By Gobel Brockman
There is an aspect about being a disciple of Jesus Christ that we sometimes don't give the consideration that it deserves. What aspect is that? Simply that we are told repeatedly in Scripture that following Jesus requires us to forsake every thing that we desire or dream of for the sake of our faith - even the simplest of things. Let me give you a few examples of what I'm talking about:
*God created the human body to need sleep, then tells us in Proverbs 20:13: "Do not love sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with bread."
*God created the human body to require food, then calls us to fast: "Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces so they may appear to men to be fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you will not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." - Matthew 6:16-18
*God gives us family to love, laugh with, and share life with - then Jesus tells us in Luke 14:26: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. If we are truly going to follow Jesus, we are required to leave everything else behind. The title I've given this week's devotional is "What Do You Love More?" and this is what I mean by the question:
What do you love more - the life that God has given you, or the God who has given you life?
One thing that I am continually concerned about is that we who are Christians sometimes fail to both understand for ourselves and fully convey to others that there is a cost to being a disciple of Jesus Christ. To those who are reading this - regardless of where you live and where you are in life - I want to do my best in telling you that giving your life to Jesus is not for the faint of heart. In the passage from Luke that I quoted above, Jesus said that to follow Him we must be willing to "hate" everything else - even our own lives. What that means is simple - if we are truly going to consider ourselves Christians, then we can only do that if we are willing to make Jesus the most important part of our lives. If I love my life and the people and things that are in it more than Him, then Jesus said that I CANNOT be His disciple. That's more than a call to come to church on Sunday - that's a call to forsake everything and follow Him. It's a clear statement that if we love our own lives more than God, we can't call ourselves a follower of Christ. So, with that in mind, I ask us all the question again:
What do you love more?
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Saturday, January 20, 2018
When God's Will Isn't Yours
By Gobel Brockman
Several years ago I read a humorous but eye-opening story. A minister was about to speak to a group of college students. He began his message by asking this question: "What is your greatest need and your greatest fear?" The minister stated later that he had already made up his mind what the answer was to that question and had planned his message accordingly. Unfortunately for him, a young man was there who didn't understand what a rhetorical question was! The young man stood up and announced to the whole group, "Sir, my greatest need is to know God's will for my life, and my greatest fear is that I will either miss it or reject it!" The minister said that the crowd broke out in applause, indicating that the young man had articulated their thoughts. The minister stated that after making a mental note to never again begin a sermon with a rhetorical question, he scrapped his prepared message and dealt with the question at hand.
Knowing "the will of God" seems to be a great concern to us all. We read books, listen to messages, and even seek prophetic words hoping to find out what exactly God wants us to do. But when I remember this minister's story, I'm reminded of a story in the Bible that many of you are familiar with - the story of Jonah. (If you're not familiar with the story I encourage you to read the Old Testament book of Jonah - it's a great read!) While most people think about the part of his story of him spending three days and nights in the belly of a "great fish," I think of another part to his story. Jonah didn't have to wonder about "the will of God" for his life: he knew EXACTLY what God wanted him to do:
"The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." Jonah 1:1-2
But the next verse tells us something really interesting:
"But Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found there a ship going to Tarshish. He paid its fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." Jonah 1:3
Jonah's problem wasn't that he didn't know the will of God - Jonah's problem was he didn't want to do it! For the sake of time I'll jump ahead to the end of the story to say that Jonah eventually obeyed the Lord. But what I would like to focus on is this: have you ever wanted to run away from the will of God? You knew exactly what God wanted you to do, but it was the opposite of what YOU wanted to do! For example:
*Have you ever needed to forgive someone when you wanted to get revenge on them instead?
*Have you ever felt led to give financially to a person or ministry when you felt like you couldn't afford it?
*Have you ever been asked to step into a ministry role and it was the LAST thing you wanted to do?
*Have you ever had to let go of something - or someone - that you would have given everything you had to keep?
I'm sure most of you are like me and had to say "Yes" to those questions - and many more. "The will of God" can indeed be extremely challenging sometimes. But there's an interesting point in verse 3 above that we would do well to remember: the Bible says that when Jonah found a ship to take him away from his God-ordained destination that he "paid its fair and went..." My point?
THERE'S A PRICE TO TRYING TO RUN FROM THE WILL OF GOD!
No, we probably won't end up in a fish's belly like Jonah, but we will end up in guilt, regret, and missed blessings because of our disobedience. Worse yet, continuing down that road can cause us to become calloused to voice of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit - and that is a dangerous road to travel. So what is the answer? Simple - OBEY GOD! After 37 years of living for Jesus one thing I can tell you from experience is that following the will of God is the life that we were created for! There is no greater blessing than knowing that you are doing exactly what you were created for - bringing glory to God. Will God's plan for you life always be easy? No. Will it be worth it? Always. So I will simply say it this way in closing: There's a price to doing the will of God, and there's a price to running from it.
Choose wisely.
Several years ago I read a humorous but eye-opening story. A minister was about to speak to a group of college students. He began his message by asking this question: "What is your greatest need and your greatest fear?" The minister stated later that he had already made up his mind what the answer was to that question and had planned his message accordingly. Unfortunately for him, a young man was there who didn't understand what a rhetorical question was! The young man stood up and announced to the whole group, "Sir, my greatest need is to know God's will for my life, and my greatest fear is that I will either miss it or reject it!" The minister said that the crowd broke out in applause, indicating that the young man had articulated their thoughts. The minister stated that after making a mental note to never again begin a sermon with a rhetorical question, he scrapped his prepared message and dealt with the question at hand.
Knowing "the will of God" seems to be a great concern to us all. We read books, listen to messages, and even seek prophetic words hoping to find out what exactly God wants us to do. But when I remember this minister's story, I'm reminded of a story in the Bible that many of you are familiar with - the story of Jonah. (If you're not familiar with the story I encourage you to read the Old Testament book of Jonah - it's a great read!) While most people think about the part of his story of him spending three days and nights in the belly of a "great fish," I think of another part to his story. Jonah didn't have to wonder about "the will of God" for his life: he knew EXACTLY what God wanted him to do:
"The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." Jonah 1:1-2
But the next verse tells us something really interesting:
"But Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found there a ship going to Tarshish. He paid its fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." Jonah 1:3
Jonah's problem wasn't that he didn't know the will of God - Jonah's problem was he didn't want to do it! For the sake of time I'll jump ahead to the end of the story to say that Jonah eventually obeyed the Lord. But what I would like to focus on is this: have you ever wanted to run away from the will of God? You knew exactly what God wanted you to do, but it was the opposite of what YOU wanted to do! For example:
*Have you ever needed to forgive someone when you wanted to get revenge on them instead?
*Have you ever felt led to give financially to a person or ministry when you felt like you couldn't afford it?
*Have you ever been asked to step into a ministry role and it was the LAST thing you wanted to do?
*Have you ever had to let go of something - or someone - that you would have given everything you had to keep?
I'm sure most of you are like me and had to say "Yes" to those questions - and many more. "The will of God" can indeed be extremely challenging sometimes. But there's an interesting point in verse 3 above that we would do well to remember: the Bible says that when Jonah found a ship to take him away from his God-ordained destination that he "paid its fair and went..." My point?
THERE'S A PRICE TO TRYING TO RUN FROM THE WILL OF GOD!
No, we probably won't end up in a fish's belly like Jonah, but we will end up in guilt, regret, and missed blessings because of our disobedience. Worse yet, continuing down that road can cause us to become calloused to voice of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit - and that is a dangerous road to travel. So what is the answer? Simple - OBEY GOD! After 37 years of living for Jesus one thing I can tell you from experience is that following the will of God is the life that we were created for! There is no greater blessing than knowing that you are doing exactly what you were created for - bringing glory to God. Will God's plan for you life always be easy? No. Will it be worth it? Always. So I will simply say it this way in closing: There's a price to doing the will of God, and there's a price to running from it.
Choose wisely.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
I Am Not Ashamed
By Gobel Brockman
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." - Romans 1:16 (MEV)
I will begin this week with a story taken from the daily devotional "Daily Awakenings" written by the late evangelist Steve Hill:
"A Christian soldier once said to his chaplain, "Last night, before going to bed, I knelt down and prayed. My companions raised a loud laugh and began to throw boots and clothes at me." "Well," replied the chaplain, "suppose you defer your prayers till after you retire, and then silently lift up your heart to God." Meeting him soon after, the chaplain asked him if he had taken his advice. "Sir, " replied the God-fearing soldier, "I did take your advice for two or three evenings, but I began to think that it looked like denying my Savior; so I once more knelt down and prayed as at first." "What followed?" asked the chaplain. "Why sir, not one of them laughed at me anymore. The whole fifteen now kneel down, too, and I pray with them."
I have a question for everyone reading this who claim to be believers in Jesus Christ: are the people around you aware of your faith? I'm not asking if you daily bombard people with Bible verses and Christian jargon; I'm asking if people know that you believe in Jesus Christ not only by your words, but by your actions? Do people ever look at your life and feel the need to ask, "What's different about you?" I firmly believe that we are at a point in history where middle-of-the-road Christianity will no longer suffice. The days of people trying to please both the world and Jesus Christ must end, because living like that means we are really pleasing neither. The soldier in that story had to decide whose opinion he cared about - and so do we.
In the book of Acts we see the early church being mightily used by God. People were coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus and many signs and wonders were taking place. Not everyone was happy about this, however. The Bible says that the apostles were threatened by the religious leaders to no longer teach or preach in the name of Jesus. Their response was this prayer to the Lord:
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." - Romans 1:16 (MEV)
I will begin this week with a story taken from the daily devotional "Daily Awakenings" written by the late evangelist Steve Hill:
"A Christian soldier once said to his chaplain, "Last night, before going to bed, I knelt down and prayed. My companions raised a loud laugh and began to throw boots and clothes at me." "Well," replied the chaplain, "suppose you defer your prayers till after you retire, and then silently lift up your heart to God." Meeting him soon after, the chaplain asked him if he had taken his advice. "Sir, " replied the God-fearing soldier, "I did take your advice for two or three evenings, but I began to think that it looked like denying my Savior; so I once more knelt down and prayed as at first." "What followed?" asked the chaplain. "Why sir, not one of them laughed at me anymore. The whole fifteen now kneel down, too, and I pray with them."
I have a question for everyone reading this who claim to be believers in Jesus Christ: are the people around you aware of your faith? I'm not asking if you daily bombard people with Bible verses and Christian jargon; I'm asking if people know that you believe in Jesus Christ not only by your words, but by your actions? Do people ever look at your life and feel the need to ask, "What's different about you?" I firmly believe that we are at a point in history where middle-of-the-road Christianity will no longer suffice. The days of people trying to please both the world and Jesus Christ must end, because living like that means we are really pleasing neither. The soldier in that story had to decide whose opinion he cared about - and so do we.
In the book of Acts we see the early church being mightily used by God. People were coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus and many signs and wonders were taking place. Not everyone was happy about this, however. The Bible says that the apostles were threatened by the religious leaders to no longer teach or preach in the name of Jesus. Their response was this prayer to the Lord:
"Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant that Your servants may speak Your word with great boldness, by stretching out Your hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be performed in the name of Your holy Son Jesus." When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness." -Acts 4:29-31 (MEV)
My prayer is that God will fill me and every believer with that same boldness today. If you have Christ in your life then you have the answer that this world needs. Too many people - even in the church - are looking to politicians to help us. The problem with that thinking is that politicians can't help with man's true problem - SIN. This world doesn't need political change; it needs a reviving move of the Holy Spirit. It needs to see the power that is found in the name of Jesus manifested in our midst. For that to happen, today's Christians are going to have to decide to be filled with His Spirit, stand up in His boldness, and proclaim life to a dying world. We're going to have to decide that offending God is far worse than offending people. We're going to have to stand up and speak out in a world that wants us to sit down and shut up.
I've made the decision that Jesus has been too good to me to remain silent about Him. Jesus said in the gospels that if we are ashamed of Him in this world, that He would be ashamed of us before the Father. (Matthew 10:32-33) I want to spend what time I have left on this earth proclaiming the name of Jesus to a lost world, and with God's help and and anointing I will. People need to know the truth about Jesus Christ.
Even if people throw their boots at me.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
2018: The Year of the Vanishing Comfort Zone
By Gobel Brockman
I begin this year by asking you a simple question: Do you desire to please God? The answer may seem like an obvious "yes" but we must ask ourselves a serious question: do our lives prove that we mean it? Hebrews 11:6 says this:
I begin this year by asking you a simple question: Do you desire to please God? The answer may seem like an obvious "yes" but we must ask ourselves a serious question: do our lives prove that we mean it? Hebrews 11:6 says this:
"But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."
2017 has been a year of many blessings. I realize, however, that for many there have been challenges, loss, and difficulties, but those difficult times have also given us opportunity to truly show faith in God. I know that God has been faithful in every circumstance and difficulty. As we now embark upon this upcoming year, I believe 2018 is going to be for many Christians an opportunity to find out for ourselves where we truly are in our faith level. I have two thoughts on this:
OUR NESTS ARE ABOUT TO BE STIRRED!
"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” - Acts 1:8
In this Scripture, Jesus gave His disciples the road map for their mission. They were to stay in Jerusalem until they were filled with the Holy Ghost. They were then to establish the church in Jerusalem, then they were to take the gospel to "Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth." They fulfilled it all - but they stayed in Jerusalem. Eventually God had to stir their nest!
"Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles." - Acts 8:1
I don't believe it's incidental that the order of Acts 1:8 is repeated in Acts 8:1. GOD'S PLANS WILL BE FULFILLED! I'm sure it seemed horrible to them to face that persecution, but that persecution led them into the fulfillment of God's purpose. They were to soon discover that in the kingdom of God there is plenty of room for peace, but none for "comfort zones." (The words "God" and "comfort zone" do not belong in the same sentence - unless that sentence is "God doesn't like your comfort zone!") The thing is, they shouldn't have been surprised by this. God never does anything the way He's supposed to!
*He could have just defeated the Egyptian army, but instead He parted the Red Sea!
*He could have delivered the three Hebrews from the fiery furnace, but instead He went in with them!
*He could have calmed the storm while His disciples were in the boat, but instead He walked on water to show them the water didn't frighten Him!
What started as persecution turned into a God-ordained revival! Many times we mistake what God is allowing in our lives to be abandonment - when it is actually advancement!
In preparing this message I felt the Holy Ghost impress on my heart that for many of us, 2018 is going to be a year when we are challenged to step into the unknown and trust God. Here is what I'm sensing:
*Some will be challenged to step into responsibilities that they weren't seeking, maybe don't even want, and don't feel qualified for.
*Some will have unexpected ministry opportunities/conversations with people they weren't expecting to ever be able to minister to.
*Some will be faced with life changes that on the surface may seem difficult and stressful. (When you find yourself in these times, just remember that Joseph probably felt the same way. We know how that turned out!)
Our Scripture in Hebrews says that it is impossible to please God without faith, and we don't need faith if we have the answers ourselves. I firmly believe that God is going to take many of us out of our comfort zones and ask us to do things for the kingdom of God that we don't we're capable of doing. I simply want to remind you of this: MIRACLES DON'T HAPPEN IN COMFORT ZONES! So with that in mind, I will close this message the way I began it: Do you desire to please God?
If your answer is still yes, then follow Jesus with all of your heart - and say goodbye to your comfort zone.
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