The Peace Team

Team play is not an individual thing. You have to admit that watching team members performing well is something to behold. Whether it is a football team that wins the big game, a team of co-workers who meet a critical deadline or even a team of horses smoothly pulling a heavy load, the fact that all members contributed to the team’s overall success is an exciting thing.

God’s team, the church, the very body of Christ, is the ultimate team here on earth. Pastor Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Church in the Chicago area has a favorite saying. “There’s nothing like the church when the church is working right”. A church that is “working right” is a team made up of sinners from all walks of life who have a burning desire to reach out to others to share with them the Good News of Jesus Christ. This team also looks out for each other. It shares life’s joys and sorrows together. It learns from each other. It relies on each other for “doing church” on a daily basis and not just on the weekends. It holds each other accountable. This team will be a part of our eternal family. Flying solo somehow just doesn’t seem as exciting, does it?

Blessings,

Gary Fenner

Bible Chapters for September 28 – October 4

1 Thessalonians 2
John 12
1 Corinthians 3
Isaiah 43

Vultures and hummingbirds

After reading the verses for this week I was reminded how Paul often tells us to pay attention to how we are living our lives….”Run in such a way as to get the prize.” 1 Cor 9:22….”Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above…not on earthly things.”  Col 3:1-2……..”Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature:  sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”  Col 3:5 These, of course, are great words of wisdom but not always easy for any of us to follow….like it says in Matt:7:13-14…”Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

The verses I’ve mentioned bring to mind some facts I’ve heard about two birds that fly over our nation’s deserts; one is the hummingbird and the other is the vulture. The vultures find the rotting meat of the desert because that is what they look for. They thrive on that diet. But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals. Instead, they look for the colorful blossoms of desert plants. The vultures live on what was. They live on the past and they fill themselves with what is dead and gone. But hummingbirds live on what is. They seek new life and fill themselves with the freshness of that new life. Each of these birds finds what they are looking for and so do we.

It’s so easy for any of us to make the wrong choices in our daily lives, whether it be drinking, gambling, lying, cheating, living for the almighty dollar or hurting people that we love by our words or our actions…and the list goes on. We basically choose to fill our lives with road kill so to speak. Thank goodness we have forgiveness in Jesus each and every day and things we can do to help us live the way that leads to new life in Jesus and to a real relationship with Him…i.e.worship, Bible study, prayer and Christian fellowship.

So how are you living these days? What kind of life choices are you making? Are you filling yourself up on road-kill, or are you filling up on the things that refresh and that give forgiveness and life? Paul’s words from God really encourage me to let God nourish the relationship that He has with me. I’m hoping that they spoke to you as well.
Marlee Forke

Correction on Bible Chapters for this Week

Psalm 1
Matthew 7
Colossians 3
I Corinthians 9

Christian or Christ-follower

Are you a Christian or a Christ-follower?

I know a lot of Christians that do not actively follow Christ. For a number of years I was one of them.

What caused me to change?

Hanging out with sold out Christ followers!

People who are so into Jesus that they molded their entire life around his teachings.

My father-in-law Tim is a Christ follower. He begins each day reading the word and in prayer…. He prays for his church…. For his wife and children…. and for me.
Tim’s desire to follow Christ is infectious.

In Psalm one David writes:
1:1 Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.

What I do shapes me… It makes me the person I am….
What are you doing that shapes you? How can you follow Christ this week?

James

Bible Chapters for September 21-27 (corrected)

• Psalm 1
• Matthew 7
• Colossians 3
• I Corinthians 9

Mark 8 Who will you become

In Mark chapter 8

Jesus warns his disciples to “watch out for the Leaven of the Pharisees.”

Who I hangout with…. The things I expose myself to and the things I choose to do…. They are all leaven.

Check out Mark Beeson’s thoughts on “who you will become.”

Trying to decide who you want to be when you grow up?

Lots of us are working on the same issue. We know who we are today. We know who we’d like to be tomorrow. We may, or may not, like ourselves as we are. We’d like to be better. We’d like to be a new and improved 2.0 version of ourselves tomorrow.

As an old Methodist, I’ve got some thoughts that might help you, so if you don’t want to wait until the weekend to gain some ground on this agenda, let me offer a few suggestions. To become the person you want to become…

1. Give your life to Jesus.
As His personal friend – living an interactive life with Him – you know the Truth. In Him you have power over evil and the freedom to lead your life as He would lead your life if He was you. Serving Jesus means all day, every day, we’re working for Jesus – so our jobs are transformed into holy vocations. The forces of evil are stymied when we consciously live for Jesus.

2. Give your life to the Church.
Know this; the most important thing happening in your home, your community and your city is happening in the Church. Nothing on earth is more important than what is happening through Christ, and the Church is the Body of Christ in the world. With your friends in the church, under the proper guidance of pastors, you’ll learn how to “exercise dominion in life through the One, Christ Jesus.” Don’t forget your friends in Christ who are long dead; their encouragement and wisdom is available to us in their writings.

3. Give your life to the spiritual disciplines.
Our methodical practice of spiritual disciplines increases our receptivity to grace – and grace is God acting in our lives to accomplish what we cannot do on our own. Of course, these practices are not ways of impressing God (or other people). We don’t do them to earn God’s favor. We engage them as avenues of knowing Christ. We need them as we learn to eliminate distractions, gain clarity and focus on our camaraderie with Christ.

4. Give your money.
Start being generous with what you have and it will grow. Generosity is an essential dimension of love. We were made for generosity. Everyone wants to be generous – if they only believe they can be generous. The exercise of giving breaks the grip of our little kingdom and strengthens our connection with the soon and coming Kingdom of God.

5. Give yourself to prayer.
Prayer brings progress in a form suited to the wisdom of God. God intends to bless the world. Prayer is God’s plan for safely sharing power with us – so He can bless the world through us.

6. Give yourself to others.
Christ-followers have a task assigned them; that mission is to know Christ and, knowing Him, to make the knowledge of God and life in Christ available to those around them.

Go ahead and improve on this list, but I believe – whatever you add to this list – these suggestions will help you become the person you want to be when you grow up.

Romans 5:17 – For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

An awesome video on Juarez and the Big <3

The Big <3 / Juarez Missions from Peace Church on Vimeo.

Bible Chapters for September 14-20

• Mark 8
• Acts 5
• Acts 10
• 2 Corinthians 6

Blue Parakeet 2

I raised some questions with regard to Mark 11:11-12 in a previous post and I appreciated Bob’s response.  A couple initial comments …

1) calling a passage a “Blue Parakeet” does not mean that it can’t be understood and applied but that it’s initial strangeness calls for a deeper look (rather than ignoring it).

2) I wouldn’t want too quickly to “justify” Jesus’ cursing of fig tree as a normal response to an unfruitful tree.  While it appears to have been barren this particular season, who is to know whether that was a lasting situation?  More to the Gospel writer Mark’s point, it wasn’t fig season, so even if there had been fruit, it wouldn’t have been edible anyway.  Maybe some folks should have called in the PETFT (People for the Ethical Treatment of Fig Trees).

I believe that Jesus was deliberately doing something outrageous (cursing a barren fig tree) to teach a vivid lesson (actually two lessons … but that is getting ahead of ourselves).  The first is that God expects his people to be fruitful and the whole Temple system had become spiritually unfruitful.  As Bob points out, it is crucial to see that the whole incident of the fig tree brackets Mark’s telling of Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple.  There is an important connection here that God’s people had allowed commerce and ritual to replace a vital relationship with a loving God.  The spiritual barrenness (with particular emphasis on their rejection of Jesus) would ultimately result in God’s judgment on the Temple (with arguably the historic fulfillment being the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD by the Romans.)

However, we dare not point the finger at the ancient Jews any more than any other people who have claimed to worship the Lord.  For there has always been a tendency to let religious practices take the place of genuine devotion.  In our day, we see a lot of “consumer Christianity”…  in which people come to church merely to receive some benefit without a commitment to and service for others in Jesus’ name … and this equally stands under God’s judgment.  Whenever people are content to fill pews rather than passionately live out their faith the rest of the week, they are at risk of becoming barren fig trees.  Fruitfulness is not a matter of trying to earn our way to heaven (which is a gift of God), but rather becomes a Spirit-enabled result of being “in Jesus” … fruits come forth out of a healthy relationship with the Lord Jesus.

Pastor Mark