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!

Meditation: January 9

“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.” Acts 2:2

The buildup was gradual. There was the work of getting those who were once divided and separated by their own preferences and passions to a certain place. There is a certain place for those who wish to receive the infusion of power for service unto God. He empowers the ones that He is able to position. It is the positioning power of God that will introduce the believer to a higher degree of power. If God is not able to move you from your current state of being or attitude, He will not be able to show you any more than you think that you already know. But when He moves us from our place to His place, He will then release His power in wondrous ways. This was His place! They were there allowing Him to connect them to each other. They could then appreciate the contributions to the whole that each had to offer. Then the power came upon them suddenly! It will not take God long to do what He has purposed to accomplish in and through you. He is waiting on the conditions to be as He has designed, that each would be in one place on one accord. Then there will be a sound from heaven as a rushing and mighty wind blowing in the direction of the unity of an expecting people.

September 2015 Article: ” Reasonable Service”

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1)

Reasonable service requires both reason and service from the individual. When deep and deliberate thought is combined with purposeful action, the result is an impact made upon the world around you.

You are used by God in a mighty way because you have allowed Him to make you useful for the work that He created. Many attempt to serve without reason, and some are too preoccupied with reason to be of any service. But His reason positions you for every part of your being to be fully engaged in what you were born to do. God does not require you to figure out what your purpose is in life because your “figuring” will most likely lead to a path of endless confusion. The grandest ideas that come to mind cannot compare to the empowerment that He affords those who are willing to fully submit to Him. To present your body to God is to say to Him that you are not your own, but the purchased price of your redemption warrants complete dedication to His cause. Even before we begin, God has taken all factors into account. Everything that has ever happened in life, including your personal history, everything that is happening, and everything that will happen, is equated before your assignment is given. You are then postured to fit perfectly into the scheme of things for maximum performance!

It is when you try to take control of your own life and independently manage it that you get in trouble. It may sound logical and seem good, but that line of reasoning eventually begins to fall apart and ultimately degenerates into a state of insensibility. Although you are free to choose your path, you are not free to determine the outcome of the choice that you make. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” (Proverbs 14:12) Faith in God is an admission, that there is more that you do not know, than what you currently know. However, if you fully trust Him, you are able to rest with confidence in the One who knows all things. The smaller you are before God, the larger He becomes to you. When you are willing to confess your ignorance and weakness, He manifests His wisdom and strength in spite of our weaknesses. It is pride that causes one to project a false image of knowledge, which creates a false reality and an unknown identity. The body is misused and devalued to what someone else may have thought of you rather than what God knows of you. Pleasure seeking is merely temporary relief when purpose has been abandoned. Today, more people are committing suicide than at any other time in recent history. Even those who have not gone as far as taking their own lives have succumbed to emotional suicide where important things no longer matter.

It is reasonable and sensible to submit your entire body to God. Science is the mere discovery of what He permits a people to know at a particular interval in life. Be careful not to allow these little glimpses of reality combined with theoretical hypotheses to determine your destiny. What you see now is not sufficient enough to carry your reasoning to an absolute conclusion. However, the fool continues to say in his heart that there is no God because he is able to glimpse into a fraction of knowledge. His ego inflates his logic to believe that he can be an authority on the subject. Unfortunately, that person is not able to see how all things work together either for his good or for his destruction. God’s desire is for all things to work together for your good, but it is only possible if you give all to Him and recognize His intentions for your life.

November 2012 Article: “Lip Service or Life Service?”

Hebrews 13:15-16 “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”

Although our lips possess the potential of bearing good fruit, deep within our souls lies the memory of a life much different than that to which we are accustomed. We were not there, but God’s original intention for all of humanity is yet the yearning that continues to create a crisis that resides deep within. Even though we do not see it around us, the tensions continue to surmount within us. We are not condemned to merely regurgitate the information made available that gives expression to the ideals of our current environment. Nor are we sentenced to the fate of saying what is right while the heart remains divorced from truth and words becoming nothing but meaningless flattery. There is a truth that exists outside of our familiar references. It appears to be so strange to our system that it must pierce the darkness of the soul, causing a reaction to all that we once held true. Then it can penetrate the heart with a reality of the wrongness of our reasoning based upon our limited understanding. Only then can we embrace what is real with a reference that surpasses things that are soon to be proven false.

Have you ever said what you thought was right, or what you thought you meant merely to reach a point where you had to take your words back? Some say that you had reached a point where you had to eat your own words. The heart is radically joined to the lips in order to express the deepest feelings of the soul. Even with the art of training the lips to speak idealistically, there are those times when there is a slip of the tongue. Before the words are carefully and strategically crafted, you say what you really mean. However, the objective is to mean what you say and to say what you mean…but to be right in both thinking and saying. It requires the humility of admitting that you are wrong even when you think that you are right. Truth resides in a distance that is much higher than perceptions. The knowledge of the truth comes from above where Christ is seated. To comprehend the truth requires a heart transplant. God takes out the heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh and He will make your heart pliable to correction and teachable so it can receive Godly instructions.

Not that you will always speak the right words at the right time. But a reference is there to correct idle words or expressions void of the knowledge that takes all factors into account. God knows the end before the beginning and all that exists between the two. When wisdom guides your heart and your words express the truth, then continuous praise is offered as a sacrifice unto the Lord. God has given you His word in the Person of Jesus Christ. You have been privileged to participate in His life and love that are directed towards His Father. What a tremendous opportunity for one so deserving! Your lips possess the potential to bear good fruit as your heart is full of praise giving thanks to His Name! This is life-service and not just lip-service, for you are now saying what you mean and meaning what you say through a life that reinforces your words!