A Unified Church

 A Unified Church
Getting Back to the Basics

Video of Blog

This blog is basically going to mimic what I posted in my YouTube video on this subject.  Today I want to talk about "A Unified Church - Getting Back to the Basics."

Questions to ponder:

1.  Who is the Church?

2.  What makes the people the Church of Jesus Christ?

Answers:  

1.  The people are the church.  

2.  If you profess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are part of the body of Christ and by this you and others who have done the same make up the Church. 

Ephesians 2: 8-9

    For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God.

Roman 10:9

    That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

What makes a person a Christian and part of the body of Christ which makes up the Church is what he/she believes about Jesus Christ.

So when I say, A Unified Church - Getting Back to the Basics, what do I mean?

      

    Well before I answer the what, I need to answer the why.

        Why must we get back to the basics?

   1.  We are in dire times

• Things are happening in our lives that we have never seen or experienced before.  i.e. the pandemic, monkey pox
• Wars and rumor of wars, like the war in Ukraine

    2.  We live in a day and time of cancel culture

• We have to fear doing or saying something wrong or if not wrong, but just something that is disagreeable to someone else and videos began to appear on YouTube of others trying to cancel us.
• We are imperfect beings and will make mistakes from time to time.  We should not have to fear the mistakes we might make while walking in our calling.
• God used imperfect people like murderers, adulterers, tax collectors

    3.  The message of the gospel (Good News) has gotten lost                     in this cancel culture

• We care more about denominational and doctrinal differences than about spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.
• We fight amongst each other about who is more right than the other because of what group we belong to.
• We have lost sight of John 3:16
• For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that who ever believes in Him, shall not perish but have eternal life.

So when I say that we need to get back to the basics, John 3:16 just hits home for me.

I heard someone say recently that it is not about you being gay, an adulterer or fornicator or any of the other multitude of sins that the Bible speaks about.  What the Bible calls sin is always going to be a sin, regardless of the times we live in.

So if you are an unbeliever reading this blog or listening to the video version today, I am not here to tell you the many things that you should stop doing or not do, but I am here to tell you the one thing that you not only should do, but the one thing that you need to do.

It is not until you do this one thing that Jesus Christ can then help you to stop doing the many things that are far less impactful to your eternal life than this one thing.

I wish I could remember the pastor who put this thought in my mind of little "s" sin and big "S" sin.  It is all about the idea that God hates all sin, but the one sin that will forever separate you or I from God is the rejection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

--Now to the What --

For us to be unified as a church and to get back to the basics, we as the church need to lead the world in getting rid of this cancel culture.

• I am so grateful that God is not a cancel culture God.  He did go there for a minute in the days of Noah, but He stopped short of complete destruction of man by saving Noah and his family.

We have so many denominational and doctrinal differences that we find it almost impossible to stand united with other Christians of differing denominational and doctrinal backgrounds, even when we know that they are speaking a biblical truth.

What should draw us together is that we place our faith alone in Christ alone, regardless of our denominational or doctrinal differences.

The fear, not just in the culture, but in the Christian community, is that if I stand with you on a biblical truth and there is some sort of blemish or misunderstanding about your ministry or personal walk with Christ, I too am now connected to your blemish and not the Kingdom of God; all because I stood with you on a biblical truth.

• It is almost to the point where if I am imperfect (which we all are - Romans 3:23), God can no longer use me to be His messenger.
• Thank God that is not the case.  If it were, Paul, Peter, Mary Magdalene, Moses, just to name a few, would not have been able to be used by God. 
• When I read the Bible, one thing that has always attracted me to the word is that God used imperfect people to spread His message.

If I know that God uses imperfect people, and I am studying the word to show myself approved, I should be confident in the word about biblical truths as opposed to worrying about someone creating a YouTube post trying to cancel me or my ministry.

-Bottom line - 

The world needs to see a unified church more than ever, right now

As part of the body of Christ, please pray daily for a unified church.

Be Blessed

What’s In A Name - The Heart of True Repentance

2 Chronicles 7:14

And My people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Acts 3:19

Therefore, repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

How do you know if your repentance is real?  For me, I ask myself this question:  Am I running from the sin, or am I running from the consequences of the sin?  Am I more worried about the punishment than I am about honoring my heavenly Father who has given so much to me and for me?  I have found that the fear of punishment might make me turn away from sin, but it won’t keep me turned away from it.   When the lights are out, and the cameras are off and we think we are all alone and in the clear from being caught or found out, the fear seems to disappear.  When the fear is gone, I seem to turn right back to the sin.  Running from the consequences alone is not real repentance for me.  For me it is fake repentance.

I will admit that when I was a child, the fear of my dad’s belt kept me from a lot of sin.  That fear was a good first step, but long term, that fear became part of the problem.  Fear would often whisper in my ear, wait … wait … wait … now!  Fear simply became an accessory to my sin.  It became my lookout.  As long as my dad was not around to catch me, there was no fear of the consequences.  Without the fear of the consequences, there was no turning away from the sin for me.  If there was no turning away of the sin, there was no real repentance.

As I began to grow and mature, I realized that something had changed in me.  I had had a change of heart.  What I once didn’t do because of fear, I was now not doing because of honor.  You see, I am named after my father.  Over the years, my dad taught me to see the value in my name.  He would often remind me that the name that I was carrying was also his name.  If I did something to harm my name, I would also be harming his name.

My dad and I did not always see eye to eye, but I loved him dearly.  Because I loved him so much, and because of my gratitude for what he had given me, it didn’t matter if the lights were on or off.  It didn’t matter if the cameras were on or off.  I wanted to honor my father in my actions; so, I stayed away from those sins that had plagued me in my past.  I realized that true repentance was in my heart and not in my actions or my mouth.  My actions and words didn’t have real meaning or true change until my reasons for my actions changed.

As believers, God is our heavenly Father.  He has given us His name.  We should see value in That name.  We should realize that if we do something to harm our name, we are also harming His name.  We should honor His name in our actions, and our thoughts, and our deeds, because our hearts have changed, and we are now grateful instead of fearful.  We must learn to run from the sin, not because of the consequences, but because we love Him for what He has done for us.

Romans 5:8

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Be blessed

Genesis 31:49, … May the Lord watch between you and me while we are absent one from the other.

The Attitude of our Obedience To God

What do you do when God speaks to your heart to complete a task?  Do you do it?  If so, what attitude do you exhibit while you do it?  Do you do it with a heart of gratitude?  Or do you do it because you fear what He might do to you or withhold from you if you don't do it?  The mind with which we use to do what God tells us to do is just as important as going through the motions and actually doing what God has told us to do.

(Romans 14:17-19) – For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God.  And other people will approve of you, too.  So then, let us aim for harmony in the Church and try to build each other up.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to my children about their attitudes in our home.  I explained to them that even when they do what I or their mother has told them to do, but do it with a frown on their face or a complaint in their mouth they are still being disobedient.  When there is disobedience, consequences follow.

To better illustrate my point to my children, I told them the story about Jonah.  God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell the people to change their evil ways or He was going to destroy them.  Most of you probably know the story of how Jonah initially refused to go where God told him to go.  He demonstrated out right disobedience.  He tried to run from God.  He boarded a boat going in the opposite direction of where God told him to go.  Once on the boat, Jonah goes down into the bottom of the boat thinking God won't find him there. 

I stopped here and told my children, no matter where you go or how fast you try and get there, you cannot run from God. 

At this moment in time Jonah had no intentions on being obedient to God.  So what did God do?  God shook up his world.  He hurled a great wind that caused the boat to almost break up.  After everything was said and done, it was made known that Jonah's disobedience was the cause of the great wind and the distress they found themselves under.  To calm the winds, the other men aboard the boat reluctantly threw Jonah over board.  God appointed a large fish to swallow Jonah.  He spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish.  This was Jonah's consequence for disobeying God.  During this time God gave Jonah time to think and reflect on his disobedience.  When the fish expelled Jonah on dry land, he was right back where he started.  This was his second chance to obey God.

Second case in point is that God will always give you another chance to be obedient to His will.   

The second time, Jonah did obey God.  He did exactly what God told him to do.  He went to Nineveh and proclaimed to the people that they had forty days in which to repent or they would be destroyed.  The people repented.  After seeing the people repent, you would have thought that Jonah would be excited about all those lives that were saved.  Instead, he was angry at God for saving them.  He said to himself "this is why I didn't want to do this in the first place.  I knew that if they repented, God would spare their lives."  His attitude in which he carried out God's plan was wrong.  He begrudgingly obeyed God.

Jonah was used by God to accomplish a great thing while at the same time exposing the scars that were imbedded on his heart.  God uses every moment in our lives to talk to us and teach us.  To open up Jonah's eyes God appointed a tree to grow up over Jonah and provide him shade as he sat to watch the people in Nineveh.  Jonah was very happy about the tree that provided him shade.  In the midst of Jonah's happiness, the Bible said that God appointed a worm to attack the tree and it withered.  Jonah then became angry because God allowed the tree to die.

God used the tree to contrast Jonah's attitude about his assignment to his attitude about the tree.   God told Jonah that he had more compassion for a tree that 1) he did not plant with his own hands and 2) that grew up overnight and withered just as quickly as it grew than he did for thousands of people who were on their way to hell but now are on their way to heaven.

God values life above death.  He requires obedience above disobedience.  So as believers we need to focus on our attitude in the midst of being obedient to God's word.  Obedience alone is not enough.  How would those of you who are parents respond to your child who does what you tell him/her to do, but does it while huffing and puffing or making sucking sounds through his/her teeth?  For me, I remind my children that there are consequences to disobedience.  Obedience coupled with the wrong attitude is disobedience.  God our Father also reminds us, His children, of that same message.  Some of us wonder why our struggles are so constant when we do what we feel God is requiring us to do.  I would like to subscribe to you that some of our struggles are due to our constant disobedience with our attitudes.  Like our children, we do God's will with a frown on our face and anger in our hearts.

God's word contrasts the benefits to having a faith-filled attitude to the consequences of not having a faith-filled attitude.

(Proverbs 17:22) – A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength.

(Proverbs 14:30) – A relaxed attitude lengthens life; jealousy rots it away.

Paul said in (Philippians 4: 11-13) – For I have learned how to get along happily whether I have much or little.  I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything.  I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.  For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.

I believe our Attitude is the key to success. 

The Importance of Seeing God over People. - A Unified Church

I have noticed in our current Christian environment, that some of us as believer’s have gotten so caught up in how we see spiritual wrong in others that we misrepresent the presence of God in our actions.  The world calls this kind of behavior, “Cancel Culture.”  What we see, interpret, and think to be right or wrong has become the final authority as opposed to what the word of God really says about something.  Our seeing, interpreting, and thinking have become externally driven by the world and not internally driven by the Holy Spirit or the word of God.  We have become multiple groups within a group, where each group has pitted itself against the other.  I don’t know about you, but where I am from, I call this a gang mentality.  I have never seen anything positive come out of such a mentality; especially nothing that will build up the Kingdom of God.

In Mark 9:38, John, one of Jesus’ disciples, comes up to Jesus and tells Him that he and the others saw someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name and they tried to stop him because he was not one of them.  Jesus stops John dead in his tracks and says to him, “Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me.  For he who is not against us is for us.”

I see in this verse that Jesus did not focus on what He thought the man was doing wrong, but rather on what He knew the man did right.  The man may or may not have had the purest of motives, but he did have the right solution in Jesus Christ.  Even in Jesus’ response to John, He implied that even if the man had evil motives, he might come to believe just by seeing a miracle happen in the name of Jesus.

Let’s let the belief in the power of the name of Jesus be what unites us as the solution for the world, as opposed to the many man-made nuances that we have allowed to divide us for so long.  Like the world, the church will always have differences that we could debate.  However, the world needs to see a unified church, speaking of a unified truth about a unified solution found in Jesus Christ.

It would be an amazing thing if we could all accept the example of Jesus.  When we see someone attempting to cast out the ills of this world in the name of Jesus, let’s not hinder them simply because they don’t belong to our group.  Let’s rest in the fact that if they are not against us, they are for us because we know that Jesus is the solution for our hurting world.

Be blessed

Sovereign Intervention

Although this daily bread was for July 8, 2019, it fits perfectly for me today.  One of the amazing things about God’s word is that it is specific to each one of us.  God’s word is so specific and alive to the degree that we can be in the same room and hear the same sermon or read the same words from the Bible and each be given a  God inspired message that addresses our very own individual circumstances.  This kind of message that is specific to us is called a rhema word; a word that is specific only to you.

Lately for me, it just seems like one frustrating thing after another seems to occur.  I see progress in one area of my life and then out of nowhere another struggle appears.  I get to the point of being so frustrated that I actually forget to talk to God about my needs and circumstances.  I fall into the mode of self-pity.  I then turn to a person who cannot pull me out of my situation – myself.

What I was reminded of today in this particular devotion is that God wants to hear from us.  Even though He knows everything about us, he wants us to initiate the conversation with Him about our individual needs.  The Daily Bread references Exodus 2:25, and notes that when the children of Israel were in bondage, the word says that they cried out to God and God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

The truth of the matter is that God is always concerned about us.  He just needs us to know AND accept His Sovereignty.  As long as we continue to turn to ourselves to fix our own problems, we are being defiant in recognizing that God is sovereign over everything in the heavens and the earth.  Disregard for His sovereignty is the best way to put God in a holding pattern.  In this posture, He is not ignoring us.  He is just waiting on us.

A plane cannot land until it gets the okay from the airport control tower.  Once the okay is given, the plane immediately starts to descend upon its intended location.  God is waiting for the okay from us so that He can descend upon His intended location of our lives and show us how much He is concerned about us.

Be Blessed everyone.

But God

Bruises once covered your most inner parts

Scars once hardened your hopeless heart

But God,

He who can reach

Into the deepest parts of your soul

He who can soften

The hardest of hardened hearts

He sees you

He feels you

But most importantly

He heals you

He is God

                                                                                   Bert Reece

Go to Your Room!

Poem inspired by

Isaiah 26:20 - Come, my people, enter into your rooms And close your doors behind you;
Hide for a little while Until indignation runs its course.

And

Matthew 17:20 - And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

Go to Your Room!

A bully stood outside my door

Yelling at me to come out so he could settle a score

He said he had something big for me

And that I needed to come out now to see what it was

Why he chose to pick on me

 I didn’t know

And why he chose to think I was so weak

I really didn’t care to know

Cause in my pride I thought to myself

That whatever THAT SOMETHING was

I wasn’t going to be the recipient of it

Cause I had something of my own to give

And I wanted to make sure he got notice of it

So I gathered myself together and I headed for the door

Didn’t know someone else was listening

Someone I couldn’t ignore

As my hand reached for the door knob to go outside

A booming voice yelled at me from behind

STOP!!

Don’t you go another step further

I didn’t have to turn around to see who it was

Because           I knew it was my Father

He said Go to your Room!

It’s for your own protection

Close the door behind you

And stay there until I come and get you

 I couldn’t understand why my Father would want me to look so weak

But I was more afraid of Him

Than what the bully could ever do to me

So I went to my room and closed the door behind me

Obedient in my actions

But disobedient in my mind

Angered by Father’s command to me

I looked out of my window

And watched the bully continue to taunt me

I paced back and forth trying to think

Cause I didn’t want others

To believe that I let him punk me

All of a sudden

I heard the same voice that spoke to me

Tell the bully

If you have something to give

Give it to Me

You see I am the strong tower

And in it my son is safe

And to be honest

You just don’t have that kind of power

I saw the bully immediately retreat

Looking more scared than I ever thought he could be

As he ran away I heard him say

I’m sorry for the pain I tried to cause today

I realize now that I chose the wrong one

Because I didn’t know that he was Your son

My Father then came to the room to get me

He told me He loved me

And that it was His job to protect me

And even though the enemy was as bold as he was

He knew he was no match

For the Father      of the son

My Father told me that I just needed to trust Him a little bit

And even though there was disobedience in my mind

He still applauded what my feet did

They moved in the direction

Of where His voice told me to go

And all because of THAT

The enemy is now gone

Sometimes it’s good

To go in your room and close the door

And be protected by the Father

While indignation runs its course

You see COVID 1 – 9

Tried to take my peace of mind

He stood at the door of my house

Taunting me to come outside

And in my pride

I could have died

Listening to my own fleshly voice inside

But just in time a Voice bigger than mine

Overrode the pride that I felt inside

It allowed the little faith

That I had stored away

Take front and center of my mind that day

It was a moment of clarity

Proof      that the mustard seed

Was more           than enough for me

Bert Reece

May 7, 2020

Pray God’s Glory Across the Earth

Habakkuk 2:14

Avoid Being Shipwrecked

This is a new day and dynamic for all of us.  We as a world are experiencing something that very few of us if any have ever experienced before.  However, in all this chaos and confusion, God is still present. Truth be told, He never went anywhere, we did.  As a country, over time, we have distanced ourselves from God. We did so by taking Him out of our schools and by removing Him from pre-game preparations.  We did so by taking Him out of our personal decision making and out of our consideration of others who may not necessarily look, or act, like us. Probably most importantly, we did so when we put Him in our box.

At work, we are in the time of year where we must go through items and files that we no longer need and discard them.  We have come to realize that after the items have been discarded, we have a lot of empty folders and other reusable supplies that need to be put back in their proper storage place.  My supervisor did most of the work of going through file cabinets and throwing stuff away. I was given the task to take all the boxes of reusable supplies and put them back in the supply room.  It was a very simple task … I thought. I began to try and fit each box of supplies on shelves that were already filled with other items, realizing that the boxes of supplies would not fit. What do I do?  I have a lot of supplies that can’t be left to block the walkways of the supply room.

A voice said to me, “just take the stuff out of the box.”  I said, “huh, it’s a lot of stuff.” The voice then said, “it won’t take you that long.  It’s just a small inconvenience and it will make your task a hold lot easier and simpler.  What did I do? I took the stuff out of the box. I then found that what was so difficult to put into place, started to fit very nicely with room left over to spare.

God is telling each of us in this most desperate time, that if we can learn to take Him out of our box, He can be so much more available to us in our lives.  He can fit things into our lives that He never could have before from inside our box. Our box can be so bulky and rigid that there is no room for the flexibility of God’s amazing grace and power to be made active in our lives.  We tell God that He can only bless us, if He blesses us a certain way. He can only heal us if He heals us a certain way. He can only grow us if He grows us a certain way.

Paul wrote to his son in the ministry, Timothy, in 1 Timothy 1:18-19.  He told Timothy, “This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.”

This is a time where we as believers cannot afford to lose faith.  We must remember that God is bigger than any issue or pandemic that we could ever experience.  How the church responds, is how the world will respond. All eyes are on us. God has called each of us to be responsible, loving and caring towards one another.  He has called us to be faithful and not fearful. In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus tells us not to worry and to trust that He will care for us. He tells us to pay close attention to the birds and the lilies.  He feeds one to fulfillment and clothes the other in beauty.

So, although it might be a little of an inconvenience to do so, take God out of your box.  Keep your faith in tact so that we are not like those who would suffer a shipwreck in regard to our faith.

Be blessed everyone and stay safe.  Genesis 31:49, … May the Lord watch between you and me while we are absent one from the other.