Author: Nathan

Spiritual Gifts: Tongues

Reflections

gifts

For the next four weeks, we will examine the role of spiritual gifts in our Christian walk. Just as the baptism of the Holy Spirit has been debated throughout church history, the nature of spiritual gifts has also been a topic of much debate. This reflection series will outline four of the most debated spiritual gifts that often follow a baptism by the Holy Spirit. There are other gifts, such as prayer; however, for the moment we will only discuss four. The four spiritual gifts are:

  • Teaching
  • Tongues
  • Prophecy and Vision
  • Healing

All four of these gifts have a core purpose in common but as we will see they are unique from each other in the way they are used. This week, we reflect on tongues.

The gift of tongues is often a polarizing topic of discussion. Some Christians are raised understanding that the speaking of tongues is commonplace in the Christian life. However, others have lived a Christian life for many years and have never been in an environment where the speaking of tongues ever occurred. Since two separate groups living lives devoted to God can have such different experiences in regards to the speaking of tongues, why has it become so synonymous with the gifts of the Holy Spirit? While “speaking in tongues” can be left for a different time, at its heart, this particular gift has very little to do with “words,” “sounds,” or “body language.” In fact, at the heart of speaking in tongues is simply “worship.” Worship that is not corporate, but deeply personal and intimate.

When we read the account of Pentecost where the Apostles were baptized by the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues, what is most important is not so much that they were “speaking in tongues” but that for the first time they were caught up in deeply personal worship, not simply for, but with the creator God and according to his will. This worship was unique to them personally and was not necessarily for the benefit of the group.

The gift of tongues is entirely about the personal celebration of God. While all Christians possess a deep joy in being Christian and being known by God, someone with the gift of tongues has a specific means by which to express that particular celebration of God. When the non-Christian world uses the phrase, “speaking in different tongues,” they do so to express the presence of different languages, accents or dialects. Thus, speaking in tongues is known by everyone, Christian and non-Christian, as a way of communicating that is uniquely understood by one group but not by another. The gift of tongues is similar within Christianity. For example, someone who has been gifted to compose music for the worship of God has a unique ability to craft melodies to produce a song that glorifies God.   While most people might not understand the process of songwriting, composition or musical theory, when hearing the final product in the music, it is clear that God is beautiful and beautifully good to us. Similarly, if a person finds true celebration of God in creating recipes that illustrate his provision and creativity in a delicious and beautifully nutritious meal, this also is a tongue that many people cannot understand the intricacies of, but can all come away worshiping the creator God as a result thereof.

While there are many who do speak in tongues, Scripture tells us that if traditional speaking of tongues does not express a celebration of God, then as Paul has said, it is simply the sound of an obnoxious cymbal.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. -1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Associating the gift of tongues with music or food might seem radical, but I believe that these unique abilities in all of us achieve the designed purpose of speaking in tongues in the first place. That purpose being the personal expression of personal celebration of God. Some people possess a unique quality, skill or even tongue that allows them to experience this deeply personal worship and in turn bring glory to God by sharing that gift with others, while never assuming that all must possess that gift in identical form.

 

Tuesday Devotional: Psalm 68

Devotional

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5 A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
6 God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.
7 O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness; Selah:
8 The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
9 Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary.
10 Thy congregation hath dwelt therein: thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor.
11 The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.

-Psalm 68:5-11

Fatherless.  Widows.  The Solitary.  Those bound with chains.  The weary.  The poor.  These groups have nothing to do with nationality or ethnicity.  These are conditions of people all over the world.  God LOVES these people.  Often the work of Christians or churches fails to do the work Jesus Christ has prepared and commanded us to do.  Christians are very busy people and churches are very busy places.  However, today too many people who have no father are left without any positive male figure in their life.  Too many widowed woman are left without emotional or financial support.  Too many people die in overcrowded prisons with no visitors, no correspondence and no hope.  Too many people are burdened and weary from overwork and stress, no one to lean on or share the burden.  Too many people have no homes, no food and no shelter, left unassisted in the hopeless world of poverty.

It is a fair statement that we as Christians and we as the Church are not doing our job.  Instead of making excuses or pointing the finger, we must repent to God and to our neighbors.  It is not good enough to have a portion of a ministry dedicated to these people. These people are our ministry.  Many people are suspicious of the gospel and the Christians that carry it.  They are angered by the hypocrisy.  They are angered by the judgment and hate.  They are angered by the lack of constructive and effective efforts to create change in neighborhoods, communities, cities and the world.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news not because it helps us to get what we want.  It is the Good News because it is the final answer of hope for everyone in want.

Instead of working on how to refurbish the image of Christianity and the Church we must each turn our eyes upon Jesus and ask Him to show us each how we have failed to carry out His command to love.  The only way to resurrect the image of Christianity, to be in the crowd or”great company” of those that publish the Good News, is to refocus our attention onto God, who loves those people, and Jesus Christ, who became these people.  Our image and the world’s perception of us is not the issue.  The issue is our disobedience and our reckless mishandling of Christ’s message.  We begin to worship and honor God by loving the broken, weary, lost people. By loving these people we will again be the bearers of the best news, not only because these people need help, but because when we were in their condition, Jesus Christ helped us.

 

Spiritual Gifts: Teaching

Reflections

gifts

For the next four weeks, we will examine the role of spiritual gifts in our Christian walk. Just as the baptism of the Holy Spirit has been debated throughout church history, the nature of spiritual gifts has also been a topic of much debate. This reflection series will outline four of the most debated spiritual gifts that often follow a baptism by the Holy Spirit. There are other gifts, such as prayer; however, for the moment we will only discuss four. The four spiritual gifts are:

  • Teaching
  • Tongues
  • Prophecy and Vision
  • Healing

All four of these gifts have a core purpose in common but as we will see they are unique from each other in the way they are used. This week, we reflect on teaching.

As Jesus said, in order to spread the message of the Gospel to a fallen world, there must be teachers to assist people in understanding challenging teaching. The gift of teaching does not rest on a foundation of successful research.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;

   the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. -1 Corinthians 1:18-25

In fact, the gift of teaching has very little to do with knowledge. The gift of teaching goes beyond the mind. This gift is strengthened and powered by wisdom: not the wisdom of men but the wisdom of God. A person gifted in the area of teaching can go beyond well-rehearsed lessons or sayings. They instill in the learners something deeper than mere mental assent. With the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the teacher channels the wisdom of God in the same way that Jesus did during his ministry. Jesus was able to see things that no one else could. He could see the heart of the issue before anyone else seemed to know the topic. It is this very nature that is given to an individual blessed with the gift of teaching.

The gift of teaching enables the teacher to teach to the heart, the place that needs teaching the most. The gift of teaching also enables the teacher to speak clearly to a variety of listeners. In the Gospels, Jesus’ effect on hearers is not limited by the demographic of his audience. Jesus spoke clearly to every heart ready to listen. The gift of teaching allows an individual to teach clearly and succinctly, in a way that differs from man’s teaching of spirituality, codified and complex philosophical webs of theological nonsense that result in confusion and not liberation. God always desires to be well understood.

‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ -Jeremiah 33:3

The gift of teaching allows an individual to teach about God in a way that achieves this goal.

 

Tuesday Devotional: Job 21

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Read Job 21 bible

Does it really matter if a person believes in Jesus?  Can’t someone simply do good, live in peace with others and have a good life?  The answer to the second question is, absolutely yes.  There are many people who do not profess faith in Jesus Christ that are nice people, helpful people, loving people.  If only the self-professing Christians did good deeds, we would have an even darker world on our hands than we do now.

However, the initial question of Jesus does in fact matter.  Professing the name of Christ does not guarantee decent and loving character.  As there are many loving non-Christians, there are also many inconsiderate and selfish Christians.  Sincere and authentic faith in Jesus Christ matters in this world to all people because of security.  Regardless of where a person comes from, everyone in this world attempts to find security in something.  We all do.  We all seek something that allows us to find rest at night.  We all seek something that gives us the permission to find confidence in a world that so often leaves us feeling helpless.

All people have the ability to do good and love others because we were designed for righteousness and love.  On the contrary, all people seek to find something to hold onto in the storm because all people were created to exist in the presence and care of an almighty God but now find themselves alienated and trying to get back what was lost.  The manner in which we pursue security in worldly things gives us a clue about our origins and our Creator.  A person who believes and professes faith in Jesus Christ no longer scrambles to find security in this world.  A person who takes Jesus Christ at His words no longer fears death and what comes next.  Christianity obliterates the fear of death, the fear of failure and the fear of loss.  In the loving arms of Jesus Christ we can finally find the peace we’ve longed for.  We no longer have to live a life of self-preservation and self-vindication.  In Christ we are given the gift that we all seek.  We are given the gift of perfect and everlasting love.  Does it really matter if a person believes in Jesus?  To be a nice person?  The answer is, no.  To find peace and enjoy in what we have without fear and trembling of eventually losing it?  The answer is forever yes.

Tuesday Devotional: Esther 4

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12 When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, 13 he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. (Esther 4:12-14)

bible

It is a tragic reality that being blessed by the Lord often leads to a disobedience towards God and vulnerability towards sin.  We pray and fast fervently in times of need because we know that we are without and we are unable.  We seek God and cry out to Him when challenges surround us because we know that in the absence of a savior we cannot go on.  It is in the valleys and deserts of our walk with God where we see the most of Him, simply because we become aware that He MUST become the focus of our life.  These periods are wonderfully fruitful in that we begin to restructure and reorganize the priority of God in our life.  However, seeking to get out of the valley versus seeking to find God IN the valley can create two very different outcomes.  Seeking God in order to get out of the valley can lead someone to become bitter and resentful when the valley becomes home.  On the other hand, seeking to find God in the valley reveals God and becomes a home worthy of staying in as long as necessary.

We must prepare ourselves for the valley.  We have been on the mountaintop for a while now, and many of us don’t have any recollections of what life in the valley was like.  We have been blessed, and although we must rejoice in our blessings, we must proactively prepare ourselves for a life without, with no majority benefits, the life of discipleship that Jesus Christ has offered us from the beginning.  To be a disciple is to count the cost and accept it willingly and joyfully.  A Christian WILL experience persecution.  A Christian WILL experience rejection.  A Christian follows in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and therefore WILL suffer.  This is not an exception or a possibility.  As much as the fruit of His Spirit is our inheritance and our new life by the resurrection, so is His death on the cross by crucifixion.

The nature of our persecution and suffering may vary but to be persecuted and suffer for the name of Jesus is the cornerstone that unites all believers in name of Jesus around the world.  Rejoice in what the Lord has provided for you and accomplished in your life.  As Paul said, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say Rejoice!”  Heed the life and words of Jesus Christ in regards to the persecution and suffering that awaits and, “WATCH.”  Be alert and do not be caught unprepared.  Have no fear, because the perfect love of Jesus casts out fear. We must not be foolish and we must not carelessly approach the cross.  To be a Christian is to be united with the cross of Christ as much as we are united with the hope and glory of the empty tomb.

Communion: The Legacy

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communion-bread-and-wine

For the next few weeks we will be discussing Communion.  Four aspects of Communion are central, necessary for us to understand if we profess faith in Jesus Christ.  We will find that a study of Communion reveals:

1) The Command of Jesus Christ

2) The Provision of Jesus Christ

3) The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ

4) The Legacy of His Church

Last week we discussed the sacrifice of Jesus about Communion.  This week’s reflection discusses the legacy of the Church, the body of Christ, as it relates to Communion.

The Church today, in addition to the foundational words and commands of Jesus Christ, looks to the forefathers of our faith, the early Church, for how we should carry ourselves as Christians. A brief review of the practices of the early Church makes it clear that there are certain traditions and practices that the early Church prioritized in their worship. Along with caring for the poor, the widow, and the needy, healing the sick, preaching the gospel, sharing what they had and baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the early disciples met together in their homes regularly and “broke bread.”

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 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, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47)

This breaking of bread can only mean that they stayed true to the command of Jesus Christ by continuing to practice the communion modeled by Jesus during the Last Supper.

More than a symbol of the obedience of the early Church to follow Christ’s commands, this is a holy reminder for us today that the members of the early Church strove to never lose the true message of their faith. They knew that they were alive because of Jesus Christ; to forget that or to overlook Christ’s central role in their lives was not an option. For them, seeing at the broken bread and wine reminded them that they were alive because Jesus Christ chose to be broken and bleed for them. However, when they ate the bread and drank the wine, the Christians were reminded of how much God had given them and how united they were with the Son and the Father.

The Church in its current form often fails to effectively embody the spiritual fruit of the early Church. Why? Among many contributing factors, the casual approach of the Christian Church to communion, and in some instances the absence of it altogether, has served to distance the Church from Jesus himself, making room for a more Church-centered model, as opposed to the Christ-centered Church that Jesus was broken and bled for.

Tuesday Devotional: Nehemiah 12

Devotional

bibleRead Nehemiah 12

Worship and Purification. A life devoted to the living God and to following Jesus Christ must be marked by these two words on a daily basis. It is impossible to devote your life to God without worship and it is impossible to follow Jesus without daily purification. To know the living God is to be confronted by the almighty in all that is good. To know the living God is to be daily in the presence of something greater than yourself and more beautiful than we could possibly imagine. It is not enough to know about Him. Knowing about Him is like acting overwhelmed by a painting that you’ve never stood in front of. There is superficiality to this kind of knowing. If we haven’t seen it personally, how could we expect to understand it, share it, rejoice in it? Merely knowing about Him is professing confidence in a King you’ve never allowed to command your steps.

If we haven’t accepted His authority and followed His commands, how we can claim any faith whatsoever in His authority and discernment? Knowing God is to know that HE IS and the implications of that revelation are life-changing. If HE IS then I am who He says I am: a child in desperate need of a good father. Once we know Him as Father we see His beauty and there is little else to do in the presence of His beauty than worship.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ IS purification. You cannot separate the two. They are inseparable and indistinguishable. He is the purifier and we NEED purification. Need AND needed. Jesus came to purify the world of its sin by taking the sins of the world upon Himself, setting the captives free and restoring sight to the blind. To know Jesus and follow Him is to live and breathe purification. Our first breath in the morning should remind us of the life we have in Jesus Christ. The day that follows reveals the continual and ongoing fight with sin within us which requires the daily purification of our hearts by the Gospel of Jesus. The cross purified us by paying the debt we owed, and the resurrection initiated the final chapter of the world that requires ongoing purification as it awaits the final return of the King.

To walk with Christ is to be in the presence of perfection and thus aware of our imperfections. However, although our imperfections become great in His presence, His forgiveness becomes greater. The cycle repeats and we are once again prepared for glorious worship. Amen!

 

Communion: The Sacrifice

Reflections

communion-bread-and-wine

For the next few weeks we will be discussing Communion.  Four aspects of Communion are central, necessary for us to understand if we profess faith in Jesus Christ.  We will find that a study of Communion reveals:

1) The Command of Jesus Christ

2) The Provision of Jesus Christ

3) The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ

4) The Legacy of His Church

Last week we discussed the provision of Jesus about Communion.  This week’s reflection discusses the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as it relates to Communion.

The death and sacrifice of Jesus Christ are at the heart of communion. While the Christian life must be marked by joy in the new life found in Jesus Christ, at the foundation of the Christian spirit is constantly awareness of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That is not to say that a Christian life should be overwhelmed by grief concerning the sacrifice. Absolutely not. To know his sacrifice is to know his resurrection, and to know his resurrection is the ultimate joy. However, in order to experience the life-giving power of the empty tomb, one must also confront the weight of the sacrifice that preceded it.

As Jesus sat at the table about to break the bread and pour the wine, once again, he found himself completely alone in the understanding of what he was about to do. For three years, Jesus repeatedly alluded to, and in some instances stated outright, the price he was going to pay on the cross. However, he alone understood the weight of his mission. On the night he broke the bread during the last supper, Jesus was staring directly at the cross, again isolated in the knowledge of what was soon to occur. Jesus could foresee the fists. The Apostles could not. Jesus could foresee the spit. The Apostles could not. Jesus could foresee the verbal abuse. The Apostles could not. Jesus could foresee the crown of thorns. The Apostles could not. Jesus could foresee the nails. The Apostles could not.

Jesus could foresee the dehydration, the asphyxiation, the loneliness. The Apostles could not.

The practice of communion is not simply the reflection on the death of a good friend. The practice of communion recognizes suffering that we will never understand. To practice communion is to reflect on the sacrifice of God for children who have defiantly refused to sacrifice anything in return.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:17-20)

In communion we reflect on the fact that Jesus had no reason to sacrifice what he did aside from his desire to see us reunited with the Father in the same way he has always been. In communion we acknowledge that we have done nothing to deserve what we have, but because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have been given more than we ever could have imagined. We are fulfilled and satisfied in ways that only God has foreseen. Communion is a celebration of new life; it is only a celebration because at one point it was the greatest loss the world had ever known.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:6-11)

Tuesday Devotional: Ezra 5

Devotional

bibleRead Ezra 5

God is a creator, and, if we were designed in His image, we are creators as well. We were designed to design and create beautiful things worthy of a Holy God, reflective of His perfection. The issue is not that we have an inherent gift and desire to create. The issue is why we create. Sin makes us want to create so that we can become to focal point of worship. We create so that WE can make a name for ourselves, so that we can be remembered, so that we can obtain approval and value. Sin drives us to create a new thing, something that can add to something that already exists.

Ultimately this approach to creation tends to reveal the worst in us. Creation in the hands of sin leads to competition, rivalry, bitterness, pride, winners and losers, life and death. Creation in the hands of sin says, “Look what I did.” Creation in the hands of God says, “Look what God HAS done and IS doing.” Creation with the heart of God never seeks to glorify the self, but seeks to restore what has been lost.

The heart of God gives us an awareness of past, present and future in regards to His creation and reveals our place in that design. We become aware of how things used to be, how things should be and how we can create in order to bring this world back to God, not further distance from Him. A Christian with the heart of the Gospel is always restoring the world to Jesus Christ. Every creation should redirect people to what was lost by the first man and what was gloriously restored in the second man.

45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. (1 Corinthians 15:45-49)

It is undeniable that we were designed to create and we have all been blessed with different skills and gifts in order to create. Creation is of God. Self-glorification is not. We cannot create for our own glory and simultaneously glorify the living God. This is impossible. Creation of God and for God reflects what HE created and lost through the sin of man and what lengths He went to in order to restore the sight to the blind. Until we create as a process of restoration we will never create anything worthy of the resurrection.

Communion: The Provision

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communion-bread-and-wine

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For the next few weeks we will be discussing Communion.  Four aspects of Communion are central, necessary for us to understand if we profess faith in Jesus Christ.  We will find that a study of Communion reveals:

1) The Command of Jesus Christ

2) The Provision of Jesus Christ

3) The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ

4) The Legacy of His Church

Last week we discussed the command of Jesus about Communion.  This week’s reflection discusses the provision of Jesus Christ as it relates to Communion.

2) The Provision of Jesus Christ 

The practice of communion was not simply a command to be followed “just because.” As was the case in everything that Jesus chose to do concerning his earthly ministry, there was a deeper purpose intended for the eyes to truly see and the ears to truly hear. While the primary focus of the communion meal was to direct the Apostles’ hearts toward the upcoming sacrifice on the cross, Jesus, through the communion meal, also intended for the Apostles to reflect back upon the provision of the past three years with him. At the feeding of the 5,000, before Jesus performed the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fish, Jesus took the bread, looked up to heaven, asked God to bless the bread and then broke it so as to feed the hungry crowd.

Mark 6:39-44

Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

At that point in Jesus’ ministry, only Jesus could have known how poignant the breaking of bread to feed the hungry was in the light of his upcoming breaking of the bread at the Last Supper the night before he was ultimately broken on the cross as a result of his sacrifice. At that point in his ministry, the focus was on the miraculous provision of Jesus, not on his sacrifice. Thus, the practice of communion, while a somber reflection of the sacrifice of Jesus at the hands of a sinful and broken world, it functions also as a reminder that God has always given us what we needed precisely when we needed it.

John 6:35 

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

The practice of communion is a call to reflect on the death of Jesus Christ, on the new life and victory given to us as a result of his death, and on the reality of daily and eternal provision in the person of Jesus.