The right questions

 

 

In a world where the quick answer has become king, the rewards of asking the right question becomes less and less appealing and this leads to an almost wreckless pursuit of solutions rather than of truth. And we all have the tendency to ask the wrong questions. It's human nature. Fueled by the competitive lenses that the world has sold us, when-ever we get together whether we are being successful or not is put up against a pre-determined measuring stick. Our questions of each other and that we ask of ourselves are often based not in an endeavour to get at an answer, but rather based on what we've already established (or allowed to be established) the answer to be.

 

 

Confused? I think we all are...and that's the problem!

 

 

Here at Life Changers, we are on a journey of rediscovery as we have begun to deconstruct the targets that we've been aiming at, whether they've been self-erected ones or simply just aiming points that we've inherited from our world-view and from those around us. The question of what success looks like has become so disfigured and tarred with such carnal brush-strokes that we've sent ourselves on never satisfying and very expensive rabbit trails that have often left us jaded, guilty or just ready to give up.

 

The simple agenda of this blog is to suggest that maybe we've been getting the wrong answers because we've been asking the wrong questions.

 

Or maybe we've not posed the right questions because we've allowed wikipedia, google or the latest best-selling growth book with 10 easy steps to success to lead us into frustration for too long.

 

Or maybe the problem is quite plainly the fact that WE'VE been asking the questions in the first place!

 

Maybe one day when we hand-over all our solutions and ready-made answers to all our insecure, self-imposed questions, He will quiet our posturing, push aside our growth strategies and ask us these questions:

 

 

"When I was hungry did you feed me? When I was thirsty did you give me something to drink? When I was a stranger, did you invite me in? When I was naked did you clothe me? When I was sickdid you look after me? When I was in prison did you come visit me?"

 

 

A good way to end this blog is with a good question...

 

What questions, or even better still, whose questions are we allowing to motivate our pursuit of success?

Grow...Part Two

David Hogan, an edgy, gunslinger-type minister in the jungles of Mexico, has been used to raise more than 20 people from the dead while his apostolic network of ministers has raised upwards of 300 dead bodies! A man who walks in incredible supernatural activity almost daily, Hogan once went to speak at a meeting in a very affluent metropolitan area. Honest and to the point, Hogan called the audience a bunch of spoiled brats and stated that the main reason that people do not see many extreme power encounters, is because they fail to go! "You, in your selfish bubble, avoid the poor, the sick and the lost".

God's power is linked to his heart, and his heart is a going one.

2. TO GROW IS TO GO

In Philemon.6 it says, "I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ"

*Going increases our revelation of God

If you feel you have been praying the same prayers in prayer meetings for quite a while, and if you've been sharing the same old story of what God did in your life for the last five years, it's time to step out the box! God is so gracious in that he often works in this way: We see something of him and are wowed...we share what we have seen to someone else...and through it God reveals more to us and the process is started again!

*Going increases our sphere of influence

"Enlarge the place of YOUR tent"

Since the beginning, God has given man authority to take dominion. This has not changed! You determine the place of your tent. You can sit comfortably where you have been for the last however long or you can take a step of faith outside of your current influential circle and see the boundary lines lift and move. Whether it is stopping by the office across from yours, or crossing the street to engage with the beggar there, or signing up for the street clean up initiative, or saving to go on a short term missions trip to another nation, just do something!

*Going increases the activity of God

How often we cry out for God to send his power and to pour out his Spirit, but I believe that God is more than willing to give us everything we need and more, but he first asks, "What do you need it for?" God is not moved by need, he is moved by faith. When we move our small feet even in what may seem a miniscule step of faith, God cannot help but be moved to release the power neccesary for the task.

This year, God is untying our feet and is empowering us to step out in authority and faith. After that, growth is an inevitable byproduct.

Grow...Part One

At the start of every new year, statements of proposed growth are inevitable from all and sundry. Whether it is to bulk up physically, financially, in your home life, in your business, in your free time, in sporting endeavours, in the dating world, in your marriage, growth is a deep and essential cry of our hearts. There is something inbuilt in all of us that yearns to be better. To go further. To not be the same. In a worldly sense, growth is more often than not a direct result of how much effort you put in. In terms of our spiritual growth as a community this year, here below is point one in a 3 part series which will help us align our lives ready for the enlargement that God so desires for us.


1. TO GROW IS TO SOW


In Genesis 26, we read of Abraham's son Isaac who was living in Gerar in the time of famine. What I love about this chapter is how Isaac, instead of closing down ranks, tightening his belt and hoarding for the tough times ahead (as most would do in a famine), he planted crops... and expected a return on them!

This year, we are called to do just the same!


*If you have battled with financial pressure and strains, this is the year where God is calling you to sow financially into others!

-The poverty spirit is broken by opening up our hands
-Get a biblical conviction of tithing
-Let generosity become your buzzword (generosity is only generosity if it costs you)
-God will never remain in your debt


*If you are unable to have children, sow into the lives of others children. One way is by volunteering your time and energy to aassisting with childrens church or youth ministry


*If you have been disgraced, let down, rejected, shamed, this year sow by speaking words of life over others.
-A culture of honour lifts the standard and creates room for growth in both camps
-In the Old Testament, when the nation of Israel went out to battle, the tribe of Judah (meaning praise) went first, not the fighting men. If you are at war in your marriage, at work, with your kids, with in laws, with your homegroup leader, send out the tribe of Judah first. Instead of being quick to criticize, start praising the signs of the life of God in them, no matter how small they seem to be to you.


Where we have allowed our hands to become tied and bound up by circumstances, by hurt and by our own sin, God is wanting to release our hands from holding onto temporal things so that they can be open to handle things of eternal value.


God, our greatest example, sowed his very best, his one and only son Jesus into the famine of humanity in order that he would in return reconcile many sons and daughters back to himself. This is our model, let us follow suit!

Rigby Wallace, lead elder of Common Ground Church, always says that the most fearful thing for him is that he will be exactly the same person in a years time. One way we will be able to make sure this fear does not become a reality is to remember that its not how full we are, but rather how well we have emptied ourselves!