Did you ever have one of those meetings with a boss that asked you, “Where do you want to be in five years?” And during this meeting all that you could think about was finishing the next task on your to do list before the deadline so that very same boss won’t yell at you. Sometimes it’s really hard to think about the future of your life or of your church when the blur of the present clouds everything else.
This week of the 40 Days of Prayer we focus on the future of Crossroads Fellowship. The following weeks will bring about the specifics of the future, but this week is meant to be more general. Either way we have to start with being open to whatever God would have us to do, including things that we don’t want to do.
When Charlotte and I moved to Albuquerque to start this church we had a vision for what God would do in this great city. We saw Crossroads as being a multiplying church. In other words, Crossroads would be a church that plants more churches. There is no reason that the PCA can’t have more than five churches in the Albuquerque area. We saw Crossroads as being a church that impacted the lives of those who are less fortunate than we are. We saw Crossroads as having a significant ministry to students in college. I believe that one day UNM will have a RUF ministry that will impact the campus in unique ways that aren’t currently happening. We also saw Crossroads as being a church that reached out to people that didn’t feel that they belonged in any other church. That coincides with the, “Don’t put your church face on at Crossroads” statement that I make all the time. I want people to come to our church just as they are, in the same way that our Lord receives them.
When God called Abraham to leave his home and go the promised land, Abraham had no idea what that would look like in the end or even what the journey might bring him. At Crossroads we have been called by God to go and bring a message of hope to this great city. We are not sure what it will look like in the end or even what the journey might bring and yet we still go. May God give us an understanding of the journey and a willingness to do the hard things as we see how He will reach and impact Albuquerque and even the world through us. I’ve included a prayer below that may help in your time of prayer.
Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love.
Sir Frances Drake
Friday, April 27, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
40 Days of Prayer - Righteousness
10as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one;
Romans 3:10
I suppose that is not the most encouraging way to start out, but it is important to remember when we are discussing righteousness. I’m often reminded of the lack of righteousness in myself, because I happen to be the father of little children. As sweet and cute as those little children are, they will still bring out some bad aspects of my personality such as a complete lack of patience. And since I’m a father of little children, I am also reminded that they don’t exactly come out of the womb as little angels. There is one time when you look at them and you think to yourself that they could do no wrong and that is when they are sleeping! Those of you who are parents know exactly what I am talking about and the rest of you probably think that I’m really mean.
What is righteousness anyway? In a simple definition it means being right before God or in His eyes. It is being blameless in our lives and innocent in the face of accusation. There are times, such as the Psalm that we studied last Sunday, where righteousness was claimed for a particular accusation. There are also times that it’s used to describe a person who demonstrates a general life of righteousness and has a good reputation in the community. However, neither one of those examples mean anything if you don’t have complete righteousness before God. So how does one go about getting that? There are two basic ways to achieve righteousness before God.
The first is really quite simple: never sin. From the time that you are born you need to lead a perfect life. We don’t really want to think this way. We would much rather compare ourselves to other people to see how good of a life that we’re living. It is like the murderer in Virginia this week; we can all say with great confidence that we’re doing better than that. The problem is that when we think that way, we are not thinking about righteousness, but self-righteousness. What we’re doing is looking at ourselves and drawing our own conclusions that we are better than everyone else. We all do it. It might be at work, or school, or even in our marriages. We think about how we’re doing in those situations and draw the conclusion that we’re pretty stinking good! The problem is that we’re all pretty biased when it comes to judging our own actions and behavior and that when we see it from God’s perspective then it’s not stinking good but stinking bad. The good news is that God knows that and so he offered a second option.
The second is quite a bit more attractive: follow Jesus. Consider the words of Paul in Philippians 3:8-9:
8Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith
It is true that no matter how hard we try we will never achieve righteousness, but we don’t need to because we can have it in Christ. It is Christ that does two things: the first in giving us righteousness before God that He might find us blameless in the day of judgment; and second that we might have the strength to rest in that righteousness and actually live righteously.
Why does all of this matter? Because we can rejoice in being made right before God and we can also be a wonderful witness by our behavior to this great city of Albuquerque. As we move forward with these forty days of prayer, let us pray that God would reveal the righteousness that He has given in order that we might live righteously.
Romans 3:10
I suppose that is not the most encouraging way to start out, but it is important to remember when we are discussing righteousness. I’m often reminded of the lack of righteousness in myself, because I happen to be the father of little children. As sweet and cute as those little children are, they will still bring out some bad aspects of my personality such as a complete lack of patience. And since I’m a father of little children, I am also reminded that they don’t exactly come out of the womb as little angels. There is one time when you look at them and you think to yourself that they could do no wrong and that is when they are sleeping! Those of you who are parents know exactly what I am talking about and the rest of you probably think that I’m really mean.
What is righteousness anyway? In a simple definition it means being right before God or in His eyes. It is being blameless in our lives and innocent in the face of accusation. There are times, such as the Psalm that we studied last Sunday, where righteousness was claimed for a particular accusation. There are also times that it’s used to describe a person who demonstrates a general life of righteousness and has a good reputation in the community. However, neither one of those examples mean anything if you don’t have complete righteousness before God. So how does one go about getting that? There are two basic ways to achieve righteousness before God.
The first is really quite simple: never sin. From the time that you are born you need to lead a perfect life. We don’t really want to think this way. We would much rather compare ourselves to other people to see how good of a life that we’re living. It is like the murderer in Virginia this week; we can all say with great confidence that we’re doing better than that. The problem is that when we think that way, we are not thinking about righteousness, but self-righteousness. What we’re doing is looking at ourselves and drawing our own conclusions that we are better than everyone else. We all do it. It might be at work, or school, or even in our marriages. We think about how we’re doing in those situations and draw the conclusion that we’re pretty stinking good! The problem is that we’re all pretty biased when it comes to judging our own actions and behavior and that when we see it from God’s perspective then it’s not stinking good but stinking bad. The good news is that God knows that and so he offered a second option.
The second is quite a bit more attractive: follow Jesus. Consider the words of Paul in Philippians 3:8-9:
8Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith
It is true that no matter how hard we try we will never achieve righteousness, but we don’t need to because we can have it in Christ. It is Christ that does two things: the first in giving us righteousness before God that He might find us blameless in the day of judgment; and second that we might have the strength to rest in that righteousness and actually live righteously.
Why does all of this matter? Because we can rejoice in being made right before God and we can also be a wonderful witness by our behavior to this great city of Albuquerque. As we move forward with these forty days of prayer, let us pray that God would reveal the righteousness that He has given in order that we might live righteously.
40 Days of Prayer Explanation
In my last post I discussed the idea of wisdom and it was relating to a 40 Days of Prayer that Crossroads Fellowship is doing. For forty days the church is joining together in prayer to see how God might use us to impact this city in a more powerful way. You can find the guide to the forty days of prayer on our website at www.crossroadsabq.com. You may have no connection to our fellowship but we would still love to have you join us.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
40 Days of Prayer - Wisdom
An angel appears at a faculty meeting and tells the dean that in return for his unselfish and exemplary behavior, the Lord will reward him with his choice of infinite wealth, wisdom or beauty. Without hesitating, the dean selects infinite wisdom.
“Done!” says the angel, and disappears in a cloud of smoke and a bolt of lightning. Now, all heads turn toward the dean, who sits surrounded by a faint halo of light. At length, one of his colleagues whispers, “Say something.”
The dean looks at them and says, “I should have taken the money.”
This week we begin our forty days of prayer by starting with the theme of wisdom. This story (not mine by the way) illustrates in a funny way a little about what we need to know about wisdom. Wisdom is so much more than raw knowledge, but rather an innate ability to see a situation and gain great insight and to be able to impart that insight to others. In order for us to see what the Lord might have for us as a church, we must first seek the wisdom of the Lord.
James 1:5-7
5If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
The Bible encourages us to seek that wisdom that can only come from Him, but to seek it with the expectation that he will give it to us. In many ways that will be theme of these forty days: pray with the expectation that God will provide. God will provide vision, God will provide a heart of love for our community, and God will provide an exciting future for Crossroads Fellowship (PCA).
Proverbs 1 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge that leads to wisdom. And Proverbs 2 tells us that knowledge and wisdom is found by seeking after it like silver and hidden treasure. Therefore, when we pray this week for wisdom, pray with an earnestness that one has when one longs for something. Imagine if you lost a precious diamond that was passed down from you grandmother that you loved so much. Would you casually look for it and then just give up if you didn’t find it right away? No, you would continually to look for it because it is precious to you. Pray for wisdom for all of us with the same intensity that one looks for something that is precious.
This week sets up everything else that we do for the remainder of these forty days. Because if we don’t have the wisdom that comes from God, then we have nothing. Give us wisdom Lord, the wisdom of the heavens!
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