Continuing on the idea of veneer—that piecemeal pseudo-wood covered in a shiny thin layer of pristine hardwood—and how it can symbolize the Christian life, we return to the book of Matthew to read another account of Jesus’ challenging false authenticity.

Matthew chapter 6 deals mainly with the concept of one’s private versus their public life, those circumstances when the veneer is pulled back and the substance below is exposed. Jesus begins in verse 1 addressing good deeds. All Christians, once they have been regenerated, are called to what are often referred to as “good works.” (We’re not saved by our works, mind you, we are saved to our works.) But, more important than the works themselves, Jesus implies all throughout this chapter, is the heart of the worker. Jesus states in verse 4, for example, that it is better to give your gifts in secret. Why? When good deeds are taken out of the context of public adulation, they are left only for the Father to see. It will therefore being His affirmation and reward that drives our actions, and not the world’s.

Once again we find the teaching of Jesus in direct conflict from the deportment of this world. Our tendency is to reveal only the good in us and to hide those things—our shortcomings, mistakes, and brokenness—of which we are ashamed. In the kingdom, however, God asks us to conceal our good deeds and share with our fellow believers our messes. This may strike you as completely counterintuitive! Exposing our foibles, however, shining light into those places we’d rather keep hidden ultimately robs them of their power. And once these shackles have been removed, their powers zapped, that’s when real change can come into our lives. Another byproduct of exposing our baggage is the generation of trust within the Church. Jesus ultimately wants you to feel freedom in the very areas of your life you struggle most. Such a methodology is not always the easiest or the most fun, but it’s precisely the medicine that can begin to heal your heart.

Moving forward in the chapter, Jesus says in verse 5, “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them” (emphasis mine). Another word I have found for “hypocrite” is the word “actor.” Jesus is saying, ‘Don’t be an actor, pretending to be something that you’re not!’ (Again, this idea of a veneer.) Hypocrisy, Scripture shows us, is one of those hot-button issues that caused Jesus to go nuts! Just read Matthew chapter 23 and you’ll see Jesus lay down seven woes to the Scribes and Pharisees, calling them, in machine gun cadence, “Hypocrites! Hypocrites! Hypocrites! Hypocrites!” In Matthew 23:27 he refers to them as whitewashed tombs—shiny and pristine on the outside but dead within. Indeed, if there’s anything that gets Jesus’ foot tappin’ a little bit, it’s hypocrisy.

These areas of instruction all lead into a larger idea, which opens chapter 7: “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.” A well-known adage, this revolutionary notion accomplishes two things: first, it instills in you a God-given grace for your fellow man; and second, it insulates you from incoming judgment as well. There is only one position in the universe whose job it is to call out our sins and screw-ups, and that’s the Holy Spirit. It is his job to convict us and it is his job to correct us. That is not to say that you can’t acknowledge sin in your fellow believers when you see it. Please do. And please pray for that person and, if you feel called, extend to them a hand of support. But do not judge them because, as Matthew 7:2 plainly states, that will become the standard by which you yourself shall be judged.

Jesus closes out this chapter speaking about worry—about money, shelter, food, and clothing. That these things are such basic necessities is what makes Jesus’ teaching here so bold. We need these things to survive, and yet Jesus instructs us not even to worry about them. I’ve found in my own experience that worry not only fails to help a situation, it most often hurts it instead. This is because worry sows the seeds of doubt into our very spirit and, if left unchecked, will begin to kill our relationship with God. The engine of our relationship with God—the engine of any relationship, actually—is trust. Simply put, God requires our trust to accomplish His work in our lives. And worry is the opposite of trust. Pastor Rick Warren of The Purpose Driven Life fame said it this way (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Worry is practical atheism. If you worry, why pray? And if you pray, why worry?” We need God to clean up our messes, to get us over our mountains, to walk us through our failures. And worry breaks our connection to Him by questioning or outright jeopardizing our trust in Him.

The truth of the matter is that, without God, we remain capable of getting ourselves out of our messes from time to time, but eventually our strength, wisdom, and self-reliance will tire and falter. We simply cannot rely upon our own cleverness to sort out the problems we face with any consistently. And we weren’t built to. But God is never short of an answer, never incapable of a miracle, never lacking in strength. He is infinite, and He alone is meant to be our source. So we needn’t ever worry.

I know this is hard teaching, church. Of course it’s hard! That is, after all, why Jesus spent so much time talking about it. And please don’t overlook the context of this sermon either. Within a year the disciples who were listening to Jesus would be asked to walk out his ministry in boldness. They would soon take his place to battle the Pharisees, heal the infirm, and build the Church. They would need to expand to encompass all that Jesus was handing over to them. And the weakness that comes with worry would have robbed them of the vastness God had placed in them and shortchanged the legacy they were charged to build.

It is no different with us. Therefore we need not, and should not, worry. God took care of them and He’ll take care of us too.

Are you hardwood or veneer?

They way that furniture is made is one of two ways. The best way is with hard wood, crafted together. The second way is veneer, which is made of particle board with three millimeters of hard wood over the top of it. Most businesses use veneer because it is fast and cheap. However, it does not last as long. When the particle board gets wet, it swells, and falls apart.

Many Christians live with Christ as their three millimeter hard wood board over their particle board, hiding the cheap, brittle parts of their lives. On the outside, we look very well-put-together, but when the storms of life come, our lives fall apart, just as the particle boards do.

One of the biggest things that this world is against is fake people. They have observed the world’s Christians on television and around them, and they laugh. If there is anything that appears fake to them, they will disregard it. What we have become is a show, something that looks good on the outside, but cheap on the inside.

In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus talks about the beatitudes, and what we should become. Sin is what gives us a veneer. Like a callous, a hard outer part that protects the soft inner part, sin becomes our veneer. In some cases, it gets so hard that God cannot get in. in this chapter of Matthew, Jesus talks about what it takes to be a Christian. Life gets harder as a Christian. The rules are complex. God does not want a callous on our souls. He wants a process of us getting better.

In the Old Testament, Isaiah talks about our being clay in the Potter’s hands. We put our entire lives into his hands, and God molds the bad things out of our lives. He takes the worst of our lives, all of our sin, and makes us into something great. The first step in this process is pounding the clay, kneading it to make it soft, and to get some of the bad things out. The second step in creating is putting it on wheel, and making into a shape. Water is added, and the clay is spinning. They clay is then put on a shelf to dry out. After it is dried out, the sand paper is taken out, and some more bad things are shaven off. The pot is put into a glaze, and then into the fire. This is the process by which we become something usable. This process is a hard one, and at times, can feel hard to bear.

Many Christians are not willing to go through the process of becoming something usable. We become veneers, so that it is easier. Are you hardwood or veneer? Are you going the cheap way or the right way?

The First Fruits, though mentioned seven times in the New Testament, is an Old Testament concept. Before we move forward into this essential truth, we must understand that the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, or the Law is still important to us of the New Covenant. Why? Because, though the Law presents itself as a long list of rules, it is, in reality, God establishing truth. Yes, the Law without its fulfillment (JESUS!) is a curse (as Paul says) upon life, making things so very hard. But, after Jesus came and fulfilled the law with His death and resurrection, we became free to look at the Law as God’s truths, and it is from this platform that we proceed into the First Fruits.

The First Fruits came out of a festival where the Hebrews would bring their first cut of grain and a one year old male lamb to be sacrificed before God. The offerings were presented to the Priests (thank God we no long need a priest to mediate for us; we have Jesus, the High Priest) on the day after the Sabbath. The priests would prepare the sacrifices and place them on the burning alter. God would smell the smoke and accept the offerings. Very simple. So, how does that apply to us now? Seeing as this is Atlanta, there is an obvious lack of sheep. And, as stated before, we live in the New Covenant where Jesus fulfilled the Law, so…do we need lambs?

No. But the principle is still the same. You see, the First Fruits is not about giving God a lamb-burger. It is about remembering what God has done for us. If you believe as I do, you know that Jesus died on a Friday; was in the grave through Saturday (the Sabbath); and rose again on Sunday (the day after Sabbath). Think that over for a minute. Jesus was presented as the perfect replacement on the day after Sabbath! Jesus is God’s First Fruit. When Jesus was crucified before a blood thirsty crowd whose only goal was to silence Him forever, His blood became the First Fruit–the Fulfillment of the Law. God wanted Jesus’ blood more than the crowds screaming “Crucify Him!” He wanted it so much because He knew that when the blood and water hit the ground that it was a seed being planted. And that when Jesus rose again on the third day, He became the fulfillment of First Fruits Law, and from that moment on, the Harvesting of the NATIONS would begin!

You see, in this, the New Covenant, the First Fruits is about PEOPLE. All throughout His ministry, Jesus used the image of grain and wheat to represent people. (“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”) The New Covenant First Fruit Sacrifice is all about People (wheat/grain), Jesus (the lamb), and the holy Spirit (the wine–wine was also part of the sacrifice). So, when you give in the First Fruits Offering, you are giving to the empowerment of the House to reap the harvest. You are giving to the changing of people’s lives. It is always about the people.

But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.” So David paid him fifty pieces of silver for the threshing floor and the oxen. David built an altar there to the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the Lord answered his prayer for the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped.

This is a quintessential tale of the meaning of offering. An offering to God is different from the tithe. Tithe is a requirement. It is a reminder that if we put our lives in God’s hands, we will prosper. Some people get angry when we discuss the tithe because they fear living on less than the full 100%. Some people can barely live off 100%, thus the idea of living on 90% is hard for them to grasp. However, if you are stronger when you live off 90% and give 10% to God then you would ever be living with the full 100%

Offering is something different. As David displays, an offering cannot be made without sacrificing something. Araunah was giving David an easy way out by giving him all the materials needed for the offering for free. But David knew that no offering can be made without personal sacrifice. No spiritual growth can be made on someone else’s revelation. No, your growth comes from your revelation, and that is what an offering is. An offering is born from a revelation or a conviction from God. So, prayerfully consider what it is God may be telling you in regards to offerings. And then, move in it!

John 1:1-5 (NLT): In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

For 2011, get a word from God about your life. Not a lot of words, not a sentence, but one word. One word that stays in your life and can’t be moved. Think about what word God has dropped in your spirit and meditate on it. Pray about it and let the word settle in your spirit. Let it marinate.

When you get the word from God, you will know because everything will align. Focus on that word. When we get a word, it changes everything. We can think of “this” and make plans about “that,” but when you get a word, it fits and things start to happen.

The difference between an advanced life in 2011 and a stagnant one is a word from God. Excitement motivates us to think about plans and the future, but excitement only gets you excited. A word moves you into the miracle zone. A word bridges the gap between us, the natural, and God, the supernatural.

Faith is finding the word God has already spoken over your life and believing it. It may challenge us and maybe even scare us, but we are safer in the unknown of the word than we are in the safety of the “known.”

Excitement won’t allow you to reach your goals for 2011, but a word from God will. It will bring life to your world. Pray about it and get your word from God for this year. Let it grow and keep it alive. It has power but you have to have faith and believe it.

The Book of Matthew was written by Matthew (also known as Levi) the ex-tax collector who became one of the twelve. He is constructing a case to prove that Jesus is the Messiah by using the Old Testament Prophecies. And he begins his case by writing Jesus’ lineage. Now, in Jewish culture, your lineage was everything. It defined you. So, it is curious to see that Matthew does not mention Sarah, Rebekah, or Rachel, the three Matriarchs of Israel though it is clearly seen in the first six verses that Jesus does descend from them. No, Matthew mentions three other women of a far less reputable nature.

The first is Tamar. Tamar was Judah’s (son of Israel) daughter-in-law. She was married to two of his sons who both died before giving her a son. Judah then refused to let her marry his third son. Thus, Tamar did something quite scandalous. She veiled her face, posed as a prostitute, and when Judah came around seeking some adventure, she slept with him. (She asked for his staff and ring for assurance that he would later pay her for her services.) He got her pregnant. And when word went around that she was with child, she produced the staff and ring, and Judah realized what had been done. He took her into his family, and that was that.

Next, Matthew gives mention to Rahab. Rahab isn’t even a Jew! She was from Jericho. She was a harlot, and no matter how you look at it, research it, or squint your eyes and tilt your head in hopes of distorting it, a harlot is exactly what you think it is. Rahab lived in Jericho when the Israelites invaded. She hid the Hebrew spies from the authorities; in return, she asked that she and her family be spared when they invaded. The spies instructed her to lower a red cord from her window on the day of the attack. She was spared. She married into the Israelites and is now mentioned in the lineage of Jesus.

Lastly is Bathsheba. She is referred to in the plainest of truths: the widow of Uriah. Not the wife of David, but the widow of the man David–KING David–had killed in order to cover up the fact that he and Bathsheba spent one night together. Bathsheba bore a child from that night, and that child died.

Three women with scandalous pasts mentioned in the lineage of Jesus. Why? Why would Matthew do that? Why would God lead Matthew to do that? Why not paint the picture of a perfect Savior with a perfect lineage connecting him to the great Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Israel and to its greatest King? Why not fudge the nitty gritty details and illuminate the perfect?

Simple. Because God wanted a Messiah His children could relate to. A perfect Jesus would not be one to whom we could approach. But a Jesus with a family line with its secrets and shames–that’s real. That’s human. And if God can use such a history to produce the Messiah, image what He can do with you.

1 Corinthians 3:10-11 (NLT): By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 4:16 (NLT): He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

You’ve heard it said that we are clay in the potter’s hands. Well, we are also the bricks in the builder’s hands. Have you ever watched a brick-layer lay bricks? It is very interesting. The brick-lay will pick up one brick, and put it back down, just o pick up another brick, and put it in the wall where the next brick is needed. Why does he do this? Because he knows which brick goes where. To the average human eye, each brick looks the same, but the brick-layer can feel in his hand, if a brick fits perfectly or not. He knows if a brick goes in a certain spot or not. Each brick has a place, but not all bricks fit together. The brick-layer knows which one goes where… he just knows.

God is the brick-layer and the brick-maker in our lives. We each have to go through the fire, and be laid out in the sun for us to be used. We get refined through the fire, and we get hardened, strengthened when we are laid out in the sun. We come to Jesus as wet, messy blobs. He shapes us into bricks, each one of us look the same on the outside, but no two are the same when shaped by his hands. As we allow God to form us, he then can use us. While every hand-made brick is different, they all fit together somehow. God forms us, then he puts us together, right where each of us belong.

Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

There comes a time in the growth of a church where it becomes less about getting new people into the House and more about GROWING the people you already have. People discover who they are and what they can do in the growth. The key to growing is willingness. God can do anything with a heart that is willing.

God has a big pan for the earth. Ephesians four talks a lot about this plan. Verses seven and eight outline it quite nicely. God wants to fill the universe with Jesus. How can He do that? Through His people. However, His people need to be willing to grow or to become mature.

Christian maturity is when we attain the stature of Christ. Back up. We can attain the stature of Christ on earth? Yep. But how? Paul tells us. Continuing through verses 9 to sixteen, Paul outlines what it means to be mature in Christ.

The first step is developing ourselves to the place where we know the Spirit is in us and we flow with Him. This means we are no longer thrown in confusion by the “winds of the world.” This means new philosophies that challenge our faith do nothing to us. We know who we are, we know what we believe, and we know where we are going. That knowledge, that place of pure faith and trust in God is the foundation for the stature of Christ.

The second step is the ability to reign in the tongue. Paul calls it “speaking with love.” We are able to halt what we want to say–things we know we will regret later but feel right in the moment of emotional turmoil–and speak the Words of the Spirit instead. An undisciplined tongue comes from an undisciplined minds and underdeveloped emotions. By submitting to the Spirit, we subject our minds to Him and allow Him to take us through the necessary GROWTH that leads to the ability to reign in the tongue.

The third step is the commitment to growth. This is, perhaps, the hardest, for commitment equates submission. We set aside our pride 24/7 and listen to the correction of the Spirit. This means being willing to be corrected even when you think you know everything there is to know about a situation. Humbling yourself before God and being willing to listen to Him are key. He can do ANYTHING with a person who is in this state.

God wants to take imperfect people and use them as a force–with Him at the Head–to fill the universe with Jesus. He is seeking the mature church. A church that knows who they are, has control of their words, and are willing and humble before Him. Then, and here is the kicker, Jesus makes His Body PERFECT! He creates His Body. And His will is accomplished…PERFECTLY!

It is easy to see one’s decision for Christ as ‘the end’ of a journey. And maybe it is in one sense. Perhaps Mr. Jones, the new convert, came from a life of abuse and addiction, spent his twenties in bitterness, suffered through a couple toxic marriages before finally arriving at the altar, broken and repentant and soft-hearted. He makes his commitment to follow Jesus, but he hasn’t finished his journey. He has
simply entered into a new chapter. Mr. Jones will certainly discover that life on this side of conversion has its challenges as well—and in some cases, even more! Accepting Jesus invites the Holy Spirit into your heart. And from there comes an entire host of new desires, new ways of thinking and living, new relationships to build, and new choices to make, all bundled into this incredibly rewarding (and incredibly hard) new life.

So it should come as no surprise to you that a pastor such as myself regularly comes across individuals—Christians, mostly—who inquire how they are to enact real change in their life: in their marriages, their finances, their parenting, or perhaps even in their spiritual development. The point is clear: becoming a Christian isn’t a one-way ticket to Happyland.

So in this life, this real life, one needs first to become aware of this truth, and second, to sort out what the Bible says about their walk with Jesus.

This brings us into this week’s passage from Luke 5. We notice a few things immediately as we read. For one, Jesus had only just begun his public ministry in the previous chapter, so this excerpt is taken from the very beginnings of Jesus’ teaching. He is, in fact, calling his first disciples here, among them Simon Peter.

What I love about Peter here is his humanity. He’s been out on the lake with his fellow fishermen all night, it says, and caught nothing. And so when Jesus suggests that they go out again the following morning, Peter’s first reaction is complaint. Not only can we identify with Peter’s griping, we can also probably relate to the humdrum of the daily life of a post-conversion Christian. Like most people, the early
days of my Christianity were filled with miracles and breakthrough, the
pyrotechnics of first experiencing God. But after that spiritual spring comes summer and it’s time to get back to work—it’s time to go fishing because you need to work and you need to eat. And there are times, within this season, that after a long night of fishing you return to shore with nothing. Like a long line of dominoes that finally misses its connection, the momentum stops.

It is in these moments that the Christian is asked to use his faith to make that leap from one domino to the next. This is a task that is invariably difficult, but what, really, is the alternative?

The “fight of faith,” Paul calls it, requires action built on a conviction. And God’s way to move you forward when your marriage is strained, when your job in is jeopardy or your kids awry, is not always to coddle you and bid you into the shore where it’s shallow and safe and easy, but to request instead that you go deeper in Him—deeper in worship, deeper in prayer, deeper in community, and deeper in service. Just look what happens here in the lives of Peter, James, and John. They trust Jesus, go out deeper onto the lake, and the catch is so enormous that it takes two nearly sinking boats to haul it in. Can you imagine the financial gain of such a catch? These are professional fishermen, and there are so many fish in their nets that morning that it leads one of them to collapse! And what do they do? They walk away. They leave everything. With the catch it describes, they could’ve made thousands, could’ve fed their families for years. Jesus delivered to them the miracle, and it is so abundant they realize it is more crucial that they continue following him than even to collect on their livelihood.

And that is precisely what God is asking—that we put him first above everything. That we ultimately trust in His goodness and direction, and resolve to faithfully wander out deeper into His presence.

The kingdom of God is like a merchant looking for that one, precious pearl. Pearls were priceless back then because they had to search for them without air tanks or goggles. They were hard to get, and that is why they were priceless. The Kingdom of God wants to invade the kingdom of the world. He wants to change how the world works. You have to seek the hidden kingdom of god, so that you can discover it, and when you look into the kingdom, its like looking into a mirror… you see everything about yourself.

Why are people afraid of Halloween? Evil comes from living for yourself… it is personified in the world in this way. We should not be afraid of Halloween. Why call it a harvest festival or anything else? Call things for what they are, like the world does. HALLOWEEN. We have nothing to be afraid of, especially when it is giving out candy. Halloween is a great time of year for us to reach the world. We can meet them where they are, with a giving heart. The world is looking for answers in different places, such as haunted houses, because we are not delivering. They substitute with other things that help them feel better because we are not going to them, where they are at. If there is no answer for them to find, then they will find something else.

Another message we can get out of this is that we are the pearls, and that God is the merchant who is looking for these precious pearls. He is looking for the treasure that has not been found yet. It is in us, and it is in the world. God gave us the world, and human lives are buried in the world; we have to find them and save them with his help. They are buried in our worlds, in our schools, our workplaces, and our neighborhoods.

Romans 10:1-15 (NLT): Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved. I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law. For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God.

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”

Why did Christianity reach the whole world when there were thousands of different religions vying for attention? Why did the message and truth of Jesus travel to the ends of the earth? One word: FAITH! Faith is believing without seeing. Faith is enough to transform your life and the lives of all of those around you! When you believe in your heart and confess with your words that Jesus is Lord and that He was raised from the dead, you are saved and you move from confessing faith to LIVING in faith.

This transformation is something that the world and the religious despise. Jesus warned His disciples to “beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod.” What He meant was “Beware the mindset of religion and of the world.” The religious mindset casts doubt on faith and replaces grace with works. The world’s mindset turns the focus from God to self and ridicule any who profess to believe in things unseen. Both attack the faithful; one from the outside, one from the inside.

Yet Faith has the transforming power to change us, bringing us to a place where the mockings of the world or the doubts of the religious do not bother us. We simple do not care, for we have faith in God, who is greater than all things. This transforming power of faith is rouses the misdirected zeal that Paul talks about in Romans 10. You see, the religious and the worldly were not much bothered by this new religion. It was when the lost were drawn to the transforming power of faith that the two groups became angry. Paul was witness to this event time and time again in his travels, yet he never stopped, for he knew that FAITH was stronger.

Faith is more powerful than doubt and self. Faith is the power to transform. Faith brings us closer to God. A few men and women of faith changed the world!

Faith is enough.

Hebrews 6:19-20 (NLT): This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. (con. in chp. 7)

Money is a real thing. It is easy for Christians to have faith in eternity. Eternity is unseen. We can hope for something unseen and seemingly far off. That’s simple. But money is right in front of us. Day and night, it is on our minds. Do we have enough? How can we get more? It plagues relationships and destroys marriages. There is no freedom in money….UNLESS it is used to the glory of God.

Now, in order to use money for God’s purposes, you need to know the TRUTH about the tithe. The Tithe is not a “give God lots of money and He will give you ever more money!” (Though, it is 100% Biblically true that blessing is on your life if you tithe). I cannot prove the “give money and God gives more money” ideology Biblically at all. I prefer to teach the Bible, so the Bible I will teach. In regards to the tithe, here is what I have found.

The Genesis account of Abram and Melchizedek is the first ever mention of the tithe. It happened long before the early church sold all their things (homes and fields included) in order to provide for the poor, long before Jesus said for us to give him everything, and long before the Law dictated that the Hebrews tithe. This event happened at the very start of God’s redemptive plans for the earth.

God chooses Abram as the vessel to begin the plans of redemption for earth. When God wants to move on earth, He chooses one person to use. He is preparing Abram. During this time of preparation, Abram achieves a great victory through the Lord. He gains massive wealth! Immediately, the world comes in to make a deal. The King of Sodom represents the world. He is hoping to trick Abram into a deal. (Even now, the world is trying to strike a deal for your money: “Buy this or that or wear this or eat that, and you will feel good about yourself!”) But God intervenes.

Enter Melchizedek: a man with no family, no lineage, and no point of origin. He simple appears. This is odd, for everything and everyone in the Old Testament has some sort of origin in the form of “Such and such begot from such and such and so on.” There is nothing like that for Melchizedek. But we do know one thing about him: He is the King of Justice and Peace (“Melchizedek” means Justice; “Salem” means Peace).

He and Abram meet at a table where He, Melchizedek, produces bread and wine. Together, they break the bread and eat. Then, Abram gives Melchizedek a tenth of his spoils. Such a strange response! Completely against human nature or will. Abram gives it without prodding. Melchizedek does not ask or demand it of him. Abram simply gives it as a response. What is it to which he is responding? God.

Melchizedek–it is believed by many scholars including myself–is actually Jesus. There are several points in the Old Testament where Jesus came before His time to encourage His people. These events are known as Theophany. Jesus came in the midst of chaos, and Abram responded to Him. You see, even here, before Law or Salvation, God was establishing structured principles into the earth; He was sending truth in the chaos. The bread and wine were not by accident. Jesus was sharing the covenant with Abram. And Abram’s heart responded to God by giving ten percent of what he had.

God was not after Abram’s stuff. God is not anti-stuff. He is not out to steal all your stuff. God truly is not concerned with your stuff. He says it plainly in His Word that if you put HIM first, then you can have all your heart desires (Matthew 6:33). Stuff is not the issue. God wants your heart. It was Abram’s heart that responded to Melchizedek. It was his heart that drove him to give. And that is the truth of the tithe. Yes, we could study the laws that dictate tithe; yes, we could look at Jesus and see what He asked for (and 10% looks mighty nice next to the 100% Jesus requires); and yes, we can even preach on how the early church gave up everything. But God is interested in the response of the heart. How does your heart respond?

What they need to realize is that God is full of glorious unlimited resources. We don’t have to do life alone! We do, however, have to have activated faith that what we hope for in God will actually happen.

Jesus’s disciples were the same as you and I, but they believed in God and trusted Him with their whole lives. Their faith was solid. They followed Jesus and had continued renewed faith to keep following Him.

How do we activate our faith? What does it mean?

We can look at people who oppose us as the enemy, but really they’re just lost.

Faith is getting up and persevering through opposition. Faith is getting up and going to work even when you don’t like your job. Faith is doing things that you don’t want to do, things that are hard for us.

Faith is working hard when no one is looking serving and honoring your boss even when you don’t agree with their leadership, serving in areas where you are not comfortable, loving when you don’t feel like loving, and even loving people that are jerks.

Faith always stretches us because it requires something of us we don’t have yet- but we acquire through serving.

Faith is our choice to believe He is working ALL things for our good.

The world is looking for people who are walking this out and who are changing lives because of it. Activate your seed of Faith.

So why is Jesus sleeping in the boat when your world seems to be caving in, nothing is going right, and life might just end soon? Because he trusts you. At least four of the disciples were trained, skilled professionals at boating. Jesus was sleeping then because he knew that the disciples could handle it- even if they thought that they couldn’t. God likes to let you steer your boat through the storm. That’s just how much he trusts you to do what you know to do- he is sleeping! Trust God that he will do what he said he would do, when he said he would do it.

One more thing: Jesus deals with your storm when you can’t, but then he deals with you. He calmed the storm, but then straightaway, he asked the disciples why they were scared. He was in the boat with them; they must have known that they would have been safe even if the storm had crashed their boat. So why are you scared? What is keeping you from doing what you know to do? He trusts you, so do it!

God offers us a big life! It is a life filled with big dreams and big opportunities! He is a God of BIG plans! He encourages us to think bigger, to act smarter, to see further, and to come up higher so that we can catch a glimpse of hat He has planned for us and what He says about us! However, this BIG PLAN must be balanced with a reality check. God wants us to look to HIS plans while also being mindful of the present. He wants us to focus on the here and now!

Where do you want to go in God? What is the big dream He has placed inside of you? Why aren’t you there yet? When we focus on the future, we neglect the present–a present that has problems that need to be addressed. Take inventory of your life. You dream of a great marriage; how is you marriage right now? You dream of owning a thriving business; how is your business right now? There are details in the present that must be addressed before the BIG LIFE God has for you can come to pass.

Don’t fret, though. We are all a work in progress. We all lack. We all want to be better, to be what God wants us to be; however, we lack the ability to do so. Don’t focus on what you don’t have, least you get down on yourself and begin to think about what YOU can do to fix it. That leads to a work’s mindset, and a work’s mindset is dangerous territory. Focus on GOD! God has more than enough to meet where you leave off! God never lacks.

As Paul wrote in the above passage, God has unlimited resources! If you want to love, He gives you love. If you want faith, He gives you faith! He wants you to work at it. He plants the seed so that you can work it and grow it, but He is always there to help feed the seed! Whatever you don’t have, GOD has for you.

It is hard to believe in a BIG GOD when life gets hard. Finances get tight. Prayers don’t get answered. Relationships fall apart. Suddenly, feels God is a million miles away and the Bible becomes bland. How do you cope in this sort of situation? How do you apply the promises of God when all hell is breaking loose? You go back to the place where you trusted God. There, as Paul writes, you find the inner strength given to you by the Holy Spirit. Ask God to reveal that strength to you.

The BIG LIFE is out there! But there will be moments in your world that will so radically test your resolve that all you can do is cling to the inner strength and wait! You CHOOSE to wait! Choice is the key. Choose now to hold on! Choose now to make that change. Choose now to work on your marriage. Do it NOW! And when the good days come, strengthen your relationship with Christ. He will become more and more at home in your heart. Then, when the chaos of life swoops in, you will be strengthened to stand against it. With Jesus by your side and the strength of the Holy Spirit inside you, you will have the ability o pursue you dreams!

So, choose now! Choose now to pursue the BIG LIFE God has for you. And choose now to hold onto the strength of the Spirit inside you. Choose now!

When we deal with spiritual warfare, if we don’t understand what we’ve been given, it is difficult to carry out our lives the way God intended us to.

The reality is everything changed when the cross came. The spirit realm changed and we now win every time. We can never lose because God lives inside of us. The same God who raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of us and movies in our lives.

When we accept God and allow Him to move and breathe in our lives, just as He did in Jesus, we are set free from that old dead life of defeat. When we realize God is already there and is already working and has already won, there is no room for worrying about the devil.

God is continuously working and is always there. We are living our lives trying to collide with the river that is already flowing.

Grab hold of this truth that is in the Bible and know that we are winners every time. The devil cannot win and will not win. We are victorious in every situation through Christ.

The best thing you can do for your growth is to be open for the Holy Spirit to move in your life. The Holy Spirit is an integral part of the trinity. While he is not the Father who created us, or the Son who came to die for us, he still is God. The Holy Spirit comes upon us and speaks into our lives. When we invite the Holy Spirit into our lives, he regenerates us. He lives inside of us, and becomes a part of who we are, making us holy in the sight of God the Father.

It is God’s will for the world that none should perish. His will is not being done on this earth; people perish every day. If we do not get with his plan, then people will continue to perish. Position yourself for the plan of God. Jesus promised us that we would do bigger and better things than he did. The Holy Spirit helps us do that.

Galatians 2:20 (NLT): My old self has been crucified with Christ.It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The House of God is a place to come to be refreshed. It is a place where the Holy Spirit moves; to convict where conviction is needed; to bring change where needed; and to refresh the believers. When we make room for the Spirit, He moves on our behalf.

There are four aspects of the House where one can encounter God and His Spirit:
–Fellowship: God moves in friendship; no one can truly survive the trials of life alone, we need friends to walk beside us and hold us up.
–Worship: We encounter God in worship. The worship leaders worship; they lead us into worship, and it is there that we encounter God.
–The Word: the Word is preached in this church. No matter who is speaking, they are speaking from the Word. The seed is scattered, and when it hits your heart and takes root, your world will change.
–The Alter: The supernatural happens on the alter. Healing, repentance, freed–it all happens here.

Now, the Spirit of God empowered Jesus. Wherever Jesus went, the Spirit went with Him. W have a spirit in us–upon conception, something eternal was created in the physical. It is part of being made in the image of God. That spirit part is the part that will never die. The human body will die, but the spirit will live on. When we are born in the physical, we are born into a fallen world; God waits for us to come to Him for a rebirth into the supernatural. This happens upon accepting Jesus’ sacrifice. When we come to that point, we encounter the Holy Spirit and are filled with Him!

Jesus was reunited with the Holy Spirit upon His baptism. From then on, Jesus and the Holy Spirit worked hand in hand to reach the World. Jesus would withdraw to pray. He, The Holy Spirit, and God would be one for a little while, then Jesus would return to perform the miracles growing inside of Him. The Holy Spirit would work through Him to change people’s lives. And when Jesus died the physical death on the cross, it was the Spirit that brought Him back three days later.

Then, in John 20:22, Jesus imparted the Spirit to His disciples. It was like receiving a new toy; they weren’t certain what to do with it, but they went for it anyway! They followed Jesus example: they went to pray. And when they prayed, the Spirit showed up! (The Spirit is in us; the Spirit fills the room around us.) Then, Peter–the disciple known for sticking his foot in his mouth–stood and preached! He was a fisherman! yet, when the Spirit came upon him, he did something he had never done before–he spoke with power, eloquence, authority, and theological accuracy! When the Spirit comes upon you, you do things you never would have done before! And what’s more, Peter already had boldness; the Spirit used his boldness to bring honor and glory to God! The Spirit takes what you already have and magnifies it for use in the Kingdom! He takes you into things you’ve never done and uses the gifts you already have! It is all for the benefit of the Kingdom!

The Holy Spirit is powerful! And He empowers us to perform miracles! He is in us! In every aspect of who we are. Paul said it in Galatians. It is no longer we who live, but Christ’s SPIRIT lives in us. He is in our hands, our minds, our hearts, and our feet. Where we go, He goes. And where the Spirit goes, there is also freedom! The Spirit brings freedom.

As God is three in one–God, Jesus, Holy Spirit–so, too, is humanity. We are created with a body, a soul, and a spirit. All three parts are sanctified when we accept Christ as our Savior. We commune spirit to Spirit with God through the relationship established by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead. It is in our spirit that we feel God the most. However, there are days when we don’t feel particularly spiritual. That is when we engage all three parts to seek God again.

All things of God engage all three aspects of who we are. The human body struggles to submit to the spirit. The soul is the battle ground where we battle our broken sin nature with its corrupted thoughts and propensity to lean towards the ungodly with the new nature God gave us upon Salvation. These two aspects of who we are, the parts we sometimes feel is what makes us less godly, are parts that have also been sanctified by God. And when we feel less spiritual, we engage these two parts to stir the spirit: We go to our God Zone.

The God Zone is prayer. We pray. We physically take ourselves to a place of solitude. We pour out our souls before God. We pray and seek Him; we seek His will. And our spirits are revived. God said in Joel that He
would pour His spirit out on all people, and they would Prophesy! In the God Zone, we engage that gifting. All three aspects of humanity come together in prophesy. The spirit stirs–whether upon hearing bad news or seeing something tragic or whatever else–and the body and soul engage.

Prophesy is speaking out truth into your world or into the worlds of others. You literally speak. The power of God manifests in speech. God spoke and the world came into being. When we speak, we change our worlds. Good or bad; believer or non-believer; as long as you have faith in what you are saying, it will happen. This principle goes across the board. Imagine what would happen if you align your words and belief with God’s Word? The Word of God is the Power of God. When we align ourselves with His Word and speak HIS truths into our worlds, great things happen. What He promises comes to pass.

When you speak His truths over your world, your world is changed. You can speak His truths over the worlds of your family and friends, over your situations, over your finances, over everything! That is prophecy. Speaking into the future changes the future for the better! Speaking GOD into your future opens the doors for HIM to do what He does best: Be Awesome! He will go above and beyond your expectations! So, speak out in faith! Believe it! Engage your body, soul, and spirit, and let God move.

Today is Father’s Day, but I would like to call it “Fathering Day”. Do you know why? Just because you have children, it does not make you a father. Get your children to tell you how you did in the parenting field. It might not have gone how you thought it did. Your children have a completely different view on things.
The biggest thing in parenting is discipline. Don’t be too strict, but do not be too lax, either. There is a balance between the two. Discipline realistically. You should let your children make decisions for themselves, but teach them what they should do, first, and warn them about what is out there and what could happen should they get themselves stuck in it.

Throughout all of Paul’s letters, he tells the churches to be like Christ, however, in verses sixteen and seventeen, he tells the Corinthian church that he is their spiritual father, and that they should imitate him. He brings correction into the here and now, telling them to do as he does, not as Christ did in the past. The Bible doesn’t do the hard stuff for us; we do it. We show our children how to live by what we do. If your children see you treating your wife or husband badly, that is how they will treat their spouse. Take responsibility for your life and the actions you take.

There is a difference between instructing and fathering. Fathering requires heart. Do not only tell your children what to do, and how to live their lives. Love them. Affection is modeled. If you do not show the love you have for your children, then they will have a hard time farther down the line, when they try to show affection of their own. Speak well into your children’s lives. They want it. Be honest and real; make sure that they know that correction comes out of love.

Father’s Day is either the best day, or the worst day. Many people have horrible memories of their fathers. Many fathers out there are either missing or abusive. However, the greatest redemptive moment is when you use your mess to help someone else who is going through it. There is a point in time, and it becomes easier to forgive and forget the hurt and pain that was caused to you.

Never forget that your children are watching you, and that what you do in life will become apparent in their own lives. Be real with them. Show them that they are loved, and make sure that they never forget it.

There is a big difference between being a believer and a disciple. Most people probably don’t stop and really think about this. Most people probably picture a bearded man in sandals when the hear the word disciple. What’s more, most people probably tend to think that the end of their faith journey culminates in their belief, in their salvation moment. A lifetime spent away from God pivots upon the events of one morning, wherein a person’s heart becomes inexplicably soft—by a pointed sermon or a moment of worship or even the power withheld in the very name of Jesus himself—they respond to that altar call, confess their sins, give their life to Christ, and then for many, they’re done. Not so for the disciple.

Getting saved by Jesus is the easiest task one could ever hope to perform. One doesn’t have to accomplish anything by their own cleverness or effort. One doesn’t need to do anything period. Except surrender their pride and accept the gift. It is, after all, the Holy Spirit who is doing the saving anyway. It’s his work to his glory; not yours. Consider it this way: if salvation were the goal for humanity, if it alone was the charge of the Great Commission, then Scripture would read, “Go into all the world and save people.” Instead it reads, “make disciples of all nations.” Disciples, unlike Christians, are not born. They are made.

Concerning the passage from Matthew above, before the charge to his disciples to go make more disciples, Jesus commands the remaining eleven to go to “the mountain” in Galilee. Scholars have debated to which Galilean mountain he directed them. Some have argued that it was perhaps Mt. Carmel, where Elijah slew the false prophets of Baal. Others have suggested Mt. Table. I personally believe that it was Mt. Hermon, a coastal mountain overlooking Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus had once taken his disciples and proclaimed “I will build my church” (Matthew 16: 13-20). It is this same mountain that Peter, James, John, and Jesus ascend in Matthew 17, where the Lord appears transfigured and meets with Moses and Elijah. Mt. Hermon is, in short, a significant site to the disciples, and thus likely the one mentioned in this week’s passage.

So here Jesus takes all eleven disciples and, overlooking the pagan colony of Caesarea Philippi and all the sinners within, he commands, “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” What, then, is the difference between the saved and the disciples? For one thing, discipleship is necessarily beyond salvation. It’s the next, big step in one’s faith walk. Again, being saved is easy; becoming a disciple, on the other hand, takes work. It takes, according to this passage, first being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, this naturally constitutes an actual physical water baptism by which one publicly and symbolically demonstrates their physical death and rebirth in Christ, but it also suggests that we are to be baptized in the name, or, in other words, immersed in the spirit of God. God has a hand in our salvation, to be sure, but He also guides us toward discipleship after He finally gets His hands on our lives.

We must get out of His way so that He may do so, however. One must never underestimate the power of his own will. As C.S. Lewis once suggested, the spirit of God “cannot ravish. He can only woo.” So if the God of Heaven, who merely spoke the cosmos into existence, can approach the door of your spirit but cannot (or rather, will not) force His way through, then we can conclude that a man’s will is a strangely powerful thing. So to become a disciple, finally, we must allow God to take our hand and lead us deeper into Himself. Once this happens, we’ll begin to feel convicted about our sin. We’ll begin to actually want to spend time in prayer, in worship, and in the Word. Getting saved, you see, cleanses our spirit but doesn’t change our bad habits or attitudes. Going deeper into God’s teachings and truths is what ultimately transforms our lives from believers to disciples. We begin to talk differently, act differently. We begin, in short, to live our faith as well as believe it.

A challenge facing Christianity today is that we have a great many Christians and too few disciples. We need more disciples in the kingdom, more Christians walking out, not just believing in, their faith. If the original eleven disciples multiplied and, in time, transformed the the Roman Empire from a land of unrestrained paganism to the site of the early Church, how much more of an impact will a kingdom of disciples have today? Certainly have we more than eleven disciples at the present moment. Our focus, then, as a Church should be to foster a community of discipleship, and not belief only.