Barry Tubbs ministered in our church today. He’s an associate minister with Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Fort Worth, Texas, responsible for “ministerial relations.” What that really means is that he has relationships with pastors around the world.
At lunch, he was telling us about his experience with Brother Copeland visiting leaders of the underground church in China. His report was consistent with other things I’ve read.
Each element of the underground church can’t get too big. Big gatherings attract government attention, and that usually means jail. Once a gathering reaches about thirty people, another group is formed to avoid detection. People hunger for the Word and fellowship so much that they endure hardship and persecution for the opportunity to get together with other believers in house churches.
The pastors are particularly vulnerable to persecution. Brother Barry told about one pastor named John. John was jailed for three years, and while he was in jail, he simply turned the jail into his mission field, getting other inmates born again. When he was released, John wasn’t deterred; he went right back into ministry.
Pastor John explained to Brother Barry that jail was just part of the bargain. Accepting Jesus included the risk of serious persecution and the loss of freedom. But the persecution wasn’t going to stop him from fulfilling the ministry the Lord had given him.
That story reminded me of the Apostle Paul – beaten, shipwrecked, jailed – but who wrote in Acts 20:24 (NKJV):
But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
Contrast that with much of the American church. Many whine and complain because of a little criticism. Many are lukewarm, and won’t endure any hardship for the sake of the gospel. Many won’t go to church because they want to sleep in on Sunday, or watch TV, or read the papers, or play sports. Can you imagine the Apostle Paul doing that – or putting up with it? Can you imagine how odd that would seem to our Chinese brethren?
Wake up, American Church! God needs us to do the work He’s called us to do, and to endure our “light affliction” joyfully. He needs us to be the Body of Christ in this most blessed of all nations. Go to church. Pray. Read your Bible. That’s just the minimum to get prepared for what you’re really supposed to do. Get out there and minister. Stand out. Be different. And if someone criticizes you, smile and pray for them, but keep ministering the love of God and the good news of Jesus.
Don’t let fear or indifference keep you from fulfilling the great purpose God has for your life. Go! And when you go, God will use you in ways that will surprise you.
As we read about Abraham, we’re sometimes inspired and always instructed. He was a guy just like us, a simple fellow made great by encountering God. Read Genesis 15-23 to get the full picture.
Let’s roll the clock back. Abraham started as Abram. The Lord promised to bless and multiply him. But Abram didn’t see anything happening. He got old. His wife, Sarai, got old. And they figured they would never have a child, let alone a multitude of descendants.
Abram and Sarai pursued Plan B. Ever been there? You know God promised you something but you haven’t seen it yet. So, you decide to help Him out a bit with your own plan. That’s what Sarai and Abram did. Sarai sent Abram into the tent with her maid, Hagar, to produce a child. It worked, and Ishmael was born.
Ishmaels always result from our Plan B’s. When we don’t endure waiting for God, we end up with a distant second best.
Ishmael wasn’t God’s best. He still hadn’t moved off His promise to Abram. To get Abram back on the program, God went back through the promise with Abram. He showed him the stars of the sky, and told him he would have descendants more numerous than all the stars he could see. Every time Abram saw stars, he remembered the promise God made to him and believed. It was counted to him as righteousness.
The Lord even changed Abram’s name to Abraham: “Father of Nations.” Every time Abraham introduced himself, he was confessing increase and multiplication. His name tag at the convention said, “Hello, My Name is Father of Nations.” When he met someone new at the market, he introduced himself as Father of Nations. Every time he said his name, Abraham remembered the promise God had made to him and he believed. It was counted to him as righteousness.
So what has the Lord promised you? He’s promised many things. Here’s one for instance. He promised that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you’ll be saved. He’s promised that Jesus, who knew no sin, actually became sin for you, that you could be made the righteousness of God in him. Why doubt it? Why still call yourself an old sinner? Of course you may miss it, but the blood of Jesus has removed your sin from you. Old things have passed away and all things have become new. Use the new name the Lord has given you: Righteous in Jesus. Believe God’s promise. It will be counted as righteousness to you.
The Bible is full of promises to we who are born again. Believe them as Abraham did. Call yourself what God calls you in the Bible. Believe everything He has promised you. Persevere and don’t make your own Plan B. And before you know it, you’ll be living all He promised you like you’re in a dream dream, resting in His Blessing!
Through centuries, God has used various media to proclaim His Word. Early on, it was written on animal skins. Then it was parchment. Gutenberg’s printing press and its progeny made the Bible widely available. 
The dawning of the digital age spread the Word throughout the Earth, even into places not easily penetrated. In fact, I’ve been amazed that our web site has reached people not just in Athens and Southeastern Ohio, but all around the world. Our statistics show that people on all continents, and even in predominately non-Christian nations, are listening to the Abundant Life Today podcast and reading content on the web site. That’s supernatural multiplication!
The clear digital trend is toward mobile computing. Increasingly, people are reading and computing on their mobile devices – iPhones, Android-based devices, and iPads being the main ones now. Any effort to spread the Gospel has to recognize that trend.
Accordingly, we’re pleased to launch the Abundant Life Church mobile app in the iTunes App Store and the Android Market. Thanks to Christy Robe, we have a crisp updated logo, and will populate the app with more interesting graphics over time. We’ll be adding new content regularly. People everywhere will be able to read the Bible, listen to preaching, keep up with our events, and engage with the Church, all from a device they carry with them.
This is our time, and we need to use all the tools the Lord is giving us to advance His Kingdom. Soli Deo Gloria!!
Each year, our church follows a Bible-reading discipline. Two years ago, we read through the New Testament in a year. This year, we read each day the chapter of the book of Proverbs that corresponds to the date (today is the 16th, so we’re reading Proverbs 16, for instance). By the end of the year, we will have the wisdom of the book of Proverbs twelve times over.
In 2012, we’re all going to read through the Bible in a year, canonically. We’ll make it easy. Our new mobile app will come preloaded with the reading plan. We’ll put the reading plan on our website. The schedule will be in our monthly newsletter so people can read their print Bibles.
My wife and I have done this several times. For those who have never done it, this exercise should help them understand more fully the story of God’s plan for mankind. It’s a story of Blessing, fall, reconciliation, and restoration. It’s a story of love, even in rough times of rebellion. We see the God who is both just and merciful.
It seems to me it is impossible to understand fully what Jesus did without knowing Him within the context of both testaments. I’m looking forward to a year of revelation for the people of Abundant Life Church. My prayer is that our eyes will be opened and our hearts will be filled with the Word of God.
Imagine yourself meeting with Jesus after he was raised from the dead. You’ve seen him being scourged. You’ve watched spikes being driven into his hands and feet. You’ve seen his body hanging on the tree, and have seen him breathe his last breath after crying out, “It is finished!” You’ve watched his body being removed, and you know it was interred behind an immovable stone. And you’ve waited and wondered.
Then you hear that he’s alive again. You run to meet him. He’s alive! Some, including Thomas, have doubted. But there he is. Bigger than life. Bigger than death.
You just want to celebrate. You want to enjoy his company and the company of his other followers. You want to sing a few songs, tell some stories, hear him teach.
But he seems serious, driven, impatient. You’ve seen him like this before. There’s something on his mind. And he starts to speak.
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. (Matthew 28:16-20 NKJV)
Jesus did all he did to fulfill the mission the Father gave him. But he left a body behind. His Church. And he sent it on a mission.
Read through the book of Acts. These people went. They gathered in Jerusalem as he told them, just long enough to pick up the power of the Holy Spirit. Then they spread out and made disciples. People were healed and delivered. Jesus spread through them exponentially throughout their world. Why? They had seen him. They had been with Jesus. They’d seen a guy who had been dead, but was raised up and at with them. When he told them to proclaim the good news, that was no problem! They were excited to do it!
We’ve become people who meet, and think that’s all we’re supposed to do. Sunday meetings. Conferences. We have books, CD’s, mp3′s. We fill ourselves with knowledge, and we think it’s enough. It’s not. Jesus didn’t just send his early followers on a mission. Jesus sent us on the same mission. It’s to continue HIS mission.
We’ve even met to talk about going. We’ve sung songs about going. We’ve heard from people who went, and have told us wonderful stories about what it’s like to go. But we’re entering an era in which the Church has to shake off fear and complacency and just GO.
We have a mission. It’s to continue the Master’s mission. But we can’t do it just hanging around the place where we meet. We have to go. Out of our comfort zone. Using the power of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the love of God, and the Name of Jesus. We have the best good news to proclaim. Let’s get it done!
I just read that a popular conservative television host had opined on his show that anyone who goes to a church that mentions “social justice” should flee.
Really? Justice is a recurring them in the Bible.
One of the most-quoted scriptures in the Old Testament is this:
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8 ESV)
In the New Testament, Jesus scolded the Pharisees:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
(Matthew 23:23 ESV)
I may differ with some of the directions taken by ministries centered on “social justice” in their interpretation of scripture. But to suggest that God is not a God who wants his people to pursue justice in our society – especially for the weak and poor – is to ignore huge chunks of the Bible. Our prayerful quest should be for the means the Lord wants us to use to pursue justice in society, not whether we should pursue justice.
Today while I was scrolling through my Twitter feed, I read a tweet that made me stop and think. It said, “Don’t stop praying till the mountain has moved.” It always seems right to pray, and perseverance in prayer is scriptural. But I had a “check” in my spirit.
Jesus talked to his disciples about what to do to mountains. When the disciples were amazed that Jesus had spoken to a fig tree, and it had withered, he told them in Mark 11:22 to have faith in God. Then he gave them a key to operating victoriously in the Kingdom of God: “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” (Mark 11:23 NKJV)
What is your mountain? Sickness? Loneliness? Debt? Lack? Bondage to a sin or habit? Yes, pray. But do what Jesus told you to do. Use the name of Jesus and start talking to it. Believe what you say. Eventually you are going to see the “mountain” crumble and be washed away in the stream of God’s power, released by what you have spoken in faith.
This past weekend, as we have for the past three years, our Snatch and Rescue team dove into the nation’s largest Halloween block party, which occurs each year in our town. To the glory of God, 136 decisions for Christ were made during about three hours spent loving and ministering to block party revelers.
Two members of our Snatch and Rescue team during Halloween outreach.
First, we take seriously Jesus’ directive to GO and make disciples. Most unsaved people will never make it to church to respond to an altar call. Just as I won’t catch many fish putting my line down in my back yard, I won’t catch many unsaved for Jesus just waiting for them to show up in my church. We’re trying to be obedient to the model set by Jesus, who went to sinners’ homes to eat with them, and to the model set by the church in the book of Acts, which assembled to worship and be trained but then went out to share the good news.
Second, our personal/street evangelism training comes from the director of global evangelism from Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Riley Stephenson. He has been to our church each of the last three Halloweens, and has brought a team of seasoned soul winners with him each time. He has trained us and taken us out to minister to the kids on Court Street. Over the last three years, about 1400 decisions for Christ have been made through our “Snatch and Rescue” team (Jude 23 NLT), not just at Halloween, but also with ordinary believers from the pews leading people to Christ. All of this is to the praise and glory of God!
We follow Riley’s model, which was a “Holy Spirit download.” When someone makes a decision for Christ, we ask them to write down their name, address, phone number and e-mail address. Not all will give us that information, and we can’t force it. Those who give us contact information get a letter from us welcoming them into the family of believers, inviting them to church, and enclosing a book from Kenneth Copeland Ministries called “He Did It All For You,” which very simply lays out the next steps for being a follower of Jesus. They also get a letter and package from Kenneth Copeland Ministries.
Everyone – those who give us their contact information and those who don’t – gets a little tract on-the-spot called “What’s Next?” that instructs them to get into a Bible-teaching church, to buy and read their Bible (we also have paperback Bibles we can give them), to pray, and to live the life of love that Jesus commanded.
Third, when we’ve finished for the night, we pray over them, and part of the prayer is that they find a good Bible-teaching church. That could be ours, it could be yours, or it could be another – we frankly don’t care. We do pray, believing we receive, that they will find the right church for them – the one God is calling them to.
If I could, I would hog-tie each new disciple and drag them to church. That’s not going to happen. I trust the Holy Spirit to lead them to a church that will nurture and train them once they’ve been born again. He’s bigger than I am, much more powerful than I am, and has a lot more experience at bringing people to church than I do.
I’m also mindful that people like Jesse Duplantis have made decisions for Christ based just on praying a prayer with Billy Graham on television. Billy Graham didn’t provide any follow up, but the Holy Spirit led Jesse Duplantis to church. Jesse has become an anointed evangelist through whom millions have come to Jesus.
If we didn’t do street evangelism because we were afraid people wouldn’t get “follow-up” then we just wouldn’t do evangelism. That’s just not an option. What if one of those 136 was killed in a car wreck on the way home? What if another was fatally struck with an errant beer bottle? At least we have the consolation that their eternal destiny will be with Jesus. We’ll keep doing it, trusting God for the further discipling of each one.
Has anyone ever said to you, “Only the Lord knows what’s in a person’s heart.” It seems reasonable. How can we know what we can’t see, hear, taste, feel, or experience? In fact, how can we really know what’s in our own hearts?
Jesus told how we’ll know, and it’s recorded in Luke 6:45 (ESV): “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” The Amplified Bible amplifies that last clause: “for out of the abundance (overflow) of the heart his mouth speaks.”
How do you know what’s in a sponge? You can’t tell by just looking at it. If you squeeze it, though, its contents gush out.
What’s in your heart? We know by what comes out of your mouth when you’re squeezed by your circumstances – financial, health, relationship, and other pressure. Are your first words ones of fear, doubt, loss, anger, or panic? Or are they words of faith, love, hope, and confidence in God? Are they the words of Dr. Phil or Oprah? Or are they the words of Jesus?
I want my heart to be so full of what I’ve read in my Bible that when pressure comes, the words that gush out of my mouth are the promises of God. I want faith, hope, and love to be the overflow of my heart. And the only way that will happen is if I fill up my heart with the right stuff – before the pressure comes.
I invite you to spend time with your Bible and to fill up your heart with what God has to say. When pressure comes, what God has to say is what will come gushing out of your mouth. And you won’t even have to think about it.
The word the Lord directed me to deliver for 2011 and beyond makes it clear the Church has to stop being just a meeting place and start being Jesus in our culture.
I’ve been re-studying the book of Acts. People refer to it as the Acts of the Apostles or the story of the early church. It’s really the acts of the Holy Spirit, and the “early church” was just the same Body of Christ we’re a part of but set in an earlier era.
The Church today should operate more like the Church of the early followers of Jesus. They gathered regularly to worship, to be equipped, and to encourage each other. The gifts (manifestations) of the Holy Spirit were present. But those early disciples didn’t just have meetings. They met to be recharged for ministry outside the meeting place. And when they went outside the meeting place to share the good news of Jesus, signs and wonders followed.
Today I see some churches that are filled with lively worship, encouraging and solid Bible teaching, and manifestations of the Holy Spirit, but all of that good stuff stays bottled up in the building. Other churches are passionate about the Great Commission and engaging the culture around them, but they deny that the miraculous workings of the Lord are for today.
We should be seeing both. We should gather for life-changing worship, fiery and encouraging preaching, and manifestations of the Spirit, but we should be taking what we learn, the power of the Spirit, and the good news of Jesus to people we encounter. We should be focused on engaging the culture and being missional, but as in the “early church,” we should expect healings and miracles to manifest in the name of Jesus as we encounter people.
I’m hungry to see the Body of Christ do the greater works Jesus prophesied in John 14:12 – just as our brothers and sisters did in the earliest years of the Church. We can’t do it if we just meet, and we can’t do it if we just go. We need to meet, we need to go, and we need to expect the power of the Holy Spirit to demonstrate signs and wonders as we minister. That is when we will be mirroring the ministry of Jesus, who constantly engaged ordinary people and made Himself available for miracles to occur through Him.
Let’s be the Body of Jesus. Let’s GO in the power of the Spirit!