Group Questions - March 5, 2015

As I look out my window at the snow falling from the sky and covering the earth, I'm reminded that Jesus washes away our sins and makes us white as snow (Isaiah 1:18).  What a beautiful truth, that no matter how dirty, we can be made clean again by the grace of God (Ephesians 2)

Because of needing to cancel group tonight, I wanted to throw out a few thoughts and questions for open discussion and contemplation.

Acts 3 describes the healing of a man who was lame from birth.  Not lame like your friends from high school, but unable to walk.  Now that is in itself miraculous enough.  It's not like this guy just had a broken leg for a while and was limping around.  He had been unable to walk AT ALL for his entire life.  Think about that.  The utter and absolute atrophy of any potential muscle in his legs.  Not just the inability to balance, but the completely unawareness of what balance involves.  Never knowing the feeling of running, jumping, skipping, or even sauntering or strutting.
But Peter & John, empowered by the Holy Spirit and authorized by Jesus audaciously tell this lame man to walk...and he does.  Verse 8 says "walking and leaping and praising God" he entered the temple.  So follow me here, this man who would not have had any usable muscle left in his legs, is now leaping.

Q1. What does this tell you about the power of Jesus?

Q2. This same power is at work in us through the Holy Spirit, but most of us still walk with a limp and feel not completely healed of our spiritual ailments.  Why do you think this is?

Acts 4 continues with Peter & John being arrested and interrogated by the Jewish governing body, the Sanhedrin.
The question asked of Peter & John is in verse 7 - by what power or in what name did you do this?
Their answer in a nutshell is - by the name of Jesus.

Q3. What does it mean to live day to day in the name of Jesus?

In Acts 4:13 - Peter & John are called simple, uneducated men.  Not really kind words.  Basically translated, they're a bunch of dumb dumbs.  But yet everyone just witnessed an incredible act of power, followed by a very well articulated explanation of the gospel, from a bunch of dumb dumbs.

Q4. What do you let get in the way of God working through you?

Finally, in Acts 4:18 Peter & John are commanded not to speak of or act upon any further the name of Jesus.
Their reply is basically, we're just telling you what we've seen and heard.
I believe it is extremely important for us to being sharing our stories of what we've seen and heard of God doing in and among and around us.

Q5.  What have you seen God do in your life, or the life of someone around you?


Leave your comments below.

Where's our power?

It's easy to jump into the book of Acts and think that this is the first time we're meeting the Holy Spirit.  So much focus in the Old Testament is  given to God the Father, and in the Gospels to Jesus the Son, that it can feel like this is the first revelation of the God the Spirit.  But it most certainly is not.

The Holy Spirit is woven throughout all of Scripture, like a shadow.  Always there but rarely noticed or appreciated.

We really first encounter the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:1-2.

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

From the very beginning the Holy Spirit it intimately involved in the application of the Fathers will through the Son's word.

And from that point on we see over and over the indwelling application of the Father's will by the Holy Spirit.


In Genesis 41:38 Pharoah speaks of Joseph who just miraculously interpreted his dream.
And Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?”
Exodus 31 speaks of the Spirit filling the craftsman tasked with constructing the tabernacle.

Number 27:18 speaks of Joshua being chosen as the next leader of Israel, because the Spirit was upon him.

Gideon and Samson and the judges of Israel were filled with the Holy Spirit and given wisdom and power through him to accomplish God's will in Israel.

Throughout the prophets, they are given the Words of God through the Spirit of God, to speak to the people.

There are many, many more examples of the Holy Spirit at work in the Old Testament.

But I think the most fascinating case study of the activity of the Holy Spirit is in the life of Jesus.

Luke's gospel does a great job of pointing this out to us.

Mary is told that she will be the one who bears the Son of God into this world.  Rightly she asks how his will be possible. Luke 1:35 answers with 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you'.  So the very beginning of Jesus' life on earth was begun by the Holy Spirit.

Luke 3:21-22 - Jesus is baptized and annointed by the Holy Spirit.
Luke 4:1 tells us the Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and was led by Him into the desert to be tested. (Side note, notice who led him towards the trial, easy paved roads have never been promised while following Jesus)
Jesus, in Luke 4:14 returns from the desert in "the power of the Holy Spirit" and goes on to say in Luke 4:18 - 18 
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

Jesus prayed in the power of the Spirit Luke 10:21

Jesus often healed in the power of the Spirit Luke 5:17 - "and the power of the Lord was with Him to heal"  

I find it interesting that it doesn't just say and the Lord was powerful and healed.  He is powerful and He does heal.  But Luke seems to go out of his way to point out that the power, in this case was not Jesus himself, but rather was with Jesus.

This is my point. Jesus came to forgive us of our sins. Absolutely He did. He came and lived a sinless life on our behalf, in our place, and died an awful death that we deserved, on our behalf, in our place, and rose from the grave, in our place, on our behalf.

But that's not all that He did. Certainly it is enough, but it is not all.

The sinless life He lived was not just a display of, "See I can do it, why can't you". It wasn't just to make a point, or go through the motions. No the life He lived, was lived on purpose. The way He lived it was on purpose.

He live that way to give us an example of how we too can live.

You see He doesn't just forgive, wipe clean and then leave us at square one again, with no way of knowing which way to go, or how.

No he leaves us with not only His example, but also His power.

He leaves us with the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:11 says,
"If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you."

You see, Jesus lived his life in reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit, not because He had to, He's God, he could've done it in His own power. But He did it in reliance and dependence upon the Holy Spirit, because He knew we were going to need that. If we were going to be made like Him, we were going to need the Holy Spirit to apply The Father's will, through the Son's word. And so just as we were created in the beginning, we are being recreated even now.

Jesus said is John 16 something that seems ridiculous.  He says that He is going away, but that that is a good thing.  Now it seems to me at first blush that the best things would be for Jesus to just stay put, and remain with us forever.  But no, He says it is best for you that I go, cause when I go I will send to you the Holy Spirit, and He will empower, convict, lead, guide, comfort, counsel, and glorify Jesus.

He's saying I'm sending you exactly what you need, and not a drop less.  I'm sending you the Holy Spirit to enact the The Father's will, through my Words.  

And so I leave you with 1 thought, and 2 possible answers.

If we've been given everything that we need to live and walk in power, boldness, holiness and joy though the Holy Spirit, why aren't we?

I don't mean that to be accusatory.  I think we all experience glimpses of it from time to time.  But why isn't it what we all believe it could and should be?

Here's 2 possible options, and maybe both apply.

We're drinking from the wrong well. Feeding at the wrong trough. 

To say it plainly, we're walking in the wrong power, or no power at all.  

I think we either are trying to do it on our own or we're living off past victories, like Moses with the rocks in the desert.  And while God may have worked in one way before, He's working in a different way now.  Jesus healed several blind men as recorded in Scripture.  They are all very different.  My mind would love for it to be a simple prescription.  Spit + dirt + rub it in the eyes = blind man sees.  But Jesus does it different each time, because He relied on the Holy Spirit, and what He was hearing from His Father. 

The second option is that we're no on God's mission.

We all go through times where we feel very distant from God.  Like He's a million miles away and no where to be found.  No we know very clearly that He has not left us or forsaken us, and that nothing can separate us from His love.  So it's not an issue of being saved or not.  The distance we feel, may not just be a feeling, it may be the Spirit allowing us to feel the gap between His mission and ours.  While we're chasing comfort, success, or even "religious activity" He's chasing our neighbor or our co worker.  While we're trying to figure out finances, or stressing over provision, He's trying to bless others with what He's blessed us with.

I think a reason we don't feel like we're walking in his power, is because we're not.

His power is found where He is, and it's given for the accomplishment of His purpose.

And if we're neither where He is nor after His purpose, than we remain powerless.

If Jesus depended on the Holy Spirit throughout His life, how much more should we?

Remember to Remain

Remain in me Jesus said.  Remain in me.
I don't know if it's the somewhat confusing way in which John 15:1-11 is written, looping back and forth, stating and restating forwards and backwards, that makes this simple statement seem so difficult to understand.
Jesus, in some of his final words to his closest of friends before he heads to the cross to suffer for the sins of the world, tries to layout for them some simple facts.  He says things like 'if they hated me they're going to hate you'(vs 18, 19), and 'if you follow me, you're going to experience pain'(v 2).  The speech he's giving that's recorded here in John 15, is also recorded in a different way in Matthew 26, where he tells his disciples that they're all going to abandon him.  Peter of course says he would never, but he ends up denying Jesus to his face as recorded in Luke 22:60-62.
In the midst of all of this seeming negativity, Jesus introduces this simple, beautiful statement.  Remain in me.
When you fall on your face right in front of me. Remain in me.  When you're battling cancer.  Remain in me.  When you're struggling against sin with all your might.  Remain in me.  When you're chasing after me, and they hate your for it.  Remain in me.

Note that he doesn't say, when you fall on your face, love me more.  He doesn't say, when you're battling cancer, try harder to remember all the good things I've done.  He doesn't say when you're struggling against sin, pull up your boot straps, put on your big boy pants and do your quiet time.

No he says remain in me, remain in my love.  Don't rely on your love for me, rely on my love for you.  It's my love that chose you, you did not choose me.  It's my love that saved you, you did not save yourself.  It's me that is the author and perfecter of your faith, it's me that is at work in you both to want good and to do good.

We all know that we can be easily tossed around by mood, circumstance and the direction the wind is blowing.  Isn't it refreshing and reassuring to hear Jesus say that your ability to stand firm and withstand whatever might come your way, through failure, sickness, loss and pain, is not dependent on your effort or consistency of love, but rather on His unwavering, unfaltering, ever constant, ever present, ever flowing love for you.

I don't believe this means we don't try, or put effort into growing and learning and pursuing him.  I just think it means that we let his love for us spur us on to love him even more every day.  When he prunes us, and it hurts we remember his love for us is constant and true.  When we suffer for his sake, we remember that his love for us never changes or wanes.  When we fight the good fight against the sin that so easily entangles, we remember that his love for us is not dependent upon how much we love him, but solely on how infinitely loving he is.

As you walk forward in another day, week, month, and year, remember to remain.

The Fullness of Limitless Love

It doesn't make any sense....at all.

How can you experience the fullness of something that is limitless?

It's an oxymoron really. Fullness by definition implies that there is an end, a limit, a point at which an object can be no more full than it already is.

It's complicated even more by the fact that it is nearly impossible for us to experience the fullness of anything, be it joy, freedom, peace, relationship, money, or satisfaction. There is seemingly always something waiting for our cup to fill to the brim, just to bump us and watch it spill all over ourselves and those around us. This creates an environment of deep yearning, longing, searching, and striving after more. More fun, more peace, more enjoyment, more entertainment, more satisfaction, more fulfillment, and more acceptance.

We're born into, & quickly willingly join with this "rat race" of seeking to satisfy the insatiable, & fill the unfillable.

Equally unfathomable & incomprehensible to us is the idea that something can be limitless. We really truly have nothing as a reference point for the concept of an object, emotion, relationship, person, or action that could be considered as without limit, constraint or ending.

So what could possibly reconcile these two ideas that by themselves are irreconcilable by our minds, but together become the greatest of opposites.

The Gospel.

The Gospel starts with God before the creation of anything. It has to start there. Because in those moments of eternity before God created time, energy, life, & mankind, He was complete, all sufficient and in need of nothing. But He choses to create anyways, not of a desire for something He needs, but of the overflow of everything He is. Light. Peace. Joy. Love.

Man, being created in the image of God for the glory of God, finds himself in a state of absolute peace & joy, clothed in the love & acceptance of a gracious & generous Father who began the process as an overflow of His limitless love.
And while clothed in this love & acceptance, mankind decides to shed those clothes in pursuit of other fashions, and quickly finds itself Naked, outside of God's love & acceptance.

This is naturally a dangerous place to be.

But God makes a way. He offers a perfect payment for our betrayal, in Jesus, who lives the perfect life, and gives us the credit for it, who dies the death we deserved to die, and gives us His perfect eternal life, which we could never otherwise obtain. All so that we could be clothed in the love & acceptance of our gracious & generous Father again.

Oh and how this is surely the greatest of all great headlines in the universe. Jesus Paid it ALL.

But the Gospel does not end with Jesus paying it All, and us obtaining eternal heavenly life. Well it does end with that, but there's so much more in the middle that we skip over. Like how to overcome sin NOW. How to avoid temptation, how to grow into maturity, and the fullness of what Christ has accomplished for us. Namely that we have become Sons & Daughters of the Most High God.

But there in lies the Gospel. There in lies the Fullness of Limitless Love. There in lies the power over sin & temptation & doubt, and the power to freedom & peace & joy.

That there has been a fundamental shift in your identity. You've been taken, in Christ, from enemy to child, from lost to found, from hostile to in love. You are no longer a naked sinner, but a finely dressed Child of a gracious & generous Father.

And here's where it gets great. If you are in Christ, & Christ is in you, There is nothing (read ABSOLUTELY NO THING) you can do to make Him love you any less, and nothing (read NO NO NO NO NO NO NO THING EVER ANYWHERE IN ANY CAPACITY) you can do to make Him love you anymore.

Now don't read that familiar phrase calously. Reread it, and contemplate this. We have relationships now, where we know that there's nothing we can do to make someone love us anymore, and by that we mean that they'll never fully love us, but they've capped out on loving us. They have more to give, but they'll never give it to us, no matter what we do.

But this is not the God of of this great gospel. When He says there's nothing you can do to make Him love you more, what He's saying is that ALL, every last drop of His everlasting, neverending, always flowing, limitless Love is directed towards You. He can't love you anymore because He's already loving you with everything that He is. He's pouring all of His endless Love in your direction.

Consider the implications for a moment. This means that even in pain, trial, suffering, and hardship, God is loving you ferociously. Because all of His wrath towards you has been poured out on Jesus on the cross, all He has left towards you is His love. Which means pain is a tool to detach you from fruitless pursuits and direct you into the flow of His love. It means suffering is not pointless, but a directional sign that He alone can satisfy you.

This means that He also loves you eternally, and takes great delight in showing you His eternal love for eternity. So these light and momentary afflictions become as nothing in the light of the glory that has prepared for us.

It also means you need to stop trying so hard to please Him, and start trying harder to enjoy Him. That you need to stop beating yourself up over your failures, and stop running away from Him, and start running towards Him in failure, knowing that He will gladly fill you to the brim over and over and over again with His limitless supply of His love, directed towards you, His child.

Naked

Naked.

It's how you come into this world, and it's essentially how you go out of it as well.

Naked.

It's not a pleasant idea, or image, or reality. My guess is that even the site of the word naked conjures in you, the reader, such feelings that you would rather quickly dismiss, ignore & suppress than dwell on, contemplate & explore.

Feelings of disgust, of embarrassment, of shame.

Yes, shame might be the most common, & yet most underestimated of these feelings.
Why shame, what is there to be ashamed of when it comes to nakedness? God created us naked & yet without shame (Gen. 2:25), so why is it now that we so quickly associate being naked & being ashamed as one in the same?

Adam & Eve might have something to say about this if they weren't dead...and naked.

It seems to me that we've completely forgotten, or missed, or ignored this thing in the depths of all of our souls that remembers the time when there was shalom, peace, joy, freedom, where everything in all of creation worked in perfect rhythm, melody & harmony, like the greatest of all symphonies ever written or heard. We're told about it in Ecclesiastes, where we're told that God placed eternity in the hearts of men. That we remember that this life that we live now is not all there ever is, or ever was.

And so if we were to be honest with ourselves (which I won't pretend that we can be), we would discover that our soul aches for what Adam & Eve experienced briefly.

Nakedness without shame. In short, Shalom. Rhythm. Peace. Harmony. Perfection.

The odd thing is that while Adam & Eve, in those moments, were completely naked, they were also completely clothed. In the love & acceptance of their Creator, Father & Friend. They were given one commandment, don't eat of this one tree. I've given you everything else you will ever need, and it is all beyond just fulfilling a need, it is beautiful, tasteful, joyous, & free, and if you stay within this simple boundary you will always be joyous & free, and clothed in love & acceptance.

But infamously, we all know what happened, they didn't stay within the boundaries, they stepped outside of it to pursue the one thing that they couldn't have, & in that the rejected God's acceptance & love as being enough for them, & declared they would rather have God's things than God Himself, that they would rather be powerful & "all-knowing" then empowered & and truly know God, that they would rather pursue themselves, than God.

And so there they stood, naked. Stripped bare. Exposed. Full of shame, regret, fear, and animosity towards each other & God.

It's far too easy for us to sit back, analyze, dissect & examine Adam & Eve, and to totally miss the point that they so very perfectly represent you & I.

Now you're probably expecting me to start listing all the ways that we're horrible people who ignore God, chase idols & sin. Well you're wrong.

My goal here is for us to simply take a minute to realize that so much of our issue with ourselves is wrapped up in this idea of shame. My goal is for us to examine ourselves for a moment & be honest enough to aknowledge that there is a problem. That maybe why we work so hard & long, why we dive into entertainment & food head first and why we care so much about what other people think, is because we're trying desperately to make our fig leaves with which to cover our nakedness before God. To earn His love, to gain His acceptance, to find ourselves worthy, desirable & lovable once again. Because the soul remembers, & the heart knows that there is so much more, so very much more to life, to you, to this world then scratching & clawing to be clothed.

I'll end with this, & pick up with it in my next post. You can take a shower & brush your teeth, put on nice clothes & a pretty smile, and you can present yourself a certain way, but you don't have access to cleaning out the inside, and you can't clothe your soul.

But there is one who knew no sin, who became sin on your behalf that you might be clothed in the righteousness of God, to be found acceptable in His sight, cleansed of all shame. He is Jesus.

Oaks of Righteousness

¹ The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
³to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.

That's what I'm after. It's what my heart longs for. The thing that burns in my soul and keeps me awake at night. The passion of my soul, and the desire of my heart.

That the Lord might be glorified.

The way I've said it before is that I exist to unveil God's glory, and unleash His love.

I've chosen the name 'New Oaks' for this project, because it's exactly the burden I feel placed on me by God for this season. To be a part of His planting efforts. Efforts to bind up, set free, restore, heal, clothe with joy, and bring salvation to a whole new 'crop' of oaks of righteousness, also known as disciples.

Many may recognize the first half of this section of verses in Isaiah more famously from Jesus himself in Luke 4. Here He returns from being led into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan for 40 days. He comes out of that desert victorious of Satan and sin, and proceeds to make this declaration, that in Him this proclamation is being fulfilled.
The Great Commandment, and the Great Commission are both extension of this from Jesus.
Love God with all that you are, and love others as yourself, and As you are going make disciples of all nations. Both of these things bring about the type of results that Isaiah proclaims here.

Disciples are those that Love God with all they are and let that love for God overflow into love for others through the various expressions of the body of Christ. Paul tells us in 2 Cor 3 that as we behold the beauty of the glory of God, we are transformed from one degree to the next, or we are made into the image of Jesus, which is the whole goal of being a disciple.

So I'm planting a church. A church full of oaks of righteousness. That reproduces more oaks. A church that prays with Paul in Philippians 1 that love move abound more and more, so that we may approve what is excellent and be pure and blameless before Him on the day of the Lord, and that we would produce the fruit of righteousness through Jesus Christ. A church that seeks with everything it has to Love God with all it is, and to let that love overflow and be unleashed on a desperate world in desperate need. A church the with all its efforts and strength will make disciples of all nations. A church the plants other churches, a church that in the unity of the Spirit and through the outpouring of His various gifts will be an unveiler of the great and wondrous glory of our Great God.

But I'm not meant to do this alone. Beyond that, I can't. So I'm asking for your help. Maybe you're intrigued enough to want in. Well there are several ways to get involved.

• The first and most important way is to join our Email Prayer Team. You can sign up by filling out the form in the sidebar of the right of this page. You will receive weekly Prayer updates via email, as well as an invitation to a monthly Prayer & Worship gathering.
• The second is to join one of our upcoming Small Group Bible Studies. Starting in February we will be launching a Bible Study meeting on Wednesday nights @ 7pm, with plans to start another one within 2 months after that.

All of my hope is in this. That God would be Faithful to Glorify His Name as He promised He would, and that He would be Gracious to allow us to join Him in His work, as He's invited us to.