The early church

The fact that the church made it out of the first century is nothing short of remarkable. How did it survive the early part of the 1st century when the Jews tried to stop it in its infancy and had the law on its side? How did it survive the later part of the first century when the Romans took their shot and had all the power in the known world?

Well, it wasn’t the coffee they served at their services. It wasn’t their liturgy, their kid’s ministry, their worship style or because they preferred topical sermons to verse by verse. The reason why the church survived the first century and why now more than 1/3 of the world believes Jesus is the risen Son of God wasn’t because of anything peripheral, but because they kept the message of the gospel central in their personal lives and corporate lives together. They were outward focused.

However, over time, the church got comfortable. They got buildings, comfortable chairs and plenty of parking. A shift took place from outward to inward. And if you are a pastor, you know that this shift happens very quickly. How can you tell if this is happening to you personally and the church you are a part of? Pay attention to your prayers.

Pay attention to your prayers

What do you pray about? What does your church pray about? Are you prayers centered primarily around Jesus’ mission or your mission? I think a lot of us tend to pray for ourselves, our families and perhaps a few sick people, and that’s about 90% of it. So we want to do better on our exams, we want to get better jobs, bigger houses, few diseases and lower taxes. These types of issues tend to dominate our prayer life. Of course, those are perfectly fine things to pray for but if that is the bulk of your prayers, self-centered prayers is a leading indicator for you becoming a self-centered person. And when that becomes the norm for you and your church, you have lost your edge and your mission-focus is lost.

Consider the early church in Acts 4. The context is they almost lost Peter and John to prison because they preached Jesus and thousands were being added. It must have been a frightening moment because although there was big energy in the church, Peter and John were #1 & #2 and it would have been a devastating blow. After their release, the go back to the brothers to pray and what do you think they prayed about? I know what we would pray as Americans. We would pray for protection. We would pray God would keep us safe and that we would have favor with the government or we would pray that the government would change and become more moral. Perhaps we would organize a group to go picket the Pharisees? But what did they actually do? What did they pray for? They prayed for boldness to continue to preach Jesus (Acts 4:29). Wow! They knew that their biggest threat wasn’t personal safety or even that the local government and power brokers were opposed to their message. They realized that their biggest threat was going inward and they would lack courage to continue to preach Jesus.

Does your church have that kind of laser like focus for the mission? Do you see going inward as the greatest threat to you and your church? What do you pray about?

If you want to keep your church outward-focused and mission-focused, I would suggest you pay attention to your prayer life and the prayer life of your church.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to leaders who have come out of a difficult situation and said something like I’ve done everything I can, so all I can do now is pray. To be perfectly honest, I’ve heard those words come out of my own mouth a time or two.

It’s true that turning to almighty God in prayer is something we can do when all else fails. But if we only use prayer as our spiritual backstop to save us after we’ve played our own game, we are both limiting prayer and communicating to those around us that isn’t necessary if we can generate the results without it.

Jesus invites His disciples to pray, and guarantees an answer.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7, 8 ESV)

So I would like to suggest both to myself and anyone else who sees prayer more often as a last ditch effort that we take a more active approach.

Ask

We start as Jesus said by asking. This comes first, even before the challenge. We are invited by God to ask and promised that as we come asking, we will receive. Remember, my friends, that we come to the creator of the universe, the all powerful, almighty, all-sufficient God. Let’s not mock Him with small prayers. Ask for love when your heart feels dead, ask for power when you feel weak, ask for boldness when you are timid, ask for provision when you are poor, ask for forgiveness when you can’t forgive yourself. Ask for the impossible. Then watch and wait for the answer.

Now, we know that God doesn’t always give us what we ask for. But Jesus did promise that we would receive. So as you pray, keep your ears open for an answer. Just because God may not answer the way we want, doesn’t mean He will withhold an answer altogether. Our God is a God who communicates clearly, so pray and listen for an answer. The answer may be yes, it may be no, it may be not yet, and it may be keep asking. But let’s not assume that no answer means it must not be God’s will and then give up on persistent prayer. God promises to answer, so don’t stop praying till you have your answer.

Seek

Seeking comes next, when something needs to be found. The challenge has come and the way is unclear. Instead of leaving yourself alone in the forest without a map, seek the way through prayer. Ask the God who sees the end from the beginning to make the path clear, or at the very least to point your feet in the right direction. Again we are promised that if we seek, we will find. The finding may not be exactly what we expected when we started seeking, but we will find.

Knock

Finally we come to the knocking. You have asked God for wisdom, you have received direction, but now you come to a closed door. You know this was the way God led you, but now you can’t proceed. So what to do? Knock on the closed door with your prayers! Don’t knock softly either, make a ruckus out of it. Knock like you mean it, lay your heart out for God and argue your case. Remind Him that He Himself led you to this closed door to begin with. Remind Him that He promised to open the door to those who knock. Remind Him of His unfailing love and grace. Like Moses on the mountain, argue with God for His reputation’s sake. What will unbelievers say if you once rescued your children only to let them perish in the wilderness? Pray like this not out of exasperation, but expecting God to be true to His promises. Take God at His word, knock on the door and watch it open before you.

Instead of saving prayer till the end, after we’ve tried everything else, pray right from the start and all the way through. This way you will find strength and direction all through the challenge, and you will also demonstrate the power of God at work through your leadership.

This is #13 in a series of blogs by PJ on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is the third in a mini-series of four blogs on the gift of prophecy (1 Corinthians 12:10).

Definition

It is the one that deals with how to learn to prophecy over an individual. Scenario: I am praying for an individual during a prayer meeting, or at the front of a church meeting.

Step 1: Under my breath I ask God to give me a prophetic word that will encourage this person.

Step 2: I plunge in and start to pray ‘normal’ prayers i.e. I thank God for his work in their life, and I pray that they would know more of his love and more of the presence and fruit of the spirit. Here I am praying the general will of God for the person, and all the while I am open to God bringing to my mind a thought, impression or picture that I will then make into a prophetic word.

Step 3: I will pray into any specific thing that they have come forward to receive prayer for. For example, ‘…and Father, with this issue of anxiety that Fred is bringing to you today, I ask that…’.

Step 4: By this time it is usual that some kind of thought, impression or picture will have come to my mind, and then I take that and say something like, ‘Fred, I feel that God would say to you, “My dear son, I have seen your struggle with anxiety and say to you that….’ Or, I would say, ‘Fred, I feel that God is showing me that…’

Step 5: On the back of the prophecy I will probably then revert to prayer again to ‘earth’ the prophecy.

Step 6: Then I will gently ask Fred if he felt that the prophecy was on target. This not only helps you both weigh the prophecy, but it also gives you an insight into how he is doing, and if more prayer is required.

Prophetic activation

An exercise in prophetic activation I have three sons ages 8, 11 and 13 and sometimes in the car we play a game called ‘prophetic activation’ which is a simple game designed to help them get into the groove of being prophetically stimulated by something that they see. Please note that the game is not producing ‘proper’ prophetic words, rather helping them with the dynamic of producing a prophetic word, so that they have the ability to do it when it is really from God. In the game, they have to spot something (a bit like ‘I spy’) and then say what God might be saying to us through that object. One of them said this one recently: ‘Guys, you see that grass growing through the concrete at the edge of the road… I think God wants us to know that he will always make us grow and do well even if life is really hard like concrete’.

The next blog deals with how to test a prophetic word and avoid going nuts…

I’m a bit of a slow learner. I’m the kid who thought next time I’ll be able to skate down the hill without crashing, next time I’ll catch the bee without getting stung, and next time I won’t get caught. So Jesus raises his voice at times so I can hear him through my dense baldhead. What better way to teach a stubborn and, at times, slow learner than church planting? Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:16 "Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching ; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you." I’m not so dense as to believe that the main reason Jesus called me to plant a church was my own sanctification. But that was for sure part of it! Paul reminds Timothy that ministry is a furnace of refinement for the minister as well as the church. In planting, Frontline the Holy Spirit has shown me idols, fears, and ridiculous motivations in my heart that I was blind to. So here are a few things I’ve learned. Scratch that. Here are a few things I’m learning. Each new week of ministry is a new week of repentance.

Lesson 1: No One At Frontline Church Needs Jesus More Than Me

I’m driven, passionate, and love challenges. I enjoy getting punched in the face. In the early days of being a pastor it was all too common for me to minister out of my fleshly strength and natural gifting. I could preach the gospel of radical dependence on the grace of God and the necessity of a Spirit led and filled life to others and forget that I need Jesus as much today as the first day he saved me. As I moved from being an arrogant young associate pastor to an arrogant young church planter God started to prune my proud heart. He did it with pain, and with burdens I wasn’t strong enough to carry.

I looked back at years of ministry that appeared successful on the outside with a new realization of the ugly truth. Lots of my ministry was what Josh can do apart from Jesus. It might look cool and might even be celebrated by other men but it was a straw house that couldn’t possibly stand the test of eternity. Not until the weight of church planting started to crush my pride did I begin to realize that I could do nothing apart from him. Nothing eternal, nothing real, nothing worth dying for comes from me. I am weak and my efforts aren’t ever going to be enough. Desperately I need to meet with Jesus and be changed by him. Desperately the people of God need Jesus not me. My greatest fear as a pastor is no longer failure. It’s success. The possibility of building a big cool church based on what we can do apart from Jesus is utterly terrifying. I’m empty handed, weak, and poor. I need Jesus. The people I serve need Him too.

There’s a word we typically don’t use in Christian circles and the word is “practice”. I think we do well to become more and more familiar with this word and its implications for us.

Why is it that in every other area of life we accept the fact that practice is a necessary element, but when it comes to following Jesus, we view practice with disdain? I’ve yet to meet a person who was able to play Beethoven’s Sonata #8 in C minor, the very first time they played a piano. We accept the fact that a person must practice, a lot, to get to the place where they are able to take on such a musical score. When it comes to spiritual matters however, something within us seems to think we should be instantly mature.

A lack of clarity

When we have little desire for prayer or the scriptures, our first impulse is to evaluate ourselves as coming up short in God’s eyes. We are wrought with impatience and frustration because of our lack of clarity when it comes to hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit. Somewhere along the line we’ve equated the revelation of truth with full sanctification. And when our “Aha moments” don’t immediately translate into permanent life change, we’re left feeling like failures.

Like it or not, the author of Hebrews equates maturity with practice when he states in Hebrews 5:14, “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

How to become mature

The ability to discern good and evil is not something that comes automatically at salvation. Maturity comes only through practice. Could it be that our appetites for God are weak because we have not consistently practiced sitting at His banquet table to enjoy His presence? Could it be that the voice of the Holy Spirit is unfamiliar to us because we have not practiced times of simply asking Him questions and waiting on Him to reply?

There’s no doubt that there could be a number of mitigating factors for the lack of spiritual development you may see present in your life. But before you evaluate yourself to be a failure, ask yourself this question, “Have I been practicing?”

John G Paton (24 May 1824 - 28 January 1907). Born in Scotland, Paton was a missionary to the New Hebrides Islands of the South Pacific. In spite of tragically losing his wife and son after less than a year on the Islands, John Paton labored tirelessly among the cannibalistic natives, his own life constantly under threat. He learned the Aniwa language, translating the New Testament for them, and after many years of patient ministry, saw the entire Island of Aniwa profess Christianity. Due to his efforts, he saw missionaries established on twenty five of the thirty Islands, with churches, orphanages and schools built. His work inspired hundreds of missionaries to also take up the Great Commission.

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The very discipline through which our father passed us was a kind of religion in itself. If anything really serious required to be punished, he retired first to his closet for prayer, and we boys got to understand that he was laying the whole matter before God; and that was the severest part of the punishment for me to bear ! I could have defied any amount of mere penalty, but this spoke to my conscience as a message from God. We loved him all the more, when we saw how much it cost him to punish us; and, in truth, he had never very much of that kind of work to do upon any one of all the eleven - we were ruled by love far more than by fear.

How much my father's prayers at this time impressed me I can never explain, nor could any stranger understand. When, on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in family worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the heathen world to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need, we all felt as if in the presence of the living Saviour, and learned to know and love Him as our Divine Friend. As we rose from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father's face, and wish I were like him in spirit, hoping that, in answer to his prayers, I might be privileged and prepared to carry the blessed Gospel to some portion of the heathen world.

John G Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides. An Autobiography. P25/26, 34

J O Fraser (1886–1938) Born in London, in 1908 James Fraser dedicated his life to missionary work and joined the China Inland Mission. He arrived in China in 1910, and spent nearly thirty years working in difficult conditions among the Lisu people in the mountains of Western Yunnan Province. For six years Fraser prayed for a spiritual breakthrough, often battling with depression and discouragement as finally his first Lisu family turned to the Lord, only to then turn back to ancestral worship. The breakthrough occurred in 1916. Within a four month period, 600 Lisu had turned to Christ! With Fraser’s oversight, an indigenous church planting movement was started with Lisu believers leading scores of other Lisu villages and families to Christ. By 1918, 60,000 believers had been baptized. The conversion of the Lisu is one of the greatest stories in mission history. Today, there are an estimated 300,000 Lisu Christians in China.

We are helpless

I cannot insist too strongly on my own helplessness among these people apart from the grace of God. Although I have been now ten years in China and have had considerable experience with both Chinese and Lisu, I find myself able to do little or nothing apart from God’s going before me and working among men. Without this I feel like a man who has his boat grounded in shallow water. Pull or push as he may, he will not be able to make his boat move more than a few inches.

But let the tide come in and lift his boat off the bottom-then he will be able to move it as far as he pleases, quite easily and without friction. It is indeed necessary for me to go around among our Lisu, preaching, teaching, exhorting, rebuking, but the amount of progress made thereby depends almost entirely on the state of the Spiritual Tide in the village-a condition which you can control upon your knees as well as I can.

The Prayer of Faith by J.O. Fraser. Further reading: Mountain Rain by Eileen Fraser Crossman

J O Fraser (1886–1938) Born in London, in 1908 James Fraser dedicated his life to missionary work and joined the China Inland Mission. He arrived in China in 1910, and spent nearly thirty years working in difficult conditions among the Lisu people in the mountains of Western Yunnan Province. For six years Fraser prayed for a spiritual breakthrough, often battling with depression and discouragement as finally his first Lisu family turned to the Lord, only to then turn back to ancestral worship. The breakthrough occurred in 1916. Within a four month period, 600 Lisu had turned to Christ! With Fraser’s oversight, an indigenous church planting movement was started with Lisu believers leading scores of other Lisu villages and families to Christ. By 1918, 60,000 believers had been baptized. The conversion of the Lisu is one of the greatest stories in mission history. Today, there are an estimated 300,000 Lisu Christians in China.

A trinity of prayer, faith and patience

Sunday, January 16, 1916. Not a single person at service in the morning ....The walls of Jericho fell down "by faith." Of all the instances of faith in Hebrews 11, this corresponds most nearly to my case. But not faith only was necessary; the wall fell down after it had been compassed about for seven days. Seven days’ patience was required, and diligent compassing of the city every day - which seems to typify encompassing the situation by regular, systematic prayer. Here then we see God’s way of success in our work, whatever it may be - a trinity of prayer, faith and patience.

February 5, 1916 I am not taking the black, despondent view I took yesterday. The opposition will not be overcome by reasoning or by pleading, but (chiefly) by steady, persistent prayer. The men need not be dealt with (it is a heart-breaking job, trying to deal with a Lisu possessed by a spirit of fear) but the powers of darkness need to be fought. I am now setting my face like a flint: if the work seems to fail, then pray; if services, etc., fall flat, then pray still more; if months slip by with little or no result, then pray still more and get others to help you.

March 13, 1916 Cloud seems to have lifted considerably - perhaps because prayer burden fought right through ...After much pressure, even agony, in prayer for Lisu souls, enabled to break through into liberty, and to pray the definite prayer of faith for signal blessing among the Lisu during the next few months .... Real, prevailing prayer, for the first time for a week or more, and well worth the travail that led up to it ....Much peace and rest of soul after making that definite prayer, and almost ecstatic joy to think of the Lisu Christian families I am going to get.

The Prayer of Faith by J.O. Fraser. Further reading: Mountain Rain by Eileen Fraser Crossman

Crickets

I once heard a story about a college student who was attending a wedding reception being held in someone’s home. As this student and the homeowner were enjoying the evening air on the front porch, the student blurted out, “Mr. Lord, did you know that you have 16 different species of crickets in your yard?” Mr. Lord was humorously curious about this question and asked him how he knew this to be true.

As it turned out this particular student was getting his PhD in Entomology (the study of insects). To most of us, crickets are pesky, noisy bugs we would rather squish under foot than let live. But to this particular Entomology PhD student, crickets were absolutely vital to his current situation and what he viewed as his purpose in life. Here was a guy who was dedicating his life to the study of insects. Because of this, he had learned the unique sounds of over 20 different species of crickets. (And you thought your job was boring!)x`1```

This is actually a true story, told years ago by a wise pastor named Peter Lord. In telling the story, Peter made the point that he had lived in that home for years and never knew that there were over 16 different species of crickets living in his front yard. Not only did he not know, he didn’t really care. And that is exactly why he didn’t know! Because crickets weren’t vital to Peter Lord’s life, he had little or no sensitivity to the sounds they were making.

Vital to life

Peter then went on to make the point that many people find it difficult to recognize God’s voice because hearing from God is not absolutely vital to their life. When hearing God’s voice becomes vital to your existence, you will grow increasingly sensitive to the voice of God.

Is hearing God speak to you something that is desirable and helpful, or is it something that is absolutely vital to your daily existence? The Bible states that our lives are inexplicably connected to Jesus (Acts 17:28). Let’s live our lives each and every day in light of this radical truth, and as we do we will find an increasing sensitivity to God’s voice.

Who are you listening to?

Life talks. I find that life is not short of opinions or judgments when it comes to declaring what kind of person I am. “You’re a failure.” “You’re so full of yourself.” “You call yourself a Christian?” “You’re a horrible parent.” “You’re the best!” “You’re definitely more gifted than him.” The one consistent thing about what life says to me is that it’s all a lie.

The other day I was reading Psalm 3 and was greatly encouraged by how King David responded to life during one of the most difficult times he experienced. This psalm was penned shortly after David’s kingdom had been wrestled away by his own son, Absalom. Talk about a national embarrassment! Everywhere he would turn, people would know that his own son had turned against him and won. You would think David would be totally undone and humiliated, but he wasn’t. And the reason he wasn’t was because throughout his life David would not listen to life, but instead turn his attention to God’s truth. As a result, David’s identity and worth rested on the bedrock of God, rather than the quicksand of life.

In Psalm 3:3 David declared, “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.” David knew that if he were going to survive, it would be only by God’s hand. He also knew that his value came not from his position of authority as a king, but because of God’s love and favor upon his life. This is why he declared, at a time of utter humiliation, that God was his glory.

David refused to look to circumstances to make him feel better. He knew that he had to find his hope and confidence in God. This is why he said that God was, “the lifter of my head”. When life beats us up we drop our head in discouragement and defeat. David was able to lift his head high, because he was listening to truth from God, and not the lies of life.

Timely truth

One of the most amazing things about this Psalm is that David actually took the time to pen these words during this horrendous event in his life. It’s almost as if he needed to journal in order to remind himself of what the truth was.

Somewhere along the line we need a consistent means of reminding our soul of what the truth is. Life deceptively shouts to us every day. Its words have the power to both inflate our ego, and bring us down to despair. The only remedy is to be reminded of what the truth actually is, and to act accordingly. This is why spending time in the scriptures is so essential to our lives.

Truth is a person

We’re deceived if we think we know what the truth is. Truth is not a thing, but the person of Jesus (John 14:6). If we’re not consistently engaged in our connection to Jesus, receiving truth from His Word and presence, we’ll live in the land of make believe. God has so much more for us than this. There is a security and confidence that is ours as we consistently remind ourselves of what the truth is.