For Hope and Healing
For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).
Overcoming the Pride of Life
That I could say there were no pride in my life! It is a continuous battle to rebuke the poisonous arrogance that rises within me each and every time the Lord works through me, or gives me revelation; as if I were God and could accomplish these things in my own strength. Pride manifests itself in so many insidious ways and is impossible to overcome without humbling ourselves before God and surrendering to the teaching hand of the Holy Spirit. When I lead someone to the Lord, when I receive wisdom for a strategy to overcome a particular obstacle, when I pray for another persons healing, when I give generously I immediately feel pride rising from within my flesh, and I hear its words declaring my own glory. Each and every time I must rebuke it and command its departure in the mighty name of Jesus. If I allow it to linger, even for a moment, I have given in to its suggestion that I glorify myself over the the only One who deserves glory. Pride seeks the glory of men, but a life surrendered to Christ seeks His glory alone. “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise” (Proverbs 27:21, ESV).[1] When testimonies are given, there is always a temptation to declare what we have done. Rather, a testimony is a declaration of what the Lord has done for us. My early journals are brimming with “I statements.” I need to pray more, I need to be patient, I need to learn this or that. One day the Lord opened my eyes to it. I can do nothing myself, but the Lord will do all thing in me. “[H]e who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). I went back and marked all of those “I statements” in red and then corrected them in a paragraph below. Most all of them were a prayer, thanking God for His revelation of each issue He is working out in my life and then asking Him to repair each area, then thanking Him for the answered prayer. His revelation showed me that when we become aware of a certain sin in our life, it is not so that we can do something about it. It is actually God touching it with His finger and saying, “This is what I am going to free you from next.” Pride says “I can,” and humility knows that “I can’t,” but God will.
Jesus Christ said that we can do nothing apart from Him in John 15:5. μένων and ἐμοῦ (ἐγώ) are in emphatic positions in this verse. It makes it clear that it is not possible to live a righteous life by our own strength. “The utter incapacity for Christian efficiency without the maintenance of the living connection with Christ is here decidedly and emphatically expressed.”[2] Ben Forrest explained that we must be aware of our position before God. Our position should be one of humility, bended knee and bowed head; this is the proper position and approach to spiritual formation.
Humility is simply the disposition which prepares the soul for living on trust. And every, even the most secret breathing of pride, in self-seeking, self-will, self-confidence, or self-exaltation, is just the strengthening of that self which cannot enter the kingdom, or possess the things of the kingdom, because it refuses to allow God to be what He is and must be there—the All in All.[3]
Pride is overcome on our knees before Christ. As we pursue God’s glory through the service of others, pride erodes. In my own personal life, the apparent struggle with PTSD, the Lord has shown me that healing comes through service of others. This is because “[t]wo of the deadliest of our sins—sloth and pride—loathe serving.”[4] So, we must serve others to destroy the service of self. How can we serve when our flesh despises it? We must seek authentic spiritual formation by surrendering ourselves to Christ and relying on His Holy Spirit to shape us. The Beatitudes found in Matthew 5:1-12 describe a way of living that is opposite to the Pride of Life. Victory and greatness are found in denial of self and service of others through Christ Jesus. Christ sent “[t]he Spirit of love, to come and banish selfishness and envy and pride, and bring the love of God into the hearts of men.”[5] Surrender to Christ every hour and see pride destroyed.
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture comes from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).
[2] Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Gospel of John, ed. Frederick Crombie, vol. 2, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1875), 242.
[3] Andrew Murray, Humility: The Beauty of Holiness (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1800), 68–69.
[4] Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1991), 117.
[5] Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1897), 23.
Response to the Holy God: Absolute Surrender
The Lord our God is faithful and has revealed all truth through His Word and His Holy Spirit, and He calls for us to submit every aspect of our being to Him. The only response to the Holy God is absolute surrender, which is only possible through the power of His Holy Spirit.
There was a time when this author would have said our response should be different; we should love the Lord, we should respond with obedience, we should love others, but these actions are impossible for us and can only be accomplished through His power. All men need Christ wrought in them if they are to be able to obey the commands of Christ. Humans are incapable of overcoming sin and of loving perfectly; these tasks can only be accomplished when hearts are humbled before the Lord and men seek the face of Christ. Speaking of Luke 18:27, Andrew Murray says, “The text contains two thoughts—that in religion, in the question of salvation and of following Christ by a holy life, it is impossible for man to do it. And then alongside that is the thought—What is impossible with man is possible with God.”[1] Man can do all things through Christ who strengthens him (Philippians 4:13), but it is not man at all, but Christ in him. All men whom submit to Christ are but branches, and He is the vine. It is the vine Whom is attached to the roots and Whom feeds the branches so that they may bear fruit. The only thing the branch must do is abide in the vine. “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, ESV).[2]
The apostles, never seeking their own glory, but in all things proclaiming the glory of God, delighted in surrender to Christ. In Acts 4, Peter and John upon approaching the temple see a lame beggar. Peter heals the man and then preaches in Solomon’s Portico. The temple guards arrest them and take them before the High Priest and his family. When questioned by what power and authority they have healed this man, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, declares, “that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well” (Acts 4:10).
The apostles themselves had been nothing but instruments in the hands of the exalted Redeemer, whose existence and power were certified by the miracle they had wrought and none could deny. The utter absence of self glorification on the part of Peter and John is remarkable, only surpassed by their splendid confidence in and absolute surrender to Jesus.[3]
Christ saves all by delivering them from the power of the flesh. This body of sin has been crucified with Him, and is resurrected in Him. It is a spiritual rebirth, and the believer must walk now in faith in the Spirit and not in the flesh. “This faith—that is trust in Christ to the point of absolute surrender to and mystical union with him—becomes the ground of our justification with God.”[4]
All other things flow from absolute surrender to Christ; humility, love, patience, and obedience. It is this authors opinion that Matthew 6:33 is applicable to all areas of life and not just provision in the physical realm, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Christian, do you want to overcome sin? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Christian, do you lack patience, consistent and abiding love, compassion, mercy, generosity, or humility? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. This means that the only response to a Holy God, and the only way to overcome the flesh and live in righteousness is absolute surrender to Jesus Christ. Amen.
[1] Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1897), 58.
[2] Unless otherwise noted, all scripture comes from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).
[3] Thomas Whitelaw, Acts, The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1892), 100.
[4] John W. Bradshaw, “The Gospel of Jesus Christ in the First Century,” Bibliotheca Sacra 59, no. 236 (1902): 753.
Take a walk on the wild side… Come receive healing.
As I have traveled Africa, it has become clear to me that the “wild side” of the planet provides a unique healing experience for those suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression. Having battled both of these mental and emotional problems, I found that time in wild nature played an integral part in my healing process. The effect tracking a lion or approaching an elephant on foot has is worth future study by researchers. I have no data, but I do have the evidence of my own experience to relay. I found an easing of symptoms and level of peace wandering around in the wild parts of Southern Africa. From my experience sprung the idea to bring others here and provide them the same opportunity I had to heal.
I intend to purchase a property in the Moditlo area of the 17,000-hectare Blue Canyon Conservancy in order to build a small house from which I can take my brothers on Safaris. I am partnering with Judea Harvest, friends whom own game farms, and donors to give all expense paid trips to my military brothers who need time to find healing in a place that doesn’t continuously attempt to analyze them, question them, and push them.
Each guest or team will have the opportunity to participate in a community building project, and will then be taken on a safari.
In order for this to happen, I need to procure a property from which I can host each traveler. The $50,000 is enough money to purchase a 10000 sq. m property in a Big Five conservancy. Once this property is acquired and construction project can be funded to build a house with multiple separate rooms for guests to stay in.
Transportation, community projects and safaris will be coordinated by Judea Harvest.
If you would like to partner with us in order to make this happen, please click the link below:
The Zambia Harvest
We will be working in Zambia with the Leya, Subiya, Shanjo, Mashi, Simaa, Ndundulu, Imilangu, and Lozi tribes. This is accomplished through the discipleship and training of identified “son’s of peace” (Luke 10) within an 800 sq km area in southwestern Zambia, near the borders with Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Angola. We will uitlize the John Journey method of discipleship developed by Judea Harvest as well as the Gospel of John translated into the local language, audio Bibles, reference Crosses that represent our relationship with God, our separationg from sin, our relationship to the Body and our relationship to those who do not share an intimacy with Jesus Christ. We will stay in the area, helping to develop leaders and church planters. The effect will be saturation church planting (home churhes) throughout the 800 sq km area, that will lead to the establishment of a strategic local church from which similar evangelism and church planting can take place.
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Philosophy of Small Groups
Introduction
The church was founded and organized in small groups which formed the visible Body of Christ here on earth as a witness and light to the world. Believers met for worship in each others homes, and they lived in community, sharing each others burdens, and encouraging each other, building up the community through the spiritual gifts and loving one another, and “by this all people will know that you are my disciples.” (John 13:35, ESV) [1] Discipleship occurred in community. Each member submitting to each other in service and learning from one another. “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” (1 Corinthians 14:26). The church is small, outward looking, mission focused groups that live in loving community as examples of Christ on earth, and their purpose is to build up the Body through the use of spiritual gifts and to expand the Kingdom of God through making disciples of all nations.
Overview and Purpose Statement
This paper is about small groups, their purpose, and how discipleship occurs within that setting. The purpose of this text is to explain the philosophy of small groups within a ministry organization, to discuss the importance of this relational group in authentic disciple making, to explain how missional groups can help the Body of Christ move into the community and replicate. Finally, it explains this writer’s status in regards to living in community with other believers and being missional with that community.
Small Missional Groups
Small groups are “are the primary means of making disciples who make disciples.”[2] By adding missional to the name it sets a precedence and the stage for the focus of the group. Taking a missional approach keeps the group focused on Christ’s commission as well as His commandments. The Moravians were the most successful mission in the modern era. In twenty years they started more missions than protestants in 200 years. How do they accomplish this? “[T]he Moravians saw evangelization as essential and made it a common concern of their community.”[3] They sent small missional groups to settle in foreign areas, including very remote locations, whom would then live as witnesses for Christ.
The members are on mission and “where one member is, there is also the whole body, and where the body is, there is also the member.”[4] The small missional group is the church and is where ministry happens. The small missional group is the connecting point with the lost, it is where believers live with nonbelievers, and where the world sees the light of truth. Multiplication occurs when new small missional group leaders are developed by and through the gifts of the members of the missional group. New leaders are discipled in community and by the community. This is “a simple church model that naturally reaches people with the gospel, empowers them to grow, equips them to serve, and releases them to the mission of Christ.”[5]
Disciple Making
Discipleship is accomplished in community. Each member of the Body of Christ is given a spiritual gift that is to be used for the purpose of up-building the body. Each teaches and develops the other, and lives as an example through service to the rest.
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. (1 Corinthians 12:7-11)
When Paul wrote this letter, His intent was not to create a list from greatest to least of the spiritual gifts. His purpose was to explain that each gift is to be used for the encouragement and building up of the body as a whole. The only reason a gift may be seen as more important than another is related to how much that gift builds up the body. “The Spirit produces visible effects for the profit of all, not for self-glorification.”[6] When the small missional group comes together for worship, they fellowship, one-with-another, through the breaking of bread, through teaching the Word and sharing revelation, as well as prophesying, and encouraging. Through these encounters each member is disciple by the others.
Outward Looking
Mission is mindset. For one to be on mission successfully, they must understand the mission and its purpose. This purpose is the intent of the one who sends on mission. Why does Christ want His followers on mission? What is the mission and purpose given? The Great Commission lays out the mission for all believers, that in going, they make disciples of all nations, baptize them and teach them the commands of Christ. For what purpose, though? The answer is found in the purpose of Christ, which is “He intended to save out of the world a people for himself and to build a church of the Spirit which would never perish.”[7] To understand what Christ intends is to understand calling, mission, and direction. If every member of the small missional group understands Christ’s commission and purpose then “you should never have to worry about how to spend your time or how to use your spiritual gifts or where to invest your money and resources.”[8]
Replication
The goal of discipleship is replication. Paul’s missionary methods were based in replication. He did not bring the Gospel to entire regions on his own, “Paul’s theory of evangelizing a province was not to preach in every place in it himself, but to establish centres [sic] of Christian life in two or three important places from which the knowledge might spread into the country around.”[9] Paul would replicate himself in those communities, not in every believer, but in those that were committed and filled with the Spirit. He preached to the community, and disciple a few in it, in order to raise up leaders capable of taking the message into other areas, and his model was very successful.
Community
This writer finds Jesus’s missionary methods to be the most sound in all of history. Jesus spoke to the masses, but focused on a few, drawing them near to Him. They shared life together and learned through personal teaching and from watching His example. Those few He poured His life into spread His message through the power of the promised Holy Spirit. The model of the early church is the model that this writer is called to live in and replicate. Through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, the missional team here is called to create a network of interconnected missional churches. The call is to pour into sons of Peace (Luke 10) and the community, and to raise up leaders that will carry the Gospel message into the rest of the province. The Holy Spirit wants to ignite a fire in every province of every country in Africa. This can only be accomplished by the obedience to the Holy Spirit and through relationship. The team will stay in villages as long as is needed.
Figure One: Small Missional Group planting process through the use of a son of Peace. Chris Brennan
Conclusion
The church is small, outward looking, mission focused groups that live in loving community as examples of Christ on earth, and their purpose is to build up the Body through the use of spiritual gifts and to expand the Kingdom of God through making disciples of all nations. This is best accomplished through small missional groups that live in community and in contact with the lost. These missional groups seek to disciple others and organize them into similar groups that will again replicate throughout an entire province creating a network of missional small groups. Each group grows in community a through the gifts of the Spirit and maintains an outward look and goal of continuously accomplishing the commission of Christ to make disciples of all nations.
Bibliography
Allen, Roland. Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991.
Blackaby, Tom. The Commands of Christ: What It Really Means to Follow Jesus. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2012.
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Discipleship. Edited by Martin Kuske, Ilse Tˆdt, Geffrey B. Kelly, and John D. Godsey. Translated by Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss. Vol. 4. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.
Coleman, Robert E. The Master Plan of Evangelism. Grand Rapids: Revell, 2006.
Earley, David and Rod Dempsey. Disciple Making Is . . . How to Live the Great Commission with Passion and Confidence. Kindle version. Nashville: B & H Publishing Group, 2013.
Hesselgrave, David J. Planting Churches Cross-Culturally: North America and beyond. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000.
Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift – Five Steps That Help Your Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples (Exponential Series). Zondervan, 2013.
Thiselton, Anthony C. The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000.
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture comes from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).
[2] Jim Putman, DiscipleShift – Five Steps That Help Your Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples (Exponential Series) (Zondervan, 2013), 184.
[3] David J. Hesselgrave, Planting Churches Cross-Culturally: North America and Beyond (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), NPN, Chapter 6.
[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 234.
[5] David Earley and Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making Is . . . How to Live the Great Commission with Passion and Confidence (Kindle version, Nashville: B & H Publishing Group, 2013), location 4503.
[6] Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000), 936.
[7] Robert E. Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism (Grand Rapids: Revell, 2006), 17.
[8] Tom Blackaby, The Commands of Christ: What It Really Means to Follow Jesus (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2012), 118.
[9] Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991), 12.
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