Getting Out What You Are Putting In: Investing in the Bible with Your Family

Too often we outsource the education of our families.  We allow the Television, tablets, schools, and churches to take the lead in developing the minds and actions of our spouses and our children.  While there is nothing wrong with using these as tools in education, if they are a leader and not a partner something is wrong.

Each of us must take responsibility for educating the members of our household.  We must make firm and consistent efforts to develop and cultivate the minds of those that are in our family.  We must take intentional steps to guide the thinking of our spouse and our children in ways that are God honoring and kingdom focused.  As a result, we must take concrete steps to invest the Bible into our family.

Making an investment of the Scriptures into your family is a major commitment, but it also provides the greatest benefit long term.  Proverbs 22:6 states "Teach a youth about the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."  While this is not an eternal trust but rather a statement of consistent fact, the value of investing the Scriptures in your children is immeasurable.  The fact that failing to instruct a child in the proper ways will lead to destruction cannot be ignored as the inverse of this proverb either.  The Psalmist would write in Psalm 119:11 "I have treasured Your word in my heart so that I may not sin against You."  Only by investing the Scriptures into our own lives, the lives of our spouse, and the lives of our children can we truly understand what living in right relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ is all about.  

Psalm 19 is one of my favorite psalms in all the Scriptures.  From this Psalm we discover a number of benefits that come from a faithful investment of the Scriptures.  Psalm 19 affirms that the Lord's instructions bring renewal to our life, joy, proper understanding for daily living, a correct perspective of who God is and what he has done, and warning for the dangers that can take our life off track.  Surely there is great benefit in investing the Scriptures in your family.

So how do we make this investment?  I want to offer some concrete steps to assist you as you invest in your family with the Bible.

1. Be consistent.  The greatest tool you have for investing is consistency.  Create a plan that you can stick with and stick with it.  Your family will benefit more from discovering the Scriptures one chapter at a time with you each day than they will reading one book of the Bible together once a month.  

2.  Keep it simple.  Do not seek to make your investment more complicated than it has to be.  Complexity often makes the water muddy and clouds the priority of your investment in your family.

3.  Start today.  The best time to start investing is today.  Think about your investment of the Scriptures and begin with your family today.

Finally, I want to offer some basic instructions for investing in your family.

1.  Use a Bible.  Many people start using devotionals and the like without ever actually using the Bible to invest with.  We commit to reading books about the Bible while the Bible is neglected.  Use a Bible.

2.  Read the Scriptures together.  Now if you have small children this may not be possible yet, but as soon as they are able begin allowing them to take time reading and discussing the text with you and your spouse.

3.  Ask questions.  Life change comes from applying the Scriptures to our lives.  We not only need to know that God created the world, but we need to know why this matters and what difference it should make in our lives.  Questions are our friends to aid in discovery.

4.  Add Bible study resources.  As you read add coloring sheets for small children, age appropriate Bible study handouts, teaching pictures, a Bible handbook, or a good single volume commentary to your study together.  Many churches have these materials in abundance.  All you need to do is ask your pastor or Sunday school teacher about them.

5.  Live what you learn.  As you invest in your family, you must live our what you are learning.  Your cannot teach your family the value of integrity from the Scriptures and then live dishonestly.  You cannot teach your family the importance of purity in your walk with God and then engage in immoral behavior.  You cannot teach your family the importance of community in the Christian faith, and then never attend church with them.  Your life must model what you teach.  As your invest in the Scriptures not only will your family dynamic change, but your life should change as well.

Start Investing and begin to enjoy the dividends that an investment of the Bible in your family can produce.

Getting Out What You Are Putting In: Investing in Prayer for Your Children

    In our previous post, we began discussing the need to invest in our family and then we provided solutions to investing in prayer for our spouse.  If a spouse is all that you have in your family, then I would encourage you to reread that post and double down on your investments.  However, if you are like me then you have a collection of younger people in your family called children that are also in need of a prayer investment.

    So how are we to pray for our children?  Are there any particular areas of prayer that we should focus as we invest in our children with prayer?  Let me say the answer to that question is a resounding "YES!!!"

    As we invest in our children, I want to offer five sound Biblical prayers for your investment plan.  First pray for the salvation of your children.  1 Timothy 2:4 makes clear that God desires for everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  So we have every confidence that if this is God’s desire and if salvation is a spiritual work then praying for this work to come to fruition is not only acceptable but encouraged. 

I have personally prayed for the salvation of each of my children from their birth and beyond that I pray for the salvation of every child that attends the church I pastor.  1 Peter 5:7 calls for us to cast all of our cares upon the Lord for he cares for us.  We should pray for our children’s salvation because we care about the salvation of our children and God, who cares for us, cares about their salvation as well. 

Let me make this clear, prayer is not a good luck charm.  Ultimately your child will come to a place where they will believe or reject the gospel.  Nevertheless we can pray for God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, to call to our children to himself, to convict our children of their sins, and to convert our children unto salvation and we can have confidence in God’s good, faithful, just, and merciful response to our prayers.    

    Second pray for your children to be holy.  The apostle Paul prayed for the Thessalonian church to be sanctified through and through (1 Thessalonians 5:23).  Sanctification is the process by which we are made holy in a practical sense.  When our children come to faith in Christ they are made holy by Christ and through their position in Christ.  However, there is a practical holiness that must be pursued throughout this life.  We, as their parents, ought to pray for God to make our children holy just as Paul prayed for God to make other believers holy.

    Often we are concerned about our children’s happiness.  While there is nothing wrong with having happy children, our greatest concern should be for our children’s holiness.  Happiness is an emotion.  Holiness centers on their character and their relationship with the savior.  While we cannot merit the salvation of God through our activities, a lack of holiness will result in stunted spiritual growth and the development of character draining habits that may follow them throughout their lives.  Most of all praying for your child’s holiness reminds us, as parents, of the spiritual battle that is often waged over character and keeps us moving forward, as our children’s guardians, with a proper perspective.

    Third pray for your children to grow in godliness.  Paul told Timothy to discipline himself for the purpose of godliness in 1 Timothy 4:7. While holiness is a focuses on what we are set apart from, godliness focuses on what we are set apart too.  We pray for our children to be godly.  That they would practice those things that illustrate God’s presence in their lives. 

    As we pray for our children’s godliness, this also encourages us to lead our children in this practice.  This spurs us to love our neighbor, to share the Gospel, to practice patience, to illustrate gentleness, and to minister to the least of these.  As we pray and model godliness, the practice of godliness becomes real and becomes reality to our children.  Rather than focusing on making our child a great athlete or a great student, as good as those things are and as valuable as those things can be over the long term, let us focus on making the practice of godliness the priority of our homes.

    Fourth pray for the protection of your children. Jesus said, “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy…” in John 10:10.  Consequently, we pray for the protection of our children.  While we often pray for protection from the physical harm of this world, I would encourage you to pray for protection from the spiritual dangers that this world brings to bear. 

    Pray for God to protect your children from the influence of worldliness, materialism, ungodly sensuality, and overbearing negativism.  Pray for the Lord to keep them from the grasp of temptations that can lead them down paths of sin and suffering.  Pray that God would protect them from addiction and from a sense of hopelessness.

    You are the parent of your child.  God has given a responsibility to guard them, protect them, and to love them.  The first line in fulfilling this responsibility is to pray for their protection.

    Fifth pray with your children.  This final investment is perhaps the greatest of all.  Praying for your children is crucial, but praying with your children is more crucial still.  As you pray with your children they have the opportunity to see your faith in God on display.  They have the opportunity to hear your heart from your lips.  They have the opportunity to learn how to pray from your example.

    Praying with your children also allows them to grow in their practice of prayer.  Pray for mommy, daddy, sister, teacher, the church, the pastor, the Sunday school teacher, the missionaries, Ironman, and Sofia the First.  As your child grows in faith they will learn more and more about what to pray and how to pray it, but wherever they are in their development pray with your children.

    A continual investment of prayer in your children is a reflection of our understanding of our role as parents.  We are not called to simply raise up good people and solid citizens.  We are called to bring forth a godly offspring under the rule of a holy God (Malachi 2:15).  As we pray, we seek God for the spiritual undertaking such a charge requires.  We eliminate the distractions that often pull us aside from that goal and we reorient our parenting and our purposes to God’s.  We are entrusting him to do what only he can do in our children’s life and reminding us to fulfill the charge that we as parents have been given.

    I cannot stress the need nor the value of this investment enough.  Invest as much as you can as often as you can.  Invest faithfully and fully.  Invest trusting God to provide a faithful return.  Invest knowing that your investment is not in vain.

God bless

Getting Out What You Are Putting In Part 01-Investing in Prayer for Your Spouse

“This year I am going to spend more time with my family?” I have heard this resolution made over and over again throughout the 15 years I have been in vocational ministry. Why is it that we often wish to spend more time with our families? Could it be that we recognize that there is only a limited amount of time that we will have with our children in our homes? Perhaps we realize that we only have a certain number of days with our spouse before the end of life will take us? Whatever the reason many of us realize the essential nature of investing in our families.  Sadly, we often do not have a process to follow through on this commitment.

Consequently, 0ver the next several weeks I want to offer you some Biblical direction to maximize your investments in your family. These practical and Biblical instructions will provide a roadmap for effective investment in your most important relationships.

This week I want to encourage you to make the investment of prayer into your spouse. In Genesis chapter 2, we witness man’s creation and his charge to have authority over all of creation. Yet even in this utopic state, man was missing something. God had determined that man should not exist alone and thus created woman as his complement. God then blessed them and the institution of marriage was established.

The single greatest participant in your family is your spouse. God rebuked the men of Israel in Malachi chapter 2 because they had acted treacherously against their wives. In this rebuke God emphasizes the partnership that exist within the marriage covenant and encourages faithfulness to each other and the marriage covenant itself.

In the New Testament, marriage is used as an image of Christ’s love for his church. As Christians, we are called to be faithful in love to our spouses and as a result, our marriages will demonstrate to others the love of Christ.

One of the most loving acts you can undertake for your spouse is to pray for them every day. I am not talking about the prayer, “Lord bless my spouse, Amen.” I am talking about a commitment to Biblical prayer for your spouse resulting in a spiritual investment in your partner and a physical investment of your time each day. In order to accomplish this I want to share with you four specific areas of prayer you can focus on for your spouse. You may not focus on each of these areas every day, but these areas should all be a common character in the daily episode or prayer you undertake.

First pray a prayer of thanksgiving for your spouse.  Take time to thank God for your spouse's presence in your life.  Take time to thank God for the blessings your spouse provides to your life.  Thank God for using your spouse as an instrument of discipleship within your life.   Those things that we are constantly thankful for are hard to take for granted. The apostle Paul expresses thanksgiving in the first chapter of his letters to the Romans, Corinthians, Philippians, and Colossians just for them being a part of his life. Should we not also express thanks to God with regularity for the presence of our spouses and their roles in our lives as well.

Second pray a prayer of forgiveness. If you have been married more than a day, then there is a great likelihood that your spouse has done something that upset you. Rather than hold fast to these offenses we are called to forgive them. As you pray, remember that love doesn’t keep a record of offense (1 Corinthians 13:5). So as you pray, forgive your spouse of those offenses and ask God to help you see where your actions may cause offense for your spouse.

Third pray for your spouse’s needs. Philippians 4:6 reads, “Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” In order to pray for the needs of your spouse, you have to talk with your spouse about what they need. These times of sharing are essential to investing in your marriage. Maybe they are struggling with their job, a friend, or the kids. Maybe they are struggling in their walk with God. Don’t try and solve their problems for them. Rather spend time just listening to your spouse and then take those requests before God as you intercede on your spouse’s behalf.

Finally, pray for your spouse to walk worthy of Christ. Paul urges the Ephesians in Ephesians 4 to walk worthy of their calling. This walking is Paul’s term to describe the daily lifestyle of people. Paul urged the Ephesians to have a lifestyle that reflected their calling as Christ’s disciple. Paul urged the Galatians to live a daily lifestyle that reflected the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Paul urges the Colossians to have a lifestyle that illustrated Christ in all of their relationships. As you pray for your spouse to walk worthy of Christ, pray that their lifestyle will reflect Christ and ask that God will help you to fulfill your role in their lifestyle faithfully as well.

As you invest in your spouse through prayer, you are engaging in a spiritual work. As God works in your spouse through your prayers, He will also work in you as he molds you further into the image of his Son the Lord Jesus. Be vigilant in this life of prayer. Be faithful to the call. Be confident that this investment will pay spiritual dividends in the life of your spouse, yourself, and your family.

God bless

How Can They Hear?

Greetings,

Often times I am asked about helping our last friends come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Personally, I believe and teach that every believer should be able to share the Gospel with their lost friends, family, and neighbors.  However, I also know that many do not come to faith in Christ the first time that they hear the Gospel.  So what are some additional ways that you can share the message of Christ?

One of the simplest ways for you to do this is to take advantage of social media as a witnessing tool.  United Baptist Church maintains a YouTube channel and a Podcast.  Both of these are updated weekly and provide sound Biblical preaching a teaching that can be easily shared.  The following is a step by step guide to help you use these tools on social media.

The first step is to subscribe to the YouTube channel and the Podcast.

To subscribe to the YouTube channel first you need to log into YouTube with a gmail account.  If you already have a gmail account then you are set to go.  Once you have logged in you can search for the ubcriverton channel or you can click this link:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS2EwYpkvTMxMX_UC3mB4aA
Then click on the subscribe button on the channel page.  Now you are subscribed and each time we upload a video you will be notified.

To subscribe to the podcast you need to log onto www.ubcriverton.podbean.com
From this page you can find instructions for following the podcast on your computer or following the podcast on your smartphone or tablet.  Either way this will allow you to get automatic updates to the podcast.

After subscribing, the second step is sharing these updates on your social media sites.  This is as simple as clicking the share button on the YouTube video and podcast updates.  You can then share these updates to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or any other social media site.  A second way to share these updates are to click on the updates, copy the web address for the updated action, and then paste that web address into a post on your favorite social media applications.

For those who are on Facebook, you can also subscribe to the United Baptist Church page and as updates posted you can share them directly to your wall for your friends to see as well.  Search for @ubcriverton and then click the "Like" button to receive our updates to this page on your wall.

These actions not only will keep you up to date with all the updates from United Baptist Church to YouTube and the podcast, but this provides an easy way for you to share with your friends.  You can then follow up with your friends by asking if they watched or listened and discover what they thought, any questions that they had, or if they want to attend a service with you in person.

Nothing takes the place of sharing the Gospel personally and passionately with those close to you.  This is simply a medium to furthering the Gospel work that you have already begun in the life of your friends.  Take just a few minutes to add these tools to your outreach toolbox and then use them faithfully as we seek to share with others.

God bless

This Kind Can Come Out By Nothing But Prayer and Fasting

Over the last several weeks, I have been reading the works of E.M. Bounds.  In Bounds work The Necessity of Prayer, he reminds his readers an event in the life of Jesus found in Mark 9.  Immediately following the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus, Peter, James, and John return to the other apostles to discover them overwhelmed by a man whose child is afflicted by a demon.  This man brought his son to the apostles for them to help him, but they could not cast him out.  Jesus, after meeting the need, returns to the home he is staying in.  The apostles ask him why they had been unable to cast out the demon, and Jesus responds with these words, "This Kind Can Come Out By Nothing But Prayer and Fasting."

I wonder how often we forget these words of Jesus.  In the church today, we have programs, methods, studies, and strategies to assist us in reaching people, preaching more effectively, make better disciples, and growing our children into effective Christians.  However, we as a church are reaching fewer people, preaching with less faithfulness to the Scriptures, making poor disciples if we are truly making any at all, and seeing our children wander from the faith like never before.

Perhaps we need to be reminded that hearts and lives are not changed because of leadership strategies and marketing formulas.  Instead lives are changed as a result of the faithful prayer and fasting of God's people.  Think for a moment of one lost soul you have been praying to see come to faith in Christ.  If there is not a name that comes to mind, then perhaps we can begin to understand why the lost around us still walk in darkness.  If a name does come to mind, then I want you to ask yourself what have you ever given up in order to spend time in focused prayer for their salvation?  Have you fasted a meal, an hour of television time, a Sunday afternoon football game, or any other thing of value in your life to seeking the salvation of this soul on your knees in prayer?

Think of the ministry and work of the church.  When was the last time you spent any time praying for your Sunday school class or your Sunday school teacher?  When was the last time your spent time in prayer for your Minister of Music or your Deacon chairman?  If you do not have to dust off the cobwebs of your mind to remember that time, then ask yourself when was the last time you fasted in any way over the work and ministry of your church to the membership of your church or in its battle against the lostness of your community?

Could we be losing the war for souls and failing in the creation of disciples because we have forgotten the essential place of prayer and fasting within our lives?  Could we see a fresh move of God within our lives, our families, our church, and our communities if we would find our place before the throne of God in deep prayer?  Would we see the deliverance we have long sought if we would commit to come to God in fasting of our desires in order to pursue Him in prayer?

I will not guarantee that fasting and prayer will bring forth the move of God that we seek, but I can guarantee that the failure to remember that this kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting will assure that we will not see the move of God that we are starving for.

Take time this week to pray.  Pray for the lost, pray for your church, pray for your family, and pray for yourself.  Surrender a meal, an hour of television, or some other item of value to you in your week and invest that time in genuine heartfelt prayer.  As we take the words of Christ seriously in the face of our present circumstances, I do believe that he will respond seriously to our pleas and that he will be glorified within our lives.

God bless

The Value of Praying Together

I have always believed that relationships are defined in moments.  A simple action or a conversation that takes place often chisels a relationship's boundaries without us even noticing.  Over the past few weeks one of these moments has constantly come to my attention.  I was serving a church in Florida and had begun to change the Sunday evening format from nothing to a prayer meeting.  I met with one of the leaders of the church and in the midst of the conversation he looked at me and asked if we were going to just pray on Sunday nights.  When I affirmed that was the plan he made a statement that defined our relationship from that point forward.  He said, "I just don't think I will drive all the way from the house just to come up here and pray.  If you were leading a Bible study then I probably would, but not just to pray."

I fear that attitude has permeated our churches.  For this man prayer was a private thing that he could do at home.  Prayer was not something that he needed to do in the community of faith.  To him, praying together was a waste of time if it was not coupled with something else.  While he would never say such things out loud, his feelings toward prayer meeting clearly illustrated his feelings on the value of praying together.  Though many of us may not be willing to say those same things out loud either, most of us likely have similar feelings.

However, I would contend that the value of praying together is much greater than the worth we often ascribe to it.  When Jesus leads his followers through the Model Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 he assumes the corporate nature of prayer.  The words "Our", "Us", and "We" all indicate the communal nature of prayer.  In other words, when Jesus taught his disciples how they should pray one of the key elements of that instruction was that they should be praying together.

Within the church the value of praying together goes simply beyond the sharing of a prayer request.  A church is a community and through praying together these communities are truly built.  In these times of prayer the congregational heart for missions can be built, the evangelistic fires can be stoked, burdens can be shared, relationships can be forged, and the foundations for lasting fellowship can be laid. 

 When we follow the instructions that Christ laid out for his disciples and begin to pray with one another we will see God move in mighty ways through his people.  In Acts 4:23-41 in the face of oppression the church prayed together for boldness and the Holy Spirit empowered them so strongly that the house shook and the entire congregation spoke the message with power.  In Acts 12:5-19, we find Peter arrested and the church praying.  The result was a miraculous escape.  In Acts 13:1-3, we see the church praying and God calling out Paul and Barnabas to the Gentile mission.  Do you realize that you are most likely sitting here today as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ as a result of that time of corporate prayer?  

If we are truly going to reach the world for Christ, if we are truly going to build a Christ-centered community within the church, if we are truly going to make disciples, and if we are truly going to develop fellowship with each other then we are going to have to spend time in prayer together.  At United Baptist Church we have marked this time to pray together on Sunday nights at 6:00 PM.  For our membership this is an essential time for building community around Christ.  If you are a part of United Baptist Church, then I cannot encourage you enough to leave behind the trappings of life, to put aside your flawed thinking on prayer meeting's value, and to follow Christ's instructions to pray together.  If you are a part of another church, then I cannot encourage you enough to invest yourself in a time to gather with other members of your church and pray with one another.  If you are the pastor of another church, then I cannot encourage you enough to mark out time for prayer with your people.  No matter who you are or what you station in ministry may be, the value of praying together cannot be estimated and the wonder of God's response to our faithfulness cannot be described.  Will you not join me in investing in praying together?

God Bless

Forgiveness as Preparation for Revival

Revival is a time that is set aside for special devotion to the Word and work of God.  This is a time for us to focus ourselves upon our dependence upon God in a special way and a time of expectation for a move of God among his people.  Once again we are focusing upon God's love for the lost within our lives and within our community.  We are seeking a move of God among those who do not know him and are praying for the salvation of those he has placed around our lives who are separated from the love and grace of our Lord.

Last year as we sought the Lord and prepared our hearts, the Lord began to move among us drawing 13 souls to faith in Christ over the last year.  We celebrate this move of God among our hearts, our homes, and our community.  As we approach revival this year, we must renew our desire to reach those who do not know Christ.

However, if we are going to see God move in the lives of those who do not know him then we must first experience a move of God in our own lives.  In the model prayer, Jesus instructs us to pray for God to forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors (Matthew 6:12).  If we are going to see God call the lost to accept his gracious gift of forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ, then we must also be willing to offer this gift to those who have sinned against us. 

I am asking you to seek the Lord for his forgiveness and to confess your unforgiveness to him.  If you are holding on to a grudge, a trespass, an offense, or an issue then I am asking you to turn that over to God and to make things right with those who have offended you.  If you know that you have offended someone else, then I am asking you to go and make that right with them.  Do not wait for them to come to you, but rather, whether you are the offended or the offender, go to them and settle this matter (Matthew 5:23, Matthew 18:15).

Paul tells the Corinthians that they are one body in 1 Corinthians 12.  As a result, any matter of division hurts us all.  Unforgiveness, division, gossip, slander, criticisms, and apathy bring harm to each and every member of the body.  As we prepare for a time of revival in the presence of the Lord, I am asking you to settle your accounts with each other under the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and to forgive the debts we are holding against one another clearing the path for a mighty move of God among our church and our community (Isaiah 52:1-2, Acts 3:19).

God Bless