Teague Bible Church

I Want To Skip The Training Program !

We had a young lady in our church who told me that the answered prayers she received, because of our church interceding for her, was a great thing! She had this complaint however, “I believe if you could teach them to be more faithful I would receive more answered prayer, please work on that!”

We took a close look at a few of Paul’s prayers for the churches. Ephesians 1: 15-19a, 3:14-21. Philippians 1:9-11. Colossians 1:9-12. There are many others, but these reflect the “Training Program” we all enter into when we became saved. Notice no mention of health and wealth.

As I read these to her she said, “Well, that is nice, but what those folks really needed was for their plans and dreams to be fulfilled, and God can most certainly do it if He really wanted to!” I said, ” He loves us too much to leave us to find our own happiness, in our own way. Does it not make sense that He knows more about what will make us happy, over and above, what we think we want to make us happy? Besides, have you not experienced getting just what you wanted, and then came the let -down afterwards?” She said, “Yes, what causes that?”

I said, “Sin has caused us to want what will not satisfy. We are fooled by the fanfare and bright lights of worldly things. He wants to make us like Christ in our character, to be like Christ in our hopes, and yes, even our dreams.”

“Will I still get all of these answered prayers?” I said,” Well, you are young in the faith, and as it was for me at that time, it seemed every prayer, even the little ones, got answered. Over time I noticed that the ‘Training Program’ had priority over what I might request in prayer.”

“I suppose you could have a parent who bailed out their adult children every time they got into financial trouble, but we all know that is a bad parent. The parent wants the good feeling of being a parent, but is doing a bad thing. The focus changed to making the parent feel good, instead of really helping the child. God is never that short-sighted.”

“Wow, to really get close to God, and know and live out your life destiny, will involve great suffering, right?”

I said, ” If their was another way I would have found it by now, because I fight the ‘Training Program’ every day, but it is right; and pure; and it has transformed me. What’s happening is this; God will burn out, scrap off, cut out, pull you away from, the things of the world and give you more of Himself. Of course, He still answers prayer for the things we need in this life. I refer you to Matthew 6:33.”

” So at church they will pray for your needs. And God has met those needs thus far, right.” She said, “Right.” I said, “If the people at our church really care, they pray for more than your next physical need to be met. I see how you arrived at some of the things you said at the first. Most prayer request at any church are about health and wealth, right?” “Yea, why is that?” she said.

“Young lady I will leave that for you to figure out. Read those prayers of Paul and line your thinking up with that. Come back and give me a report.”

She moved to another city, I moved to Texas. 20 years later I got a report. She gave the most amazing testimony. She had a richer tone in her voice, she said her false dreams were smashed, yet replaced with a maturity she did not think was possible for her. She had lived the reality of Philippians 3: 7-14.
She said, “Praise God for unanswered prayer. Not because He was unwilling to answer, but because He kept to the ‘Training Program.’ He simply loves us too much to leave us to ourselves. That is true love and true greatness. My friends look at me funny now when I say to them, ‘I really don’t want a thing this world advertises as fulfilling. I can see through it now.’ ”

A. Romans 8: 28-31 and Hebrews 12: 1-13 The Training Program.

B. Romans 12: 1-2 How you know you are in the right frame of mind
to receive training.

C. Ephesians 3:14-21 The daily results in which you know it is working.

JWP 3/27/19

Time And Faith
You have probably experienced recurring dreams. Some are meaningful, and some are the result of eating pizza too late in the evening.
Don’t act on any dream, or even strong emotions, certainly don’t act quickly on such a basis, but pass all things under the Word of God and prayer first, before acting on impressions you receive. Well, see what you did? You got me off my point and I was not even there yet!
Some dreams are from God and the ones I have, the recurring ones, usually are not giving me insight into making a decision about a pressing matter, as much as they are about an attitude to hold about my daily walk. Of course , when stressed, we dream of not getting to work on time, or to a class on time, or being half-dressed for something. Those we figure out pretty quickly.
This recurring one for me was pretty simple. I am in a long, narrow hallway about 50 yards long. I hear a lion at the end of the hallway, yet I cannot see him because he is obscured in fog. I see a doorway, halfway down, on the left. I can hear the lion’s paws scratching the slick floor for traction as he now knows my presence at the far end of the hallway. He is moving my way at a fantastic speed!
The door open slightly and a man with a strong voice says,” You will need this, come take it now, you have time, not a lot of time, but you have time.” You see the problem. I want to roll up in a ball and just hope I wake up. And I did do that many times. The dream usually ends with the lion’s teeth sinking into my back, and I awake with the covers wound around my head, the alarm clock mixed in there somehow, and one night my toothbrush got in the mix !
Finally, after about a year, I decide to move toward the person at that door, which was my supposed help. That also meant moving toward the lion as he was moving toward me! I made it to the door, and some device was given to me. I pointed it toward the lion and he vanished. Turning back I see that the door is shut. I awake. I have never had that dream again. Once I moved toward that door, and received that device; no more such dream!
I heard an old man say to me once that doing the will of God, perfectly, takes place about 10 minutes after you decide to give up on the will of God. I heard an old Christian song that went,” You can’t hurry God,,, He may not be when you want Him to be,, but He’s always ,,,right on time.” And as a good friend said to me, ” God may be slow but He is never late.” I told my friend he stole that line from that song. With his gift for ad hominem he said I was hard to teach, and no, he did not steal anything. Ha! Ha!, or Lol?
You are thinking,” You got a point here brother?” Yes, I do. If God sees everything from a timeless perspective, then for us to grow we have to trust Him by getting caught up in His perspective. He invented time; He is not subject to it. We trust Him, in time, in different moments, where fear and time seem to have married each other. So, God has to stretch all the time out of the situation until we give up, allowing us to think He does not care, so we quit hoping for something, and start hoping just to have Him near.
I think of Gideon in Judges 6:13 where he concluded that God did not care anymore because of a timing thing. He made a wrong judgment about God based solely on God’s inconvenient timing. Or in Mark 4: 38 where the disciples concluded God did not care for them because of a storm that came at a bad time. In either case, God could have acted quicker! Or at the death of Lazarus in John 11. Deliberately delaying His actions. Now come on Lord! Can’t you see this needs to be done in my life,,, right now?
There is a zone, “in” time, where faith is tested “with” time itself. We are timeless, eternal creatures. That is why we are so shocked with the changes that time has brought to our door! What you originally wanted from God gets transformed from a thing, or an ideal situation prayed for, to an incredible love for God, and then, yes, and then, you could care less about the thing or situation anymore!
Ephesians 3: 20a has become one of my favorite verses. ” Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,,,.” Well, how sneaky is that? He actually does things to me I did not ask for! I just want a temporary fix and He acts like I am going to live forever!
I think I know how to make myself happy; you think you know how to make yourself happy. You and I just need God to give it to us! Right? Wrong. We have very little idea how to fulfill our destiny. THE will of God is clear, “To become conformed to the image of Christ.” Romans 8: 28-31. ” If that is not your daily heartbeat there is no hope on the more detailed parts of your journey.
The daily details of completing that journey, that will of God, reminds me of hearing that strong voice in that dream saying,” You will need this, come take it now, you have time, not a lot of time, but you have time.” You need to move if you want to change. That is where faith grows! JWP

ROMANS 15 15 through 33 DATE 3 17 19

Please join us in today’s word. And let us know what you think….either in our comment section or in person at our next service. Join us every Sunday at our new worship times–9:30am for Sunday School and at 10:45am for Worship Service. We’d love to see you here!

Please join us in today’s word. And let us know what you think….either in our comment section or in person at our next service. Join us every Sunday at our new worship times–9:30am for Sunday School and at 10:45am for Worship Service. We’d love to see you here!

Please join us in today’s word. And let us know what you think….either in our comment section or in person at our next service. Join us every Sunday at our new worship times–9:30am for Sunday School and at 10:45am for Worship Service. We’d love to see you here!

Romans 15 4-5 DATE 2 17 19

Please join us in today’s word. And let us know what you think….either in our comment section or in person at our next service. Join us every Sunday at our new worship times–9:30am for Sunday School and at 10:45am for Worship Service. We’d love to see you here!

Please join us in today’s word. And let us know what you think….either in our comment section or in person at our next service. Join us every Sunday at our new worship times–9:30am for Sunday School and at 10:45am for Worship Service. We’d love to see you here!

Please join us in today’s word. And let us know what you think….either in our comment section or in person at our next service. Join us every Sunday at our new worship times–9:30am for Sunday School and at 10:45am for Worship Service. We’d love to see you here!

Please join us in today’s word. And let us know what you think….either in our comment section or in person at our next service. Join us every Sunday at our new worship times–9:30am for Sunday School and at 10:45am for Worship Service. We’d love to see you here!

“Are we going to get killed?” I was too scared to answer. Besides, I was only 12 and the question came from my 10 –year- old brother; what did I know? We had walked through the woods all day long, sometime in late May. In Texas that can mean deadly thunderstorms. We were by a creek two miles from home.
The sky lit up, the hair on the back of our necks stood up, and then the thunder! Less than a second between the light and the sound; that is a bad sign. The smell of burnt electrical wire insulation was next. That means we were nearly struck by lightning. We stayed low to the ground and stayed perfectly still. That continued for about 10 minutes, but it was a fast-moving storm, so as quick as that had happened, then just as suddenly came the sound of large drops of water hitting all around us.
I do not have words to express how relieved we were when the rain started and the thunder and lightning subsided! I thought I heard brother crying , but on close inspection, he was laughing! The relief was amazing. I have had few emotions that matched that event.
C.S. Lewis once said something that has caused several people to question me on the meaning. I think the question comes because people think that accepting Christ into your heart starts as seeing your need to be saved well enough , but surely not something that would start in fear? Yes, very much so!
“Of course I agree that Christianity is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I’ve been describing, ( that deep down we all agree with the moral law of God and yet we all fail it, and we sense the dread of its demands) and it’s just no good trying to go on to that comfort without that dismay ( the misery and fear of God’s rightful judgement against you personally for your sin, and you sensing the hopelessness of that reality). In Christianity , as in the war ( in the middle of WW 11) and in everything else, comfort is the one thing you can’t get by looking for it. If you are looking for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you’re your looking for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth- only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with, and in the end, despair.” Lewis, “Case For Christianity” P. 28.
This truth is expressed in Romans 7. “ For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin,,, I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good,,, I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin,,, wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Think of a line from the song, “ Amazing Grace.” “ Was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” What an ironic statement. A dread comes before we are ready to be saved. The revelation of our deep need must come before the gospel can give us a new life. The old life has to be abandoned. We need more than a little remodeling! We are ruined without Christ!
So after the “thunder” of the Law of God and its righteous demands, come the sweet “rain” of the gospel. We knew how helpless we were, that day in the woods, to save ourselves from electrocution. Pray for those who think the gospel is simply a remodeling program, to make us a little bit better as people. Pray for those who say, “Well, I have done wrong, but I am still a pretty good person!” That person will never feel the sweet rain, after the storm. They refuse to see their need. They do not see the Law of God and the despair of their miserable failure to keep it. There is a storm coming. Are you ready? JWP “ Was blind, but now I see.”