"I Surrender" - Do You?

Jesus said in Luke 9:23 "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Is this the surrender to Christ that you have made or is it something different, a facsimile maybe? Allow me to share some thoughts from my friend Dr. A.W. Tozer again with you. He said, "I have long believed that a man who spurns the Christian faith outright is more respected before God and the heavenly powers than the man who pretends to religion but refuses to come under its total domination. The first is an overt enemy, the second a false friend. It is the later who will be spued out of the mouth of Christ, and the reason is not hard to understand. Truth is a glorious but hard mistress. She never consults, bargains or compromises."
I am sure we have all had the experience of having a "false friend" someone who we trusted and believed in only to discover in our hour of need that they were not what they professed to be. Jesus had them as well. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said that on that final day the day of judgement he said that many would come to him saying "Lord,Lord" but his response would be "I never knew you".
False friends, not the position you or I want to be in these last days. Jesus is coming for his bride a bride without spot or wrinkle. In the verse I quoted from Luke 9:23 Jesus said "If anyone would.." That clearly teaches us that there is a choice involved here. We need to decide whose friend we really want to be, the friend of Jesus or a friend to this world. It is the choice that only YOU can make. I hope you chose Jesus!
Pastor Sheldon

Teen Baptism Service

Looking For A Few Good Men And Women

2 Chronicles 16:9 says, "For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him." It seems to me that God is on a quest to find people who are "fully" committed to Him. I wonder; is He finding any success in His quest? Maybe it is just a pastor thing but it seems to me that in the 20+ years I have been a pastor it is becoming more difficult to find these people God seems to be looking for. Oh I am not saying that there is no commitment within the body of Christ, but what 2 Chronicles 16:9 calls for are those who are "fully" committed.

I fear that much of the commitment of people today cannot be classified as "full" but rather as partial or conditional. It seems to me that many people (and my focus is really within the confines of the church) are only willing to commit to ministry or even attendance within the church if it does not inconvenience us or cause us to miss something else that we would really rather do or be at. I believe that we really need to take a close look within ourselves and see if in fact we may be guilty of what the Ephesian church was guilty of in Revelation 2:4 where God told them they had lost their first love. Is God in fact our first love or just one of many other loves? If you are married do you think your husband of wife would be OK with them being one of your many loves but not your first? I sincerely doubt it so why would we settle for letting God be one of many loves instead of our first love?

What is this "full" commitment God says He is seeking in His people? It is hard to qualify what this means because there is always the danger that I or anyone else will make what it means to be fully committed a laundry list of things we personally feel are important. So let me share with you some advice Suzanna Wesley (the mother of John Wesley founder of Methodism) share with her son John when he was struggling with an issue of faith. "Take this rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind: that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."

I would challenge you to use this rule of Suzanna Wesley as a guideline for being fully committed to God and His plan for your life. I think it would be hard to go astray taking this godly advice.

Sincerely,
Pastor Sheldon

Mice or Men?

Hello Everyone! Sorry I am a little late in my post this week. I was out of my office a few days last week and didn't get around to posting as early as would have preferred. This week I am going to be completely unoriginal. One of my favorite writers is the late A.W. Tozer a wonderful pastor with the Christian Missionary Alliance Church. A.W. Tozer has written many books, one which I think is pretty much considered a Christian Classic called "Knowledge of The Holy". I can highly recommend any of Tozer's books. What I want to share with you are his thoughts from one of his daily devotional books called "Renewed Day by Day". This was a devotion from August 11th.

"The church at this moment needs men, the right kind of men, bold men. The talk is that we need revival, that we need a new baptism of the Spirit - and God knows we must have both; but God will not revive mice. He will not fill rabbits with the Holy Spirit.
We languish for men who feel themselves expendable in the warfare of the soul, who cannot be frightened by the threats of death because they already died to the allurements of this world. Such men will be free from the compulsions that control and squeeze weaker men.
This kind of freedom is necessary if we are to have prophets in our pulpits again instead of mascots. These free men will serve God and mankind for motives too high to be understood by the rank and file of religious entertainers who today shuttle in and out of the sanctuary.
They will make no decision out of fear, take no course out of desire to please, accept no service for financial considerations, perform no religious act out of mere custom; nor will they themselves be influenced by the love of publicity or the desire for reputation.
The true church has never sounded out public expectations before launching her crusades. Her leaders heard from God, they knew their Lord's will and did it. Their people followed them - sometime to triumph, oftener to insults and public persecution - and their sufficient reward was the satisfaction of being right in a wrong world."

I happen to believe that Dr. Tozer is correct in his evaluation of the churches need today. We need to be as the Apostle Paul was in his letter to the church at Rome and not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus said the truth would set men free but before it does it will usually make them quite miserable. Until we surrender ourselves completely to God we will never know the joy of the abundant life and the power to live victoriously in this present day.

Pastor Sheldon

A Bum Rap?

Here is a question that has been bothering me lately, let's see if it bothers you. I have been wondering, "Is God getting a bad rap from us?" (meaning us as His creation not just us Christians). I don't know if you ever watch the show but I enjoy watching the Seinfeld show. The other day I saw an episode where George was upset because he thought he had contracted some disease that he thought would kill him. He asked this question, "Why would God let this happen?" The person he was talking to said, "I didn't think you believed in God and George's reply was, "I do for the bad things."
I think Georges response is quite typical for most people today. What do we call an earthquake or tornado or hurricane? We call them an "Act of God". We never call them and "Act of Satan". It seems to me that more often than not whether we are talking about Christians or the average person on the street when bad things happen to us God seems to always be the focus of our blame. Why don't we ever say, "Why did Satan do this to me?" Instead of saying, "God why did you do this to me?" I often tell me congregation that my favorite "refrigerator verse" is John 16:33 where Jesus made us this promise, "In this world you will have trouble..."
I know this topic is much deeper than I have time to discuss in this blog but I have to wonder what our expectations of God really are and are these expectations realistic? Are they expectations grounded in the scriptures or in just our personal opinions and ideas about God? I am fully confident that God knows and sees what we go through good or bad, but I am not certain that I can find any scriptures to support the idea that He promised to eliminate all those problems. If I am not mistaken what He promised is to go with us through them. That is what the end of John 16:33 tells us, "..but fear not for I have overcome the world."
I hate it when bad things happen to me or when things don't go as I planned them to but I also don't think I can point my finger at God and tell Him that He isn't doing His job. We need to ask God to give us vision that is greater than two feet in front of us. We need God to help us see that there is much more to my life than what is happening in this moment in time.
Pastor Sheldon
PS. Now if I can just practice what I preach.