Carrying on the teachings of Jesus outside of a “Christian” setting.

Sometimes I lose sight of the goal, the vision that was given to my wife and I when we moved to Alpine 3.5 years ago. We were ready to go anywhere in the world, we had traveled to South America for a DTS with a YWAM base in Argentina and had saved enough money to supply our needs for 6 months and book flights anywhere in the world. We really were prepared to go to the unreached peoples in whatever country they may be in, other than the states. 

Then God told us… He said go back to AMERICA. We didn’t want to do life & practice ministry with Americans, the culture in America was so beyond us. We didn’t want to be involved in politics or “Church Culture” or the “American Dream”. We didn’t want to be some hip couple with a coffee shop  with Chalk letter boards on the wall with scripture passages on them, if thats your thing it is cool, but not our style. 

Yet, when we sat there during this one week of our DTS we both felt like we were suppose to come back to the states. CRAZY. We didn’t want to do it, but when you have this peace from the Lord, you have it. And you don’t want to act outside of it, now we believe that God gives us choices in life, very few times does He have one option and one option only for your life. We believe he has ONE best option for your life, but as we see life, the ability for us to choose is so prominent and important to the true character & love that God has for His Children.

Empowerment

This ability to choose is a huge part of discipleship, you see God empowers us with the freedom of choice (yes I know all about predestination but there is a side that is literally beyond our comprehension and that is what I am speaking of here). Full blog post on this topic coming soon.

We have found that one of our purposes out here in West Texas is opening up doors of opportunities for people to pursue something they love or feel called to. You see in the mission field every activity has an allure of purpose, feeding the hungry, building a church, digging a well, leading worship etc. In our everyday life it is very easy to fall into a pattern that repeats day after day, just to get by & pay the bills. We believe life should be so much more than that, and we believe the words of Jesus when He says:

“If you ask anything in My name, I will do it…”

John 14:14

Sometimes we forget we serve a living God. This verse above has been an encouragement to us that we have an advocate with the Father, and that as we are pursuing the advancement of the Kingdom in our small town that we can ask big things of the Lord and He is faithful to accomplish those things. Both for ourselves and also for others, God doesn’t have favorites but He does have children who listen to Him & those that don’t.

We want to encourage ourselves and those around us to listen to the Lord, why don’t we include Him in our decisions, why don’t we ask Him why things aren’t happening that we want to see happening. Why? James says it is because we don’t ask.

“You do not have because you do not ask.. you ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly to to spend on it on your passions.”

James 4:2b-3

Now James was dealing with a selfish, ignorant people spread throughout the dispersion at the time. But if you read all of James you will find that James is so plain & impactful that all of that book is extremely relevant to our everyday lives in the 21st century. We have found that simply asking God questions about where we are at in life, and where we want to be has been the most meaningful way to get answers. 

Conclusion

Discipleship in our minds is leading people to have a relationship with Jesus and empowering them to then be comfortable asking God questions – and just speaking with God. Heck that is what a relationship is, sometimes we think reading a book about God is having a relationship with Him. Imagine if we applied that to our earthly relationships… What if we just read peoples facebook bios and that is how me made friends… never having a real conversation or interaction with them. Just liking their photos & maybe just possibly commenting on a photo. That kind of relationship sucks, it isn’t what life is suppose to be and it isn’t what our relationship with God is suppose to be.

Ask God something… anything and see what He answers it is one of the best exercises in life to do, it’s a faith exercise.

Ways we are discipling:

Coffee Training & Experience

Media Design (Web, App & Print)

Three and a half years ago my wife and I moved out to this small town in West Texas, looking to follow the will of God. Typically people would see the will of God in their lives as a foreign land for ministry, charity, food kitchens, giving, tithing etc. As I read Scripture I see the people of Faith having a different type of life than what we in the church would see as a “good Christian life” today.

We have known since our time in Argentina that our ministry would look quite different than the 4 walls we usually put Ministry into (Church, Foreign Ministry, Non-Profit Ministry, Christian Education) – I am going to focus on 2 people from the OT in this post, not all my posts are sermons but this particular one has been on my  & I want to share.

Slavery to Authority

Joseph, (Gen. chapters 37 – 50) as you read his story you will see that He was a man destined for greatness, spoken to by the Lord & given specific dreams, those dreams didn’t come true the way he had expected. Heck, they brought him more harm than good for more than 10 you years, but if you take a step back from the Bible story you know & see Joseph for a person living in a foreign land (of heathens nevertheless) you don’t see him evangelizing people to Christ. You don’t see him trying to save Egypt and the whole world to the One True God (sorry I may get some flack for this). But one thing you see him doing is being Faithful & Excellent. 

He was faithful to what God had shown him in his dream, he knew he had a higher calling than going about  life as a slave in a foreign land. He was responsible, hard-working & adaptive to the culture. This last point really hit home with me recently, Joseph became Egyptian he immersed himself in his surroundings, he didn’t try to be something he wasn’t & he (as far as we can tell) didn’t lose his Faith – in the New Testament this would be equivalent to Paul saying “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³ I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” (1).

We see from Joseph’s faithfulness & perseverance that he rose to authority no matter his surroundings, whether it be as a slave in Pottifer’s house, or a prisoner, or as a “Magician”. When you know who God has called you to be, it is only a matter of you accepting that fact & daily striving to walk that out, getting to know who God is & walking in authority everyday, not just when you get to showoff to the humanly authorities. Our dream is for ourselves to walk in this authority & to train those around us practically to continually know God & walk in this authority, or really, even greater authority since we now have the Holy Spirit.

From Exile to foremost Magician

Daniel (Book of Daniel) Another OT Saint that we see has been taken from his home in Israel and placed among the Babylonian’s, he was chosen for a special duty among the Kings’ elite. This is a story that I love and the Lord has opened my eyes to it recently, you see at the beginning of the book of Daniel we see him & 3 other young men from Israel stand up for their way of life, saying that if they follow the dietary restrictions given to them by their religion they will be healthier. They know who God is, they know of their place of authority & the privilege they have in being chosen for the Kings elite, but they won’t waver in their convictions.

You will see this throughout the book of Daniel (I will only speak of Daniel, although Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are interesting) knew the culture of Babylon, he became a figure of authority in Babylon, but he stayed faithful in his personal life to the Lord. His connection with the Lord gave him authority within his realm. When King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream he asked all the wiseman in the land to interpret it for him… None could do it. Then Daniel comes in, he knows the Lord, he knows that he has authority and he is able to interpret the dream through the Lord.

“[Daniel’s] connection with the Lord gave him authority within his realm [of influence]. “

Daniel had such authority that he made many enemies, which led to the Lions Den. And which in turn led to the King (Darius) to praise the Most High God (2) throughout the land. His friendship with the king & the authority he walked with impacted those around him, and resulted in the Most High God receiving praise.

Summary

Daniel & Joseph both knew who God was & just as important they knew who they were in God’s sight. We see them both embrace the culture around them but not forget their convictions, I would say they adapted & walked in their spiritual authority in their secular positions.

You see, we as Christians are called to not do “Christian things” but to walk in a relationship with Jesus & carry the same authority He had when He walked this earth. One thing I have to constantly keep in mind is that I am a prince in the Kingdom, my wife is a princess, we have authority over the spiritual powers in this world. The way we display this power is not in fanciful demonstration of exorcisms but in demonstrating love to those around us. Being faithful with what & who God has placed in our realm of influence & not alienating ourselves from those who don’t know Jesus. You see, people that don’t know the power of God are the very ones who need to see the power of God demonstrated through love.

We are to walk in authority every day. No matter the surrounding, the people, or the situation. Walking in Fear of God faithfully and loving those around us.

Sources

(1) 1 Cor. 9:19-23 ¹⁹ Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone,to win as many as possible. ²⁰ To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ²¹ To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. ²² To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³ I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

(2) Daniel 6:25-28

²⁵ Then King Darius wrote to all the nations and peoples of every language in all the earth:

²⁸ So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus^[b] the Persian.

As we have gone through life we have seen a need for hope & connection for people from Argentina to Germany the need remains the same, people who care about others and can see that life is more than the ecosystem we build around us. By this I mean, we all have a propensity to build up an environment around us made up of friends, decisions, jobs etc. that we can comprehend, manage & be in control of, we as humans hate the position of being helpless.

As I read scripture I see in the Old Testament & New Testament the Lord calling His people to the unknown.

“unknown”

Meaning: not known or familiar.

Our faith is most often associated with Salvation; we hear about faith in church all the time, I would guess 90-95% of the time it is mentioned it is used as an example of what is required for our salvation. But one thing that we as Christians don’t want to think about is exercising that same faith spoken of in scripture after our salvation, in our everyday lives, because in reality that is weird; like what are we going to ask God? What shoes we should wear that day? What stores to go into? Or god forbid we ask God to give us wisdom in our workplace, to solve problems or help us have patience or strength with coworkers and then actually walk in the Spirit, kindness & love with those coworkers.

We live in a world where we see everything in the physical and our spiritual vision is on “0”, we are sometimes even incapable of understanding what it means to “Walk by faith & not by sight…”(1), this passage of scripture is speaking about having another mind, a completely other worldly mindset, one that sees people in need and knowing that the only way we can help is to be present with the Lord, not in our current state of humanness. Sometimes we over-spiritualize situations, we want metrics & results, we want to know that what we do and say have an impact and we can mark it on our personal spiritual score card. When we think like this, we miss the point of what Jesus said in 90% of his teaching, that His Kingdom is not in the seen world but the unseen, and that His followers operate in a power that is given by the Father…

I’ma let you think about that for a sec…

Sometimes we have to operate in a power that is unseen, how in the heck do we do that? Faith, faith is the only way we can carry the power of God within our being. Faith requires us to trust & know the Father, something we as Christians direly need in our lives. What if we were able to share everyday testimonies with people that we encounter everyday instead of a bible verse that has no connection to the person (I know His word never returns void, so I’m not saying don’t share scripture), I am saying that we as Christians should allow His Kingdom to reign in us in Power and not words only (2); that His power is sometimes unseen but never unnoticed.

His Power is sometimes unseen but never unnoticed.

We have an authority from on high, an authority over the daily robber of joy, hope & peace. The world knows nothing of those three traits if they don’t know Jesus, it is our duty to bring a reality of hope, joy & peace to the world around us. The only way we can do this is by trusting in the Lord by Faith, asking the Lord daily to show us ways we can trust Him, and obeying even the smallest urging that He gives us.

How do we do this? Well first read the Word of God with an open heart & take it at face value (at least the New Testament, I would do an extensive study of the Old before taking it at face value). My next post will touch on the is topic.

Sources

(1) 2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, then, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord”

(2) 1 Corinthians 4:20 “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.“