Thursdays With Oswald—Stop Doing That!

September 15, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This 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.

Stop Doing That!

     Deliverance from sin is not the same as deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, that the saint can only destroy through sheer neglect. But there are other things that have to be destroyed through violence, that is, through God’s divine strength imparted by His Spirit. … We can either turn back, making ourselves of no value to the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things, allowing Jesus to bring another son to glory.

From My Utmost For His Highest

I’m usually pretty good at making To-Do lists. But how am I at making Don’t-Do lists?

I need find those things that are holding me back, and deliberately destroy them—totally neglect them, and let them die from starvation. Doing has a certain power in my spiritual growth, but not doing can have an equal power as well.

“The average human being in any line of work could double his productive [or spiritual] capacity overnight if he began right now to do all the things he knows he should do, and to stop doing all the things he knows he should not do.” —Elmer G. Letterman

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What Are These?

September 14, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

What happens when you read the Bible? Do you just read it, or do you ask questions of it? Some people seem hesitant to ask any questions, but the Bible itself is full of questions.

Zechariah was a prophet in the Old testament. If anyone would have been familiar with God’s Law, it would have been this guy. He grew up as a P.K. (priest’s kid), with several generations of religious leaders in his family tree. Yet as he was being shown the word of the Lord, he realizes how special it is, and wants to make sure he fully grasps it. So he fires away with the questions:

  • What are these?
  • What are these coming to do?
  • Where are you going? 
  • What is it? 
  • Where are they taking it?

The Word of God is living, active, and powerful. I should inquiry of it: what does this mean?

The same Holy Spirit that inspired the biblical writers is the same Holy Spirit Who will illuminate your mind to understand it.

All you have to do is ask!

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The Danger Of Nothing

September 13, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

I know they’re out there, but I personally have never met someone who said, “I once followed God, but I have now decided to stop following Him. I’m doing my own thing now, and God has nothing to do with me.”

No, it’s usually a gradual drift away from God, not a deliberate decision. But the sad part of this is: most of these people still think they are following Him.

How does this happen? The prophet Zephaniah has an interesting take. He said that people drifted away because they did nothing. Check this out:

  • They do not seek the Lord
  • They do not inquire of Him
  • They are complacent 
  • They sit still in their sin
  • They think God isn’t doing anything

The remedy: action!

  • Seek the Lord
  • Do what He commands
  • Seek righteousness
  • Seek humility

Doing nothing is dangerous. You may drift away from God and not even realize it.

Get busy … stay active … stay close to Him!

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Inventive Faith

September 12, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

I love the story of the four friends who wanted to get their sick companion in to see Jesus. They had heard about Jesus healing others, and they believed that He would heal their friend too. But when they arrived at the house where Jesus was, they found it packed with people, and the doors and windows blocked by crowds who also wanted to see and hear Jesus. So these four friends made an appointment with one of Jesus’ disciples to come back at a more convenient time.

Ummm, not so much!

These guys were so convinced that Jesus could heal their friend, that they didn’t let crowds stop them. They climbed up on top of the house, ripped off some of the roof tiles, and lowered their friend down to Jesus. I love their inventive faith!

How many times do circumstances stop me?

  • there were too many people
  • or not enough people
  • they seemed busy
  • they seemed uninterested
  • it was raining

Oh, so many flimsy excuses that seem to derail my faith!

I love this thought from Charles Spurgeon:

“Faith is full of inventions. The world is constantly inventing; genius serves all the purposes of human desire: cannot faith invent too, and reach by some new means the outcasts who lie perishing around us?

“…Through door, through window, or through roof, let us, breaking through all impediments, labor to bring poor souls to Jesus. All means are good and decorous when faith and love are truly set on winning souls. If hunger for bread can break through stone walls, surely hunger for souls is not to be hindered in its efforts. O Lord, make us quick to suggest methods of reaching thy poor sin-sick ones, and bold to carry them out at all hazards.”

How much more inventive can your faith be?

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United

September 9, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

These are the pastors of the Cedar Springs Ministerial Association praying together before our UNITED service. We truly are united. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful group of colleagues who will put aside any denominational differences, to simply focus on winning people for Christ!

How good and pleasant it is when brothers [and sisters] live together in unity! (Psalm 133:1)

I hope other pastors can learn from this group and experience the blessing of being united.

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Thursdays With Oswald—Beautiful Grapes

September 8, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This 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.

Beautiful Grapes

     If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God’s purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us. Our spiritual life cannot be measured by success as the world measures it, but only by what God pours through us—and we cannot measure that at all.

From My Utmost For His Highest

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

The Holy Spirit wants to bring to maturity ALL of these fruit in my life. Not so that I can pat myself on my back and say, “Look at how fruitful I am!” But so that God may squeeze me out where He needs me.

So I’m pondering…

  • Am I allowing the Holy Spirit to develop this fruit in me?
  • When I am fruitful, am I allowing God to squeeze me? Or do I run from it?
  • What good is to be a Christian without bearing fruit?
  • What good is it to have the fruit but not let God squeeze it?

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More Amateurs Needed

September 7, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

Did you know that the origin of the word clergy comes from the Latin meaning “learned men”? These are the men and women who are supposed to lead our churches, because they have the education that others don’t. They are professionals.

Now compare that with the definition of laity: “the people outside of a particular profession, as distinguished from those belonging to it.”

Did you catch that? The laity are outside and uneducated. They are amateurs.

The origins of clergy is traced back to the 12th century, and laity first appears in the 16th century. But long before this, the Apostle Paul had a different idea —

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? (1 Corinthians 1:26-28 from The Message, emphasis added)

There is a HUGE PROBLEM when we think that only the professional clergy is equipped to do the ministry of the church! What makes a healthy church (like the first century church we read about in the book of Acts) is when EVERYONE is actively involved in ministry.

These words from Howard Hendricks are tough to hear, but right on target:

“I believe a great problem in evangelicalism today—whether in the local church, missions, seminary education, or what have you—is we have too many big-time operators! And too few servants. … 

“The typical church hires a clergyman to rob them of the privilege of exercising Christ’s gifts. … The greatest curse on the Church today is that we are expecting a small group of professionals to get God’s work done.”

I hope I haven’t stepped on too many toes with this one. My intent is not to offend, but to get the church thinking. I want to see EVERYONE that calls themselves a Christian actively involved in ministry.

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New Habits

September 6, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

Do you have any habits? I’ll bet you have more of them that you realize! In fact, most of our day is made up of habitual things: same wakeup time, same morning routine, same route to work of school, same lunch choices, same way of thinking, same way of coping with stress, and so on.

For many families, a new school year begins today. Even if you don’t have school-aged children, the Tuesday following Labor Day is sort of the (un)official start of the fall season. And it’s a good time to take a look at your habits.

“Take your mind out every now and then and dance on it. It is getting all caked up.” —Mark Twain

Good advice! We usually learn things through four stages:

  • Unconscious incompetence: we’re no good at something, but we don’t even realize it.
  • Conscious incompetence: we realize something must change, but we’re still no good at it.
  • Conscious competence: we’ve learned something, and now we’re good at, but we have to think about it a lot.
  • Unconscious competence: we’ve become proficient at something, and we don’t have to think about it any longer.

The problem is with both of our unconscious zones. Unless we pull out our habits and look at them every once in awhile, we may never know what’s holding us back.

QUESTION: What new habits are you going to try to make/break this fall?

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Thursdays With Oswald—Don’t Live In The Past

September 1, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This 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.

Don’t Live In The Past

     The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the prideful self-satisfaction of a past experience, but is not working that experience out in his everyday life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it shows in your life.

From My Utmost For His Highest

“I remember when…”

“Wasn’t it wonderful when God…”

“That retreat / missions trip / revival service was so meaningful…”

Although they were wonderful and meaningful, I cannot live on these past experiences. If what took place in the past still seems like the most wonderful thing that God ever did in my life, I haven’t grown very much.

God’s mercies are new every morning. And my experiences with him should be new every morning too. In fact, they shouldn’t even become one-time experiences with God, but daily encounters with Him.

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Love Serving

August 31, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

Whenever you are able, do good to people who need help. (Proverbs 3:27)

I’ve found that it is a lot easier to do good to people when I love them. And the more I love them, the more I enjoy helping them. It’s not an imposition or a task. It’s a joy to serve.

Around Calvary Assembly of God, we have a simple statement: We ♥ Cedar Springs!

Because we love our city, we are happy to do good whenever and however we can.

Yesterday we pulled on our waders, took a generous supply of trash bags, and even secured a couple of trash grabbers so we could participate in the Cedar Creek Cleanup. We sloshed through the creek, and up and down the banks on each side, and found all sorts of interesting things. When we were done, we were wet and muddy (and probably didn’t smell too great, since creek water is not usually a favorite cologne/perfume scent!), but we were also happy. No one was complaining, because we were excited to serve.

Not only do we ♥ Cedar Springs, but—as I may have mentioned a few times before—I ♥ My Church! And I ♥ that they ♥ to serve our community. We are always on the look out for more opportunities to show the love of Jesus as we do good to others.

If you’d like to see some more pictures from our fun day of service, click here to go to Flickr.

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