Be On The Lookout...

One of the passages in our SOUL Journal reading today was Acts 6.  I was struck by the unceasing work of Satan to try and destroy God’s church.  First he tried persecution, as we read in chapters four and five, but instead of destroying the believers it only had the effect of encouraging them and the church grew faster.  So Satan tried a different tactic, he looked to destroy the church by introducing sin into the body through Ananias and Sapphira, but God, through the Holy Spirit dealt with the sin quickly and decisively.  In chapter 6 we see another of the tactics Satan uses to divide, he stirred up dissension within the church.  He used perceived offenses to cause division. 

Truth is Satan uses these tactics still today.  Persecution, corruption and dissension are all ways today that cause God’s people to be distracted and lose heart.  A church that is filled with internal conflict spend all their time and emotional energy on that rather than on the mission at hand because any church focused on itself will not be focused on reaching lost people and even when people become Christ-followers what kind of family will they find themselves in - certainly not one that would help them become fully devoted followers of Christ.

May I encourage you this week to be on the lookout for these tactics of the enemy.  He desires to distract us and deter us from fulfilling our mission of multiplying Christ-followers everywhere.  Whether you fully believe it or not, this is your highest mission priority as a child of God.  Don’t let hard times, sinful decisions and dissension derail you. 

Speaking of mission, will you partner with the family at Desert Streams and plan on attending our Good Friday and Easter services and do everything within your power to bring someone with you who needs to hear the Good News of the gospel.

 

Pastor Gary

28 Days: Day 26

Join us this evening @ 7 for a time of intercessory worship at the church.

SCRIPTURE

• Matthew 4:23 (NIV) ²³ Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
• Mark 6:34 (NIV) ³⁴ When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
• Mark 9:30-31 (NIV) ³⁰ They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, ³¹  because he was teaching his disciples.
• Luke 11:1 (NIV) ¹ One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."
• Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV) ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

OBSERVATION

Jesus came to earth and everywhere He went He taught people.  He taught them how to act like God followers, He taught them about the kingdom of heaven, He taught them about the nature and character of the Father.  When He ascended into heaven He told us what we needed to do with all that knowledge…it must be allowed to transform the way we live and it was to be passed on to new believers who could then pass it on to other new believers.   

UNDERSTANDING

• 2 Timothy 2:2 (NIV) ² And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

The New Testament clearly teaches that the gospel is to be taught from generation to generation. Jesus, of course, was the Master Teacher. He taught the apostles, who then taught others, who taught others, who are still teaching others, and so on throughout the church age. In every generation, God has raised up new links in this living chain of faithful men to pass on the good news of Jesus Christ to the people of their day.The apostles, some for only a brief time before they were martyred, proclaimed the gospel they had received from Christ to other faithful men—prophets, elders, deacons, and many others—among whom was Timothy. It was now Timothy's turn to entrust the gospel, and all other divinely revealed truths, to others.In a state invitational track meet during my college years, I represented my team as the second man in the mile relay. The first man ran a fast first leg, and I did well on the second. But soon after I passed off the baton to the third man, one of our best runners, he stopped, walked onto the infield, and sat down. Our first horrified thought was that he had pulled a hamstring or twisted an ankle. I ran across the field and asked, "What happened?" "I don't know," he replied, "I just didn't feel like running anymore." Understandably, his teammates, the coach, and everyone else from our college were sickened and disgusted. "How could you do that?" we asked. "Don't you know you're not just representing yourself, but your team and your school? Have you forgotten all the time the coach has invested in you and that your teammates have invested to get where we are? How could you, in one brief, selfish second, destroy all of that?"On an infinitely more important level, countless leaders in the church have simply dropped out of the Lord's service, some with no better reason than the apathy of that collegiate runner.MacArthur New Testament Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament Commentary – 2 Timothy.

LIFE APPLICATION

Have you been faithful with the knowledge you have been given?  How are you teaching others the truths you have learned?  What are you going to do about it?

28 Days: Day 25

70 Hour prayer vigil begins today. http://signup.com/go/SbLkgzS Join us this evening @ 7 for a time of intercessory worship at the church.

SCRIPTURE

• Luke 9:1-6 (NIV) ¹  When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, ²  and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. ³  He told them: "Take nothing for the journey--no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. ⁴  Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. ⁵  If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them." ⁶  So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.

OBSERVATION

The Twelve’s mission had a single purpose: they were to proclaim the kingdom of God.  Proclaim refers to a herald’s formal, authoritative, public announcement of important truth. In an era before mass media, that was how important messages were communicated to the public, just as town criers would do in later times. In town after town, the apostles publicly proclaimed that the kingdom of God was at hand because the Lord, Savior, and King had arrived. They also announced that entrance to the kingdom was through repentance, with confession of sin, and faith in the Messiah.The preaching of the Twelve followed the pattern set by Jesus. In Luke 4:43 He announced, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.” At the beginning of chapter 8, Luke recorded that “He began going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God”.   As Luke noted in that same verse, “the twelve were with Him,” learning from His example. When He sent them out, the Twelve preached the same message that Jesus did. The church today has that same responsibility to preach exactly what Jesus did without altering it. The church’s message is not a social, political, philanthropic, or moral one. It is a message of sin, salvation, and forgiveness, which without being changed has been explained and enriched in the New Testament epistles.MacArthur New Testament Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Luke 6-10. 

UNDERSTANDING

Jesus gathered up His disciples and sent them out to the nations.  The word is apostello or sent ones.  That is exactly what He commissioned us to when He gave us the Great Commission. We are sent ones to the world.Two very simple thoughts about sent ones. A sent one makes the message of Jesus very simple and understandable.  Our message as disciples does not have to be complicated.  It is not about literally having better morals.  The message of Christ is not meant to be a feel good, or a positive thinking message.  It is a very, very simple message that we, as sinful people, are separated from a holy God.  God loved us so much that Jesus went on the very first Heavenly mission trip in order to give Himself for us, so that we should live.  We could be made right with Him, not by religion, not by works, but only by faith through the grace of God, believing in Jesus Christ.  It is a very, very simple message, and we are called to take that message into all of the world very, very aggressively. Number two, a sent one makes compassion central.  As disciples of Jesus, we should be the most compassionate, caring, and generous people on planet earth. 

LIFE APPLICATION

 Have you gotten the message yet?  We are Great Commission people and GC people are called to be missionaries – across the street, at our jobs, in foreign lands.  Will you go?