[Faith-talk] inflewence

[fswilliams049 at aol.com]

This is beautiful and I really got an open mind about this devotion and 
thanks Andrew.
Felicia

--------------------------------------------------
 From: "Jeanette" <nettiecosp at yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2011 1:34 PM
To: "Faith-talk,for the discussion of faith and religion" 
<faith-talk at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [Faith-talk] inflewence

> 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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