Free to Serve

Have you ever read a passage or a verse that God used to just warn you or convict you? Well, God used Psalm 69:6.

It says, “Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord of Host, let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel.”

I don’t want anyone who has put their hope in Jesus to ever be put to shame because of anything I did or said.

I don’t want anyone who is seeking Jesus to experience dishonor because of something I did or said.

Jesus’ desire is to do good to us and for us to do good to others.

That allows my life to not shame or dishonor others.

Galatians 5:13

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

I have noticed a lot of anger and frustration in our nation. I believe the church has the answer.

The answer is recognizing that Jesus has made us free, not to declare our freedom to do what we want but to serve others in the love of Jesus.

Galatians 5:14

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The one word is love. We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We need to remember that our neighbor is as Jesus defines it: anyone who has a need.

2 Corinthians 5:14 says, “For the love of Christ compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.”

God’s love frees me and His love compels me to do what Jesus did: serve others. Jesus gave His life as a ransom to serve and save us. We are to die to selfish desires and use our freedom, given to us because of the love of God, to serve others.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is, in the freedom that Jesus purchased for us, to serve others in love.

When my freedom as a follower of Jesus is used selfishly it grieves God.

Ephesians 4:30

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

How to we grieve the Holy Spirit? Ephesians 4:31 tells us how that happens. It says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”

A follower of Jesus who has bitterness, wrath, anger, complaining, slander, and hatred toward others is not truly showing the character of Jesus.

Instead we as followers of Jesus are to do what Ephesians 4:32 says to do: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

The follower of Jesus replaces the negative actions and attitudes of verse 31 with the characteristics of Jesus in verse 32. We are kind, compassionate, and forgiving.

Raise the Roof an Remove the Walls is exhibiting the character of Jesus so that others can come to know His love and forgiveness.

The result of not using our freedom to serve others and of not exhibiting the character of Jesus is found in Galatians 5:15. It says, “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”

The result:

We devour each other.

We consume each other.

The person of Jesus is brought down.

The person hoping in Jesus is shamed.

The person seeking Jesus is hindered.

So, in a time of great anger and frustration, let us as followers of Jesus, the church, step up and use our freedom to serve those who are in need.

In Freedom Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls

                                           Joe

The Lord is My Shepherd

I am always amazed at how familiar certain passages in Scripture become to me, and how I can then read them and never think about what God is saying through them.

Passages like Jesus’ birth, Jesus crucifixion, and many of Jesus’ parables. But the one that most people know is Psalm 23. We have heard it at funerals and so when we read it, we really don’t hear it.

Psalm 23:1

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

God is our shepherd. God as our shepherd provides what we need so that we will have no wants. He will satisfy us with all that we need, and our needs are what we really want.

In Matthew 6:33 Jesus tells us to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to us. “All these things” refers to what Jesus mentions in verses 25-32 which are our needs. When we acknowledge Jesus as all that we need, He gives us our daily needs.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is making Jesus our everything and trusting Him to meet our needs.

Psalm 23:2-3

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

God as our shepherd makes us lie down in green pastures. “Makes” means enables. God enables us to stretch out and relax.

God as our shepherd leads or guides us beside still waters. Sheep will not drink from water that is not still; they will run away from it. God guides us into peace.

God as our shepherd leads us into paths of righteousness. God guides us to live out the righteousness that He has given us through Jesus at our surrendering our lives to His authority.

God does this all for His name’s sake so that His name is honored and exalted.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being enabled by God to experience security, peace, and to live out the righteousness that He has declared us to be.

Psalm 23:4

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

God as our shepherd will walk with us through the most difficult days of our lives. He will use his rod, which is a weapon to beat back a predator. Satan is described as a roaring lion prowling around looking for someone to devour. God as our shepherd defeats Satan for us. He will use His staff to deliver from the predator. God will defeat Satan and deliver us from Satan’s power.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is trusting God to protect us by defeating our enemy and rescuing us from his power.

Psalm 23:5

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

The table that God our shepherd provides is the abundance of His love and grace which leads to complete satisfaction. The table is not among friends but among our enemies. God’s abundance and satisfaction is not when we are living in comfort but when we are living in a fallen and broken world among fallen and broken people. It is a love that nothing can separate us from. It is a grace that nothing in this world can overcome. It is a satisfaction that no person can rob from us.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the abundance of God’s love and grace and, even in a broken and fallen world, experiencing satisfaction.

Psalm 23:6

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

God as our shepherd promises goodness and mercy and an eternal place to live in.

God’s goodness and mercy are extended to all humans and, if we believe Him and receive Him as the Savior and Lord of our lives, we will live forever in a place that He has created just for us.

God as our shepherd is our God of all sufficiency. He will provide all that we need.

With God as My Shepherd Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                    Joe

Faith in Jesus Produces

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

It took me a long time to get to the point where I stopped praying for what I wanted, and instead prayed for what God wanted.

Faith and hope aren’t about what you will receive but about what you believe. It takes great faith to trust that no matter what happens, God is still good. When we have that kind of faith, then we have hope in the presence of the Holy Spirit who fills our life.

Our culture sees hope in the wrong context. We hope for provision, success, healing, a bigger house, children, and relationships. We need to have our view of hope transformed. We need the light of truth of God’s Word to shine on what hope really is.

Faith is a complete trust in the truth and reliability of something and, in this context, a complete trust and reliability in God which produces justification.

Justification or salvation is solely by faith in Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins and His resurrection from the dead.     

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is serving Jesus as the Lord of a person’s life.

Faith produces peace.

Biblical peace is a rest or tranquility in the middle of everyday living. The peace that the world offers is only good when the conditions are perfect. God’s is good no matter what our circumstances.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is living in the reality and security of God every day.

Faith produces joy.

This joy is present even in the suffering and difficult times of life. Joy, unlike happiness, is not dependent on what happens. Joy is a work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a follower of Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the joy of the Lord as the strength of our lives.

Faith produces hope.

Hope is not wishing something happens. Hope is having confident assurance of what God promises in His Word.

Hope is not based on our feelings or on our circumstances but on the truth of what God says in His Word.

1 John 3:19-20

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before Him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows everything.

God is greater than our feelings and we trust what He says not what we feel.

Matthew 19:26

But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

God is greater than the circumstances of our lives and even when things look impossible, God is in control.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is having a confident assurance in what God says no matter how we feel or what circumstances look like.

Salvation, peace, joy, and hope come through faith. They are produced by the work of the Holy Spirit and God uses all the circumstances of a person’s life to produce those characteristics in our lives. They come from the strength and confidence that comes by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Faith in Jesus gives us the motivation to keep pressing forward with a passionate heart. Faith isn’t about waiting for our desires to be fulfilled. Faith is knowing Jesus and depending on Him and experiencing His presence in our lives continually. It is knowing that no matter what, God is good and He is always with you.

We are living in a period where people really knowing Jesus and experiencing His peace and joy and hope is a struggle for many. We as the church have the truth and we need to be Jesus’ voice and His hands and His feet.

May you and I experience the reality of Jesus in our lives and proclaim Him to others.

In Faith in Jesus Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                            Joe

Jesus' Methods Part 2

The most important aspect of Jesus’ method of fulfilling His mission was that He went to His Father for His message and power.

The first thing that we are to do is to proclaim the Gospel. We are to be Proclaimers.

In Luke 24:44-49 we see Jesus proclaiming the basics of the Gospel to the two men on the road to Emmaus.

Then He said to them, “These things are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

We are called.

We are commissioned.                                                  

We are empowered.

Proclaimers of the Gospel of Grace

John 20:19-23

On the evening of that day, the first day of week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Proclaimers of the Gospel of Peace and Forgiveness

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is proclaiming the Gospel of grace and peace and forgiveness to others.

The second thing we are to do is to witness for the truth of Jesus empowered by the Spirit. We are to be witnesses.

Acts 1:4-8

And while staying with them He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, “You heard from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” So, when they had come together, they asked Him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

We are to be witnesses about the truth of God and His love for us. A witness is someone who shares with others through word and actions the truth of who God is and how much He really loves His human creation.

Witnesses to the Reality and Love of God

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is witnessing to the reality of God in our lives.

The third thing we are to be is makers of disciples of Jesus. We spend our lives enabling others to know Jesus and be equipped to follow Him.

Matthew 28:16-20

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We are told to go - go where the people who need Jesus are.

We are told to make disciples of all nations.

We are told to connect people with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We are told to teach all that Jesus has commanded us to teach.

This is all done though the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Makers of Disciples for Jesus

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is committing our lives to make disciples who follow Jesus.

If there is a time when we as God’s people, the church, need to be proclaimers. witnesses, and disciple makers, it is now. We live in a world that is fearful, angry, and divided. The people of God are the instruments God has chosen to bring God’s love to cast out all fear, to replace anger with grace, and enable people to connect with Jesus and follow Him.

Being Proclaimers, Witnesses, and Disciple Makers to Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls,

                                               Joe