Category: Christian Living

As we continued our study of Acts at Grace Fellowship, we spent some time today focusing on a man named Barnabas. His given name was Joseph, but he was called Barnabas, which we are told means “son of encouragement.”

Here’s what we can learn about this man named Barnabas as we read through Acts:

Barnabas was an encourager.
Even without the nickname, his encouraging spirit is seen throughout the book of Acts.

Barnabas was generous and cared about his fellow believers.
In Acts 5, Barnabas sells a piece of property and brings all the proceeds to the Apostles to be used to help with the needy in the church. His care for those in need was more than lip service.

Barnabas was trustworthy.
The apostles trusted Barnabas’ judgment that Saul was not hostile, and they trusted his judgment in discerning what God was doing in the city of Antioch. They also trusted Barnabas enough to send him out as a missionary.

Barnabas had a good reputation.
In Acts 11, he is referred to as “a good man.” This doesn’t mean he never sinned. It means that he lived an admirable life – that he had a good character.

Barnabas was full of faith.
Barnabas was known for his faith. His trust in Jesus was evident to all. In every time and every place, Barnabas’ faith was in the “on” position. 

Barnabas was a willing servant.
Our greatest ability for the kingdom is our availability. Barnabas was always available when the Lord called. His eyes and his heart were wide open looking for opportunities God might send His way.

Barnabas was humble.
As you read through the book Acts, you may notice a shift. Barnabas and Saul go out as a missionary team, but Luke lists Barnabas’ name first – Barnabas and Saul. After chapter 13, it shifts. Barnabas is listed second. In spite of this, we see no jealousy or rivalry between them. Barnabas’ humility allows him to rejoice with the advancement of others.

Barnabas had a heart for the weak and the rejected. 
We see this first with Saul and later with John Mark. John Mark was Barnabas’ cousin who had joined their missionary team early on but who had run home to mama. Paul didn’t want him to go with them on their next journey, but Barnabas insisted. It ended up with Paul and Barnabas amicably parting ways – Paul teaming up with Silas and Barnabas taking along John Mark.

To Barnabas, this young believer was worth the investment, in spite of his failure. He chose to take a chance and take John Mark under his wing. Was it worth it? You make the call. Consider what Paul (yes, that Saul) wrote toward the end of his life – Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry (2 Timothy 4:11). Yep, that Mark is John Mark.

Barnabas was full of the Holy Spirit. His life was guided and controlled by the Spirit of God. Barnabas allowed the Holy Spirit to do His work in and through Him. The Spirit’s fruit was on full display in his’ life.

Barnabas is a man whose life is worthy of our study and our emulation. Maybe Paul had Barnabas in mind when he wrote – encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)

I have had those occasions when the Lord prompted me to do something out of the ordinary and sometimes out of my comfort zone. Although I’ve never had an angel show up, nor have I had the Lord speak audibly to me, I have this inward tugging, something in my heart and mind perhaps to speak to someone, to serve someone, to be generous with someone, or just to pray for someone. That compulsion is almost irresistible. I say “almost irresistible” because I know that urging can be resisted. 

I’ve resisted that tugging more than once. My hesitance or outright resistance is usually because I have an internal battle going on in my brain. I ask myself is this God speaking, or is it just some internal impulse of my own making? I’ve discovered that if the internal wrestling match goes on long enough, the moment to act usually passes. I cannot count how many opportunities like that end up in my rear view mirror without any response on my part. 

Many of you know that struggle. You wonder if it the Holy Spirit pulling you or is it just your own thinking? How can you know? Well… I wish the answer was super easy and absolutely cut and dry. My experience has shown me that it’s not, however through the years I have found some basic guidelines that can help discern whether it might be God leading you. I wish I could give proper attribution to every writer or preacher who helped me form this list, but at least let me be honest enough to say that I didn’t come up with these on my own.

Read God’s Word. Meditate on its truth. Memorize it. Tuck it away. As you try to discern God’s leading, you’ll be surprised how the Holy Spirit brings to mind exactly what you need at exactly the right time.

Get God’s Word into your heart and mind.
Psalm 119 encourages us to hide God’s Word in our hearts as security to keep us from sinning. Hiding His Word within us does even more than that; it gives us a reserve from which we can pull wisdom, encouragement, correction, and truth. It is a storeroom from which we can draw guidance in a time of need, but if we haven’t put anything in what can we draw out?

Consistently spent time with God in prayer.
It is far easier to know God’s voice if you are familiar with it. This means that prayer is more than bringing our laundry list of needs and dumping them before God’s throne just before we dash out the door to start our day. It means we pause to listen for God. We ask for Him to lead us, then we wait for Him to do so.

Psalm 25:4 makes a simple request, “Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.” Can we slow down enough to pray that prayer and to wait for God to answer?

Stay aware of the presence of God as you go through your day.
If you are a believer in Jesus, then He has promised to be with you always. There is never a time when you are truly alone, even when you feel that way. An awareness of God’s presence is not intended to be a threatening, guilt-inducing thing; rather it is a comforting sense of His presence and a promise of His guidance as we seek His will.

In John 16, Jesus tells His disciples something that startles them. He tells them that it is to their advantage that he go to the Father, because He would send the Holy Spirit to them. When Jesus was present with them, He might be near them one day but miles away the next. When the Father sent His Spirit to indwell them, it meant He would be with them at all times and everywhere. Jesus said, “He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:12). He is still guiding His people today.

Have mature believers in your life who will give you wise and godly counsel.
Do you have someone or a small group of people who will speak truth into your life? If not, you need it! “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” (Proverbs 12:15)

Give a handful of people full permission to correct your bad behavior and attitudes. Find people who love Jesus and love you and then be willing to seek their input on issues with which you’re struggling. This constant refinement will be like iron sharpening iron. There may be a few sparks, but you’ll all get sharper and wiser in the process.

Leave room for God to change your course.
God may lead you to a certain place or a particular ministry. That may be a fruitful and satisfying time, but He may not intend for you to remain there forever. In fact, God will often lead His children through many transitions. We may be exactly where God wants us at the moment, but we should always be open for God to call us to some other place or to some other ministry.

Sometimes these transitions are a welcomed change. At other times, these changes can be difficult to swallow, especially if we have having great success where we are or if His nudging is toward something that seems particularly challenging or out of our comfort zone. We must remember that Jesus’ call was to follow Him; the very phrase leads us to understand we must be ready to move when called.

Begin with what you know God has already revealed about what it means to follow Jesus.
We often struggle to know God’s specific will about some decision we face, but are we faithful to what we know He has already called us to?

There are some ways God is leading us that we already know –
We are to be faithful in prayer.
We are to be faithful to read God’s Word and meditate on it.
We are to be faithful to gather with other believers in worship.
We are to be faithful in serving others in Jesus’ name.
We are to be faithful in sharing the gospel with those who don’t know Jesus.
We don’t have to ask God if He’s leading us in these directions. He has already made it clear! We simply need to do it!

It has been said that our greatest ability is our availability. If we make ourselves available, stay close to Jesus and His people, and are committed to go where He leads, we may find ourselves in unexpected places doing unexpected things, but we will find great joy in being there and doing that.

In Sunday’s message, I challenged our church members to give God a blank check. By that I meant, we give God our unconditional “yes” to whatever He calls us to do. Is it scary? It can be. But there is no place more important or more fulfilling than to be in the center of God’s will for your life.

Reading from James this morning, I came across this familiar passage that is both comforting and challenging. Take a look at it.

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (James 4:7-10)

What first hit me was verse 8, where we are called to draw near to God with the assurance that He will draw near to us. No social-distancing here! Nearness to God can be the longing of our hearts – and it can be a longing fulfilled!

What hit me next was the attitude we should have when approaching God. It should ever be with a sense of entitlement or arrogance. We can only come into God’s presence because of His grace and mercy through His Son and our Savior Jesus! We are, instead, to come humbly and with a repentant heart.

To harbor unconfessed sin or to treat the hidden sin in our lives lightly is to minimize the sacrifice of Jesus for our sin. If you are a believer, your sin is forgiven in Jesus, but that does not mean it is no big deal. The Apostle Paul acknowledged that where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. In other words, God’s grace is always greater than our sin – no matter how massive that stinking manure pile may be! But Paul goes on to say –

 ¹ What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Romans 6:1-2)

God calls us to come near. God promises to come near to us. What a great privilege and comfort! But let us take the time to examine our lives. Do we have unconfessed sins? Do we harbor animosity toward someone? Are we infused with a critical spirit? Do we need to take the “log” out of our own eye so God can use us to minister to someone with a “speck” in theirs?

My hope for all of God’s people this day is that we will acknowledge our sin and the great cost of that sin, confess it, forsake it, and enjoy pure fellowship and intimacy with the Lord of all!

Paul uses the human body as an illustration of what the body of Christ is like. As the body is made up of different parts with each part performing a unique function, so it is with the church. Each member of the body is uniquely gifted by God to work alongside all the other parts of the body to help it function to its fullest ability.

Even more, we are members of one another or, as the New International Version puts it, “each member belongs to all the others.” This statement can profoundly affect the way we see our place in the church. We are not just individuals who gather for worship or discipleship or service. We are interdependent. We need each other and we belong together.

God’s design is that we bring our distinctiveness and our giftedness together, and like a human body function as one under the leadership of the head, that is, Jesus. In this way we can make the greatest impact for the kingdom of God.

God did not give us all the same spiritual gifts and natural talents, and this was intentional. As Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth – ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? ¹⁸ But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹ If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. (1 Corinthians 12:17-20)

Whatever your gifts are, whatever your talents, whatever skills you have developed, they make you unique and uniquely able to make a difference for the kingdom of God – BUT when combine with the uniqueness of other believers, the impact is multiplied incredibly. Let’s be the body!

The Apostle Paul was gifted man. As a Pharisee, he strove to be the best Pharisee possible in an effort to stand head and shoulders above the rest. As a Christian, he poured his talents and energies into spreading the good news of Jesus, planting churches, shaping church leaders, and encouraging believers. He was an impressive man, but he tried not to be overly impressed with himself.

One of the greatest dangers for a believer is pride. Pride puff us up. Pride trips us up. Pride will eventually take us down. So, as Paul writes to the church in Rome, he warns them not to become overly enthralled with themselves – with their spiritual gifts, natural talents, or well-honed skills. Everything they possessed was by the grace of God – EVERYTHING. The same is true for us!

He says that they were to think of themselves with “sober judgment.” As C.S. Lewis wrote in his insightful book Mere Christianity, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” We are to see ourselves as we truly are with our strengths and weakness, our successes and our failures, our good days and bad ones. We are not to become depressed over our faults or impressed with our achievements. Having a sober judgment of ourselves means making a sound judgment, a right judgment.

I wake up every day grateful. I am grateful for the gift of another day. I am grateful for the gift of my family. I am grateful for my calling to shepherd God’s people. I am grateful for the things God has accomplished through me. I am grateful for the encouragers God has place around me. I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to put my feet on other continents to share the message of Jesus. I am grateful for ALL OF IT comes as a gift from God.

Paul would write to the church in Corinth, “by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Let us all have the Spirit-given wisdom to say the same.

Let’s pick up where we left off yesterday in Romans 12:2. Yesterday, we focused on Paul’s warning not to be conformed to this world. Today, we look at the positive alternative to that – transformation.

The word “transformed” comes from the Greek metamorphoo. If that word looks familiar, it should. That’s were our word metamorphosis comes from, and it gives us a good image of transformation. At just the right time, the caterpillar slinks along a limb, finds a good spot, and forms a cocoon. The caterpillar stays in that cocoon approximately 21 days, then emerges as a butterfly. It is transformed, and the transformation is beautiful.

For the Christian, this kind of transformation includes our external behaviors, but it is far more than surface deep. It is a change to the very kind of person we are. Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again” (John 3:7), so we know that an immediate change takes place the day a person trusts in Jesus Christ. The Bible pictures this as a darkness-to-light, death-to-life change. But there is an ongoing change that happens to us as our minds are being renewed by the Spirit of God.

In other words, we are not simply changing from the world’s to-do list to Jesus to-do list, instead we are allowing the Spirit of God to change us from the inside out. This happens, Paul says, by the renewal of your mind.

This is too important to overlook! When we were dead in our sins, our minds were dead to the things of God. In other words, the problem with our minds is not simply that we do not have enough information to make good decisions. The problem is that an unredeemed mind is corrupted. It is bent toward rebellion and away from God. Paul wrote in Romans 1:28, “Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind.”

Even when we have a genuine conversion to Christ, we still have these deep ruts in our thinking, ruts we often fall back into. It is intensely frustrating for a believer who wants to align his life with the will of God, but struggles with old habits. We long to be free of the shackles of sinful behaviors and the guilt and shame that accompany them.

If transformation comes from the renewal of our minds, how, then, are our minds renewed? Renewal of our minds is not something obtained by force of will. Renewal is the work of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5). We must be utterly dependent upon God’s power and not our own. Many great accomplishments have been done by humankind by the sheer force of will, but not the renewal of the mind!

If this renewal is a God thing, then an ever-growing intimacy with God is our answer. The nearer we draw to the heart and mind of God, the more we will be able to discern and discover His will, and the more willing we will be to pursue that will with all our hearts. This is why the disciplines of daily prayer and Bible reading are so very important. This is why a connection with a body of believers who can challenge you and hold you accountable is so important. This is why listening to Christ-honoring music and reading the works of godly men and women are so important. Our transformation is supercharged by the renewal of our minds as our thinking begins to line up with the heart and will of God Himself.

Picking up where we left off yesterday, Paul has made his appeal to the Roman church (and to us) based on the mercies of God. I would add here that he uses “mercies” rather than “mercy” because the mercy God shows is multi-faceted and ever-flowing. And based on the mercies God has shown to us, Paul lays out our reasonable response…

“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” When Paul uses the term “bodies,” it would seem that he is not just talking about our physical bodies but would include the totality of who we are. It is, however, with our physical bodies that we interact with the world around us. Our understanding of God mercies and our salvation experience because of His mercy saves our souls, but it also influences our actions and interactions in the physical realm.

There was also a belief taught by philosophers and embraced by many that body and spirit were totally separate. Indulging in sinful behaviors with your body, they believed, would have no affect on your spirit whatsoever. Paul’s words argue against such a dichotomy. We are not simply to present our souls to God but every part of ourselves. When we bring our bodies to Him, we are, as the Hokey Pokey song would say, putting our wholeself in. The trick is not to then take our wholeself out!

So what is a “living sacrifice“? Remember that animal sacrifice was common, but in each case the animal was killed. That was the sacrifice. The idea of a living sacrifice would have struck the readers as very strange. The answer, however, may be far simpler than it appears.

The words of Jesus found in Luke’s gospel shed some like on the idea of a living sacrifice. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Just as a sacrifice was a one-time event, so too was a crucifixion! Yet Jesus calls us to take up our cross DAILY. We are daily dying to ourselves so as to live for Christ – or better yet, to allow Christ to live in and through us!

Paul then adds two terms that describe the living sacrifice – “holy” and “acceptable to God.” The standards God placed upon acceptable offerings were high. A Jew was to carefully consider what He would bring to the Lord as an offering. It was not random or haphazard in any way. He was to bring the first fruits, the best of his flock or herd. He was not to bring blind or lame animals, that which would be less costly to dispose of.

When we come to the Lord as living sacrifices, we are not to bring our least or the leftovers of our lives. We are to give to God the very best of ourselves. This is not simply in regard to money we might place in an offering basket. Paul is talking about giving our very selves!

And he adds – “which is your spiritual worship.” We offer our BODIES as SPIRITUAL worship. There is no divide here. We don’t separate our spirit and our physical form. True worship, as Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, is in spirit and in truth. When we offer our spiritual worship, it is giving ourselves to God inside and out and without reservation or holding back. And it is the only reasonable and logical thing to do based on the mercy He has shown to us.

In times of prosperity and times of lack, in times of triumph and in life’s defeats, in our best times and our worst times, God covers us with His mercy and calls us to live in such a way to bring glory to Him and bring people to Jesus.

Today, we’re going to begin walking through Romans 12. The plan (and we all know how plans can change) is to do this daily in the hopes that it might encourage the body of Christ and challenge those who do not believe so that they might embrace Jesus as Savior! So, let’s get started…

In all that he has written before this, Paul has already presented the church in Rome (and us) with a truckload of profound and life-changing truth about God and His eternal plans. Here, Paul appeals to the Roman believers. “Appeal” is a word meaning to urge or exhort. It is composed to two parts. The first part means “from close beside” and the other “to call.” Even though Paul was a great distance away, it is as if he were standing beside them making his plea to the Romans.

In his urging, is “by the mercies of God.” If you took the time to read through Romans 1-11, it richly expounds on the great mercy of God toward sinful humanity. It was a mercy that took Jesus to the cross.

The word “mercy” means to have deep compassion on someone in great difficulty. It is translated elsewhere as “pity,” but we see pity as looking down on a person or just feeling sorry for them. Mercy is far more active! It not only feels badly about a person’s situation, it acts on behalf of that person. So, for us, mercy reveals not only the heart of God toward us but His power in acting to bring us out of our dire state.

Lamentations 3:22 reminds us that the mercies of God never end. Ephesians 2:4 informs us that God is rich in mercy. God pocket’s are bulging with mercy. His bank vault cannot close because of the magnitude of His mercy. His mercy overflows the halls of heaven and spills out on each of us as God holds back His wrath and is lovingly patient with us.

God’s mercy and grace are bound up together. As Ray Pritchard writes, “Mercy is what gets us out of trouble. Grace gives us what we don’t deserve” (citation). They are both expressions of His love.

Today, let us marvel in the mercy of God. Let His mercy toward us motivate us to reflect that mercy to a hurting world. Jesus said, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36)

Who YOU are…

– It’s important to know that the “you” in this verse is plural, not singular. We too often think of our Christian faith as only a journey we travel with Jesus, but it is more, far more. It is also a journey we travel with Jesus’ people. The New Testament knows nothing of a Lone Ranger kind of Christian. We were born again into a born again community!

A CHOSEN RACE – “Chosen” is a term often used for Israel. They were a people God chose and a people He chose to bless (Deuteronomy 7:6). And in Ephesians 1:4, Paul says of believers that “He chose us in Him [that is in Christ] before the creation of the world.” This was not due to our worthiness but was by God’s grace alone. No matter how we feel, no matter what others think of us, no matter how maligned or even despised the church of Jesus may become, the truth is that we are chosen by God Himself.

A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD – In the Old Testament, the monarchy and the priesthood were divided. Kings were to be descended from the line of David, the tribe of Benjamin. Priests were to be descended from the line of Aaron, the tribe of Levi. Each one had its unique roles in the life of God’s people. (See 1 Samuel 13:8-14 and 2 Chronicles 26:16-21)

In Jesus, all this was surpassed. Jesus is the great high priest after the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:17) and the promised King to sit on David’s throne (Luke 1:32, Revelation 19:11-16). We are a royal priesthood in the sense that we are co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). 

A HOLY NATION – This, too, is terminology used in reference to Israel. They were not holy in the sense that they never erred and always responded perfectly to God’s desires for them. That notion would be dispelled with even a cursory reading of the Old Testament! In what sense, then, were they holy? 

The term ‘holy’ means ‘set apart,’ and this is precisely who there were. God chose them and set them apart from the other nations. Many of the laws He gave to them were to distinguish them from the nations around them. And God has set us apart. As believers in His Son, we were chosen, called, and set apart by God Himself. Jesus calls us to follow Him, and in doing so our attitudes and lifestyles will be markedly different from the world around us – or at least they should be.

A PEOPLE FOR HIS OWN POSSESSION – In Deuteronomy 7:6, it refers to the people of God as God’s “treasured possession.” What a beautiful expression! We are God’s, and God delights in that. We bring joy to the heart of God, not because we are always good or perfect, but because we are His. Do we disappoint Him? Yes. But the fact remains that He loves us. He delights in us. 

What YOU are called to do – 

– We could have stopped with has just been said and go on feeling good about ourselves for the rest of the day. But God never intended us to be the fine china on display behind glass doors in the cabinet collecting dust – to be taken out and used only once a year. Instead, He chose us and calls us for a purpose – a glorious purpose.

TO PROCLAIM THE EXCELLENCIES OF GOD – The one who “called you out of darkness into his marvelous light,” is worthy of our praise – now and forever. We are to declare His praises in our worship, but we are also to proclaim His glory to the world in our witness.

Everyone is a creation of God, but not all are children of God. The Bible is clear that there is but one way into the holy presence of God, and that way is through faith in Jesus Christ who is the Way, the Truth, the Life, and the only Way to the Father (John 14:6). Jesus said, “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14). 

But God’s Word also tells us that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21, Romans 10:13). Have you trusted in Jesus? If not, today could be your day of salvation. Email me, and we’ll talk. pastor@gracefellowship.ws