of businesses along Main Street, others planted flowers, and on and on.
I wrote an article in last week’s Cedar Springs Post encouraging everyone to find ways to serve in our community every day (my article “Make Everyday Special” can be read by clicking here). I pray that our churches in Cedar Springs are known for their involvement in our community year-round.
These pictures courtesy of Josh Schram, Rich Tolar, and Lori Oxford Photography.
Smith Wigglesworth On Healing (book review)
May 6, 2013 — Craig T. OwensWhenever I read Smith Wigglesworth’s sermons, my faith is challenged to reach farther than it’s ever reached before! In this collection of messages entitled Smith Wigglesworth On Healing, once again I found myself wanting so much more of God!
Wigglesworth didn’t write his books, he preached them. This plumber-turned-preacher was one of the most faith-filled dynamos I’ve ever heard from. On page after page he confronted me with how much more there is to experience in my relationship with God, and then backed it up with his own personal experiences. In this particular book, the focus is on people who were physically healed (including Wigglesworth himself) from diseases which perplexed doctors. Time and again I found myself saying, “Yes! I want to see this today!”
If you want to give your faith a boost to believe God for miracles, I can think of no better preacher to read than Smith Wigglesworth.
Act Or Attitude?
May 6, 2013 — Craig T. OwensListen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Yesterday morning I showed my congregation this verse: As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another… (1 Peter 4:10 KJV). I then asked them, “What do you think of when you see the word minister in this verse?” The first answer given was “pastor.” Others said things like “encourager” and “helper.”
Then I shared that the Greek word for minister is the word from which we get deacon. I then asked them what deacon made them think of. They answered “administrator” and “leader.”
But the closest definition to what we have today for that Greek word is waiter or waitress. The NIV tries to capture this thought when it translates the same verse: Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others….
Serving is not something that comes naturally to most people, as typically we prefer to be served.
In biblical times, a disciple was always very devoted to his rabbi. The disciple would serve almost in the role of a servant to his rabbi.
Almost.
Even the rabbis didn’t requite their disciples to remove their sandals, because it was considered so menial and demeaning to the disciple. So foot washing was reserved for the lowliest of servants.
Then along comes Jesus who knows that God has placed all authority under Him (John 13:3), who uses His authority to take on the lowest of lowliest positions: a foot-washer. As He finishes washing, He says, “Now that you’ve seen Me do this, you need to do the same thing: Be the humblest of servants.”
In our culture, most people don’t need to have their feet washed when they come into your home or a restaurant, like they did in first century Israel. It is not the act that is important, but the attitude. Jesus stooped to wash His disciples’ feet. He made Himself lower than anyone else in the room. Jesus showed us that there was nothing beneath Him.
I’ve heard this before: “How do you know you have a servant’s attitude? When you don’t mind that someone treats you like a servant.”
But I think a better question might be: “Do I think anything (or anyone) is beneath me?” If I do, my attitude is not Christ-like (Philippians 2:5-7), nor is it Christ-blessable (John 13:17).
Jesus calls us to be servants—to be waiters and waitresses to others. This will show the love of Jesus like nothing else can.
Check out all of the other messages in our series Live Together by clicking here.
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Servanthood
May 5, 2013 — Craig T. Owens
This morning we wrapped up our series called Life Together—where we looked at the one another phrases in the New Testament that related to the Church—with the thought of serving one another.
I think this 1-minute video from John Maxwell captures this thought about servanthood well…
From The Personalized Promise Bible we looked at this prayer that comes from the servanthood example of Jesus in John 13:13-17—
Jesus is my Mentor and the Lord of my life. He has left me an example of the greatest servitude the world has ever known. I will do as he did and wash the feet of my brothers and sisters in Christ. I will see the real good and benefit of others through humble service. With a tender heart of compassion, I will take the time to do good to those around me. Through this generosity of service and willingness to give of myself to others, no matter how humbling the service may be, I store up for myself favor upon favor, and blessing upon blessing.
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