May 29

This comes from 2 Chronicles 9:5-8a...

“Everything I heard in my country about your achievements and wisdom is true! ⁶ I didn’t believe what was said until I arrived here and saw it with my own eyes. In fact, I had not heard the half of your great wisdom! It is far beyond what I was told. ⁷ How happy your people must be! What a privilege for your officials to stand here day after day, listening to your wisdom! ⁸ Praise the Lord your God, who delights in you and has placed you on the throne as king to rule..."

This is the Queen of Sheba's description of her visit with King Solomon...and I believe is recorded for us, not just to give us the history of God's divine plan throughout the centuries but to give us a picture of what we find when we come to The King, Christ...more than that for which we could have ever hoped or imagined!

Pastor Fred

May 27

For years, and probably still today in some theological circles, the popular instruction on prayer was to pray specifically, the implication being that if we were not specific in our prayers, the outcome may be different than what we had intended and could have been altered, if we had only been more specific in our prayer. I've never been a big fan of that teaching.

I do believe in being specific in our prayers for the simple reason that God wants our conversation with Him to be one that is deep, authentic, vulnerable, and trusting. The specificity of our prayer is a measure of vulnerability, not effectiveness. Paul's great exhortation on prayer found in Philippians 4:6 is a great example of how prayer is foremost about the heart. Verse four actually sets the context, "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice!" Then he launches in verse six into prayer, continuing the theme of rejoicing. He uses three words translated for us: prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving.

The first word for prayer has a strong emphasis on praise, meaning that we should be worshipful, rejoicing in our prayer, celebrating the One to whom we bring our needs, in the same way the Lord's Prayer begins with worship, acknowledging our relationship with God (Our Father), exclaiming His divine being (who art in heaven), and professing our belief that He is perfect and that there is no one or no other entity in existence that compares with Him (hallowed by thy Name). That is the essence of what Paul means when he says "prayer."

Then we find supplication. This is to launch into our conversation with God. He wants to hear from us, what's going on in our lives, not because we are informing Him but because He knows that the deeper we go in our sharing, the deeper our hearts go with Him in relationship. Acts of expression lead to feelings of intimacy and He longs for all things deeper with His beloved children. Specificity is the key to deep love, not expeditious responses.

Finally, we see the phrase, "with thanksgiving." This simply means that we will are thankful for whatever the outcome. That we trust in His sovereignty, we trust in providence, we trust in the perfectness of His being and the attentiveness of His heart. This is why Paul began with "be anxious for nothing..." and finishes with "and the peace of God" in verse seven. There is no anxiety and only peace, not because we are certain to get what we want but rather because we certain in the One to whom we pray!

Really, the best text on a key to prayer is found in the reading today, 2 Chronicles chapter 1. Solomon was blessed with so much more than he had asked (sounds like Ephesians 3:20) not because he was specific but because he was sincere and honorable.

Let it be that our prayers are laden with authenticity, seasoned with sincerity, overflowing with goodness, lead by His Spirit!

Pastor Fred

May 26

This is taken from 1 Chronicles 29...may it be a declaration over all our lives!

¹⁰ Then David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly:

“O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel,^[m] may you be praised forever and ever! ¹¹ Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. Everything in the heavens and on earth is yours, O Lord, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as the one who is over all things. ¹² Wealth and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and at your discretion people are made great and given strength.
¹³ “O our God, we thank you and praise your glorious name! ¹⁴ But who am I, and who are my people, that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us! ¹⁵ We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace.
¹⁶ “O Lord our God, even this material we have gathered to build a Temple to honor your holy name comes from you! It all belongs to you! ¹⁷ I know, my God, that you examine our hearts and rejoice when you find integrity there. You know I have done all this with good motives, and I have watched your people offer their gifts willingly and joyously.
¹⁸ “O Lord, the God of our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, make your people always want to obey you. See to it that their love for you never changes.

Pastor Fred

May 25

Listen to these words found in 1 Samuel 22, reading verses 1-2...

"So David left Gath and took refuge in the cave of Adullam. When David's brothers and his father's whole family heard, they went down and joined him there. In addition, every man who was desperate, in debt, or discontented rallied around him, and he became their leader. About 400 men were with him."

Then turn to 1 Chronicles chapter 27 and read the names of the his military commanders...do you know where he first them? In the caves of Adullam, men who were either desperate, in debt, discontented, or some of each, now listed as the leaders of the greatest army on earth at that time in history!

There are three core beliefs I have in life: the goodness of God, the potential of people, and the centrality of church. Every time I read these texts and see their connectivity, I am reminded that people do not have to be defined by their present circumstances. If we help people find their footing in their relationship with God, help them become part of a thriving spiritual family, well, we will find the potential of the desperate, indebted, and discontented people unleashed, names once written in shame soon to be written in honor!

Pastor Fred

May 24

I have been meditating on the narrative of David and Saul for a few weeks. I have heard countless sermons in my life about how this is a blueprint for how we must engage leadership where we disagree, posturing ourselves as David did, in a place of humility and deference.

My objection however is that this narrative is not about a leader making what others perceive as mistakes or leading with preferences that others would not prefer. The narrative is about a leader who is broken, Godless, only self-serving, deeply insecure, evil. Most of us will spend our entire lives and never encounter such a dynamic. Yes, we will encounter flawed leaders, but seldom ones who have utterly forsaken God and have embraced occult practices.

So where is the relevance of this story to us? I believe its greatest relevance is in what NOT to do, especially with Jonathan. As a father, I am going to tell my children, if I am ever as wrong as a Saul with my life, don't die on the mountain with me, stand and lead with a David! If I am ever as broken as a Saul, live and serve God with a David! If I am ever as lost as a Saul, pray for me, reach out to me, don't give up on me, but don't die in vain with me... find a David!

Did David act inappropriately by continually deferring to Saul? Not if he was acting on the conviction of his heart born out of a mandate by God spoken to him. And I believe that is exactly what he was doing. But the mistake we make is not discerning what God intended to be a lesson in obedience with Him at a personal level and creating a model for how all people of all times are always supposed to deal with tragic leadership. David's burden was David's burden. It may not be yours or mine when facing leaders that are so flawed that they are a danger to themselves and others.

I am not advocating rebellion. I am not advocating violating confidences. I am not advocating harming the dignity of others. Scripture gives us steps with beautiful clarity for how we are to engage others in a process of discussion of our differences. It should be private, respectful, loving, with humility, and never with the intent of fracturing the relationship. Even with people who are tragically flawed, the goal is never to be right or usurp authority but to see the person in question fully restored personally. If we take the Scripture as a weapon to bludgeon others with our "moral authority" we are no better than the one we are accusing.

Most differences when it comes to people in leadership are about preferences. Seldom are we disagreeing about doctrine. I like to say that unity is when we let our absolute commonalities transcend our relative dissimilarities. Hymns or modern praise is not an absolute, it is relative based on a person's personal preference, pews or chairs, kjv or niv, robes or slacks...etc! The Deity of Christ is not however relative but a strict absolute, as is the Trinity, the sinfulness of mankind, the efficacy of the Cross...etc! The first step in disagreements with leaders is to discern together whether we are dealing with an absolute truth or something relative.

If it is relative, then someone's preference needs to rule and that is why there are leadership teams in place in churches to to help define the culture of that church. And if it is not what you are looking for, well, that is why there are many different churches. At City Life, we are committed to helping people find the best church for them, even if it isn't us! The other mistake that people make when they are leaving for another church over preferential reasons is in leaving with an attitude that the church was wrong not to change to accommodate them. That is poor and certainly not Christ honoring. When will we leave the playgrounds of elementary school and stop needing others to be wrong to make ourselves feel more right.

News flash...we can both be right when dealing with matters of preference. Let others be free to champion their preferences and you be free to champion your own! And when we are facing tragically flawed leaders, seek God's direction and if He is asking you to help correct it, move with grace, humility, and patience. Don't be in a hurry, the goal is to rescue a life, not win an argument; otherwise, you will find yourself in need of your won rescue.

Galatians 6:1, "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted."

Pastor Fred

May 18

Be careful not to read too quickly when you are exploring Scripture. And part of reading too quickly is allowing the more popularized content of a certain text to overshadow other equally, awe-inspiring details that are forgotten.

For example, the account of Jesus walking on water is so popular that it is part of the vernacular of modern language. How many times have we heard someone exclaim in a moment where they felt too many demands being placed upon them, "What, do you expect me to walk on water too?"

Yet, right here in John 6, we find another phenomenal supernatural event. If however we are reading too fast or if we are simply scanning the story believing we already know the details, we miss the second half of verse 21, "...and immediately they arrived at their destination." Really?

They were in a storm, they had been rowing for hours without making any progress against the storm surge, they were taking on water, fearing for their lives... Jesus steps into the boat (yes, after having walked to them on the water) and as soon as He enters the boat, BAM, they are at the docks in Capernaum! If you are prone to motion sickness, I wonder if time travel is dizzying? They are in one place and in an instance, they are in another. We recently acquired a phone with GPS capability, we named the voice Barb...I can hear Barb now, "Rerouting..., wait, what?"

But it is the first part of verse 21 that is the deepest of meaning for you and I, "Then they were eager to let Him in the boat..." Are you eager to have Jesus captaining your ship? Let's read with expectation of continued revelation, regardless of how many times we have read the same story before...and let's slow down and find new truths that have escaped us in the past but should be defining us in the present!

Pastor Fred

May 17

Will I be accused in the end? In today's reading of John 5:25-47, we find some sobering words. That one day when we all stand before God to give an account of our lives, we will face questions about how our lives followed in action what we professed to have believed.

Jesus is accusing the people of His day for saying that they believed in the writings of Moses but yet their lives were a contradiction to those writings, specifically rejecting Him as the Messiah about whom Moses and all the other divinely inspired authors of the Old Testament wrote. One cannot read through the Old Testament and not see that Jesus is the fulfillment of all that God has promised. This is Jesus' complaint against His contemporaries who rejected Him.

Will we be accused? I have met very few people who have rejected Christ, but I have met many who although accepting a belief in who He is, their lives are rejecting what He taught by their actions. These words in John 5 stand as a timeless reminder that it is not enough to just give intellectual ascent, there must be a devotion of the heart, willingness for that which we believe to be life defining, moment by moment governing.

Who will accuse us on that day...what will they say? May it be for you and me that although we will never be perfect, that the testimony of others about us on that fateful day will be that we lived up to the truth that we professed and where we failed, we always possessed a penitent heart!

Pastor Fred

May 11

Do I demand to see something of His glory before I will obey? If so, His glory is seldom revealed to such demands. John 2, the wondrous account of the wedding of Cana reveals to us that His glory is revealed to those who have already obeyed. If ever the was a verse in Scripture that embodies all the rest of the Bible, John 2:5b, "...Do whatever He says."

If you are waiting for a divine revelation, it could be that God is waiting on you.

I am also intrigued by the word John is inspired by the Holy Spirit to use for revelation/manifestation in verse 11. There are primarily three words in the Greek to convey revelation/manifestation. The first is epiphaneia. This word focuses mainly on the object being revealed, without necessitating any understanding by the observer. The observer sees but may not comprehend. I would use the word "oh" to express this sentiment. The second word is apokalupto. This word focuses on the object but also implies there is understanding on behalf of the observer. I would use the phrase "oh, I see" to express this sentiment. The final word is phaneroo. This word focuses primarily on the observer, meaning that the observer is responding to the revelation. I would us the phrase "oh, I see, yes" to express this sentiment. This is the word we find in John 2:11.

The world is full of people who see Jesus and say "oh." The world is full of people who see Jesus and say "oh, I see." There are few people in the world who see Jesus and say "oh, I see, yes." That is why Jesus says in Matthew 22:14 that may are called and few are chosen...few say yes. I love how John 11 wraps up, for emphasis, just in case the reader missed the distinction of the word chosen for revelation/manifestion...the verse concludes with this, "...and His disciples believed in Him." They said yes.

What is the word that describes your Jesus revelation...may it be phaneroo!

Pastor Fred

May 9

2 Kings 7-9 could be entitled, as so much of Scripture, "providence." God orchestrates, directs, drives, engineers, choreographs, coordinates, directs, arranges... organizes all events of history, not just for humankind but every individual.

One of the most striking in this group of texts is as follows...

¹ Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can, because the LORD has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years.” ² The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines seven years.

³ At the end of the seven years she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and land. ⁴ The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, “Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done.” ⁵ Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to appeal to the king for her house and land.

Gehazi said, “This is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” ⁶ The king asked the woman about it, and she told him.

Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now.”

That which He did then, He does now, for you, for me!

Pastor Fred

May 4

What a tremendous lesson in leadership we are given in the moment Solomon passes his throne to his son Rehoboam. Division always has an epicenter, a moment of inception. The division of Israel is often attributed to Rehoboam and Jeroboam but I believe it began among Rehoboam's Council. One group gave one course of direction born out of the conviction of their hearts and one group gave a different course of direction, born out of the conviction of their hearts. A great leader would have done nothing until both groups were reconciled together and of one mind and one heart. This division became one that expanded out for centuries of history.

Our core leadership team at City Life doesn't vote on anything. We work until we are of one heart and one mind. Unity is what every leadership team should be reverberating throughout their church, vibrations of togetherness that inspires the whole house toward togetherness! In Acts 2:1 we read that they were "all together in one place." And again, in Acts 2:44 we read "Now all the believers were together..." This Greek word for "together" can be used for geographic togetherness but also for being together of one heart and mind. Acts 2:1 speaks of a geographic togetherness while Acts 2:44 addresses their unity of heart.

There will always be division ultimately. There will always be dissenting people as decisions move out into the broader group of leaders and members of a church. Seldom does everyone in the whole of the church agree on everything. And disagreement does not have to be about right and wrong. We far too often want the the opposing side to be wrong to buttress our position, out of insecurity. My experience has been that most moments of division in churches are about preferences and methodology. Both positions can be right while simultaneously divergent.

Consider travel. There are many routes to a destination. Is one right and the other wrong? Each is right but one cannot travel on both concurrently, bringing about a divergent moment. In a church's life, there will be many divergent moments. But the first signs of separation should only and always be as vision moves out into the broader realms of concentric circles. However, the core should never be responsible for the division, only and always the unity!

At City Life, our core is defined by two groups, the first circle is what we call our Governance Team (Lead Pastor, Elders, and Two Trustees) and also the next circle out, our Ministry Life Team Council (all the leaders of our various ministries). If this group is not on the same page, we don't turn the page...but once they are, we run after vision together!

Great leaders inspire people together to one place, both space and desire!

Pastor Fred