- Great crowd today and everyone seems to be thrilled with the vision God has called us to at Impact Church! Rescue, Raise, Release! Today we talked about “Raise.” Yes, we need to be “rescued” (born again) before we can be raised—obviously, you can’t harvest a crop that has never been planted. You can’t raise kids who have never been born! And you can’t live a dream that has never been had! But none of this makes “Raise” somehow less important than “Rescue.” They are equal.
Think of it this way…Most of us have met people who claim to be Christians yet act like anything but. These are the ones who carefully tried to extract the “fire insurance” from Jesus’ offer of eternal life wanting nothing more to do with the savior. Try to imagine how bizarre and almost comical this would sound in the physical world, perhaps coming from a 4 year old. Can you imagine the little preschooler telling his parents that they need to move on? Can you even comprehend of tiny munchkins with this little common sense? I’ve seen a few, but not many. But spiritually speaking, this isn’t so rare. In the spiritual realm, it seems to me that the majority of “Christians” attempt to distance themselves from the One who saved them the moment it looks like He might cramp their style.
What an odd and ungrateful way to react to the One who gave His life that we might live. In fact, anyone who feels so casually toward God probably needs to do some self examination—they may not really know Him.
Here are four evidences in the lives of those who truly know God (according to J.I. Packer in his book, “Knowing God):
- Those who know God have a great passion and great energy for God!
- Those who know God think great thoughts about God.
- Those who know God show great courage for God.
- Those who know God have great contentment for God.
You may not be 4 for 4 all the time in these areas, but these things should be much more evident than not.
- Two foundational things are necessary for every believer desiring to be raised up in Christ. 1. Listening to the Lord through Bible reading, and 2. Talking to the Lord through prayer. Today I stressed the importance of developing a lifestyle of both before going ANY further as a believer. In fact, to attempt to move on to bigger and better things with Jesus before laying the groundwork of Bible reading and prayer is like building your house on the sand. When the wind and waves (trials and hardships) come along, that house will not stand. The foundation is too weak. On the other hand, Wise Christians understand the importance of knowing the God intimately before expecting to do great things for Him. These people are more like someone who builds their house on a rock. When the storms of life come against such a house, it will not budge because it has such a strong and deep foundation! Jesus talked about this in Matthew 7:24-27.
- To help facilitate this in the body of Impact, we invited everyone to come to join us at ‘Ignite Impact.’—the prayer ministry that has recently exploded at Impact! And for the Bible reading I mentioned two things. First, as a church we are all going to do YouVersion.com “The Gospels” reading plan. This plan takes us through all four gospels in just 30 days. This begins TONIGHT and you can access it here. Also, beginning next Sunday (immediately following the 11:00 am service—Kenny Parnell will be starting a six week class on “How to Study the Bible.” Whether you are a brand new believer or a seasoned veteran, this will be a great way to learn to hear God’s voice more clearly than ever!