Tag Archives: encourage

CLOSE CONNECTIONS

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CLOSE CONNECTIONS

Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant of the Lord, will tell you everything so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing. I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage you.

Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love (Eph. 6:21-24).

I wonder whether technology with its ease of communication would have killed real communication in Paul’s day as it has in ours. Have you noticed how much of our social skills we have lost since the advent of email and cell phones? How much easier it is to send an email, a Facebook, Whatsapp or text message than to talk to someone face to face! A group of kids (by that I mean teenagers!) can sit together in the same room and talk to each other via cell phone messages rather than sit and chat.

Families don’t know how to resolve their conflicts any longer because each member retreats to his or her room to sit behind the computer screen or to “talk” on their cell phones without uttering a word.

How different it was for Paul and his colleagues in their lives together as believers in Jesus. In two short paragraphs, he gives us an insight into the way the church across the Roman Empire did life together. It was not trouble for Tychicus to travel hundreds of miles, taking many months to carry a letter from Paul to the church at Ephesus. Paul was incarcerated in a Roman prison, or perhaps still under house arrest but he needed to communicate with his beloved churches in other cities.

There was no postal service and certainly no electronic mail or wireless communication. People were his messengers, people to people carrying information, love and encouragement from one group to another, from one individual to another. Just imagine what it cost Tychicus to go for Paul since Paul could not go himself.

People mattered. Paul was their spiritual “father”. He has risked a great deal to take the good news of Jesus to Ephesus which was the hotbed of witchcraft and Diana worship. The silversmiths were doing a roaring trade selling their images of the goddess Diana to the superstitious citizens of Ephesus. Paul’s message turned the city upside down, bringing the wrath of the business sector down on him. His life was in danger because of the response to the gospel.

Every new believer was precious to him. He loved and nurtured them like a father for three years and never forgot them when he moved on. Evangelism for Paul was much more than holding campaigns in city after city and then leaving the converts to be “followed up” by the churches in those cities. There were no churches. It was Paul’s job to care for them together with his fellow workers in the gospel. And care for them he did!

It was also important to the believers in Ephesus (and in the other cities to which the letter was sent) to get news of Paul in Rome. Did they know that he was once again a prisoner for his faith? Just as he has written to other churches to let them know what was happening to them and to encourage them to persevere in spite of persecution, so he also wanted the Ephesian believers to know his latest situation.

The gospel message was much more than an insurance policy for heaven. It was a way of life they lived together. Paul made sure that the people of God knew and cared about each other across the miles. They needed each other because the whole world was against them. He wrote to instruct and sent Tychicus to encourage so that they would remain steadfast in their faith and not waver because of the hardships they were enduring for their faith.

Paul also reminded them that they were eternally linked to a Father who loved them and a Saviour who died for them. Through Jesus, they had access to God’s grace which He freely gave to all and which enabled them to endure the trials and suffering of this life, and the peace which would keep them in whatever they were called to bear.

Nothing can ever take the place of these gifts which come from the Father through the Son. To be sustained by God’s grace and supported by His peace means far more than any outward so-called “peaceful” circumstances which are temporary and transient. God’s love would never fail them, no matter what. In that, they could rest as they loved Him in response.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,  eB978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

Do Not Harden Your Hearts

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DO NOT HARDEN YOU HEARTS

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the end. Just as it has been said, ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. (Heb. 3: 12-14)

The writer may have been speaking to a group of people who lived over 2000 years ago, but his message is just as relevant today as it was then. His readers then may have been tempted to pull back because of the severity of persecution to save their skin, but the temptation to resist or ignore the Holy Spirit is just as strong today.

When we consider the state of the church today, we must admit that, over the centuries it has surrounded itself with so many protective measures that Jesus’s message and instructions about the kingdom of God are hardly recognisable among the traditions, additions and rituals that have been collected.

Jesus issued one simple command, ‘Follow me.’ In that instruction lies the secret of true discipleship. Jesus was a rabbi, a teacher of torah – God’s teaching and God’s way – whose authority was recognised by both common people and religious leaders, although they would not admit it. He spoke with the understanding and authority of one who knew God intimately.

It was the role of a rabbi with sh’mikah – authority, to train talmidim – disciples – to replicate him. He would call them with two simple words, ‘Follow me,’ which indicated that he considered them able to learn from and imitate him, and to exceed him in what he did.

Why would Jesus want them to do that? Because it was His goal for them to teach and bind His yoke – His teaching and lifestyle – onto others so that He could be replicated and perpetuated down the generations. In this way the good news of the kingdom of God would be published to the whole world.

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (John 12: 24)

He would guarantee the success of their mission by the gift of the Holy Spirit who would teach and direct them from within. When the issue of sin was dealt with once and for all through His death on the cross, Jesus was free to reconcile sinners to Himself and then to send them in the power of His Spirit to do what He did and much more because He accompanied them everywhere they went. (Matt. 28: 19, 20)

So what was the problem here? They were afraid to obey the Holy Spirit because it cost too much. They would rather go back to a religion that was acceptable in the Roman Empire and dodge the persecution that the followers of a radical rabbi brought.

What is the problem with the church today? The church has surrounded itself with a covering of respectability by creating a religion of do’s and don’ts which obscures the real Jesus and takes away the reproach of the cross.

Instead of the cross being an instrument of death, the symbol of Jesus’s victory over the devil and the reason for our obedience to our Rabbi, it is now an inoffensive decoration around our necks or on our buildings. It means nothing to the world any more. Anyone can wear a cross and no one thinks anything of it. Imagine if we wore gallows or an electric chair on a gold chain around our necks!

Sin does not have to be the big stuff in order to harden us. Every time we refuse to take Jesus seriously, we have a sinful heart of unbelief. ‘Follow me,’ means three things.  ‘Teach what I taught; do what I did and live like I Iived. Add nothing and take away nothing otherwise you are disqualified from being my disciple.’

‘Believe’ can be spelt in four letters, r-i-s-k. Taking risks means being in partnership with the Holy Spirit, hearing His voice and doing what He says. It’s simple but not easy because we constantly hear voices inside – our own thoughts, the subtle voice of the enemy and the voice of the Holy Spirit. How do we know who is speaking? There is no simple formula to know. We must learn by doing and making mistakes.

The enemy is a liar. He speaks the language of lies. He always contradicts the word and ways of God. We can distinguish his voice by comparing what he says with the truth. The Holy Spirit will never contradict His word. His role is always to glorify Jesus. We learn to distinguish His voice from our own thoughts by risking obedience to Him and examining the outcome. We learn obedience by obeying as Jesus did.

The life of taking risks is an adventure. If we are willing to make mistakes and even make fools of ourselves, we will become real disciples who ‘follow’ Jesus into a life of adventure.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Anchored In Truth

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ANCHORED IN TRUTH

“After proclaiming the Message in Derbe and establishing a strong core of disciples, they retraced their steps to Lystra, then Iconium, then Antioch, putting muscle and sinew into the disciples, urging them to stick with what they had begun to believe and not to quit, making it clear to them that it wouldn’t be easy. ‘Anyone signing up for the kingdom of God has to go through plenty of hard times.'” Acts 14:21-22 (The Message).

How would you tackle the mammoth task of penetrating a completely pagan society with a message that made no sense and was being actively opposed by unruly mobs of fanatically religious Jews who were out to kill you? Call it a day and go home, probably!

What guarantee did Paul and Barnabas have that the converts would not quit the moment their backs were turned? Why should these people stick with believing a story about a Jew who said and did some extraordinary things, was executed as a criminal and then came back to life again? What proof did they have that this was all true?

Unlike religions, which are man-made belief systems, Paul and Barnabas were in partnership with God Himself. When people received the Message, something supernatural happened: their unresponsive spirits were made alive to God; their minds were enlightened by the truth and they were joined to Jesus by the Holy Spirit. God Himself took up residence in their spirits and they were in direct communication with Him.

They may not have had the written Word of God in their hands as we have today, but they had the Living Word in their hearts. Paul and Barnabas had a limitless confidence in the power of God to sustain every believer and keep them following the Master. It was their task to teach, exhort and encourage them to persevere, and those who were truly made new by God’s Spirit stuck with their new faith and passed it on to those around them.

Jesus gave His disciples the assurance that He would build His church. Their commission was to make disciples, not converts, by passing on everything they had learned from Jesus. For Paul and Barnabas to evangelise was only half the task. It was imperative that they thoroughly ground their converts in God’s Word — the Law and the Prophets — to ensure that their faith had a firm foundation in truth, not fantasy.

Paul and Barnabas did their best to imprint that Word into the new disciples and, to their delight, as they retraced their steps from town to town, they found people who were committed to the Faith they had received, regardless of the price they had to pay. They learned that the grace of God is free but it is not cheap. They had received the free gift of eternal life but with it came the refining process of hardship and trouble which would prepare them for lives that bore witness to the power of Jesus at work in them.

Those of us who have a shepherding role to play in the church have an example to follow in these two stalwart missionaries who never gave up, no matter how tough the way, and who faithfully taught the Word of God to the converts until they became disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, committed to Him as their Rabbi to stick with Him, learn from Him and imitate Him so that others, in turn, would also follow.

Our role is not to propagate a religion but to invite people to become followers of Jesus, to be united to Him and to navigate this life with Him as He takes us to the Father.