reality – Cross Culture Church

January 2018 Article: The Year of “Cross Culture”

Three years ago, we changed our church’s name from Abundant Life Church to Cross Culture Church. Not that we do not believe in the abundant life, nor is it a matter of changing our assignment. There are times in life when the vision given by God is to be reinforced so that our understanding can be extended. When most think of abundance, their thinking is usually directed towards personal abundance alone. There is a sign in the center of our sanctuary with one word; “OTHERS.” It was placed there so that all who worship among us would focus their attention beyond themselves. We wish all to know that we are blessed in order to be a blessing. Not only that, but to know that our greatest blessing is being a blessing. When we are able to bless others, it is because we are graced by God for Him to serve others through us. “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28) Serving others is giving your life through extending your redeemed soul to others. When your life becomes conduit in the Hands of God, He reaches others through you who otherwise would have remained unreached!

The ransom of Christ’s life was to redeem us or to purchase our redemption. We were sold into slavery and under the dominance of the devil. Jesus had to stoop lower than the slave in order to rescue him from his dire condition of slavery. He became a man to identify with our humanity. Then He became sin for us in order to fully identify with our fallen condition. The ransom of His life was to free us from being a slave to sin. This was and currently is His service to all humanity. He served us by dying for us on the Cross. We have received His life in abundance when we are enabled to serve others without expecting anything in return. It is His gift in us that qualifies us to serve and motivates us to keep on serving. If Jesus could wash the feet of His disciples, we ought to wash each other’s feet. The symbolism of washing feet has to do with becoming the lowest level of servanthood.

This position goes crosswise to today’s culture. Capitalism alone suggests that we work hard at getting others to serve us. If any product is presented, or acts of service given, one must first look at personal profit as the bottom line. Churches erected in order to present a good showing of success and impressing others that their existence is relevant. People who parade their gifts and benevolence for awards and the applause of men. But the Culture of the Cross is to silently bless others even when your gift to them goes unrecognized. Jesus silently suffered in midst of the mocking and the jeering of the crowd. Paul admonished us to allow the mind of Christ to be in us, or to be given full expression through us. We are committed to publishing His message of humility through this, our ministry.

This year we will be emphasizing the work of the cross in the life of each individual. The Culture of Christ comprising of a culture that will confront through doing good what has been popularized over the years thus contributing to our nation’s demise. While there is concern regarding the value of the life of people-groups, the violent nature of mankind against others who do not look or think the same; decisions made to accept what ought to be rejected and rejecting what ought to be accepted, the need for cultural transformation is ever present. It must first begin among the people who are called by His Name if it is to ever reach the larger populace. We are committed to this and willing to invest our whole lives to this noble cause. There will be many who will count our ministry as being irrelevant and out of touch with reality. But we believe this to be the year where we will experience this as a vision whose time has come!

03 Nov 0Comments 0Likes

Meditation: November 3

Posted by wwalker Categories: Meditations

“He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered.” Proverbs 28:26

It is too easy to feel that a particular thing is right and rely totally upon one’s feelings. Many place their confidence in the inclinations of the heart rather than the established truth of God’s word. Our hearts may guide us in the direction away from the things we despise, but will eventually crash against the jagged rocks of reality. The good is often despised if the heart remains unchanged. Nothing is within us to embrace the truth if all we have is an empty heart in search of significance. Nothing within fallen man is able to deliver him from perishing along with the weight of passions sinking him deeper into the quagmire of sin and rebellion. His feet are not established upon any solid substance enabling him to be upheld on shaky ground. He trusts in what is within him and around him. He foolishly stumbles along in life until he utterly falls. But the wise will walk wisely because he is steadied by the power that comes from on high. God is able to lift him above the traps set before him. He is raised up while others are falling down. God sustains him through all that he may face because his heart is fixed on Jesus.

31 Aug 0Comments 0Likes

Meditation: August 31

Posted by wwalker Categories: Meditations

“For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; (10) and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power”. Colossians 2:9-10

Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher who announced the death of God placed his emphasis on the strength of the human personality. “Relinquishing the belief in God opens the way for human creative abilities to fully develop.” “The Christian, he wrote, “would no longer stand in the way, so human beings might stop turning their eyes towards a supernatural realm and begin to acknowledge the value of this world.” His idea was that “will power is the essence of reality”.

Today, the death of the God which is expressed through a shift in values is proclaimed even while using religious language. Asserting oneself and accentuating the positive while eliminating the negative supposedly have freed individuals from the bondage of their past. There is a super-human being on the scene that can control the activities of their god and create their own destinies. “If it is to be, it is up to me” has become the motto for daily living. God is about developing the human personality in ways far beyond the wildest dreams of Nietzsche. He thought it was possible to find one’s life while Jesus is about one losing his life that he might find it in Him. The aggression of egotistical behavior contributes to the destruction of the human race rather than the development of society. People are too busy trying to get for themselves what they want rather than having a true concern for God’s agenda and glorifying Him by giving Him what He requires. Listen more carefully to the message of this age or this world system, even in religious circles and you will hear this opposing gospel message seeping into the very center of what is being proclaimed. Only God can complete man and we are complete only in Him. He reigns over the things contributing to the conditions of man’s fragmentation. No one can rescue himself. All are in need of help. All are in need of God who is yet alive and well!

01 Jan 0Comments 0Likes

January 2017 Article: “The Year of God’s Manifest Presence”

Posted by wwalker Categories: Articles

This year, as never before, we are invoking and anticipating God’s Manifest Presence – – invading the scene and filling the void left in those attempting to manage life without Him. Emptiness resonates in every arena of life leaving a trail of failed hopes and dreams. Setbacks and failures are not always negative, for they often sound the alarm that awakens one to face reality. God is real and has always been real, but unless we invoke His Presence, many will not even know that He exists. In light of this, I invite you to read the following speech by Benjamin Franklin during the Constitutional Convention on June 28, 1787:

Mr. President:

The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasoning with each other — our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes is, methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights, to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a by-word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move — that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

01 Dec 0Comments 0Likes

December 2016 Article: “He Was Born for This”

Posted by wwalker Categories: Articles

We are compelled to face life’s greatest challenges. To provide an answer to age old and new questions that will arise out of controversy. Our lives are lived in search of meaning and our values are determined by how we interpret the meaning of life. It is both quietly and overtly expressed by unsuspecting people who are drifting through life allowing circumstances to define them. The ever-changing world squeezes them into the mold of modernity. They become whatever others are becoming—neutralizing their wills by popular opinions and paralyzing their minds by the prevailing ideas of the times.

Jesus came to change concepts and to modify the established order by transforming it into a thing of beauty (“He makes all things beautiful in its own time.”) And fortunately, Christ came to usher in a new season of change and restore all things to their original purpose.
God, who made all things, is the One who assigns meaning to His creation. But the question is, what is God like? Even though he was described through the prophets and His personality was demonstrated through their lifestyles, that was merely a glimpse into the reality of God and the full display of His glory. Their attempts fell short of expressing His life and pointed us in the direction of His acts and ways. His Person, by the intimate expressions of His love, were only implied and not expressed. So many have settled for implications and never shared that intimate fellowship provided through Jesus Christ. What Adam had lost in Eden is more than one could imagine—hearing His voice daily and being acquainted with His Perpetual Presence.

The Fallen needed restoration, but who can measure the distance of the fall? A fallen world adapted its condition as its current reality. Bloodshed penetrates the soil rather than circulates through the veins, and reduces the meaning of life to personal survival than kingdom and cultural advancement. How could I wish for what I had never experienced? Sadly, the cry for spiritual union lies deep within the soul.
Within his soul, the son of the slave carries the marks of his ancestors under the mastery of slave owners. He must overcome the daily pain from the established patterns that restrict his current motion. While his DNA contains the genetic code of a bloodline that is inclusive of past experiences, his bloodline did not begin merely two or three centuries ago. It can be traced in creation and established in Adam. Thankfully, the blood of Jesus purges us from our former sins and the effect of sin in our lives. His life promises the necessity of a New Beginning, for Christ came for this very purpose: old things are passed away and behold, all things have become new! He allows the newness to be made evident for all to see! Behold; look at how new you have become because of Jesus Christ!

You become a part of the change that is necessary for all humanity. As Christ came to change the order, the order is changed because of you and not despite you. People do what they do as result of what they know. Jesus’s prayer on the Cross was, “forgive them for the know not what they do.” Their ignorance is driving their actions and leading them to self-destruction. He was born for this and now He offer the New Birth that you might be born again for this! In Christ, the believer participates with God in reconciling all things back to God’s original meaning. Your true purpose for living is hidden in Christ. Politics, education, economic prosperity, or no other means is capable of accomplishing what Christ alone can do through those who allow Him to be Himself in them. Spiritual maturity is reaching a level of understanding of God’s original intent. These are the sons of God being led to glory. They can then more fully express the will of the Father. May earth receive her King that His Kingdom may be established in the hearts of mankind.

20 Sep 0Comments 0Likes

Meditation: September 20

Posted by wwalker Categories: Meditations

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.“ Psalm 119:105

In a dark place, all things seem to be the same. No distinction can be made between a man and a mannequin if both stand together. Things that are false and counterfeit appear to be more perfect than things that are real in dim light. They are painted with beauty and are a piece of art, but are lifeless idols. Without the light of the Word of God, we would naturally gravitate in the direction of that appear to be real, but is only real and beautiful to the spiritually blind. Our senses once ruled us and every decision was made on the basis of our perception of reality. The darkness was not just before us, but the darkness was in us as well. Then the light of the Word invaded our world, and all things changed! We were able to see the nature of all things and the danger that lay ahead by following the path of the blind. The very Word that changed us was also there to guide us. We have been changed in order to discern the difference between the real and the artificial, that which blesses from things that curse our souls; things that are harmful from things that are hurtful. We are on a different course requiring constant illumination of the path and assistance in order to keep walking straight. When the God’s Word determines the daily choice of our lives, we are not walking alone or following the crowd on the path of destruction. We are walking with Jesus in the Light as He is in the Light!