We are told continuously “now is the time we must stand up for what we believe”. I recently did a podcast on standing against something. It’s been called spiritual warfare, and what was determined is that we get to stand in something which is Christ. But what does it mean to stand up for what you believe?
Eventually, every one of us will come to a place in our lives where we say I have had enough, and I just can’t take any more. Not just a simple bad day, but real tragedy. Even tragedy is somewhat relative, but if you are impacted deeply, it’s a tragedy to you. We want an answer. We can’t help but ask why.
We are creatures of time. We measure everything we do by the second hand on a clock. There can be a great deal of pressure in keeping up with schedules. When I was a child, time seemed to stand still. But now that I’m older the days, weeks, and months whiz by at a dizzying, confusing pace. Regardless of the speed of passing time, it makes relentless and unavoidable demands. One of which is the uncompromising necessity of choice.
Have you ever been warned against following your heart. It’s partly because of Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? But also because following your heart is equated with acting on your emotions. But is that the same thing? Do we have evil, wicked hearts? Are emotions and desire the same thing?
I think that we as believers sometimes get trapped in our belief systems, and we defend them with a lot of determination. Some would have us think that we must purge our emotions and desires. That is just not true. God wants us to desire Him and He made us emotional creatures. You can have emotions and desires, but you just can’t live in them. So let’s talk about these two things.
How’s life going? A little busy? Kind of crazy? Maybe that’s an understatement. There are family responsibilities, relationship problems, work issues. And then there’s the news - politics, wars, crime. We get bombarded with all of it. It’s easy to get distracted, and depressed, and even hopeless. We can easily get stuck there.
We live in a time when it seems there is so much pressing against us. I got into an argument with a very dear friend recently about how people in a third world economy are suffering more intensely than we do. I contended that suffering is relative, that my suffering was just as inconvenient as theirs. As I thought about this statement it occurred to me that my attitude was indeed that of an arrogant, entitled, and privileged American.
Today it’s Rick’s turn to share the character traits of God that he’s seen in his life.
We are part of a house church with a small group of good friends. One of the women came up with what we call a “Grace Box.” She composed questions, statements, verses, etc. and wrote them out on note paper. We pull one out for topics to talk about. One of those topics gave us the idea for this podcast.
(apologies for the camera malfunction!)
If you have listened to us very often, you know that we believe that you cannot earn God’s love, His righteousness, or get any closer to Him than you are right now. This is foundational to our ministry. God has always wanted to be in relationship with what He has created.
What did we get when we got Jesus? Salvation, yes. Forgiveness of sin, absolutely. What about wisdom and the freedom to use it? What else is ours?
Last time we talked about our original catchphrase, “free the saints” and what that means to us. From time to time we reevaluate why we do what we do, and make space for God to change our direction. One of those times is when we landed on “what Jesus do you know?” What do we mean by that?
When we founded Oneness Ministries, we used the catchphrase “free the saints.” It was a hashtag on all our social media, and a slogan on our website. It hasn’t been used much in a while, but we think it’s time to bring it back. Let’s flesh out what it means and why it’s so important to us.
Lydia and Priscilla – they were anything but hidden in the early days of the church. These women were well known among believers. They were students of Paul, and valuable partners with him in fostering the growing church.
For a series about Hidden Women, the story of Junia reveals her as the opposite of that. Her life shows she was determined, bold, fearless and well known through her ministry. Paul refers to her as an apostle, and someone he greatly admired. She was tireless in spreading the gospel, likely by planting churches, and caused enough of a ruckus to be thrown into prison for a time.
What do we mean by hidden women? There were many women mentioned in the New Testament that were deeply involved in the early church. Even those that are named tend to be easily forgotten. Some because they are mentioned in passing, and some because it’s difficult to find teachings about them if you don’t know where to look.
Judas Thaddeus was one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus Christ, a pioneer of the gospel who worked quietly to establish the early church. Thaddeus is often neglected by the church because Scripture does not mention him a lot nor is much written about him. Yet this quiet, gentle soul spent most of his ministry in obscurity observing the more outspoken apostles. Thaddeus nonetheless became a bold outspoken witness for the gospel Jesus Christ.
Paul’s letter to Philemon is his shortest and most personal. It contains no doctrinal statements, no warnings about false teachers, and no mention of apostolic titles. The reason for writing was extraordinary. We look to author Paul Ellis for insight into this quiet voice.
Scripture is not given to us, I believe, as a guidebook for behavior modification. The Bible teaches us about the character of God. The Bible give us glimpses into the lives of ordinary men and women who followed Christ. How He changed them and used them, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to bring the message of the Gospel through time to us.
We are currently working on a series of those quieter voices. This one is about Jude, the half-brother of Jesus.
We’ve talked about Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus as part of the group of women following Jesus. Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha were also included. So many of the other women remain unnamed, but we choose to remember that they existed and were essential partners of His earthly ministry. Today we focus on three more whose names we know: Joanna, Susanna, and Salome.
