by chrisaiken | Jan 1, 2018 | church, Devotions, discipleship, pastor
Yesterday, I asked some questions that were challenging to me, as well as to the church I am privileged to lead.
Do you know God better at the end of 2017 than you did at the beginning?
How will you ensure that you know God better at the end of 2018 than you do today…Jan 1, 2018?
Almost too obvious to mention…recent studies show that the best spiritual development tool is the Bible. Those who read the Bible demonstrate greater spiritual maturity than those who don’t.
My challenge was to choose to grow by:
- Take 15 minutes to read God’s Word every day.
- Choose to attend YOUR CHURCH weekly if at all possible.
- Serve others in and through your church.
These three actions have produced greater growth in my life than nearly anything I can imagine. Of course, I’m not saying that walking through trials and loving people that drive me nuts sometimes are not also part of God’s growth plan. They are! But, I cannot choose my trials…only respond to them. I cannot manufacture opportunities to rub wings with people that God uses to refine me…only do it when they come into my orbit.
So, how will I intentionally grow in 2018?
Let me list a few resources that are part of my daily discipline for the year:
- F-260 by Replicate Ministry. This is a great discipleship tool for growth, community and accountability. https://replicate.org/f260-bible-reading-plan/. They have an app which is on my iPad and I timed it this morning- 25 minutes to read 2 chapters, write out memorization verses, and to reflect and journal on my reading. If you’re looking for a system, try this one. I will even connect with you for community and accountability if you message me.
- Devotionals. I find it helpful for me to read devo thoughts from others. Here are a couple of my daily reads- Solid Joys by Desiring God. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/solid-joys-daily-bible-devotional/id553049864?mt=8 ; Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, https://utmost.org/ ; Wisdom Hunters by Boyd Bailey, https://www.wisdomhunters.com/; Experiencing God Day-by-Day, by Blackaby, http://www.blackaby.net/; and a print devotional I picked up from Johnny Hunt, Grace, Hope, and Love: My Daily Devotional. My devotional reading takes about 15 minutes a day. What I like? The different perspectives. God has a way of squeezing in truth when I wasn’t expecting it. I also like that all are on my phone or iPad through an App (except for Johnny Hunt’s devo, though I have Chambers downloaded (cost .99). Total cost is about $17/year.
- Proverbs. A chapter from Proverbs corresponding to the day of the month. 3-5 minutes
- Additional Bible reading for deeper study. Apart from preparation to teach and preach, it is part of my discipline to read slowly and research more deeply different books of the Bible. No rigid pace here. I like to Major and Minor prophets a lot, though I do cycle through the NT letters as well. 10 minutes.
- Prayer. Last but not least, some uninterrupted time of speaking to God and listening…allowing my mind to be directed as God leads it and speaks to me. I personally feel this is my weakest area…due to my own impatience. That’s why we call it a discipline. 10 minutes.
So if you add it up, about an hour and five minutes or so a day.
“Wait…you said, pastor, 15 minutes a day for God.” Sure! That’s a great place to start. Grab one devotional, and Proverbs and 2 chapters a day…or jump on the F-260 plan…or grab a bible reading plan from YouVersion. Start somewhere. God will guide you from there.
I’ll expand a little more later in the week on what this looks like…but NEW YEAR, NEW YOU! Start today and next year, you’ll be blown away at your answer to the question, “How do I know God better at the end of 2018 than at the beginning?”
Grace and Peace.
PC
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by chrisaiken | Dec 25, 2017 | Devotions, pastor
As many people I know enjoying a family holiday weekend, I realize that not everyone is working from the same understanding, that Christmas is a celebration of the coming of the Messiah, God’s one and only Son, and that His coming was the fulfillment of a promise that God made to save His people. The point, even more than the miraculous markers of Christ’s birth, is that God fulfilled a promise and that those who believe in that promise have come to possess an amazing hope.
Christmas is about far more than the miraculous birth of Jesus. It is about more than manger scenes or gifts delivered to this young boy from wise men who honored a small child as the king of the Jews.
Christmas is about a dark world that had not heard (prophetically) from God for centuries. It is about a people living in subjection to a government that was not oriented to God, but one that saw itself as a god or one of many gods. Christmas is about people living in darkness, starved for hope, doing the best they could…and God choosing to speak into that darkness with a message of hope. This hope is that you do not have to make up for all your errors. You do not have to correct every offense toward God. It is impossible to do so. But you do have to admit that you are in a mess that you cannot correct on your own.
Christmas is about God speaking hope into darkness. It is about God bringing life to the lifeless.
It is about God doing what no one else could and what He was never obligated to do except for, perhaps, His own self-obligation…His promise to save people from their sins. Christmas is about God’s fulfilled promise.
In a world given to protesting everything it doesn’t like about anything, I find it glorious that God did not protest mankind’s rebellion. He did not shut down the conversation, or ignore us. He did not yell at us or incessantly repeat the occasions of our failures. He came to save us. He loved us when, by all honest assessment, we were unlovely to Him. He did for us what we would never do for another. He did it with a magnified humility that should really give perspective on our boastfulness of life. He did so because, as His Word says, “He so loved us…the world…the people of His creative work.” (John 3:16).
So, Merry Christmas. Hope has come. Light shined into darkness and the darkness could not overwhelm the light.
That’s good news. That’s Christmas.
From Jodi and I, and on behalf of our entire family…Merry Christmas! Hope has come.
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by chrisaiken | Dec 4, 2017 | Devotions, Pastor's Reflections
Are we there yet? The very question from the back seat brings a smile to a dad’s face. Some things are so difficult to wait for. If you’re in the car on your way to grandma’s house, you should be there like…yesterday.
Any child knows that!
We all hate to wait.
Because of that, there is an entire industry of “fast food.” Why else would you eat something that can be prepared in 4 minutes and has enough preservatives to keep it safe for hours without refrigeration! We have 10-minute oil changes, call-ahead orders at restaurants, and (my latest find) apps for my favorite gospel bird restaurant where I can send my order in and walk to the counter to pick it up when I arrive!
Waiting is part of life, but we hate to do it.
Yesterday, in the opening message to our new Christmas Series, “Miracles of Christmas,” I shared from Galatians 4 about the Miracle of the Moment. One of the references I made was that the people had come through 400 years of prophetic silence…waiting on the Lord’s deliverance through His Messiah. I am still “chewing on” prayer going unanswered for centuries. We struggle to hold it together if our doctor’s appointment is delayed 15 minutes!
“But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son… Galatians 4:4.
Waiting is not always bad. (Ok, don’t stop reading because you saw that. Keep going…you’re almost there.)
Could you imagine asking for a piece of pie and then refusing to wait for it to fully cook? Tell the chef to bring it to me now in whatever condition it is in! Or, perhaps, a pregnant mom saying at the end of the first trimester, “I cannot wait six more months, give me my baby right now!” Or, opening a cocoon so you can see the butterfly today! These ridiculous examples are only ridiculous because we know that if you interfere with the process you don’t get what was designed.
If we trust the wisdom of design for a dessert recipe, or a pregnancy, or the metamorphosis of a butterfly, should we trust a Sovereign God less?
Don’t stop praying.
He hears, knows, and cares. (Exodus 3).
Don’t stop pressing forward.
That longing in your heart is by His design to keep you moving.
Don’t shortcut the process.
You ruin a pie when you don’t let it cook.
Don’t despise the process.
The Lord is working on a glorious plan if you’ll trust Him.
400 years was a long time to pray for deliverance to a seemingly silent God…but man…was Jesus worth the wait!
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by chrisaiken | Nov 30, 2017 | Devotions
David had enough. “That’s the last straw! I am sick and tired of hearing sermons and lessons and illustrations about money! It seems like all the preacher ever does is talk about money!” This outburst came from David, a man with a job and a family and expenses that seemed endless. He walked a tightrope between satisfying the obligations of his lifestyle and financial disaster every month.
Fortunately, David had a friend…someone who had walked in faith for a little longer season of life. His friend simply offered this thought:
“Perhaps it isn’t the preacher’s message but the Holy Spirit’s working in your life and conscience. It was that way for me…and I discovered that what I thought was a constant beating was actually God’s invitation for me to find victory over a stronghold of disobedience in my life.”
So, David decided to try it. Let me just see if I can be obedient. He looked at his bank statement, multiplied his payroll amount by 10% and made a payment to the church for the full tithe…right down to the decimals. $243.11. V.I.C.T.O.R.Y.!
Only what David found very soon is that obedience requires faith and faith is costly. All was good for a few weeks.
- Then it was the washing machine. $155.00 unexpected expense.
- Then the left rear tire of the car. $179.21.
- Then the water bill arrived and was doubled because the toilet in the hall bath was constantly running.
David’s obedience had not resulted in a sudden windfall of money appearing in his account. Instead, there was an almost audible “sucking sound” as the account drained off his reserves. Then the next payroll period arrived. What do you do now? Replace the reserves? Cut back on that “outlandish commitment” you made to the Lord? This is the place where faith is exhibited and developed. Obedience requires faith and faith is costly.
My faith journey is pretty similar to this. Getting me to trust God with “my money” has been a difficult (from my perspective) undertaking, but God has patiently persevered in His role of drawing me to trust Him. For me, I decided to make the “tithe” to the Lord through my church and trust God for Discover Card. As a friend of mine counseled me in those days… “If you are going to owe someone something…do you want it to be Discover Card or God?” That has been more than two decades ago and we have never missed our tithe. Not because man inspected it but because I recognized the NEED to obey and realized that obedience required faith and faith is costly. By the way, I’ve never missed a payment, or a meal, or sent my children to school without shoes. There were many times when we chose to forego what my neighbors were “into” in order to be faithful, but I never missed one essential thing. What I gained though was invaluable!
I could hear other things in sermons and lessons than “money.” I learned about forgiveness, hope, joy, and purpose. I learned to default to prayer. I learned (and am learning) to rest in the Lord’s promise even when it was unreasonable to expect. I learned some empathy…since I came to recognize in others the indicators of strongholds that were true in my life…and knowing how difficult it was for me, I could pray for them and counsel them in better ways. I learned that God is and always has been faithful to Himself and loving toward His people. He really will provide all of our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
What work is God doing in your life to draw you toward holiness?
What stronghold exists that is impeding your growth in faith?
What area of obedience is difficult but necessary?
How is your faith “costly”?
Perhaps, like David, you just need to draw the line and step across. Real joy and peace lies just beyond the line of faith.
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by chrisaiken | Nov 18, 2017 | Personal
Five years ago, October 17, 2012, to be exact, Jodi and I faced one of those milestone moments in our marriage that you’d never ask for, hardly plan for, but would take nothing for it. After a few tests related to some minor but nagging health questions, I found myself relying on a surgeon’s training while trusting in a sovereign God as I underwent open heart surgery.
Just hours before, Jodi and I sat in the “cath lab” and got the news that I had a 95% blockage in the lower anterior artery to my heart. My cardiologist was prepared to put in a stint but the artery would not allow it. So, a 42-year-old man would not leave the hospital until meeting the surgeon.
Crisis points give you an opportunity that you may not consider otherwise, an opportunity to examine your faith, assess your life, and choose to walk together into the unknown…which is what faith actually is.
James 1:2 tells us to not look at our difficulties as punitive or destructive, but to think of them as God’s work at perfecting us. We believe that. So, together, we prayed, talked, prepared, and walked forward. God helped us with peace. He helped us with friends and church family who served us and prayed for us. He helped us with families that cared and served us. Mostly, God helped us by forcing us to walk through the difficulties.
Today, we have a stronger and more dynamic relationship with each other and with the Lord than we could ever have had otherwise. This was not our first test and will not likely be the last time our faith is challenged. But our faith is stronger, our testimony is broader and our peace is deeper than we could ever imagine.
Why tell you all this…today? Simply stated, days after the 2012 surgery, we asked a friend, Janey Frost, to shoot some pics for us to remember the season by.
A couple of weeks ago, we asked Janey to update those…five years later.
The pictures show the joy that we experience as a couple together…but they represent more than that for us. To Jodi and I, these pictures are like memorial stones erected beyond our Jordan to remind us of the unmerited faithfulness and goodness of God.
Thanks Janey for helping us stack stones.
Thank you @jodiaiken for walking through the fire with me. You make me better. You make me happy. You make me smile. I love you.
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