I am so excited to invite you to a special night of worship. Dilip is a great friend of mine, and an incredibly gifted musician and song writer. His debut CD The Great Reversal will be released soon, and you are going to have a chance to hear these songs live!
Dilip will be presenting music from his album, and other worship songs, as we join together for a night of worship.
Friday, October 28 at 7pm
You will love his music, but you will especially appreciate his heart for worship. This is going to be an incredible night! Friday, October 28, at 7pm at Calvary Assembly of God.
Do you have plans for this weekend? If you’re around Cedar Springs this weekend, let me suggest a few great things you might be able to do:
1. Take a bag (or two) of groceries to North Kent Community Services. This is the last week of the county-wide food drive. Your food donation will help two food pantries right here in Cedar Springs.
2. Go see Courageous. The movie had a great opening weekend because it is a great movie!
3. Come to Calvary Assembly of God on Sunday morning. We’re starting a new series called Total Freedom, exploring the incredible freedom that comes through forgiveness. I cannot wait to experience this freedom with you on Sunday.
Charles II had a slight problem with unforgiveness
A couple of weeks ago I asked our church a simple question. So let me ask you the same thing: Anyone ever not been burned by someone, taken advantage of, or hurt by somebody else? Anyone? I didn’t think so. We’ve all been hurt, but the real issue is what we do with those hurts.
In January 1647, Oliver Cromwell captured King Charles I during the British Revolution. But a few months later, Charles escaped and managed to raise another army. In August 1648 Cromwell’s army defeated Charles’ army and once again Charles was taken prisoner. Cromwell had Charles tried for his crimes, and after the guilty verdict was issued, Charles I was executed. A total of 59 people signed his death warrant.
Eleven years later Cromwell’s son Richard had taken his place as Lord Protector of England, and there was great discontent with his leadership. As a result, the Loyalists were able to sweep Charles II into power. Charles II wanted the 59 death warrant signors put on trial, but 15 of them had already died. Charles II ordered their bodies exhumed, placed on trial, convicted, and then hung.
I’m no psychologist, but I think it’s safe to say that Charles II might have had a problem with unforgiveness!
It’s highly unlikely that you have dug up any dead bodies and put them on trial lately.
Or maybe you have…
When someone has hurt us, we tend to keep the pain alive. Sometimes even after that person is long-gone from our life, we still exhume the corpse of their injury, put them on trial, convict them, and punish them all over again. But this process is actually punishing YOU. As long as you keep the hurt alive, you are trapped in the past.
The key to freedom is easy and yet hard: forgiveness.
On Sunday I was answering questions that our congregation submitted, but we ran out of time. So I’m attempting to answer all of the questions. I thought this one might be worthy of some further conversation.
Another question that we didn’t get to in Sunday’s Q Series: Does it matter the genre of Christian music to be considered glorifying God?
I think music has been one of the most dividing factors in our churches. I think this is so because satan knows the power of music. (I believe that lucifer may have been the “worship leader” in Heaven before he rebelled and was cast out, but that’s a topic to cover another time.)
We don’t really know what the music in the Bible sounded like. We don’t have any of David’s musical scores, but we do have his lyrics preserved for us in the Psalms. And what heart-moving, God-focusing lyrics they are!
The bottom line is that musical notes or musical instruments are not “Christian” or “non-Christian.” They are tools. And those tools can be used to either glorify God or detract from God. The lyrics, on the other hand, are easy to hold up to a biblical standard. So although a style/genre of music may not be my favorite, I need to look through that to two things: (1) the lyrics—do they glorify God? and (2) the attitude of the singers/musicians—are they merely performing or are they exalting God?
I can speak personally for the worship team at Calvary Assembly of God. These talented musicians and singers truly have a heart for God. They only want Jesus to be seen every single time they are on the platform. So we carefully pick our music with the goal of only exalting our King. Sometimes they are modern choruses, sometimes they are traditional hymns, sometimes they are hymns slightly rearranged with a more modern feel. Whatever the genre, we only want God to be seen and heard and exalted in our musical selections.
I love questions! Jesus seemed to love them too. Take a quick scan through the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and you will see ?s all throughout the biblical text.
Over the next two Sundays, I am turning over the decision of what topics to cover on Sunday mornings to my Calvary Assembly of God family. In The Q Series, they get to submit the questions. I hope you can join us.
If not, feel free to submit your question(s) on Twitter, via email, or in the comment section below. I will be sure to answer it here, and—who knows—I may even use it in The Q Series too!
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.
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.
God told Adam and Eve that they needed to take care of the environment in which He placed them. And that directive is still in place for us today: We are to be caretakers of this amazing planet.
And as Christians, we should be excellent caretakers.
The City of Cedar Springs recently received a grant to help with some waterway cleanup. So I am very excited that a group from Calvary Assembly of God is going to be involved in the Cedar Creek Cleanup project on August 30.
This is another way for us to show our love for our community, and to live out our biblical values. I’m always so appreciative of the way this group wants to jump into any of these community projects. If I haven’t said it lately, let me repeat it loud and clear—
Have you ever been disappointed because you had a dream that died? How do we justify this with the biblical definition of faith which says, “faith is being sure of what we hope for”?
It’s just this:
If God takes away a dream, it’s because the dream was too small.
God wants us to be more focused on the Dream Giver than we are on the dream.
So sometimes God asks us to let a dream die.
Think of a watermelon seed. It’s not very big, sort of dull in color, and it’s only a single seed. To plant the seed, means you have to take your hands off it: the seed is now out of your sight and out of your control. But it is there—dead in the ground—that a miracle happens!
A single watermelon seed grows 200,000 times its own weight! A colorless seed produces the vibrant greens and pinks of a mature watermelon. And that single seed produces 100+ seeds.
Has God given you a dream? Has He asked you to give up that dream? Then plant that seed! When you do, the results will be more than you can imagine.
“Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of faith is to see what we believe.” —Augustine
These are some of my notes from part 3 of my See The Invisible series at Calvary Assembly of God. I would love to have you join me when we continue this series on September 4.
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. … Faith is not allowed to justify itself by argument.”
I wholeheartedly—and even respectfully—disagree.
The Bible does define faith as “Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Just a few verses later there is an even stronger statement about faith: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”
I have evaluated the evidence. I have thought long and hard about the options. I can justify all of the arguments. And my faith stands strong!
God wants all who call on Him to grow in God-pleasing faith. So I’m really excited to dive into our brand new series called SEE THE INVISIBLE this Sunday.
Yesterday at Calvary Assembly of God, we continued our series called In It Not Of It, in which we are considering how to biblically engage our culture. In alarmingly high numbers, more and more people have thoughts that are positively unChristian toward those who call themselves Christian.
How do we undo this cultural bias? I think we have to be people of overwhelming grace.
Being grace-filled people is the only way I can see for us to unDo the unChristian mindset. To see how Jesus did this, see His interaction with a particular woman in John 8:2-11.
The Apostle Paul also gave us a good example of grace-filled living. In his letter to the Romans, Paul says he is indebted to all mankind, which makes him eager to preach the Gospel (Romans 1:14-15). I love Oswald Chambers’ commentary on these verses:
“Paul was overwhelmed with the sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent his life to express it. The greatest inspiration in Paul’s life was his view of Jesus Christ as his spiritual creditor. Do I feel that same sense of indebtedness to Christ regardingEVERYunsaved soul? As a saint, my life’s spiritual honor and duty is to fulfill my debt to Christ in relation to these lost souls. Every tiny bit of my life that has value I owe to the redemption of Jesus Christ. Am I doing anything to enable Him to bring His redemption into evident reality in the lives of others? I will only be able to do this as the Spirit of God works into me this sense of indebtedness. …
“Quit praying about yourself and spend your life for the sake of others as the bondservant of Jesus. This is the true meaning of being broken bread and poured-out wineIN REAL LIFE.”
I am committed to living a life of overwhelming grace poured out for EVERY unsaved soul. And I am SO BLESSED to be able to pastor a church that feels and acts the same way! We’re not going to be passive reactionaries to the unChristian cultural bias … we’re going to liveIN REAL LIFE as proactive, grace-filled people, so that we can unDo unChristian!
I am so excited to invite you to a special night of worship. Dilip is a great friend of mine, and an incredibly gifted musician and song writer. His debut CD The Great Reversal will be released soon, and you are going to have a chance to hear these songs live!
