Category: Building a Faith-filled Life

Just Go Have Faith

Matt 14 28

Today has been a long day. Actually, this whole week has been pretty busy. There is a part of me that actually likes staying busy though because it forces me to stay focused on my next task. I have this sense of constantly forgetting something so I keep checking and finding something else I need to do. I think the main reason why I like staying busy is it helps me focus on Jesus. Hear me out.

I feel like the story in Matthew 14:28-33 always gets the attention where Peter is saved by Jesus because of his lack of faith. I think that it’s amazing that Jesus didn’t need to save Peter until he was almost underwater because he had great faith. I think that some of us aren’t seeing any improvement in our faith because we are unwilling to step out in faith. I don’t do it very often but I do best when I am most challenged. Not because of my own skill or talent, but because it forces me to rely on Jesus more.

So when your day feels a little busy or challenging just rely on Jesus. If your day feels boring, slow, unproductive, or lazy maybe its time to hop off Netflix or Facebook to go challenge your faith by showing love to someone. Maybe go start a local mission, donate extra clothes, go visit an elderly person in your church, help your pastor with church stuff or maybe just pray for your enemies. Whatever you decide to do remember do it until it makes you uncomfortable enough to rely on Jesus to save you.

 What can you do to step out in faith like Peter?
-Jesse Allen

Building Others Up

1 Thess 5 11

1 Thessalonians 5:11

We are social beings. We were created by God to interact both with other humans and God himself. It doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not we need each other to keep living healthy stable lives.

 But in the Church, the most important part of interacting with one another is that we are able to build each other up. Being a part of the church does not mean you passively sit in a pew or chair 1 or 2 days a week waiting for the preacher to tell you how to live your life. It means building relationships and getting to know each other and helping with each person’s needs.
I know if I did not have my friends and family and other church members that I would be lost. I wouldn’t be as successful or as well taken care of as I am today. I am so grateful for the people in my life who have taken the time to get to know me and to share life with me. But it hasn’t always been the same people.
This Sunday, don’t just sit next to the same people you always sit with. Try to move around and change it up. Get to know new people and ask what they need help with, maybe even pray WITH them. Just go and be social with your Christian Family.
-Jesse Allen

You Need a Person

They Need One Too.

Phil 2 3,4
I often found myself quiet and alone in class during grade school. I always wanted to talk to people and fit in but never quite knew how. I hoped that one day maybe someone would just start being my friend and start talking to me. Well, it happened in 7th grade. All because of one kid who sat next to me in my fourth-hour history class. His name was Joel and till this day we are best friends. I had always been shy and didn’t talk much before I started to hang out with him. He started to show me how to be more confident and assertive. He even showed me how to have fun in school. I would have never made it through school if he hadn’t been there.
Philippians 2:3-4 says that we should count others more significant than ourselves. And often times that can be difficult especially when we don’t feel very appreciated. But let me tell you there is someone out there that needs you to reach out to them just like my friend Joel did for me. They need a person in their life to show them who Christ is through action. Are you willing to be who they need?
Who is the person God is calling you to reach out to?
-Jesse Allen

Illumination, Illumination!!!!!!!!! 

John 8 12 (1)

Have you ever had to walk in the dark before? It can be both a challenge and sometimes a bit scary especially if you are alone. I used to walk from my house to my grandma’s when I was younger. Now it was only about 100 yards away which isn’t much of a walk in daylight but in the dark it felt like it was 10 miles long.  There wasn’t much light to see and what little light there was didn’t reach past either porch. I could hear coyotes off in the distance and other weird noises from the trees swaying. And it always made me nervous. But I would sometimes bring a flashlight and that made the whole experience much faster and less scary.

In John 8:12 Jesus tells us he is the light of the world and whoever has him has the light of life. When we are going through our everyday life and we feel the darkness closing in or the dread of the world all around us just remember to “shine” the light of Jesus in your own life to make it less scary

What darkness are you facing?  Ask yourself, “How can I use the light of Jesus to help in this situation?”

-Jesse Allen

How to Avoid Unpleasant Consequences

Prov 1 8

 

When I was in high school I remember my friend and I sneaking out of his house to go hang out with some friends. We left his house about 11:30pm and didn’t get back in until 5:45am  which was 15 minutes before his alarm would go off for school that morning. We were tired and exhausted and couldn’t really function at school. Staying up and sneaking out all night left us at a great disadvantage the next day.
I have made many bad decisions in my life. Many like this story could have been avoided if I had listened to the advice others had given me.  They say you need at least 8 hours of sleep as a teenager.  Well, I got about 15 minutes and it was not enough. 
Proverbs 1:8-16 talks about how fools and sinners bear the fruit of there own actions. I definitely deserved a hard day at school for not listening to the wisdom that was set in front of me.  
 
What wisdom has been told to you that you might need to listen to more carefully? Remember, the consequences may not be worth it.
-Jesse Allen

Begging for Help

Acts 3 1,2

Happy late Thanksgiving everyone! #thankgivingisthebestholiday Although the day of turkey has passed I hope we can all be thankful for what we have considering many do not have anything at all. Recently in Saint Louis, I encountered a man named Ron who was homeless and had nothing to his name except his torn up bag and the clothes on his back. Ron, like many you may encounter in your lives, asked me for money. There are at least two easy ways to handle this situation. First, we could give them the money they were asking us about. Or second, we lie and walk away feeling like we did that person well by not giving them money that could possibly enable their bad habits.

I would say Peter and John have a more effective way of serving these people. In Acts 3:1-10 Peter and John encounter a man who can’t walk and is begging for money in front of the temple gates (a common practice in that day, which could be compared to those at the stoplights we see). Instead of giving him money, they give him prayer and healing. Something we all can afford and is always at the ready. Next time you encounter someone like this it might be appropriate to pray with them about their situation and see if something big happens.

-Jesse Allen

God’s Party

Luke 15 32

Thursday, November 22, 2018  Thanksgiving USA

Luke 15:32

“But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

Some people envision God to be somber or angry and punishing. I love this story Jesus told. We often refer to it as the Prodigal Son, with the focus on the bad boy who turned his life around. But I think it has more to do with showing us how much our Father Loves us, and how much joy it brings to him to be in relationship with us. Jesus came to show those whose view of God was somber and dutiful that God is first and foremost about relationship.

God throws a party when we respond to his offer of relationship. Shouldn’t we?

-Jeff Fletcher

Winning Respect

1 Thess 4 11

I Thessalonians 4:9-12

9 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. 10 And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

I find these verses to be quite fascinating. Paul was writing to believers who were living in the first century in the Roman Empire. Their lives as disciples of Jesus were to stand out from the lives of those outside of the community of Jesus. They needed to live lives that earned the respect of those outside of the Church. Paul’s instruction on how they were to do this is what I find so interesting: lead a quiet life, mind your own business, work with your hands, do not be dependent on others. In that society, Paul believed that non-believers would be more open to hearing the message of Jesus Christ if his followers lived lives worthy of respect, focused, hard working, quiet. There’s nothing flashy or exciting about this counsel, simply to live a steady and hard working life.

As disciples of Jesus today it’s becoming increasingly more challenging to win the respect of people outside of the Church. Perhaps we need to go back to Paul’s simple and undramatic counsel and live out that lifestyle.

-Jeff Fletcher

The Rest of Ruth

ruth 4 16
When Hope Seems Lost – Ruth 4
Naomi at the beginning of Ruth acts as if she has no hope. She knew she wouldn’t have more children and had nothing to offer Ruth. She was bitter and would rather go back to her homeland to live out her days as a jaded widow. However, this was not at all God’s plan and we can see God’s redemptive plan in 3 major areas. The first starts with Ruth. She is adamant in her conviction to stay with Naomi—God had captured her heart in Moab and he was able to work out his redeeming plan for Naomi’s family through her. Secondly the preserving of Boaz for Ruth shows God at work. In an online article on Ruth from desiringgod.org the author states, “But all the while God is preserving a wealthy and godly man named Boaz to do just that. The reason we know that this was God’s doing is that Naomi herself admits it in 2:20. She recognizes that behind the “accidental” meeting of Ruth and Boaz was the “kindness of God who has not forsaken the living or the dead.” Lastly, Ruth was previously married for 10 years and bore no children. In God’s redemptive work once Boaz and Ruth were married he opened Ruth’s barren womb and she bore a son. In some of the most hopeless situations God chooses to work mightily for his glory and to make himself known. So many pieces had to align in this account that we see God’s hand at work. Make sure to be fervent in prayer over hopeless situations. You never know how God is planning to work—His ways are higher than our ways!
Lineage of David – Covenant Blessing
Family is very near to God’s heart and has been an integral part of the Jewish culture since antiquity. In the earliest prophecies we see allusions to lineage such as “the seed of the woman” in the first messianic prophecy in Genesis. The Abrahamic covenant is a blessing pertaining to the descendants out numbering stars in the sky and sand in the sea shore. Then we see the importance of the birthright blessing between Jacob and Esau. God works through families and heritage and blessing being passed through the family line is a very important aspect to Jewish culture. For this reason Naomi thought her line had ended and that she also had no immediate hope of being cared for by her family. However, God blesses this faithful and righteous family by including them in the line of David. The last verses of Ruth 4 may seem like an after thought but it is a monumental indication of God’s favor. We find that the child of Ruth and Boaz is the grandfather to David, one of the greatest kings of Israel and ultimately in the line of Christ—the awaited Messiah and Savior of the world. What an honor to be included in the line God chose to keep his covenant with Israel and the world! We may not be part of the lineage of Christ but we can be part of the family of God. As we continue pursuing God we are co-heirs with Christ to the coming kingdom of God. This hope and blessing to come has the power to keep us rooted and grounded in love, steadfast in our perseverance as we await the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.
-Shelby Upton

Time for Your Examination

Psalm 139 23 24

Psalm 139: 1, 23-24

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

I imagine that most of us don’t really enjoy being examined by a doctor. I know I dread it when I go to the doctor’s office and one of the first things they do is ask me to stand on the scale. “Really? I have a sore throat, I’m sure that has nothing to do with how much I weigh.” That’s what I think to myself, but still I dutifully comply. I stand on the scale (why does the doctor’s scale always weigh 5 lb. heavier than the one in my house)?.

Physicians examine us so that they can have an idea of what’s going on inside of us. Is everything functioning properly. Are all the vital organs working the way they are supposed to? Do changes need to be made? Often, at the end of the visit there is a prescription given for some medicine for us to take. Or sometimes a recommendation to make a lifestyle change. Or sometimes, the need for further tests. Sometimes, what is needed is a radical, invasive procedure where they cut into your body… surgery. Most of those things are unpleasant. Sometimes, we avoid going to the doctor all together so that we can avoid hearing his diagnosis. We figure, what I don’t know won’t hurt me.

Spiritually, we sometimes act the same way. We are afraid to go to God and let him give an honest, accurate assessment of our spiritual health. But we need it. We need it more than we need our physical health. We need God to search us… to examine us… to look deep into our hearts and understand our values, our motives, our loves and our hates. We need God to look deep within and discover where our anxious thoughts lie. We need God to call us out on our offensive ways… the ways that hurt others, the ways that hurt ourselves. We need God to prescribe for us the changes that need to be made so that we can experience greater spiritual health.

The hardest prayer, and the most important prayer you can pray, is a prayer of examination to God… “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” Maybe its time you made an appointment with God for an examination. Come to think of it, maybe its time for me to do that too.

-Pastor Jeff Fletcher