Discipleship

Wait till your father gets home!

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments

For the Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives…For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. Hebrews 12:6; 10

“Go sit on your bed till your father gets home!” were the most dreaded words of my childhood. The time till he came with the inevitable correction was the worst punishment of all. My parents were not perfect but they taught me some important things about God which I missed at those moments. They showed that I belonged to their family. They regularly punished me but they never spanked the neighbor’s kids! Secondly, they were determined that I was going to grow up and become an adult. If they felt I was incapable they would have just patted me on the head and given up.P1030491

But in spite of their best efforts I came to the conclusion that I was displeasing and that the last thing they wanted to do was to spend time with me. Maybe you not only have also shared some of my boyhood experiences. Today’s hardships and setbacks cry out, “God doesn’t care about you! You aren’t worth His time! Why not just give up hoping that you could ever please Him!” But the cold hard truth is that God loved you so much that He gave His Son to die in your place. You are so worth His time that He wants to be with you for all eternity. He is so pleased to call you His son that He disciplines you now so He can share His Holy presence with you forever! What a wonderful heavenly Father we have! What small discipline we receive now tells us that we are loved so much that He wants to be with us forever!

Which Ananias are You?

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IMG_4102And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth Acts 23:2

This story is about 3 men named Ananias. While that seems a curious name and no one I ever knew has had it; in New Testament times it appears to have been quite common. These three men all went to the same church more or less at least once a year at the time of the high holy days. The first Ananias we meet is the most religious and important of all. He was the high priest in Jerusalem at the time of the Apostle Paul’s trial. The government of his day was quite corrupt and the high priestly position was likely rotated around by the Roman government to various wealthy pseudo-religious community leaders to curry favor with the ruling class. These were the type which Jesus was always in conflict with. It didn’t matter much to these leaders how many good works, miracles or wonderful teachings that Jesus did; they were primarily concerned to hold on to their power. Sadly while they had a great opportunity to learn about the God they proclaimed loudly that they were serving, they actually had no interest in anything that lay beyond their traditional religious exercises.

 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Acts 5:3

p1020288Our second Ananias seemed like a wonderful new church member. He came with his wife, got saved and baptized and showed up one day with a large offering. The only problem with this second Ananias is that though he outwardly accepted the Lordship of Jesus Christ and wanted to be a Christian, he also wanted money and the praise of others. He wished to be seen as giving sacrificially when in reality he kept back for himself the best part of his offering. His offense may seem minor but God was not looking at how bad he looked to other people. God was looking at Ananias’ heart. In his heart he had chosen to lie to God, in order to gain the praise of men. In the end he discovered that the only person he had fooled was himself. How sad to have taken a step closer to Jesus than the first Ananias but to still turn away because he chose the values of this world over what is truly valuable to God.

But hang on because there is good news. Not one of us needs to end up like these first two! There is a third Ananias who all of us can become like today. august-28-2008-010

And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord! Acts 9:10

This third Ananias was not a powerful leader, nor a wealthy man with lands he could sell. In fact the only thing we know of Ananias is that he listened to God and did what He said even when it went against everything that he had heard. This relatively simple disciple had the great honor and privilege of leading the Apostle Paul in a prayer of faith and forgiveness and then having him baptized! After this we never hear of Ananias again but everywhere that Paul went, a little bit of Ananias’ ministry went along. Paul’s first mentor was not another Apostle, nor a prophet or great theologian in the early church. His mentor and example was Ananias who led Him to Christ and then disappeared from the public view. So we should ask ourselves today: which Ananias do we want to be. Will we battle to hold on to all we possess? Will we compromise what we know is right to have others give us praise? Or will we accept what God has called us to do and who he has called us to be so that even when everyone else has forgotten; we will find that He has written our names in His book of life?

Lost in the Translation

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Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
2 Corinthians 5:20

Not long ago Governor Nikki Haley was appointed as the United States ambassador to the U. N. She has the task of carrying the message of our president and our nation to the world.

When Nikki Haley speaks she is translated into the languages of the other ambassadors from all over the planet. In Paul’s day the ambassador would have been required to speak both the language of his king as well as that of the people to whom he or she was sent.

Try now imagining the job God has appointed us to as Christians. We are to not only proclaim but also to translate His message to others. Having worked as a translator myself I thought to leave a few tips on getting His message across.

1) Let the message flow! Simply speaking another language doesn’t entirely equip us to translate. It is too easy to get caught up in focusing on getting every detail perfect. The problem os while we wrestle with nuances the speaker doesn’t stop. We need to just close out our own thoughts and every distraction and flow in the meaning of the heart of the speaker. That is how God wants us to share the heart of the gospel message. We don’t need to understand perfectly every detail. By the time we know it all we’ll be in heaven. Our task is to do the best we can right where we are. Let His message flow and the details well miss will not keep people from understanding. We carry his perfect message in very imperfect jars made of clay!

2) Don’t change the message! There are times when I am not comfortable with what the person for whom I am translating is saying. In the same way we can’t change or leave out the parts of God’s word with which we struggle ourselves. He has called us to carry all of His message to all kinds of people and trust Him with the results.

3) Never stop learning! Just because I can adequately translate despite my imperfect understanding of my second language doesn’t mean I don’t try to improve. I will never know Portuguese like a native but my understanding is far better today than it was a few years ago. We as God’s ambassadors must always be striving to know the language of heaven better. We are called as representatives of the God of the universe to reach our world for Christ. The stakes are eternal. The rewards are immense. How can we do less than our absolute best to be ambassadors that know the language of heaven but we speak it in ways that reaches souls desperately in need of a Savior!