What does biblical community look like?
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 16: Biblical Community”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
What does a biblical community look like?
I remember a segment on the morning news years ago called, “Shabby or Shiek.” The viewer had to look at two models and determine which one was wearing a very expensive outfit and which one had an expensive look, but at bargain prices.
It was hard to tell because they looked very similar.
Expense isn’t the point, but experience is.
Can you tell a biblical community from any other community?
If one were to take a snapshot of the community in which you live and a snapshot of your church community, could you tell the difference between the two? Perhaps similarities would be in demographics and the type of people which are in each (although that is not always the case). But could you tell the difference in how people interact in each? How people are treated in each? How people engage in each?
Let me start this week’s devotions by being the first to repent of ways I have not exhibited the love and grace in Christ in our church community and ways that have left the experience in church not much different than the community around us.
Let me start this week again in the grace of God and asking for his Spirit’s help to be part of and build a truly biblical community that is both encouraging to those who are part of it and attractive to those who interact with it.
Immediately after Pentecost, the group of Christians were described in this way:
Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Three things stand out about this group of Christians:
- They grew in their faith as a community.
- They shared all aspects of life as a community.
- They readily welcomed others into the community.
The community of believers was the place where faith and life intersected. The cross of Jesus and his saving work was realized by all and was the place to which and from which all the activities of the Christian church originated.
God designed and formed this community by the power of his Spirit. He designed people to be in community with him and with each other. It was what he created at the beginning and desires all to enjoy on earth until the ultimate manifestation of community is experienced in heaven.
But Satan wants to destroy this community. He wants Christians to look just like the rest of the world and the church to look worse than the rest of the world.
So this week we are going to ask the Spirit of God to start in each of our individual hearts to strengthen our community with the Lord. From that point ask him to strengthen the community of believers we are part of so we too experience the blessing of growing in faith together, doing life together, and welcoming others into the family of faith.
Apply: Evaluate the three areas of Christian community in the place you are. Which is strongest? Which can use some help? How can you be part of strengthening the biblical community you are part of?
Prayer: Lord God, thank you for creating and designing the church to be a community that comes together around the cross of Jesus to do life and faith together. Help me to grow in my relationship to you, my connection with others, and to be a catalyst for strengthening the bonds of faith in the community in which you have placed me. AMEN.
I no longer live…
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 15: Total Surrender”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
This passage is a great way to wrap up the week and captures the essence of what “Total Surrender” looks like.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
In order to follow Jesus, the sinful nature inside each one of us must be daily crucified, i.e. put to death. Martin Luther as he explained the blessing of baptism put it this way:
What does such baptizing with water indicate?
It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
Where is this written?
St. Paul writes in Romans chapter six: “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom. 6:4)
Often we start our days without a thought as to how will we approach the day ahead. Will today be a day I allow my sinful nature to make the decisions and chart the direction? Or will today be a day where the Spirit of God guides my decisions and charts my direction? Will today be one where I live to receive glory or give glory?
It’s tough, but here is the practical value of daily remembering our baptism. Our baptism personally connected us to the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection. As you take a shower/bath today, let the water that washes the dirt off your body remind you of the waters of baptism that washed sin from your soul. The only way to live “totally surrendered” is in the reality that you are a redeemed child of God.
“The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Life takes on a new focus and perspective when it intersects with the cross. The cross reminds me of the total sacrifice that Jesus made for me! The cross screams the reality of God’s love for me! What else would drive Jesus to suffer and die for me? Nothing but his love for me.
When you consider how you will live your life and for whom you will live your life consider this. If your motivation for living is some earthly reward and your life’s focus is to live for a human being, life will always be empty. Earthly things will go away and the use of them stops at the grave. Although you live to serve others, if the only motivation for your living is how someone else reacts, it will be challenging. God lays out the value of Total surrender. We live under the ONE who loves us unconditionally and spend a life serving the ONE who gave himself for me. And one day we will enjoy the presence of the Son of God.
When God’s Spirit plants the proper perspective in my heart, total surrender is not something done from a place of coercion or pressure, but from a heart that has been deeply touched by the one who “loved me and GAVE himself FOR ME!”
Enjoy a life of total surrender to the one who totally sacrificed himself to you!
Apply: What does it take for you (mentally, spiritually, emotionally) to be a person who is completely surrendered to God’s purposes?
Prayer: Lord, help us always live in view of your mercy, in the shadow of your cross, and with the full assurance that you love us and gave yourself for us. Only with this perspective will I be able to live a life of total surrender to you. AMEN.
Conformed…
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 15: Total Surrender”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
Conform:
- To be or act in accord with a set of standards, expectations, or specifications
- To act, often unquestioningly, in accordance with traditional customs or prevailing standards.
- To be similar in form or pattern.
So what are you conforming to? What set of standards, expectations or specifications mold your thoughts and activities?
Naturally, it can become the people around you, the cultural norms of your community or the standards set by your work or school environment.
Jim Rohn, an American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker once said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” People around us shape our ideas, our habits, our motivations.
From thefreemanonline.com, “Culture includes the totality of people’s way of life, from their dressing up to their manner of eating, beliefs, language, norms, and values. People view the world from where they are coming from and consequently react according to their culture.” Culture around us shapes our ideas, our habits, our motivations.
What else pressures you to conform?
Media, peers, desire to be loved, yearning for acceptance, and more. So many things around us pressure us to conform.
The question is, “How many of them are conforming us to the ways of the world and how many are conforming us to the ways of the Lord?”
Paul wrote in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:1).
Paul knew that the starting point and the natural gravitational point is to conform to the world. The world in which we live has a proportionately greater influence on our hearts and minds. So to follow Jesus completely, we need the Spirit’s help to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
What does that look like? Consider the following four encouragements:
- Think about the things of God: Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
- Fill your mind with the words of God: Ephesians 4:11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
- Surround yourself with the people of God: Hebrews 10:24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
- Spend time in prayer with God: Philippians 4:6Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
The world is not going to stop trying to conform your heart, mind and will to its patterns and ways of being. While the easiest, that path is not blessed. Under the shadow of grace and motivated by the love of God, put your mind, heart, and will in a position to be conformed to the mind, heart and will of God! Enjoy the blessings that come as a result!
Apply: What do you/can you do to allow God’s Spirit to influence your mind more each day/each week?
Prayer: Lord thank you for loving us so much not just to come to this world to live, die and rise again, but for calling us out of the world to enjoy the blessings of your Spirit conforming our mind, heart and will to yours. Forgive us when we fail. Encourage us to bring your influence into every day of our lives. AMEN.
ALL in!
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 15: Total Surrender”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
ALL in.
Total. Complete. Exclude nothing. Include everything.
Following Jesus is an ALL in proposition.
We like to make exceptions in our own mind for why 50% or 75% will do.
We’d rather have a “MOSTLY in” proposition.
We wouldn’t be alone. Jesus had to remind a few people of the cost of leaving all and following him:
Luke 9:57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
59 He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
It perhaps is easy up front to say, “Yes, Lord I will follow you!” As Jesus goes a little deeper, he challenges the “part in” with the “all in.”
Lord, I will follow you, but…first…let me…
How would you end that statement?
I’ll be all in Lord, but first, let me retire.
I’ll be all in Lord, but first, let me finish raising my kids.
I’ll be all in Lord, but first, let me make more money.
When we are called to “total surrender” it can conjure up a plethora of things we feel we have to do before we can be “all in” for Jesus.
Jesus is pretty blunt. Let me put it in my own words. “If you aren’t all in, you’re not in.”
It’s not that we don’t earn a living or attend a funeral for a loved one, it’s releasing our heart to make the Lord Jesus our focus in every aspect of life.
Jesus is looking for a first commandment type loyalty that leads us to have no other gods before him. It leads us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). It leads us, “In view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1).
When we totally surrender and are all in for the Lord, we can still raise our kids…but we are doing it with a primary desire for them to love the Lord and walk in his ways. We can still have a career and earn a living, but we do it with the heart that wants to serve others and glorify God at all times. We can retire, but we do it with a realization I’m not retiring from the Lord, I’m just changing seasons.
All in means the Lord is in all we are and all we do.
Why would we have it any other way!
Apply: Evaluate your heart. What percentage “in” are you? Ask the Lord to equip you more and more to do that which he called you to do!
Prayer: Lord, thank you for calling me to follow you. Allow me to trust that as I give up things of this world to follow you, I will find greater “wealth,” significance and purpose in following you! AMEN.
What Drives You?
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 15: Total Surrender”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
What drives you?
The 2022 Winter Olympics have begun. While I haven’t watched much yet this year, there is always intrigue behind the story of the athletes. Often times in interviews, athletes will share why they got into the sport and what keeps them going. It could be the desire to be the top of their sport. I could be to honor a parent who has since passed away. It could be a competition with a fellow athlete to outdo each other. Whatever it is, the motivation is strong enough to sacrifice many other things to put in the time, energy and effort to practice and then compete at the highest level.
What motivates a Christian to fully commit to follow Jesus?
2 Corinthians 5:14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Christ’s love compels us.
One died for all.
Dying for someone is the ultimate sacrifice one can make for another.
John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
When we realize the “all in” that Jesus exhibited to orchestrate my forgiveness and salvation, it’s a compelling reason to give all of my life back to him.
Living for the Lord is both a “dying” and a “rising” reality.
We die to self. The sinful, selfish nature with which we are born and from which we naturally operate is the part of us that needs to be crucified, buried and left for dead. Our focus is no longer what WE can gain out of life or what WE can get from others, but rather is one in which we LIVE for the Lord and to serve the people around us. Following Jesus is a new life for us. It’s one that enjoys the reality of forgiveness, the joy of life, and the peace to know that what I go through is to be an eternal blessing for us.
Living for the Lord is our new purpose. It’s the driving reason we do what we do.
Just like I am sure Olympic athletes have days on which they don’t feel like practicing or competing, but then they remember their “Why.” With their “why” clearly in mind and heart, they go after it once again.
Our why in life is the love of Christ.
His love for us is immense. To follow him is what it compels us to do!
Apply: Think of what is on your agenda today. How can you make all you do today living for the Lord and others?
Prayer: Lord Jesus thank you for giving your all for me. It compels me to give my all back to you. Help me each day to do that! AMEN.