Every Army Needs Discipline

Every Army Needs Discipline

Ephesians 6:11

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

   Nobody can be a soldier, in any army, without training.  Any army without discipline does not have a chance of victory, because training and discipline are essential to the survival of a soldier.  The names we remember from history were the ones who learned personal discipline and taught discipline to their soldiers. 

   In God’s army, not many church members are interested in training and discipline.  When we talk of classes and training we generally mean children and teens.  And I’m not arguing that we should start training when they are young, but much of what’s wrong in the church today is that many not only start to learn when they’re young, but they end learning when they’re young.  With so many in our churches who have never learned to grow beyond spiritual childhood is it any wonder our churches act so childish?  Many of the important positions in church are manned by spiritual children!  Fighting the enemy on a day–to–day basis takes grownups.  Training has to begin when we are young but also has to continue until we breathe our last.

   When we think of discipline, remember that every soldier needs to obey orders without any ifs or buts.  An order is an order and must be obeyed or lose the battle.  Do you know what your orders are?  Do you read them often and memorize His battle plans?  Instead of learning what He’s written to us, we spend a lot of time talking about what our problems and shortcomings are.  Do you want to know one of the church’s little secrets?  We ALL have problems and we ALL have shortcomings.  I’m OK with you telling me you’re having a difficult time; I can pray for your problems and believe with you for an answer.  I’m also OK with you confessing failures so I can encourage you and pray for your strength and growth in Christ.  But if you dwell on these things, you’re laying the groundwork for failure.  Imagine a soldier preparing for battle who assumes he’s going to get shot and die.  He will either become too frightened to move or too careless and make deadly mistakes. 

   Christ’s authority is beyond dispute.  But too many of Christ's followers don't even know what His orders to us are and when someone tries to spell them out for them they choose not to follow them anyway.  This is a very dangerous position to take.  We are in a war and there is an active effort to hinder your growth, that’s right - you personally, and pretending there isn’t won’t save you.  There really are evil forces in the world and they don’t care if you’re a good soldier or a slouch.  You will come under attack and you will be hurt.  But remember if you put on the whole armor of God you’ll be hurt less and able to stand up to this attack and defend yourself.  If we do not put on the "full armor of God," that is, the spiritual weap­ons and protection God supplies, we cannot possibly stand in the "day of evil," and that day is right now.

   What kind of spiritual training are you receiving?  If you’re not in a church that preaches and teaches the whole Word of God, you need to go somewhere where they do.  You need to open your Bible regularly and research what’s written there for your benefit.  When’s the last time you read Romans from start to end?  When’s the last time you read Hebrews front to back?  James or Jude or Peter or John?  Do you even know that Zephaniah and Obadiah are in the Bible?  Have you read them?  (Imagine you’re in heaven and just been introduced to Haggai.  Can you tell him you read his book?)    

   You’re not going to learn the Bible by osmosis: just holding it in your hand will not allow its wisdom to seep into your life.  Keeping one on your nightstand won’t help you learn God’s Word in your sleep.  Wake up, soldier, and arm yourself.  Get ready for battle before the enemy overwhelms you.

Stephen Cram                             May 29, 2011                        Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8 

A Little Threat Can Brighten Your Day

A Little Threat Can Brighten Your Day

2 Thessalonians 2:16& 17

16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, 

17 comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.

   I am old enough to remember the cold war.  I remember in elementary school being taught to climb under our desks if we see a very bright light in the sky.  We were to put our knees together and place our faces tight against them until the all clear was sounded, or, what we were never told, the explosion came and incinerated us.  This was no joke!  People really had an honest fear about “the end of the world.”  As time went on, we were taught that the threat was less because we were engaged in a condition where we were in a state of “mutually assured destruction” with our opponents.  The policy was called the MAD policy, one government acronym that I thought was especially appropriate.  I also remember many news people and many pastors alike preaching a “doom and gloom” future for us.  We grew up with a severe lack of hope in our lives.   

   I have watched the news over the last couple of weeks and noticed that the threat of the end of the world is being greeted with a lot of scorn and a lot of fear, depending on who you listen to.  I’ve read the Bible and formed my own opinion about Christ’s return and the timing of this great event.  I can state a few facts about this I truly believe and have some aspects of this I really don’t have a firm belief, or at least a firm opinion, of.

   I believe with my whole heart that Christ will return for His church, of which I am a part.  I believe He will call us away to be with Him and we will be changed bodily and spiritually to allow us to interact with Him in His Deified state.  Those are the two items about His return that concern me.  The Bible assures me of those two points and addresses my concerns.  Everything else about Christ’s return and when the “end of the world” will happen do not.  When He will return is not a concern of mine and I don’t try to set dates.  I’m really not critical of anyone trying, but I think it’s an effort in futility to try.  So I guess the best way to put this in simple terms is to say that in a “glass-half-empty” world, my glass is half full. Whether He returns while I am alive or after I am dead will not change my destiny.  I trust Christ will return and He will bring me to live with Him in glory.  This glorious hope is the hope I believe in. 

   I love the message in Psalms 119:49.  "Remember your word unto your servant, In which you have caused me to hope."  The word of hope that we are to trust has to come from God Himself.  God would not invite us to hope in His Word in order to disappoint us.  Surely God has caused us to hope so that we might be encouraged and established.  When we have God's Word and a well-grounded hope, we will not end up disillusioned or disappointed.

   I have heard it said that we should work like He’s coming back today and live like He’s not coming in our lifetime.  (Or something like that, I may have the words a little off.)  But the point is to witness to the unsaved like there’s no tomorrow.  If Christ returns today, which of your loved ones will He leave behind?  Looking at salvation through the lens of Christ’s return should help you develop a little urgency to your witnessing.  Your unsaved loved one does not have “all the time in the world” to decide.  They might only have today. 

Stephen Cram                       May 22, 2011                            Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8  

The Table of Grace

The Table of Grace

Romans 9:15 NKJV

For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”

   I've learned to have a great appreciation for grace, probably because I’ve needed grace from God so many times in my life.  When I was first saved I heard a lot about grace from the pastor and teachers in our church, but I really didn’t understand much about it.  It was something like a girl in my high school who received a car from her parents on her 16^th birthday.  She didn’t have a driver’s license and didn’t get one until she was 18.  Here she had a beautiful car, and it had a working engine that would propel her car anywhere she wanted to go.  It had properly inflated tires, a tank full of gas, and all the other things a car needed to run.  But she had to leave the car in the garage; unable to use the free gift she had been given.  It's sad that so many believers live just like that girl had to live.  They have this great gift available from God, but can’t make use of it.

   I was asked once to picture in my mind’s eye what the Throne of Grace looks like.  Other students described a throne like royalty sits on and they had it looking fancy!  Jewels and gold and fine fabrics adorned it!  Some, sadly, said they had no picture and no description.  I thought it looked like a table.

   Picture a chair at a large table, with a simple place setting in front of you.  When I was young, this was where we came to talk to Mom.  We would sit and enjoy a donut and some milk or coffee, and Mom would listen to our troubles.  Friends would come in and she would invite then to sit down and pretty soon they were at ease and talking to her like they had known her forever.  I would do homework there or work on a craft project.  The table was the center of our home and where Mom’s grace helped us all. 

   I guess that’s why I picture God’s Throne of Grace as a table.  It's where you sit down and can share your deepest, darkest struggles and heartaches, and always find a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on.  It's a place where you're only a stranger once, and even then, it's not for long.  It's an inviting place where everyone’s welcome. 

   I’ve heard of many who are afraid to come into God’s presence.  They're afraid that they won't be "good enough," or that God won't want them.  But that’s just not true.  God is calling to us to come in and pull a chair up to the table and sit down.  He doesn't care where you're coming from, there's always room for one more at the table.

  

Stephen Cram                         May 15, 2011                      Colossians 2:8

The Gift of Helps

Gift of Helps

Acts 9: 36-39

36 At Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did. 

37 But it happened in those days that she became sick and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. 

38 And since Lydda was near Joppa, and the disciples had heard that Peter was there, they sent two men to him, imploring him not to delay in coming to them. 

39 Then Peter arose and went with them. When he had come, they brought him to the upper room. And all the widows stood by him weeping, showing the tunics and garments which Dorcas had made while she was with them. 

   In the church my mom and grandmother went to, there was a group of women who met after Sunday night service for coffee and to chat for awhile.  Most of them had what was called a gift in the church – the gift of helps.  I don’t hear people talk of this gift much anymore, but then it was talked about and appreciated by many members of the church.  They would do little things for others to help out; cook a meal, gather at someone’s house to Spring clean, babysit, whatever needed to be done.  I smile at the memory of sitting in church one morning with a loose button on my jacket, and my sister sitting next to me pulling out a needle and thread and sewing the button on during the sermon (while I was still wearing the jacket.) 

   A new mother, in church one Sunday morning, was struggling with putting a diaper on a squirming, screaming baby.  She had tears running down her face and looked like she was on the edge of a major meltdown.  My mom stepped up next to her and gently took the diaper and showed her how to put it on snugly and quickly while soothing the baby with soft words.  She spent the morning sitting with the new mother. 

   She often invited people into our kitchen for coffee and donuts and a little free advice.  I saw her show young women how to cook, how to care for babies, how to clean their homes, and all the time caring for her own family.  The gift of helps involved being willing to lend a hand to someone in need, and these ladies never turned away anyone in need. 

   This gift is not just for the ladies, either.  Dad had a gift with wood that was something to see, and once a young man in church said he’d just bought a house and discovered that most of the windows were hard to open.  Dad showed up one morning with me in tow and began taking windows apart one by one and fixing them.  The only pay he got was dinner, and he never complained and never asked for anything for his work. 

   Anyone can display this gift of helps, and you don’t, and shouldn’t, have to wait until someone tells you there are people in need.  If you know anyone sick, or just had an operation, or is out of work, or is a new parent, or whatever the need is, you probably can lend a hand and lighten the burden on that person’s shoulders.  Become a doer of the Word, and not just a “hearer” of the Word. 

Stephen Cram                                           May 8, 2011                   Colossians 2:8

Press On!

Press On!

Philippians 3:12-14 NKJV
12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,
14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

   According to 1 John 1:8-10, we know that no one is sinless, no one is perfect in this life, and no one has been except Jesus.  And no one will be in the future; there is no way to be sinless while we are in these bodies.  That being said, why is Paul calling for us to press on towards perfection?  Is Paul urging us towards a goal we will never reach until we die and are translated into the Kingdom?
   Many translations use the word, “perfect” in this passage, but the Greek word is more accurately translated “mature.”  Paul is instructing us to press on towards maturity in our Christian life.  I see his point here as urging us to be mature for our spiritual age.  When I was born, I was 9 lbs and 14 oz and in the words of Dr. Leonard Slovack, “he looks perfect.”  I was nearly bald, cried a lot, could not grip anything, had no bladder control and drooled all the time, hardly what I would call perfect.  But for a newborn baby, I was as good as a newborn baby can be expected to be.  Now, as an adult, if I was still bald, crying a lot, couldn't grip anything, had no bladder control and drooled all over myself, you'd assume something was wrong with me. What's perfect for a newborn baby is not whats perfect for a grown adult.
   This same principle applies to Christians in their spiritual growth.  A new Christian can not be expected to know as much as a mature Christian nor to react to things like a mature Christian would.
   The danger comes from losing that desire to grow in Christ.  Paul urges us to adopt the attitude that, "I'm not there yet - I'm far from being perfectly completed, but I can grow and learn more."  He was able to look at some around him and say, “Some of you are in a perfect place in your walk, in your growth. You're just where you should be today."  God has proved to me many times that I'm not too old to learn new things.  I've listened to sermons or read Bible passages or someone's study and seen some point I had not learned before.  It still thrills me when this happens.
   My prayer is that if I'm not pressing on like I should that God lets me know and not let me stagnate where I am.  We see where He has called to people who have faltered in their walk, or sometimes fallen completely.  He walked through he Garden and called to Adam, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9)  He found Elijah in a cave when he had run away in fear and asked him, “What are you doing here?” (1 Kings 19:9)  Jesus asked His disciples, “...why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?" (Luke 6:46)
   Where are you today?  Is the Lord calling to you asking you where you are or what you're doing hiding from life?  Is He asking, “why do you cal Me Lord but don't do what I say?”
   Press on!  You aren't perfect yet; you have so much more growing to do.

Stephen Cram                               May 1, 2011                       Colossians 2:8