Prayer For the Holidays

Kelly just finished Elijah House 201.  At the graduation, she read this and I asked her for a copy and permision to post it.  Hope it encourages someone.

Sanctuary

I have been having difficulty sleeping for awhile now. I am not sure if it is the pain that seems to be getting worse and worse in my body or if it is the constant battle going on in my mind. My thoughts break against the shore of my heart and mind, over and over again. All that I should have done yesterday, all that I didn’t do good enough today or all that I need to do tomorrow. The waves always coming, flooding my mind, and there is no rest. As I lay there this night, trying and trying to shut it all off, I finally cried out, “Sanctuary, Lord, Sanctuary!” I needed to take refuge in my Strong Tower, I needed peace and He is the only place in which there is any. As soon as the words left my lips, every wave was calmed, all the noise and chaos around my heart and mind was silenced. I entered into His peace, and there I slept through the night. I felt like one who was running tirelessly from the world, someone who was being chased down and hunted, who entered into that safe place and cried out “Sanctuary”. The pursuers had to leave, no longer able to find me, and I could finally rest in His arms. Oh the peace I found in that secret place, a peace that I will carry with me forever. I hope today, no matter what you may be running from, whether it is a person or your very own thoughts, expectations or fears, that you will cry out, “Sanctuary!”, because as soon as you do, you will know the peace that only He can give to your soul.

Kelly Ann Purdy
November 21, 2013

"The Prepper Manual for Jesus Followers"

Have you seen the TV "prepper" reality shows?  Maybe someone you know is a "prepper"...or you may even be a "prepper".  If you don't know what I'm talking about here's a definition from the Urban Dictionary.  (By the way, only check the urban dictionary when you need a definition of a new pop culture word...and reader beware...language is not like your grandmother's Funk and Wagnells.)

From the Urban Dictionary:

1.  Prepper:   Someone who focuses on preparedness, generally for various worst-case scenarios like peak oil or armageddon.  Sometimes used to avoid the more loaded term survivalist.

Basically preppers make sure they have the basics necessary to make it through whatever collapse of civilization might take place.  They prepare for life without all the protections and resources normally taken for granted every day…things like easy accessibility to power, food and police protection.  These folks imagine what it would be like if (or when) all the safety structures and provisions of civilization are suddenly removed.  Then they focus and prepare for how they and their families make it through these awful times?

While watching one of these prepper shows, it struck me the letters to the seven churches of Revelation 2-3 are a kind of “prepper manual” for the early church.  (I know my mind works weird but that’s the blessing of ADHD.)  In the beginning of Revelation, the apostle John is given a revelation of Jesus Christ.  Included in this revelation, Jesus gives seven letters to help seven churches, then living in present day Turkey, to help them get through the coming persecutions which had already started and would only increase in intensity.

Each letter has a pattern to it. A simple way to look at them is first Jesus gives the church a commendation for something good they have been doing.  Then He gives them a complaint about something they are doing.  Then He gives them a correction with a promised blessing it they actually do what He tells them.  In short, in these letters He tells them how to prepare for the bad scenario coming and how to do so successfully.  There you have it-- “The Preppers Manual for Jesus Followers”.

These Jesus Followers faced hard times with their resources and protection removed for a season.  They face economic and social attacks and some will even lose their lives.  They face the beast of the Roman Empire and false prophets of religion.  Adding insult to injury is the realization they hadn’t done anything wrong.  In fact, they were doing something right. They were following Jesus and not committing kingdom treason by compromising their identity as Jesus Followers.  Jesus wants them prepared.  He wants them to know He has not abandoned them during these pressure times.  He wants them to know that everything is still working according to His plans and under control…His control.

Now the all-important question:  “So what?”  What do these old letters mean to us?  There is plenty of gloom and doom talk going around today.  Anyone paying half attention to world events and national debates see real threats ahead.  So what should we do as Jesus Followers?

A major message of Revelation is that following Jesus means we are called to be overcomers during any time of struggle or even outright persecution.  I believe Jesus’ instructions to the seven churches gives us a basic “prepper manual” in living as vital communities of believers in the worst of circumstances… and not just surviving but taking kingdom initiatives.  We can actually participate in His victory over the forces of evil even while evil is doing all it can do.

The danger we face is not what goes on in the world.  The real danger for us as Jesus Followers is never really what is happening out there. The real danger is what is happening between our own ears.  The real danger facing us is when we allow ourselves to become distracted from who Christ is and what He has already done for us.  He has made a way for us to overcome everything and anything that comes against us. Focusing the viability of our hope or confidence on what happens around us is a recipe for defeat and depression.

What is hope?  My definition of biblical hope is:  “the absolute confidence that Jesus is Who He says He is and will do what He says He will do.”   As long as our hope is rooted in Jesus, what He has done and is doing, then our hope cannot be shaken.  What Jesus did by dying on the cross has finished what had to be finished for His life ultimately to overcome death in all its forms.  His resurrection and ascension enabled Him to give us as followers a share in His victory.  And His return is only to wrap up what He has started because of His victory.  Jesus is not in any danger and neither are we...even if we lose our own physical life by being faithfully identified with Him.  The hope of Jesus Followers must not be rooted in anything else.  Anything else can either be taken away from us by other people or undone by events. Our hope is rooted the person of Jesus Christ and that hope lives in us because He is in us.  He makes us overcomers before anything ever happens.  But if we shift the basis of our hope on to what we do, or on to what anyone else does or on circumstances– it’s over before it even gets started.

When darkness grows darker around Jesus Followers, that is not the time to wimp out and wish for a lifeboat from above.  That’s the time to suit up spiritually with the armor He has given us (see Ephesians 6:10-20, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5) and embrace these days as the greatest opportunity for people to come into the kingdom and for justice to roll down like a river.  It’s the time for us to be who He called us to be and draw on everything He already has given us.  Times of darkness are times to be fruitful and effective as His kingdom people.

I plan in the next few blogs to take each of the seven letters and see what we might hear from Jesus.  We will discover how to be Jesus followers who are not just going through religious motions nor only being reactionaries to what’s going on around us.  I believe there is actually empowering joy that comes from not living like victims. Looking forward to exploring the “Preppers Manual for Jesus Followers” with you. 

Share this blog with your friends...and please share your responses and insights too.

John P. Holsey, a fellow prepper

Which comes first? Loving Jesus, loving each other or loving the lost?

Recently I received an email response to a training post sent out entitled "The Mission of Small Groups" by Alan Danielson.  (Let me know if you would like to receive future training posts via email as part of your “Matthew Connection”.)

This response was from Jared.  I know Jared personally.  I officiated his wedding recently and he is the brother to my son-in-law who married my step-daughter.  (This is a round-about way of saying we’re related.)  What interesting to me about his response is that unlike me, Jared grew up only participating in house churches.  Meeting in homes with everyone bringing their gift to the group is “the norm” for him.  As someone who grew up in traditional churches, I am still having to “unlearn” some church stuff to “learn” some New Testament church “stuff”.

Not so for Jared.  His description of small group or house church life feels so organic and so much like something out of the book of Acts. The training post raises the question of the priority of worship, discipleship and outreach.  Below is his response.

“I understand the tendency of believers (and people in general) to get comfortable somewhere and go no further.  As believers we always have to be exercised to deny ourselves and follow the Lamb wherever He goes.  We have to encourage one another and pray for one another so that we have the strength to go on.  If we are one with the Lord, I believe there will be outreach, and the right kind of outreach - the kind that bears lasting fruit.

Also, the small group meetings are a great place to bring friends/family/classmates/coworkers who might be interested in the gospel, or maybe they are believers and need encouragement.  

It's a place where they can be brought into the warmth and care of Jesus and see His humanity, as well as begin to hear the truth (assuming there is someone in the group meeting who has some constitution and can speak it).  I think that in a warm environment like that it is easier to receive the truth revealed in the word of God.

In our small groups, it is a bit different every week depending on the mix of people.  Sometimes it's all familiar faces and we use the time to catch up, or for coordination, or maybe one of us is a bit out of it and just needs someone to minister Christ to him or her (actually we all need that).  Other times a college student may bring friends who are curious, and it is an opportunity to express the riches of the Christ we know to them.  Sometimes they receive the Lord, some are even baptized there in the bathtub.  Hopefully they will bring more students and the Lord will gain a crop of young ones!  Then we can all function to help them grow in Christ and go on to bear more fruit.  When they get older and marry and have a home of their own, maybe they will host a home meeting and continue to help more to know the Lord.  I think this is a very organic use of small groups of believers.

I tend to disagree with the statement that the Church is for the world.  The Church is really for Christ. The small groups are a place where believers can learn to cherish each other in the humanity of Jesus, nourish each other by His words of grace, and thereby function as members in the Body of Christ.  The Body of Christ being built up, perfected and matured into one new and full grown man is God's goal (Ephesians 4:7-16).  If we have that fellowship, enjoyment, and building in our small group fellowship, we will also have a burden to include new ones and reach out.  But if we do not love the Lord Jesus with our first and best love, we may just go to a meeting as routine and be completely useless in the Lord's hands.  I know, because I have been there.  God forgive me.  We need to pray to the Lord, and love Him with our first love, and open to Him, and then we need to pray to the Lord and help others to do the same.  God can do so much with that.  At least that's what I believe.  I admit I am just a small child in Him."

Wow.  Do you see it?  He can’t even conceive of talking about separating his love for Jesus, love for each other and love for those who don’t know Jesus.  It’s only when we have been immersed in a form of church that exchanges the dynamic of Spirit-filled body life for religious programing that the problem of an ingrown church life even comes up.  When the Holy Spirit is allowed to give birth, develop and lead us as the people of God, the healthy balance between our focus on our first love and our focus on His first love is just part of our DNA...we just are the church as He designed us.

What do you think?  

Pastor John Paul