Proverbs 11:30 ESV

(30) The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.

Paul is writing to Titus (3:3) and overall the letter is about putting the church in order for the future.

Paul is feeling his time on earth is coming to a close.

The sand is running out.

And he wants to get all ‘his boys’ organized so the work goes on after him…..and he writes to Titus….We ourselves were once foolish…

How many Christian leaders forget that! How many of them look for perfection in their people instead of satisfaction.

How many of them forget the struggles, the trials and the failures that they had to overcome. The moral mistakes. The moral and emotional baggage they brought to Christ.

Maybe another way Paul would have said it is: Titus…don’t forget where you came from mate…(well, he would have only used mate if he was Australian…)

When I got saved my friends and pastors encouraged me to throw out all my old pictures, they said they were my past and needed to go. There was an element of truth to that and by enlarge I did.

But I kept just a couple. The compromising ones. The ones that would cause great embarrassment to me and anyone else in the picture. The ones showing me ‘worse for wear’. Why?

Because that is where I came from.

It is not who I am now, but it was surely who I was…John you were once foolish… is what those pictures say.

Now I didn’t stay there.

That is not who I am now.

Nor is my past a justification for action in my future…but for me it is a promise of redemption and possibility to all who would believe. It is proof that God saves whomever He wants, wherever He wants, whenever He wants.

I think the state of the church would be a little better off if my peers stopped reading their fan mail and started looking at their old photo albums.

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www.clctx.org

I love to worship God.

I love to get alone in my shed, turn the lights off, put on music and sing and worship…Loud, Flat and passionate!!

But then when the lights come back on I sit and read my Bible.

I study doctrine.

I read church history.

I don’t do this because I am a preacher. I do these things because I am a Christian.

My time of worship is supported by and encouraged by the truths that I know.

My passion for Christ isn’t based upon my vocation, but my salvation.

In a culture that craves the experience, we have Christians that don’t get beyond the music.

For them worship is a concert, in fact they can not worship without a crowd. They can’t worship with the lights on!

I had a guy come to my church this year that told me to have a real move of God, they dim the lights during their Sunday morning service. They put on their special ‘atmosphere lighting’ and create a mood so God can turn up.

What I thought (twit)  and what I said were not the same thing. “…Wow…that makes what Jesus did RREEAALLYY special, He must of  had a mirror ball and a smoke machine to do all His miracles. I wonder how He got power?” Needless to say the conversation got ugly….

Music will stir your emotions and enliven your senses..and that is a good thing, a refreshing thing, even an essential thing…but a knowledge of what you believe, an understanding of truth (i.e. doctrine), will give you a foundation that is not easily shaken when hell turns up one day and decides to camp out in your life for a week or a month or a year…

Turning up the volume isn’t spiritual warfare, daily rising and living for Christ is.

One is a sensation, the other is consecration.

What I am so grateful for in our church is that the worship we have, the songs that are written, the miracles that we see are a bi-product, they are fruit.

The fruit of triumph in the midst of adversity. The bi-product of an intimate walk with Christ (the Word incarnate).

Our worship team  doesn’t only know how to sing, or how to play, they know how to pray, how to share their faith, how to pray for the sick, they know the tenants of their faith, the doctrines of grace.

Worship is not a CD you buy, but it is a life dedicated fully to the pursuit of Christ.

Who you are after the music, is who heaven sees.

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www.clctx.org

www.provokeblog.org

I remember when we first got married, people wish us well and sent us off on our honeymoon….lots of smiles and teary farewells. We sort of had the impression that this would be the highlight of our life. People told us, our wedding day and honeymoon was going to be one of the greatest days we would ever know.

It was terrible. We fought like mad and continued to fight like that for close on the first 8 years of our marraige.

But our love was never based on an experience, it was never based on the beauty of the wedding, the wonder of the honeymoon destination. It was not based upon ‘my needs being meet’. It was based on a sense of destiny, a sense of calling, an over arching desire to love each other in spite of each other.

I was committed to being married to Beccy, not to experiencing Beccy. She was committed to loving me, not having her needs met.

Every week I see people come to church who have grow up in an ‘experienced based culture’.

Grown up being told that having their needs met is the most important thing in life.

That the world, the church, the politicians, there job is there to serve them and cater to there wants and desires. These organizations OWE them. Their families OWE them. Their spouses OWE them.

They come to church, they stay becasue they love the experience. They love the worship, they are amazed at the Word, the facilities, the kids program, etc., etc., etc.

Yet when God starts to require something of them. When He starts to convict them, challenge them, prod around in their stuff, they detach..they will not allow the Word to do the work. They love being immature. They love being the baby. They love being the receiver of grace and not the channel for grace.

Maturity is not about age, but about the acceptance of responsibility.

When we refuse to graduate from consumer to provider we are relegating ourselves to the place of a child.

Paul said there comes a time in every life when we must put away childish things to grow and walk in the full stature of what Christ has for us.

How many people are double over and crippled not by the burdens and pressures of the Christian walk, but by there refusal to simply grow up. They are weight down with selfishness. Weight down with immaturity, weight down with bitterness and frustration. Weight down with a victim mentality, weight down ‘you-dont- understand-me-itist’.

If my wife had been like that…we would never have made it. If I didn’t learn NOT to be like that, we would never had made it.

People will not make it in their walk with Christ becasue they refuse to graduate from Experience to Pursuit.

They won’t move from child to adult.

They won’t move from the recipient of grace to the giver of grace.

How shallow our lives have become and how shallow we have allowed our faith to become when it is all still about me…2, 5 or 20 years on.

Before you were saved it was all about you….now it is all about them.

I urge you in the Lord to graduate from a faith that is based upon what you feel, to a faith that is based upon what you know.

I urge you to graduate from a faith that is based upon your experience to one that is based upon your knowedge.

I urge you to graduate from a faith that is based upon what you can get from it to a faith that is based upon what you can give to it.

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www.provokeblog.org

www.clctx.org

From tonight’s message on Leading in Times of Crisis and Change

The first Wednesday of every month I teach on leadership at church. But this month as part of our Think Big Mission Conference, I want to get our people ready for the growth and opportunities that are coming our way.

Here is point #7.

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Proverbs 11:30 ESV

(30) The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.

You will notice that it says that whoever captures souls is wise.

It does not say that whoever preaches is wise.

Whoever plays worship is wise.

Many pulpits are filled every week with great acts of oratory and worship. People stand and applaud, heaven sits and wonders.

It does not say that whoever wins a King is wise.

It does not say who ever runs for office.

It does not say that the intercessor.

The itinerant minister.

The movie starter.

The Christian artist.

Or the person running a soup kitchen.

The Christian business person who gives to missions is wise.

It does not say that any of these people are wise.

It does not say that the person who talks about soul wining is wise.

The wise person DOES SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

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www.provokeblog.org

www.clctx.org

Proverbs 11:30 ESV

(30) The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.

As we defined it last week the real meaning of revival is to recover, repair or restore.

It indicates that something that was once productive and beautiful has become broken down and in need of repair.

The heart of a revolution of Love does not live in the desire to change a community, to change apolitical process, even to change a government, but lies in the over whelming desire to change a life….the life of someone else.

Often we talk about revivals, Love Revolutions, we are thinking on a grand scale.

We are thinking of whole nations.

And the examples that we will look at, that was the by product, that was never the aim.

The aim was the next person on the street.

The city or town that someone grew up in.

The situation that just become intolerable to live with out doing something about.

A love revolution, a Revival starts with a compassionate heart for the lost and dying.

It starts with a sense of value in the lives of others.

It starts with seeing every man, woman, and child as important in the eyes of God and in desperate need of His loving touch.

Revival is not wrought by the hands of man, but by the intervention of God.

What we can do however is make ourselves available.

God is not looking or asking much of us….just that we would be available and passionate, yet we as a people, like the children of Israel before us seem so reluctant and so given to anything other than worship of our Lord.

What if the reason we have not seen a revival across our nation is simply this….that every time God comes to us…we are either involved in the worship of something other than Him or we are simply not available.

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www.provokeblog.org

www.clctx.org