Epiphany: Rethink change and awaken love and joy

1. January 6 is observed as a church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles 

2. an appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being

3. a usually sudden manifestation or perception or an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure

Whether we think about the Wise Men and the Epiphany they experienced through the star and their toilsome journey and their years of research and seeking…

Or we identify Zechariah who had nine months to rethink his Epiphany from the angel about having a son…

Or consider the Epiphanies experienced by Mary or Joseph or the shepherds, some of whom had multiple encounters with angels or dreams or Holy Spirit… 

We find that sudden revelation from God caused an awakening and brought a paradigm shift - a new worldview, a new hierarchy of values. Everything changed in their lives and in their responses to what was happening because now they were aware that God had caused the awakening in their minds and hearts, and He not only loved them but had special purpose for them.

Did you experience any Epiphanies in your thinking this Advent and Christmas?

Did you have the joy of helping someone else awaken more to God’s love and joy?

God awakened his love in the wise men through their study of nature. To others he used dreams, angels, and His Holy Spirit. 

Rethink how God stirs people in different ways to become open to the power of the gospel.

Take a 21 day challenge to pray and ask someone what they are thinking about the world or God or life etc… and see where God is at work everyday.’

See if serving or sharing with them, or having a cup of coffee or meal or activity together may lead to them seeking and having an awakening.

For six weeks pray about how God wants to change the rhythms in your daily and weekly grind to include someone as a possible disciple.

It takes 40 days/six weeks to change behavior because of "Limbic lag” but only 21 days to exchange a new habit for an old one.

-PD

Am I praying, preparing, passing on the Gospel?

Over last four weeks I've passed out handouts and bulletin inserts and we've had discussions on the question, "how to share the gospel with others."

Have we studied the Scriptures of the “Romans Road,” or the “ABC's of the kingdom”?

Have we thought about or had any discussion, or practiced our testimony or how we might start a conversation with someone, or even prayed with someone?

Do we know the Gospel? Do we believe it? Do we live by it?

Most conversations won't lead to someone committing their life to follow Christ in that moment, but we have talked about how each conversation, each act of kindness, and each prayer that we pray privately and specifically for others can help them be a step closer for them to eternity in union with God through Christ. Do we believe that?

If we do then we will pray, prepare, and pass on the gospel.

Questions, Questions, Questions?

Too busy?

Just not motivated?

Are we just plain lazy?

Do we realize we are engaged in a spiritual war and are we doing battle on our knees so to speak?

The motivation question: fear of God and love of God.

The “love quotient: Have we been forgiven much and do we love much? Have we freely received and therefore freely give?

The fear of God component:  Have we given serious thought about giving an account to God for our own obedience or disobedience to share the gospel and be and make disciples?

If our hesitancy to share is because we still feel unprepared then let's earnestly prepare and pray so that we can be as Paul wrote to Timothy, "a workman who needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of God."

Do we really care about people's souls? Do I love?

That's why I wrote that we need to be filled with God's word, and filled with the Holy Spirit, and most of all we need filled with God's love.

Am I “over the Holy Spirit” or seeking to be filled?

I can count on God to manifest spiritual graces and gifts through me if I ask (1 Cor 14:1 love motivates me to earnestly desire spiritual gifts). God will give me words of wisdom and prophetic words of encouragement and words of knowledge that can open people's hearts to repent and believe the gospel. But Paul also wrote in 1 Cor: 13 that even if I prophesy and have all wisdom and have all faith, if I have not love I'm just a clanging cymbal.

So maybe the real question is, do I love? Do I love God more than myself, do I love others more than myself, or at least do I love others as much as I love myself? If I have repented and placed my faith in God, it is because others prayed and shared the gospel with me, and I will desire to share the gospel and pray for others.

The less experience we have we will tend to be more self-conscious, nervous, focused on how I am doing, or my fears, or I may talk too much and not listen well.

But with prayerful experience I will be less focused on me and on the results, on trying to be “successful” or do it well.

Over time I will be more focused on Christ’s love, on Father’s ultimate purpose.

That brings us to the Gospel itself-the power of God for salvation.

Knowing the story is more than just topics or verses in a formula.  

It begins with God, with His desire in creation, his image in the man he formed and his purpose for the man and woman he said were “very good.”

So, witnessing is not just about dealing with the fall and sin issue and forgiveness or going to heaven.

It is about God and his story, his heart, his image.

WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?  (Good News-evangel)

Is the whole or full gospel about my being forgiven and me going to heaven?

Is it about me being baptized and filled with Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts?

Is it about God’s kingdom and me getting my life in order to serve the King?

All of these are true but are they the whole truth????

What about God’s plan and purpose before Adam and Eve fell and what about his eternal and ultimate purpose in the new heaven and earth in Christ, and the church being in union with God?

Would you have said something like the following?

The gospel is that God himself has come to rescue

and renew creation

in and through the the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

We have a good future and a hope and we can commit to the welfare of our city by being filled with the love of God and building the altar, temple and walls as a holy habitation for God and light to the world for all people, hastening His return and the restoration of all things in the wonderful new heaven and earth.

Maybe, if we ask God to fill us with his love, His Word, His Spirit and His holy fear (the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom), we will repent of not being gospel focused, missional communities, and we be “joyful for a change.”

Those who go, bearing precious seed, weeping, will doubtless come again, rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them. Ps 126

I am asking all of us not just to be in a small group-but to be in a gospel focused, missional group, with others who see the need to become more obedient as disciples.

We can be a family of missionary servants, being and making disciples together, for the glory of God and furtherance of his kingdom in all the earth.

"Love is the three legged stool"

Our command to love God and love our neighbor occurs at least five times in the New Testament.  We will not be able to obey love from our heart without profound trust in God. When we seek the good of others at our own expense it will allow us to be hurt or disappointed. This does not mean we are to endure physical or emotional abuse without protecting ourselves or others from evil, because love does not "enable" other people in sinful harmful patterns of behavior. Parents and authorities call this "tough love" that allows people to experience the consequences of their choices. Admonishing someone in love opens us up to rejection and misunderstanding. Therefore, to humbly and patiently correct someone is another way we abandon our own self-protection. So don't try to always cover or make excuses for someone who is causing hurt to themselves or others. 

How will we know when and how to confront a brother or sister whose sinful choices are harming themselves and others? When we sit on the "Three-legged-stool" of the Scripture, the Holy Spirit and submission to the church, then we will know what love requires. It is neither wise nor helpful to judge another while sitting on a stool with only one or even two legs. Submit to authority, meditate on the context of Scripture (not just isolate a few verses here and there) and make sure you are in the same spirit as Jesus and the Father (not a bad spirit). Then God will give you wisdom and grace to "as much as possible live in peace with all men."

1 Cor 13:4-7  Love is patient and kind. Love is not proud, rude, or demanding its own way. Love is not irritable and keeps no record of wrongs. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance."

"God is love." "Let love be sincere." "Don't let your love grow cold."

-PD

I AM NOT A LEGO

I AM NOT A LEGO

By Dwight Cunkle

Recently I took two grandchildren to the LegoLand Movie. I think I enjoyed it much more than they did. It surprises me how much humor and truth is written into children’s cartoons that only “adults” will “get.”

What profound truth struck me from the movie?

Thankfully, our God is not like  “The man upstairs” in the  movie who is the “creator” and has ultimate “control,” but is unaware of mischief going on in Lego-Land. Our God came in the flesh and revealed himself as a personal and good God.

The different realms of Legos (Frontier, Castle, Pirates, etc. are all connected by mysterious passage ways (like the way C.S. Lewis has Aslan send the children to and from various worlds). The few who become aware of this realize they can affect what happens in the various realms for good or evil.

As I read Scripture this morning I contemplated God as Lord of the various heavens, the earth and things under the earth. Jesus humbly entered all these realms and ascended Victor but we are limited by time and space, except in spirit.

I pray God open our spiritual ears to listen with His ears and find his heart. We need to humbly enter into the “realms” of others and listen with them for God, following Jesus’ example. Our goal is to live fully in divine life and love in our daily life:  entering fully into all our times and places, bringing his life to those around us, always thanking God because He is working his glorious will in all realms.

Phil 2:3-11 In humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Look not only on your own interests but on the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Continuing to Prayerfully Read Scripture

Continuing to Prayerfully Read Scripture

By Dwight Cunkle

Read, Listen/meditate, Contemplate God, Obey

In John 13 Jesus washes their feet, predicts his betrayal and the denial of Peter. 

In John 14-16 He prepares his followers to seek for and receive the Promised Holy Spirit. 

Just as Jesus washed their feet, He washes ours. 

Just as they deserted Him, so we have denied and betrayed him by our sins. 

Jesus told them to love one another like Him but that we would not be able love without living in and with Him by the fullness of Holy Spirit.

He says they will be able to work miracles even greater than he did because the Father would also work in them by His Spirit. 

He told them that whoever obeys his commands will be loved by him and his Father and they will come and make their home in him.

He further says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin but bring things from Jesus and make them known to his followers, leading them into truth and oneness with Him and God. 

He told them Holy Spirit will make them powerful witnesses for him.

But He warns them that because of the things Holy Spirit will do in them the world will hate them.

Clearly, Jesus wants them to see their need for and have both faith and desire to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. 

Clearly, we have a choice: we cannot be full of the world and full of Holy Spirit.
We cannot be filling ourselves with ourselves and have the fullness of God’s Spirit working in us.

What was the transformation that took place during the 40 days of Christ appearing to them, and the ten days of their preparation for Pentecost? Through sorrow and desolation they became more detached form the world, their agenda’s and themselves. They became hungry and thirsty for more of Him-which could only happen by obeying and asking for, seeking, knocking and receiving the fullness of Holy Spirit.

 Choose a passage from John 13-16, or from Acts 1-4, and read it several times, allowing Holy Spirit to highlight some phrase to you. Meditate and listen to God as you think and pray. Contemplate God just as the disciples were contemplating Jesus as He spoke these words to them, and as they waited in the upper room. What is God asking of you? Do you need to detach from the world and yourself or others and seek to be more filled with Holy Spirit, so you can love and obey him?

John 15:16, 26; 16:13-15, 35

Be filled with Holy Spirit.