Author: pastordarryl68

Love. Live. Serve. Minimizing me...making much of JESUS! Loves God, family and crossroads|church. Husband, father, teacher, student, servant and worshiper.

Don’t Participate in Fearmongering

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It is an offense to Yahweh for a man or woman of God to support, feed, or encourage the fears, worries, and anxieties of others.

It’s also an offense to the same God to guilt and shame them for those fears, worries, and anxieties. Jesus didn’t do that. The apostles didn’t do that. They acknowledged that people are fearful when they need not be. They do have worries and anxieties about things they should not.

What Jesus and the apostles did was speak to the fear, worry, stress, and anxiety. “Fear not.” “Don’t be anxious.” “Fret not.” They reminded those who are fearful, worrisome, or anxious about who their God is and what their God has already done in them and around them. Then, they instructed the weak on how to take their thoughts captive, redirect them, and renew their trust in the One to whom they have completely surrendered their entire lives.

When I’m fearful or worried about something that I know I should not be (and I am), I don’t want my brothers and sisters in Christ to placate me and justify or rationalize my lack of faith and trust in the One who saved me. I want them to lovingly speak TRUTH into my life.

We as the body of Jesus Christ need to make a commitment to one another that we will not participate in fearmongering – either as an instigator or a participant.

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 2 Timothy 1:7

Faith In Yahweh

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If your faith is on life support, the first vital to check is this: “in whom or in what did you place your initial faith?“

Faith that is placed in an influencer, mentor, religious creed, church, or ideology will always stagnate, decline, disappoint, denigrate, and/or be destroyed. Only faith in the infinite, immutable, self-sufficient, sovereign, holy, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and glorious Yahweh of the Bible is sustainable and eternal.

Religious people have been causing hurt and pain in the name of their self-righteous, religious law since before the temple worshipers (the priesthood, the Sadducees, and Pharisees) crucified Jesus. They weren’t followers of Jesus and the Way then…and they’re not today either.

Followers of Jesus seek His Kingdom first. If you’re not actively seeking Yahweh, you might want to reconsider in whom you first placed your faith.

Consideration For Others

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Genuine generosity and authentic consideration for others should be the norm, especially among followers of the selfless, serving, sacrificing Jesus.

However, these are seen as extremely rare and prized qualities, even in the church, because the vast majority of Americans are laser focused on their own wants, preferences, welfare, and comfort. We want the best we can get, we want to be first in line, we want preferential treatment, and we want to be heard above others who are talking.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose on their behalf.

Philippians 2:3
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves;

A Husband’s Highest Calling

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If husbands love, lead, and serve their wives in the way CHRIST loves the church (not the way culture says that a man loves a woman), a God-loving, God-fearing wife is designed and empowered by God himself to crave that protection, provision, and leadership, to reciprocate the love and to seek the shelter of that umbrella of authority that God has placed on her husband.

A godly man never has to be guilted into loving, leading, and serving his wife the way Jesus loves the church or his God-given responsibility. A godly woman never has to be guilted into submitting to her husband’s God-given authority or her God-given responsibility.

This is the highest calling given to a husband and to a wife, the way the Creator designed both male and female.

Men, if we fail at this, we’ve failed at everything.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Proverbs 18:22

The Grass is Greener for a Reason

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It’s easy to love the family that expects nothing of you…the one that knows little about you.

As an adolescent, I was of the generation when I was always at one of my friends’ houses, hanging out with their family. I liked hanging out with their family a lot better because they were more fun and I never got scolded or reprimanded. It was more fun than hanging out at my house where my parents knew my shortcomings; they knew when I hadn’t done my chores or what was expected of me, or when I was trying to get away with something that I knew I shouldn’t. Food at my friends’ houses was always better…there were more snacks and more sweets.

Whether it’s an affair with another person, another family, another job, another car, another house, another church, etc – the grass is always greener on the other side. Never forget the commitment it takes to get it that way… loads of manure, the care, the weeding, the thatching, the aerating, the watering to get the lawn that luscious. Only the one who takes responsibility will put in that kind of work to get out of something that’s worth getting.

As a youngster, I benefited from the love and care those parents put into their children. That effort was not out of love for me but for them and the benefits were extended to their guests.

Being a guest is WAY DIFFERENT than being a member of the family. A guest who only receives will eventually wear out their welcome.

“For each will have to bear his own load.” Galatians 6:5

Sharing, Serving, and Sacrifice

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Words that often get used interchangeably but actually have vastly different meanings – sharing, serving, and sacrifice. What is the difference between those three words?

Sharing is allowing others to benefit from what you have done or earned for yourself.

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share – 1 Timothy 6:18

Serving is an expenditure of time, talents, or treasures for the purpose of attending to the needs of someone/something else with no thought for your own benefit.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace – 1 Peter 4:10

Sacrifice is actually personally giving up something highly valued for the sake of someone/something else.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:13

Personal Holiness Requires Humility

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Neither fellowship NOR accountability in relationships should be based on derivative, secondary doctrines and issues.

Let a man examine himself and let a home examine itself regarding its responsibility to God to administer personal applications laid on their heart by His Word and His Spirit.
In the essentials, we must have unity.
In the non-essentials, we can have some diversity.
In all things, we show love.

We should never try to turn non-essentials into essentials.

Personal holiness is not holiness if it is not saturated in personal humility. Some of the most “godly behavior” reeks of the arrogance that props it up and imposes its standards on others.

Keep the highest priority the priority!

Avoid the Pitfalls of Gossip

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Every day we are faced with the conflict to redefine good and evil for our own perceived well-being, to make our lives more convenient, which in itself is a cosmic conflict of good and evil. One example of this is the way in which we communicate with others.

Gossip is for lazy people. When we have nothing interesting to discuss, it can be easy to get in the habit of talking about everyone else. Don’t fall into that ditch! Do something else. Read a good book. Encourage someone. Pray. Reflect on how you can help someone else. Invest more of your time and energy listening to others. Interested people are interesting people.

There are people in our lives who are determined to put words in someone else’s mouth, and then assume the tone and intent that isn’t even there. There are people in our lives who are filled with distrust of others and continually assume the worst. There are people in our lives who, if it’s not their idea or their statement, they seem to always be looking for the “gotcha” so they can undermine and devalue others.
What do we do with these people in our lives?
How do we pray for them?
How do we pray for our relationship with them?
If their demeanor begins to affect us negatively beyond our control, at what point do we decide to sever the opportunity for influence that person has over us?

These are all real questions from followers of Jesus who want to love others as Jesus loved them. May we HUMBLY serve one another in LOVE… for the glory of God and the good of His people.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:21

Life Is Ministry

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LIFE is ministry. It is the way of Jesus.

And calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. [43] But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; [44] and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. [45] For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:42-45

Ministry is every single conversation and interaction with every human being, whether a follower of Jesus, agnostic, or professing atheist, whether family, stranger, or enemy. It is every thought I have toward my fellow man. It is my every intention/motivation involving them. Ministry is no respecter of persons.

I cannot box ministry into a specific task on Sunday at church or Friday night at a soup kitchen during a specific period of time I’ve allocated. Ministry doesn’t punch out at 5pm. It doesn’t turn off because I’m tired.

Ministry isn’t a face I put on or a tone I take because I must. Ministry is the Spirit of God within me, serving Yahweh by caring for His creation — His image-bearers — as if it were Him.

Ministry is the administration of grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness by those who have received it…to those who need it…none of us deserving it.

Like many people who say they “love” someone else, at the root, that love is really just for me. If I love a person because of how they look or make me feel or that I enjoy doing things with them, that is loving ME…because it’s what I am attracted to, it’s what I enjoy, and it fits my preferences.

If I can decide who deserves to be served, how long I will serve, when they deserve it, or how they deserve it, I am serving myself and not the Lord our God, King of the universe, Creator, and Savior of our souls.

Our Daily Decrease

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It can be scary, concerning, and even heartbreaking when you accidentally catch the behaviors of a part-time “christian” (in-person or on social media), when it’s their day off from walking worthy of His calling. I’m not throwing stones at the humble, follower of Jesus and His Way, who succumbs to the flesh in a moment of weakness… when that weakness is followed by shame, both personal and public repentance, and the cleansing restoration of His grace – as will happen for every regenerate follower of Jesus.

There is a difference between those who find themselves struggling against the flesh and those who will use their “christianity” and their “flesh” interchangeably for their own satisfaction, rather than the exaltation of Jesus Christ and the edification of His Church. Remember, life is not about “me.” As Leonard Ravenhill so eloquently stated, “Everyone wants to be clothed with power but no one wants to be stripped of self.”

our flesh Crucified

God is more committed to our sanctification than He is to our comfort. What does that look like? What if God took His time in delivering us from certain seasons because He had GLORY in mind THROUGH the season? Sometimes we are so capable…so smart…so intuitive…so resourceful…that God has to give us problems we can’t fix in order to keep us close, to sanctify us, to set us apart for His Glory, to crucify our flesh that we might live by His Spirit.

John 3:30

He must increase, but I must decrease.