"I will make the most of this moment"
Can you believe that it is the last day of Code Orange? It has been an amazing 10 days of worship, teaching and the presence of God showing up and changing lives. Today was definitely no exception! Pastor Carl Lentz from Hillsong Church, NYC was on fire, as always. Tenacious, passionate, rebel with a cause, fun loving, these are but a few of the adjectives that jump to mind when I think about Pastor Carl.
So as you can see by the title and subtitle of today's blog, his sermon was all about MOMENTS. Recognizing the moments, being in the moment, making the moment count.
We can be fruitful, faithful, passionate, effective Christians in every season of our lives because Jesus goes with us. We cannot choose our season, but we can choose the spirit with which we go through it. Sometimes it's going to rain, sometimes it's going to shine, our job is to have a spirit that says, "Lord no matter what's going on I choose to serve you and I will be faithful throughout."
We live in a culture that makes life all about the breakdown or the breakthrough. But the majority of the Christian life is spent in the ordinary every day, in between. So while we are waiting for breakdowns and the breakthroughs, we are missing the moments. God wants to do stuff right in between the spectacular and the tragic, don't miss the moments.
When we see someone doing something great for God, we see the big picture, finished product stuff. But what makes the local church truly special, is the in between. It's the Monday through the Saturday stuff that nobody sees. It's the youth pastor driving all over the city, picking up young people that won't pay them back. It's the people who go into hospitals to pray for people that no one's ever going to know. It's the people actually inviting and bringing their friends, stepping out in faith. It's the moments.
We need to be a local church revival Christian, where every single day I believe that God is going to move. I might be going to the grocery store, but the King of Kings is coming with me. We need to know that God wants to use us right where we are at in our walk with Him.
Timothy loved Paul so much, he was starting to feel like, "I don't know if I can do this anymore, I don't know if I can do all that God's called me to do." So Paul writes him this letter:
11 Command and teach these things. 12 Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speach, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching and to teaching. 14 Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you. - 1 Timothy 4:11-14 (NIV)When it comes to maximizing the little time that we do have here on earth, we need to get on our own knees and pray and worship. We can't neglect our own faith but expect the church, or our preacher, or a podcast to do it for us. We need to press into our own faith and believe God.
"We have to fight the temptation to 'go through the motions' rather than live to MAXIMIZE the MOMENTS." - Ps. Carl LentzIt is easy to get caught up in the 'rat race' of the day-to-day; another struggle, another church service, another day married, another sermon from the same pastor. You go to a church that worships, but you don't worship. You go to a church that reaches the community, but you don't. And before you know it, you're present by you're not really present, and you start missing moments.
Have you ever lived rushed because you weren't ready? It's called the snooze button. We wake up late, so we start out rushed and the rest of our day is out of rhythm. We're living rushed because we weren't ready. Sometimes we can go through the motions as a Christian where we're being a 'professional Christian', but we forgot the power of God. I don't know about you, but I don't want to get to the end of my life and see that revival was happening all around me, but I just didn't notice. I don't want to sleepwalk through my faith in a world that is crying out for the gospel, but I wasn't alive enough, awake enough to see it.
What if we took this Spirit of Revival into our Mondays? Because this #CodeOrangeRevival isn't about getting people into the church, it's about getting Christians out of the church and into the streets to where revival actually changes the world. Will you just go through the motions tomorrow, or will you pray for opportunities in your own community?
You know you're maximizing the moments when the stuff you used to run from, you run to.
What are we waiting for? There has never been a moment in human history where the love, grace, mercy and salvation of Jesus Christ is more necessary, where the light of Jesus Christ can shine brighter than it ever has before, never. It's not just another moment in human history, it is our moment. People are broken, people are hurting, people are frustrated. No matter how much money you have, what position you hold, if you are a bible believing, holy spirit filled, holy spirit lead follower of Jesus, you have all that you need to walk into this world and say I have the answer.
2 Ways to protect supernatural faith through
super-ordinary seasons:
1.Protect your view of the process.
Whether we like it or not, we are a work in progress! Even if we can't see it, God is doing more in our lives than we think He is, and He is going to do more than we could ever imagine. But you have to protect your view. When you become a Christian, you are sanctified. What does that mean? It means that God loves you so much He will take you as you are , but loves you way too much to leave you like that. Everyday He's going to change you. Little by little, lesson by lesson, moment by moment.
Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. - 1 Timothy 4:15 (NIV)Paul is telling Timothy, even though you don't have it all together, keep at it, keep working it out, oh and by the way, do it in public so that other people can see your progress. We as Christians don't like to talk about or show the progress. We like to show the finished product. We don't want the world to see the mess before the beauty. It is the culture of our world, but God's ways are not of this world. God glorifies the progress because that is where you can see His love, that is where you can see His grace, that is where you can see just how good He is.
Are we Christians waiting to get ourselves together someday? Because while we are waiting for someday to arrive, the world is falling apart. Who told you that you couldn't help a broken world while you were still in the middle of your own progress? When we look at Christians who have been in the faith a lot longer than us, we think I'll wait until I'm more like them, they've got it all together. But no matter where someone is in their walk with Jesus, they too are still a work in progress. Until we reach that finish line - the pearly gates of heaven - we are a work in progress, always learning, always changing. Which I think is amazing news, God's not done with me yet!
Some more good news: The most painful part of your process
will also produce the most power in your life.
8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 (NIV)
In those few scriptures, Paul goes from complaining to rejoicing. He accepts the fact that he's broken, but not only that, that God can still get glory through his brokenness. The more scars we have, the more stories we have to tell, the more stuff we've been through, the more reason we have to stand there and shut the devil down in his tracks. And when we are living our progress out in the open, and the people around us can see what God is doing in us, the greater the power behind telling someone, "Hey, the devil sent that same thing to try and destroy me, but by the grace of God I have lived through that and you can too, come with me, I can show you how."
"Sometimes what we see as a gifting in another,
is merely a lesson that they learned in their own brokenness."
~oOo~
"When it comes to reaching people, have the faith to take a moment,
because God just might turn it into a movement."
Do you know which people are best at sharing the gospel? It's moment making Christians saying I'm going to take a shot because I have no idea what God is doing on the other side of this opportunity. What if we really believed that God's grace has gone before us, that He has been working in the lives of people, that there are people who are so open, and so ready to hear the gospel? It is a revival spirit that gets our eyes of the Christian stuff and into the broken world. If we all do our part we can continue to see God shake our city. This week, would you take a moment, find somebody? It might just be an encouraging word, maybe you can mow somebody's lawn and they might not know it was you, maybe it will be inviting somebody to church, maybe it will be an encouraging text - you might be thinking it sounds small, where's the big stuff? There is no big stuff, the Cross was the big stuff.
2. Protect your view of the mission.
Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. - 1 Timothy 4:16 (NIV)Paul again is reminding Timothy, "Hey it's not all about you, it's not about what you want, not about your feelings, and by the way, work hard, allow God to move in your life so that not only will you impact your life but you just might be able to help somebody else out." This is the mission: To live like Jesus and lead people to Jesus. You might do it from a high school classroom, your pastor might do it from a pulpit in a church, I might do it through a blog on the internet, but our mission remains the same.
Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! - Hebrews 12:1-3 (MSG)It is amazing how when we remember the cross, what Jesus actually did for us, and we fix our focus on the mission, the salvation of all people, the offense can't touch you and bondage can't break you because your life is about the mission.
Pastor Carl ended with this, "My prayer is this, some of you do not need a position change, you need a perspective change. Because when a Christian stops seeing the message and the mission right, you become that Christian that starts to resent what you used to rejoice about. That's how I know a Christian has missed the mission, they become that Christian who is asking you to pray for them so that they can be delivered from their prayer request. You start wanting deliverance from the very thing that the mission is about, you say spirit lead me, but then you need prayer because you're unsure. Or You say pastor sign me up, use me God, and then 2 months later where are you at? Oh, I left the church because I felt used. Will you be somebody that is so in love with the mission that God can send you anywhere, ask you to go anywhere and you'll do it because it's the mission?"
Never forget for a moment, how God feels about you!
God loves you fiercely!!
All of your flaws, all of your stuff, He wants to use you!
There's just one sermon left before we close the doors on Code Orange. It'll be sad to see it end, but exciting to see where we go from here. See you soon for Night #10 with Pastor Steven Furtick. God bless you guys,
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