With so much pressure to be new and innovative in ministry, let’s not forget that the message of the gospel is not new or an innovation.  In fact it’s ageless.  Romans 1:1, 2 says the gospel was promised beforehand.  OK, can we get some clarity on “beforehand”?  Sure. Titus 1:2 says the gospel was promised before the ages, and 2 Timothy 1:9 says the gospel existed before the ages began.  What Paul is saying in Romans is that the gospel is ageless.

So what does this mean?
• It means salvation originates and begins with God.  That is, the gospel is not man-made.
• It means the gospel is eternal.  Created, finite beings cannot devise a plan for eternal salvation. (Although mankind has always tried to make his own plan for salvation apart from Jesus.)
• It means the gospel it beyond space and time; it transcends it.  In other words, the gospel is relevant to any culture in any age.  We don’t have to make the gospel relevant.

I think the last point is important.  The gospel doesn’t need to be made cool, hip, or relevant.  It doesn’t need to be dressed up and packaged.  The gospel cannot be bent to fit the culture, nor should it “emerge” into something “better”.

The gospel is the same yesterday, today, and forever – it’s ageless.  Let’s preach the gospel for it’s God’s power for salvation.  Let’s trust the gospel and not innovation to save.

“God does not simply create the gift (The Gospel) and offer it to us, if we will only climb the stairway to heaven to get it; he brings it down to us, uncurls our ungrateful fingers, and places it in our hands.” p. 108, The Gospel-Driven Life, Horton

To get something for nothing doesn’t make sense to us. We are wired from an early age that if we do good things, we get good things. We carry this mindset into adulthood.  But the Gospel turns everything upside down. The Gospel says we get what we don’t deserve. We get good (grace) even when we don’t do good (sin). This idea violates every sense of justice in me. Good people should get good things, bad people shouldn’t.

Through faith in Jesus Christ, grace is extended to us not because we are good people. We cannot stand on our own goodness, or our righteousness. No matter how good we are we cannot climb the stairway of heaven to access God’s grace.

God lovingly stoops down to us, pays the price for our sin, and does for us what we could not do for ourselves: makes us righteous before God.

So, we must repent of our badness, but we also must repent of our goodness (that is, our self-righteous attempts to gain God’s favor and approval).

And rather than climb the stairs, we must simply receive the gift by faith.

During GBCK’s 21-days of prayer and fasting, one of my key prayer targets is for people.  By people I mean my family, my church, my community, and those who don’t know Jesus.  So how do you pray for people?  I believe a great way to learn to pray is to look at how others prayed in the Bible.  They serve as models of what to pray, and how to pray.

One of the “model” prayers I pray is a prayer of the Apostle Paul found in Ephesians 1:8: “I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.”  Since God is light (1 John 1:5), and because Jesus is the Light of the World (John 8:12), the core of Paul’s prayer is that the hearts of people will be filled with Jesus.

So, a sample prayer for someone is: “Lord, thank you for ___________________.  Fill his/her heart with Jesus until it is overflowing.  Cause your light to remove the darkness in their life.  Call them to yourself so they may have hope in you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

As always, let the Holy Spirit guide you in the exact words you use.  And as you read the Bible, take notice of the prayers that are recorded for they can serve as a model to help your prayer life.

Blessings,
Mike

by:  Dane Tokushige

When I first became a Christian I remember people telling me that they were going to pray in their prayer closet.  I always wondered why people would try to smash themselves into a closet to pray.  After a few years I finally realized that a “prayer closet” does not really exist is just something people say.

A lot of people think they dont know how to pray.  A lot of people are intimidated to pray.  To help us understand how to pray I thought a good place to start is by looking at what Jesus says about prayer…

1. Pray in faith.
22And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Matt 21:22

2. Do not pray so that people can admire you.
7″And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Matt 6:7

3. Pray in Gods will.
24Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. John 16:24

Matthew 6:5

Beginning January 16 GBCK will be engaging a 21 day Daniel fast.  As we chose to deny our stomachs so that we can pursue Jesus our staff an leaders will be posting blogs here at GBCK.org designed to encourage us as we walk through this fast.

Look for blogs helping us understand better fasting, prayer, and pursuing Jesus.

“When the culture is is right, almost any method will work.  When the culture is toxic, even the best method will fail.” Steve Murrell

Loved this thought from the Accidental Missionary.  Most leaders are smart enough to come up with some great strategies, but the majority of these leaders are not patient enough to create the culture needed to see these strategies succeed.

The question that remains then is how can we create a culture?  here are some of my thoughts:

1.  Do it.  I have to learn to model the culture personally.  I have to go out and make disciples.  I have to take individuals through essentials.  I have to recruit people into encounter weekend.

2.  Talk about consistently.  Our methods need to be talked about at every meeting and to every person.  People have to hear us asking the same questions over and over again.

-Have you done essentials?

-Have you been through an encounter weekend?

-Are you in a small group?

3.  Learn to say no.  Practically every day there are opportunities of a lifetime to make the church magically grow.  Most leaders jump on these opportunities of a lifetime and jump off of the focus to make disciples.  If the opportunity is not helping every member to make disciples dont do it.  Events dont make disciples.

4.  Trust.  A culture of discipleship is more than a few pastor making disciples.  This is going to mean trusting people to make disciples.  Even though they might make more mistakes than disciples I have to learn to trust anyways.  Are people in the church honored that they get an opportunity or are they burdened that they have to do something?  If the answer is the later maybe we took to long to trust people.

I am sure there is a lot more to creating a discipleship culture, but this should keep me busy for a few years.