Christian Fellowship
“That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving...” Psalm 26:7
Vol. 24 No. 7 July 2015
How do you manage your mind? You must be careful what you allow into your mind because your thoughts run your life. Yes, they come at you from every direction: at home, at work, through the media, in your relationships, and in your private life. So there is only one thing that works: Give and submit your thoughts to the authority of Jesus. If Jesus is in control of everything, then He can be in your thoughts as well. No matter what the enemy tells you, no matter how bad things seem to be, Jesus says, “I am in control,” and He has the authority to rule over your thoughts.
When you learn repentance as a way of life, condemning thoughts will not rule your thinking. When Jesus is in control, you will not walk an unruly life doing what you know is wrong. All you have to do is submit your thoughts to the authority of Christ. And with practice and commitment your thoughts will be under control and you will not be defeated in your mind.
Isa 26:3 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”
In Christ,
Pr. Steve
Ambition’s Death
Mat 20:17-23 (KJV) “And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, (18) Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, (19) And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again. (20) Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. (21) And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. (22) But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. (23) And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.”
Jesus sought to prepare His disciples for the hardships that awaited them. He warned them that a time was coming when He would be mocked, scourged and crucified for the sake of redemption. In the midst of this utterly sober warning, the mother of James and John requested Jesus to fulfill her family’s ambitions. She said, “Grant that these my two sons may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left.”
At that moment, she’s thinking of advancement, posterity, position, and place; while Jesus is thinking of scourging, mocking and death. She’s looking for a crown, while Christ was preparing for the cross! Jesus silenced her ambitions. He said, “You don’t know what you are asking for. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”
And of course, not understanding, they said, “We are able.” The truth was that they had no idea what Jesus was talking about. We have the same problem today. The church doesn’t understand what Jesus talks about when He tells us to bear a cross and follow Him. Yet Jesus said to them, “You shall drink of my cup, but to sit on my right hand and on my left, is not mine to give, but it is for those whom it is prepared of my Father.”
We want very much to see the fulfillment of God’s Word in our lives. We follow the Lord for a time; but when things don’t happen the way the preacher said they would, we begin to stray and give up hope and wonder if it is all worth it. But all the while God is bringing us through preparation for dying to self and for learning patience and maintaining vision through our testing before the fulfillment can come.
Ambition is the first motive that God must deal with when we want more of God. Ambition is very deceptive. It can seem like obedience; yet because we don’t truly know the Lord; the voice we are obeying is not God’s voice, but our own. Our vision can be of God, but our motive is self. Jas 3:16 (NIV)
“For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”
Why? Because we begin thinking we can accomplish the will of God through the strength of man. We are seeking a breakthrough; while God wants to give us brokenness.
Because they are immature, the spiritually immature don’t recognize they are immature They become impatient, fearful, and demanding. Pride blinds the ambitious. Our actions generate strife.
Ambition seeks to put to death what stands between it and spiritual fulfillment. But it is ambition that must die. AMBITION is an “earnest desire to achieve something and a willingness to strive for it.” The word “ambition” is rendered “strife” in the KJV. It is ambition that causes strife and conflict in the church.
Without character we don’t have faithfulness, with a grateful heart. These things have to be worked in us before God can fulfill His promises to us and His purposes for us. What I become for God is more important than what I do for Him.
With every advancement in the Kingdom of God we have to die to self and live unto Christ. If you want to advance spiritually, you must go through a crucifixion. God will arrange opportunities for you to die to self. You must discern them. Dying to self and its ambition is the means of reaching true spiritual fulfillment. If you resent the opportunity to die to these things, you will fail to reach fulfillment. But if you can maintain your vision while ambition is dying, you will succeed.
Having a true vision is not the same thing as having a godly motive. A person can have a vision directly from God, but still be driven by ambition in seeking to fulfill it. Jesus preached the Kingdom of heaven was at hand. This is the vision. But he also taught, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross” (Mat.16:24).
Jesus said that each of us has our own unique cross, “Take up his cross…” God has a cross specifically designed to crucify our fleshly ambitions so that we can reach our vision.
God had given Joseph a dream about his future. But in his immaturity, Joseph exalted himself to his 10 older brothers. He assured them one day they would bow, like stacks of wheat, in submission to him. What was the outcome? They tried to kill him. Joseph’s vision was from God, but his motive lacked character and nearly cost him his life (Gen.37).
But God was with Joseph despite his lack of spiritual knowledge. And we can rejoice because God is with us in spite of us. But never forget: A true vision will kill you before it will fulfill you.
God chose to bring Joseph to Egypt for thirteen years to face and overcome repeated experiences of dying inwardly to self. He faced betrayal, abandonment, slavery, sexual temptation, slander and imprisonment. Sounds pretty hopeless. And on top of that, he faced being forgotten about. Yet, Joseph trusted God and grew in wisdom and spiritual integrity.
God didn’t want a man who could just interpret dreams. He wanted a man who could rule and still remain a man of God.
Joseph kept his heart free from bitterness that overwhelms the soul when you suffer repeated heartache. Joseph kept his heart from becoming hardened. He was a man who wept when he finally saw his brothers, the same men who had laughed while he cried to them from the pit. They would have left him to die a slow agonizing death had God not ordained a caravan of traders to buy him. Joseph could have had his revenge. But scripture records that five times Joseph turned away and wept when his family came. One time he wept so loudly that “the Egyptians heard it, and the house of Pharaoh heard it” (Gen.45:2).
Joseph became a man of character: a man whose ambitions died, but whose vision lived. He drank the cup given him by God, and his dream became a reality. Jesus drank the cup given to Him, and we now experience salvation. But each of us has a cup to drink on our way to our destiny. There are no shortcuts to power. No matter what we experience, even death, won’t be us; it will be Christ living in us.
Listen, you who desire true spiritual fulfillment, Jesus was saying, “I cannot fulfill your ambitions, I can only show you how to die.”
He says, “You shall drink the cup.”
If we are to advance with Christ, we must become a servant (slave)…who ministers (serves)…to give our life as a ransom for others (Matt. 20:27-28). Jesus did not point out the rewards, which are many. He showed them the way to true resurrection power: GIVE YOURSELF AS A RANSOM: for the sake of your family, your church or your city. [ransom = root – to break up and loose] Position yourself in prayer, fasting and faith for others. Stand in the gap so others might live. This is the cup that leads to spiritual fulfillment.
This is not a gloomy path. This is the life of heaven in your heart. For when Christ lives in us, He comes with an overwhelming, sustaining joy.
Heb 12:2 (KJV) “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Christ endured his cross because of the joy set before Him. The cross delivers us from a prison of self-absorption. It releases us into the “presence [of] fulness of joy and at [His] right hand pleasures forevermore” (Psm.16:11).
Don’t let self-pity keep your old nature alive. We all experience heartache and disappointment. Instead of carrying the cross, we end up carrying offenses. Get rid of self-pity and be followers of Christ. Forgive offenses and let them go. That is the basic path of Christ.
2Co 4:7-10 (KJV) “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. (8) We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; (9) Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; (10) Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”
What is this dying? When offenses come and when people betray us, we pray mercy and cry out as Jesus did: “Father, forgive them.” Death has a work to do in us. It is not what we desire above other things, but it is what manifests the life of Christ through us for others. So in this regard death is not our enemy. It is what an ally becomes in the transformational process of our souls. It performs a work in us that we otherwise can’t fulfill.
This is the true spiritual fulfillment, not our striving to create a place for ourselves, but in laying down self to create a place for Jesus.
It is what makes you a real Christian, one who expresses who Jesus Christ really is. It is where people can see you are not one to promote yourself, and you have nothing to prove, but that Christ is risen and glorified.
God is preparing us for glory, but for us to attain to that glory requires that we each bear our cross.
-Pr. Steve Ross
I am going to be sharing with you thoughts from my journal over the past few years. This is to show you how the Lord has brought about His Word in my life to minister to you and to show you how real this walk can be. Please read and understand by the Spirit about ...
. . . My calling as a pastor
Pastor’s Journal 2014
Jul.04 – For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what Glory is it if, when you are buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently? But if, when you do well, and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. (I Peter 2:19-20)
Jul.05 – Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanks giving, present your requests to God. (Phil.4:6)
A wise man keeps himself under control. (Pro.29:11)
Jul.13 – Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles; that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. (I Pet.2:12)
Jul.19 – Be zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that you may excel to the edifying of the church.
Jul.22 – For me to live is Christ. I want to depart to live with and be with Christ, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary. So I will stay. (Phil.1:21-25)
Jul.26 - True Godly love is self-sacrifice. (Eph.6:2 & I Jn.3:16)
Quotes
"A true revival means nothing less than a revolution, casting out the spirit of worldliness and selfishness, and making God and His love triumph in the heart and life."
-Andrew Murray
"A revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God."
-Charles Finney
"If the whole church goes off into deception, that will in no way excuse us for not following Christ."
-Leonard Ravenhill
Next course from Christian Life Educators Network - Richmond Center:
Living by Faith: by Dr. Frederick Wilson
Three major areas of faith are highlighted: the biblical, the theological and the practical. God’s master plan of faith, the eternal perspective, the importance and power of faith, the believer’s relationship to God and His word, the home, the church and the market place are emphasized.
August 13-15, 2015
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