Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, November 9, 2022.
Last gem I'll post today from Jimmy Gant's testimony (cause I've got to work). He shared how his ordeal caused him to question everything, including common saying among Christians such as, "God won't put more on you than you can bear." His search for answers in scripture revealed that's simply untrue. It's just not in the Bible.
But what is there is this:
"And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.'' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
-2 Corinthians 12:9
We may very well find ourselves in situations we cannot bear so that our dependence on God is absolute and so His power is apparent, to the glory of His name and the resultant grace (including saving grace) that is imparted to those who witness it.
Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, November 9, 2022.
Every day I try to evaluate how I might use my time, work and resources for God's purposes and glory.
A few nights ago, I attended an event called Man Church where a man named Jimmy Gant recounted his near death encounter during a road construction accident where he fell into a batch of hot-mix asphalt and was pinned in this mound of smoldering rubble by a piece of heavy machinery rolling over his leg. He was burning alive and the heat literally melted off his fingers.
He's a man that has long been active in community and ministry. During the ordeal, he protests, "Lord, all these years I've served you. This can't be happening to me. Surely, you have the wrong man!"
His sermon to us that night at Man Church was a powerful challenge to our thinking around how "bad things happen to good people".
It posed the question, of all the things we have and can use for God's purposes and His glory (e.g. time, resources, work), what about pain? Will my pain cause me to curse God or will I use it for His glory?
I want to be faithful to the end and use it all –even my pain.
Without question, Jimmy Gant used his pain to glorify God. I was deeply blessed.
Originally posted on Facebook on Sunday, November 6, 2022.
God yearns jealously for you.
Marriage teaches me so much about God and how He intends for us to live in community.
My wife and I had a tiff yesterday. It wasn't anything major, an annoyance, if anything. It could have been easily dismissed but my spirit was not at ease knowing that there was anything between us. Something in me could not tolerate any risk of there being distance. The very notion tortured me.
I yearn for my wife. Therefore, I seek and jealously guard our oneness, watchful and ready to destroy anything that attempts to divide us -even my own desire.
It's yet another proof that God is real, that I have been born again and that I am His because that's not my heart, it's His (2 Corinthians 5:17-21) –the same heart He has for you and, as a result, the same heart I have for you.
A neighbor reached out to me recently about how comments I made caused some offense and I was glad for the opportunity.
Jesus taught that reconciling such offenses are an opportunity to "win a brother" (Matthew 18:15) and should be our priority even to the extent that it supersedes our going to church and giving our offering (Matthew 5:24) because our expressions of faith are pointless if the heart of the God of our faith is not expressed in our practice (1 John 4:20).
The heart of God is One (Deuteronomy 6:4, John 17:21). I am in pursuit of that oneness and my most earnest desire is to draw near to God and to draw every soul I encounter near to me in God. This is the ministry of reconciliation.
Therefore I also yearn jealously for my neighbor and cannot tolerate any separation to stand.
I hear Christians dismiss the current culture as "snowflakes" and as a culture of victimhood. But, where is our love? Where is our gentleness? Where is our patience? That dismissive spirit is not the spirit of Christ. Jesus in His forbearance demonstrated that people are worth the cross.
Reconciling offenses are an opportunity to lay down our lives, lift Christ up and draw men unto Him, so that the whole world may be reconciled to Him and that those reconciled would be one with us in Christ Jesus.
Practically, as I stand in Christ, every separation that I can remove between me and a neighbor brings them one step closer to Christ.
We, the church of Christ, have been given by our King the purchase price of redemption and the resources to overcome every division that plagues humanity.
Christ makes us rich.
Therefore I can afford to come to these difficult situations and to every interaction full of grace, ready to give and forgive because I am drawing on Christ's account.
"For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son…" (John 3:16)
God yearns for His beloved and gave everything for them. Likewise, we, who were so loved, should also yearn for His beloved, using every occasion and everything He's given us to achieve His good and perfect will.
We, the church, should be the world's foremost authority on reconciliation -starting at home, then in the places we work and live.
But, we are not. Repent.
Do not allow separation to stand between our neighbor and us and most importantly, Christ.
Originally posted on Facebook on Sunday, October 9, 2022.
God provides.
"Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?"
-Luke 12:24
God provides for all creation. He feeds the birds but He doesn't drop the worm in their mouths.
God provides through means and mechanisms.
The means are abundant opportunity.
"O Lord, how manifold are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all.
The earth is full of Your possessions—
This great and wide sea,
In which are innumerable teeming things,
Living things both small and great."
"These all wait for You,
That You may give them their food in due season.
What You give them they gather in;
You open Your hand, they are filled with good."
-Psalms 104:24-25,27-28
The mechanism is the God ordained system to convert opportunity into sustenance and wealth:
Work.
"He causes the grass to grow for the cattle,
And vegetation for the service of man,
That he may bring forth food from the earth"
Psalms 104:14
Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, October 5, 2022.
Would I seek after God if all I got was a relationship with Him?
To those who come after Him, Jesus asks a sharp question:
"What do you seek?" -John 1:38
Imagine a relationship so marvelous that the other stuff no longer matters.
To that Jesus says, "Come and see." -John 1:39
Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
Luke 9:57-58
I believe the Word makes it clear that until we are ready to accept God on those terms: at the expense of all else, the abandonment of all else and satisfaction with Him alone, we will not receive Him.
God is the treasure. The question always before us is "Is God enough?"
I am grieved by the brokenness of the world and the suffering it causes.
I am often tempted to try to “save” or change the world.
But, that is not my charge.
The world will remain broken and grow worse as long as there is evil in it, that is, any way of thinking besides God’s.
I have one focus: to attend to my Lord’s house,
to see to the provision for those who are in it,
to maintain it as a safe place
and to seek His beloved, declaring everywhere the good news of His salvation from sin whose infection has caused a broken and dying world.
And, as we who are being saved enter His house, we wash each other’s feet so not to bring the filth that is outside inside.
My goal therefore is not to save the world but to lift up Christ and see people saved out of it:
To invite everyone to the courtyard of the knowledge of Christ,
To minister them into the sanctuary of relationship with Christ,
To lead them into the Holy of Holies of the Love of Christ,
To serve the House of God as a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9).
Practically, that means to make the Love of God known not only in word but also in deed and truth (alḗtheia -sincerity): in how I serve, how I work, how I relate to everything –in how I live (1 John 3:18).
May I be found so doing until my Lord returns,
when “all enemies have been put under His feet” and evil is defeated completely (I Corinthians 15:25).
Then, by His power, there will be no more destruction, “for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” – Isaiah 11:9
I have decided to make all that I do in service to this: my Lord’s house. As Paul said, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” 1 Corinthians 2:2.
If it doesn’t further this, I have no part in it. #kingdomfocus #focus
Originally posted by Paul Luckett to Facebook here.
I felt that I shouldn't have to fight for what belongs to me, like love from my wife for example. But the Spirit revealed that would be true were it not for the enemy.
Because of our enemy, Satan, who lives to divide, steal, kill and destroy, we must ALWAYS fight for EVERYTHING.
I believed this just a few days ago, but I grew up.
I felt that I shouldn’t have to fight for what belongs to me, like love from my wife for example. But the Spirit revealed that would be true were it not for the enemy.
Because of our enemy, Satan, who lives to divide, steal, kill and destroy, we must ALWAYS fight for EVERYTHING.
In fact, to have ANYTHING good, EVEN FREE things such as the Love of God, I MUST FIGHT to receive it and fight to keep it because Satan opposes me and raises all kinds of Hell to get between me and good.
That is why it is written, “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.” -Matthew 11:12
Have I then made grace works? Certainly not!
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Ephesians 2:8-9
Faith is the key but even belief does not come without opposition.
“Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.”
Luke 8:12
In short, a reality of this life is that I MUST ALWAYS FIGHT.
That is one of the things that makes the promise of heaven so sweet. There will be no enemy and I will have to war no more.
But until then, I MUST FIGHT for all the good God offers.
And this is the fight, to stand in the light, to keep all that I am and bring all that I have into the light where darkness cannot dwell. Jesus is the Light. (John 8:12)
“Jesus answered, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.'”
John 6:28-29
Plot twist:
God allows Satan’s interference.
Why?
There are reasons unknown to me but I believe two are:
1. It makes me stronger and molds me to the image of His Son, Jesus.
2. We’re not as quick to hand over what we’ve fought for unlike what Adam did with a kingdom that was just given.
God uses the fight to perfect us to rule with Him.
Therefore, I will FIGHT with joy!
Originally posted by Paul Luckett to Facebook here.
