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 When new Christians
begin memorizing Bible verses, Philippians 4:4 is almost always included.
It says “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say,
rejoice!”
But when those young Christians discover that Paul wrote that verse
while confined to prison, shackled in chains, it suddenly takes on a whole
new meaning. Rejoice always, even when your faith might cost you your life!
Crises have a way of forcing us to clarify what we actually believe.
Paul was excited when his faith landed him in prison because he discovered
that the Gospel was being preached even more. In Philippians 1:12, he says
“But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to
me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel.”
In other words, his crisis was not a crisis of faith. It was a crisis
because of his faith. And it was a crisis that resulted in his faith being
strengthened, not weakened.
When Peter was charged with being friends with Christ he denied the
relationship existed (Matthew 26:69-75.) The shame he felt caused him to
clarify his faith. And it never failed him again.
The next time you face a crisis, your faith will be clarified one way or
the other – either strong or weak. Plan to be pleased with what that
crisis reveals!
Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS,
Volume 8.18. Live for God, on purpose.
 The
Pathway of
Personal Readiness
I was just a new Christian when someone gave me a copy of a manual that
their church used to train people to share Christ with others. It was a
fairly thick binder, that gave very specific instructions on how to start a
conversation with someone, and how then to turn that conversation around to
talking about the Lord. The manual contained what seemed like every
possible combination of questions that a person could ask, as well as the
answers that the “soul winner” should give. It even contained
fully scripted conversations, including directions of what to say if the conversation
turned this way or that way.
I was very impressed. I thought to myself, “Here in this one book
is every possible encounter you could have while telling someone about
Jesus.” And, I set about to memorize the instructions and the
conversations in the manual.
It wasn’t too long afterward that I found myself very frustrated.
I found it very difficult to memorize all of the scripted conversations,
and even more than that, I quickly discovered that real-life conversations
bore very little resemblance to the scripted patterns of the manual.
There is a far better way than memorizing a manual of soul-winning
conversations. And that way is to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and allow
the Lord to lead you and guide you – always being ready to give an
account for the hope that lies within you. Perhaps the most powerful part
of walking on Pentecostal Pathways is experiencing the opportunities the
Lord opens for you to share your faith, and allowing Him to give you the
words to speak at just the right time and place!
As a Spirit-filled believer, you can walk each and every day, ready at
all times to powerfully do great exploits for Him! That is what we see
Philip do in Acts 8:26-40 as he is led by the Lord to “go south...
down from Jerusalem to Gaza” and has a divine appointment with an
Ethiopian eunuch, leads him to a saving knowledge of Christ, baptizes him
in water, and then is whisked away in the Spirit to Azotus, where he
preaches in all the towns along the way to Caesarea.
Walking on the “Pathway of Personal Readiness” –
that’s what we will see from Philip’s example this Sunday here
at WFA. Don’t miss it!
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 Stuck in the Church
In 1874, on an otherwise ordinary day, Elisha Grey walked into the
sanctuary of the Highland Park Presbyterian Church and made history. He strung
a large spool of telegraph wire throughout the church in an effort to
create the telephone – a Greek word: tele, meaning “far
away,” and phone, meaning “voice.” Grey believed two
people could speak to each other from distant points using nothing but
liquid-based microphones and wire.
Low and behold, the crazy thing worked. Crowded pews of gaping onlookers
were wowed by the success. The sound of the first telephone was born
– and in a church no less! Grey had a much harder time swaying his
investors with his ingenious product. Based on the bad advice of his
dentist, who thought the telephone was “a waste of investor’s
money,” Grey’s prototype went nowhere.
After two years of painful delay, a self-determined Elisha Grey packed
up his notes and stormed the halls of the U.S. Patent Office to file
paperwork on his invention. He was anxious to tell the patent committee all
about his success in the Highland Park Church sanctuary.
Unfortunately, another inventor had been working on a similar concept,
and as Grey unveiled his story to the committee, he learned Alexander
Graham Bell had dropped off his own plans and applied for a telephone
patent just two hours earlier.
Although Bell’s plans did not include a working model, nor did his
conceptual prototype ever work, the courts found in Bell’s favor and
rewarded him the rights to the telephone invention – all because Grey
was two hours late with his presentation.
He had left his idea hanging in the sanctuary.
Isn’t time that Christians started taking their ideas beyond the
walls of the church building? Let’s get out and reach souls...
let’s touch lives for Christ... let’s plant new churches!
Instead of just talking about what we can or should do – LET’s
DO IT!
portions from Pastors Newsletter by Ron Walters, VP for
Ministry Relations, Salem Communications
back to top
 Sacrifice
is Part of Service
by Jon Walker
“We understand what love is when we realize
that Christ gave his life for us. That means we must give our lives for
other believers.” – 1 John 3:16
Serving others comes at a great price.
When you become a servant, you always give up something you could have
kept for yourself – time, money, energy. But the greatest cost of all
is yourself.
Serving others exacts a personal toll that cannot be measured in dollars
and cents or hours and minutes.
In 2 Corinthians 6:8-10, Paul describes the price he paid for serving
others: “We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether
they slander us or praise us. We are honest, but they call us impostors. We
are well known, but we are treated as unknown. We live close to death, but
here we are, still alive. We have been beaten within an inch of our lives.
Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual
riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything.” (NLT)
Later in the same book, Paul describes being jailed, whipped, stoned,
shipwrecked, and robbed – all while serving the churches God
entrusted to his care. (2 Corinthians 11:23-28)
God’s servants find the sacrifices worth the price because they
can look past the present pain or inconvenience, fixing their eyes firmly
on Jesus who “for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning
its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
(Hebrews 12:2 NIV)
It is in serving others sacrificially, says the apostle John, that we
begin to grasp as well as experience godly love: “This is love: not
that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning
sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought
to love one another.” (1 John 4:10-11 NIV)
What does this mean?
Serve on God’s terms; not your own – You’ve been
seeded with the Spirit of Christ, and even though you can’t, his
Spirit within you can enable you to give yourself for others. You can draw
from his sacrificial strength.
Love finds meaning in sacrifice – “We understand what love
is when we realize that Christ gave his life for us. That means we must
give our lives for other believers.” (1 John 3:16 GW)
Your sacrifice of service – Is God asking you to give up something
– or sacrifice in some way – in order to serve others? Talk to
him about your fears, concerns, and confusion. Affirm your willingness to
cooperate with his plan for you.
as seen in the January 11, 2007 issue of the Purpose Driven
Life daily devotional. Copyright © 2007 Jon Walker. All rights
reserved.
back to top
 When
Envy Creeps In
by Rick Ezell
How can we overcome envy? How can we remain calm in the midst of a
competitive society? The next time envy creeps into your heart and mind do
the following.
Acknowledge envy as sin. Many people struggle
with envy for years, yet never acknowledge its true character. Envy is sin.
The envious person is not just a victim; he or she bears responsibility.
The Scripture says, “For where you have envy... there you find
disorder and every evil practice” (James 3:16 NIV). The failure to
confess envy will only lead to more sin. Envy causes conflict with others,
it travels with its cousin anger, it leads to depression, it manifests itself
in gossiping, and it can even pull the trigger on murder.
Resist comparing yourself to others. “We
do not dare to classify or compare ourselves... [it] is not wise” (2
Corinthians 10:12 NIV). Envious people are always comparing themselves to
others. One way to bolster their own poor self-esteem is by finding fault
with others. But when we compare ourselves with others two things happen
and both are destructive. One, when we compare our strength to another
person’s weakness we become prideful. Two, when we compare our
weakness to another person’s strength we become envious. Either way
we lose.
Recognize God’s goodness. In other
words, we need to be grateful for what we already have. A myth has
circulated since the beginning of time: I must have more than you to be
happy. And, you must have more than me to be happy. This is simply not
true. Instead of focusing on what we don’t have, we need to remind
ourselves what we do have, giving thanks for God’s graciousness in
our lives. Do you have life? Health? A job? A house? Clothes? Friends? When
we understand God’s goodness in our lives, comparisons are
meaningless.
Respond to others in love. “Love does
not envy” (1 Cor. 13:4 NIV). When we love other people we appreciate
their strengths and their gifts. We acknowledge that God loves them like
God loves us-no more, no less. And when we choose to love, envy is
eradicated from our lives.
Refocus on God. “Don’t be envious
of sinful people; let reverence for the Lord be the concern of your life.
If it is, you have a bright future” (Proverbs 23:17 GN). There are
only three things that will last for eternity – God, his Word, and
his people. Not houses, or cars, or jobs, or vacations, or clothes. When we
look at people and their achievement and possessions, we need to look at
the long haul not the short term. When I focus on God, my neighbor’s
achievements and advancements don’t matter.
from The 7 Sins of Highly Defective People , Copyright © 2003 Rick
Ezell
back to top
 Pray
or Act?
by Jim Liebelt
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful
and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our
message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in
chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should.”
– Colossians 4:2-4
It has been reported that seconds after the kickoff in a memorable
soccer match between the Corinthians and Rio Preto at Bahia Stadium in
Brazil, Corinthian striker Roberto Rivelino scored a goal, after a single
pass, with a left foot drive from the half line. The ball sailed past the
ear of Rio Preto goalkeeper Senhor Isadore Irandir while he was kneeling in
the goal finishing his pre-match prayers.
Here is a reminder that there is a healthy balance between prayer and
action. Prayer is the foundation of our ongoing recognition of God’s
rightful place in our lives and that He is our Creator and King. There is
no doubt from the Scriptures that God’s people are to be people of prayer.
Action is our recognition that God does not primarily work His will in the
world without our participation in that work. Notice from today’s
Scripture that the Apostle Paul asked people to pray for an open door of
opportunity. I think it is significant that Paul didn’t ask for
prayer for God to somehow proclaim the good news of Jesus supernaturally
– on His own, but rather that God would provide the opportunity for
Paul to minister the gospel effectively. We see that prayer and action are
both parts of how God works.
Over my years as a Christ follower, I have experienced the tension that
exists between prayer and action. It’s not always easy to know where
and when to move beyond prayer to action or vice versa. Perhaps like me,
you know people that seem focused solely on prayer and those who seem
focused solely on action. Neither of these approaches is the complete
answer. Most of us need to pray more. Some of us need to be willing to act.
I believe that each situation in our lives requires balance between prayer and
action. Like the goalkeeper, I’ve found that there almost always
comes a time when we need to get off our knees and act.
as seen in “Today’s HomeWord,” a daily
devotional with Jim Burns. Visit them online at www.homeword.com
back to top
 Rescued
by Dr. Michael A. Halleen
“Give thanks to (God) and praise his name. For
the Lord is good and his love endures forever.” – Psalm
100:4, 5
One night many years ago, Ed Spencer, a student at a seminary near Lake
Michigan, was awakened by shouts that there had been a shipwreck offshore from
the campus. An excursion boat from the nearby Chicago harbor had collided
with a freighter and was sinking. Spencer ran down to the lakeshore from
which he could see lights from the boats. A strong swimmer, he plunged into
the icy water and started searching for survivors.
For six hours Spencer swam out and back, pulling people ashore, battling
stormy waves and powerful undertow. By dawn he had personally rescued
fifteen people in as many trips. Exhausted, he sat down until someone
spotted two more still in the water. Spencer dove in again and found a man
and a woman clinging desperately to a piece of wreckage. He brought them in
too and collapsed on the beach.
Fewer than one-fourth of the 400 passengers on that boat survived the
shipwreck, seventeen of them rescued by Ed Spencer. His own health,
however, was irreparably damaged by his act of heroism, and he was never
able to return to school, ultimately living out his days as an invalid.
Years later, a reporter doing a story on Great Lakes tragedies found
Spencer as an old man in a nursing home in California and asked for his
recollections of that night. He said bitterly, “The only thing I
remember is that not one of the seventeen ever thanked me.”
The late British actor Robert Morley once said, “I am not an
introspective man, but I am, I hope, a grateful one. Life has treated me
kindly, and I hope I shall always be mindful that for over fifty years the
sun has shone on my back. Thanks be to God.”
At a Thanksgiving gathering several years ago we invited our guests
– in the spirit of Robert Morley – to list several things for
which he or she was grateful. We wrote each one down and arranged them into
a song which we then sang as a group, using a familiar tune. The variety
itself (from “clean sheets” and “my boss,” to
“cancer survived” and “Randy Moss” – amazing
how the rhymes fell into place) became a feature of the hymn, our
recognition that God’s gifts are far-reaching and never-ending.
Thanks be to God for life, for its circumstances common and rare, and for
the sunshine on our backs. Thanks be also to the people who touch our lives
in great ways and small, and for the sunshine they bring to our hearts.
as seen in the April 28, 2008 issue of “Monday
Moments,” by Dr. Michael A. Halleen.
back to top
 The
Last Impression
The traffic light wasn’t working at the corner, so a lady stood
with a large crowd of people waiting to cross, while a cop directed
traffic. Finally, the cop blew his whistle and stopped the eastbound
traffic, motioned to the crowd, and shouted, “Okay,
pedestrians!” The crowd surged across the intersection –
all except the lady, who stayed on the corner.
When the walkers were safely on the other side of the street, the cop
moved the cross-traffic through the intersection. Half a minute later, he
stopped the cars westbound traffic, and sent the eastbound traffic into
motion. Again, he got around to the lady’s corner; where by this time
a crowd of people had again joined her. Tweeeeeeeet! “Okay, pedestrians!”
The crowd crossed the street, but again the lady stayed put.
She looked at her watch and tapped her foot as if she was in a hurry to
get somewhere, but never budged from the sidewalk. The cop ran the traffic
through seven more cycles, each time blowing his whistle and then yelling
“Okay, pedestrians!” the lady never moved.
Finally, after the cop yelled “Okay, pedestrians!” for the
eighth time, the woman shouted across traffic, “Hey! Officer! You
keep letting the Presbyterians go, isn’t it about time you let those
of us who go to other churches cross?”
Come on across the street to WFA for this week’s
wonderful time as we fellowship together in the Lord, and as we worship Him
in Spirit and in Truth, and as we proclaim the Word of God that changes
lives! Looking forward to seeing you this Lord’s Day!
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