Zondervan Inspire

Holy for Good Reason

From the Editor: Living a holy life is often like walking a tightrope. On the one side you have legalism, and on the other—worldliness. Only the Holy Spirit can keep us from both extremes.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith

"God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 4:7-8). If the Holy Spirit remains the forgotten one in our spiritual walk, we will fail to become the pure and joyful person God planned for us to be. We simply won't succeed. There is no holy living outside of the Holy Spirit's control. That, in fact, is part of his name; he is called the Holy Spirit for good reason.

He works deep inside us to change our desires from pleasing ourselves to pleasing God. He also uses the Word of God to enable us to control our thought lives. The Holy Spirit is the only one who can subdue the strong urgings of the lower nature. He is the only one who can break habits that have been repeated countless times. He is the only one who can overcome Satan and all his subtle temptations.

From You Were Made for More: The Life You Have, the Life God Wants You to Have

by Jim Cymbala

Any comments or testimonies today?

What You Look for, You Will Find

I have learned that what you look for you will find. If you want to be a cynic, there's plenty to be cynical about. If you want to be a skeptic, there's plenty to be skeptical about. If you want to be a pessimist, there's plenty to be pessimistic about. What you look for you will find.

But in Psalm 14 it says, "A fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Now this is fascinating, because you and I would say, "Somebody who rejects the divine, this is somebody who's made an intellectual decision." The Psalm says, "No. Somebody who rejects God, who says, 'There is no God,' this is somebody who's made a decision in their heart." The psalmist says that such a decision is not ultimately an intellectual decision—a cognitive ruling that person has made. It's a posture of the heart.

—Rob Bell, Everything Is Spiritual

Any comments or testimonies today?

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Finishing Well

Awhile back I mentioned I planned on running a 5K race (The Irish Jig on St. Patrick’s Day). Well, I’m finally getting around to the reporting on my progress. The good news is I accomplished my goals (finish the race and survive). But something happened while I was running that messed up my finish.

I was going along at a conservative pace saving energy for the final half mile kick. When I rounded the corner to what I thought was the half mile mark, there before me was the finish line 30 yards away. I had lost track of where I was on the course. Although I accomplished my goals, I was disappointed in my time. I crossed the finish line with energy to spare. I could have run for another mile or two easily.

In the race of life, I want to get to the finish line knowing I gave my all (Colossians 3:23-24) and ran the race with perseverance (Hebrews 12:1-2). In order to do that, I need to know where I’m at spiritually, running in the path God has laid out for me at the pace he dictates. Generally, this means seeking first God’s kingdom and righteousness (Matthew 6:33-34). Specifically it means fulfilling God’s calling on my life. To do anything less would be a disappointing finish.

Labels: Bible, finishing, God, race, running, Zondervan

Staying Focused on the Mission

Saturday I donned my camouflage and safety gear, then joined a group of guys in the woods. We weren’t there to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors. Rather, we experienced an adrenaline-filled morning of playing capture the flag—with paintball markers.

Traveling at 250 feet per second, the marble-sized balls can leave a considerable welt, particularly at close range. (Yes, I have my share of welts.) Aside from the welts, and perhaps a little wounded pride for getting picked off by a kid, I went home in one piece with a few good stories to tell.

As followers of Jesus, our battles aren’t so easy or safe. We have a spiritual opponent with nothing to lose who doesn’t play fair. He uses live ammo, and is ultimately gunning for our souls and the souls of those in our sphere of influence. But we’re not on the defensive; we’re on the offensive in this war, and we have the weapons (Hebrews 4:12; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5), armor (Ephesians 6:11-17), power (Ephesians 6:10), protection (Isaiah 54:17), and fellow soldiers (Ecclesiastes 4:12) to win this fight.

It’s not about us; it’s about the mission. Let’s strive together to keep the focus on advancing God’s kingdom and his righteousness in our lives and in the lives of others.

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Discipleship's Missing Link

by Peter Scazzero

The nurse in the medical clinic took one look at me and rushed me past the people in the waiting room. Immediately another doctor rushed in and put me on an oxygen machine. She then informed me that I would have been in a coma within a few hours and dead by the next morning. I was choking to death. X rays revealed my lungs had filled with water.

I had High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE), a severe form of altitude sickness, popularized by the movie Vertical Limit. It is relatively uncommon for people to get HAPE between 8,000 and 14,000 feet.

I spent the next week connected to an oxygen tank. It took almost three weeks for my lungs to clear up and for me to be able to walk without becoming short of breath.

Many doctors, especially those in places other than Colorado, are unfamiliar with HAPE. How could they be? Colorado has the highest altitudes in the continental United States.

The first two doctors I saw misdiagnosed me. In all fairness, I had diagnosed myself the first time, and the doctor simply agreed. But I almost died.

These other doctors were not equipped to be counseling sick patients in the mountains of Colorado. Their wrong counsel almost ended my earthly life. In the same way, I realized, we pastors and leaders often give faulty counsel to spiritually sick people who fill our churches. Our training has been inadequate to address the deep needs underneath the surface of people’s lives.

Along the way in my journey of growing as a Christian, I received teaching and training that did a lot of good. Unfortunately, the solutions were mostly temporary. The prescriptions failed to root out the sinful patterns and habits in my life.

I have to admit that, like those doctors, I have misdiagnosed people who have come to me for help. When someone had relational problems or emotional issues, I applied every spiritual remedy I knew. Unfortunately, many people remained sick and some even “died” under my leadership. For example:

• A couple comes to me after the husband has admitted to a one-year affair with a family friend that occurred five years earlier in their marriage. I am grateful for the conviction of the Holy Spirit in his life. I pray for them and recommend a marriage book I know with a good chapter on forgiveness for the wife. I exhort them both to pursue God wholeheartedly. I pray and hope for the best.
• A gifted musician joins our church to use his gifts for God. He is charismatic and experienced. The congregation loves him. He asks many of us to pray for his wife, that God will put her heart in the right place. We do so. I pray and hope for the best. We later learn that this is not a minor friction. The conflict was building up for years, she had moved out and resettled five hundred miles away, and he is undeniably part of the problem.
• Armstrong is a friend and leader in the church. He serves whenever there is a need. The only problem is that he is temperamental, unpredictable, and moody. We tiptoe around him. I pray and hope for the best.
• Larry is forty years old, single, and unemployed again. He has a résumé four pages long. He rarely stays at a job or in a relationship with the opposite sex for more than a few months. We pray for him, encourage him to affirm his identity in Christ, and ask God to open new doors for him. I pray and hope for the best.

Today, I no longer simply pray and hope for the best. Each of the above scenarios required a level of discipleship that went beyond a skin-deep, superficial, quick fix. They each later submitted to a scalpel by taking a serious, prayerful look at the deeper issues I will outline in this book. First, however, I as a leader had to undergo a revolution in the way I understood and approached discipleship.

The sad reality is that too many people in our churches are fixated at a stage of spiritual immaturity that current models of discipleship have not addressed.

Many are supposedly “spiritually mature” but remain infants, children, or teenagers emotionally. They demonstrate little ability to process anger, sadness, or hurt. They whine, complain, distance themselves, blame, and use sarcasm—like little children when they don’t get their way. Highly defensive to criticism or differences of opinion, they expect to be taken care of and often treat people as objects to meet their needs.

Why?

The roots of the problem lie in a faulty spirituality, stemming from a faulty biblical theology. Many Christians have received helpful training in certain essential areas of discipleship, such as prayer, Bible study, worship, discovery of their spiritual gifts, or learning how to explain the Gospel to someone else. Yet Jesus’ followers also need training and skills in how to look beneath the surface of the iceberg in their lives, to break the power of how their past influences the present, to live in brokenness and vulnerability, to know their limits, to embrace their loss and grief, and to make incarnation their model for loving well. The church is to be known, above all else, as a community that radically and powerfully loves others. Sadly, this is not generally our reputation.

Despite all the emphasis today on spiritual formation, church leaders rarely address what spiritual maturity looks like as it relates to emotional health, especially as it relates to how we love other people. The link between emotional health and spiritual maturity is a large, unexplored area of discipleship. We desperately need, I believe, to reexamine the whole of Scripture—and the life of Jesus in particular—in order to grasp the dynamics of this link.

While I do believe in the important place of professionally trained Christian counselors to bring expertise to the church, I believe the church of Jesus Christ is to be the primary vehicle of our spiritual and emotional maturity. Sadly, for too long we have delegated “emotional” issues to the therapist’s office and taken responsibility only for “spiritual” problems in the church. The two are inseparably linked and critical to a fully biblical discipleship.

I believe wholeheartedly that the Lord Jesus and his church are the hope of the world. My commitment is to Scripture as the Word of God, the authority under which we as God’s church are to live. I have been teaching it for all my adult life. I remain committed to the indispensability of Scripture, prayer, fellowship, worship, Sabbath-keeping, faithfulness in using our spiritual gifts, small groups and community life, stewardship of our resources, and the centrality of the Gospel to all of life. But unless we integrate emotional maturity with a focus on loving well into our discipleship, we are in danger of missing God’s point completely—love.

I write as a pastor, not a therapist or professional counselor. I am the senior pastor of a multiethnic, international church with people from over fifty-five different countries in the congregation. We have planted six other churches and have others in formation.

Thus, I am writing out of a profound love for the church of Jesus Christ. I am also keenly aware that “the center of gravity in the Christian world has shifted inexorably southward, to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Already today, the largest Christian communities on the planet are to be found in Africa and Latin America.”

Embracing the truth about the emotional parts of myself unleashed nothing short of a revolution in my understanding of God, Scripture, the nature of Christian maturity, and the role of the church. I can no longer deny the truth that emotional and spiritual maturity are inseparable.

From The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero

The Way to Sustain Evangelism

by Bill Hybels

During the span of my adult life, I’ve witnessed dozens of evangelistic fads. Perhaps you can remember some of the eras I’ve seen rise and fall. Let’s see, there was the Tract Era. The Televangelist Era. The Bus Ministry Era. There were eras revolving around saving professionals, saving women, saving men, saving the rich, the poor, homemakers, movie stars, you name it.

And to the extent that any of these approaches brought people to Christ, I am genuinely grateful.

But each time a new approach surfaced, I secretly wondered how long the wave would last, how long the movement could possibly be sustained. Sure, even I hopped on a few of them, but I knew they all lacked longevity.

In the next few decades, I’m quite certain there will be even more “new and exciting” approaches to evangelism. And I’ll say it again: If people find faith as a result of them, who am I to criticize? But as far as I’m concerned, there is only one paradigm that will not wear thin with the passing of time. These days, I’m more convinced than ever that the absolute highest value in personal evangelism is staying attuned to and cooperative with the Holy Spirit.

You read it right. The only thing you need in order to sustain an effective approach to evangelism year after year after year is an ear fine-tuned to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Finding words to adequately define the promptings of the Holy Spirit is no easy feat. Promptings are mystical. They are phenomenal. They are intangible. And they’re real. In fact, promptings have been present in the lives of Christ-followers since Jesus left his bodily form on earth and ascended to heaven. Remember? That was the day when he sent the Spirit of God to take up residence in the heart of every believer. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,” he said. (It should clue us into the challenging nature of our mission that Christ would need to send a permanent source of supernatural power to assist us.)

But what exactly was this power all about? The rest of the story from Acts 1:8 explains that Christ-followers have a mission while here on earth. They are to be Christ’s witnesses all over this planet. It’s as if Christ said, “Think you’re missing the book smarts, the street smarts, the looks, the talent, or the speaking ability to accomplish this mission? Don’t be concerned with those things, because you have my mountain-moving, life-transforming, death-defying power on your side.”

In Galatians 5:25, Paul encourages Christ-followers to “keep in step with the Spirit.” In other words, the Galatian believers should consider tapping into the power of God that is living right inside of them. This concept applies to you and me as well. If we have access to the vast power of the Spirit living inside of us, then why would we neglect to act on the guidance, motivation, and inspiration he offers?

I don’t know about you, but when I am relating in a healthy manner with Jesus, there’s vitality and openness in my spirit to the promptings of his Spirit. Staying attuned to the Spirit means I have a heightened awareness of the things going on around me. In the midst of a Circle of Comfort, I find myself able to keep one eye open and roving to watch for someone I’m supposed to see. I’m able to keep one ear open for the Spirit’s whisper. Even though my spiritual senses are far from perfect, in those “attuned” moments, I am incredibly alert to God pointing me toward someone across a room, his gentle voice saying, “Just walk...”

Every time I hear those two words, I’m reminded of what it’s like to excuse myself from a Circle of Comfort. Of how electrifying it feels to make that turn and begin to walk, imploring God with every step for his intervention, his words, and his wisdom. Of the sensation of entering the zone of the unknown, each time as if in slow motion, putting my hand out there, and offering a few words of profundity: “Hi. I’m Bill. What’s your name?”

And then of the sheer elation of watching God open a door in the other person’s heart as the conversation meanders to spiritual matters.

Friends, although I have experienced a lot in life, been a lot of places, and engaged in my share of excitement, having a front-row seat when a person’s heart gets transformed is what life in all its fullness looks like to me. To this day, when I am prompted to walk across a room, explore this Zone of the Unknown, and enter into these initial conversations with someone whose eternity is hanging in the balance, I experience a buzz that never, ever grows old.

On the day of my conversion more than three decades ago, I was filled with an overwhelming hunger to share God’s redemptive story with people who had never heard it. Unfortunately, I was committed to doing so with or without the accompanying direction and power of the Holy Spirit. (Details, details.)

But over the years, I trust that my increasing maturity has factored a little discernment into the equation. These days, I try to wake up each morning declaring, “My life is in your hands, God. Use me to point someone toward you today—I promise to cooperate in any way I can. If you want me to say a word for you today, I’ll do that. If you want me to keep quiet but demonstrate love and servanthood, by your Spirit’s power I will. I’m fully available to you today, so guide me by your Spirit.”

Sometimes, the end result of praying this prayer is that the Spirit allows me to have a spiritual conversation that tells of a loving and righteous God who created all things, who has a purpose in mind for all people, and who is actually hoping to relate with them as they walk through life. Other times, the Spirit simply prompts me to serve and love and listen to the needs of those who are far from God. The key is this: my objective is not to contrive ways to “get someone saved”; rather, my objective is to walk when he prompts me to walk, talk when he says to talk, fall silent when I’m at risk of saying too much, and stay put when he leads me to stay put. If I can lay my head on the pillow at night knowing that I have cooperated with the promptings of the Spirit that day, I sleep like a baby.

If I’m serious about being transformed by God’s Spirit, then I can’t shy away from the discomfort and awkwardness and ambiguity that exist when I abandon my safe circle of comfort. The upside is too great to do that, because when I feel a Spirit-led prompting to walk across a room for the first time, it’s like live voltage coursing through my veins. As I put one foot in front of the other to reach out to someone who may be twenty feet away from me but who’s living light-years away from God, I’m part of something immeasurably greater than myself.

This is what it’s like to experience God’s supernatural power at work in an otherwise ordinary day. And the Bible says that this is what real living is all about—walking through every moment plugged into the HolySpirit.

From Just Walk Across the Room by Bill Hybels