I'll Be Honest

Believer, because we are the temple of God, we should ask the Lord for more power from the Holy Spirit. This power that is received, according to grace and not works, is essential to Christian growth. The Bible speaks of the Lord filling His temple with His Holy Spirit and with inexpressible glory. This reality should motivate us to pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our own lives and corporately in our churches.

What is contentment? Contentment is being fully satisfied in our soul, it is an idea of complete sufficiency. It is used in reference to God, in His self sufficiency and needing nothing. You could say it is coming to a state of being that is independent of external circumstances. In other words, it is being unmoved by external circumstances and situations because of the soul satisfaction within us; a state of soul satisfaction and sufficiency that circumstances, neither positive nor negative, can impact. This type of contentment is found in Christ alone and maintained by His power at work in us.

Everything would be okay if _____ ? What comes to your mind, if anything? Have I put something plus Jesus in my equation for contentment?

A mindset of humility promotes unity in a local church. That is a mindset that is not always being opinionated, or thinking we always know what is right, or that we have to push our agenda on others. Must we take a stand where the Bible does and not compromise? Absolutely, but often good men differ over the smallest of the non-essentials of the faith. We need humility to be able to love others who differ from us and not rashly cut them off because of a minor difference.

As a believer maintaining unity in your church should be a priority. However, there are some in the church who are divisive, and a critic of every little thing that comes along because it is not what they would choose or prefer. There are also some who easily get offended at something and they won’t let it go. They let it fester in their mind and heart and it alienates them from their pastors. Then their heart drifts away from a love for those in their church. They still come to the meetings, at least they are there outwardly, but it won’t be long until they are gone; or until they create a stink and a mess in the church.

Ask yourself: Is your relationship right with everyone who is in your church? We must make sure that it is because we cannot worship God and walk with God if we are not right with His other children. Don’t try to live out the Christian life while having broken relationships with those in your church.

The Christian is the only person who has a hope that can truly be rejoiced in and will truly last.

(This was shared at Providence Chapel’s prayer meeting, the day before the Fellowship Conference began.)

When the preacher's sermon preparation leads him to commit eisegesis and he reads his own idea and meaning into the text, it is not a light matter. If the preacher does not substantiate what he is saying from the text, then he may fall into slipping his own opinions into the sermon. These opinionated assumptions are stated as if they come from the text, but they do not. Preacher, are you clearly giving the sense of the passage and proving it from the text?

Nehemiah 8:8 - They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

When we were lost, we were dead in trespasses and sins. It wasn't that we transgressed against God every once in awhile. All we ever did was sin and trespass against God and God's commandments. God purposely used graphic terms to describe what we were in our lost condition. Do you recognize the power that was necessary to take dead sinners like us and make us alive?

Even as Christians, there is still an aversion to really grasping the reality of how dead we were when lost. We love to protect ourselves and put ourselves in the best possible light. We are massively proficient in defending ourselves rather than condemning and accusing ourselves.

One way that shows that we don't understand the wickedness of our sin is that we recoil in horror when a child is murdered, but don't recoil when people worship idols. Our sin is horrific wickedness towards God. We largely measure our sins on how they are received or how they impact other people. There is still a root of man-centeredness that still needs to be washed and purged from us. We still don't comprehend the ugliness and the fallenness and the depravity of the pit that God saved us from.

Paul says that Jesus Christ has put everything under His feet and been appointed as head over all for the church. Christian, do you realize what is being said? Paul is saying that He who is head over everything and is all powerful, is all powerful on the believer’s behalf! It is no small reality that Christ is over all for us, but rather it is a reason to have confidence that He is powerfully working in us to live holy lives.

Jesus gave a call to radical discipleship, to exclusive allegiance. The call to become a Christian is a call to have Jesus be our Lord and our God.