3 Ways to keep your vision tank full

Philip the evangelist is one of the forgotten heroes of the early church.

Philip was a member of the church at Jerusalem. His first official ministry role was that of ensuring the fair distribution of food to the Greek and Hebrew widows in the Jerusalem church.

The next time we meet Philip he is evangelising in Samaria (Acts 8.4-8). His ministry has an incredible impact and attracts the attention of the apostles who have remained in Jerusalem. Eventually Peter and John are dispatched to Samaria to lay hands on all the new believers so that they are filled with the Spirit.

Meanwhile, an angel has told Philip to leave these scenes of revival and take the road from Jerusalem to Gaza (Acts 8.26). As he is walking along the road, he meets a high ranking official from Ethiopia and shares the gospel with him. The man responds to the gospel and as soon as they find some water Philip baptises him (Acts 8.26-40).

And then Philip disappears once again. This time the Spirit transports him to Azotus and he begins a new preaching tour.

Philip clearly had God-given vision.

There are a number of things in Philip’s story that will help us keep our vision tank full.

If you want to keep your vision tank full, a secret life with God is essential. 

Firstly, Philip had a secret life with God.

When the apostles were looking for people to distribute food to the widows in the church, the looked for people who were full of the Spirit (Acts 6.3).

You don’t stay full of the Spirit unless you have a secret life with God.

Secondly, Philip had a reputation for wisdom. He was full of the Spirit and wisdom (Acts 6.3). He was a wise man. Wisdom is a quality that enables us to make decisions that are good and godly. Philip had that quality.

We need to be spiritual and practical!

If you want to keep your vision tank full, look for opportunities where others see problems

Philip’s evangelistic ministry began during the greatest crisis the church had faced up to that point.

One of its greatest leaders, Stephen, became its first martyr. In the aftermath of Stephen’s death, a violent persecution broke out against the church. Many of the Christians left Jerusalem. Philip went to Samaria.

Philip began his evangelistic ministry at what seemed the worst time. And he began it in one of the worst places, Samaria. Samaria for any Jewish person was not a destination of choice. But Philip went there and God blessed him.

Philip seized an opportunity in a time a great difficulty. Sometimes God sends us opportunities, but they are wrapped up in a problem! When your vision tank is full, you see the opportunity, not just the problem.

If you want to keep your vision tank full, don’t settle for success

Philip could easily have settled in Samaria. He could have made it “his” revival. But he didn’t. He listened to God – or more precisely listened to God’s angel and walked off down the road!

He left a good thing to pursue a “God thing”. What he didn’t know was that he would lead someone to Christ who had the potential to influence a whole nation.

When your vision tank is full you will be prepared to take new roads to pursue what God is doing, even if it seems you are leaving something successful. And you don’t know who you are going to meet on that journey.

If you want to keep your vision tank full, look out for your family

In Acts 21, we see Philip at home. Paul and Luke and their friends stay at Philip’s house. Luke explains:

 Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven. 9 He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied (Acts 21.8-9)

He had four daughters who prophesied. Clearly Philip had given time to his family despite all his responsibilities and activities. There was an atmosphere of God in his house.

When your vision tank is full, you will look out for your family and have their spiritual interests at heart.

 

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5 Ways to keep your love tank full

If you think this is a post about sex or romance, then your understanding of love is twenty-first century Western and not first century biblical. Sorry, thought I’d break the bad news first!

Westerners of this century almost always associate love with romance or sex. Not affection or friendship or that tough enduring virtue that the Bible calls agape. That probably helps at least partly to explain the confusion over gender and sexuality that has assumed so much importance in public life. But that’s another story.

“Love, love, love” sang the Beatles. “Love, love, love, love” taught Jesus. Love God (Matthew 22.37). Love your neighbour (Matthew 22.39). Love one another (John 13.34-35). Love your enemies (Luke 6.35).

It’s pretty comprehensive. Neighbours and enemies cover a wide spectrum, and as C.S. Lewis once remarked often they are one and the same person!

It is simple. It’s not hard to understand. But it’s not easy either. We sometimes find it hard to love even those we love!

How do you keep you “love tank” full?

Firstly, remind yourself of what love looks like.

Jesus is the greatest and best example of someone who showed perfect love. In fact He is the only example of someone who showed perfect love.

John 13 provides us with special insight into the love of Christ. Verse one says “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

What follows next is extraordinary. Jesus takes off his outer clothing, wraps a towel around His waist and begins to wash His disciples’ feet. This must have been such a shock to the disciples, for this is the kind of task reserved for a slave. Peter’s reaction reveals just how shocking this was to the disciples. The promised Messiah was washing their feet.

After He has finished, Jesus explains that He has set an example for them to follow (vv.14-16).

And then in verses 34 and 35, He gives His disciples a new command: love one another as I have loved you.

His love is our standard.

In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul sets out some aspects of love:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13.4-8).

Secondly, remember and meditate on how much God loves you.

John says:

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4.10-11)

Thirdly, restore love to a place of priority in your life.

1 Corinthians 13.13 highlights the eternal worth of love. It really is that important!

Fourthly, recognise the importance of encouraging relationships.

Your love tank will permanently run on empty if all of your relationships are ones in which you are constantly giving love and encouragement.

The writer to the Hebrews stresses the importance of continually spending time in a spiritually hot and healthy environment:

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10.24-25)

Finally, rely on the Holy Spirit.

We cannot love like Jesus loved in our own strength. Love is a fruit of the Spirit:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love…” (Galatians 5.22).

It’s through the Spirit’s power that we are enabled to love others.

It’s hard to argue with the importance the New Testament places on love.Let’s leave the last word with Paul:

“And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13.13 AMP)

 

Keep your hope on!

Perhaps one of the most quoted verses about hope is a negative one: “Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick” (Proverbs 13.12). Which is often understood along the lines of “when you don’t get what you hoped to get you get disappointed”.

It would be a mistake however to limit our understanding of hope to what happens when it is unfulfilled.

Hope is an incredibly important virtue. Along with faith and love, it has pride of place amongst Christian virtues (1 Corinthians 13.13).

Even the world recognises the importance of hope. Listen to what health care professionals said in two different articles in Psychology Today:

“For my patients,” Groopman writes, “hope, true hope, has proved as important as any medication I might prescribe or any procedure I might perform.” (Psychology Today)

“If I could find a way to package and dispense hope, I would have a pill more powerful than any antidepressant on the market. Hope, is often the only thing between man and the abyss. As long as a patient, individual or victim has hope, they can recover from anything and everything.” (Psychology Today)

The kind of hope the Bible talks about is something even more powerful, because it has as its object God Himself and is based on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

I think it’s fair to say that we talk more about faith and love than hope. Which is strange, when considering the coverage the New Testament gives to it.

Hope enables us to endure (1 Thessalonians 1.3). It enables us to stare death in the face – and not blink first (1 Thessalonians 4.13)! It has a purifying power (1 John 3.3).

There are however two images used in the New Testament to convey the positive impact of hope.

One is found in 1 Thessalonians 5.8. Paul talks about the hope of salvation as a helmet. Just as a helmet protects a soldier’s head, so hope, godly hope protects us from the negative, destructive thoughts that the enemy seeks to implant in our minds.

One major way of protecting our minds is putting on hope as a helmet. That means developing patterns of thinking that focus on a God-shaped future, rather than a future shaped by anyone or anything else.

As second image used in association with hope is that of an anchor (Hebrews 6.19).

Anchors keep ships stable in an unstable element. When our hope is firmly anchored in Christ, we are enabled to remain stable amidst the instability all around us.

It also means that we won’t drift when the storms come. A ship that is adrift is dangerous indeed. First of all, it has no direction. Secondly, it is a danger to itself and other vessels. When we lose our hope, we drift. We lose direction in life. And we become a danger to others as well as ourselves.

Hope is incredibly important. Keep your helmet on. And keep your anchor firm.

3 Signs of a religious spirit – and how to avoid developing one!

I don’t think I have ever preached on the danger of developing a religious spirit. However, having given a bit more time to reading the gospels over the summer, it is hard not to see how much opposition Jesus faced from the religious leaders of his day.

It would be handy if we could consign that kind of mentality to the days when Jesus was on earth. Unfortunately we can’t safely do that. It’s a mentality that manifested itself in the early church and throughout the subsequent history of the church.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians was written primarily to counter an extreme case of religion. If churches planted by the apostle Paul were vulnerable to the kind of legalism manifested by the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the thought that we are immune to this religious virus is not rooted in reality.

So what are some of the signs? Let me give you three.

Firstly, we risk developing a religious spirit when we focus on our spiritual history at the expense of our future destiny.

Here’s what John the Baptist said to the Pharisees:

Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Matthew 3.8-9

They were so caught up with their own spiritual pedigree that they overlooked the lack of fruit in their lives.

An impressive spiritual family tree is incomplete without spiritual fruit.

Secondly, we risk developing a religious spirit when we fail to embrace what God is doing.

In the revival that came about through John the Baptist’s ministry, baptism was the evidence that you had embraced what God was doing.

The religious leaders rejected it. Luke 7.30 says:

But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptised by John.

We often think that our impressive history with God guarantees that we’ll always be at the centre of what he is doing. Yet history proves that the opposite is almost always the case. The people of the previous move of God become so locked into a kind of spiritual nostalgia that they miss what God is doing in the present – and sometimes even reject it as “not the real thing”.

Finally, we risk developing a religious spirit when we become more concerned about forms of religious expression than helping people.

On one occasion Jesus healed a woman who had what we would call curvature of the spine on the Sabbath in a synagogue. You might think that everyone would rejoice. Not so! The synagogue leader responded with a lecture about the Sabbath not being a day for healing – there were six other days for that:

Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. 14 Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, ‘There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.’ (Luke 13.13-14)

The reaction is almost comic, but tragically it reveals that this man is more concerned about the forms of his faith rather than the people that faith is meant to help.

It’s very easy for those of us in a Pentecostal / Charismatic church to apply this to some of the more established liturgical churches. It has to be said that more traditional churches are not the only churches susceptible to “formalism”. Contemporary worship expressions, prayer lines, altar calls, preaching, and the unwritten liturgy of “the way we do it here”, can become just as formal and every bit as people unfriendly as we think is the case in more traditional churches. In short, what was once something that was Holy Spirit empowered degenerates into turbo-charged religion.

How do we avoid this trap? Love and humility. That was how Jesus moved amongst the people. In His day it exposed religious spirits. In our day, if we will walk the path of love and humility, it might help to save us from developing a religious spirit.

1 thing I learnt from an Indian apostle

A couple of years ago I visited India. It is amazing what God is doing there and throughout the developing world. Although I was there to speak / teach, I came home feeling that I had learnt more than I taught.

Just recently I had the “home leg” of the learning experience when one of the church leaders I had visited in India visited our church. Needless to say I wasn’t disappointed by the “learning experience” from my friend’s visit. I learnt more than one thing and was moved, not to say overwhelmed by much of what he had to say. One thing, however, stood out.

So what was the one thing? My friend told us that in his movement they instilled into the children that God had called them and ordained them to lead a fruitful life. This is based on Jesus’ declaration to His apostles in John 15 that He had chosen them and appointed them to bear lasting fruit (v.16). If you want to trace the idea further, read the mandate God gives Adam and Eve in Genesis 1. Or the promise He gives Abraham in Genesis 12.

He told stories that were both amazing and very moving to illustrate how even the children in the movement he leads were passionate for Christ and the gospel. This passion, it was evident, remained into adult life, to the point that many were and are prepared to sacrifice very good careers to become missionaries.

As I reflected on the kind of church culture I grew up in – one that extended far beyond my particular church – I noticed that our approach to and understanding of our purpose in life was very different. For us, the emphasis was on avoiding sin rather than producing fruit. In fact I think producing fruit was seen more as a command to be obeyed than a promise to be believed.

There are two problems with that approach.

Firstly, a fruitful Christian life becomes a pressure rather than a promise. And it almost always rests on our ability rather than His power at work through us. In the end it produces spiritual frustration more than spiritual fruit.

Secondly, an approach that focuses on “sin avoidance” tends to end up in spiritual sterility or even a kind of paranoia about being polluted by the world.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t emphasise the need to avoid sin. In fact, we might need to rediscover that emphasis. But on its own, it will not produce fruitful people. And if individual Christians aren’t fruitful, then churches will not flourish.

I should admit that I do go looking for the “secret sauce” or the “silver bullet” when it comes to any kind of success or effectiveness in the church, or elsewhere for that matter. Having said that, I am not for one moment claiming that this is the only or even the main factor in church growth in the developing world. And I do realise that there are enormous cultural differences between the Western world and the Indian sub-continent.

At the same time there are biblical principles that transcend culture. The conviction that God has called every Christian to flourish and bear lasting fruit, to my mind transcends culture. It’s a scriptural principle, not a tenet of a particular culture. And if that is the case, it should be the conviction of every believer- Indian or Western.

Captain Scott’s fruitcake – and why you should join a Connect Group

Various media outlets recently reported a story from the Antarctic. A New Zealand based charity working on a project in Adare in Antarctica found a Huntley and Palmers fruitcake wrapped up in a tin. The cake was part of the provisions taken by Captain Scott and his team on their ill-fated 1911 expedition to Antarctica.

It looked and smelled, they said, like it was still edible. After one hundred years.

Apparently the humble fruitcake is a favourite high energy food of those who are travelling to the distant south. Clearly it also has a bit of staying power! And as one of the Antarctic team remarked, it goes well with a cup of tea. Whatever your troubles, if you have tea and fruitcake…

Who would have thought that fruitcake is a kind of super food for polar explorers?

I’m sure fruitcake isn’t the only “ordinary” commodity that has hidden potential. Perhaps one of our biggest challenges is to see the hidden potential in things that have long become familiar to us.

That is true when it comes to church life as much as it is for polar exploration. There are so many things we take for granted. So many things we forget. Even in the earliest years of the church’s existence, her leaders were anxious to remind congregations in different parts of the Roman Empire of various strands of truth that they feared would be forgotten:

Writing to the Corinthians, Paul explained part of the purpose of his letter:

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand (1 Corinthians 15.1).

And Peter had similar concerns:

So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have (2 Peter 1.12).

As church life takes a more familiar shape after the holiday season, it is no bad thing to remind ourselves of the potential and power of what we do together.

One area that I want to highlight is that of our Connect Groups. (Since it is possible that some will read this post who are not part of Glasgow Elim, just think small group when I use the term Connect Group).

For some Connect Groups are like a poor mid-week substitute for the Sunday service. For others, they are little more than a social gathering. These attitudes are, more often than not, found in those who have not tasted and seen the life that is in a Connect Group. Or they have become the attitudes of those who had a less than satisfactory experience of Connect Groups.

Let me give you four good reasons why Connect Groups are important and you should be part of one.

Firstly, Connect Groups are a place where we experience grace.

Most of us have some sort of concept of grace. We know we are saved by grace (Ephesians 2.8). And we know that we can find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4.16).

But how does that grace come into our lives? 1 Peter 4.10 says: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

We are stewards of grace.

Ephesians 4.29 indicates that we impart grace (New King James translation) through our words:

“Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”

If you want to know what such grace looks like, Galatians 5.22 or Colossians 3.12 are good places to begin. Connect Groups are an environment in which we can extend grace.

Secondly, Connect Groups are a good environment to exercise gifts.

1 Corinthians 14.26 gives us an insight into the life of the early church. Clearly everyone was expected to participate in the ministry. In most Sunday gatherings of most churches of most sizes, that is simply not possible. In a Connect Group however, everyone can contribute:

“What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.”

Connect Groups are an ideal place to discover and use the gifts God has given you and wants to give you.

Thirdly, in a Connect Group, you can expect to grow.

“…let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10.25)

Connect Groups are an environment of challenge and encouragement. We need both to grow. And if you are receiving those two inputs into your life you will grow.

Finally, Connect Groups encourage us to go.

Even when the topic is not necessarily evangelism or mission, the command from Jesus to “Go” is never far from the surface. One of the encouraging developments in our Connect Groups is that some groups are beginning to reach out to the people around them and even invite them along to their meetings. That’s brilliant. Just like the early church!

Small groups might seem about as revolutionary as fruitcake. But beneath that all familiar wrapper lies a way of connecting with God and each other that has the potential to propel us into the spiritual equivalent of a polar adventure. Sometimes we need to take a second look – instead of taking for granted.

1 thing God looks for – and how to develop it

Anyone who has a working knowledge of the Bible will be familiar with Caleb. The biographical detail provided about Caleb ( Numbers 13 & 14; Joshua 14) reveals a man of deep conviction and faith. A man confident in God. And it also reveals that Caleb had the strength of character to nurture and protect a promise God made to him for forty-five years before he saw it fulfilled. And it seems that his conviction somehow mysteriously conserved his strength to the point that he was ready to fight with giants at the age of eighty-five!

How was it that despite the disappointment and setback he experienced when the people rejected his report on the land of Canaan, that he his faith remained rock solid?

Caleb was commended by God and by Moses for one thing: wholeheartedness.

Everyone of us experiences setbacks. Everyone of us experiences disappointments. And too often many of us allow those things to knock our faith out of shape and ultimately knock our life out of shape.

Like Caleb, it is wholeheartedness that is an absolutely key quality to successfully navigating those “faith knocks”.

So how do we develop wholeheartedness ?

Firstly, if you want to develop wholeheartedness, learn to manage the threats to wholeheartedness.

Perhaps the biggest threat is that of disappointment.

Unfulfilled expectations, unexpected diversions and undesired circumstances can tempt us to move into the territory of halfheartedness. They also expose us to the temptation to ditch God’s promises. Or to detach from God’s people.

How do you manage those threats? By taking your thoughts captive. Numbers 13.30 says that Caleb silenced the people. Sometimes we have to silence the voices that speak negativity and halfheartedness.

Secondly, make the most of where you are.

Caleb spent most of his life in places he didn’t want to be. The first forty years of his life were spent in slavery in Egypt. The second forty years were spent wandering in the desert. Those years of desert wandering were not his fault. He was living with the consequences of decisions others had made. He had no option but to wander in the desert with the rest of the Israelites. Yet he still kept wholehearted in his walk with God.

Sometimes we find ourselves in places where we don’t want to be, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find God there. When Jesus went into Samaria, He found Himself in a place where no self respecting Jew of His day would want to be. But Samaria was the place where He transformed the life of one woman and eventually that of a whole city (John 4).

You can find God wherever you are.

Finally, be prepared to modify your image of God.

It’s amazing how faulty our image of God can be. For example, people often think that difficult circumstances are an indication that God is upset with us and is punishing us. Yet the Bible says we have peace with God (Romans 5.1) and that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ (Romans 8.1).

What we believe about God impacts on us. It affects the way we think and that in turn affects our faith.

Caleb was wholehearted for God because He knew God was wholehearted for him. How did he know that?

Caleb was from the tribe of Judah. Judah was a tribe to whom God had given great authority (Genesis 49.10; Psalm 60.7 & 108.8). Caleb lived in the blessing and promise that God had put upon his tribe. He knew who He was and he knew his God.

In Christ we have every blessing Caleb had – and more. If we want to live wholehearted lives, conforming our understanding of God to how He reveals Himself in His word is a priority. We will never be wholehearted for Him, if we feel He is halfhearted about us.

If we can learn from Caleb the power of wholeheartedness, we can push through every setback and disappointment. And more importantly we will attract the smile of God.