Is living your calling worth it?

 

Is Your Calling Worth it?

God was blowing my mind today with such expansive thoughts about all of us who claim  to be Christians. I saw us living lives “worthy of the calling we have received” in the words of the Apostle Paul in Eph. 4:1. Click here to watch my video posting,

Is Your Calling Worth It?

Do you deny your calling?

A while ago and friend of mine showed me an intriguing video of Peter Rollins called I Deny the Resurrection. You should check it out!

But, tonight I am thinking about the way we deny our calling to live as the light of the world. Jesus has sent us to burn with the light of His kingdom. But, we forget so quickly. Our families and our communities not to mention our churches would vibrate with life and the power of God’s love if we allowed Him to own our hearts.

We can choose to be different. We can decide to actually do what the Holy Spirit says to us through His word. Let’s face it, we are addicted to epic ideas about what the future holds and what the next great move of God might be like. But hearing or reading about what “might be” is not enough!

To God, the only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love. James exposed the lunacy of hearing but not acting on the word of God.

 Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like. But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.  

James 1:22-25 TM

God help us break out of the prison of denial and embrace courage to act on what we hear!

A 9:11 Wake up Call from Amos… Interesting…. :)

Conspiracy theories are fun! And since it is the 9th month of the year 2011 and September is almost over, I thought I’d better get busy and write this 🙂  I couldn’t resist…

The prophet Amos sent out a wake up call in Amos “9:11”. It reads,

11 In that day
I will restore David’s fallen shelter—
I will repair its broken walls
and restore its ruins—
and will rebuild it as it used to be…

This prophecy was quoted in Jerusalem when the early church leaders were debating about whether or not Gentiles should have to become Jewish to enter the kingdom of God… particularly rough on males I might add.

In Acts 15:12-19 you can read about it. After quoting from Amos 9:11, they decided that since David didn’t make it hard for the pagan Gentiles to come to meet with God in his tent, then they shouldn’t either. Makes sense to me!

There is a wake up call going out to us in our time to make it easy for people all around us to see the awesomeness of God through our lives! We need to awaken to the fact that you and I are God’s plan for changing the world!  Take a few minutes and watch this video by Leeland.  Click here to watch the video Great Awakening.  Maybe you will be the first to wake up?

One man wakes, awakens another
Second one wakes his next door brother
Three awake can rouse a town
And turn the whole place upside down
Many awake will cause such a fuss
It finally awakes all of us
One man wakes with dawn in his eyes
Surely then it multiplies
Surely then it multiplies

Coming Clean…

Yesterday I met with a group of men and women who serve as pastors in the Saint John region. It was a gathering of the Greater Saint John City Ministerial.

I was completed captivated as I listened to our guest speaker, Jack Ferguson, of PEI.  Here is a very rough recording of his talk, “We Have to See It Here”.  It is about an hour long. It is conversational and focused on the group that had gathered there. Please take the time to listen to it so that you can catch God’s heart in it and please scan to the end of the audio so that you can witness the prayer that we all prayed together as we came out and came clean before the Lord.

As Jack shared absolutely incredible stories of the blind, deaf and mute people being healed, the dead being raised and thousands giving their lives to Jesus in small, humble villages in Mozambique, my heart was captured.

He spoke it out again and again, “It is about the power of love in action! And we have to see it here.” I agree!!

Jack also hammered away with truth about working with God as He builds the House of the Lord in our region. Our hearts burned as Jack spoke.

But, it is far too easy to sit in on a God appointed meeting and just observe the beauty of what God is doing and then walk away doing nothing about it. So, I want to come out and come clean about this here today. Here is the prayer that I and this group of pastors prayed together on Sept 22, 2011 at All Saints Church in Saint John, New Brunswick:

 Lord Jesus, I thank you for granting me a new opportunity to serve You. I repent of the areas in my heart where I allowed division and self interest to guide my actions. Jesus, I want to see your glory… even to abide as did Moses in Your sacred presence, Master. I consecrate my heart without regard to divisions to your sacred service. Before you I sanctify myself and my church before you to build the House of the Lord in my city. Amen

Making Jesus smile!

What did Jesus really want? If you knew that you could make Jesus shout for joy today, would you be up for it?

You will never find more strength than when you are living to make Jesus smile!

Today you can live like that (We Could Change the World by Matt Redman)

A few days ago a friend suggested that I listen to a talk by Corey Russell called  Show Me Your Glory . It blew me away! Please take the time to go there and listen to what he has to say.

God lights John 17:26 on fire through his teaching and I don’t want you to miss it.

 I have made you[a] known to them, and will continue to

make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them

and that I myself may be in them.” – John 17:26

Jesus prayed this prayer for us. Your life and mine can be a living, breathing answer to the cry of Jesus heart!  Are you up for it?

“and/or” – distracted by one thing

My friend, Mark was preaching in our worship service yesterday morning. I will post a link to the audio for his talk as soon as it is online.

His message was taken from Luke 10:38-42  He zoomed in on vv 41-42:

 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

We have nurtured a way of living that smells like “AND”. I will do this and this and this and this… because I can!! But, I really can’t.

There is a flame in you and in me that burns an incense that smells like “OR” and it is a beautiful, intoxicating fragance!! Fan that flame.

I will do this or this, because I can. And, I choose to the same “one thing” that Mary did. Jesus “distracted” her with his intense presence and she allowed herself to be drawn away to Him.

May our “brand” be that we choose day after day to sit at Jesus feet and live with a listening ear to what He is saying as the one thing we are distracted by.

“I just think you’re more scared of being alive” – John Mark McMillan

I was captured by a lyric from “The Medicine” by a young man from North Carolina.  His name is John Mark McMillan.  The Medicine video with lyrics  The line that grabbed me was:“I remember the day you said you weren’t afraid to die.  I don’t think you are brave for it.  I just think you’re more scared of being alive.”  I wondered to myself, “Do I find it easier to give in to ‘dream killing’ hopelessness and apathy than to rise up and be alive”? Am I scared of being alive? Are you?

Jesus put it this way in Luke 9:62“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Wow, so if we are going to restore God’s creativity in our lives and crack things open in our world for God’s glory, we can’t afford to be scared of being alive. Nothing is worth missing that!

So, I encourage you to go out and buy “The Medicine” and enjoy. By the way I also included this link to a video where John talks about the cd. I loved hearing him talk about the birth of his child being something like a resurrection. Check it out…   John Mark McMillan talks about The Medicine