My 95 Theses #22:
When someone feels prompted by God to speak up in church, let the person speaking graciously step aside.
“If a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.” –1 Corinthians 14:30-31
My 95 Theses #21:
Honor, listen to, & embrace the lowly & the humble. “Consider others better than yourself.”
We must be careful not to present Christianity so well that people feel like they don’t need to implement it for themselves. It’s easy to see Christianity like a school subject; a class you go to occasionally & then immediately go back to your real life.
When we turn Christianity into a tidy system & remove all uncertainty, we lose our sense of amazement, wonder, & awe! I like to look at church and think what else could it be.
Crowding your mind with facts, like stuffing a closet, can make it unusable. Perhaps we should decide what’s worth holding on to.
When your mind’s uncertain, that an opportunity to seek truth with your heart! Certainty requires no faith. Uncertainty requires great faith! Faith is to trust God in the middle of uncertainty, hurt, & disappointment.
Certainty convinces us that we have everything under control. But do we really? Without some uncertainty, it’s easy to think we know it all.
Uncertainty is fertilizer for great spiritual growth. (It’s hard to grow if you think you’ve already got it together.)
Christ lives in His followers. So why don’t we open up more, be vulnerable, & let Him
be seen in us? There must be numerous different ways Christians can meet for church. So why do we all use almost the identical Sunday format?
The Bible says we can “quench” & “grieve” the Holy Spirit. Let’s don’t do that!
The Bible says that the Holy Spirit will teach people. Perhaps we should let Him be the teacher in church.
The Bible says “after beginning by means of the Spirit” we can “finish by means of the flesh.” Let’s stay obedient to the Spirit!
The Bible says; “Let us keep in step with the Spirit.” It doesn’t tell us to keep in step with a program.
The Bible says that we can be “in the Spirit.” That means we can also be out of the Spirit and in the flesh.
The Bible says that we can “please the flesh” or “please the Spirit.” It says that our faith should not “rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”
The Bible says: “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit but considers them foolishness.” It also says we can “live by the Spirit.” I’m so glad that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness.”
The Bible says the Spirit “calls out Abba, Father” in our heart. Can you hear that intimate cry? (Abba means “Daddy.”)
My 95 Theses #19: Encourage shy people to share what God has put on their heart.
My 95 Theses #20: Don’t let a few people do all the speaking, but make room for anybody to share in the meeting.
Sports training testifies to what dedicated workouts do. Perhaps Christians should meet for dedicated spiritual workouts. Love life; keep spiritually fit!
Bodybuilding is good. Soul building is better! You need the reps! Don’t settle for just praying once in a while! Keep on praying!
It’s good to be physically “fit for life.” It’s even better to be spiritually “fit for life.” To get spiritually fit, bit by bit; don’t quit & sit — get up and work out with the risen Jesus. Commit to be spiritually fit!
A strong body that contains a flabby soul is not true “fitness.” Even if you don’t mind the flab, the state of your soul still matters!
The current home of your soul (called body) will die. Where will your soul go then?
Obey Jesus today! Tomorrow can morph into months, years, even decades.
Without spiritual hustle, you won’t develop spiritual muscle. (“Seek first the Kingdom of God.” –Jesus in Matthew 6:33) Christian cardio: lets come together, get off our seats, & exercise our hearts with one another!
Let’s meet for a spiritual workout and let the risen Jesus be our fitness coach. Sitting & hearing speeches about spiritual fitness won’t make you strong, but spiritually working out
with others, will.
Participating in Spirit-led, open sharing, transforms your confidence in the risen Christ, & empowers you to transform your life. Perhaps being sedentary in church encourages us to be sedentary in life.
If church moves beyond formalism & lets people share form the heart as prompted by the Spirit, divisions will melt in God’s love! Millions of sermons haven’t healed racism, but I’ve seen awareness of race melt away as people share as equals in Jesus’ ekklesia.
The Pharisees in the Bible were people who tried to fake spiritual fitness. (It didn’t work.)
An exercise show (like church) is nice to watch, but it works much better if you get up & actually do the exercises. What would happen if we let church be a gym class led by Coach Jesus?
What makes you depressed? Think, hear, say, watch, read, & do less of that.
What gives you peace? Think, hear, say, watch, read, & do more of that.
What makes you a better person? Think, hear, say, watch, read, & do more of that.
When light shines, darkness automatically declines. Shine with Jesus’ presence. Has the awe-filled, heart-rending, overwhelming, soul-stirring, tear-releasing presence of Jesus been eclipsed in your life?
If church doesn’t challenge you & create opportunities for you to come out of your comfort zone, it won’t change you. This simple process gets amazing results: Gather with believers; all listen to Jesus; all share (and/or do) what He says.
There is so much beauty in the family of God. We just need to open up and let one another see Christ alive in us. If Christians met to practice sharing our faith with one another, we’d become much better at sharing our faith with unbelievers.
Political agreement’s not all it’s cracked up to be. However, kindness & compassion are worth far more than we think they are!
Road to the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, October 31, 2017:
My 95 Theses #15: Ekklesia is a movement of people who are experiencing Christ in the present & following Him into the future.
My 95 Theses #16: Examine how we do church and stop doing anything that isn’t actually changing people’s lives.
My 95 Theses #17:
Don’t panic if a meeting starts to look messy. Jesus, Himself, will keep order, if we let Him.
95 Theses #18:
Train outspoken people to only speak up in a meeting when they are directly prompted by the Holy Spirit.
Whatever we let eclipse the Son causes us to walk in darkness. An eclipse is never meant to be permanent. Don’t stay in the darkness! We all need God to kneed us. The question is, will we let Him?
Align your life with the Lion of Light & cry out hope. We all need God to kneed us. The question is, will we let Him?
If your life is bogged down, perhaps you’ve jumped off God’s track for your life. There’s nothing like sharing your heart with a group of people who listen attentively and compassionately to you.
To follow & obey Jesus once in a while falls far short of biblical Christianity. Bible knowledge turns to frost in cold hearts; but it burns like fire in those who are hungry for God.
Pain, anger, and disappointment are bad counselors. Seek out & listen to love instead. When people open their hearts to God & to one another, they grow & heal!
When people are listened to, they begin to heal. In ekklesia we listen to one another. Ekklesia lifts the veil of performance & respectability & allows people to connect heart to heart!
Ekklesia creates a space where people can take off their masks & be real. Before humans invented therapy and support groups. God invented ekklesia.
To avoid vulnerability is to quench the Holy Spirit. Perhaps we like for church to be programmed because that protects us from vulnerability to God and to one another.
Where there’s humility, vulnerability, and authenticity, God shows up! To commemorate Christ in the past but miss His reality in the present is unfortunate.
When we no longer need to be powerful, we can experience Jesus in amazing ways. Words passed from head to head lack the impact of words shared from heart to heart.
Spirit-led, open sharing is healing. Not allowing people to speak can hinder their healing. How can Christians “bear one another’s burdens” if we meet in passive formality & act like we have no burdens? Perhaps church could allow people to unburden themselves & to open their hearts to one another.
Connection & community happen when people feel heard, not when they are lectured.
I’m not perfect & I’m not enough. Without the risen Jesus, I’d fall apart.
Many people are breaking down under the weight of untold stories. They need people to compassionately listen to them. Hurt often masquerades as anger. Mad people are hurting real bad!
You can’t teach a plant to grow. You cultivate & nurture it. People are like that. Is it possible that a contrived & controlled worship environment confines people’s capacity to connect with God?
When someone voluntarily becomes vulnerable in a group, authenticity breaks out! People who are courageous enough to be vulnerable inspire others to open up. It’s powerful when God uses one person to minister. It’s even more so when He uses a room full of people to minister to one another.
One person doesn’t have to lead church all by himself. 1 Corinthians 14:26 shows another way we can do church.
Listen to your Creator, not your critics. If you listen to & obey God when He whispers, you won’t need to hear Him scream. Read the Bible daily. To kneel, be real, & humbly appeal to God; will heal you! Try it & see how you feel.
Need counseling? Quietly read the Bible listening to the Holy Spirit as you do. The feeling of breaking down is the first step
toward breaking through. (“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” –Jesus)
Negative, unkind, & vulgar words have that kind of impact on the speaker & the hearer. Why trash yourself & others with words? How can “mature language” and “potty talk” mean the same thing? After all, what’s “adult” about abrasive or vulgar language?
To repent is to repair your wrongful words, thoughts, attitudes, & behaviors so that you no longer continually repeat them. To accept ideas unconditionally is to blindly surrender yourself to their influence. Ask, “Do I want to be shaped by this idea?”
When I’m wrestling & resisting worry because I refuse to wallow in it. Take your worry, twist it, and turn it into trust in God!
Forget who you want people to think you are. Who are you?
Last week as Ernie and I struggled with discouragement, hurt, and anger, we went to a mountain top in Ridgecrest, NC and saw an amazing view. Ernie began to read aloud this Scripture that was on a wooden sign to our left. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” As she was reading, this rainbow suddenly appeared in front of our eyes! We were so amazed and blessed that we began to cry.
95 Theses #12:
The body of Christ is not an organization, but a spiritual organism!
95 Theses #13:
Drop titles & allow everybody to interact with one another as equals before God.
Perhaps there is so much evil in the world because there is so much evil in our human hearts. That would mean that the key to reducing the evil in the world is to let the living Jesus override the evil in our hearts.
You can’t be good. You can stream the risen Jesus and let His goodness flow through you. So the next time someone tells you, “Be good,” say, “How about I let the living Jesus be good through me, instead?”
A man named Paul tried to be good, but couldn’t. Then he let the risen Jesus be good through him. (See Romans chapter 7)
Joyful holiness is not experienced by trying to be good. It comes from humbly streaming the goodness of Christ through your life.
We need more than talks about spiritual weapons. We need to train together & practice using them with one another. I want to see church become a gym where we meet to spiritually workout & train to obey the risen Jesus together. Try reading something from the New Testament with a few believers & then taking turns doing what it says.
It’s good to meet & hear teaching about the Bible. It’s also important to meet & train together in implementing the Bible and in overcoming our inner evil through spiritual warfare.
Christ is inviting people to rediscover the Greek New Testament concept of ekklesia. It’s based on 1 Corinthians 14:26. Ekklesia is emerging in the body of Christ. People are meeting to hear & obey the risen Jesus together.
A disappointment is not a reason to get depressed or to throw a fit. It’s a calling to look forward to God’s next appointment for you. Speak the truth in love. Don’t be silent, but don’t be mean.
Free Gas for Your Think Tank -- Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement 