Run To The Pain

April 29, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

We have become a numbed culture: we try to soften every blow, water down each negative report, ask only surface questions in the hopes that no one will really tell us how much they’re hurting, and then medicate away every symptom. But these symptoms are screaming to be noticed!

Dr. Paul Brand the renown hand surgeon and missionary to leprosy patients in India, wrote:

     “Pain contributes daily to a normal person’s quality of life…. Every normal person limps occasionally. Sadly, leprosy patients do not limp. Their injured legs never get the rest needed for healing…. This inability to ‘hear’ pain can cause permanent damage because the body’s careful responses to danger will break down. … A body only possesses unity to the degree that it possesses pain…. We must develop a lower threshold of pain by listening, truly listening, to those who suffer. … The body protects poorly what it does not feel.” —Dr. Paul Brand & Philip Yancey, In His Image

The Gospels often talk of the compassion of Jesus. His compassion led Him to teach the confused, feed the hungry, and heal the sick. The phrase usually used in the NKJV is descriptive: Jesus was moved with compassion. In other words His feelings moved Him to action.

The Old English way of describing compassion was to say someone was “moved in his bowels.” This is because when someone else is suffering it should be like a kick in my gut too.

Jesus gravitated toward the hurting, but in one story He told, Jesus related something different about His Father’s compassion. It’s the story we now call the story of the prodigal son. In this story Jesus said His Father watched the horizons every day to see if His wayward child would return. When He saw this child coming into view, God saw his slumped shoulders, He could detect his heavy heart and worn-out body. Then Jesus says something amazing, “The Father was moved with compassion and He RAN TO HIS SON!”

If our Heavenly Father runs TO another’s pain, what right do we have to ever run AWAY from it? 

If we are to be God-honoring in our interaction with others, we need to—as Dr. Brand says—lower our threshold of pain. We need to feel what others feel, to feel it like a kick in our own gut, and then move toward the pain with help and healing and restoration.

Christians—if we are truly Christ-like—should be known as the most compassionate people of anyone.

So we need to always be asking: What am I doing to let this compassion be seen in my life?

Check out all of the other messages in our series Live Together by clicking here.

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials. ◀︎◀︎

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Embracing Conflict

April 22, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

A quick survey: Please raise your hand if any of these pertain to you:

  • Have you ever had a disagreement with someone?
  • Have you had a disagreement with someone you love?
  • Have you had a disagreement with someone you love, who also called themself a Christian?

If you raised your hand, you joined 100% of my congregation who answered “yes” to all three.

When we are in close proximity to anyone, there will be conflict. In fact, close proximity usually leads to more conflict because closeness increases friction. For a Christian the issue is not if we will have conflict with others in the Church, but how will we navigate and resolve these conflicts.

The apostle Paul wrote a thank you letter to the church at Philippi, in which he speaks in some of the most glowingly loving terms of any of his letters. Clearly, this was a group of people close to his heart. So when he heard about a conflict between two ladies in this congregation, he took time to address it publicly in his letter—

I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. (Philippians 4:2)

We don’t know why these ladies were arguing but notice that Paul doesn’t take sides. He simply says, “I please with Euodia AND I plead with Syntyche.” The word for plead means someone who comes alongside to help. In using this terminology, Paul gives us an important principle:

We can come alongside those in conflict without taking sides with either one of those in conflict.

In the next verse, Paul implores the rest of the church to join him in this alongsided-ness—

And I exhort you too, my genuine yokefellow, help these two women to keep on cooperating…. (v. 3 in the Amplified Bible)

In other words, Paul wants the rest of the church to embrace these at-odds sisters, also without taking sides. He addresses the members of the church as yokefellow. It’s not a word we use too often today (although it is still in the dictionary), but it paints a crystal clear picture of our role. Here’s what we CAN’T do as yokefellow:

  • Look away
  • Mind our own business
  • Hope the situation will work itself out
  • Try to navigate around the problem

Instead, we embrace the conflict by embracing those in the conflict. We help them to cooperate and to work in harmony in the Lord (v. 2 in the Amplified Bible). It’s our responsibility to help maintain the bonds of peace so that the Body of Christ can grow in a way that is healthy and God-honoring.

Do you know someone in conflict right now? Are you in the conflict yourself? Ask God to show you how you can come alongside—not take sides—with those in this conflict so that you can help bring about peace.

If you have missed any messages in this series called Life Together, you can find them all by clicking here.

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials, like a map and an app I just shared to help with your personal Bible study time. ◀︎◀︎

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Growing Pains

April 15, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

I remember when I was a teenager having such an ache in my legs at night. I’d be laying on my bed trying to sleep, but I couldn’t get comfortable because of that dull, unrelenting ache in my legs. I’d go ask my Mom what was going on, and her reply was simple: “Those are growing pains.”

In order to grow in any area of our lives—physically, emotionally, mentally, relationally—we have to go through a certain amount of pain.

No pain, no gain.

The process is not always a lot of fun, but that’s why we have to keep our eyes on the goal. The process may not be something we like, but the end results will make the pain worth it.

For instance, you may not like dieting but you like the weight loss or lower cholesterol numbers, so you stick with it. You may not like saying, “I’m sorry, I was wrong, please forgive me” but you like the healed relationship, so you say it.

Throughout the New Testament the phrase one another is frequently used to address how members of the Body of Christ should relate to each other. God desires that all of us operate interdependently with one another. In order to get there, we must get ready for some growing pains!

In Ephesians 4:2, Paul tells us what is required to get to a place of unity and maturity in the Church:

  • Be completely humble (the King James Version says lowliness). This Greek word means not letting our thoughts rise far from the ground. In other words, we are thinking of ourselves as God thinks of us, not independently as a self-made man or woman, but viewing all of my success as God-appointed. This process toward interdependence starts in our thoughts—in our attitudes about ourselves and about others.
  • Gentle means strength under control. Gentleness says, “I could do this, but for your sake I won’t.”
  • Patient interaction (KJV: longsuffering) with others is allowing them the freedom to grow just as others allowed me the freedom to grow.
  • Bearing with one another in love. Think of a load-bearing wall in a building that is holding up the weight of the roof and walls. When we bear with one another we are helping to share the burdens.

Being humble with ourselves and gentle and patient with others is the way we go through the growing pains of bearing with one another in love. The process may not be a lot of fun, but the end result is something that glorifies God, that’s why we must stick with one another through all our growing pains.

Check out all of the other messages in our series Live Together by clicking here.

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials. ◀︎◀︎

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Responding To The Voice

March 4, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

FlatlandIn 1880, Edwin A. Abbott wrote Flatland, a book that would later become a favorite of Albert Einstein. Abbott was a college-trained mathematician and a theologian; in fact he was actually better known for his theological writings than for Flatland. Later on Einstein would say that “things should be made as simple as possible, not simpler.” In other words, don’t dumb-down the concept, but state it on a level where more people can grasp it. That’s why, I believe, Einstein loved Flatland.

Flatland is told through the eyes of Square, a two-dimensional shape that lives in Flatland. Square has length and width, but no height. So the inhabitants of Flatland can move back-and-forth, and side-to-side, but not up-and-down. To get an idea of this, put your eye right on the level of a tabletop, and look at an item on the table. Imagine you can only see what is touching the tabletop (but nothing that rises any higher or lower than that), and you will get an idea of Square’s two-dimensional world.

One day Sphere visits Flatland. Sphere is three-dimensional, so he can move up-and-down. This means that Square can only see the part of Sphere that happens to be in his line of sight at that immediate moment. So he sees just a “slice” or “layer” of Sphere as Sphere moves through Flatland. Sometimes Sphere is nothing more than a disembodied voice when he is hovering above Flatland.

This gives us a little bit of an idea of how we perceive God. He exists in dimensions that we cannot fully comprehend, so we only see “slices” of Him as He passes though our line of sight. Sometimes He is just a disembodied Voice—or as the Bible calls Him, the Word of God.

But the Word of God compressed Himself into our dimension (John 1:14). All of the fullness—all of the other-dimension-ness—of His omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience came to our “level” in the Person of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:6-7). The Word was the complete and total fullness of God (John 1:1-3; Colossians 2:9). But unlike Square who couldn’t fully know Sphere, God is fully knowable in The Word—in Jesus Christ!

The question is: What are you going to do with The Word? The Word of God (the Bible) allows us to fully know The Word of God (Jesus). But we need to be willing to let the Holy Spirit strip away our puny, smaller-dimensioned, finite thinking of God.

Alvin TofflerAlvin Toffler wrote, “The illiterate of the future are not those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

I would modify this to say, “Those illiterate of The Word (Jesus) are not those who cannot read The Word (the Bible), but those who won’t let the Holy Spirit help them learn, unlearn, and relearn who God is.” 

There is so much more to learn about The Word (Jesus), so let the Holy Spirit guide you in your reading of The Word (the Bible). I pray as Paul did that you will begin to experience more of the multi-dimensional-ness of God as revealed in The Word—

I pray that out of God’s glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)

If you have missed any of the messages in this series called Who Is Jesus?, you can find them all here.

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Who Is Jesus?

February 27, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

JesusSome call Him Savior. Some call Him a moral teacher. Some call Him a prophet. Some only call His name as a curse word. Regardless of what people call Him, Jesus is almost universally known.

Despite what people call Him, and as much as people claim to know about Jesus, there are still so many questions that swirl around—

  • Who is this Man?
  • How can someone be both God and Man at the same time?
  • Did Jesus just show up in Bethlehem, or was He around earlier?
  • Was He really perfect? Could He really live His whole life without sinning once?
  • How could He die and yet come back to life?
  • Better yet: why did He have to die at all?
  • Does it really matter whether or not He was resurrected from the dead?

As we approach this Easter season, more and more people’s thoughts will be turning toward this Man. Please join me as we consider this simple, yet profound question: Who Is Jesus? The answer to that one simple question will be life-changing!

Check out all of the sermons in this series:

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Love Is… (part 2)

February 18, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Love is… worksheet 2We are taking a practical look at the incredible definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13. We’re doing this in the context of learning how to love the “unloveable”—or maybe I should say, loving those who are the most resistant to real love. If we can show them love, how much more will the love of Jesus be seen!

All of these verbs are present tense verbs. That means they aren’t exhausted in the past, and they aren’t waiting for future conditions to improve—they are in operation NOW.

Far too many people know Christians more by what we’re against than by what we’re for. So where the biblical text say “love does not” or “love isn’t,” I’ve changed it into the positive “love is.”

You can read about the first five attributes love love by clicking here.

The next five attributes are:

Love is graceful

  • The root word means something that should be covered up, or something we’re ashamed of. Because our words and actions are graceful, they are things we wouldn’t have to defend, or explain, or apologize for later. They are words and actions that wouldn’t embarrass us.
  • “Agape will do nothing that misbecomes it.” —Matthew Henry

Love knows our relationship > my rights

  • True love “does not demand its own way” (New Living Translation) nor does it “insist on its own rights” (Amplified Bible). Instead it always seeks ways that the relationship can be repaired or enhanced, even if that means giving up something I consider to be “my right.”
  • NOTE: I’m not saying that you become a doormat. This is not a license for someone to abuse you, but it is a call for us to balance our responses. Romans 12:18 says as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
  • Here are some great balancing verses. Balance Proverbs 26:4-5 (here is a video where I expand on this idea), and then balance Philippians 2:3-4.

Love is even-tempered

  • The Amplified Bible says it well: love is not touchy or fretful or resentful.
  • This Greek word means not getting stirred up or exasperated. So we need to lighten up!
  • There are some places where we’ve become too sensitive, too touchy, too short-fused. The fire of hurt has replaced the fire of love. So Matthew Henry advises us: “Where the fire of love is kept in, the flames of wrath will not easily kindle, nor long keep burning.”

Love is forgiving

  • The New International Version says love keeps no record of wrongs.
  • This Greek phrase speaks of an accountant tallying up the hurts (where there is an overdrawn account), seeing there is a debt to be paid back, and then appointing himself as the bill collector. True love cancels those IOUs.
  • We don’t forgive others because they deserve forgiveness, but we forgive others because we received forgiveness from God that we did not deserve!
  • For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (Matthew 6:14 AMP)

Love is God-honoring

  • Agape loves what God loves and hates what God hates.
  • Agape loves when people find God’s truth, and hates anything that blocks that pursuit.
  • Agape loves the sinner and hates the sin.
  • “The sins of others are the grief of an agape spirit [not] its sport or delight; they will touch it to the quick….” —Matthew Henry

Here’s where the real test comes in: How will you apply these attributes of love to someone in your life? More specifically: to someone you think is “unloveable”?

I know you have someone in your life that you think is unloveable. With that person’s face clearly in mind, how will you fill in the blanks:

  1. I can be graceful in…
  2. I can give up my right to…
  3. I need to lighten up in this area…
  4. I must forgive them for…
  5. I need to pray for a breakthrough in…

If you would like a downloadable PDF of this worksheet, click here –> Love is… worksheet 2

If you missed any of the messages in our Loving the Unlovable series, you can check them all our here.

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No Presumptions

February 15, 2013 — Craig T. Owens
George Mueller

George Mueller

I’m a planner. I like to plan out my personal schedule. I also like to plan out my preaching schedule. Near the end of each calendar year, I spend an extended time in prayer asking God to show me what He would like me to share with my congregation in the upcoming new year.

By no means should this override being Spirit-directed in the moment. I need to remain sensitive to the “course corrections” that the Holy Spirit wants me to make, but I also think planning ahead is using His wisdom as well.

As I approach each week’s message preparation time, there is a temptation to just stick with the plan, no matter what. After all, I know what I’ve prayerfully planned, so I can just get down to the business of crafting a sermon, right?

This wise counsel from George Mueller—a pastor that was preeminent in prayer—helps me to check my impulses…

“Rather than presuming to know what is best for the hearers, I ask the Lord to graciously teach me the subject I should speak about.”

My prayer goes something like this: “Lord, You know I will be speaking this Sunday; You know each person who is going to attend our service this week; You know exactly what they have been going through and what they are about to go through; You know exactly what they need to hear this week, so speak those words to me now.”

How arrogant for me to say, “Lord, here’s my sermon. Please bless it.”

Instead I need to pray, “Lord, what message will you bless? Please speak those words to me.”

Pastor, please don’t presume to know what is best for your congregation, but ask the One who truly knows to give you His timely word.

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Love Is… (part 1)

February 11, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Love is… worksheet 1The greatest definition of love in the history of mankind is given to us in 1 Corinthians 13. This is the “gold standard” to which all of us should strive to pattern our lives.

But notice that right at the beginning, Paul says, “Love IS” (verse 4). Not love feels good or even love does; but love is. Love is not love because it makes us feel good. Love is not love because we did something nice. Love is love because it measures up to this standard in 1 Corinthians.

Here are the first five attributes of love.

Love is patient

  • Patient love doesn’t lose heart, but stays hopeful.
  • It endures patiently and bravely in enduring misfortune and disappointment.
  • “It can endure evil, injury, and provocation, without being filled with resentment, indignation, or revenge.” —Matthew Henry

Love is kind

  • It is pleasant and courteous.
  • It both seizes opportunities and makes opportunities to show kindness.
  • …as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. (Romans 12:18)

Love is catching others doing something good

  • The biblical phrase is love is not envious, but I want to turn the positive into a negative. Far too often we Christians are known more for what we against, not what we’re for. So the positive way of saying this: we rejoice when others succeed. Or, we catch them doing something good.

Love is complementing others

  • Again, we turn the negative love does not boast into a positive, and say love complements others.
  • Agape raises the value of the object of its love.

Love is others-focused

  • Again, turning the negative love is not proud into a positive.
  • Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)

Here’s where the real test comes in: How will you apply these attributes of love to someone in your life? More specifically: to someone you think is “unloveable”?

I know you have someone in your life that you think is unloveable. With that person’s face clearly in mind, how will you fill in the blanks:

  1. I can show patience by…
  2. I can be kind to them by…
  3. I can rejoice in their success in this area…
  4. I can applaud them in their…
  5. I can see them becoming…

If you would like a downloadable PDF of this worksheet, click here –> Love is… worksheet 1

If you missed any of the messages in our Loving the Unlovable series, you can check them all our here.

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Loving The Unloveable

January 30, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Loving The Unlovable [web]Jesus came to love us. And for those that have received His love, He commands us to love others just like He loved us. In fact, Jesus said all of the commandments in the Bible could be summed up in just one word: LOVE.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength…. Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:30-31)

But what about people who aren’t very lovable? Are we really supposed to love them? Isn’t there some sort of “escape clause” to let us out of loving those people who get on our nerves, or who are mean to us?

Although you probably already know what the answer is (in case you don’t: we’re commanded to love everyone), the Bible helps us learn how and why to love the unloveable.

If you missed any of the messages in this series, check them out here:

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March!

January 28, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

I’m convinced that many of us have missed answers to prayer because the answers seemed “too practical” or required “too much work” from us. Consider the well-known example of the defeat of the city of Jericho as recorded in the Bible.

Jericho was a massive fortress. Archeologists tell us that the city encompassed over eight acres, and was surrounded by walls which were 30-feet tall and 20-feet wide. Joshua was a brilliant military strategist who up to this point had never suffered a defeat. He asks God for help in defeating this fortress, and God tells him, “March!”

That’s it. Not pray, pray, and pray some more. Not go on a 40-day fast. Make no mistake, the Israelites had been in a period of renewed passion and prayer. As they entered Canaan, they sought God, renewed their vow to serve Him alone, and celebrated the Passover just days before encountering Jericho.

Sometimes our prayers have to have feet. 

Sort of like abolitionist Frederick Douglass who said, “Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.”

  • We need to pray for the salvation of our loved ones, and talk to them about Christ.
  • We need to pray for God to open the door for employment, and mail the resume.
  • We need to pray for God’s help on a test, and study hard.
  • We need to pray, and we need to march.

Jericho delieveredI love the verb tense in this story! God told Joshua, “I have delivered Jericho into your hands” (Joshua 6:2). Later on, after the Israelites completed their 13th hike around Jericho, Joshua said, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city” (v. 16).

If you are praying for something that is in alignment with God’s Word, then God has given you your Jericho. But you may not see the walls come tumbling down until you march. Keep praying, keep marching, keep circling it in prayer, and watch those walls crumble!

To check out the others messages in this series on prayer called Praying Circles, please click here.

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials. Like this exceptional Bible study tool to help with Creation apologetics. ◀︎◀︎

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