Monday, August 26, 2013

THE FIRST MISSIONAL DEVOTIONAL FROM THE ORDINARY CHRISTIAN: Ordinary Christians Are God's Primary Choice For Accomplishing His Extraordinary Work


Missional Devotional

Take a few moments and watch this missional video devotional and, prayerfully, receive some encouragement to shine the Light of Christ back into this dark world.  Don't think that just because you are an Ordinary Christian that you can't live an effective missional life.  YOU CAN! YOU ARE GOD'S CHOICE FOR LIVING SUCH A LIFE!



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Friday, August 23, 2013

ROAD BLOCK TO MISSIONAL LIVING: Trying To Hold Onto Everything Else In Life & Follow Christ

One of the major roadblocks to #missionalliving is trying to hold onto everything else in life and follow Christ at the same time.  Isn’t that what the Great American Dream is all about? “Going after it all and having it all”, isn’t that what we’ve been taught is what one should do?  There just one problem with this philosophy when it comes to following Christ, His mission and His purpose for you in this life!  And that problem is:  IT’S IMPOSSIBLE!  You can’t follow Christ and hold onto this world.  That’s right, you can’t do that, it’s just impossible!
In order to follow Christ wherever He leads you must be wiling to let go of your former priorities in life or else they will serve as an anchor that holds you back. Let’s take a look at when Jesus called Matthew to follow him:
“After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.”  Luke 5:27,28 (NIV)
The important part I want you to see from this passage is that Matthew “left everything and follow him”.  The combination of “leaving” and “following” cannot be overstated!  No person can effectively and closely follow Christ if they are still tied to the things of this world.  For Matthew leaving “everything” meant leaving his livelihood.  He was a tax collector and he received His call to follow Christ while he was at his job.  Isn’t it interesting that we do not hear any words from Matthew spoken to Jesus saying, “Let me first finish my work today and then I’ll follow you?”  We don’t hear anything of the sort coming out of his mouth.  Instead, what we do we read? ” … and Levi (Matthew) got up, left everything and followed Jesus.”  Matthew receives his call from Jesus to follow Him and without question HE GETS UP and follows.
This is the common pattern we see in all the gospels.  Jesus extends His invitation to “follow Him” and those who did got up, left everything and followed Him.  Peter, Andrew, James and John were fishing when they got their call to follow Jesus. The Bible says that they pulled their boats up to shore, left everything and followed Jesus (Luke 5:11).  There it is again!  We see the leaving and following joined together.
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Friday, July 19, 2013

Free Weekly Missional Devotionals For Ordinary Christians

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Watch this video and then sign up to start receiving a weekly missional devotion designed to empower, encourage and equip you to live an intentional missional life where the Light of Christ shines brightly through you and back into this dark world.  They are free, so make sure you sign up today!



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Thursday, July 11, 2013

ORDINARY CHRISTIANS GOD'S PRIMARY CHOICE!

"Just because I'm ordinary doesn't mean I'm secondary ordinary Christians are God's primary choice fordoing His extraordinary work"Jay Moore

This is a little saying that I like to use!  However, I have found that it gets a lot of mixed reviews.  Some people when they hear that slogan feel that I am bashing Christians by calling them ordinary.  They say things like, "Now that we're Follower of Christ and the Holy Spirit lives in us we are no longer ordinary."  And I wholeheartedly agree with them that our new life in Christ does make us extraordinary.  But with that said I must remind all of us that intrinsically, in and of ourselves, there is nothing good about us!  Our only goodness comes from Christ in us.  

A second reaction I get from people comes from what I like to call the professional minister.  This is the guy who has gone through Bible college and seminary; they have gone through an ordination process; and now make there living from doing the ministry.  This group of people also feel insulted but for a different reason.  When they hear that statement they get the idea that I am trying to down play their importance and strip them from some place of honor they feel they should have.  I feel this attitude interesting since I also have a Christian college education majoring in religion and a seminary theological education with a master's degree.  

But then there is a third group of people who are actually energized by this little quote!  These are the people who have never been empowered, encouraged or even equipped to live a significant life on mission with Christ.  These are the people who have felt there only role in church was to come and attend.  These are some of God's children who've wished they could be involved in some project that would have an eternal impact but have never felt it would happen because, after all, they're just ordinary and why would God want to use them when He could use someone else more talented or educated.

But I'm here to tell you God not only loves to use Ordinary Christians but that Ordinary Christians is God's primary choice for doing His extraordinary work.  The Biblical record is filled with such examples.  All of the apostles were ordinary men, King David was the youngest of his family and Gideon was a fearful coward.  Over and over again we see God choosing that which the world would have never considered to do His amazing work.  We discover God using ordinary people is not the exception but the rule as we study the Bible.

So why?  Why would God choose ordinary people as His primary choice for doing His work?  The answer is simple!  God chooses men and women like us, ordinary people, because he wants to confound the wise of this world!  When people look and see what God is able to do through ordinary people the explanation for its success has to be GOD WAS THE ONE WHO DID IT!  That's right, God loves to use the ordinary of this world so that He will get the credit for what was done!

The truth is that God is always the one who accomplishes His work but He just chooses to do it through people.  If God always used extraordinary men to do his work the world would try to explain away the results saying that it only happened because highly talented people were in charge of it.  But when some ordinary person does something that turns out great the only explanation will be GOD!

So are you an Ordinary Christian?  Do you feel like there are others more talented and more gifted than you?  Do you down deep inside long for  God to use you to accomplish something amazing?

THEN I'VE GOT GOOD NEWS FOR YOU!

You are exactly the kind of person that God loves to use to accomplish His extraordinary work and the only requirement is that you must be a person of:

FAITH!

Do you believe that God can do anything?  Do you believe that God can do anything through anybody?  Do you believe that God can do anything, through anybody, including YOU!  Now that's what I call faith!

If you are that kind of person I want to invite you to check out a group called THE ORDINARY CHRISTIAN and see how they can help encourage, empower and equip you to be an ordinary christian that God uses to do extraordinary things.  

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

QUESTION & ANSWERS ON MISSIONAL LIVING #2: Do You Needs Lots of Training Before You Can Live A Missional Life?

Many Followers of Christ have asked me this question:

DO I NEED TO GO THROUGH EXTENSIVE TRAINING BEFORE I CAN LIVE A MISSIONAL LIFE?

In other words how long does a person need to wait and how much training does a person need to get on missional living before than can begin a life of missional living?  My answer might surprise you and even sound somewhat counter intuitive to what seems like common sense.  What the video to get the answer!




To see more video's on missional living as an Ordinary Christian click here!


Monday, June 24, 2013

FAITH: An Essential Ingredient For Missional Living

“Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them.  The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert.  There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until your reach this place.  In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord your God, who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.  When the Lord heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore:  ‘not a man of this generation shall see the good land I swore to give your forefathers, except Caleb son of Jephunneh.  He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.”  Deuteronomy 1: 29-36 NIV

The biggest obstacle to following God is fear.  As a matter of fact, it is impossible to follow God and join Him in pursuing His mission when fear is holding our heart captive.  Fear causes us to doubt and to question whether God is really able to accomplish what he has called us to join Him in do!  This is the reason why here in the beginning in Deuteronomy and throughout the rest of the book of Deuteronomy and on into Joshua God keeps reminding His people and leaders to not be afraid and to not be terrified.  When people focus on the object of terror they have in essence removed their eyes off of God who is able to overcome whatever it is that brings that terror.

God intended all of our past experiences of God’s power, presence, provision and protection, to prepare us to be ready for the next God assignment.  God has multiple reasons for doing things they way He does ...


Saturday, April 27, 2013

Basic Skills For Ordinary Christians Living A Missional Life: Part 2

For Ordinary Christians to live an effective missional life where the Light of Christ shines brightly back into this spiritually dark world certain basic and essential skills need to be developed!

In our first post of this series I shared about doing good deeds in a way that brings God glory as being the first skill needed.  Now in this second post I am going to talk about sharing your story of faith, your testimony of how you became a follower of Christ, as the second essential skill.

I pray that through watching this video you will be encouraged to develop and begin to share your personal testimony of faith in Christ.  It is my prayer that an army of Ordinary Christians will be raised up, trained up and unleashed to effectively and intentionally perform these basic skills on a daily basis so that the Light of Christ will shine brightly in this spiritually dark world.  As you do GOOD DEEDS that brings Glory of God and as you SHARE YOUR TESTIMONY of faith in Christ God will be faithful to bring salvation to many of those we talk to.

Watch, be encouraged and go shine your light


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