Many Calvinists are declaring that Gods motive, the reason why God does all that he does, is that he seeks to glorify himself. They would argue that that this self glorifying acts aren’t destructive because when God does this, when he lifts his own name higher than any other, he is showing people the path to where they can be most happy ie a path to himself.

Although i see how one may come to this conclusion, i somewhat disagree. I think Gods motive is love. He acts because he loves and such acts are altogether glorious.

Heres a great article on the subject

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I have always found it interesting that I Corinthians 13 is sandwiched in between a chapter having to do with spiritual gifts and speaking in tongues.  I know that all of us have probably heard it read at a wedding…but what if we took this same passage and applied it to our leadership (which, honestly, I think it was written more for church leaders and not wedding ceremonies!)  :-)  Here we go…

#1 – “Love Is Patient” – Am I giving others the same room to make mistakes as I want them to give me?

#2 – “Love Is Kind” – Do the people I lead actually like being around me?  (If you want to know the answer to this question just ask yourself how much they ask to hang out with you outside of work!)

#3 – “It Does Not Envy” – Am I automatically jealous of anyone who has a great idea and constantly perceive others as a threat to my position?  (Another leader struggled with this…it didn’t go well with him…see I Samuel 18:6-9).  BTW…this is why some young leaders can’t thrive in their current conditions, because the more “mature” leader perceives them as a threat.

#4 – ‘It Does Not Boast” – Do I feel like I always need to remind people of my previous victories?  (If we are obsessed with the past then we’re not advancing towards the future!)

#5 – “It Is Not Proud” – Do I feel that I am the only one in the organization that has all of the answers?

#6 – “It Is Not Rude” – Am I always cutting people off mid sentence as soon as I discover that I do not like their idea…or am I willing to hear them out?  (People don’t always have to be right as long as they feel like they’ve been heard.)

#7 – “It Is Not Self Seeking” – Who is this about–really?

#8 – “It Is Not Easily Angered” – Are people afraid to bring me information that is true and accurate because they know I will lose my mind and begin to yell?  (Don’t shoot the mailman!)

#9 – “It Keeps No Record Of Wrongs” – Do I remind people of their past failures or encourage them in their current condition?

#10 – “Love Does Not Delight In Evil But Rejoices In The Truth” – Can people be honest and open with anyone in the organization, including me?  (When a leader does not have people around him who will share the truth he becomes the Emperor who had no clothes!)

#11 – “It Always Protects” – Do I have the back of my staff?  It’s very discouraging to work for someone who demands loyalty but will not extend it.

#12 – “Always Trusts” – Do I believe the people who lead their assigned areas can make day to day decisions without my input?

#13 – “Always Hopes” – Do I always automatically assume the worse or the best about people?  It is amazing what can happen on a staff when the leader believes in the people he leads.

#14 – “”Always Perseveres” – Am I quick to give up on people after they make one mistake…or am I willing to teach them through it?

#15 – “Love Never Fails” – Do I have a high turnover OR a low turnover in the number of people who work with me/for me?  (If the number is high then maybe it isn’t the people failing…)

David Livingstone got to his knees one day and said this prayer, “Lord, Send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. Sever any ties, but the ties that bind me to your service and to your heart,” and the words of God came to him “Lo, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.”

He packed his bags and went off to Africa. And when he took one glimpse of Africa from a distance, he penned in his journal these words: “The haunting specter of the smoke of a thousand villages in the morning sun has burned within my heart.”

He married a woman of the famous Moffat Family – Mary was her name. Her father was a great missionary. They went to Africa. But David Livingstone’s life was that of an explorer and he would move from place to place and his only goal was Jesus in the hearts and lives of men and women – thousands of them.

Finally his wife and his young family couldn’t keep up with him anymore. Some of his children were dying out of sickness and disease so he said to his wife, “Mary, why don’t you them home, and I will see you shortly and spend some time with you. It’s too dangerous for us to go on.”

So he sent his dear wife Mary back home and letters would take months to exchange, but some of the fondest letters of love and romance were sent between David and Mary and you know when he saw her the next time? Not five weeks. Not five months. Five years.

Five years later when he set eyes upon his wife, she could not recognize him because at one stage in his jungle travels going to preach he walked into a branch of a tree that had completely blinded him in one eye and marred the other. His face had been burned under the African sun to a crisp of leather and his skin, which had not been pigmented for it, had been roasted to the point that his body could not take it any longer. His face marred and scarred and his eye blinded and at one time he had been attacked by a lion that had torn one of his shoulders apart. He miraculously escaped.

Now she saw her husband hobbling in with a marred face and a disfigured physical countenance. Hours before he arrived, they had buried his father. David wept because he had longed to tell his dad firsthand of the stories his father had only told him thirdhand.

Biographical sketches tell us that when David Livingstone walked into any university in the British Isles, students and faculty would rise to a standing ovation because they knew they were standing in the presence of a giant of a man.

Finally he went back to his wife one day and he said, “Mary, the haunting specter of the smoke of a thousand villages in the morning sun is still burning within my heart. We need to go back.” She decided that he should go – she had to be with the children. She said, “When they are all old enough I will join you again, David.” And he set off on his lonely journey to preach to the African people who was so much within his heart.

Finally after a long time, Mary joined him and the day she set foot on African soil, she contracted a disease they had so dreaded she would contract. The very day she set foot on Africa, she got that disease and a few days later, he was burying her.

Lowered into the soil of the African earth there, an eyewitness said David Livingstone knelt beside the grave, weeping his heart out, and they overheard him praying, “My Jesus, my king, my life, my all, I again consecrate my life to thee. I shall place no value on anything I possess or in anything I may do except in relation to thy kingdom and to thy service.”

Through it all came the words of God to my heart, he said, “Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”

He picked up his belongings and walked back to his hometown village of Ujiji. When he arrived and went into his little home there, he found that someone had played a cruel joke on him and had stolen his medication that he so needed because his body was racked with pain, untold pain. He walked in constant agony. And they said in one of the very few points in his life, he prayed for himself, he got on his knees and said, “God, you promised you would always be with me! I need that medication if I am to continue preaching the gospel!”

As he prayed, he heard steps, and as the story goes, he saw a pair of feet planted in front of him and his countenance lifted for the first time in a long while – he was looking into the face of a white man who didn’t live in Africa. He said, “Who are you, sir?” And the man replied, “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” (Those famous words) He said, “Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Livingstone, I’m a press reporter, I’ve been consigned to do a story on your life. I want you to know two things about me. Number one, I’m the biggest swaggering atheist on the face of the earth. Please don’t try to convert me. Number two, somebody sent some medication for you.”

David said, “Give me the medication please.”

So Mr. Henry M. Stanley started to travel with David Livingstone. Four months later, the biggest swaggering atheist on the face of the earth knelt down on African soil and gave his life to Jesus Christ.

One of the best biographies you’ll ever read on David Livingstone – two volumes entitled “Livingstone of Africa” by Henry M. Stanley. Stanley said, “The power of that Christ life was awesome and I had to buckle in. I could not hold out any longer.”

Finally his body began to shrivel with high temperatures and pain (they used to carry him around from village to village on a stretcher). One day, preaching from a stretcher, literally trembling, he finally looked at two of his national brothers and said, “Please take me back home. I am very very ill. I’m very tired, I need some sleep.” They brought him back to his home and were about to spill him on to the bed when he said, “No, please help me on to my knees.”

Livingstone buckled down to his knees by the side of his bed and clasped his hands and started to pray. His prayers were so profound, his sanctuary was so unique that his African brothers felt it was blasphemy to stay in his single union/communion with God and they stepped out of his little room.

Then somebody came running and said, “I need to see Mr. Livingstone for a moment.” They said, “Sshh! Quiet, please. He’s praying.” Five minutes went by, they looked in. He was still on his knees. Several minutes went back, they looked in. He was still on his knees. After a protracted period of time went by, they looked in. He was still on his knees.

One of them felt that the man was too tired to continue to pray. He needed to get some sleep. He walked over to him and one of them shook him by the shoulders and inquired, “Wana? Wana?”

Livingstone fell over. He was dead.

He died exactly the way he had lived – in the presence of his Lord.

He didn’t run from His voice. He didn’t wave a lamp that had no light in it. He didn’t sell a soul for some earthly pleasure. But the haunting spectre of the smoke of a thousand villages had burned itself within his heart so that he could say, “My Jesus, my king, my life, my all, I again consecrate my self to thee.”

2. God commands all Christians to join in his mission

3. Christians are on mission when they are sharing the good news of the gospel

4. Missions (take note of the ‘s’) is when the gospel is taken to areas where the light of the gospel is yet to penetrate. The mission and missions distinction is important.

5. Gods motive for missions is his love for all peoples of the world. His love and the actions that proceed from it are all together glorious and it is this glory that Christians worship and point others towards.

6. A Christians motive for missions is so that worship may exist. We do missions because worship isn’t yet being done.

7. The reason why Christians point towards worship is because therein lies ultimate satisfaction, the ultimate treasure.

SERVANTHOOD

In our Australian culture people push for power they want to rule over others they want to compete the want to be the top dog yeah be beat the Americans at this that competitiveness that push for power that push to dominate we have to deal with it because that wasn’t the way of Jesus Christ.

Are you drawn towards people who will treat you a certain way, not as if you are way way up the ladder. We always attracted to people who treat me as a person, not four steps down the food chain

Jesus didn’t pull rank in the way he treated people. Its easy to do that to, pull rank. There is so much about Jesus that rejected the hierarchy that reject the pharisaic that rejected all the stuff that got in the way of people connecting with God. The court of the gentiles was the one place where people gentiles could at least come as God fearers into this place and these people had set up shop there and the noise and the blood had stopped the very people that God wanted in his very people coming in And the most violent thing that we ever see Jesus doing is picking up a whip and kicking them out of there and I wonder whether we put things in the way of people coming to God. Do we put blockages in the way of the unlovely, the Unchurched, the ungodly, those that are not yet the children of God. Do we because we have to have a tie and a suit on Sunday block people from coming, do we because we use 10 dollar words stop people, do we because were too sloppy prevent business people coming What is it that we do that clogs up the most holy place where the unchosen people could come in in order to be accepted by God. God help us . Don’t let anything block people from coming into Gods temple cause you don’t want to be on the other side of God’s anger, the other side of God’s wrath.

You see If you come to pastor and think you coming to because your coming to some hierarchy so that one day you’ll be way up there then come here and let me smack you now. We are servants. If God chooses to stop my heart now…that’s his right. There are people who are desperately need to hear about Jesus who will only hear that when we have a servant attitude.

THIS IS MY FATHERS WORLD

This is my fathers world
Yes we know the antichrist will rule the earth
Yes we know that things are going to be bad
But we are His children, we are going to inherit the earth
Sometimes we get so negative
Lets just remember that yeah this will happen and that will happen but
My dad holds this universe!!!!!!!!!!
I’m on the right side; I’m going to be one of the tenders of the news heaven and earth
I’m going to be able to do things that no one has even dreamed of
Because I am His child, I’m His son
We belong to the Lord who is the ruling King
The reality is that we are on the good side
I belong to the greatest volunteer movement that has ever existed and ever will exist

PERSECUTION

Some things haven’t changed
God is still on the throne (isn’t that good, Glory to God!)
One of the things that we have to come back to is that God is still sovereign
Cut my throat today and Jesus is still Lord!
We could all be wiped out today, do you think his gospel will be inhibited
Strategically it may take a little longer to do certain things
But let the whole world perish God is still on the throne
And we’ve got to emphasize that
We got to emphasize he still loves the world, that there is a redemptive plan for humanity
Scripture teaches that the lamb wins; the power of His church overcomes
I don’t ever want to lose that otherwise Id go out get a job, make money, get my four wheel drive, get 3 acres and forget the lot

Not sure if you have every tried to understand the trinity. I think it’s ultimately a mystery and beyond our comprehension requiring faith to take on as part of our belief. Whilst we may not know how it works, I think we should be able to say what we hold as truth. Here is an attempt to explain the ‘what’ rather than the ‘how’.

Here is the gist of what im trying to say. A picture and two tables may be more helpful for some than the paragraph upon paragraph

Applied to God, it looks like this:

Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one solitary life.

With other religions, you try to become something you’re not (right, good, pure) in an attempt to reach God
therefore your whole life can become a extended period of obeying rules, trying harder and doing better and yet not knowing if you’re good enough. Frustrating.

With Jesus, God sees you as good because Jesus paid for your bad on the cross. He gets rid of the rules and changes your heart to want to act like a son/daughter would to a Father. Freedom.

Jesus wins.

How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He would give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross
My guilt upon His shoulders
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no powr’s, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom