Tag Archives: faith

What Shall We Do

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - What Shall We Do?

Prostrate. Repentance. Praise.

These are proper responses to God.

I thank God for my dear sister Stephanie Atkins Arnett who regularly challenges me with her bias toward love in action. She asked a question that reminded me of the believers’ response to the pouring out of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost in Acts 2:37,

“Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?'”

In a previous post, I admonished us as a church, declaring that we have a problem.

The problem is we don’t love each other.

Sister Stephanie replied,

“You cited a challenge of our community…
Several have accepted the premise…
My question to you… what are actionable steps we can take, in addition to prayer?”

Thank you, dear sister, for that question and challenge!

This is what I believe God has put in my heart:

First, we need to become and operate as disciples NOT as members of an organization. Each of us, every one of us, should be functioning and expressing the life of Christ everywhere, every day and not just at club sanctioned activities.

Then, my answer [to the question] would first be the answer of the first century church, to come together at every opportunity (Acts 2:46), and labor intentionally to remove everything that separates us (Ephesians 4:1-5).

The idea is simple: by the grace of God, love each other the way Christ loves us, which flows out of the way He loves the Father, and then invite others into that love.

I have a vision of various fellowships across our community being held by disciples (not as a club recruitment function but as a sharing the love of Christ function) in their homes and businesses every day where we share the love of Christ and learn how to grow it (different people hosting at different places on different days. I personally want to attend one every day). Praise God that this is already happening to some degree.

We should then look around our fellowships and ask, “Is this representative of the makeup of my community, and moreover is this representative of the Kingdom of God?” If it is not, repent and strive to correct that. As Christ left heaven to get us, we should leave our comfort zones to get them (those that are lost or missing).

We should then connect those fellowships, using that network to identify and address needs and seize opportunities to grow the family of God.

Let’s start by dropping any such fellowships (not as a club recruitment function but as a sharing the love of Christ function) that we’re aware of in the comments.

If you’d like some training on this, let me know and we’ll make that happen.

Thanks again dear sister for the call to arms and action!

I love you.

This month the Laymen Fellowship worshipped together at Spring…

Originally posted on Facebook on Friday, April 21, 2023.

This month the Laymen Fellowship worshipped together at Spring Hill (we meet together with a different fellowship for each month). And, these words were dropped in my heart during our Bible study,

[I paraphrase]

"Jesus said, 'And, I will build My church…'

The word that Jesus uses for church ἐκκλησία or ekklēsia was a common word of that time. It is not an exclusively Christian word. Simply meaning "the called out ones", there were a lot of ekklēsias, assemblies that were gathered for various purposes.

So, what differentiates an ekklēsia is who is called out, what they are they called out for and by whom are they called out.

We are called out by Christ, but how do we know that we're in Christ church [ekklēsia] (versus the many other varieties of 'churches')?

We will know that we are in Christ's church because Hell is loosing.

Jesus said, 'I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.'"
-Tony Evans

Hell is losing because we're standing on faith in Jesus.

Join us.

The Prescription For Discouragement

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - The Prescription For Discouragement

Notes from my time in the Word this morning:

Psalm 42 reveals that the prescription for discouragement is praise.

But, it requires remembering.

“O my God, my soul is cast down within me,
Therefore I will remember…”
-Psalm 42:6

It is essential to chronicle the true good you’ve enjoyed.

If I don’t celebrate the good, I am more susceptible to discouragement, readily deceived into believing that I’ve never had any.

And above all, it is essential to recognize Who is responsible for that good.

From there, true praise emerges as our hearts are lifted to where He is, and not long after our circumstances.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.”
-Psalm 42:11

I Came Anyway

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - I Came Anyway

I hate this thing.

I’ve shared about it before, so I won’t rehash it here. But, suffice it to say it’s ominous and does not convey love to me -not because of what it is but because of what it was erected in the absence of.

Nevertheless, this is the point and the most important takeaway:

I came anyway.

Despite my revulsion, I came to this monument because there were people I love who were meeting there, people who do not share my view on this issue and people who truly love God.

Nothing separates us from the love of Christ. Therefore, I refuse to let any thing, including my hurt, suspicions or preferences, separate me from those He loves.

If you’ve got one toe on Jesus, I’m trying to meet you there. And, if you don’t, I’m trying to get you there.

Christ has given us the power to prevail against the very gates of Hell.

Very often we have to fight through those gates to get to each other.

We must fight toward each other, like Christ fought for us.

Go. Make war.

Love.

Strange Fire

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Strange Fire

Strange Fire

Notes from my time in the Word this morning.

“Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.

So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.

And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke, saying:

‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy;

And before all the people I must be glorified.’”

So Aaron held his peace.

So they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said.”
-Leviticus 10:1-3,5

God does not want my thoughts, He wants His.

God does not want my love, He wants His.

God does not want my service, He wants His.

The only proper way to serve God is with what God supplies.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
-Isaiah 55:8-9

“As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.

If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.””
-1 Peter 4:10-11

To bring “strange fire”; our ideas, agendas and methods to the service of God defiles and makes little of Him, but most egregiously it defies the purposes of God, causing death, leading people astray, cutting them off from the Fountainhead of all meaning, creation and life.

Bringing strange fire is a crime that is killing people for which God will kill us with eternal death if we do not repent.

“If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”
-1 Corinthians 3:17

So, in the spirit of Jude 1:22-23, I plead for your sake: please do not mishandle the things of God or approach them trivially, appropriating His things for your purposes, or doing your thing in His name. It is sin –a deadly sin.

God is gracious, but He’s also severe. A good way to draw His wrath is to hinder others from coming to Him.

There’s a lot of this going on in Christendom today, especially to support our proclivities and our politics.

Repent!

All strange fire; ideas, identities, values, religions, systems and methods other than God’s, will be destroyed.

The only thing that can stand before God is God.

Which is why Christ is such good news.

Jesus Christ is God and is the only one in whom we can find shelter from the consuming fire of the wrath of God.

Therefore above all, be diligent to be found in Christ: die to self –forsake what you’re doing (put away the strange fire) and live to Christ –putting your complete faith in what Christ has done.

Only Christ is acceptable before God, so we must utterly depend on the grace He supplies to make your heart His heart, to say just what He says, to walk the way He walked by the same power that was at work in Him which is the Holy Spirit.

The only thing that can stand before God is God.

So let all we do be done with what God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Nothing else is acceptable before God.

All strange fire will be destroyed.

“And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.”
-Jude 1:22-23

Versus: Cheap Vs Deep

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Cheap VS Deep

There are cheap laughs:

crude jokes or stupid videos that illicit a laugh reaction only for me to shortly return to my gloom.

Then there are deep laughs:

experiences or memories rooted in relationship that swell within me into a smile or laughter. It causes me to live [it] again, to ponder people, revisit places and abide in that joy.

Likewise, there are cheap experiences:

things we do that bring us immediate satisfaction but a satisfaction that ends as soon as the activity is over (and often result in a worst state than before we engaged in the activity).

Then there are deep experiences:

things we do that cause us to love, learn, and grow. Things that yield results that will remain with us for the rest of our lives.

When it comes to God, we often want to just “feel”, to have a momentary “spiritual” high (which are often counterfeit –not real) to carry us for a week or so while we busy ourselves with worthless things that do not satisfy and actually cause us more harm [cheap experiences].

Where God wants us to “know” Him –an abiding and an awareness that results in a confidence which only comes from obedience to Him [deep experiences].

“And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!'”
-Galatians 4:6

The deep experience is to know God (awareness, obeying, abiding) which is very different and much harder than just feeling (encouraged, excited, inspired).

There is nothing wrong with emotions. Emotions are God given and often result from an experience with Him. But God is a Spirit and therefore we primarily experience Him, not emotionally but, spiritually. This is about order, seeking to experience God spiritually and enjoying whatever emotions result, instead of the other way around. The order, what I seek first, largely determines whether my experience is cheap or deep.

The deep experiences are sometimes hard and uncomfortable but they result in life.

In everything you do and in how you do it, prefer those things that don’t often come naturally and are usually harder but that result in us being with God more.

Don’t go cheap, with fleeting pleasures that are ultimately unsatisfying and unprofitable.

Seek the heart of God through prayer and His Word, and seek to be with God through obedience to what Christ reveals –the One who gives us life and causes us to love learn and grow.

Make the extra effort to be with God.

It’s harder, but it satisfies and will be so worth in the future.

Go deep.

This Is Going To Hurt

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - This Is Going To Hurt

I’m going to be real.

I have oriented my life around avoiding pain.

It’s evident even in the little things.

I cling to the sheets of my bed a little longer waiting for the chill of the morning to subside.

But there is nothing that hinders growth more than avoiding pain.

When I look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, He was literally in paradise.

But, unlike me with my bed covers, He didn’t think paradise was anything to hold on to (Philippians 2:5-8).

Rather, He considered the will of His Father to be greater.

“He became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross,” Philippians 2:8 says.

Doing that demonstrates a love that’s greater than His comfort.

It also demonstrates an unwavering trust of His Father.

I imagine Jesus, my Elder Brother, loving the Father and knowing His will to be perfect, steps forward without flinching, completely willing to take on the challenge.

God the Father asks, “Who will go for us?”

Jesus, God the Son, says, “I’ll go.”

As He goes, I can imagine Him thinking,
“This is going to hurt, but this is going to be good.”

I repent.

I aspire be like Him, to love God more than my comfort, to trust His plan, to go –to cast aside comfort and take on the day, fully embracing the challenges, pain and suffering before me to grow, and to be made like Christ, fit to rule.

I go. I attack the day out of love for my Father, trusting and executing His plan, thinking,

“This is going to hurt, but this is going to be good.”

MEN: There is 2X the opportunity for fellowship this Thursday,…

Originally posted on Facebook on Tuesday, April 18, 2023.

MEN: There is 2X the opportunity for fellowship this Thursday, April 20, 2023:

Men's Lunch Fellowship – 12:00 PM
New Horizons Christian Fellowship
1010 Victory Lane
Starkville, MS 39759

Men's Laymen Fellowship (with dinner) – 6:30 PM
Spring Hill M.B. Church
1692 Louisville Street
Starkville, MS 39759

NOTE:
The men of the Laymen Fellowship are seeking to aid some of the smaller communities in Mississippi like Wren and Vaiden that sustained significant tornado damage but did not receive the same attention as areas like Amory and Rolling Fork.

Leadership has asked each man to come prepared to donate $25 or more to this effort.

Join us.

The Thief On The Cross And What It Really Means To Be Saved

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - The Thief On The Cross And What It Really Means To Be Saved

I am so thankful for the cross because religious people try to complicate salvation and create hoops for people to jump through, but the cross demonstrates the simplicity of Christ.

At the cross we find astonishingly simple clarity.

Namely, the salvation of the thief on the cross, where Jesus saves a convicted sinner in his dying moments.

There is no time for religion, no perfectly worded expression of faith, no baptism, no works, no apparent fruit in that moment.

Yet, the thief was saved.

All of our theology has to square with this fact.

I draw many things from it but the one that’s heaviest on my heart right now is grace.

What’s displayed gloriously in the interaction between Jesus and the dying thief is grace.

Not grace in the sense of leniency or merely benevolence, but grace in the sense of the sovereign, unmerited, unassisted work of God.

God does it all.

The thief was mocking Jesus along with the crowd that was crucifying Jesus and him! But, at some point something changed.

I believe what Jesus described to Nicodemus in John 3:8 happened here,
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

I believe the Holy Spirit gave the thief ears to hear and eyes to see and at that moment he was allowed to see Who was hanging next to him.

Above Jesus’s head was written, “King of the Jews” (John 19:21) but the thief was allowed to see that He was not just an earthly king, He was the King of a Kingdom not of this world –a kingdom where the thief wanted to be.

“Then he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.'” -Luke 23:42

And Jesus responds,
“Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
-Luke 23:43

God does it all.

We like the thief are dying.

Sin is the disease that’s killing us.

We were without hope until Hope was revealed –hope established before the world was.

God had the Cure.
He promised the Cure.
He showed us the formula of the Cure (but even with that we could not grasp it).
He gave us the ability to receive (perceive) the Cure.
He gave us the Cure.
He is the Cure.
He heals us through the Cure.
The Cure is Jesus Christ.

Grace.

All the thief did was not reject it.

I feel led to take a moment and ask why would he [reject it]? At this point he has nothing to lose.

God had to bring me to such a point –of utter brokenness and despair where I had nothing else to lose. Very often it’s comfort, wealth or even just sufficiency -life being “good enough”, that’s deceiving us, holding us back and that causes us to fail to see our desperate need for Jesus.

I implore you, don’t be proud like I was, I would spare you that pain!

Humble yourself and seek the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God has come in the person of Jesus Christ. Seek the Lord while He may be found!

With a humble heart, petition the Holy Spirit to give you eyes to see and ears to hear as He’s done for the thief on the cross.

Look upon Jesus, hear Him through the Word, believe and be saved.

Grace.

God does it all.

All the thief did was not reject it.

The clarifying message of the salvation of the thief on the cross was that God does it all. Salvation is a gift that we simply receive –a gift that is imparted when we accept Jesus as He really is, just as the thief on the cross saw Him.

Dear brother, formerly called the thief on the cross, what did you see?

“I am a sinner, justly condemned (Luke 23:40-41), but this man is what is spoken of Him even though I may not know what that fully means: the Christ, King of The Jews (Luke 23:35-39), a King of a Kingdom that is not of this world –a kingdom where I want to be, He is One who will live again and who can make me live again (Luke 23:42).”

I love a commentary by Pastor Alistair Begg on the matter: “The thief enters heaven and he is asked about how he got there and what he knows about this doctrine or that and the thief replies, ‘All I know is that the Man on the middle cross said I could come.'”

Hallelujah!

The thief did everything that is necessary to be saved: He did not reject the grace God made available through Jesus Christ.

Right now, Jesus Christ, the grace and salvation of God, is being presented to you.

All you have to do is not reject it.

Accept it. Believe Jesus. Be saved.

I conclude with a caution: the thief did all that was necessary to be saved and enter life, yet their is so much more to be had. He was like a baby that was born but who’s earthly body was immediately aborted.

Yes, by all means, enter life BUT DON’T STOP THERE.

There is more life to be had.

Let us who live also continue on to maturity, enjoying and exercising the grace of God to His glory for all of our days.

Don’t live a minimal life.

Enter by grace.
Continue in grace.
Grow in grace.

Amazing Grace.

#grace #resurrection #ressurectionsunday

Believe Jesus All The Way

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Believe Jesus All The Way

It was good to fellowship this past Resurrection Sunday with the beautiful people of Sand Creek Chapel Church.

Their Pastor Abdural Lee preached on a powerful interaction from John 11:25-26 where Martha says to Jesus,

“If You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

And Jesus responds,

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”

“Do you believe this?”

Pastor Lee shared an illustration of him being a barber.

People have seen Pastor Lee cut hair, so they come to him trusting that he can cut their hair.

But, they don’t trust him to fix their car because they’ve never seen him do that type of work.

Pastor Lee uses this to illustrate how Martha trusted Jesus to heal her brother because she’s known Him to heal. “But,” as Pastor Lee says, “she’s never seen Jesus raise anyone from the dead.”

At this point Pastor Lee asserts what Jesus asserts that He “is the resurrection and the life” and then poses the same question that Jesus poses to Martha from verse 26,

“Do you believe this?” [that Jesus is the resurrection and the life]

From there Pastor Lee prompted us to assess to what extent we trust Jesus and then challenged us to “trust Jesus all the way”.

There are things Jesus has said He will do even beyond the resurrection that we’ve never seen and may not see in our lifetime.

We cannot receive what Jesus offers unless we trust Jesus all the way.

I’ve written before that salvation requires pinhole accuracy. Only Jesus can do it. Only Jesus can get you there. Jesus alone is The Way.

The world offers many paths, many doors, many versions of Jesus even, but Jesus is THE Door. And, there is a very specific Jesus we must go through.

It’s the Door that you only find by believing Jesus all the way, only by the full embrace of believing the most unbelievable event in human history –the resurrection: that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God given by God to die for our sins and He was raised from the dead “with all power” (Matthew 28:18).

Only by believing Jesus all the way can we receive what He offers: salvation, fellowship with God and resurrection.

Believe Jesus. All the way.

Thank you Pastor Abdural Lee.

#resurrection #ressurectionsunday