Author: GlennDavis

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Ministry Like No Other (Part One)

 

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

2 Tim. 4:2

Ministry is the overflow of the Life of God in you. You spend time with Christ, Christ reveals himself afresh. The overflow of that experience is life, that life encourages and blesses others. Ministry is communicating “life information” to others: why he loves, what God does, when he speaks, where he works, and how he transforms. Ministry is sharing with others how God has been faithful in your life and how God will be faithful in theirs. Ministry is encouraging others to trust Christ’s work on the Cross, the Father’s faithful provision, and the Holy Spirit’s consistent guidance.

The message I would bear is Jesus Christ and him crucified and from the consideration of the great things he has done, to recommend and enforce Gospel holiness and Gospel love, and to take as little notice of our fierce contests, controversies and divisions as possible.

My desire is to lift up the banner of the Lord, and to draw the sword of the Spirit not against names, parties and opinions, but against the world, the flesh and the devil; and to invite poor perishing sinners not to espouse a system of my own or any man’s, but to fly to the Lord Jesus, the sure and only city of refuge and the ready, compassionate and all sufficient Saviour of those that trust in him.

John Newton, “Letter to Harry Crooke of Hunslett, Leeds,” cited in Marylynn Rouse, “An Important Turn to My Future Life,” The John Newton Project Prayer Letter (October/November 2008), 1.

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The Pastoral Burden

Pastoral Responsibility and Its Limits

Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Eph. 4:22-24

I ‘ve been in pastoral ministry for thirty years now, it’s hard to believe that I have served that long. I have been a staff member with the Agape Force, Director of College and Career for an Assembly of God fellowship, and a charismatic Baptist Church (S.B.C.). Also, I pastored an independent charismatic church called Christ Our Life. The last fifteen years of my pastoral ministry has been with the Charismatic Episcopal Church (C.E.C.).

Serving as a presbyter (i.e., priest) as opposed to a preacher/pastor has been fulfilling. Maybe in the coming weeks, I can explore the differences and similarities of being a priest as opposed to a pastor. But for the moment, a presbyter and a pastor both feel a great spiritual burden for their sheep. Pastoral ministers live with the grief of departures, the sadness of unexplainable suffering, and seeming futility of their work.

All of us as ministers struggle with discouragement at times. You work with people, spend time with people, exhort people to trust Christ, and then, watch those same people make bad moral choices. You wonder what you could have done to prevent such spiritual calamity (Heb. 13:17).

In the past, I would often feel guilty for their failure. Somehow I thought, I must not have said the right thing, or taught the needed truth, or spent enough time with them. Then, the Holy Spirit began to speak to me. He said, “I have called you to love, to serve, to teach, to counsel, to encourage, and to pray for others. However, each person has to make their own choice to walk in the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25). You cannot make others walk in the Spirit, all that you can do to is to encourage them to trust me.” In other words as a pastor, you cannot make people choose righteousness. Their choices are their responsibility.

The Holy Spirit’s words have brought an immense amount of comfort to me. The decision is up to each individual: Do they really want to change? Do they really want Christ more than any worldly pleasure or fleshly desire? Do they really want to please Christ in their attitudes and actions? Do they want Christ more than anything (Phil. 3:11)? For pastoral ministry to be effective, we must have an unreserved willingness to change, to hear God, and to obey his instructions.

We must have the unconditional readiness to change in order to be transformed by Christ.

Dietrich von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), vii.

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Great Receivers Love Holy Eucharist

The Eucharist Crushes the Barriers of My Heart

When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you (emphasis mine). Do this in remembrance of me.”

1 Cor. 11:24

Great receivers love grace. Grace being Jesus in them to live the Christian life in joy, holiness, and power. In the Holy Eucharist, Jesus gives us sanctifying grace to strengthen us to live the Christian life. Great receivers know that Christ as grace is present in the Lord’s Supper. They hunger to partake. They know that Christ is available now by the power of the Holy Spirit in the elements of bread and wine. In his Body and Blood, Christ blesses them with physical, emotional, and spiritual renewal. Great receivers run to the Eucharist for they know that there at the altar they will meet Christ.

In the sacraments, we acknowledge in faith that whatever happens to Christ also happens to us. Baptism plunges us in to the waters of his vicarious human life, uniting us and identifying us with his humanity. The Lord’s Supper feeds us with Christ, participating in his perfect human life, death, resurrection and ascension in the bread and wine.

Leonard J. Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 51.

To choose Jesus is to allow grace to crush the barriers in my heart. Those big barriers of trust in my own abilities and self-confidence need to collapse. If my trust is in myself, I am self-centered, not Jesus-or Eucharist-centered.”

Tadeusz Dajczer, The Mystery of Faith: Meditations on the Eucharist (Orleans, MA: Paraclete Press, 2009),17.

HT: Jesus Creed

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The Sacrament of Confession

What is Sacramental Confession?

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

James 5:16

Confession is one lover going to another lover and admitting their faults in the relationship while yearning for restoration and forgiveness. Better yet, confession is the offended lover pouring upon the hurting, shamed, and guilty lover: abundant grace, mercy, and pardon. In relationship to Christ, confession is knowing and experiencing first hand the embrace of the waiting father (Luke 15:20). It is the comfort and security of being able to enjoy once again the lap of Abba Father who smothers the bewildered child with acceptance and love (Gal. 4:4-6).

Reconciliation is grace upon grace; it is forgiveness being poured out like a waterfall. It is finding our way home. It is being affectionately loved by Christ.  It is receiving affirmation, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The Eastern Orthodox Church calls sacramental confession, “the kiss of Christ.” “Kiss me again and again, for your love is sweeter than wine” says the Song of Songs (1:2). Confession is experiencing and expressing Christ’s love for us. Confession is having the opportunity to start anew.

Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Kiss of Christ: Reflections on the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation (Combermere, Ontario: Madonna House Publications, 1998), 7.

Private confession should be retained in the church, for in it consciences afflicted and crushed by the terrors of sin lay themselves bare and receive consolation, which they could not acquire in public preaching. We want to open up confession as a port and refuge for those whose consciences the devil holds enmeshed in his snares and whom he completely bewitches and torments in such a way that they cannot be free or extricate themselves and feel and see nothing else but they must perish. To such, then, an approach to confession should be opened up so that they may seek and find consolation among the ministers of the church.

Martin Luther cited in Thomas C. Oden, Classical Pastoral Care, Volume Two: Ministry through Word and Sacrament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 135.

My entire essay on the sacrament of confession entitled, “Experiencing Our Heavenly Father’s Embrace: Sacrament of Confession as Counseling” is available as a Google document.

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Great Receivers Pray

The Need to Pray

Prayer is an ongoing dialogue-a real and intimate conversation-between the Abba Father of Jesus and us, his beloved children. Since prayer is a conversation between us and God, we can expect to be heard by the Holy Spirit and to be spoken to by God. Our conversation with God involves sharing, asking questions, clarifying, and responding. Prayer opens our hearts to God’s presence, our ears to his direction, our minds to his will, and our spirit to his great love. Prayer makes us great receivers of God’s most gracious grace.

Prayer is standing before God transparent and open in a real on-going conversation. In that conversation, we share our hopes, fears, needs, and desires knowing that our Abba Father who cares for us will respond. He will hear our cry and answer: he will move on our behalf and provide what is best for us.

Many believers complain that they do not feel God’s anointing, they do not hear God speak, and they do not sense his direction, yet they spend little, if any, time in personal prayer. The lack of prayer weakens our faith, exposes our souls to Satan, and hinders our resolve to fight the enemy in spiritual warfare. Over time, our relationship with the Lord becomes weakened with little, if anything, to offer others in ministry.

The sweetest experiences of God’s saints are when they are alone with him. Without seeking God often, the vitality of the soul is lost. We may as well expect a crop and harvest without sowing, as living grace without seeking of God. God is first cast out of the closet, and then out of the family, and within a little while, out of the congregation. Omit secret prayer, and some great sin will follow. A man who is often with God, does not dare to offend him so freely as others do. Religion, as it were, dies by degrees.

Whatever else is forgotten, God must not be forgotten. Make God a good allowance. Make a prudent choice yourselves, and consecrate such a part of time as will suit with your occasions, your course of life, and according to your abilities and opportunities.

Thomas Manton, Works, i:13-20 cited in Voices from the Past:Puritan Devotional Readings, ed., Richard Rushing (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2009), 2.

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Great Receivers Get Pruned

It’s Good to be at the End of Your Rope

You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

Matt. 5:3 (The Message)

God is sovereign. No sincere Christian debates that significant biblical truth (Dan. 7:14). However, it is difficult for us to believe that God is actively working through people and circumstances to deal with our selfishness and pride. Day-by-day, moment-by-moment, our Heavenly Father is cutting away those aspects of our lives which are inconsistent with Christlike character.

The Lord wants us to be great receivers. Therefore, he cuts away our self-sufficiency, self-centeredness, and self-absorption. He wants us to give up our striving and struggling. He wants you and I to give up and depend on the Holy Spirit.

The pruning work of our heavenly vinedresser is not an instantaneous process, but a gradual on-going work of God (John 15:2). Patience is required. Patience is an enabling of the Spirit to take trouble from life and wait till God, the heavenly vinedresser, works his perfect pruning process in our lives (Gal. 5:22). We are able to wait for we know that our Lord loves us and is working Christlikeness into our lives. We rejoice for Christlikeness is our heart’s desire (Rom. 8:18).

We can be patient in our circumstances because we know that God is up to something good in our delays, detours, and unexpected disappointments.

[God’s] grace purposes to expose and free you from your bondage to you. His grace is meant to bring you to the end of yourself so that you willing finally begin to place your identity, your meaning and purpose, and your inner sense of well-being in him.

So he places you in a comprehensive relationship with another flawed person, and he places that relationship right in the middle of a very broken world. To add to this, he designs circumstances for you that you would have never designed for yourself. All this is meant to bring you to the end of yourself, because that is where true righteousness begins.

He wants you to give up. He wants you to abandon your dream. He wants you to face the futility of trying to manipulate the other person into your service. He knows there is no life to be found in these things.

Paul Tripp, What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage, p. 51-52.

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Receiving Christ in Temptation

First Sunday of Lent Year C

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Heb. 4:15

Great Receivers: Without hesitation, reservation, equivocation, or qualification, great receivers open their hearts to God’s grace in season or out. They look to God during good times or bad. In the midst of spiritual highs or emotional lows with hearts wide open, great receivers look to Christ to be their deliverance. They keep their eyes on Jesus, enjoy his moment-by-moment presence, and draw strength from his grace. Great receivers recognize that they cannot be victorious over temptation without trusting Christ for help in their time of need (Heb. 4:16).

Illustration: “Some people fall into temptation, but a great many make plans for disaster ahead of time. “Son,” ordered a father, “Don’t swim in that canal.”

“OK, Dad,” he answered. But he came home carrying a wet bathing suit that evening.

“Where have you been?” demanded the father.

“Swimming in the canal,” answered the boy. “Didn’t I tell you not to swim there?” asked the father.

“Yes, Sir,” answered the boy.

“Why did you?” he asked.

“Well, Dad,” he explained, “I had my bathing suit with me and I couldn’t resist the temptation.”

“Why did you take your bathing suit with you?” he questioned.

“So I’d be prepared to swim, in case I was tempted,” he replied.

Charles Swindoll, One Step Forward, p. 85.

My sermon notes for “Great Receivers Stare Down Temptation” (Matt. 4:1-11) are available as a Google document.

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Repentance: The Joy-Filled Life

Ash Wednesday Sermon

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

2 Cor 7:10-11

Definition: Repentance is simple, but not easy: repentance is a change of mind that by God’s grace leads to change of heart which creates a change in our behavior.

Conclusion: Even when we fail, God keeps his face turned toward us. We are still his child, but our behavior he cannot honor. Therefore when we sin, the Lord withdraws his presence from us (not our salvation). Repentance allows us to enter back into his presence and enjoy all the blessings of New Covenant (Jer. 31:31-34).

Repentance is a lifestyle not a one-act play. Repentance is a life-long interaction with the Holy Spirit: convicting, forgiving, releasing, restoring, and renewing. We are joyful because Christ forgives freely, Christ’s righteousness applies always, and Christ’s presence is available constantly. We are therefore free from self-consciousness, sin-consciousness, Satan-consciousness, and performance consciousness. We are free to enjoy Jesus.

My sermon outline and notes for “Repentance: The Joy-Filled Life” are available in their entirely as a Google document.

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Great Receivers Stare Down Temptation

God Will Provide a Way of Escape

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

1 Cor. 10:13

Temptation is an allurement or enticement to sin (1 Tim. 6:9). Temptation is a drawing and wooing from Satan to follow the ways of the world and give-in to the cravings of our flesh. Being tempted is not sin itself, but capitulating to the desires of the flesh is sin (Rom. 8:5). The flesh, or sinful nature, takes our basic needs and turns them into obsessions. Our flesh (i.e., fallenness) yearns to the govern us and divert us from intimacy with God. Our flesh cries out for attention and desires to rule our lives. Our sinful nature is an “idolatrous over-desire” that arises from our being: a heart that is afraid of disappointment, fears that God will be unfaithful, worries about unmet needs, yearns for control, etc. Giving into the demands of the flesh is strictly forbidden by God’s law (Rom. 8:5-8).

Temptation did not spoil Christ’s sinlessness (Heb. 4:15). Christ’s temptations were completely like the temptations that are common to us all (Heb. 2:17). Because of sanctifying grace, succumbing to temptation is avoidable. Great receivers know that they cannot overcome temptation in their own strength. They look to Christ with hands wide open for “grace and help in their time of need” (Heb. 4:14-16). The triumph of Christ over the world, the flesh, sin, death and the devil (Matt. 12:28-29 ; Col. 1:13 ) means that a way of escape is always available for those who look to Christ in faith. However, when we allow temptation to overcome us, forgiveness is available through Jesus Christ, our Lord (Heb. 2:18 ; 4:14-16 ; 1 John 2:1).

As we approach then, dearly-beloved, the beginning of Lent, which is a time for the more careful serving of the Lord, because we are, as it were, entering on a kind of contest in good works, let us prepare our souls for fighting with temptations, and understand that the more zealous we are for our salvation, the more determined must be the assaults of our opponents. But “stronger is He that is in us than He that is against us,” and through Him are we powerful in whose strength we rely: because it was for this that the Lord allowed Himself to be tempted by the tempter, that we might be taught by His example as well as fortified by His aid.

For He conquered the adversary, as ye have heard, by quotations from the law, not by actual strength, that by this very thing He might do greater honour to man, and inflict a greater punishment on the adversary by conquering the enemy of the human race not now as God but as Man. He fought then, therefore, that we too might fight thereafter: He conquered that we too might likewise conquer. For there are no works of power, dearly-beloved, without the trials of temptations, there is no faith without proof, no contest without a foe, no victory without conflict. This life of ours is in the midst of snares, in the midst of battles; if we do not wish to be deceived, we must watch: if we want to overcome, we must fight.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 39,3.

HT: Enlarging the Heart


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A Prayer on My 52nd Birthday

Christ Be My All

O’ Lord your love is found in the birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of your Son. Your victory is my victory. Therefore, I renounce Satan and all his wiles and temptations. I pray for personal, experiential knowledge of you as my love, my companion, and my friend. Your holiness compared to my sinfulness is great, yet your grace is greater. Transform me into the likeness of your Son. Your love for me is unceasing, may my love for you be as relentless and continuous. On Golgotha, you demonstrated your love for me: you bore the judgment for all my sin and shame. May my every second of living, every thought in my brain, and every beat of my heart be dedicated to loving you. I reject the world’s values and false promises. Please Lord, walk by my side, speak to my heart, that my life might be a reflection of the righteous beauty of your Son; through Jesus Christ my Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Christ is All

O Lover to the uttermost,

May I read the meltings of Thy heart to me

in the manger of Thy birth,

in the garden of Thy agony,

in the cross of Thy suffering,

in the tomb of Thy resurrection,

in the heaven of Thy intercession.

Bold in this thought I defy my adversary,

tread down his temptations,

resist his schemings,

renounce the world,

am valiant for truth.

Deepen in me a sense of my holy relationship to Thee,

as spiritual bridegroom,

as Jehovah’s fellow,

as sinners’ friend.

I think of Thy glory and my vileness,

Thy majesty and my meanness,

Thy beauty and my deformity,

Thy purity and my filth,

Thy righteouness and my iniquity.

Thou has loved me everlastingly, unchangeably,

may I love Thee as I am loved;

Thou hast given Thyself for me,

may I give myself to Thee.

Thou hast died for me,

may I live to Thee

in every moment of time,

in every movement of my mind,

in every pulse of my heart.

May I never dally with the world and its allurements,

but walk by Thy side,

listen to Thy voice,

be clothed with Thy grace,

and adorned with Thy righteousness.

Arthur Bennett, ed. Valley of Vision (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), 18.