Dedication is the Difference

I was doing some studying on dedication tonight and with the understanding that approx. 2.1 billion people identify as Christian and only about 70 million identify as communist, I found the following information very insightful...
"What distinguishes the Communist movement from most others and makes it possible for so small a minority to make so great an impact upon our time is the dedication of the average individual and the immense and dynamic force this represents when all those individuals collectively make their contribution to the cause." - Dedication and Leadership by Douglas Hyde
It makes me think of how such a small party has shaped the world so immensely in the past 100 years with such a small amount of people identifying themselves as such. Imagine if the 2.1 billion Christians in the world were as dedicated to their cause as the 70 million Communists, how different would the world look?
To get on a simpler level, you Christian, how different would the world look if you were as dedicated as the average Communist? Again, from Douglas Hyde, "There is no mystery about the indisputable fact that Communists exert an influence out of all proportion to their numbers, once one grasps the point that practically every party member is a dedicated man in whose life, from the time he rises in the morning till the time the goes to bed at night, for 365 days of the year, Communism is the dominant force."
How is it that a Communist can be so dedicated to a worldly ideal that such a small number can make a big difference, and yet we Christians, dedicated to an eternal decision with eternal consequences are not the driving force in the world today? Maybe the answer is right in front of us. Dedication. It said that the Communists are so dedicated that from the time they rise until the time the got to bed, 365 days per year, they are dedicated to the cause. Are you dedicated to the eternal cause of Jesus Christ? Or are you only dedicated to the cause of feeling good about yourself because you checked off the box by showing up to church?
Dedication requires sacrifice and giving oneself completely over to a cause. What cause could be greater than the eternal cause of making disciples of all nations and baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything Jesus has commanded and knowing that surely He is with us until the end of the age? Maybe it is time we look in the mirror and ask are we dedicated to the cause of Christ, our Father's business, advancing the kingdom. Or are we dedicated to feeling good about myself now and going through the motions of being a Christian without true dedication to the cause. #AreYouDedicated

His Way and Live or My Way and Die

I am a church planter. The path God has led me down is not the typical path for your modern, trendy church planter. Everyone knows that hurting people are not the best people to start a church plant with. And yet, I was called to plant a church that was still healing after being a part of a church that closed it’s doors.

Thankfully, even when the odds are stacked against you, if you just trust God and do as He says, if you exhibit faith, you will find that he gives everything needed to accomplish what He has called you to do.

This is such a blessing because there have been so many things in the past 4 1/2 years that without trusting that God provides, we would have already quit. But we have experienced that if you just listen to God, no matter what people are saying, He will deliver you through the trials. This had to have been true for Noah.

I mean, think about it… Noah was a good man, a righteous man. In fact he was the one righteous man of his generation. Because of his righteousness and good standing with God, when God decided to destroy the whole world, he was not willing to destroy Noah and his family. So God gave Noah instructions on what he needed to do. He told him to build a boat. A very specific type of boat with very specific building instructions to weather the very specific storm that was coming.

Most of us know how this played out. Noah did what God asked him to do. He built the boat. To the dismay of his contemporaries. One can only imagine the slander they must have been throwing at Noah. They did not understand what God was up to. And they were unwilling to listen to Noah, even though Noah tried to ask them to repent and help him to build the boat. For their disobedience, they all ended up dying in the flood. If hey had just listened to God’s messenger, His vision keeper, they would have made it.

Sometimes people need to realize that God delivers a message to a person and he expects others to trust the messenger based on the reputation and Godly character of the messenger. But usually, people don’t want to hear. They want to live their own ways, following their own direction, because they think they know best. They are unwilling to listen to the man of God. They are unwilling to trust his message. They instead decide they have things figured out and in the end, end up dying a death of sorts.

So the question is, who will we be? Will we be the type of people that make fun of Noah and call him names behind his back? Or will we be the type of people that will trust God’s anointed do what is necessary for us to do in order to make it to the next level? Will we drown in a flood, or will we push through to see a brand new world with many messengers to do the work of the Lord?

Maybe today you are at a cross roads. Maybe today you are struggling with what to do. Be assured, if the way you are handling a situation has caused you to handle it outside of the way God has described in His word how to handle situations, then you are sinning. And if you are in sin, then how can you be in God’s will? If you are in sin, maybe it is time to get back under God’s authority and listen to His anointed and remember, He did not give you the instructions on how to build the boat anyway. He just wants you to trust His messenger. It’s your choice… Trust the messenger, build the boat and live. OR do you own thing, and die. What will you do?