Now is the Time…
How many of
us didn’t go to church because of the rain. It’s just too hard to get the kids
up, it’s so easy to stay in bed, we can miss just this once…oh wait, didn’t we
say that the last three Sundays??
How many sat
in church and nodded our heads in agreement with the pastor while we looked at
our watch? How many slouched in the seat and played a game on our phones? How
many went into the sanctuary late because we wanted just one more cup of coffee
or we wanted to connect with our buddy about meeting at the gym? We will miss
church to go to the gym, to the lake or just to stay home, “It’s my only day
off.”
Church shouldn’t be
routine. We shouldn’t have the morning activities memorized. It shouldn’t be just
a place of socialization, it shouldn’t be ordinary and plain, it shouldn’t be
comfortable and easy going. We shouldn’t expect things to happen the same every
week.
What
happened to the excitement of going to church? Has attending Sunday school and
church ever been something we’ve looked forward to, something we couldn’t wait
to do? Where’s the anticipation of meeting the living God?
Someone said, “A
relationship with God that doesn’t change your life, is no relationship at
all.” When’s the last time we were transformed, changed, renewed in our
relationship with Jesus?
When was the
last time Jesus was first in our
lives…has He ever been?
Are we
complacent and flat in our walk through life? Are we so de-sensitized by the
tragedies in life that we push them aside and try to convince ourselves nothing
like that will happen to us?
A pick-up truck on the Muskogee
Turnpike rammed a car from behind sending it off of the highway, the truck sped
on ahead. A man attempted to kidnap a 13 year old girl who was with her mother
in a grocery store. An 18 year old man told his step-son to quit jumping on the
bed, when the little boy didn’t stop; the man shot him in the back of the head
and killed him.
Dear Jesus…
A man walked
into a club with a rifle and a handgun and killed 49 people and injured 53. In
a matter of minutes lives ended and hundreds of family members’ lives were
forever altered. None of them thought
that could happen to them…
Is your
heart breaking? Are you shedding tears? Are you crying out to the Father? Or are you thinking, “Oh that’s horrible,”
and then you continue living life the same way….
It. Will.Never. Happen.To.Me.
This is a wake-up call. All of those tragedies took place
in the United States – in Oklahoma. We cannot call ourselves Christ followers
if we do nothing. People are lost, they are miserable, they are full of hate
and they are all around us. We cannot risk doing nothing, we must act. “Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as
Jesus did.” 1 John 1:6.
But, we’re
living as if we’ll live forever. We’re living for ourselves. Isn’t the real
reason we don’t prioritize church is because we really don’t think it makes a
big difference? It just isn’t important enough. Or maybe we think just showing
up will give us brownie points with Jesus.
Because you
know God, really, I’ve got this…
If we go to
church on Sunday and continue sinning the same sins during the week, why are we
going? Do we drink to excess? Are we married but flirting with a co-worker? Are
our stories about the weekend filled with lies? How many curse words fill our
mouths? How many least of these do we ignore? How much are we spending at the
casino? How much porn are we watching?
We live like the world
revolves around us and we live like Pharisees, we claim we know Jesus but we
only do the simple, the easy, the comfortable. Sometimes just driving to church
is just too much effort…
Another
truck driver, kidnapper, murderer is in the making. There is too much at stake
to live life in a fog; to follow the status quo. We need to step up and start
paying attention. We need to blanket Tulsa with prayer and love. Because “it’
could happen here, to you, to me…
It’s time to
fall on our faces in repentance and ask God to fill us with Excitement, Joy,
Courage, Fearlessness, Passion, Empathy and the Desire to do His will,
No.Matter.What.
Luke 10 is a life group at First Baptist
Church. We have been having class for the past 5-1/2 years. We started the
class because we saw a need. We wanted to be “the” life group that anyone could
come to and feel welcome. Outcast, misfit, mentally ill, drug addict,
alcoholic, poor, retired, business owner, teenager, manager, doctor – a place
to encounter the living God. We were
blessed to see God in action through us as we reached out to many folks over
the years. Visitors came and left but we had a core group of folks who have
been a part of the class for the entire time. We did as God called us, but now
it’s time to do the harder work..
Sunday, July 10th is our
last class. We can’t
wait on them to come to us, anymore…we are going to go out to them…
To end Luke
10 we have been doing a book study of Barefoot Church
by Brandon Hatmaker. Brandon was talking with a couple that was “done” with
church. The wife said, “The church needs to care more about the poor! They need
to fight injustice! They need to help the orphan and widow in their distress!
They need to do what they say they’re about!” Brandon was a pastor of a
mega-church and he said, ”We as church leaders tell our people to go. We tell
them to be good news. And we assume they
do. We assume they know how. While we’ve been charged to `equip the saints’ for
works of service, the brutal truth is that most of us have reduced our
expectations of `serving’ to a once-a-month tour of duty as an usher or
greeter. We’ve settled for serving ourselves and serving as an event rather
than serving those in need and living a new way of life that Jesus has called
us to…There’s got to be more to church than this.”
So Brandon
and his wife Jen left the mega church and planted a church, Austin New Church. The book offers testimonies of how they
surrendered all to Christ and left the pews and moved into the communities,
“Creating service-based, missional communities that end up being surprisingly
as much about evangelism, discipleship, and real-life transformation as they
are about serving others…more than anything, this book is about a
Christ-centered gospel. By His example and through His teaching, my hope is
that we are continuously being challenged to be good news to a lost, broken,
and dying world. That God would open our eyes more and more each day to the
needs of our community and world. That we would see it as the church’s
responsibility to lead the charge in making a difference, not just on our own
church campus, but also in our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our city, our
nation, and our world.”
This is our fervent
prayer. Let our churches start teaching their congregations about the poor; let
us learn about resources and needs and gaps. Then let us step into those gaps
with love. Let us love by going out to the lost and the poor and the miserable
and the lonely. Let us ask the Father to set our hearts on fire for Him again.
To wake up on Sunday morning excited and full of anticipation of what the Holy
Spirit will do! We will look forward to going to Sunday school and church.
Nothing will keep us from going because Jesus is moving and we are starving to
be a part of His movement. Not just on Sundays but every day of the week.
Don’t you miss Him?
Look around at this world…now is the time to surrender all.
Today was
the kick off of “Putting Feet to Our Prayers!” Some of us joined hearts at
Woodward Park this morning. We put feet to our prayers. While we were at the
park, YouAreSpecial.net gathered on a hill in Sapulpa and prayed at
the same time. There is power in prayer. Maybe some of you prayed at
home with us. Maybe you didn’t come because well, it is July 4th and
well I didn’t even know where Woodward Park was, the car needed gas, well we’re
going to a Fireworks show at 9:30pm tonite. That’s okay, you have more
opportunities ahead…
Join Isaiah 58, In His service on Sunday, July 17th at 7am at
the Education Service Center at 3027 S. New Haven. We will pray for our
teachers, students, support folks, school board, superintendent, etc. We’ll
finish in time for you to get to church and Sunday school, filled with the Hope
of Jesus!
Then on
following Sundays we will meet wherever God leads us! We will pray in agreement
and pray for restoration and healing and hope!!! I will send out an email the
week before so you will know where we’ll meet. If you can’t come you can pray
in agreement with us as we pray for our city leaders, churches, nonprofits,
first responders, retailers, colleges, etc. We will pray for those we have
taken for granted, for those we’ve ignored, for those we disagree with.
Our prayer
is that you can come and pray and restore your relationship with Him and go to
Sunday school and church totally in love with Him again. Maybe you will be so
stoked for Jesus; you’ll go back to your church and ask about doing more for
the poor. Maybe loving on the least of these will once again be a priority.
I’m praying for radical
and reckless commitment to serving the poor and that one church will risk
everything for the least of these. Tulsa New Church!?
God is
waiting on us. We live like our God is small and unimaginative. He’s waiting on
us to trust Him with everything. May Jesus become our first priority again.
Serving
Jesus is risky.
Stepping out
of the norm is scary.
I surrender
all.
Will you?
https://youtu.be/CQA9YtcN1UA Love Comes
to Life!
Know that
you are prayed for.
In His
service,
deni A.
fholer
We
can do more. We can do better.
“Create in me a pure
heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your
presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your
salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach
transgressors your ways and sinners will turn back to You.”
Psalm 51: 10-13
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