In the back of my journal I have a pocket, and in that pocket I collect all sorts of “things.” Most of those “things” are reminders. Among them is: “My Edification List” from Barb, a poem from Courtney, a foot rubbing coupon from Abby, an encouraging note from Ben, a Father’s Day card from Blake, a letter from my brother, two prayer request cards from men, and my Dad’s obituary.

I laid these reminders out on my desk today and read them. Each one was a gentle shove to keep honoring God and serving others. As I look at them my heart breaks for the times I’ve failed, but I am also encouraged. I am encouraged because I realize that I have these people (and many more) in front of me courageously following God and behind me faithfully supporting my efforts.

We all need these kind of built in reminders. We need things in our life that remind us of God’s faithfulness to us and of people’s love. The Israelites had these reminders. On certain momentous, God-is-faithful-and-came-through occasions they would stack rocks so they wouldn’t forget (Joshua 4:1-7). They would write down the stories of God’s faithfulness so that the coming generations would continue to trust God (Psalm 78). Even God had a “book of remembrance” (Malachi 3:16); how cool is that!

What reminders do you have? Let me encourage and challenge you to get some. Put these reminders in your life personally, and then put some in place for your family. It is so easy to lose faith when discouragement hits. We all need to know that God is faithful and that people are for us. We need to know that we aren’t going through life alone.

Grace & Peace,

I’m so glad last week is over, and I think I’m equally thankful I don’t have a crystal ball to let me know how hectic a week is going to be. If I did have that sort of think in my life I think I would have cashed in all my sick and personal days and just checked out. Now I know every one of your reading this has weeks like that, right? Well, last week’s busy schedule got me thinking and had me meditating on strength.

It seemed that many of the songs I heard on Pandora throughout the week, and the Scriptures I read touched on the subject of strength. So often I think all I have to do is tag Christ’s strength on my own and I’m set. In reality I have come to understand that when I am doing God’s will I can only do in through His strength. I really don’t have anything to bring to the battle.

On Tuesday morning (10-8-12) God providentially lead me to Isaiah 40:28-29,

²⁸Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. ²⁹He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

Oh, how we so easily go out and try to tackle our day in our own power. We believe that if anything is going to get done we’re the ones who’ve just got to suck it up and push our way through. All the time God is saying to us, “Hey, do it in MY strength, don’t go through this alone. I want you to do My will through My Son. Get it done through Jesus!”

²⁸Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

Did you see that? Did you notice how Jesus brings together “labor” and “heavy laden” with “rest”? Yeah, rest is what we’re looking for, but how? Verse 29 is the key. Take His yoke and learn from Him. We continue to work in His strength and that is where we find soul rest! Isn’t that beautiful?

Something that we need to be reminded about from time-to-time is that Calvary Baptist Church exists to glorify God. That is the primary responsibility of all creation that God established from the very beginning. The first approval we see is that of God’s…

And God saw that it was good (Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25)…And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good (Genesis 1:31).

Creation had to meet God’s approval, nobody else’s.

Once we understand what our primary responsibility in all of life is and what it means, then we can begin to ask important, rubber-meets-the-road kind of questions. Like, “How do we reflect God’s image through the church.” The answer to that is both simple and complex. It is simple because I believe we could list four key elements that describes that for us: worship, discipleship, fellowship and outreach. It is complex because of everything that is involved in each of those areas for us as a church.

What I would like to do this week is take just one of those and inspire and encourage all of us in that one area. Let’s consider discipleship.

Discipleship is learning. It is the process through which we learn, change and grow spiritually. This process must be intentional for us as a church. We can’t think it will “just happen”…like we have some sort of discipleship fairy that sprinkles spiritual growth pixie dust on everyone who comes through the doors. That may sound ridiculous, but isn’t that how we are approaching the spiritual growth of the body if we don’t intentionally plan and practice for teaching and training one another in the Bible?

What God uses over and over again in my life to convict me of this is the great commission passage in Matthew 28:19, “Go and make disciples of all nations…” The command (imperative) in this verse is not the word “go.” The going is an assumption that Jesus makes. In other words, He never imagined that His followers would not go across the street or across the ocean (cf. Acts 1:8 for the ever widening influence the church is to have). The command is to “make disciples.” The way this is written in the Greek could literally be translated: “as you are going I command you to make disciples.”

Too much can take place in our church to side track us from this core value. Don’t you think the enemy would be happy if we busy ourselves with issues that take our intentional focus away from teaching the Bible?

Remember Whose approval we are after – the Creator of the universe’s. We desperately want to hear the God of all creation say to us that what we’ve done is “very good”; the opposite of that, even if it’s mediocre, is “very bad.”

Grace & Peace,