Too Many Churches In One City

Why does a single city have 200 churches averaging 5 members apiece? Too many heads and too few body parts. Not all pastors are called to preach. Not all teachers or preachers are called to be pastors. Don't get it mixed up. Pastors need preachers and teachers. Preachers and teachers need pastors. Many need to humble themselves and stop being the head and be willing to be a shoulder, elbow, knee, groin, stomach, foot, toe, finger or nose. Many heads need to be willing to delegate and not try to be the arm.

Ladies and gentlemen, can you imagine: if all of the divergent 5 to 20 member churches in one city of 200 churches came together as one complete body? Can you imagine if they put their personal doctrines aside to discuss Scripture together, whether or not they agree, and love each other anyway under one head with many teachers and preachers? Can you imagine then how it would free up so many preachers to go into the street to share the Gospel? Can you imagine how it would free their families to show love to the poor in the city?
Can you imagine what would happen to a city with that kind of unified church body?

Just that city would change the world.

#churcunite

Bless My Pastor

Thank You, God! Thank You, Lord Jesus, the Savior of my soul! Bless my pastor. Guide him and don’t let his words fall on deaf ears. Show him Your ways and Your grace, that he may be an arrow pointing straight to You and Your kingdom.

Bless his eyes to read Your Word. Bless his mind to comprehend. Bless his mouth to speak Your thoughts. Bless his hands to do Your work. Bless his feet to walk with You in Your most holy light. Bless his heart to express Your love.

Bless my brother, Your servant. Knock his socks off with Your awesome blessings, Lord! Please make his load light and his burden easy.

Bless Your servant, Lord. Thank You, Oh Lord! I love You and always will; for You give my pastor his strength. Your love and grace are beyond compare! Thank you! Thank You, Jesus!

#blessmypastor

#prayforyourpastor

Happy Yom Taruah

Shalom Yom Taruah!

Happy Day of Blasts!

L'Shanah Tovah Tikatevu V'taihatem!

May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year!

#YomTaruah
#RashHashanah

Worrying does not solve anything.
Prayer does.

#pray
#prayer

"As Christians, we must be dependent. We have to reject the idle of self-sufficiency."
-Pastor Dave Clark, Living Hope Neighborhood Church-

This morning at church, we were looking at the behavior of the early church in the Book of Acts. Prayer was a way of life for them.

When waiting for the Holy Spirit, they were praying "in one accord". When they faced persecution, they were praying. When Peter was arrested, they were "praying fervently" (and an angel came and got him out of prison). When the Greek widows asked for food, they prayed and fasted over who should be selected to serve them as Deacons.

You will see this habit consistent for any body in the Scripture that actually saw things get done.

We need to pray. We need to pray together. We need to pray separately. We need to pray for each other. We need to ask for prayer from each other (I am not talking FB posts either - I mean IN PERSON with your neighbors, friends, community and church).

I have a personal testimony on this matter:

In 1994, I was a student at Youth With A Mission (YWAM)'s Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Lindale, Texas.

There was a local church in Tyler, Texas (I do not remember the name) that also had a large private Christian school.

Kip Gaines, the leader of our particular class, told us that the school administration had asked for prayer. The students were out of control - fights, sex, drugs, truancy, insubordination and even gangs.

Kip told us we would be going to the school that coming Saturday to pray over it for 6 hours.

We did. Our entire DTS showed up (I think it was a couple hundred students altogether. but do not remember the actual numbers), and we prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Some of us did "Jericho walks" around the campus, some went classroom to classroom, some went chair to chair, some prayed over the lockers and the walls and even the closets and gymnasium and playgrounds and sports fields. All of us prayed separately in our own ways, walking around and praying as the Ruach haKadosh (Holy Spirit) led.

At some point during this, a couple dozen of the school faculty showed up, and we gathered in the gymnasium and prayed for them for a couple of hours. We did not ask what they wanted prayed for. We just prayed.

There were many tears flowing and there was much humility and bowing before God.

When the time came, we all returned to our campus.

A few days later, Mr. Gaines told us that he had heard from the school board that upon arrival on Monday, the students broke down and cried. They confessed sins, forgave, hugged, apologized, repented and gave up their wickedness. My understanding is that it was over a thousands students, but my memory could be wrong on the numbers (It has been 24 years since then).

Of course we praised God for His miracle.

I had forgotten this event. Life went on, and for some reason, this event never came to mind in the years following - until this morning.

As my pastor was going into the need and power of prayer, I remembered this event. And it was a witness to me of how God works through us when we come together as one.

So now I will say this:

It can not be overstated how much God can do when we join as one in prayer for a single purpose.

I challenge each of you to take this today with you and put it into action. When you go to your church, ask a large group of people there to stop and pray for each other. Don't ask what is needed - let God show each person. Each person - take ten minutes and pray for a person near them (You join in too of course). THEN, ask them to continue praying for that person at least 3 times each day through the week, and then to do it again the next week with a different person, and you get more people into this prayer movement

If your church becomes a praying church - nothing in this world can stop its testimony. Make your church a praying church. Start now. Get off of Facebook and pray now for the person you like the least, and pray that God BLESSES that person so that they can see His mercy and know His love.

Happy Sabbath.

#prayerworks
#dependonGod

Pray. Now.

Have you prayed for someone else today? If not, get off of your internet device and do so.

If so, do so again when you log off.

There is power in prayer. Believe Him.

#prayer
#powerofprayer

Eyes are sometimes slowly opened to the strength and depth of the grace and love of the eternal God. In my short life, although He spent years opening my eyes, I have seen people thrice my age who know a lot, but do not know HIM. To know God is to love Him. It is inconceivable to me that a human being can really open themselves up and get to know God without their heart totally turning towards him in gratefulness, appreciation and love.

All who truly love know God, but until one meets God Himself, it is impossible to truly understand what real love is.

I was once an ignorant fool, wise in the ways of “love and romance”, writing poetry that touched hearts far away. But then I met God, and learned of a love far beyond any that could ever be expressed by pen or mere words. And this love, which I now know well, has nothing at all to do with anything I could ever or have ever said or done, but is totally without drawback or condition.

I have now learned to love this way too, as it rubs off on me. This, in some ways, has been to my detriment. Although it automatically opens doors to share what God shared with me, it also opens doors for others to want to love me as I love (which is simply God’s love).

The difficulty in this is directing their love to others and letting them see God and not me, so that they too could truly share and enjoy God’s love.

Whatever the case, I am eternally grateful to God.

#loveofGod
#Truelove

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. But is it always so? Yes, one man’s junk may be another man’s gem, but is it possible that some things are beautiful in of themselves, that can be appreciated by all, good and bad?

A flower, a beautiful woman, the colors of the sunset, green in Spring, red in Fall, the blue of ocean waves – are they all not beautiful in of themselves?

Would they cease to be beautiful simply because no one sees their beauty? Or are they beautiful already, and then someone comes and notices the beauty?

Or do they gain beauty simply by the eye of the one who sees them as beautiful?

Then is a beautiful woman not beautiful until a man sees her beauty? I think not.

I think that some things are already beautiful, and would be beautiful even if no one ever saw that beauty, and that if every man looked around just a little bit more, every man would see beauty.

#beauty
#seebeauty

Okay, I rarely rant, but here goes a rare rant:

Have you ever noticed that Windows throws these updates at you, with no warning, at the most inconvenient times?

You have twenty minutes to get something typed. You start your laptop, and it starts a 2-hour update so you can get nothing accomplished.

In my opinion, they should send a warning a couple days in advance, so you can plan to start your computer early and still have time to do what you need to on it.

People depend on a reliable computer working as advertised to get stuff done. These unannounced interruptions disrupt people's schedules, lives and in some cases, livelihoods. Especially when the updates happen several times in a month.

The courtesy of an advance warning, I think, is not too much to ask.



#badmicrosoft

Taxed for what you do NOT own

We have taken one of the final steps to becoming the tyranny that this country was founded to fight.  

For the first time in history, Americans are now to be taxed for what they DON’T own.  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President Obama’s Health Insurance Mandate’s fine for not being able to afford health insurance can be considered a tax, and therefore “Obamacare”  is constitutional. 

So now our government can say “buy this, and if you can’t afford it, we  tax you.”  And if you can’t afford this tax for not being able to afford to buy health insurance?  Well, there is always liens from the IRS and debtor’s prison (this is reality, not fiction).