All I Really Know

Learning to discern the voice of God is challenging, and we don't always get it right. 

Sometimes we get it very, very wrong, in fact. 

In those moments it can be difficult to maintain our trust in Him because we can assume that He misled us, especially when we had our hopes in whatever we felt like He promised us.

The most challenging time for our family was when Wendy had a dream that she was pregnant with twins. She was standing in our back yard working with her flowers and she felt like she was having a miscarriage. Her first thought was, "Oh no. I'm losing this baby" but immediately she heard the Lord say to her in her dream: "Don't say this baby will die if I say it will live."

A few weeks later she realized she was actually pregnant. 

A few weeks after that she started to lose the baby.

People came over to our house and prayed over her. They affirmed what she had heard in her dream; that this child would not die but live. 

So, we held on tight to those promises, and especially to this dream which God had given to her long before she even realized she was pregnant.

But then we lost the baby.

It's hard to describe the sense of loss and betrayal we felt.

How could God do this? Why would He give us such a specific dream and promise of life and then take it away from us? Was God being cruel? Was He playing with us? Didn't He know how we would have interpreted that dream and that promise that the child would not die but live?

There were no answers then, only questions.

We grieved. We cried. We wrestled with our doubts. We struggled to hang on to our faith in God's goodness.

Over time we began to look at all of this through another lens. Wendy had another dream later on that suggested that our daughter was indeed alive and in the presence of Jesus. She took comfort knowing that we would see her - and the other 5 children we had miscarried - one day soon.

But that experience led us to reassess the way we interpreted God's voice. Not everything was easy to discern. Not every word was to be taken at face value.

In other words, we weren't so sure about what we knew anymore. 

I recently shared this story with someone and they asked me what to do when you know that God has told you something but you're still struggling with doubts?

After thinking about how to respond I had to say this: "The list of things I 'know' is pretty short these days. I can only say that God is good and He loves me. Beyond that, I can't honestly say I "know" anything."

This is where we are. 

Our confidence in anything other than God's goodness and love for us is up for grabs. 

But because we know that we are loved by a God who is good, we can handle anything else that comes our way.

Like the man who said to Jesus, "I believe. Help my unbelief!" or Peter who said, "Lord, where can we go? You have the words of life", we can only hold tight to Him, even if we don't always understand what He is doing.

So, hold fast to these simple truths: God is good. He loves you.

Anything else is subject to change.

-kg

[Subversive Radio Podcast] Jesus In Samaria

The people in the little Samaritan town didn't ask for a sign or a miracle, but simply received Jesus with open hearts. How could that be? Join us as we look at this extraordinary event in the life and ministry of Jesus and see what it can teach us about our own walk with Him.

WHO PASTORS THE PASTORS OF OUR PASTORS?

Someone told me this week: “Pastors who don't have pastors usually head towards not being a pastor.”

This prompted me to wonder, “Who is pastoring Rick Warren?” and “Who is pastoring the guy who is pastoring Rick Warren?” and “Who pastors that guy?”

Not to pick on Rick Warren, of course. We might also ask, “Who pastors the guy who pastors the guy who pastors Joel Olsteen? And who is pastoring that guy?”

See, the problem I have with this concept is that our hierarchical system of religion is hogwash. It’s not based on the New Testament scriptures. It totally ignores the concept of being a Body of Believers made up of equals who lovingly serve one another under the direction of Christ.

With our Americanized version of Christianity, we have a large mass of “believers” (not “disciples”) who are all being pastored by a “Pastor” and that guy isn’t pastored by anyone. Even if he was, it would be something totally man-made and in defiance of scriptural principles.

See, the New Testament church is built on the premise that we have one teacher (Jesus) and we are all brothers and sisters. None of us is to allow anyone else to call us “Teacher” or “Rabbi” according to Jesus, because that would be disobedient to His command not to duplicate the top-down hierarchy of the pagan leaders, and of the Jewish leaders.

This does not mean that none of us can be teachers or lead others. What it does mean is that we cannot allow others to single us out and treat us as if we have more authority than others in the Body of Christ.

The problem with the non-biblical hierarchy model of church leadership is that it quickly reaches an end with one person sitting at the top with no one over them. Most of us are ok with this. We like paying someone else to do all the spiritual work that we’re supposed to do. Well, some of us do, anyway. But, that’s not the Biblical model. Remember:

“Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up..” (Eph. 4:11-12)

See that? The “works of service” are to be done by “his people” not by the one’s given by Christ to equip them. In our Americanized version of Church, we’ve placed all of the “works of service” at the feet of one guy, (the Pastor), and the rest of us sit around and watch him. But, Christ’s intention was that some within the Body would equip, teach, train, and empower everyone else to do the teaching, preaching, evangelizing, praying, serving, giving, sharing, blessing, etc.

Most would answer my question above by saying that Jesus pastors the senior Pastor, and they would be half right. The truth is, Jesus is meant to be the Senior Pastor of every single one of us in the Body. He alone is the Good Shepherd. He is our Head. He is our Leader. Those who serve as Elders in our Body are being pastored by the same Shepherd as the rest of us. We’re all following Christ individually, and corporately. That’s how it was meant to work.

Paul encourages us later in the epistle to the Ephesians to “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Eph. 5:21)

Let’s all submit to Christ together, not to another person in our fellowship. Only Jesus is worthy of our awe and our complete obedience. We are all brothers and sisters.

-kg