sickness

PREACHING WITH NO FAN BASE

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Chicago White Sox v Baltimore Orioles“Then your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:4)

The good news for Baltimore is the Orioles crushed the Chicago White Sox 8 to 2. The bad news is due to the riots in Baltimore no one could come to the game. The game was rescheduled from a night to a day game because there was a 10pm curfew and no fans were allowed in the ballpark.

It was odd.

Only media people and a few scouts came and that was it. You could hear the players yell for a pop fly, the loud smack of the ball in the catcher’s mitt, the crack of the bat and the clicking of cameras taking pictures. All that was dulled by the sound of people was so vibrant. It was like apocalyptic baseball game and the two teams were the only survivors on earth so they decided to play. They played hard-it was a regulation game. The game was real with or without the fans despite the few people who peeked in through gates and looked on from hotel balconies. The game had to go on with or without them. It still counted.

Lately, there are some preachers who have had to preach and pray alone. You were a Pastor or Evangelist andopen-bible-empty-pews ministered for many years but it seems things have so changed you may feel like you are unnecessary and outdated. You know you must preach God’s Word without compromise and this earned you the left foot of fellowship.

Maybe you are just aging and your church or denomination replaced you with some one younger.

The church split caused you to have to have to close your church and sell your building.

Maybe you were debilitated by sickness or physical weakness and you had to leave your ministry only to find you were thoughtlessly replaced.

It could be you sinned and God in his mercy chastised you but now that you have recovered people don’t trust you.

It is even hard for you to attend church because it serves as a reminder of what you used to do and how much you loved it.

Although you feel depressed, anxious or even useless you but God’s gifts and callings are never taken away and your heart longs to preach and pray and minister to others (Rom 11:29). You love Christ and his Word.

You are not invited very often to preach so you witness to people wherever you go or the opportunity arises. Sometimes you preach around the house when no one is home. You pray and seek God alone only with his eyes upon you and no one sees. There are no pastor appreciation days for you. You have no fans and your life seems like an empty stadium. While there are men of God who still preach the Word who are active in pulpit ministry you get my meaning.

The game of life is still real. Your life still counts. What you still do is during “regulation” time and things still affect your average. Everything you do still counts in the standings of life. It does not matter how people see you. The devil has tried to put a gag order on real men of God but they cannot be stopped.

Paul was rejected by other preachers and churches. The fake apostles were handsome and eloquent. They tried to discredit him by making fun of his appearance and speaking ability. He writes, “For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech contemptible….I do not think I am in the least inferior to those “super-apostles.” I may indeed be untrained as a speaker, but I do have knowledge. ” (2 Cor 10:10; 11:5-6). 

He also said, “To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.” (1 Cor 4:11-13NIV).

Yet, Paul still knew he was in the game-that what he did mattered. He knew that his call was real. The Christ he preached was still Lord of his life. His preaching still had eternal consequences.

In reality the stadium of your life is full! You are “surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith” (Heb. 12:1NLT). Men like Abel, Abraham, Job, David, Stephen, Paul and Peter have field seats to encourage you on! They shout as you defeat another enemy, resist a temptation and win another soul to Jesus. But best of all there sits JESUS and how he loves you! He is there smiling while other ignore or scowl at you. He makes it clear that you don’t need a fan base to preach-you are living, “not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.” (1 Thess 2:4).

Keep in the game dear brethren. The seasons may change, be prepared! Sharpen the axe of your skills (Eccl 10:10). Keep preaching, studying, singing and worshiping. You are vital to blessing God’s people and are a force to be reckoned with and you will find a fan base is not necessary.

Jesus is the Author and Finisher of your faith! You keep your eyes on him, for he is your most precious prize! 

©2015 Rev. Stephen S. Gibney, give credit where credit is due.

Afraid of the World?

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ss-090427-swine-mw06_ss_fullRecent comments from our Vice President about the swine flu or A1-N1 caught my attention as I am sure it did yours.  The Whitehouse had to rephrase his comments (of which I am sure they will do again)  about avoiding subways planes, or any close areas and head for an open field and calm the fears of people when it came to this flu which has hit the world in  pandemic proportions. Now it seems that the swine flu is old news and we hardly hear about it.  But I saw the analogy in many Christians relationship with the world, meaning the people of this world.

You always have to be careful to the way you define the world. The world can be the actual planet on which we live which the Bible teaches belongs to the Lord (Ps. 24:1; Isaiah 66:1-2).  The word “world” also can be translated age or a time period. The  Bible calls this present evil age  in which the the small “g” god of this age Satan, rules over the minds of unbelievers  (Gal 1:4; 2 Cor 4:4).  In fact, the world can also refer to the order and arrangement of the system of evil or the “age of this world” that seeks to seduce people away from God and attempt to hinder the cause of Christ (Eph 2:2-3).

It is obvious that it is the world system that is controlled by Satan and his lies that with which we should be concerned. Although, people who do not know Christ as Lord and Savior are living lives controlled by sin, we are to love them and lead them to the Savior, not to be afraid of them or catching something from them.

Because such were some of you… 

In these areas I see people who say they are Christians going to several extremes.  Either they feel they can have one foot in the world and one foot in the church, meaning that they want to be able to say they are Christians and believe at least some of the tenet’s of the Christian faith. But they have made a grave error which is submitting to the “world system” that is controlled by Satan and his lies (Eph 2:2-3).  You cannot ally yourself with this world system or you end up being an enemy of God (James 4:4). But the Bible makes it clear that we need to stop acting like people who do not know Jesus Christ as their Savior (Jer 10:2; 1 John 2:14-16).

Then there are those who act so afraid of the world  they seem monastic and pietistic in their approach to it.  They even develop an attitude which says, “I am holier than you” (Isa. 65:5). I think at times we treat unconverted people  as though they were going to infect us with a virus of  sin.   This kind of Christianity is anemic and weak and they need to reexamine their lives in light of scripture.  We forget that we are still tainted with sin ourselves and were it not for Christ we would be in slavery to its power.

Jesus said that he overcame the world. “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).  He did not say that we would be free from trouble and suffering. Bright sunshine and hard rain still falls on the righteous and the unrighteous. The scripture insists and that we must go through “much tribulation” before we reach our heavenly home (Acts 14:22).

It is only “in Christ” and in his his words that we can have peace. There is a rest that comes to us knowing that the welfare of our souls are in the hands of the one who said,  “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” (John 10:28-29). 

This phrase “in me” is a loaded phrase. We are “in Christ”  the last Adam, the new life we have because of him as opposed to “in Adam” or the old man, the previous way of the sinful life.  The word “in” means a location or position. We are in Christ spiritually. What could this mean? We are positionally in Christ, God has saved us in Christ before the world began. That means that we were in him, together in him, joined to him before the very foundation of the world. That gives me peace in the midst of the storm.  What seems bad or what seems good to us does not matter when we know God in his sovereignty and providence is causing all things to work together for good (Romans 8:28).

What does the Lord require? Faith and trust in him. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4-5). Through the eyes of faith we see Christ as Victor seated at God right hand far above everything in this age and the age to come! We are in the victors seat with him and we do not have to be afraid of the world.

Tales From the Furnace Part 2

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furnace3It is no comfort to know that everyone goes through trials (1 Cor 10:13; 1 Peter 5:8-9) unless you see that those trials melt us together to become one golden masterpiece. I love those who have melted in him, with me. The fellowship of his sufferings bring us together as Jesus prayed, “that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” (John 17:21-23).

 

You will be at your very worst and very best in trial. But when the futility of my own works is clearly seen I begin to feel after these trials as Job, “my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.” (Job 7:15KJV). I have grown weary with the ineffectiveness of my ministry. But I realize that God is doing a very deep work of humiliation and holiness in me. I hate these times. I do repent that I have despised the chastening of the Lord because if I despise it I deem him unjust and He is not. It is just everything is fire, smoke and I can hardly breathe.

 

I realize that the three Hebrew boys thrown into the furnace came out with no smoke, but they did have a flavor in them that they did not before. I cough, gasp, struggle for breath and cry for help. I am like a burning piece of wood, when will I be plucked from the flames (Amos 4:11)? All my pride is worthless, my heart naked, the varnish of my reputation stripped. All I hear and feel is a spiritual burning! My soul, mind and body melt in the crucible of God!

 

My soul is in prison and one can deliver me from his hands (Psalm 142:7). I am incarcerated, sentenced to these flames-he pours the liquor of heaven on me and set me afire so that somehow the taste of the brazen altar and its savor is in me! No one can remove me from this inferno, this purgatory! He looks the other way as I give my prayer performance in order to cause a diversion in his heart from being in this fire!

 

He has no regard to my Bible reading in hopes, reminding him of his promises and profession of faith in order to escape. I must go through the molten sanctification. The time has come that, “I must think of my sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get my own way. Then I’ll be able to live out my days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what I want.” (1 Peter 4:1-2 MSG).

 

“Even from eternity I am He, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?” (Isaiah 43:13NASB). All the prayers of my friends leave me untouched, I am invulnerable to my enemies I am in the fearful place, in the hands of the Sovereign God-the all consuming fire. He has swallowed me up in the belly of his fire, to separate the useless things from me. The thing I cannot use, should not use and will not use. Because they are burned! Useless, worthless, there is so much in me that desecrates the temple, defiling pollution!

 

Before I am transfigured it seems I must be disfigured. Or have I always been disfigured? All the comeliness, the perfect beauty God bestows upon me (Ezekiel 16:14) is removed. “For my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength.” (Daniel 10:8).  It is a deathly pallor, or a face pale with death to self weakness, cowardice! There is only burning instead of beauty (Isaiah 3:24).

 

God is not an irresponsible parent. He beats me with his rod to deliver my soul from hell (Prov 23:14). Obedience is for my spiritual health and operating in wisdom to his intention and design in creating us and all around us we must use those things in the context he gave. If God sees an area in my life that refuses to respond in obedience and there are many he will resort to other measures that will cause “a quiet harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.” (Heb. 12:11NLT).

 

God will not fight for me (Psalm 44:9) while he is fighting with me (Acts 5:39)! I try to fight him but he has beaten my resolve, my ability to fight as he turns my swords in to shovels, my spears into hoes-gardening tools (Isaiah 2:4). He uses that fight in me against me to accomplish his work of husbandry and farming! My life pours out of me like blood that he holds in his hands and absorbs like a cup.  I am like a sacrifice, a burnt offering on his burning altar (Rom. 12:1). Flesh and blood cannot inherit his kingdom! My flesh, my blood cannot do what his spirit and life can do! (John 6:63).

 

He does the deliberate work of sanctification exterminating the compound uselessness from my soul and unscrambling the useless wasteful abilities of my life-the ore of my life; refining, producing purity a nearly uncontaminated and a state suitable for his use. My filth pours out of me by this spirit of judgment and burning (Isaiah 4:4).

 

I cannot stand it any longer. “But who can endure the day of His coming and who can stand when He appears? For, He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness.” (Malachi 3:2-3NKJV). Don’t sing to me of this fire! There is nothing quixotic or romantic about it! “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the LORD tests hearts.” (Prov. 17:3).

 

The crucible is not just the furnace-but the bottom of the furnace! It is why he must lift me up out of the scum and excrement of self will, rebellion for it is ugly and vile. It is the only way I can have hope of being a vessel useful for God. It is all dross. That archaic word means Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer. (Prov 25:4KJV). In another version it says, “Remove impurities from the silver and the silversmith can craft a fine chalice.” (Prov 25:4). A chalice, an extraordinary vessel in my Lord’s eyes, a cup of communion! Oh I long to be lifted to the Lord’s lips as such! He communed with his Father and I was a horrible prospect (Rev 17:4). In a state where I desire not purity and embrace this fire he would rightly says over and over again, “Father let this cup pass from me!” (Mk 14: 36-39). But instead the Crucified one drinks from this weary cup as part of his Father’s will, the wrath of God against sinners, for my sake and drains it of all its impurity for he himself took on my diseased nature, sin sick nature and gave me his righteousness (Isaiah 53:4-5).

 

Now let him lift me to his lips as a chalice-a cup that the glorified Christ would drink from! He took the cup and if not mans eyes! Don’t preach to me theology about me difference between salvation and sanctification because if I am not cleansed eventually I would be lost-if I am his, really his I will bear fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” (Romans 6:22). Do not interfere with my beloved and I (Song 2:7; 8:4)

 

I must be holy in all I am and do! A life energetic and blazing with holiness! (1 Peter 1:15). He must make me holy even if he must teach me to resist sin with the surrender of my own life (Heb 12:4). To live is Christ to die is gain (Phil 1:21)! I cannot love my life, family, friends and dreams more than him or I will lose my life to sin and self’s destructive grasp (Mt 10:39)!

 

I know of his grace of his imputed righteousness but forgiveness is not enough I must find my fulfillment in doing the will of God, after that I have done the will of God I might receive the promise (Heb 10:36). Oh God strengthen me complete and perfect me and make me what I ought to be and equip me with everything good that I may carry out Your will while You Yourself work in me and accomplishes that which is pleasing in Your sight, through Jesus Christ! (Heb 13:21).

 

I can only rest in the Crucified One and somehow believe that, “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song 2:6).  It is amazing.  After a long study on the Song of Solomon and in the first chapter the Shulamite says, “I am weathered but still elegant, oh, dear sisters in Jerusalem, Weather–darkened like Kedar desert tents, time-softened like Solomon’s Temple hangings.” (Song 1:5MESSAGE).

 

Weathered- that is it! Weather beaten is more like it. How the trials of life can make us elegant is hard to comprehend. I feel ugly and useless. God erodes all our substances and our beauty (what we think is our beauty or righteousness) and softens us. It is when your heart is bruised, sore when you feel the stitches-God attempts to heal us after these spiritual surgeries. But like anything you have to be careful in your movements, if you do not rest or let it heal it bleeds all over again.  

 

If you find another way than by all means take it, though it I say that with much reservation. We all have a love hate relationship with the pressures of life and the squeezing of GOD’s hand to bring forth the juice of the fruit of the Spirit in us. When Paul visited Lystra, Iconium and Antioch he was “putting muscle and sinew in the lives of the disciples, urging them to stick with what they had begun to believe and not quit, making it clear to them that it wouldn’t be easy: “Anyone signing up for the kingdom of God has to go through plenty of hard times.” (Acts 14:22Message).

Tales From the Furnace Part 1

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furnace“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy…for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.” (1 Peter 4:12-14).

 

We are saved by God’s sovereign grace alone, through faith alone by Christ alone for God’s glory alone. But we will go through a process of sanctification and be comformed to his image. What I am attempting to say is not email, voice mail or snail mail it is heart mail. I only know that in order to change and change I must, that the furnace can not be side stepped. Only when you grow sick and tired of your self and you will, then you of your own free will enter the furnace. You will cry for purging of your sin nature rather than pardon for your sins. The children of Israel were told, “But the LORD hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day. (Deut 4:20).

 

Those are ominous words at first reading. Peter tells those persecuted Christians thousands of years ago that trials are fiery. This verse can say easily, “Don’t be amazed by the burning!”  I am amazed that this could happen to me. My present suffering is agony on fire and a trial by fire. It burns. It injures. It hurts so badly. My tears are like the crackling of the flames. When I am dumb with silence I just feel the steady heat, I have a steady glow as all the moisture in me is turned into a drought (Psalm 32:4). I am dehydrated. I thirst! My soul is a dry and thirsty land where there is no water and I thirst for God (Psalm 63:1-3)! Of course it burns, scorching fire is involved. If by chance you hear or read these words and you are experiencing pain, you are not unspiritual, it does not mean you are carnal because you are in pain.

 

There is dignity in this time even when you feel all your self-respect has been stripped away. People will accuse you or worse counsel you during this time. This is a matter of intimacy. Man’s opinion or man pleasing is the heart of all lethal religion. Of the Pharisees who refused the fire of Christ’s words it says, “All their works they do for to be seen of men!” (Mt. 23:5). Do you and I feel absolved from this sort of criminal act? The Message version says, “Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next.” Man’s opinion of you must become fuel for the furnace or you will never benefit from this trial. You will be useless for the Master’s work. When you come to the realization of how many things you have done to be seen of men instead of God, it will break your heart!

 

You and I feel disfigured on the way to be transfigured. What you were, what you know does not matter at all in these flames. Self esteem and confidence-what are they in this furnace that incinerates all things?

 

A healthy view of self is not against scripture and impish false humility is loathsome to God but self hatred has its place as well. But everything is an issue to the flames including your identity and titles. Your history and good works are but dung if you would win Christ! (Phil 3:8). Nothing can douse the inferno. Man centered theology cannot help you. Don’t speak to me of psychology. Leave me and my Beloved alone. You cannot know. Only he can. What you and I know about God is tested and if it is worthless it is reduced to ashes as the fire licks at our mind and soul and removes it to where we have more questions than answers! 

 

If you are suffering, you are suffering like Christ did. To be like Jesus is the prayer of any child of God who has a sane understanding of what it is to be a Christian. I am stunned as I read that people “did not accept deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection!” (Heb 11:35). What kind of mindset is that compared to what we hear preached in the pop theology of the emergent, church growth cults of today?

 

But could you look at him in the face, touch his nail scarred hands, the wound that was from a lance thrust in his side and look down art his nail pierced feet never having endured suffering and trial? Is Jesus in his suffering so disfigured in your eyes that you do not see the beauty he has? Paul prayed for “the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings!” (Phil 3:10). The Murdock translation says, “That I might know Jesus, and the efficacy of his resurrection; and might participate in his sufferings, and be assimilated to his death.” The effectiveness of his resurrection life can only be appreciated when you are personally involved with a suffering for Christ and are absorbed into his death! Is this suffering Jesus someone you avoid? It is a fellowship and companionship. Those who associate with him do suffer. But we suffer with him that we might reign with him. (2 Tim 3:12).

 

As hard as it is to accept, a radiance and splendor of his presence is going to be seen in you like never before. You are being integrated into all that Jesus is, in this furnace. The spirit of glory and of God will rest on you.

 

This trial is familiar yet unique. It is a test. Why now? Either things were going so well, or things are bad enough! Now a test comes! It is not a pop quiz, it is like a pop SAT. Trials are not strange. It is not an accident. This is not THE trial with no obstacles afterward. There are many ordeals in this life (James 1:2-3). God says “Don’t be confused. It is on purpose. You must be tested and proven.”  God is not after you he is after something in you. Like a dangerous glaucoma of pride, or the cancer of bitterness, any soul damning desires that lurk like a cancer that pretends to be benign when it actually can turn terminal in an instant.

 

But no matter despite what Peter our brother in Christ wrote to us, my first reaction to life’s complications is that they are strange and I am confused. I have been here before but it is a different scene.