2016-12-09
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Last week, I wrote about some of the things that make up the ministry God has personally given me. However, there are some principles we need to understand. RO 12: 4-5, “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” The task of building God’s Kingdom, just as that the early church instituted in managing its tasks-- especially the spread of the Gospel, requires some specialized jobs with specific goals. No one person can do it all. An apostle is set apart to confirm God’s message. In the early church some of them had been given the power to perform miracles, e.g. AC 3: 6-8 when Peter healed the crippled man, and 2 COR 12: 12. They also gave the Holy Spirit, as in AC 8: 25-30 and 19: 6. Today, the church’s apostles may have different title names, but they do the highest level of administrative decision-making led by the Spirit Himself. Their chief responsibility, given to them by Christ, is in founding churches, in contrast to the work of pastors, teachers, and evangelists [EPH 4: 11]. Paul traced his work back to the will of God [AC 9: 15; GA 1: 1]. COL 1: 1-2 is an example of Paul’s greeting, quite typically a Jewish one, which reflects this notion.
As you already know, prayer [PS 63: 1-2; JER 29: 11-13] is a deeply important topic for me. I began my life without believing in it. God shocked me into recognizing its power from my 15-year experience leading a prayer chain in our church of over 100 people. It has since become a crucial part of my life, as it is for all believing Christians. I was the chaplain of a prayer team as a part of a four-day spiritual retreat for very troubled women. I got to really see it in action then. Paul conveys the idea that prayer is an unspeakable privilege of having an audience with the Sovereign of the universe. It’s a way of drawing near to God through Christ.
Part of my training was a one-year course called “MasterLife,” by Avery T. Willis. He speaks of the Disciple’s Cross, a rather unique way to reveal the main tasks for God, which a disciple of Christ has. Prayer is only one of them. God’s word is another [2 TIM 3: 16-17]. This is where studying and teaching come in. The same is true for memorization, which I believed initially to be a waste of time or “too hard for one my age”. Once again, the Lord wanted me to grow up in my understanding. Around that time, home churches in China were having their Bibles confiscated and told to stop meeting by government agents. I was made to think about Sen. John McCain’s five-year stay in the “Hanoi Hilton” as a POW. Without memorization of key Scriptures, his experience would have been even worse than it was. Today, our congregation is in a three-year discipleship program called “Greater” based on JN 3: 30. Part of that is getting “memory cards” at each week’s service. This wasn’t the first time I as a member there was given instructions to memorize Bible verses and passages. Years before, our former senior pastor had us memorizing 100 Scriptures in 100 days. My life has truly benefitted from that!
Fellowship in the form of welcoming new people to our church, making friends with fellow believers or potential believers, relational witnessing, evangelism, and in the course of serving God using our talents are other tasks for God—one that He has a large part in forging. There are many ways that we can engage in nurturing the faith and wellbeing of others. Teaching has been enormously satisfying to me over the years and has brought me closer to God and to other people. It has forced me to obey Paul’s God-driven directive in 2 TIM 1: 13-14, which tells us to convey the word of God accurately with the help of the Holy Spirit. While I don’t preach in church, I do give sermons in written form to each of you on a weekly basis. So giving sermons is yet another task for God. Of course service in caring ministries and in other ways is carrying out work for Kingdom-building. There are many ways to be Christ’s disciple, and putting your kindness (an attitude) and goodness (action that follows a kindly attitude) in this eternally important task for God matters.
PRAYER: O Lord, we can see not only from Colossians, but from the entire NT, that God’s mystery, Christ in us, involves every area of our being. We are to mimic Christ’s attitude and thinking, serve God as we are instructed to do, live the life for which Christ has set us apart, have strong faith in His word [PS 119: 105], have the hope of the resurrection [RO 6: 4; RO 8: 29], and reach out to potential believers in Him as directed [IS 55:11]. It’s a whole new and different life than before, when we were Christ’s enemies. You instruct us in how to carry this out, and in making a covenant with You, we are to take on the same enemies and are adopted into the Father’s family [RO 8: 14-16, 26-27]. You have shared everything with us through Your Son [JN 15: 13-15]. We are blessed and privileged to have the Holy Spirit, our Counselor and Instructor [JN 14: 16-18, 21]. You have told us, in 1 JN 2: 19, “The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” We are truly a blessed people, and we offer You thanks and praise for all of this, in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I’m led to continue writing about the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. It’s a new and better life than before we believed in Him. This better life is filled with faith, hope, and love. Many times the example we set has an even greater impact on potential believers than the words we say. Oddly, most of my witnessing is done with the written word in secured computer chats for In Search of Shalom. However, I can set an example by discussing with seekers my priorities in life. When I was new to the Christian faith, I found myself in a class where the teacher asked, “Who or what is your first priority in life?” Totally missing the point he was about to make, I said my husband, Peter’s name. The discussion that followed was an eye-opener for me. To a more mature Christian, the correct answer is God, meaning his covenant relationship with God. The instructor said, “If God is your first priority, then your spouse (who you love) and everyone else who believes in your life will be nurtured—all his needs provided in every aspect.” And to think, that is only one of the many provisions of a covenant relationship with God! It is my hope and prayer that everyone who reads my writing will know he can have happiness and inner peace, even in the face of the normal human challenges we have. Praise and thanks be to God!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2016. All Rights Reserved.
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