[Faith-talk] inflewence

[Jeanette]

this is wonderful, thank you so much for sharing it, jeanette
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Edgcumbe" <andrewjedg at gmail.com>
To: "Faith-talk" <Faith-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2011 11:30 AM
Subject: [Faith-talk] inflewence


Influence

By Julian Newman
This week's topic: Serving Others


 Recently author, speaker and good friend Sean Smith said, “..the
church has largely lost the ear of a generation.” Ironically in the
midst so much ‘Christian’ noise, our voice in relation to our impact
is more of a whisper (and whimper) than a shout.


Though we have Christian radio, TV, music, movies, T-Shirts,
merchandise, and so much more, we don’t have near the influence that
would seem appropriate for a people that claim to be connected to a
Cosmic King and Creator of the Universe. So the question is…Why? What
has happened to our influence? Though there are many answers to this
question, I believe two answers sum up the problem.

Answer #1: The church has stopped living a life of sacrifice.
 Somewhere along the way we’ve bought into the ‘American Dream,’ and
neglected God’s Kingdom dream. Rather than living as soldiers and
citizens of an enduring heaven, we’ve become civilians of this
terrestrial sphere building earthbound kingdoms that don’t matter.
This mindset is reflected in how we spend our time, our money and what
we (and our children) aspire to be. But Jesus never called us to make
‘Today’ the primary focus of our lives.

 He taught us to live here on earth with an eye looking toward heaven.
That’s why His disciples boldly embraced hardship, extreme resistance
and painful persecution. They realized that every sacrifice they made
in the name of Jesus would only increase their heavenly reward.

 With this mentality they toppled kingdoms, transformed cities and
turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). Jesus super-sized their
influence because they were willing to lay it all on the line.

Answer #2: The church is largely a conquered people.
 In His last hours leading up to the cross, Jesus said, “The ruler of
this world comes, but he has nothing in Me” (John 14:30). Jesus was
making a formal declaration of what His life already confirmed: Satan
could scream, howl and spectacularly assail Jesus, but he couldn’t
beat Jesus because he had zero influence on Jesus’ life.

 Zero influence meant zero impact.

 Unfortunately in the present day, most Jesus followers can’t come
close to making a similar claim. Yes, it’s true that we can’t attain
Jesus’ sinless perfection. But that isn’t our problem. Our problem
rests in not accessing the victory that Jesus provided by allowing
Satan to have authority over us. When we harbor secret sin, secret
vices and unconfessed issues, we make room for the Devil’s influence
over our life.

We can’t have power over darkness if we allow darkness to have power over 
us.

 James the servant of Christ writes in chapter 4 of the book bearing his 
name:

 “Submit to God, resist the Devil, and he (the Devil) will flee from you.”

Notice that it says, “submit to God” before it speaks of resisting or
fleeing. Without submitting and obeying God, we can’t resist, and the
Devil won’t flee. We can quote scripture, pray all night and sing
worship songs the rest of the day. But if we aren’t submitted to God,
we can have no authority over the Devil.

 It would do us well to regain a spirit of sacrifice, a renewed hatred
for sin, and a restored vision for eternity. With the right Kingdom
values in the right place, the modern church’s influence will rise
once again.

 Not influence to dominate, but to serve. Not influence to condemn,
but to love. Not influence to embarrass, but to embrace.

To those that are greatly influenced by God, will be granted by God
the privilege to greatly influence their generation.

We only have one life and one chance in which to change the world.

 Let’s seize it…by seizing Him.

Scripture Of The Day: "Let your light shine before others, that they
may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." - Matthew
5:16 (NIV)

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