This is going to be my last post... Im struggling at the moment. Im doing a bit of wrestling with God and I am not in a condition to be attempting to lead something, even as small as a blog. sorry guys.
love you
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Jesus Selection Part 2 (Luke)
look at Luke 6:12-15
This passage deals with the appointment of the twelve. We already began this discussion in part one with a reference to it, but this will be an elaboration.
Verse 12 "One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God."
How are we supposed to know who God wants us to pour into? God's plan seems very specific. This morning I was reading the second half of Exodus and it amazed me the amount of precision that God used in the the construction of the Tabernacle. He directed every inch, from the dimensions of the court yard to the building materials that were to be used. Moses transmitted the message to the Israelites but he never came up with any of the specifications, he simply did what God instructed him. Now there is no physical tabernacle or temple for us to build and worship in, but rather we are instructed that we are the temple or tabernacle. If God spent so much time orchestrating every aspect of the physical tabernacle, how much more will he specify every aspect of the new temple that is our hearts.
The realization that God is exact and specific in his plans can either be a tremendous burden, or an awesome freedom. At first glance when I painstakingly read over Exodus, I struggled to see point of the second half. When I related this to the temple that is in our hearts, I began to realize that there is no way I can plan my own life. If any builder on Earth had attempted to design the tabernacle, he would have failed miserably, because God's standard was not and is not vague, it is exact. This means that in our lives, God has an exact plan for what he desires us to do. He has uniquely built each of us to accomplish our specific purposes.
Look at the last verse of Romans 14. "everything that does not come from faith is sin" this means that anything that is not done through trusting God, and relying on him is sin. I think in america we have a grave misunderstanding of sin. If John the Baptist had drank wine, he would have sinned because God instructed him not to, but Jesus was with out sin and he drank wine. This leads us to believe that we must accomplish our specific purpose from God. Its kinda like a great orchestra, it would be horribly wrong if the drummer started blowing on his drumstick and pushing his fingers, but at the same time if a flutist started banging on the chairs it would be awful. I'm not trying to diminish our current understanding of a black and white wrong and right. The bible provides clear direction of things that are right and wrong for ALL people. ie Adultery is wrong for all people, but sin is greater than that. We are God's instruments, and any time we do not make the proper sounds, we are at fault. The beauty of this analogy is that God is playing all the instruments, and he is a perfect musician. If I try to find my place in the music, it will miss notes, play incorrectly and likely bang my flute on a desk, but if I simply relax and let God take care of it, I will sing beautifully in his production that is human history. The burden comes from that fact that we cannot please God no matter how hard we try, but the freedom and delight comes from the fact that when God uses us, we cannot help but please him for he delights in all he does.
You may be wondering why I'm going so in depth on purpose in a discussion about discipleship. Notice that in our text, Before any appointment was made, Jesus prayed. We cannot select disciples, train men, or appoint workers for the kingdom... But God can and will. We must recognize that we are totally dependent on God. He alone determines what we should do and how we should do it. On that note, let us pray.
Let's Discuss the Idea of total dependence in the comment section, and also include written prayers for your future disciples, current disciples, and anyone who God would have you impact.
This passage deals with the appointment of the twelve. We already began this discussion in part one with a reference to it, but this will be an elaboration.
Verse 12 "One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God."
How are we supposed to know who God wants us to pour into? God's plan seems very specific. This morning I was reading the second half of Exodus and it amazed me the amount of precision that God used in the the construction of the Tabernacle. He directed every inch, from the dimensions of the court yard to the building materials that were to be used. Moses transmitted the message to the Israelites but he never came up with any of the specifications, he simply did what God instructed him. Now there is no physical tabernacle or temple for us to build and worship in, but rather we are instructed that we are the temple or tabernacle. If God spent so much time orchestrating every aspect of the physical tabernacle, how much more will he specify every aspect of the new temple that is our hearts.
The realization that God is exact and specific in his plans can either be a tremendous burden, or an awesome freedom. At first glance when I painstakingly read over Exodus, I struggled to see point of the second half. When I related this to the temple that is in our hearts, I began to realize that there is no way I can plan my own life. If any builder on Earth had attempted to design the tabernacle, he would have failed miserably, because God's standard was not and is not vague, it is exact. This means that in our lives, God has an exact plan for what he desires us to do. He has uniquely built each of us to accomplish our specific purposes.
Look at the last verse of Romans 14. "everything that does not come from faith is sin" this means that anything that is not done through trusting God, and relying on him is sin. I think in america we have a grave misunderstanding of sin. If John the Baptist had drank wine, he would have sinned because God instructed him not to, but Jesus was with out sin and he drank wine. This leads us to believe that we must accomplish our specific purpose from God. Its kinda like a great orchestra, it would be horribly wrong if the drummer started blowing on his drumstick and pushing his fingers, but at the same time if a flutist started banging on the chairs it would be awful. I'm not trying to diminish our current understanding of a black and white wrong and right. The bible provides clear direction of things that are right and wrong for ALL people. ie Adultery is wrong for all people, but sin is greater than that. We are God's instruments, and any time we do not make the proper sounds, we are at fault. The beauty of this analogy is that God is playing all the instruments, and he is a perfect musician. If I try to find my place in the music, it will miss notes, play incorrectly and likely bang my flute on a desk, but if I simply relax and let God take care of it, I will sing beautifully in his production that is human history. The burden comes from that fact that we cannot please God no matter how hard we try, but the freedom and delight comes from the fact that when God uses us, we cannot help but please him for he delights in all he does.
You may be wondering why I'm going so in depth on purpose in a discussion about discipleship. Notice that in our text, Before any appointment was made, Jesus prayed. We cannot select disciples, train men, or appoint workers for the kingdom... But God can and will. We must recognize that we are totally dependent on God. He alone determines what we should do and how we should do it. On that note, let us pray.
Let's Discuss the Idea of total dependence in the comment section, and also include written prayers for your future disciples, current disciples, and anyone who God would have you impact.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
How Will You Be Called To Glorify the Lord With Your Life?
This question is short but very potent. How will you be called to Glorify the Lord with your Life? We are suppose to give our lives as our act of worship to the Lord. How are you and will you worship the Lord? We must examine this each and every day as we spend time with the Lord because we are trying to bring Glory to him through everything that we do. I in the past few weeks have had to act on parts of my life that needed changing because they were not bringing glory to God. Trusting in the Lord to heal these parts of my life wont be easy but I pray that it brings Glory to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I pray that over this summer we examine our lives daily as to how can bring glory to the Lord through our worship.
All is Great in the Lord
Paul Shackelford
I pray that over this summer we examine our lives daily as to how can bring glory to the Lord through our worship.
All is Great in the Lord
Paul Shackelford
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Jesus Selection Part 1 (Matthew)
Primary passages:Matthew 4:18-22, 9:9-13, 10:1-4.
What we want to look for is
1. What are the Characteristically of a Disciple
I was taught that a potential disciple should be faithful, available, and teachable (FAT) do you see biblical evidence for these criteria in Matthew. If so, how do the passages in Matthew help shed light on the biblical definition of each of the terms.
2. How was Jesus able to Chose his disciples, and how can we learn from that.
What we want to look for is
1. What are the Characteristically of a Disciple
I was taught that a potential disciple should be faithful, available, and teachable (FAT) do you see biblical evidence for these criteria in Matthew. If so, how do the passages in Matthew help shed light on the biblical definition of each of the terms.
2. How was Jesus able to Chose his disciples, and how can we learn from that.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
The Holy Scripture
So obviously, the bible is going to be our primary source of truth during this study, so I wanted to start off with just discussing the bible as a whole first.
I posted a lecture on the inerrency of the scripture that I would highly recommend if your at all curious about why we believe the bible to be true, but the most key elements are 2 Timothy 3:16, and 1 Peter 1:18-20. From these verses as well as others, it becomes clear that scripture is perfect, useful, and meant to be applied to our lives.
The focus of this discussion is not on inerrency, because I think we all believe that, but rather I would like to discuss the relationship between the Word of God, and the Scripture. This may sound weird but I do not think they are the same thing. I think they are highly related but not one in the same. John one talks about Jesus as the Word of God, and Jesus was obviously around before the scripture. God spoke the earth into creation with his word before the scripture existed, and Ephesians descries our only offensive weapon as the Word of God. Many times in the bible, people cast out demons with out quoting scripture, but I believe the Word of God caused the demons to leave. Further more Satan can quote scripture, but I do not believe he can speak the Word of God.
The central question is this, what is the Word of God, how does it relate to Scripture as we see in the bible, and how is this applicable to our lives?
I posted a lecture on the inerrency of the scripture that I would highly recommend if your at all curious about why we believe the bible to be true, but the most key elements are 2 Timothy 3:16, and 1 Peter 1:18-20. From these verses as well as others, it becomes clear that scripture is perfect, useful, and meant to be applied to our lives.
The focus of this discussion is not on inerrency, because I think we all believe that, but rather I would like to discuss the relationship between the Word of God, and the Scripture. This may sound weird but I do not think they are the same thing. I think they are highly related but not one in the same. John one talks about Jesus as the Word of God, and Jesus was obviously around before the scripture. God spoke the earth into creation with his word before the scripture existed, and Ephesians descries our only offensive weapon as the Word of God. Many times in the bible, people cast out demons with out quoting scripture, but I believe the Word of God caused the demons to leave. Further more Satan can quote scripture, but I do not believe he can speak the Word of God.
The central question is this, what is the Word of God, how does it relate to Scripture as we see in the bible, and how is this applicable to our lives?
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Discipleship
I'm going to post a couple of times each week over the summer with a variety of different material. The aim of this blog is to equip all of you to be effective disciple makers in the fall semester. We are going to be going through a variety of different topics and it would be advisable to keep up to date, because there will be somewhere between four and seven posts per weeks. The post that I do is just going to be food for thought, and some direction of what were going to go over. After I post, we will try to hold a conversation through the comments. The comment section should be heavily used just like we were sitting an discussing this together.
The ruff outline of what were going to cover is as follows:
Biblical examples of discipleship:
-Jesus
--Selection
--Training
--sending out
-John the Baptist
--humility and direction
--equipping
-Paul
--selection of Timothy
--sending of Timothy
--advice and follow up
-Old Testament Examples
--Moses and Joshua
--Elijah and Elisha
Lectures on Discipleship:
-Born to Reproduce
-Howard Hendricks part 1-5
Practical Application:
-Discipleship
--selection
--training in modern culture
--sending
-Leading a small group
--model
--how to prepare
--how to lead a discussion
--how to spur your men on
Be on the look out for the first post some time before Wednesday.
The ruff outline of what were going to cover is as follows:
Biblical examples of discipleship:
-Jesus
--Selection
--Training
--sending out
-John the Baptist
--humility and direction
--equipping
-Paul
--selection of Timothy
--sending of Timothy
--advice and follow up
-Old Testament Examples
--Moses and Joshua
--Elijah and Elisha
Lectures on Discipleship:
-Born to Reproduce
-Howard Hendricks part 1-5
Practical Application:
-Discipleship
--selection
--training in modern culture
--sending
-Leading a small group
--model
--how to prepare
--how to lead a discussion
--how to spur your men on
Be on the look out for the first post some time before Wednesday.
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