A New Video on a New Project: Creation Station

I am in the process of creating a vacation Bible School curriculum which I will be presenting at Coneqwago Church of the Brethren June 10-14, 2013 This is the promotional video I created for them. I hope you like it.

The Other Side of Prolific and the Scariest Verse in Scripture

As I mentioned yesterday, there is a downside to being prolific and it comes not from the desire to do lots of work, but from the motivations of your heart. Why do you want to do a lot of work? To glorify God or to earn your place in His Kingdom? You can’t earn your place in His Kingdom, or His love or anything else. He has already given that freely to all who will receive Jesus. Also don’t do it for the praise of man because if you do that it’s a never ending cycle where you’re only as good as your latest piece. We have to do all we do with the right motivation.

In my devotions on the morning I read this post I read this verse and thought about how scary it was:

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’–Matthew 7: 22-23

Think about what that means. We can do a whole lot of stuff for God and not have a connection with God. Can we utilize the power of God without really being with God? With this verse it appears we can. I’m not saying this to get you to question your salvation, (though if you do question it, there’s nothing wrong with asking Him to save you again. Rather a hundred times too often than once not enough.) but merely to get you to check yourself. While we do serve the Lord, remember He doesn’t need you He wants you. He loves you not because you are good but because He is good. You can’t do anything to make Him love you more, because His love is perfect. Love Him and rest in His love and do what you do for no other reason than because you love Him and you want everyone to know.

It’s okay to want to do great things, even a lot of great things. Just make sure your heart’s right when you’re doing them.

Announcing Three New Resources for Teaching the Second Most Important Thing

Beyond a doubt, the first , most important thing Christians need to know is Salvation through Jesus Christ. That should go without saying, but a few years ago I got an idea for teaching what I believe is the second most important thing, the concept of the Body of Christ.

Think about it, after knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior, pretty much the next thing we need to know is what that means to the way we live. We are created by God on purpose, for a purpose and we become part of the Body of Christ. Living out our God given purposes in community with God’s people all doing the same thing, we are used to do the will of God in this world. Everyone is important and just as it is in a healthy body each one needs to do his or her part.

As I was prayer walking one day I got this idea for a hands-on teaching project that would show the importance of every member of the body of Christ. Basically it works like this. Every person gets a piece of paper with some lines on it. They are told to ignore the lines and make this piece of paper a design that expresses who they are. When they have finished all the pieces are put together and they form a really unique image of Jesus that illustrates how we all bring something to the body. Originally I had one that was 96 pieces but that was too big for some groups, so I developed another that was 25 pieces and finally I split the difference and made one with 48 pieces. It’s one of the most effective teaching tools I’ve ever used and due to quite a few people asking for it, I decided to publish it. The first service I used didn’t work very well, so I decided to rework it, improve it a bit and put it on Amazon.

It comes with all the reproducable pieces, diagram for the finished piece, complete instructions, a Bible lesson teacher’s guide, and a student worksheet. If you’d like to order it, click on the appropriate image below.

Large Group: 96 pcs.

Med. Group: 48 pcs.

Small Group: 25 pcs.

I really hope you like this resource and if you use it, let me know. Better yet, send a photo of your group with your finished piece.

An Audience of One

It’s funny. When I’m preaching, it’s almost as if it’s me on display and somehow that feels wrong. What I’d like people to know is that in a sense, I’m just the worshipper facing in the wrong direction. The message and it’s preparation are my act of worship. I hope it touches heart, I hope it changes lives, etc. and often it feels like it doesn’t. As a matter of fact there have been many times where I’ve felt like turning around, facing in the same direction as everyone else and talking to the wall. When I feel this way, I know I’m out of order. I worship for an audience of One. It’s not my persuasive  words that changes hearts, it’s His Spirit. I offer my best to Him and He works on the receptive hearts. If the hearts are not responsive, the best I can do is pray for them and give my best to God.

It’s the same with all of our acts of worship. When I paint in a service, it’s really easy to let my inner critic take over and tell me it’s not good enough. That’s not my issue either. I’m called to give my best with what I have in the time I have. It’s an act of worship for an audience of the One who knows whether or not I’ve given my best. Whether the people like it is not my primary concern and its ability to touch hearts is not dependent on my ability or the beauty of my work. It’s dependent on the Spirit’s work on receptive hearts.

It’s the same with the music, and everything else we do in worship and life. It’s not about virtuoso talent, it’s about offering our best to an audience of One. The rest is up to Him.

Give God Your Best. Trust Him with the Rest

When God is “Silent”???

This message explores the times when God is silent by looking at the two four hundred year periods of biblical history when the Bible is “silent” between Genesis and Exodus and between Malachi and Matthew to ask the question is God really silent or are we just not listening?

Video Message: Jonah Whining

This message is based on Jonah chapter 4. Jonah ran from God, got turned around by a storm and a giant fish, and then finally went and did what God told him to do. When Jonah did what God told him too do, he saw great success. The whole city repented. You’d think Jonah would be happy…

Giving Grace: A New Painting Video from AMOKArts

Romans 5:6-8 says You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Isn’t that a beautiful image. We see God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice and our salvation as a demonstration of God’s love, but what put Jesus on the cross? God’s love? Of course but we also see Jesus died for the ungodly.

Jesus died for sinners. He died for you and me because we are sinners and sin separates us from God. God’s love for us put Jesus on the cross, but our sin was the reason He needed to go there. Our sin put Him on the cross just as surely as if we had held the hammer and drove the nails through His hands and feet. That’s the reality. We killed our savior and every time we choose sin it’s as if we drove the nails again. I know this might feel like a beating but I have to establish this first.

Too many Christians forget this point and when we forget it, we get proud and we forget about the grace we’ve received and when we forget we’ve received it, it makes it very difficult for us to give it.

When we forget grace, we either cheapen it or we withhold it. Let’s look at withholding it. In Matthew 6, Jesus taught his disciples to pray. We call it the Lord’s prayer, but really it should probably be called the disciples prayer, a prayer all Christ followers should take to heart. Now I could do a whole sermon on this prayer but for today I want us to lock in on verse 12. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Do you see what Jesus is doing here? It’s a little strange, but it’s as if Jesus is teaching us to pray to God, giving Him a loophole on forgiveness. Work with me on this for a second. This statement is conditional. He doesn’t just say “God forgive me.” He says “God forgive me the way I forgive others.” How are you doing with that? See this is where it gets tough. What condition would your soul be in if you were forgiven based on your forgiveness of others? Anyone else a little scared? check verses 14 and 15. 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. All this forgiveness is really hard. I can almost hear people thinking “but Dave you don’t know what He or she did to me…” or “you don’t know what he put me through…” And before we go any further, I want to remind you, I struggle with this too and this is hard for me too, but I have to ask you this question and I ask it of myself too.

Does any of the things they did to you compare to driving nails through your hands and feet? Did any of them hang you on a cross and leave you for dead? Because that’s what you and I did to Jesus. I mean as He hung on that cross I believe He knew you and I and the things we would do that put Him there and He cried out “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.” That’s the grace we have received and it’s the grace we are called to give. Just like in this painting. We see two bloody hands one holds the bloody nail, the other the bloody hammer. Both are guilty in the death of the Savior, and this is what it’s like when we forget grace and withhold grace and point fingers. We ignore our guilt and focus on another’s sin and that helps neither of us. When we accept God’s grace and we forgive and extend grace, we acknowledge our own guilt and we point the way to grace for others. Isn’t that what we’re called to do? You’ve received grace freely isn’t it time to give grace freely?

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Yield

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Yield

I think it really is this simple. God loves you, wants what’s best for you and His way leads to life. To turn from that way is to really mess you up.

Joshua, near the end of his life challenged the people of Israel and he said this…
if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Message of the Week: Dealing with the D’s

I have a really simple message for you today, God loves you. I started looking at all the stuff that my congregation has been dealing with and all the struggles we face and felt like we needed a reminder. If you’re struggling today know this God loves you and He has not left you, come to Him through Jesus and hold on.

The text for the message is Romans 8.

God bless! The message will be preached later this morning at New Creation Fellowship. If you’re in the Reading PA area, join us.

Don’t Babel…

I was talking to a friend about the challenges that happen to the faith of students as they enter college. This video and the corresponding message are the result…

I did this video of one of my worship paintings. It’s based on a message on the Tower of Babel from Genesis 11 and it’s a very unusual story, a story where it looks like God injected himself in history to mess up our plans. A casual reader of the story might be tempted to see God as the villain of this story. God can’t be the villain, God is always good so what really happened. Well a few chapters before in Genesis 9, Noah and his family have just left the ark and God commanded them to spread out and fill the earth. The rest of the chapter and all of chapter ten tell us how they did just that, but as we approach chapter 11 the people get a different idea.

They decide to stop spreading and gather, build themselves a city with tower that reaches the heavens to make a name for themselves. You might think, what’s wrong with that. Well first of all it’s the opposite of what God told them to do and it looks as though what they were really trying to do was build a life and a world apart from God and to try to reach heaven in their own human efforts. That’s why God put a stop to it. What did he do? He confounded their language so they could no longer understand each other, when that happened they gave up the project, spread out and filled the earth.

In our world we see the same thing. There are so many people that try to live a life apart from God. They try to explain Him away. They believe that believing in God and following Jesus is stupid or antiquated the choice of lesser IQ’s. When we fall pray to this, we start to really try to make a name for ourselves, to claim glory for our accomplishments and we try to build our own heaven here on earth. But heaven apart from God or for that matter life apart from God is not heaven. It’s the opposite. When the people in Babel tried God confused their language because he loved them and He loves us. We can’t get to heaven apart from Him. He had to stop them to save them.

In Acts 2 though God did just the opposite. Centuries an millennia have passed since Babel and God Himself has provided the only way to heaven, through His son Jesus. By now the people of the world speak many languages, but God has brought about salvation and that is too important to miss because of a language barrier. So God provided a miracle. He gave His followers a gift, that allowed them to speak in such a way that everyone no matter what his language heard the message of salvation through Jesus in his own language. Jesus is the way to heaven and church this needs to be the core of our message to the world around us. People may belittle our faith but that doesn’t make it wrong. The very people who belittle us are the ones God put us here to reach with this truth. We need to share boldly with everyone God gives us. We can’t make our own way to heaven but God in His grace has made a way, one way. He gave us HIs only son to die on the cross for your sins and mine. His name is Jesus. If you’re a believer, Don’t babel, speak it clearly. Jesus saves.