Hello friends. I’ve been searching my past writings as I’m looking for a book about a successful Christian Hollywood agent. My good friend’s son will be moving to LA for a career in that field. I haven’t found it yet but this older message spoke to me. I hope it blesses you too.
If you also desire to do something useful for God, then please read and prayerfully consider what I shared with my prayer group ladies.
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2022 5:57 AM
My TSC (Times Square Church) connect group leader shared this message with us this week and I’d like to pass it to you too. It was excellent and timely, especially with so many divisive issues and incredible amounts of stress that is being poured out into our relationships, culture and society these days. It is the message on 5/15 called “The Best Thing We Can Do For God.” It is delivered by the lead pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle church.
https://media.brooklyntabernacle.org/sunday_media.html
(This sermon link no longer exists. I’m still looking for it. However, I came across this older sermon around the same time and it was excellent. It’s also about the importance of our unity in the church and the sin of worrying. Let’s remind ourselves that worrying is a sin, and let’s pray that we sin less in this area of worrying. Please hear his encouragements and truth reminders in this good message.)
As I reflect back in my college years of following Jesus, I really did my very best and I gave up everything that the Lord asked me to leave behind and let go off to be His disciple. Unfortunately for me, I had a lot of good accomplishments and things in my cargo (or ego) when I decided to follow Jesus. It was so painful to give them up one-by-one. I still flinch when I remember how hard it was to surrender certain things that I cherished.
After all that, why did I abruptly turn around and stopped following Jesus after five years of being his disciple? It was the disunity and discord in the church. It wasn’t the Christian leaders that fell into sexual sins. I can sympathize and forgive their moment of passion and weakness. Rather it was the break-up of my spirit-filled and bible-based college church which made me give up completely and turn away. I naively thought that church people should resolve their differences since we have God as our guide. Perhaps if a believing mentor made an effort to reach out to me with concern and love, I would have tried again. I believe that I would have gone back since I have already given up so much to follow Jesus. It would have been very easy to turn back. But I was in a critical life’s transition and I haven’t found a church to commit to once I was back home from college and working in NYC. I would have visited my college church for a weekend of encouragement and prayers but I didn’t visit after hearing news of their in-fighting and church split.
Discord and disunity is very dangerous! “Relationship“ should always trump over “Being Right”. Of course there are some very dangerous Christian cults that we need to steer away from. But for the most part, average Christians argue, fight and end their relationships over non-eternal or secondary issues such as ministry differences, prophecies, supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit, biblical interpretations and theology, worship style, social justice issues, politics, etc.
If I didn’t experience what church discord and disunity did to my faith, then I probably would not understand how horrible discord and division is in the church community. That’s why I work so hard to maintain unity in the body of Christ and in my relationships especially with my family members and church friends.
I don’t know all the details on why my college church broke up. From what I’ve heard, it was due to doctrinal differences on healing and the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. Whatever the church pastor, elders and board members fought about to split up the church; I’m sure there were many young people like me who fell away through their destroyed church walls. I looked up recently to see if my college church still exists and sadly it no longer exists. What a tragedy since they had permission from the university to have weekly Friday night worship meetings in a very visible area with glass windows on the first floor of the student union building.
With stress and so many divisive issues rising up more than ever; I have been slipping more with my thoughts and speech. It was very good to read this teaching about the power of the tongue.
https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/the-power-of-the-tongue/
If the Holy Spirit convicts you about what you talked/emailed/texted/posted about, please repent right away and then ask the Holy Spirit to help you to do better and put a muzzle on your mouth and typing fingers (at least that’s how I pray for myself.). I had to fight some fierce battles recently and so I made a lot of mistakes with my mouth. I repented quickly and prayed that I do better by the Holy Spirit’s power.
My Bible study group has been reading the book of Hebrews using the VOICE version along with the traditional NIV version. Please check out James 3 and 1 Corinthians 13 in VOICE. I really like their commentaries too.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%203&version=VOICE
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2013&version=VOICE
If you want to do something for God because you want to please Him, then please work for peace and unity in your relationships and church community. We can still disagree on non-eternal issues without jeopardizing our relationships and being able to work together as Christians. Lead pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle church shared more in-depth about this subject. I heard this message twice to glean more.
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More thoughts:
In the 90s, I didn’t hear much testimonies in the church. Whatever stories I heard from the pulpit were from full time ministry workers. Therefore I assumed that God wanted the majority to do full time ministry work. But I had no desire for a career in the ministry. Satan used my lack of knowledge about God and the lack of testimonies to lie to me that following Jesus meant I’ll be doing full time ministry work. The Bible clearly says that we overcome the devil by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of our testimony. New, young believers need to hear more varied testimonies. This is why I so appreciate podcasts that share stories by everyday Christians. This one was very special. He became the first black animator for Disney. He’s been working for Disney for 38 years. Please listen to his interview and share his story with the younger people in your life. I love how God uses his drawing talents to draw people to Jesus. His search for the truth in his younger years was quite adventurous to hear too.
https://compelledpodcast.com/episodes/ron-husband
This Compelled podcast shares amazing stories by Christians. Please download their podcast and listen to them regularly to build up your faith and be encouraged.
FYI – I no longer think saying yes to full time ministry is the worst job ever for me. It just looks extremely hard. Let us support and pray often for our pastors and ministry workers and their families too. They said yes to God when they didn’t have to. If you see the old tv series “Mission Impossible”, the key person receives a phone call from their superior with their next assignment. The caller always tells the hearer “if you choose to take the assignment…” and then they receive the next instruction. After that, the phone self destructs. Lol. Anyway, that’s how I see things now, for myself and others who follow Jesus Christ and say “yes” to his leadership. It is adventurous and from the testimonies of others who freely gave it all, it can also be very dangerous. And like any military operations, there can also be casualties in the trenches. That’s what happened to all the apostles. Read this summary of what happened to them:
They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. – Revelation 12:11 (NIV)–
Journal of Faith 