How to Prepare for Judgement Without Living in Fear

How can I prepare to meet God as my just judge without living in fear?

The only way to meet your divine judge without fear grows out of love and faith.  His grace is enough.  If you confess he is just and will forgive all your sins. (1 John 1:9)

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Prepare to Hear God in the Bible

Write out a list of all your reasons for living in fear of God’s judgement.

Four Things God Wants You to Experience

There are at least four things God wants you to experience this week.  Are you ready for them?

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Are you ready to know God?
To know him in the reading of his Word?
To know him in the peace of his presence?
To know him in the privacy of prayer?
To know him in the splendor of the stars?
To know him in the molecules of life?
To know him in the knolls and vales of life?
Are you ready?

How to Praise God Even When Your World Falls Apart

How can I keep praising God when my world is falling apart?

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Some days you feel as though your life is safe and secure.  Then an unexpected event shakes everything and leaves you reeling.  God’s people have experienced this troubling turn of events for thousands of years.  King David wrote Psalm 30 at such a time in his life.

Prepare to Hear God through the Bible

Prayerfully reflect on your life situation.  What happened to bring an end to your feelings of security?  How do you feel about it?  Are you angry with God?  Are you grieving?  Are you struggling to cope?  Tell Jesus about it in an honest prayer.

What’s the difference between hypocritical religion and a relationship with God?

Looking Good

Hypocritical religion…

1. Plays at clean living but produces a dirty spirit.  Hypocrisy focuses on the things others can see and forgets that God can see everything.  Secret sins, like greed, lust and bitterness, are the fatal flaw of religion.  Only God can see them.
2. Worries about what others may think and wants to appear to be perfect.  Hypocrisy wants to be noticed and admired. It tends to be so detail oriented that it misses the things that really matter.
3. Finds the loopholes in regulations in order to satisfy selfish desires.  Hypocritical religion loves a long list of rules. The longer the list the easier it is to find loopholes.
4. Honors heroes of the past but rejects God’s work in the present. Hypocritical religion focuses on the past in order to avoid being confronted by God’s truth in the present.  That way it never needs to change.
5. Seeks a “deeper” message in the Bible in order to be in control.  Hypocritical religion wants to “play God” and seeks to manipulate others by becoming the experts in explaining what the Bible means.  It seeks to control people and always fails.

Jesus said we should seek an honest relationship with God that –

1. Recognizes there are no secrets and produces a clean spirit and life.  An honest relationship with God avoids trying to keep secrets.  It’s quick to confess its failures knowing that God knows already.
2. Relaxes in God’s love knowing others cannot ultimately harm it.  An honest relationship with God recognizes the limits of what others can do and rests in God’s love and care.
3. Praises and worships God for all He does.  An honest relationship with God is based on the joy of praising and worshipping Him.  It sees him at work in the world today.
4. Determines to be loyal to Jesus no matter what the cost may be.
5. Trusts the Holy Spirit to guide and direct through the Bible.  An honest relationship with God depends on Him and His power.

Hypocritical religion makes God sick but he longs for an honest relationship with you.  How can you develop a relationship with God that’s free of fear and hypocrisy? Let me share three actions I’ve found helpful in my spiritual life.

• Examine your attitudes toward God.

Are you trying to keep secrets from God?
Are your choices based on God’s love or what others may think?
Are you excited about worshipping God? Or is it a routine duty?
Are you determined to be loyal to Jesus?
Are you relying on the Holy Spirit for guidance or SOMEONE ELSE?

• Confess and turn away from anything hypocritical.
• Trust God to make you clean from the inside out.

Optional Church Attendance?

I attend church worship at Christmas and Easter but my friends tell me I should participate more.  How often does a Christian need to attend church?

We need each other.  Jesus commands us to love each other as he loves us. (John 13:34-35)  You cannot love people you do not spend time with.  It helps to see your local congregation as God does.

The church is like a body.  Every part is needed.

Imagine waking up tomorrow to find one of your eyes decided to go golfing instead of working with the rest of the body.  Your day would be off to a very bad start.

The church is like a family.  Every one of God’s children belongs.

Missing loved ones who could not come is one of the bittersweet aspects of family reunions.  Every absentee creates his/her own vacuum.

The church is like a temple.  Every person fits into God’s blueprint.

Just as a door without a building might end up in a dump, a Christian without connection to a local church may end up alone in life’s hard times.

Something is wrong when a Christian tries to follow Jesus without other disciples to help.  Participation in a local church is more than an option.  You are needed and you need to connect with the believing community.  Why not attend for a few weeks starting this Easter?  Let me know how it goes in the comments.  Thank you.

We just moved. How do we choose a new church?

In the process of moving, many urgent tasks can crowd out the choice of a church.  I’m glad you’re thinking about this vital decision.  Here are a few guidelines that may assist you in your search.

• Make prayer the launching pad for your search.  Ask God to guide you to the church he wants to use in shaping your spiritual life.  Keep on praying throughout your search.
• Develop a list of qualities you want in a church.  If you have a family, work on this list together.
• Think about the church you grew up in or that you’ve felt most at home in as an adult.  Was it a part of a denomination or association of churches?  What was the preaching like?  What size was the church?  You will probably be most comfortable in a similar church.
• Ask around in your new neighborhood or workplace.  Even if they don’t attend church, the people around you may be able to give you an idea about different churches in your new community.
• Consider a few practical things as well.  Is the location easy to find?  Are the service times convenient for you and your family?  What programs or ministries do you need or want to participate in?
• Search the Internet for a local church.  You will discover a great deal about a congregation by checking their web page.  Examine their doctrinal statements to find the ones you agree with in general.
• Make a short list of churches you and your family want to visit.  Attend each church at least twice because every church can have a bad Sunday.
• 

  The people are the church not the building.

  As you visit, consider whether or not the people in the church have similar values to yours.  Do you and your family members feel you can make friends and grow with the individuals in a given congregation?

• I’ve saved the most important question for last.  Do you and your family connect with God in the worship services?  That means more than liking the styles of music and preaching.  You can listen to the radio for music you like — even for preaching that inspires you.  However, bumping into God while worshiping with his people is a priceless experience.  Make sure your new church home makes it likely to happen regularly.

How do I pray for healing?

Kind words are like honey—sweet to the soul and healthy for the body. (Proverbs 16:24)

There is no magic formula that guarantees God will answer with a miraculous healing.  I am sharing the results of my research and experience.

First, allow me to define healing.

1. Healing means to mend something that’s broken.
2. Healing is to make whole again.
3. Healing means to overcome an unhealthy condition in the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and relational areas of our lives.

Second, there are four actions involved in healing prayer.

1. Celebrate Jesus. Worship Him. Rejoice in the victory He won with the Cross and the Empty Tomb.
2. Clarify your need. Ask specifically. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6).
3. Commit your life to God. “Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD (Psalm 37:3-5). Develop the attitude that declares, “If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (Romans 14:8).
4. Confess your sins, needs, fears, hopes, and faith.

Third, look for God’s healing in one or more of the following ways.

1. People in the helping professions ( for example: social workers, addiction counselors) are a part of God’s healing team.
2. Medical treatments are a part of the miraculous healing God provides.
3. God created the healing health maintaining processes in our bodies.
4. God’s direct healing touch may bring instantaneous healing or he may use a series of touches over time.
5. Obedience to the Bible’s teachings can bring healing and health as well.

What would you add to these suggestions on how to pray for healing?

Why go to church? Part One

When someone asks me for reasons to attend church worship I understand how they probably feel.  I’ve quit church a million times primarily because of people.  They’ve snapped at me or my family members.  They’ve lied about me or someone else in the church.  They’ve accused others of all kinds of sins.  They’ve gossiped and slandered me and others trying to get their way.  They’ve run off with another person’s spouse and acted as though they were right to do it.  They’ve started shouting matches and fist fights in the church building.  They’ve split congregations and started their own churches.  Sometimes the pastor or sometimes a lay person has chased people away in order to control the church’s decisions.

I’ve quit church a million times but I keep coming back.  You may wonder, “Why?”  Give me few minutes for the next six days and I’ll tell you what I’ve discovered.  There are a few things you cannot experience outside of God’s church.

Today I want you to talk to you about ENERGIZING PRAYER.

To be honest there are a lot of times when my prayer life is more duty, ritual, habit and responsibility than anything else.  I often pray because I know I need to talk with God.  Needless to say, my prayers in those times are not energizing, exciting or enjoyable.

We all struggle with our prayer lives.  We come to God telling him what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, how it needs to be done and who needs to do it.  A wise man asked,

What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer? [Thomas Merton, Catholic writer and mystic (1915-1968)]

I have met very few Christians who would claim they pray enough.  We all feel a need to pray more.  We all struggle to find the time to pray like we feel we should and we wonder why we feel powerless.

If it’s possible to experience prayer that energizes us, how can we find it?

The book of Acts is saturated with prayer.  The first chapter ends in a prayer meeting that launched the birthday of the church – Pentecost – when the Holy Spirit came. 

The last chapter opens with Paul praying for a man’s healing.  Nearly every other chapter mentions prayer of one kind or another.  Sometimes it was a matter of ritual and habit and sometimes it was an emergency call for help.  But from the very beginning God designed the church for energizing prayer.

Some of God’s greatest promises to answer prayer are addressed to the church not to individuals.

“Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:19-20)

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.  If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (Matthew 21:21-22)

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us — whatever we ask — we know that we have what we asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15)

Energizing prayer can only be experienced in community.  If you want energizing prayer experiences, then…

1. Refuse to settle for powerless, dull and downright boring prayer times when we gather.  Pray until you connect with the Lord.
2. Stop expecting little to nothing to happen when we pray.  Be disappointed and ask tough questions to find out why God is not answering our prayers.
3. Pray with each other knowing that God longs to refresh, renew and revive us; to answer our prayers in powerful, surprising and attention-grabbing ways.

Should I feel bad when I ocassionally think church is boring?

I certainly hope not. If we should feel bad when we think church is boring then I would have spent my childhood in tears. Both of my parents were ordained ministers. I grew up on the third pew from the front, on the right side. There was nowhere to hide. Everyone could see me as I fidgeted, yawned and did all the things bored boys do. Finally, my parents and I reached a compromise. If I would sit still and avoid distracting them and if I would sing the songs then I could read my Sunday School papers during the sermon. They even allowed me to lean my head back and take a nap! Too bad I’m a very talented snorer. Now that I’m an adult, as well as a pastor, taking a nap during a worship service is not an option. Although sometimes, I am tempted.

 

 

 

 

Nap time on Grandpa's chest

Little boys and girls are naturally bored when they have to sit still but I have observed a few reasons for adults to be bored in worship service.  Sometimes the cause of boredom resides in the person and sometimes in the way church is conducted.

Adults can be bored because they cannot understand everything that’s said or done.  Perhaps the sound system is too loud and they tune it out.  Or maybe it’s not loud enough and they cannot hear everything.  Maybe it’s the vocabulary used in the sermons, songs, prayers and Bible readings.  If we don’t readily understand most of the words in a sentence we cannot figure out its meaning.

Adults become bored if church does not seem relevant to their lives.  I don’t mean worship services or sermons should be focused on how to succeed at work or home.  Worship should be focused on God and his greatness.  Sermons should point us to Jesus and in the process they should let us know how to act like Jesus.  If church does not communicate to an adult about how to be a Christ-like spouse, parent or employee, it will feel irrelevant and boring.

Adults can think church is boring if they expect it to be entertaining.  We are so accustomed to being the audience at a concert or movie that we can think we are the audience at church.  Unless it makes us laugh or cry, worship will seem boring.  And yet, the audience in church is God and everyone else — the pastor, musicians and congregation — is there to please him.

One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only LORD.  And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’  The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”  (Mark 12:28-31 New Living Translation)

I’ve discovered that church is seldom boring when we focus on the Two Great Commandments.  Expressing my loving praise to our infinitely awesome God fights against monotony.  I never know what new facet of his nature he will reveal to me.  Even on those Sundays when I don’t personally experience a special connection with the Lord, someone else probably will.  If I love my fellow church members, I will celebrate their receiving his touch.