Our culture says, membership has it’s privileges; but for Jesus’ Church, membership comes with expectations.  We would do well to exchange our selfish understanding of “membership” with the more biblical concept of “partnership.  We can look at the very first church, found in Acts 2, and see what Jesus expects from His church.

Great Expectations from Jim Duggan on Vimeo.

1. To be SPIRITUALLY DISCIPLINED (vs 42)

•          Biblical Teaching
•          Participation in the Body
•          Celebratory Worship
•          Regular Praying

2. Anticipate the SUPERNATURAL (vs 43)

3. GATHER Together (vs 44)

4. SACRIFICE for others (vs 45)

5. Live Faith DAILY (vs 46)

6. Extend GRACE liberally (vs 47a)

7. Seek GROWTH of the Body (vs 47b)

Articles and Blogs

The New Tolerance Must Crumble – Desiring God interviews D.A. Carson

7 Ways to Fight Distraction During Prayer – Grant Ortland

The Enemy’s Primary Strategies Against the Church – Chuck Lawless

12 Reasons People Give Up on the Church – Chuck Lawless

Nine Things that Worked in the Church A Decade Ago that No Longer Work – Carey Nieuwhof

How to Spot a False Teacher – Nathan Finn

Worth Repeating

“The most glorious reason you exist is for the proclamation of the glory of God to the ends of the world.” – David Platt (Twitter – @Secret_Church)

“The nature of human beings is such that we tend not to drift into better behaviors.  We usually have to be asked by someone to consider taking it up a level.” – Bill Hybels in Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs

“No one is more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do.  Whether you realize it or not, you are in an unending conversation with yourself, and the things you say to you about you are formative of the way that you live.” –Paul David Tripp in Dangerous Calling

“All things are difficult before they are easy.” – Thomas Fuller  from @RonEdmondson

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” – Winston Churchill from @TomVann1

“Use your voice. You’re the only one who has it. ” @JonAcuff

Another Look

We are all familiar with Jesus’ story about the man who had two sons, one of whom took early possession of his inheritance and blew through it all in a short time. He had to return home, hat in hand, asking His dad for a job. The other son showed his wayward heart by his selfish and jealous reactions to his father’s gracious acceptance of his younger brother.

But Jesus told another story about another man with two sons. I like to call it The Parable of the Other Two Sons. You can read this parable in Matthew 21:28-32.

The man asked one son to go work in the field, but the son initially refused. Feeling remorse soon after that son then went into the field and did what his father asked him to do. In the meantime, the father asked the second son to go work in the field and the son readily agreed to do. The second son, even though he said he would, never actually made it out into the field.

Jesus then asked his hearers a simple question: which one of the sons did what the father wanted him to do? The answer obviously was the first son. The first son’s initial reaction was disrespectful and disobedience, but in the end his actions were obedient. The second son may have initially responded positively but for whatever reason never back up his words with his actions. He talked a good talk but he didn’t DO anything, and Jesus question was which one DID what his father wanted.

What about us? How often do we set out with good intentions, or make grand promises to God only to never follow up on them? Sometimes, procrastination may get the best of us or at other times we may have promised something knowing all the while we had no intention of carry it out. Make no mistake: obedience delayed is still disobedience.

Is there something you have promised God you would do that you have not yet done?

Is there something God has asked you to STOP doing that you are still doing?

It is never too late to start doing what is right. It is never too late to STOP doing what God has asked you to surrender.

When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. – Ecclesiastes 5:4-5

The mission of Bellevue Baptist Church is to MAKE DISCIPLES.

We accomplish this mission when we

REACH those who do not yet believe with the good news of Jesus,
TEACH followers of Jesus to love, know, and experience God,
SERVE the church and the community through our Spiritual Gifts, and
SEND our members throughout the community and the world in Jesus’ name.

Here are some things I read and saw this week that were meaningful to me and I think they will bless you as well:

Articles and Blogs

10 Simple Steps to Deal with Temptation by Chuck Lawless

The Scandal of Biblical Illiteracy by Al Mohler

Six Steps to a Worshiping Church by David Murray at ChurchPastor.com

Become an Iceberg Pastor by Andrew Haslam at TheGospelCoalition.com

Quotes

“No one is more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do.” – Paul David Tripp in Dangerous Calling

“Any hope built on anything but Jesus, is no hope at all.” Kristal Weatherholt @Kristalzzv

“You can’t launch into new horizons—or even see them—until you get your eyes off of the old and start looking ahead.” @relevant

Humor (but seriously, really)

In his book, Church Awakening, Charles Swindoll recounts his boyhood summertime visits to his grandfather’s South Texas cottage, which sat about 100 yards back on a hill overlooking Carancahua Bay, a small bay which led out to the Gulf of Mexico.

One year, Charles and his grandfather measured a spot from the edge of the cliff to a few yards back and drove a stake in the ground. Each year, Charles and his grandfather would measure and note the eroding distance between the stake and edge of the cliff. Through that experience, Charles learned the principle of erosion.¹

Geological erosion is not the most serious erosion we could experience; more dangerous is spiritual erosion in our lives personally. The old word we once used was “back-sliding.” I prefer to refer to it as drifting.

What seems a harmless neglect of a spiritual discipline, an unnoticeable absence from church attendance, or even a slight compromise of what we know to be true and right eventually snowballs and we find ourselves far from where we used to be, want to be, and know we should be. It all happens so subtly, so slowly that we do not realize we have drifted.

The book of Hebrews warns us:

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. – Hebrews 2:1

So I challenge you today to take stock of your life. I opened Tuesday’s blog with Socrates’ quote: the unexamined life is not worth living. Are you brave enough to take an honest look at where you are spiritually? One simple question will help you determine if you’ve drifted: has there ever been a time in your life when you were closer to God than you are today? If the answer is “yes,” then you have drifted.

The remedy is to return to what the Hebrews writer calls “what we have heard.” We find that content in God’s Word – back to the Bible. Recovery from spiritual drift is only possible when we return to the Bible as our source of teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Allow me to suggest some steps to recover from the drift.

1. Establish a time and place where you will regularly read God’s Word. Find the time when you are most alert and the place where you will be uninterrupted.

2. Employ a specific plan for reading. You might try reading the same book of the Bible everyday for one month. After reading that Bible book 30 times, you will know the content. You may choose a reading plan that will help you read a certain portion of the Bible over a specified period of time. I supplied links to two or three ideas for those in Tuesday’s blog.

3. Ask questions of what you read and seek answers. Think about what the text is saying and how it applies to your life. Ask a pastor or Bible teacher about the meaning of a passage that you may not immediately understand. Foster a thirst to KNOW and DO God’s Word.

4. Memorize scripture. Choose a verse a week to learn. Bible memory exercise our mind on the treadmill of Biblical truth and provides godly mental backup for idle minds.

Feel free to share in the comment section below other ways you will/can restore the drift by getting back to the Bible.

¹Swindoll, Charles R. (2010-09-08). The Church Awakening: An Urgent Call for Renewal (pgs. 2-3). FaithWords. Kindle Edition.

I’ve heard it said that life is a rat race, so even if you win, you are still a rat.  Watch this short video challenge and take some time today to assess your priorities and values.

Be blessed… AND STAY WARM.

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise… – Ephesians 5:15

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates

I’m no carpenter, but I’ve watched enough of these skilled artisans to know the importance of checking measurements and making sure lines are square and plumb. When building a wall, being off by 1/32 of an inch may not be noticeable at the start, but when the wall is complete and the carpenter tries to join it to other walls, the difference becomes quite noticeable.

So goes life. We tend to want to take short cuts or get away with what we would call small “indiscretions.” We fudge on this, procrastinate that, exaggerate here, and rationalize there; then, at some point in the future we can no longer mask the fact that we our life has gone seriously awry. Failing to examine our lives honestly and to make necessary corrections leaves us vulnerable to spiritual disaster.

God’s Word stands as the standard of measurement, a spiritual carpenter’s square, against which we should assess our lives and examine our obedience to Him. Yet, so many of us have grown unashamedly accustomed to doing without the regular reading of the Bible and meditation on its truth. David reminds us that by obeying God’s word a man keeps his life clean (Psalm 119:9).

What plan do you have for regularly reading and meditating on God’s Word? Do you have a specific time, place, and plan to allow the Holy Spirit, through God’s Word, to examine your life? What hinders you? Laziness? Poor time management? Lack of desire?

An old saying reminds us “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Why not discipline yourself to measure and square your life by the Bible now and avoid the inevitable spiritual disaster?

Below are a few links to daily Bible reading plans. Choose one, then set a time each day that you will read (I suggest first thing in the day), and designate a specific place where you can be uninterrupted and give God your undivided attention.

Various online reading plans to which you can subscribe in a variety of formats

A plan to read through the Bible a little more slowly over TWO years

The ever-popular Robert Murray McCheyne read the Bible through in a year plan

Don’t let your life get out of square. Examine your life regularly against God’s Word.

What are some ways you regularly read and study God’s Word? Share them with us in the comment section.