Category Archives: Small Group

carpe diem, church

This past Tuesday at Lifegroup we did a little digging in that first chapter of Acts.

“While He was together with them, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father’s promise…
So when they had come together, they asked Him, “Lord, are You restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?”” – Acts 1:4-6

World changers. Miracle workers. Birthers of the Church. But they didn’t have a full understanding of what this whole thing was all about. After three years of life on life with Jesus, they still didn’t get the big picture. They thought one thing, while He was planning something else. Story of my life. Anyone else?

God isn’t intimidated by what we don’t know, or by the smallness of the picture we can see. He still sends us out.

“He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority.” – Acts 1:7

But inquiring minds have always wanted to know so they built an information highway and now we have literally trillions of bits of things we can know. But we still don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I believe our not knowing and therefore not controlling is at the root of our rampant anxiety. I also believe that our freedom begins with the truth – 

There are things that are not for us to know. As Christ followers, our need to know what’s coming and when it’s coming must take a knee.

Only God has the authority to set the times of our lives.  Not luck or fate or the universe or the government or our employer or that internet prophet guy and certainly not the devil. Take heart Church, our times are in God’s hands.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” – Acts 1:8

I can tell people my testimony without the power of the Holy Spirit. So can you. That isn’t the “witness” that Jesus was talking about in this statement. 

The Greek word for “witness” = martys. It’s where martyr comes from. But it has other meanings. In this verse it means “ those whose lives and actions testified to the worth and effect of faith…”

You can tell people you’re a Christian and what God has done for you all day long but if your life doesn’t speak of the value of faith, then you are not His witness. Speaking words doesn’t take the power of the Holy Spirit, but turning those words into the way you live your life does. Jesus gave us the power of His Spirit to enable us to live a life of witness, not just speak words that testify. 

If we say we are a man or woman of faith, but we live in fear of tomorrow, we are not His witnesses. If every bump or wave that hits us sends us into anxiety or “fix-it” mode, we are not His witnesses.

If we say we are a man or woman of faith while we tend to our collection of idols of money, fame, attention, approval, escape, and comfort and fill-in-your-blank,  we are not His witnesses.

And we should not wonder why there is no power in our lives.

We cannot live by both fear and faith. We cannot build both our own kingdoms and the Kingdom of God. We cannot live sacrificially while indulging our flesh. We cannot lay down our lives and love them too. 

The Church cannot live a double life, and have the power of the Holy Spirit to be His witnesses.

Those 4 verses were the last words Jesus spoke to them on this earth. Of everything He could have said to them, He chose to promise them the Holy Spirit so that they could be His witnesses. He chose to tell them He would give them the power to have lives that match their words. Lives that testify to the value of faith in Christ. 

Honestly? The Church should be waiting in the upper room today, waiting for our turn to be filled with the power to be His witnesses. And by the Church, I mean me. And I mean you. Not them. Us. Because we are the Church, you and I. We are the ones who need to have those last words of Jesus ringing in our ears. 

We are the ones today. Yesterday was theirs, and tomorrow will be for others. But this is our time to be filled with the Spirit of God and be His witnesses in all the earth. Today is our day. 

Carpe Diem, Church.

 

 

declarations

Hard week. A member of our lifegroup lost her 23-year-old son on Saturday. We are all a bit in shock, I think, but at the same time, our church community has gathered like an army around this family. It’s a beautiful picture to watch. If you think about it, lift up the Thomas family in prayer. They are living every parents’ worst fear.

At lifegroup last night I felt led to have us do some declaring. So after worship, we got down to it. With 3 pages of declarations in hand, we went around the table taking turns reading them. It got a little loud at times, lemme tell ya. These women de.clared some things! Vehemently. Passionately. Beautifully.

It left us wanting more.

I don’t know the mechanics of it. Can’t answer why. But I do know this – there is power in the room when truth is being declared. There is a fierce kind of faith that rises up when the scriptures are spoken over those in the room. When we declare the truth over ourselves and over our lives, lies begin to break.

{Because a lie from the enemy cannot withstand the sword of the Spirit.}

We will have ‘declaration nights’ more often. And hopefully, that will turn into declaration mornings for us individually. And declaration days. Until declaring truth is how we live life.

memorial stones

Lifegroup last night. There were six of us, all women in the Autumn or Winter season of their lives. We are divorced, widowed and still married. We work and we’re retired. We are all moms. We have grandchildren and we are hoping for grandchildren. 

We love Jesus and we want to love Him more. Better. Deeper. 

We had a time of worship. 

  • When You Walk into the Room – Bryan & Katie Torwalt
  • Counting Every Blessing – Rend Collective
  • Reckless Love – Cory Asbury

I need a louder bluetooth speaker, but the worship was still sweet. Afterward, they gathered around me, layed on hands, and prayed for some health issues I’m having. Prayer warriors, every one of them! And I think I want to do more of that. More of the laying on of hands and storming the heavens for one another. There’s just something powerful and sweet and comforting in it, not to mention that it moves the heart of God.

Then to the table that we gather around to talk about our lives, Jesus, and the Word of God. We used to gather in the living room, but one of our members has trouble staying awake in those chairs you sink into and never want to leave. So, we wondered if sitting around the dining room table would help her. It did, so we stayed. Because yes, one person is important enough to make some changes. One person is worth the hard chairs. And actually, I think we all prefer the table. It’s more intimate, and easier to take notes. And to eat cookies.

I had asked each of them to bring a rock, or stone with them to group, along with a short testimony of an attribute of God that has been evident in their lives.

And then we read from Joshua.

“The priests carrying the ark of the Lord’s covenant stood firmly on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel crossed on dry ground until the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan.” – Joshua 3:17

“After the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua: “Choose 12 men from the people, one man for each tribe,and command them: Take 12 stones from this place in the middle of the Jordan where the priests are standing, carry them with you, and set them down at the place where you spend the night.”” – Joshua 4:1-2

“In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ you should tell them, ‘The waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the Lord’s covenant. When it crossed the Jordan, the Jordan’s waters were cut off.’ Therefore these stones will always be a memorial for the Israelites.”” – Joshua 4:6-7

And one by one, we went around the table and talked about who God has been in our lives. For one, He has been her cornerstone. Always there. For another, He’s always been the Inviter, always calling her back to Him. Around the table, He has been merciful, provision, holy, love, faithful, and the God who speaks. I could sense our own faith levels rising as we recounted the ways God has poured Himself into our lives.

And after each testimony, we laid down our stone. 

And then we prayed. We thanked Him for who He is, and who He has been for us. And then we prayed for our children and our grandchildren – those born, and those yet to be. We prayed that all that He has been for us, He will be for them in even greater measure.

I prayed that my children and my grandchildren would know the voice of God through their lives. That He would speak to them the way He has spoken to me over the years, and that His voice would be even more precious to them than it is to me. 

That little pile of stones in the middle of a dining room table represents the movements of God in the lives of six random women on this planet. We have all been through trying times, difficult circumstances that threatened to break us, but didn’t. Because God. 

What is your memorial stone? Take the time to consider some of the ways God has been God in your life. Think on His kindness, His goodness, generosity, provision, power, and yes, even His discipline. Thank Him, and then pray for your children (current or future) and the generations yet to come. Pray they will know God better and deeper than you know Him. Pray He takes them farther than you have gone and do greater things than you have done for the Kingdom of God. That’s what we want, right? For those coming after us to know a greater measure of what we have known.