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When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan. For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the One Who was crucified. I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling. And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)
I only want Jesus lifted up; not me.
As Your Spirit gives me words to share, may people turn to You; not me.
May anyone who hears me desire more of You; not me.
May my messages create a hunger and thirst for You; not me.
I want people to find encouragement in You; not me.
May I find my strength to minister in You; not in me.
May people only follow You; not me.
May everyone who hears me be impressed with You; not me.
“Simply, according to God, marriage and sex are related, connected, and exclusive.”
“The cold hard truth is that most guys’ struggles are only known by their fellow Christian buddies and unless Christian dudes man up and stop arguing about stupid secondary theological issues and spend their energies holding one another accountable to get dominion over their underwear, then Christian friendship is nothing more than Christian fakery.”
“The act of lusting after the unclothed body of a woman is not a sin. The issue is which woman’s unclothed body you are lusting after. If she is your bride, then you are simply making the Song of Songs sing again to God’s glory and your joy. If she is not your bride, then you are simply sinning. It was God who clothed our mother Eve after her sin, and it is Eve’s daughters who undress themselves for themselves for the camera in violation of God’s desire that the female bodies he formed be seen only in their full glory by their husbands.”
“Pornography has the sad effect of objectifying people into objects with parts, thereby divorcing a person from their body and consequently diminishing their dignity.”
“The Bible is emphatically clear that God’s men should abstain from certain sins that war against their souls. First, God’s men should not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14). Second, God’s men should not covet their neighbor’s wife, even if her clothes leave little to the imagination (Exodus 20:17). Third, God’s men should not participate with prostitutes who use their bodies as a commodity to be rented for a good time or a good photo (Proverbs 23:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:15-16). Fourth, God’s men should not be polygamous, because their father Adam and Head Jesus each had one bride (Eve and the Church). Fifth, God’s men should not be fornicators who slide their hands, which God made to lift up in prayer (1 Timothy 2:8), up the shirt of their girlfriend, even if she asks (1 Corinthians 6:9-13).”
“Eve may or may not have been beautiful, but to Adam she was glorious because she was all he had ever known. Practically, he had no standard of beauty to compare his bride to—she was his only standard of beauty. In creation, we see the wise pattern that for every man his standard of beauty is not to be objectified, but rather it should simply be his wife. This means that if a man has a tall, skinny red-headed wife then that is sexy for him, and if his neighbor has a short, curvy brunette wife than that is sexy for him. Pornographic lust exists to elicit coveting and dissatisfaction that no woman can satisfy because she cannot be tall and short, endowed and waifish, black and white, young and old, like the harem laid out in pornography.”
Obvious statement #1:Church ministry is not lone ranger work.
I needed to state that not only as a reminder to myself, but to my other pastor friends too. It seems like we can often lose sight of this fact. We can become so focused on the next sermon, the next appointment, the next Board meeting, the next outreach that we are actually worshiping the ministry instead of worshiping God through our ministry.
Oswald Chambers gave this warning:
“Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. … A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. … Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God’s blessing cannot rest on him.”
When we are more focused on the work than on God, we can easily begin to feel over-worked and under-appreciated. And this usually leads to us either bearing down to work harder or to simply throwing in the towel.
There is a healthy alternative: link arms with The Co-Worker—
“Walk with me and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:29, The Message)
Link with The Co-Worker, and then you will do ministry out of the overflow of your personal worship. Remember, you are a co-worker, not a solo-worker.
Obvious statement #2:Church ministry is not just for the pastor.
Church member, you too are a co-worker with Christ. And with your pastor.
Allow me to paraphrase a quote from President Dwight Eisenhower:
“Never let yourself be persuaded that one [pastor] is necessary to the salvation of America. When [the Church] consists of one leader and [a bunch of] followers, it will no longer be [the Church].”
The Church is a beautiful thing! It functions best when:
Pastor and church member are both linked with Christ
Twice in Romans 7, the Apostle Paul uses the phrase “but sin, seizing the opportunity” (vv. 8, 11).
Sin always seizes any opportunity it gets. The devil always prowls around looking for an opportunity to tempt and destroy. And my flesh is always only too eager to give in to the pull of sin and the devil (v. 25).
If we want victory over sin and the devil, we have to be AWARE and be PREPARED.
“When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left Jesus until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13).
The devil will bide his time.
“…satan has asked to sift you as wheat…” (Luke 22:31).
It’s not always the big shakings that will cause us to sin, but the little siftings can wear us down.
“Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith…” (1 Peter 5:8-9).
“Keep awake and watch and pray constantly, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38).
If you haven’t been tempted lately, or if you’ve recently overcome a temptation, stay humble. “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:12).
And then stay ready: “Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11).
A warrior in a combat zone never has a single day he is without his armor.
We finished The Q Series yesterday morning, but I hope the questions keep on coming. I always love answering questions, and doing it in the open forum like we did was both challenging and fun (at least I had a good time!).
But I also encouraged the Calvary Assembly of God family to keep on asking questions. It’s fine if the questions are directed to me, but the most important questions are the ones we ask of ourselves.
The Holy Spirit makes all of our lives a work-in-progress. This is what is called sanctification. That word really means to make a saint out of us (think of it as saint-ification).
That means He will constantly challenge us with questions that we are wise to answer. Things like:
Why are you thinking that?
What does the Bible say about that?
Is doing that for your comfort or for God’s glory?
Is that the wise thing to do?
How would Jesus handle that situation?
Over time the answers to these questions will change, as we should all be growing up in our relationship with God (1 Corinthians 13:11; Ephesians 4:15).
The Apostle Paul tells us that we should take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5), because our minds will either be set on natural desires or set on spiritual truths (Romans 8:5).
So don’t tune out the Holy Spirit. Don’t stop asking those maturing questions. Don’t stop growing in your relationship with your Heavenly Father.
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.
The New Thinking Of Pentecost
Everywhere the charge is made against Christian people, not only the generality of Christians, but really spiritual people, that they think in a very slovenly manner. Very few of us in this present dispensation live up to the privilege of thinking spiritually as we ought. This present dispensation is the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. The majority of us do not think according to the tremendous meaning of that; we think ante-Pentecostal thoughts, the Holy Spirit is not a living factor in our thinking; we have only a vague impression that He is here. Many Christian workers would question the statement that we should ask for the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13). The note struck in the New Testament is not ‘Believe in the Holy Spirit,’ but ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ That does not mean the Holy Spirit is not here; it means He is here in all His power, for one purpose, that men who believe in Him might receive Him. So the first thing we have to face is the reception of the Holy Spirit in a practical conscious manner. …
So as Christians we have to ask ourselves, does our faith stand ‘in demonstration of the Spirit and of power’? Have we linked ourselves up with the power of the Holy Spirit, and are we letting Him have His way in our thinking?
There are two dangerous extremes: (1) We can become so intellectual, that we never ask for the Holy Spirit’s help, or (2) We can become so “spiritual” that we ignore the development of our intellect.
I believe the proper balance is a both-and approach.
In the Old Testament, David asked for the Holy Spirit to search his heart and thoughts (Psalm 139:23-24).
Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth (John 16:13), and that He would help us to recall the things we have heard from Christ (John 14:26).
The apostle Paul talked about the Holy Spirit searching our mind and revealing God’s mind to us (1 Corinthians 2:10-16).
All of these speak of a partnership. We have to do our part AND we have to listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice. And from personal experience, I’ve found that I think much more clearly and thoroughly when I listen to the Holy Spirit!
As I am preparing my message for each Sunday, I have one point that I want everyone to have clear in their hearts and minds when they leave. It’s sort of my “finish line.” I say, “If they get only one thing from this message, what should it be?” This is the part where I spend quite a bit of time.
Then I read this from the Apostle Paul:
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:1-2)
So what’s my point?
Something clever and witty?
Something that shows how eloquent I am?
Perhaps another rule to follow?
Or another application to make?
Oswald Chambers says, “To say that we are called to preach holiness or sanctification is to miss the main point. We are called to proclaim Jesus Christ….” (emphasis mine)
My point should be only this:
To help people see Jesus more clearly.
Anything less than this is to miss the point.
Anything more than this is attempting to make myself sound eloquent.
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.
Seeing Sin As Sin
Knowledge of what sin is is in inverse ratio to its presence; only as sin goes do you realize what it is; when it is present you do not realize what it is because the nature of sin is that it destroys the capacity to know you sin. …
To ‘crucify’ means to put to death, not counteract, not sit on, not whitewash, but kill. If I do not put to death the things in me which are not of God, they will put to death the things that are of God.
Romans 7 tells me that there are two forces at work in my life: God and sin. This is a battle to the death! So, if I think I am standing firm, that’s the exact time to watch out (see 1 Corinthians 10:12).
God never turns away the one who prays to Him, “Be merciful to me, a sinner.” But He turns a deaf ear to the one that claims, “I’m alright.”
May I always be VERY sensitive to even the hint of sin in my heart.
“We have to treat the body as the servant of Jesus Christ: when the body says ‘Sit,’ and He says ‘Go,’ go! When the body says ‘Eat,’ and He says ‘Fast,’ fast! When the body says ‘Yawn,’ and He says ‘Pray,’ pray!”
I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (1 Corinthians 9:26-27)
Wow! Time for me to redouble my efforts to Go, Fast, and Pray.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
In probably the best-known prayer, the one Jesus taught us to pray, there is a line I have breezed past way too many times without thinking more about it. It says, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13).
This prayer is addressed to our Heavenly Father, the One Who is all-loving and all-powerful. God loves us and He gives us His power. Even power to defeat temptation.
Sometimes we have to battle the same temptation again and again and again. Perhaps we have seen that we are overcoming that temptation more times than we’re being overcome by it; perhaps not. Sometimes it’s a totally new temptation that sneaks up on us each time. In either case, God knows what temptation we are going to face.
This line of the prayer is really saying, “God, please don’t bring me into battle with a temptation I’m not ready to face. Help me to be ready to overcome that temptation when it comes” (see 1 Corinthians 10:13; James 1:13-17).
NEWS FLASH—Instead of waiting to pray for help until I’m facing a temptation (a reactive prayer), I can pray for God’s help before I even face the temptation (a proactive prayer).
In my mind, proactive is way better than reactive!
Check out what John Bunyan learned about this—
“…I did not, when I was delivered from the temptation that went before, still pray to God to keep me from the temptations that were to come; for though, as I can say in truth, my soul was much in prayer before this trial seized me, yet then I prayed only, or at the most principally, for the removal of present troubles, and for fresh discoveries of His love in Christ, which I saw afterwards was not enough to do; I also should have prayed that the great God would keep me from the evil that was to come. … This I had not done, and therefore was thus suffered to sin and fall, according to what is written, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And truly this very thing is to this day of such weight and awe upon me, that I dare not, when I come before the Lord, go off my knees, until I entreat Him for help and mercy against the temptations that are to come; and I do beseech thee, reader, that thou learn to beware of my negligence, by the afflictions, that for this thing I did for days, and months, and years, with sorrow undergo.”
What would happen if the next time you are facing a temptation you could say, “Hello, temptation! I’ve already prayed about you, and my Heavenly Father has already given me strength to defeat you”? Don’t you think you would be much more successful? I do!
When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan. For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the One Who was crucified. I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling. And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)
Craig T. Owens 