“The Art of Not Disappearing”

Van has been a close friend of both Carol and me for 21 years. Throughout that time, we have spent many hours of joyful “communion in Christ”, as we’ve prayed together, shared together, even sung together.

Van taught at what used to be called Garden City AOG Church School of Ministry. (It’s now Hillsong, Brisbane). Van & his wife Heazle now live in Bangkok where Heazle teaches English and Van teaches theology.

His book highlights the practice of many Christians of putting on a mask and not being Vulnerable, Transparent and Responsible for who they are.

We welcome Van to preach again at BSBC. Be open to what God wants for you today.

Ps Robert Colman

And our prayers suddenly became visible …

We would find the Father’s children

sitting on His lap adoring Him and

basking in His overflowing love and joy.

We would watch our pleadings call the

wooing light of the Spirit into dark lives.

We would rejoice to see guilt-ridden souls

bow at Christ’s cross then rise to

dance in pure freedom and new life.

Ears would be pressed to God’s heartbeat of love,

catching the rhythm to go and serve in His strength.

Some pray-ers would be faithfully chopping

holes in the roof of despair to lower suffering

friends to the feet of Jesus for His touch.

Others would be found scooping faith and strength to

endure the bottomless well of Christ’s sacrifice.

And the flashing of warrior’s swords would be seen

everywhere as the powerful Sword of the Spirit

slashes at evil to make way for truth and light.

While we can’t yet see what happens in the heavens,

we can begin to see what prayer accomplishes on earth.

Susan Lenzkes © 2011

Life can be a lot like this. Sometimes small things get entangled up inside us that stops and hinder our progress in life.

What are the things that are hindering your progress in life?  Growing closer to God, growing closer to your family, to other people. What’s holding you back or slowing your progress?

A lot of times we want to blame external things, like the economy, work, relationships, or not enough money. But the truth is what usually holds us back in life is almost never external, it’s internal.

When we hold on to hurts inside us, the habits, hang ups, regrets, shame and guilt, it holds us back from being all that God desires us to be. God desires us to bring these things to Him and He will forgive.

Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

May we learn to ‘throw off’ that which hinders.

Ps Andrew

God commands us to make requests and He answers every request that’s put to Him. He says, “Yes”, “No”, “Wait” or “I’ll give you something better”.

I read this a couple of days ago by Dr. Robert H. Schuller:

If the request isn‟t right He answers “No”,

If the timing isn‟t right His answer is “Slow”,

If you aren‟t ready yet His answer is “Grow”,

When everything‟s ready and right… His answer is “Go”.
If all our requests were answered in the way we wished, we’d have every reason to doubt the wisdom of God!

Ps Robert

We are taught to never quit trying, never give up, never give in and we don’t hear much about surrendering. If winning is everything, surrendering is unthinkable.

Yet, the Bible teaches us that rather than trying to win, succeed, overcome, and conquer, we should instead yield, submit, obey, and surrender.

Surrendering our lives means to follow God’s lead without knowing where he’s sending us; Waiting for God’s timing without knowing when it will come; Expecting a miracle without knowing how God will provide and Trusting God’s purpose without understanding the circumstances.

When we do this the words of Jesus from the Lords prayer come alive, “May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10 (NLT)

We need to surrender to God’s plan. When we do we are saying, “God, I want to get with your agenda and offer my life to be used for your purposes today. I offer you my life, however you want to use me.”

Let’s learn to truly surrender to God.

For the past thirty years there’s been a strong emphasis in our society on personal individuality, self-expression, self-esteem and self-fulfillment.  Focus on me, the individual.  I’ve got to do what’s best for me.  As a result of that we’ve produced a very disconnected society.  People don’t really know each other even when it says they have 305 “friends” on facebook.

Today, we are starting a series on being connected.

This Bible tells us in Romans 12:5 “So in Christ, we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

The point that this verse makes is that every Christian not only needs the Bible, not only needs prayer, but every Christian needs other Christians.  There’s no such thing as lone Ranger Christianity.  We need each other. We need to be connected to each other. Do you feel connected?

Thomas Edison

Edison had very little formal schooling. “My mother home-schooled me and was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.”

Edison failed hundreds of times when inventing the light globe, but he never gave up. He believed in what he was doing – and we believe him every time we turn the light switch on!

Paul says in Philippians 4:13 -  can do all thing through Christ who gives me strength.” We either believe that or we don’t!  Do you believe Paul?

He knew that he had to PRESS ON towards the finishing tape. He says in Philippians 3:12-14, “Not that I have already obtained all this (referring to v.10 where he says he wants to know Christ and the power of His resurrection) or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I don’t consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
And He did this with great JOY – see Phil.3:1.

How’s your inner joy these days?

Has it reached every part of your life?

There can be an important ingredient missing in many of our lives.  It’s the ingredient of joy.  And because of it life just doesn’t taste as sweet as it should.  For some of you life is a little flat like that bread without yeast.  And for some of you, life is feeling pretty tasteless like that popcorn without any butter.  How do you get that ingredient of joy back in?

That’s what Philippians 2 the first eleven verses is all about.

When we feel like we are lacking in life rather than living life, we need joy.

When we find that we don’t have the energy for what we really need to do in life, we need joy.

When the difficulties that we face start to feel like Mount Everest that’s when we need joy.

Nehemiah tells us “The joy of the Lord is our strength.” (Neh 8:10)

God wants to work His incredible joy into our lives; are we open to this today?

The Dictionary defines it as the emotion evoked by well-being, success or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.

That can sound like a pretty selfish definition of joy, but there are some truths in it. There are emotions that are involved with joy.  We’ve all felt it but joy is not saying everything’s ok because sometimes, everything is NOT ok.  It’s not putting a happy, smiley face on and saying everything’s ok or going to be ok.

God says you’ll find joy, when you trust that he’s in control and working to use the good – and the bad – of your life for a greater purpose.

The apostle Paul understood this, writing about joy while in prison, chained to a guard, alone in a foreign city he said “Whatever happens, dear brothers and sisters, may the Lord give you joy …” (Phil 3:1 NLT)

May those words ring true in our lives!