A CALL TO
BIBLICAL HOLINESS

Messages Delivered at the Holiness Summit

Edited by Louie E. Bustle

Holiness: Reflecting the Heart of God
Deeper Life Publications
Copyright © 2010 by Premier Publishing
(Print) ISBN: 978-0-9824906-9-3
(Kindle) ISBN: 978-1-935900-00-9
(ePub) ISBN: 978-1-935900-01-6
Printed in the United States of America
Cover Design: Rick Guilfoil
Interior Design: Robbie Knight

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture verses are taken from the following versions, noted at the beginning of each chapter:

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. (Public Domain.)

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © Copyright 1960, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

FOREWORD

Dr. Thomas Hermiz

Something absolutely incredible is happening! We are on the verge of an amazing movement of God’s spirit across our land and in our churches. This is a movement, the magnitude of which we haven’t seen for generations. All over the world, we can identify spontaneous, book-of-Acts style revival moments that point to the initial stages of a worldwide revival in which many expect that millions of people will come to Him. It is already apparent that this coming global revival will be intensely centered on the holiness message. I want to personally challenge you to accept the role that God has given you in this plan—His plan.

People all around us are locked in what they see as an impossible struggle with sin. We clearly see the devastation of sin in the lives of people we love; our church people, our friends, our family members, our neighbors, and our communities. And the hopelessness in their eyes is absolutely haunting!

But such devastation and hopelessness doesn’t have to be! We are holiness people, and we hold the message of deliverance for these desperate lives. It is time for us as a holiness church to rise up anew with a positive proclamation of the holiness message. We need to declare that enough is enough—sin has reigned too long in the lives of the people we love, too long in our churches, and too long in our land! People can be delivered from the power of sin that is destroying them and they need to know it!

Down through the decades, we holiness people have been passionate about the proclamation of this holiness message, its embrace by individual people, and the corresponding transformation it bring to their lives. The Holiness Summit movement is focused on reclaiming this passion.

Already, Holiness Summits have been held in multiple locations across the United States and around the world (the chapters of this book are based on sermons preached at various Holiness Summits). Out of these Summits, God has raised up many leaders who are now planning additional Summits in various new locations. The format of these Holiness Summits is purposefully simple so that individuals who attend one can then go out from it and can easily replicate the format of these services within the context of their locations.

I challenge you to read this book with the thought in mind that maybe God would lead you to hold a Holiness Summit on your district or at your church. The following 7 steps outline how simple it is to establish a Holiness Summit in your area.

1. Prayer and dependence on God

a. Remember this is a “God thing” we are joining, not a manmade event we are creating.

2. Develop a simple program

a. Bring together individuals who are passionate about the holiness message and are prepared to deliver a powerful sermon that will call people to holiness.

b. Prayer of response – Plan for a prayer time after each sermon to allow people to respond to what they have heard.

c. Below is a schedule that has been used often, but any schedule will work:

1) Open with a Sunday Night preaching service

2) Continue with 3 to 4 preaching service per day on Monday and Tuesday

d. Format of service:

1) Opening ministry in music (does not need to be long)

2) Sermon

3) Time of prayer response

3. Keep expenses low

a. Use as many volunteers and donated services as possible.

b. Select inexpensive venues.

c. Keep in mind that the focus is on people and the message and not on a professional atmosphere.

d. Promote the Holiness Summit via e-mail and existing websites.

4. No pre-registration, no fees – offerings to cover expenses

a. Do not require participants to pre-register – provide them a card upon arrival that they can fill out and return at their convenience.

b. Do not charge a registration fee – allow offerings to cover expenses.

5. Simplify the lodging and food logistics

a. Allow participants to secure their own lodging and meals.

b. If you like, you can provide them with a list of hotels and restaurants in your area.

6. Planning for multiplication

a. Plan for opportunities to call participants to go home and replicate what they are experiencing.

b. Plan to be available to assist participants in planning a Holiness Summit in their area.

7. Clearly communicate the goal of multiplication

a. Before event – in promotion

b. Continually during event

c. After the event

1

NO MORE MR. HYDE

John Bowling

Romans 7:15-8:9 (NIV)

Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

—Romans 7:25

Dr. Henry Jekyll was an upright, respectable, Victorian English gentleman. He was honest, a man of integrity and compassion, a model citizen. He’s the kind of person every one of us would want to emulate. And yet there resided deep within him a second personality, an alter ego if you will, a persona that was such a contrast to what was seen in public that when it was released, when it was empowered by the use of a self-administered drug Dr. Jekyll had formulated secretly, the man even took a different name: Mr. Edward Hyde.

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can be read at a variety of levels. Young people like it because it’s a story of mystery with intrigue and plot twists and turns. But if you read that story at an adult level, you encounter the struggle of one individual with what has been called the shadow self.

I think it was Dr. Carl Jung, the noted psychiatrist and writer of a generation ago, who coined that phrase—the shadow self—saying there is within every woman and every man an inner person that isn’t seen publicly but is dominant, very much part of the person. Robert Louis Stevenson’s story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the tale of one man’s battle with this inner self. Those of you who have read the book may recall that at the end of the book, in what is called “The Full Statement,” Dr. Jekyll confesses how he would from time to time take that potion and just give himself over to the full expression of evil made visible in this other person, Mr. Hyde. Then he could take the potion again and revert to the public person everyone knew and respected. But over time Dr. Jekyll lost control of that process until, regardless of what he did, he could no longer restrain the inner person, the inner presence of evil, until it finally dominated his life. And in the end, everything that was good, everything that was respected, everything he wanted to be, was lost.

Now, what does this story have to do with holiness? The apostle Paul told a very similar story in Romans 7.

HELPLESS BUT NOT HOPELESS

We have in this chapter, at least in some ways, a kind of transparent moment. It is almost as if we have a page torn from the diary of Saint Paul, a spiritual autobiography that, as we read it, we recognize it is not just his story; it’s everyone’s story. Here’s what Paul says in verse 15: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” In other words, he’s saying, “I’m an enigma to myself; I don’t understand why I’m like this. I don’t understand why, when I want to do right I end up not doing it. And I practice that which I say I hate.” In verses 16–17, he picks it up again: “And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.”

He is pointing out that there is an interloper in his life, an intruder, someone who grabs the reins of his personality and causes him to do and say and respond in ways he doesn’t want to.

He continues in verses 18–20: “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do— this I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it but it is sin living in me that does it.”

Paul says he’s suddenly, powerfully, Mr. Hyde rather than the good Dr. Jekyll. “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law [another force, another principle] at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members” (vv. 21–23).

Then in verse 24 there is a kind of wail of the spirit, the cry of one who is captive: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” But notice, in this cry of a desperate person there is hope. He may, in fact, be helpless, but he knows there is a rescue. He knows there has to be an answer to this, and so it breaks forth in verse 25: “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The second half of verse 25 summarizes the entire passage: “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” I am, in fact, a walking civil war; I’m a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde. Some days I’m up and I’m victorious and I feel like I’ve broken through, and then other days this inner shadow self seizes control of me, and although I want to do what is right I end up doing what is wrong.

Let’s not focus any longer on the defeat interwoven through this chapter. We’ve all lived that; we’ve all been in that moment. I want us to celebrate the good news of full salvation; we can be not only forgiven; we can be set free. We’re going to camp out in verse 25: “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

This passage from Romans is a complex and very difficult passage, so let me step outside the subject at hand for just a moment to highlight some of the issues in this passage.

THE "KNOTS" IN ROMANS 7

First, some folks question whether this chapter is in fact autobiographical or just metaphorical. Is Paul giving us his personal testimony, or is he just speaking in a “for instance” way? The question comes down to how we understand the personal pronoun “I.” Who is “I” in Romans 7? That’s a question scholars wrestle with, and it’s a good one.

Next, is the life described in Romans 7 one who is living under the law and thus struggling to measure up to that standard, or is this the portrait of one who has been justified and regenerated by grace and yet still struggles to live the life of Christ? In other words, is this pre-conversion or post-conversion? Now, the Reformed tradition suggests that it is in fact post-conversion, but they take a step beyond where I would go. They say this is the story of one who has accepted Christ, but they make Romans 7 normative. They say, “That’s just the way life’s going to be, friends. Christ can save you, but you’re going to remain sinful, and there’ll be moments you sin in word, thought, and deed every day, so get used to it. Do the best you can, and God will help you.”

Who is the prisoner of sin in Romans 7—the unsaved, or the saved but not yet sanctified believer? Or is Paul simply talking about the law itself? That’s the broader context at the beginning of Romans 7. Is he just saying the law is under the captivity of sin? Maybe he’s just talking about humanity in a general sense.

This is a confusing passage. It’s confusing because of the words Paul uses. For example, repeatedly in this passage he uses the word we translate flesh, but he uses the term in many different ways. The NIV translates the Greek word sarks (flesh) as sinful nature, but other scholars object to that. They don’t equate it with the sinful nature; it’s just the corporate condition of humanity. In verse 15 Paul uses the word do six times in three different verbs.

Perhaps this isn’t the place to unpack these issues and try to sort them out. I mention them so you know about these cross-currents. But I also mention them to make this point: We need to get over focusing on what we don’t know, and start preaching what we do know. The truth is, for the last decade or two, there have been so many “Well, on the one hand this and on the other hand that” arguments that I think it has paralyzed a generation of Nazarene preachers who don’t want to preach it wrong, so they don’t even preach it. I’m saying, “Get over it. Set aside what you don’t know and preach what you do know.” There is a holiness message in this passage and it rings with Paul’s words, “Thanks be to God.”

As the man born blind said, “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” (John 9:25). In other words, I believe he was saying, “I can’t tell you how, I couldn’t show you the way, but it’s not going to dampen my testimony.” That said, let’s work our way through this and find the good news of the gospel.

BENCHMARKS

Maybe the place to begin is to put down a few benchmarks along the way to help us. Let’s go back to verse 15.

PAUL'S COMPLAINT

Notice what Paul is describing here is something that exceeds human understanding. That is to say, you’ll never fully, rationally understand what he’s describing here. You won’t get to a point where you say, “Oh, I get it. I understand that.” No, verse 15 clearly says, “I do not understand what I do.” That’s his complaint. I don’t understand why, when I want to do right, I do wrong. I don’t understand why, when I’ve decided I’m never going to do that again I end up doing it again. His beginning point here is to declare on a rational, intellectual level that you cannot make sense fully of this inner conflict. And remember, this is the apostle Paul writing. This is no spiritual or intellectual lightweight; he is not a mental midget, and yet he says, “I can experience moments of great spiritual victory and turn and fall on my face spiritually. I don’t understand.” And isn’t that true to life?

I used to be quite a basketball player. I didn’t play professional ball. By the time I got to that point I had other plans. In fact I didn’t play college ball because coaches had other plans when I got there. And I suppose, if full disclosure is in order, I didn’t even go out for the team in high school. But in junior high I was quite a ball player. In one particular game, I had played most of the first half and was starting the second half. In those days, the second half started with a jump ball. Our center got the tip, and it came right to me. I did one of those moves that I was famous for: a step in this direction and then a quick move in that direction, gaining some time on my man. I broke for the basket, and ten, maybe twelve feet out I stopped, squared my shoulders, jumped, and shot. And just as the ball rolled off my fingertips I heard my coach, most of the players, and half the crowd yell, “Wrong way.”

True story. We had been shooting toward that basket the whole first half. But at halftime, they reversed it. And in my excitement to score, I shot a perfect shot. Nothin’ but net. Two points for the other team. In fact, I was voted most valuable player on both teams that day.

And that’s a true story all the way through.

Now, we can understand how something like that could happen. My intention was right, my skill was okay, my performance in terms of the execution of the shot was everything it should have been; I just forgot in that moment that I was aiming for the wrong basket.

Unfortunately, that’s not what Paul’s talking about. He’s not talking about those moments when you just forget, or when somehow it just sneaks up on you and you forgot you were going to do that. No, that’s a mental lapse. Paul is describing a condition that he says he can’t understand how it happens. There is no mental explanation because it’s a problem of a different nature.

PAUL'S CONFLICT

Paul identifies the conflict as an inner war, a spiritual battle. In verse 19 he says, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” Now understand, Paul is not saying, “I never do good.” He’s not saying, “I always fail.” He’s not confessing here to some great crime, “I robbed a bank at Corinth; I killed a man in Athens.” No, he is simply saying, “I too often fail to do the very thing I wish to do. In my words, my deeds, my attitudes, I experience this inner conflict, and I’m such a contradiction to myself. It’s not that I don’t know what is right or that I don’t want to do what is right. No, I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” All of this indicates that this is not an understanding problem. This is not a will problem. This is a power problem—with not having enough spiritual energy. “I do not have the strength to overcome this force within me.”

PAUL'S CONCESSION

Let’s review for a moment. Verse 15 starts with his complaint: I don’t understand why I do what I do. He describes the conflict: What I want to do I don’t do; what I don’t want to do I do. Then in verse 16 he gets to a moment of concession: “And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree (I concede) that the law is good.” What does that mean? In essence Paul is saying, “If I do what I don’t want to do, then I’m agreeing that the law is good.” But that doesn’t fit? How is it that this failure is somehow evidence that the law is good? Stay with me here; this is a subtle moment. It is, though, a hinge on which the passage begins to swing. Paul is saying that instead of losing heart, he sees a ray of hope. The conflict gives evidence that deep within his heart and mind and will is both the knowledge and the desire to do what is right.

The word Paul uses in verse 16 that we translate “agree” is the same word in the Greek from which we get the word symphony. Paul is saying, “I know in my heart, my mind, my will I am in harmony with God. That’s really who I am. But there is this other problem. Deep within me I don’t reject the will of God, I don’t resent the will of God; I just can’t seem to do the will of God.” But from that point hope begins to rise. This conflict indicates the presence of light. And this inner light means there is spiritual energy there. It’s a moment all of us need to get to, when we realize we can’t conquer this by knowing more. We can’t conquer this by trying harder. Our only help is going to have to come from God. And so in that moment of defeat, a light goes on, and Paul says, “This is not a battle that I’m waging; it is sin in me that is waging this battle.” Paul begins to realize that we must have God, and thus he says, “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 19)

The root of the problem, the cause of the conflict, the one waging war is not him, for he clearly says, “I agree that the law is good” (v. 16). But rather it is this inner force within him. He’s not at war with God; he’s the battlefield where that war is being waged. On the one hand, Paul says, here at the heart of who I am in the depths of my being, at the point of my essential self, I love God; I want to do what’s right; I don’t dispute His law. In fact, I agree with it. When I look at my outer life, my actions, my reactions, I see disharmony where I wish there was symphony. I see this shadow self, something else controlling me. He puts it like this in verse 23: “I see another law [another force, another principle] at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.” Notice Paul is not saying that it is his humanity, that is to say, his physical flesh, that causes him to be at war with God. The problem is not that we’re human; the problem is that even as believers there remains within us the root of sin, the carnal nature, this old man who continually grabs the reigns of our life and keeps us from doing right when we want to do right and leads us to do wrong.

Pay very close attention to verse 17: “As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.” The problem preventing any of us from winning this war within and from living a victorious Christian life is the sin nature residing within us. So, is there no hope for that? Must we live our lives as a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and over time, do better than we did in the past? Are we captives, slaves to sin, even though we want to follow Christ? I’m not prepared to believe God has the power to forgive but not the power to cleanse. Paul doesn’t believe that. He says, “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 19). The good news is God has made provision for us to not only be forgiven, but for us to be set free from that bondage of sin that distorts who we are and mars the very image of God implanted within us. And the provision God has made is the saving, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.

THE SOURCE OF HOPE

That becomes very clear when we step out of Romans 7 and into Romans 8, which begins with these words: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death” (vv. 1–2). In verse 7 he takes that up a notch: “The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” That’s what he’s been describing all along. “Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit (notice capital S, meaning Holy Spirit), if the Spirit of God lives in you” (vv. 8–9). The answer to spiritual defeat is to be found in the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is mentioned 15 times in the first 17 verses of Romans 8. It is the Spirit who changes us from the inside out. The Christian life is not a garment you put on, as if you’re going to cloak yourself in righteousness, and when people look on the outside they see that, but the inside is just the same.

No, it’s not something you wear around, lay aside when you feel like it, and pick back up on Sundays. The Spirit life is a change, not from the outside in, but from the inside out. It is a new heart; it is a cleansing work. It is a freedom from the dominance of sin in your life. That’s why this very same Paul could, in other passages, write such things as “We are more than conquerors through him” (Romans 8:37) and “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). You see, he’s moving now in a different reality. He’s not denying that moment of struggle, but he’s saying there’s a breakthrough moment.

Is your life Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Do you really want to follow, and yet your life is filled with defeat? You can win the war within through the Holy Spirit. It won’t happen by trying harder. No, it doesn’t happen by turning over new leaves. You could turn over a whole tree; it wouldn’t make any difference in the long run because, you see, the problem doesn’t lie in your own mind or spirit. You’ve got to have divine intervention, the Holy Spirit of God.

I recently reread with some interest and with you in mind the introduction to a very fine book called The Difference God Makes by Peter Haile. He wrote,

When my daughter was three she was often told that writing on the walls of our house with pencil or crayon was to be avoided on pain of serious consequences. She was assured that some heavy-handed justice would pursue her if she indulged in this admittedly entertaining activity. One day, however, the urge to leave her mark on the world got the best of her. Let me say in her favor that she did not go berserk as some children might have done and covered the whole wall. In fact, she was extraordinarily restrained. The mark was not more than, say, an eighth of an inch. But it was there in red. Remorse struck her after a time, and as I was quietly working at my desk, she came in and asked for my scotch tape. Later I happened to go into her room and was surprised to see a small piece of Kleenex carefully taped to the wall. And underneath I found the eighth of an inch red mark elaborately hidden. She was trying to cover up what she had done. That’s a preoccupation that many of us never outgrow. Oh, the older we get the more skillful we become. Instead of scotch tape and Kleenex we use careful words and calculated actions to obscure who we are. We put up a front in an effort to cover up our lives that are out of order^1

The good news is that God can do more than just cover up. God can do more than just put us out there where we have to play the charade. I like the hymn writer who put it this way:

Search me, O God, and know my heart today,
Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray;
See if there be some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.2

Winning the war doesn’t come by trying harder; it doesn’t come by pretending the war doesn’t exist. We become the men and women God calls us to be by His grace alone. Corrie ten Boom said, “Don’t wrestle, just nestle.” The victory in this war comes through surrender. And surrender is a word we don’t like. We’re conditioned for victory. Well, victory comes when we quit fighting and we present ourselves as living sacrifices to God.

All to Jesus, I surrender;
All to Him I freely give.3

May our prayer be today—and every day—O God, change my heart within.

1. Haile, Peter. The Difference God Makes. World Wide Publications, 1987.
2. Orr, James E. "Search Me, O God." 1936. Public Domain.
3. Van DeVenter, Justin. "I surrender All." 1896. Public Domain.

2

RIGHT NEXT DOOR

Louie Bustle

Luke 24:49 (NKJV)

Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.

—Luke 24:49

Holiness makes the difference. It makes the difference in our lives and how we live. It also makes the difference in how we work. We can get into busy work, doing all kinds of things that are internal, but real holiness drives us to evangelism. My prayer is that God would have His way, and we would see a whole new movement of God for the propagation of holiness around the world. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could play a part in building the kingdom of God through a holiness movement in this generation and the generations that follow?

Some are afraid that we’re going to lose our message, that we’re going to become another generic church and lose the real reason God raised up the holiness groups. And if there’s ever been a time that we need to pull together, it’s now. We need each other and we can help each other. We can pray and fast and begin to believe. I believe God is up to something that’s far beyond what we can imagine or think.

We just want to be a part of God’s plan. I don’t know about you, but I want to spend the rest of my life—as I have since my conversion at the age of 21—serving Him. I want to make a difference and impact the world with the holiness message.

PERSEVERANCE PAYS

My dad was a drunk. A 23-year-old pastor was given Dad’s name. He knocked on his door every week for two years and my father was miraculously saved. I was 20 at the time and said, “Give him two or three months and he’ll get over it.” He didn’t get over it. At that time I didn’t even know there were four Gospels, but I bought a Bible and started reading the Word. In an evangelistic campaign in a little church in Osgood, Indiana, God changed my life forever. And that’s what we’re all about.

I heard the message of holiness and went to the altar. They pounded me on the back and prayed with me. I put in the front of my Bible “Sanctified” along with the date. Six or eight months later, the whole front of my Bible was full of dates. But one day Louie Bustle finally died, and there was no doubt that I was sanctified. I’ve come to believe that no one is sanctified until they’re ready and willing to die to self-centeredness.

A few years ago a Southern Baptist was consulting with our major vision leaders on an evangelism and church development strategy for the 10/40 window. After about three-and-a-half days, at the end of the last session, this expert on church planting and growth, closed his book and looked at our group of holiness leaders. He said, “I want to talk to you about something. The whole evangelical world is moving toward a holiness concept and understanding. The problem is we don’t understand it. We don’t know how to preach it. But you do. And we need you to preach it and teach it and live it and teach us how to preach it and live it.”

This is no time for retrenchment. It’s time for us to step up to the plate—all of us. We holiness denominations can have a major influence on building the Kingdom. It’s not about worshipping the holiness message; it’s about what the holiness message does in and through us for building His Kingdom.

Luke 24:49 says, “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

God has always held to the standard of holiness. In the Old Testament, you remember He created Adam and Eve to be holy people, not to be sinning people. But, He gave them a free choice, and they chose to want to be like God and disobey. But after God sent them out of the Garden of Eden, He chose the Hebrew people to be—not His people that He loved more than anyone else— but His messengers to take the name of God to all the other nations. But when they got close to those nations, they looked at the false gods those people worshipped, and thought, “I could manage this.” So they turned from the true and living God and a personal relationship with the true and living God to a god they could manage and maneuver and control. Repeatedly, God brought them to their knees in repentance, often through the oppression of other nations, and that’s the story of the whole Old Testament.

Then, in the New Testament, God sent His Son Jesus into the world to die on the Cross so we could be freed from all sin. God’s plan has always been that we would be holy, cleansed individuals who are in love with Him.

But that’s only the beginning. We’re saved to be holy, and empowered by His Holy Spirit. Let’s look at some scriptures where Jesus taught His disciples and His church something we absolutely must learn, relearn and live every day of our lives.

SANCTIFIED FOR ACTION

In Matthew 9, Jesus is going about all the cities and villages, preaching the gospel, and seeing people who have no hope. Verse 36 says He was “moved with compassion for them,” and then He gives an incredible indictment to the church today as our major responsibility. He says, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (v. 37). Sometimes we get our mind around that “harvest” and we get our mind around the “workers,” but we don’t really grasp the “few.” But Jesus says, “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (v. 38). When I made my way down to the altar in that little church in Osgood, Indiana, my pastor said in his conversation with God, “There’s my next preacher.” If he’d said it out loud he would have scared me to death. But God called 13 men to preach in a two-year period out of a church of 60 people. My pastor had eyes to see the harvest and eyes to see our responsibility in praying that God would send forth laborers. For, you see, living the holiness message is not enough. God has something more for us.

In Matthew 16:13-18, Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” (v. 13), and they referred to different prophets. But He said, “But who do you say that I am?” (v. 15). Peter spoke up, “You are the Christ [the Messiah], the Son of the living God” (v. 16). And Jesus said, “Peter,…on this rock I will build My church” (v. 18). Some of us are out there trying to build His church, and that’s not our responsibility. It’s His responsibility to build His church.

It’s our responsibility to obey Matthew 28:19-20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing…[and] teaching them.” Doctrine is very important. New believers in Jesus Christ want to hear God’s Word. I want to hear God’s Word and what He’s trying to tell me. If you’re hungry to know God, you’re going to be hungry to know biblical doctrine.

Let’s look now at Matthew 22:37–40, the two great commandments. The first is “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (v. 37). Now, how can you do that? There is no other way except by the experience of entire sanctification, where you’re cleansed of everything, completly emptied of self, and totally dead to self-centeredness. You turn everything over to God, and He empowers you, filling you with His Holy Spirit. You can tiptoe around the edges all you want, but you’ll always be a shallow Christian. The only way you can really grow roots and grow in the power of God’s Holy Spirit is to know the infilling of the Holy Spirit in your life.

The first commandment leads to the second: loving your neighbor as yourself. God drives you, and gives you a burden and a passion for the lost of the world. You want to share what He’s done for you. You want them to have what you have. You want to tell them the story of God’s saving and sanctifying grace in your own life. You need a passion like that of the young pastor who knocked on Dad’s door.

Dad said, “Don’t come back.” But the young pastor just kept coming back. About a year into it, Dad came home drunk one night. Later he told me, “At three o’clock in the morning, Jesus walked into the room.” Why? Because that pastor in that little church prayed that God would so move upon my dad’s life that he couldn’t rest until he met Jesus. Conviction settled in on my dad, and he saw Jesus in his room that night. Jesus said, “John, if you don’t quit drinking, you’re going to die.” My dad never went back to the bar. The Good News of the gospel is powerful.

If we look again at Luke 24:49, we see Jesus is essentially saying to His disciples, “I don’t want you to go out into the streets. I’m turning the church over to you, but I don’t want you to go out into the streets until something special happens in your life. Go to Jerusalem.”

I’ve been in that upper room in Jerusalem where the desciples went at Jesus’ command. It’s a small room for 120 people. Spending 10 days there must have been difficult. But when they came out, these people were different. God had sent His Holy Spirit, and these men and women were empowered. Today we have so many pastors and people trying to do God’s work in their own strength and their own ingenuity that it should drive us to the upper room.”

Acts 1:8 also ties in here: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me.” This verse is a message for every believer. It’s not a message just for missionaries; it’s not a message just for pastors. It’s a message for every believer in Jesus Christ. He calls us to holiness, and He says He will empower us. Ephesians 3:20 says that God is able to do anything according to His power that works in us. That’s God’s message for the church today. We must not preach or try to live anything less than God’s plan. So His message is that we can be empowered to be His witnesses.

GOD AT WORK IN THE WORLD TODAY

Let me tie that into a world scene. I travel all over the world, and I’m seeing something today that I’ve never seen before. There’s a “God thing” happening in the world. I don’t understand it; I can’t explain it all. Some of it is just a feeling, but God is doing something special. I think some of it started a little over 50 years ago in the hearts of some peasant Chinese believers who caught a vision to take the gospel back to Jerusalem. They say 66 percent of the population of the world lives in 66 nations, and those are the least evangelized areas of the world. Why? Because the governments and religions of these nations have held the gospel of Jesus Christ out.

Because of the persecution they’ve suffered, the Chinese have been cleansed and prepared. They’re convinced that they’re the ones God has chosen to take the gospel and evangelize that area of the world. They’re preparing 100,000 missionaries in China today to move out through that area, though they know thousands will be martyred. Now, you’ve read your church history. When you find a great number of martyrs, what happens? Revival! I am convinced that revival is coming to the world.

In 1980 in the house church in China there were 3 million believers; today the number is estimated to be over 100 million; some even say 175 million. Experts predict that in the next 15 years there will be 300 to 400 million believers in China, and China will become a Christian nation.

Now, what does that have to do with us? In the Church of the Nazarene, we have about nine countries that are seeing New Testament book of Acts movements. In Sudan, 100,000 new believers have come into the church in three years. During the last 12 years, a South Asian country has added 330 organized churches and hundreds of missions. In another South Asian country where 89 percent are Muslim and 11 percent Hindu, one district has more than 700 organized churches and hundreds of missions—this is a true movement of God.

The first time I was in India in 1991 one leader caught a real vision. Through Each One Win One, the JESUS Film, and prayer and evangelism, God had brought about great growth. But you know, the real base of all of this is holiness preaching. Holiness gives us the establishment so that we can see God work and we can be the full instruments of God. And now in India we’re seeing a movement of God: hundreds of new churches are planted every year, and they are reaping a harvest like never before. Every time I’m in that area, I tell them, “Get ready. The Chinese are going to march, the movement of God is going to begin and thousands of people are going to be swept into the kingdom of God. You need to join the Chinese on the Silk Road back to Jerusalem to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost.”

I talk about that in Africa, as well. We’ve been celebrating holiness conferences there, and God is doing things we’ve not really expected. In Ethiopia, a movement of God started with an older man. He was about 78 when he saw his vision, and he was ordained at the age of 80. He has a prayer mountain where he goes for several days at a time to fast and pray. One day he was praying over the cities, villages and towns all through the mountains, and praying over the valley of southern Ethiopia, which is about 45 percent Ethiopian Orthodox and about 35 percent Muslim. But as this man was praying, he saw a flame spread across the valley, and God said to him, “I’m going to bring great revival to this valley.” Now, a church planting, holiness movement has spread all through that area and beyond to other people groups.

I was there recently, and we drove five hours into the heart of where the movement began. The next day we drove four more hours, passing only a few houses scattered here and there. We stopped on the side of a mountain, and I looked and saw about 800 people sitting on the grass. Out in the middle of nowhere I preached holiness to these people and challenged them to plant churches. When I gave the invitation, I said, “How many of you are willing to go and plant a new church?” Every hand went up.

Later I asked the missionary, “What’s the deal?”

He said, “We haven’t told them that it’s not their responsibility.”

“How did you get so far into nowhere?” I asked.

“Well, it’s really pretty simple. God started the movement in this area, and then one person would take it over to this village and then over to that town. And they’d just plant churches as they went.”

Dr. Jesse Middendorf, one of our General Superintendents, and I took a group of about 30 into Ethiopia on a “vision” tour. We wanted others to see what God’s doing there. At one place, rather than asking one of us to preach, they had a new convert preach. There he was, standing in front of many church leaders, preaching one of the best holiness messages I’d ever heard. That’s transferring the message to the next generation.

REVIVING THE MESSAGE

The question we face now is this: Is the message going to die with you and me? Are our churches going to propagate and preach that people can be totally free, or are we going to be generic churches and allow the next generation to lose the message? Will we be willing to be instruments of God, asking Him, “What can You do through me in my local church, in my area, and in my district to start a renewal of a movement that has always been at Your heart?” I don’t know about you, but I want to be a part of that movement. And I believe God is calling us holiness people to be a part of His movement that will change the world for Jesus Christ.

How long has it been since you’ve heard somebody testify to being sanctified in your local church? How long has it been since we’ve talked about this as the main thing? You see, we’re not saved just to get rid of the committed sin; we’re saved to be holy people. But how? When we don’t preach holiness, we leave our people hanging without real hope. We push them into a self-religion, trying to live in Christ without the power of the Holy Spirit to do it.

Holiness makes a difference because He empowers us to live the message in full freedom in the power of the Holy Spirit. I know the devil fights, but the Bible says, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

If there’s ever been a time when America has needed the message of holiness, it’s today. What can we do? What can you and I do to be instruments of God in creating a movement of preaching the message of holiness? We’ve got to train and equip preachers to preach. Our schools must focus on the message so that future pastors will know and experience holiness. They must learn how to preach the message. How can God move us again? Think about the people in the Book of Acts. They were filled, they gave the message, and they stayed in the doctrine of the apostles. As a result “the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). A movement of God began to sweep that place. When Peter and John stood before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leaders noted that the two didn’t have a lot of education, but it was clear they had been with Jesus (Acts 4:1-13).

Then in Acts 6:1-7, we find the apostles waiting on tables. The apostles recognized this as a problem and appointed others to serve so the apostles could pray and preach. They needed to do what they were called to do. This is the biblical example for us today. We need to get back to the basics of what the Holy Spirit has called us to do.

Why? Because it’s God’s plan. First Corinthians 1:22 says that by the foolishness of preaching, God has chosen to save the world. When the early church gave itself to prayer and to the Word, a whole new movement and revival broke out. Stephen, “a man full of God’s grace and Power” (Acts 6:8, NIV), helped usher this movement in. Men began to argue with him; however, “they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke” (Acts 6:10). My brothers and sisters, that’s what we need—the power of God. We can settle for nothing less because there are millions of people in this world who have no idea that they can come to Jesus and receive forgiveness and be sanctified wholly. And these people live right next door.

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IN LIEU OF LAMINATE

Daryl A. Diddle

Luke 14:25–35 (NASB)

If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

—Luke 14:26–27

I’m a fourth-generation Free Methodist kid. I was born into the Free Methodist Church, but I’m also a Free Methodist by choice. I love the doctrine and the heritage of my denomination, and I’m committed to it with all my heart.

I grew up in church, in a good church, yet I didn’t receive Christ until I went to college—at Kent State University, of all places. (In spite of what you may have heard, God is still alive and well at Kent State.) I was converted through the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. They met me while I was seeking the truth about my spiritual background, and I’m eternally grateful to those campus ministers who introduced me to Jesus.

Eventually, I followed a call to the ministry to Asbury Seminary, and it was there, in Al Coppedge’s theology class, that I was introduced to the possibility of sanctifying grace. By then I’d been a Christian long enough and knew enough of the Bible to know that something was missing in me. There was this struggle within me because my life didn’t line up with what Scripture says the Christian life should and can be.

After several appointments with Dr. Coppedge, who graciously and patiently led me through all God wanted to do in me, one night I knelt to pray. There on my knees I had a powerful encounter with God that left me sure I belonged to Him completely. When I stood up from the side of my dorm room bed, I knew there was nothing in me, no part of me, that would deny Him; and there was nothing I wouldn’t do for Him should He ask.

That’s where freedom in Christ really begins—in the power of the Spirit, living in us a life that says yes to Jesus today, tomorrow and forever. Anyone who says it doesn’t work has never honestly found that place of total surrender.

If by some chance that’s you today, keep searching, keep praying, keep asking. He’s at work in you, and He is always faithful to His Word.

Let’s read Luke 14:25–35.

Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

EMERGING DISILLUSIONMENT

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “the emerging church” or “the emergent church”? Do you bristle? Do you cheer? Do you know what’s behind it all?

The notion of the emergent church is quite pregnant, really; there’s a lot to it. Frankly, there’s good in it and there’s not-so-good in it.

The emergent church is also a slippery thing; it’s hard to take hold of firmly, and often it doesn’t mean the same thing to this person as it does to that person as it does to another person—all of whom might even claim to be a part of the emergent church.

Todd Mangum, an Associate Professor of Theology at Biblical Seminary near Philadelphia, describes it this way. He says, “‘Emergent’ is a loosely knit group of people in conversation about and trying experiments in how the people of God can forward the ministry of Jesus in new and different ways. From there, wide diversity abounds. ‘Emergents’ seem to share one common trait: disillusionment with the organized, institutional church as it has existed through the 20th century (whether fundamentalist, liberal, megachurch, or tall-steeple liturgical).1

According to Mangum, the strengths of the movement are that it’s "creative, energetic, youthful, authentic, [and] highly relational.”2 Its weaknesses are that it’s “somewhat cynical, disorganized, sometimes reckless (even in the theological ideas willing to be entertained), [and] immature.”3

Now, I don’t claim to be an expert in any way on the emergent church, nor do I consider myself a part of it or a particular fan of it. I’m not. I missed that movement by about 10 years, and I’m glad for that. But I’ve worked with enough college and seminary students in Wilmore, and I’ve read enough by Donald Miller and Brian McLaren to have a few opinions about it and about the opportunities the emerging church represents, particularly to our theological tradition.

I agree, more or less, with Mangum’s definition of emergent. I think he’s defined it fairly—as fairly as anyone can define so young a movement. Like I said, it’s slippery: What it looks like here is not necessarily what it looks like over there. In Mangum’s words, “wide diversity abounds.”

The movement’s most dangerous weakness, it seems to me, is its theological recklessness based, in some cases, on a weak view of the authority of Scripture. This seems to allow some emergers to slip, wittingly or not, into syncretistic relationships with eastern religions: Islam, Sikhism and even some of the spiritist ideas of traditional Native Americans.

I find it ironic that, even though there’s a super-strong focus on community in the emergent culture, there is still enough American individualism in there to make it okay to believe whatever might be satisfying to me. So, in some places, the emerging church—the cutting edge as it likes to be thought of—has in fact readopted the old, traditional American religious pluralism of the very mainline denominations from which it seeks to separate itself.

That’s tragic for those involved, but it doesn’t seem to me that individualism characterizes the whole of the emergent church. It shows up here and there, like it has in other traditions and movements over the years, particularly in their infancy.

The real test for the emerging church will be what it does over time with its theological recklessness and its approach to Scripture. Will this low view of Scripture become part of its fabric, or will it ultimately be weeded out? Some might think it’s already part of the fabric, but I’m not sure about that. In the bigger picture, I think we’re still waiting to see.

So, theological recklessness based in some circumstances on an iffy view of Scripture is the worst of the weaknesses of the emergent movement. I doubt many of us would argue with that; it’s pretty bad. Although the truth is the history of the church is full of movements with weaknesses based in the very same thing—either ignorance of Scripture or the intentional denial of its authority. Some have come around. Some have not, so we’ll see.

What I want to address, though, is what in my opinion is the best strength of the emerging church: its search for authenticity. If you go to most any emergent website, you’ll find one word repeated over and over again in some form: authentic.

AUTHENTIC SEARCHING

There is a search for honesty in the emergers. They want to be real with one another, with God, and with their world.

Now, some of that “realness” can be pretty uncomfortable, and honestly, even frightening, particularly to those of us who’ve been raised with a certain sense of reserve and propriety. When we see people hanging all their hang-ups out on their sleeves, then posting them on their blogs for all the world to see, we’re a little put off, at best.

But I suggest that the emergers are exactly what we should expect of children of the American church-growth movement.

The church-growth movement, which, let’s face it, has unfortunately made huge inroads into most of the churches and denominations of the holiness tradition, has created an artificiality in much, and maybe most, of the American evangelical church today.

The church-growth movement is the ecclesiastical equivalent of the bait-and-switch marketing mentality, used in this case to sell God to an unsuspecting public: Give them what we think they want, and then spring Jesus on them while they’re sipping their lattes in the auditorium (it’s not a sanctuary anymore). It’s a strategic production, planned down to the moment to look spontaneous. Most churches I’ve seen that have given in to the church-growth gospel are full of human effort made to look divine.

It’s fake, the emergers know it, and they’re reacting to it. Frankly, I don’t see how we can blame them.

When we moved into our house in Wilmore back in 1999, it was in need of updating. According to my wife, Annette, the pink cherub wallpaper in the bathroom that the house was decorated with in 1968 had to go. The cherubs didn’t bother me so much. It was the lime green linoleum in the kitchen that I wanted out.

We didn’t have big bucks for renovations, but with the money we had, and with my ability to do a little remodeling—given to me honestly by a father who, I can say with gratitude now, was too cheap to ever hire anyone to do anything around our house—my wife and I bought the last of the glue-together laminate flooring panels (before they came out with the stuff that interlocks), and we put down what looked like a plank-wood floor in our kitchen and dining room.

People would come in and say, “Wow, we didn’t know there was hardwood under that carpet and linoleum,” and Annette and I would just stand there and say, “Ummm.”

Things were good until the day Annette pulled the silverware drawer too far out of the buffet in the dining room, and the drawer and all the silverware—complete place settings for 18 plus all the serving utensils we had inherited from Annette’s grandparents—crashed down on that laminate floor.

You may have heard that laminate is indestructible. Believe me, it’s not.

Those falling forks and knives made huge gashes in our new floor. They took big chunks out of the dark surface and exposed the white wood-plastic-composite-whatever-it’s-made-of underneath.

It was then that we discovered the dirty little secret about laminate: It looks good, it looks rich, it looks substantial…on top. But if you dig into it very deeply at all, you discover it’s not real.

Laminate looks great on the surface, but underneath that thin layer of attractive-looking plastic, there’s nothing worth looking at. There’s no integrity to the product; there’s no consistency. It’s not the same all the way through.

The emergers are emergers, in most cases, because they’ve grown up on ecclesiastical laminate. They’re looking for authenticity because they’ve chipped the covering off their churches and haven’t found a lot of integrity underneath. Once the Sunday morning show is over, then what do they do? They’ve found that the jumpy choruses their parents sing every Sunday just don’t lift the luggage when there’s tragedy in the family. They’ve never been taught any church history because most of church growth says the only things worthwhile are those thins that are five years old and younger. What’s a creed? What’s the Book of Common Prayer? What’s a hymnal?

That’s why you see these things popping up again in the emergent churches. They want to know; they’re groping to find answers to the questions: Do we have a root system? Do we have a history? Is there something deeper, something more significant, something more powerful than what they grew up hearing every week, which is, “Jesus died for you; pray this prayer and receive Him. You do that, and you’re good.”

The emergent church is the natural outcome of the church-growth movement, although church growth isn’t the only laminate the emergers have encountered and are reacting to. There are other laminates out there.

Some of the emergers are reacting to the laminate of the mainline denominations, and by mainline, I mean any group of churches that defines itself more by what they don’t believe than by what they do. “We don’t believe in the virgin birth; we don’t believe in a historical Jesus; we don’t believe in the authority of Scripture; we don’t believe in the Incarnation; we don’t believe in a literal resurrection, or in an apocalypse, or in a devil or a hell.” Talk about a laminate! What’s the point of even getting together on Sunday morning?

Others emergers are reacting to the laminate of cold formalism—religion that might truly be alive and well in the brain but is dead and stiff in the heart. There are emergers who have grown up in churches that are orthodox but that have no life, no warmth, or no vibrancy in their expression, and these emergers are thinking, If the gospel is true, shouldn’t a message like that change your life, not just for eternity but for today? Shouldn’t the hope of Christ change your outlook? Shouldn’t it change your attitude? Shouldn’t it maybe even change your countenance? If Jesus died to bring us life, then where is it? We sure don’t see it here.

Other emergers have experienced the laminate of the Reformed theological tradition. They’ve looked at how their church defines sin and grace and salvation, and they wonder if there isn’t more to it than that.

May I say, the Reformed theological tradition—which dominates Christian literature, Christian bookstores, Christian videos, and is so prevalent in the growing number of independent churches—offers simple answers, but not ultimately satisfying answers to the big questions of life, such as these:

- How do I relate with God personally?

- What is the role of the Holy Spirit in my life?

- What does it really mean to say that God is sovereign?

- Why is there evil in the world?

- Does God really care about me, personally?

- What about those places in Scripture that talk about being perfect and holy? Is that really possible? If not, why is it in there? If so, then how does it happen?

Emergers are looking for more than proof-text answers to questions like these and lots of others. They’re looking for the greater themes in Scripture and how they apply to real life. They’re hungry for real relationships with people and with God, and they’re finding some of those Reformed ideas and doctrines aren’t really satisfying their souls. They sense there’s something more than the laminate of Reformed theology, and they’re looking for it.

There are also some emergers who are reacting to the laminate of fake holiness. Some emergers have heard the holiness message. They’ve heard they can have a clean heart, but they’ve heard it from people who haven’t really lived it. Let’s be honest; I’ve met IRS agents who were more patient and kind than some holiness people I’ve known.

You know the saying “You’re the only Bible some people will ever read.” Well, those of us within the holiness tradition are the proof that the holiness message works. If we’re faking it, if we’re living a lie, then we’re the laminate of the holiness message that some of the emergers are reacting against.

LOSE THE LAMINATE

The emergers are sick of laminate, wherever they find it. They’re looking for hardwood; they’re looking for a consistent product with integrity all the way through. They’ve grown up in a world of gimmicks and in a world of artificial churches, friendships, marriages, sweeteners—almost everything artificial, and now they’re looking for something real.

In Luke 14, Jesus has been giving the crowd a pretty steady diet of miracles and good preaching, and they are loving it. Nothing draws a crowd faster, even today, than a little glitz and a polished preacher.

Most people love it when the masses follow them. But we discover pretty quickly in Scripture that crowds don’t impress Jesus at all. He won’t accept an artificial following.

How about that? Jesus doesn’t like laminate, either.

In fact, it almost seems like He’s trying to talk people out of following Him here, because just when things are going great, from a human perspective, Jesus comes up with an incredibly intense sifting statement in verses 26-27.

So much of Christian leadership today says, “Do whatever you can to draw a crowd. Once you get your crowd, bring them along slowly, easily. Whatever you do, don’t scare them away; don’t lay too many demands on people; don’t give ’em the hard stuff too fast (if ever); just let them ease into it”— whatever “it” might be: work, school, adulthood, responsibility, even faith.

According to that philosophy, Jesus blew it big time here because He is a person of integrity. He doesn’t hammer people over the head, but neither will He string people along. He’s not into the bait-and-switch thing. He gives it to people straight. He says to the crowd, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple" (vv. 26-27).

Jesus says those words, and you can hear the whole crowd inhale at the same time.

There are disciples of Jesus, and then there are just members of the crowd. All Jesus was doing here was sorting them out, one from another.

A college professor was asked by one of her colleagues, “That young man over there—isn’t he a student of yours?” The professor looked at the student and replied, “That young man has indeed attended my classes, but I can assure you, he is no student of mine.”

Jesus has integrity. He’s not interested in drawing crowds. He won’t go along to get along. He won’t even think about hiding the truth for the sake of keeping a crowd happy. For this crowd in particular, Jesus knew it was time for them to understand what discipleship really meant, so He laid it out for them.

He says that unless we’re willing, if need be, to be separated from everything and everyone who interferes with our relationship to Him, we’re no disciple of His. That’s hardwood. There’s no laminate in that.

“YOU'RE THE ONLY HARDWOOD…”

The churches of the holiness tradition have been entrusted with a message of truth and grace to pass on to our world. Simply stated, too simply maybe, the truth part is: To be a disciple of Jesus means that you love Him and choose Him above all else, every time. Those are Jesus’ words in Luke 14.

The grace part is: The Holy Spirit is alive and well and, if invited, He will enter into the heart of a believer and transform that person in such a way that allows him or her to love Jesus (and others) perfectly—with pure motives and a clean conscience.

The truth of the gospel: Discipleship demands perfect love.

The grace of the gospel: The Holy Spirit provides it.

The complete gospel: God demands, and God provides.

So much of the American church today doesn’t believe God can provide the love required to meet the demand, so they simply don’t preach the demand. Their gospel is incomplete, and the people in the pew are left wondering why there isn’t more power to overcome sin, why there isn’t more love available to them to meet the demands of everyday life, let alone the demands of life at its extremes.

We, however, can preach the demand because we know the Spirit will meet it in the life of every willing believer.

This energizes me because maybe more than any other group of people before, I think the emergent church crowd is ripe to receive this holiness message. It’s truth, and it’s grace. It’s consistent, and it has integrity—all the way through. It’s hardwood in a laminate culture, and deep down, that’s what they want. They’re looking for it. They need it.

LOVE THE MESSY

I know some of the emergers’ groping is messy. That shouldn’t surprise anybody, and we can’t dwell on that.

Instead, I challenge you to ask the Lord to give you a love, a special love, for the emergers. Ask Him to burden you for them, maybe give you the opportunity to know them one by one and talk with them about your walk with God and about what He’s done for you and in you.

I’m convinced that the emergent church just might be the most fruitful harvest field that our tradition has ever known. Emergent holiness—can you imagine that? They’re ripe for real. They’re set for substantial. They’re craving consistency.

If there was ever a time to not compromise the message of the complete gospel—salvation and sanctification—the full gospel, it’s now. If there was ever a time to make sure we’re prayed up and filled up with the Spirit, it’s now. The last thing we want to do is contribute to the misery of the emergers’ laminate world in the name of holiness.

Now, if you can’t testify to the moving of God upon your heart since you were sanctified back on March 13, 1993, or 1973 or 1953, then please, please, let the Spirit become real to you again before you try to speak to the emergers, or anyone else, about the work of the Spirit in your life.

If your walk with God is current, then you have a message that our world— and a huge segment of the church—needs to hear. Preach it with your life and with your lips, in that order.

But maybe you know that all is not right between you and God. Maybe you recognize that a hardness has crept in over the years. Maybe there’s a pride inside you that’s caused in you an unwillingness to be honest with yourself or your family or your church about who you really are, about who you’ve become. Maybe you lack love for the emergers or the lost or the messy people of the world. I say to you with all the love in my heart, don’t let that go. God stands before you with open arms and calls you back to Him. Run to Him, that the joy of your salvation might return, that you might be filled and refilled with the Spirit, that you might be thoroughly equipped for every good work, and that you might live the holy life with integrity before the emergers and every other seeking soul.

1. As quoted in The Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry. Vol. 5, No. 2 Fall 2008. Found on Page 78. www.baptistcenter.com/JBTM_5-2_Baptists_in_Dialogue_Fall_08.pdf. Retrieved July 13, 2010.

2. "Emerging Church" WorldLingo. www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Emerging_Church#cite_note-0. Accessed on July 13, 2010.

3. Ibid.

4

THREE BLESSINGS
OF HOLINESS

James H. Diehl

2 Timothy 1:6–7 (NKJV)

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

—2 Timothy 1:7

The veteran, battle-scarred apostle Paul was in prison again—but not because he was a criminal. He was there because he was the leader of the church of Jesus Christ. He had been beaten often on the journey. I see him as being somewhat bent over after being worked over and left for dead several times. His voice wasn’t as strong as it had been. There he was, chained to a small pole in the middle of the prison cell. Instead of complaining, he picked up his pen again and started to write to his spiritual son, Timothy.

As I was preparing to preach a series of messages on 2 Timothy, I learned from my background study that this was not just another prison for Paul—it was his last one. Evidently the guards had come in and announced to Paul that the end had come. They would soon take him out of his cell and march him down the road to the place where he would be martyred. I can almost hear the rough prison guard say to Paul, “Whatever you are writing, Mr. Paul, hurry and get it finished. It will only be a few days before we walk the road together. Hurry up! Get it written!”

After this dismal announcement, Paul penned these words to Timothy:

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing (2 Timothy 4:6–8).

His departure day was close—not a departure to another country or for another missionary journey, but his forced departure from this world.

Paul was on death row! He knew the end was at hand. I wrote in my Bible at the top of the page for 2 Timothy, “Last Words from Death Row.” I have written those words in every Bible I’ve used since that study. Understanding the background changes the way this letter reads. In other words, it reads like this: “Timothy, my son, don’t forget this. Timothy, I won’t be able to remind you of that again. Timothy, be sure to do this, and make sure you avoid that!”

Now let’s go back to the first part of this letter from “death row” and pick up a few powerful truths.

Paul’s first reminder to Timothy (and to us in the 21st century) was “Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands” (2 Timothy 1:6). The NIV says, “I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you.” Paul knew that the nature of fire, even holy fire, is to burn down and flicker out unless more fuel is added and it is stirred up from time to time. I have never known a time when that reminder was needed more than today. We urgently need the Holy Spirit to “fan into flame the gift of God” (1:6, NIV) that is within us. We need Him to fan into flame the Spirit of God in our church services. That’s why I am such a believer in revivals. Our souls and our churches need the fanning of the holy flame within or we will cool off and soon have nothing but dead ashes left at our core.

People are not attracted to a church that has no holy fire burning within. No one is helped by listening to a sermon from a preacher who has lost the fire. Listen to this scarred saint of God today as he pleads with us from death row to wait before God until the holy flame within is stirred to brighter burning.

Then Paul pens the words I have chosen to call the three blessings of holiness. He doesn’t describe just one blessing from God in the life of the sanctified, but three powerful ones: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

FILLED WITH POWER INSTEAD OF BOUND BY FEAR

The Scriptures refer to Satan as “a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He is also referred to as a serpent. In addition to these word pictures, I see Satan as a spider. Even after a person is born again and later filled with the Holy Spirit in sanctifying power, Satan, the spider, tries to spin a web of fear around us—strand upon strand of fear. We become afraid to say anything to the people with whom we work about Jesus. Or we’re afraid to tell someone about God’s grace at work in our lives. We may be afraid to say anything about the Lord to the other kids at school, afraid to take a stand against the sins in our society, or afraid to bow our heads in a restaurant to pray a quick prayer of thanksgiving over the meal for fear people around us will see and think we are strange. The “Satan spider” even spins a web of fear around preachers, causing them to be afraid to preach holiness messages to this secular generation or afraid to preach biblical truths that would confront all the sins of our society. We may be just plain afraid—full of fear.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t want us to be bound by fear. He wants to fill us with power—God’s power. He wants to give us power to live Christlike lives in a sin-filled society, power to be holy in our hearts in an extremely unholy world, power to live victoriously in Christ.

I am a firm believer in praying specific prayers if we want specific answers, and there are many wonderful people reading this message who need to pray a specific prayer: “Lord, break the strands of fear that have been woven around me. Fill me with a new, fresh power from the very throne of God.” This is not a prayer for power to show off but for a holy power within to make a difference for Jesus Christ in this world. Go ahead, pray this prayer right now: “Lord, set me free from fear and fill me with Your power.” This is one of the blessings of holiness God wants to give you.

FILLED WITH LOVE INSTEAD OF BOUND BY BITTERNESS

If fear is the opposite of power, what is the opposite of love? It is hatred. I have learned in my journey through life that hatred is never born in our hearts as hatred. It starts by being hurt. Someone (even in the church) hurts you. They say something about you that is absolutely not true, and it cuts you to the quick. They may organize a campaign to get you voted out as the pastor, or a totally unfair divorce happens to you, or you lose your job even though your reviews were much more positive than those who remain employed. The illustrations could go on forever because in this world every one of us will be hurt—deeply hurt. I remind you that even Spirit-filled, sanctified Christians get hurt. There is no state of grace that makes you immune to being wounded in your innermost being.

If we do not take our hurt, our woundedness, to Christ and surrender it (or him, her, or them) to Him, that hurt will turn into bitterness. If we do not relinquish our bitterness to Jesus, it will turn into resentment. If we don’t let go of that resentment and place it on the altar of God, it will turn into hatred. Hatred will not make it into heaven, and neither will bitterness. I don’t see an epidemic of hatred among Christians throughout the church, but I do see an epidemic of bitterness. Paul, from death row, cries out to us in this harsh, sarcastic, cynical society, “The Holy Spirit can fill your heart with love!”

God’s love poured out in our hearts is the opposite of bitterness. His love within enables us to relinquish those strong feelings of resentment we are hanging on to against the people of God who wounded us. It even makes it possible for us to forgive our enemies. Yes, the Holy Spirit can cleanse our hearts from bitterness, resentment and hatred. Praise God forever!

But we must let go of the hurts. In our holiness language we say, “Put them on the altar of God and leave them there.” I declare to you today from my own personal experience that when the hurt (and the persons responsible for causing the hurt) are given, surrendered and relinquished to God, the Holy Spirit will cleanse our hearts from all bitterness and fill us with divine love. Really! But we must ask. We must be willing to let it go. We must pray specifically for God to set us free from the bitterness within and believe specifically for God’s healing, cleansing answer.

As the apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian Christians, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:30–32). One of the blessings of holiness is that God can cleanse us from bitterness and fill us with His blessed love. Are you ready to let go of the hurt and the one who hurt you? Do it now!

FILLED WITH SELF-CONTROL INSTEAD OF BOUND BY SELFISHNESS

If power is the opposite of fear and love is the opposite of bitterness, then self-control is the opposite of selfishness. The natural man (without Christ) is self-centered from the day of his birth. You do not have to teach a child to yell, “Mine!” I want my way is the attitude we all inherited from our earthly father, Adam. But God has something better for us. He wants to set us free from the bonds of selfishness and fill us with self-control (or self-discipline, if you will).

If we are going to live this overcoming Christian life as described in Romans 8, we must have the Holy Spirit’s power within to enable us to say yes to the right things and no to the wrong things. Spirit-filled self-discipline is enough to strengthen us to walk away (or run, in the case of Joseph), to turn the TV channel, to say “no, thanks” when the compromising offer is made, or to put first things first in life. No one likes preaching on self-discipline, but without it we will utterly fail as Christians. And here, from death row, Paul reminds us that one of the blessings from the Holy Spirit is self-discipline. Do you need to pray a specific prayer along this line? If so, do it now. God wants to set you free from the bondage of selfishness.

During the early months of my ministry as senior pastor of Denver First Church of the Nazarene, I felt anything but filled with power, love and self-discipline. I had not disobeyed God on any issue, nor had I stopped reading the Scriptures and praying. My problem was stress—pressure and extreme anxiety deep within my being.

The problem was that the church I served had worked its way into a crisis. It started with a financial crisis, but then it grew to other things. As the church’s shepherd-leader, I had to insist that all 12 church-leased cars for the full-time staff members be returned to the dealership. You can imagine how that boosted morale among the staff! I had to oversee the closing of the church’s school. This infuriated the parents of those children. I had to lead the way in belt tightening (including lowering the pastor’s salary—my salary) and other actions too difficult and complex to describe here. In the midst of all these pressures, a sheriff’s deputy walked into my office during Christmas week and asked if I was James Diehl. I was naive enough to think he was taking boxes of chocolates to all the pastors in the county as a way of saying merry Christmas. Therefore, with a big smile I said, “Yes, Jim Diehl here.” Instead of chocolates, he served me with a lawsuit coming from a former staff member (who had left the church over two years before) charging the church with wage and sex discrimination. The suit was for thousands of dollars, and the church had no insurance coverage for this. I was feeling anything but filled with holy power, love and self-control. I was filled with anxiety, inner turmoil and fear. It was all too big and complex for me. I found myself praying for the rapture to come before midnight.

A few weeks later, in the context just described, I walked into my office on a Friday morning and announced to my secretary, Lois, that in my state of mind I could not preach on Sunday. I was about to explode. I asked her to cancel my appointments for the day because I was going to our cabin about an hour away in the Colorado mountains, and I told her, “I will stay there until God does something for me.” I couldn’t go on one more day. The pressure was overwhelming. I added, “I hope I get back before Sunday.”

Once at the cabin, I headed out into the forest and started praying—crying and praying. I told God about all the impossibilities that were weighing in on us. I reminded Him that we had done all we knew to do. And on top of it all, now we had a lawsuit to deal with (which, by the way, ended up costing the church significant dollars). I told the Lord that I wished I had never said yes to this pastorate. I couldn’t go on. It was all impossible.

Finally, I sat down on a tree stump, looked down the mountainside and across the valley to the mountain range before me and confessed my entire load of fears to the Lord. At ten thousand feet, at a place called St. Mary’s Glacier, God whispered to me, “It isn’t your church. It’s My church. Give it to Me.” It came to my soul like a ray of brilliant sunlight. “It isn’t my church. It isn’t my church. Praise God, it isn’t my church!” I jumped up, started kicking twigs and praising God, saying, “I forgot, Lord. I kept thinking it was my church. Forgive me. It’s Your church. Therefore, Lord, You’ve got some big problems.”

Without explaining all that happened on the mountain that Friday, let me summarize by saying that the Holy Spirit “fan[ned] into flame the gift of God” (2 Timothy 1:6, NIV) within me and set my soul on fire. The strands of fear had been broken. Even the feelings of bitterness (especially toward the one who brought forth the lawsuit) had been cleansed. My soul had been set free on the mountainside on a Friday afternoon.

On Sunday morning I was preaching the message to that great congregation. Halfway through the sermon I told about my experience on Friday. I told the people of my anxiety, inner pressure, turmoil and so forth; then I told them how the still, small voice of the Spirit had said to me, “It’s My church.” I gave an invitation for others who had situations and problems that were overwhelming. I urged them to come and give it all to Jesus Christ—now! The entire front of that huge sanctuary filled with weeping, praying people giving hundreds upon hundreds of peace-stealing situations to the Lord. It was a service we will never forget. Bless the name of the Lord!

The next Friday our church board secretary, George Turner, called me. George was a bank president and, in many ways, was “Mr. Nazarene” in Denver, Colorado. He said in his business voice, “Pastor, I’ve received two letters this week about your sermon last Sunday.” The last thing I needed was two more letters. He wanted to tell me about them, though I didn’t want to hear. He continued anyway, “Pastor, both letters said about the same thing, although with different words. They said, ‘Whatever it takes to get the pastor to the mountain every Friday, get him to the mountain! We could tell last Sunday that Pastor had been with God on the mountain. Send him back up there every Friday!’”

What was it? I was as sanctified as I know how to be, but anxiety, pressure and even hurts had stolen my joy, peace, power and even love. I gave it all back to God on that mountain. He came to rekindle the inner, holy flame! He renewed my power, love and even self-discipline, and the entire congregation could tell the difference.

Today, right now, ask the Holy Spirit to fan the flame within your soul. Give, surrender and relinquish everything and every person who has inflicted hurts and wounds on your spirit. Let it go! God wants to give you at least three blessings (and no doubt many more) through the power of His Holy Spirit: power, love and self-control. The Spirit is ready to “fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you” (2 Timothy 1:6, NIV). Are you ready to “let go and let God”?

As children bring their broken toys,

With tears for us to mend,

I brought my broken dreams to God

Because He was my friend.

But then, instead of leaving Him

In peace to work alone,

I hung around and tried to help

With ways that were my own.

At last I snatched them back and cried,

“How can You be so slow?”

“My child,” He said, “what could I do?

You never did let go.”

—author unknown

5

CALLED TO PERFECTION

Mark Fuller

Matthew 5:48 (NIV)

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

—Matthew 5:48

Matthew 5:48 says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” That is a tough one. What does Jesus mean by that command? Is He really serious about our being perfect like our heavenly Father is perfect?

In my research I’ve discovered different reads on this. Some, possibly trying to water down the command of Jesus, that high calling to perfection, have indicated this really wasn’t what Jesus said. Jesus really didn’t say these words; this was an overzealous scribe who kind of took what Jesus said to the next level, and that’s really what we need to understand this as—not as His specific words. Others say, “What Jesus is talking about is an ideal to aim for, to shoot for. We’ll never arrive at that perfection here in this life, but Jesus is trying to challenge us and call us to that level of perfection.”

Those explanations were not very satisfying to me, so I kept digging. That’s what we do, right? We keep digging until God reveals to us His plan and purpose and will. As a result of my search, I found some clues.

Before we look at those clues, however, let me clarify what Jesus does not mean by this verse: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” In a great classic sermon on Christian perfection, John Wesley endeavored to show the ways in which Christians are not perfect. I just want to touch on them quickly.

First of all, we are not perfect in knowledge; only God is all knowing. We will never know and understand everything; in fact, understanding is not a requirement for walking in holiness. It is obedience and devotion to God. We will never be perfectly knowing in all aspects of this.

Wesley also points out that Christian perfection is not freedom or perfection from mistakes. It happens to all of us; we all make mistakes from time to time. It’s going to happen.

Third, Christian perfection is not being perfect from infirmities. By infirmities Wesley not only means sickness and disease but also cultural, genetic disorders. Those transcend the holiness experience in our lives. But God is so holy He can use even those things to accomplish His will and purpose in our lives.

Finally, Christians will never be free from temptation.

When I preached this in my congregation, I had just had a conversation with one of our members. He’s in his 70s, and he’s been serving the Lord for over 50 years. I said, “Don, do you still get tempted?”

He said, “Oh, Pastor, every day.”

“You’re kidding me. You would think after 50-some years the devil would just kind of let up on you, but he doesn’t.”

To be human is to be tempted. We will always be tempted.

John Wesley addressed how we are not made perfect, but in what sense, then, are we made perfect? Let’s dig into this verse that Jesus articulates for us here in this Sermon on the Mount.

The first clue is buried in the very term Jesus used. Perfect refers to the original word. The original word here in the Greek, translated perfect, is telos. I’m taking time to give you a little Greek lesson here because this is a very important word. According to The American Heritage ® Dictionary, telos means “the end of a goal-oriented process.”1 It’s interesting to me that this is the same word Jesus used when He hung on the Cross. He uttered those immortal words, “It is telos”(John 19:30)—it’s finished; it’s complete.

You see, Jesus understood His mission when He walked this earth. He did not come here just to teach, although He was a master teacher. He did not come here just to perform miracles, although everyone with whom He came in contact was touched by the power of God. Jesus came for one purpose: He came to seek and to save those who were lost. Every day of His life, everything He did was to fulfill the Father’s purpose for Him—to die on the Cross for the sins of the world, period. That was and is His mission. And when He declared on the Cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30), He was saying, “Mission accomplished. It’s done.” And in the same way, Jesus calls you and me to be perfect.

Christian perfection means one thing: Living your life focused on Jesus and His will. Everything else fades into the background; it’s insignificant. The apostle Paul understood this: “I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash… everything else I used to take credit for” (Philippians 3:7, MSG). Paul could take credit for a lot of things. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was an exemplary Jew. He could talk and banter and debate with the most brilliant of his day. But he says I’m throwing it all in the trash. Why? “Because of Christ. . . . everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him” (Philippians 3:7–9, MSG). “That is my passion,” Paul says. “That’s my singleness of purpose. Everything I do, every relationship, everywhere I go I want people to see Jesus in and through me. I want to lift Him up.”

That’s, in a sense, what Jesus is talking about. Christian perfection means to will one thing.

Let me illustrate this. I bought a brand-new baseball glove yesterday. It’s right off the shelf, still has the tags on it. Not a blemish or a scratch on it. A perfect glove.

I have another glove. This glove I’ve had on my shelf for three decades. It’s taken me a lot of places, but it’s got some smudges on it, some scrapes on it— even a blood stain. (That’s another story!) Would you pay top dollar at the store for my 30-year-old glove? No, you wouldn’t. But I maintain that this glove is as perfect as the brand-new glove because it is fulfilling its created purpose. And Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Perfection means to will one thing.

CALLED TO A PERFECTION OF PURPOSE

Jesus calls us to a perfection of purpose. Whatever your background, regardless of your pedigree or lack thereof, regardless of what you have been through, if you will offer Jesus Christ your wholehearted devotion, He will make you perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Now, it won’t happen if He’s fourth place, third place, second place. Somebody said, “Unless He’s Lord of all He will not be Lord at all.” He must be your first and all-consuming purpose. That’s the first clue to what Jesus is talking about here.

Second clue: Therefore refers to the original context. My hermeneutics professor, Dr. Morris Weigelt, taught me, “Whenever you see a therefore in Scripture, you look and see what it’s there for.” So let’s look at the context. In verses 43–45, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” Jesus showed the link between being perfect and loving your enemies. Christian perfection means loving your enemy. And that, more than anything else, is God’s love shed abroad in our hearts, the defining litmus test of what a holy life looks like—blessing those who curse us, loving our enemies. Jesus fleshes this out in Luke 6:27–30. This is how The Message puts it:

Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.

Love in return for evil is the litmus test of the holy life.

You know the story of Corrie ten Boom, a woman incarcerated in a Nazi death camp during WWII, along with her father and sister. I’ve been to the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. It is one of the most sobering, abhorrent experiences I’ve ever had. Mr. ten Boom died in a different camp, and Corrie saw her sister die right in front of her eyes as a result of the malnutrition, torture and horrific conditions of the camp. After the war, Corrie wrote several books and traveled for many years preaching and teaching around the world. Here’s a bit of her reflection on an encounter she had after the war, when one of the very guards who had tortured her family came and asked for her forgiveness:

That moment I felt great bitterness swelling in my heart. I want to forgive this person, but how can I do that? I knew that unforgiveness would do more harm to me than the guard’s whip, so I cried out to the Lord, “Lord, thank you for Romans 5:5: ‘The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us’ (KJV). Thank you, Lord, that your love in me can do what I cannot do. I could not do it, I was not able. But Jesus in me was able to do it.

She concludes with these words: “You see, you never touch so much the ocean of God’s love than when you love your enemy.” That’s what the world is waiting to see in the church; they’re waiting to see that we will love people who have different lifestyles than ours, a different value system. We’re not talking about compromising the truth; we don’t need to compromise the truth, but we need to speak the truth in love every single day.

CALLED TO A PERFECTION OF LOVE

Jesus calls us to a perfection of love. This love Jesus is talking about here transcends human capacity. Some time ago, Dr. Dennis Kinlaw said, “This is not human love on steroids.” That’s not what Jesus is talking about here—kind of working ourselves up, forcing ourselves to love when it’s not really there. No, we have to jettison our self-generated love, and we need to receive right from the throne of God His divine love to fill our beings.

That leads to the third clue: Perfection is possible only through God’s power. The power to love perfectly can come only from Him. The last thing Jesus promised His followers before He ascended into heaven was His divine power, enabling them to be a loving witness in their world: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

That’s God’s call to us; that’s Jesus’ challenge to us—His promise and His challenge. In the story of Corrie ten Boom, she quoted Romans 5:5: “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” He’s the key. Christian perfection requires being filled with the Holy Spirit. If we try to serve God in our own ability, I will fail and you will fail. If we try to overcome temptation in the flesh, I will fail and you will fail. If I try to serve and love my enemies in my own ability, I will fail every time, because if I try to love others in my own power it will not work. It is not by force nor by strength, but by My Spirit, says the Lord. The good news Jesus promised is that He would give His Holy Spirit to all who place their trust in Him.

In John 14:16–17, Jesus said, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.” You see, the moment we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, His Spirit comes and takes up residence in our lives. But here’s the challenge of Christian perfection: The Holy Spirit will never force His way where He is not invited.

My father, Gene Fuller, told me something once. He said, “Mark, I was reading the other day and it came to me that all of the images of the Holy Spirit, the symbols of the Holy Spirit in the Bible—fire, wind, water, oil—do you notice they all take the path of least resistance? Isn’t that interesting? The Holy Spirit is the most sensitive of the Godhead; He will only go where He is invited. That’s why the Scripture says, ‘Do not grieve the Holy Spirit’ (Ephesians 4:30); ‘do not put out the Spirit’s fire’” (1 Thessalonians 5:19). He may be a resident in your life, but He cannot be president until He has complete control of everything that you are. And this is where many followers of Christ become defeated; we try to live in our own ability.

Let me illustrate it this way. Let’s say my baseball glove, designed to catch balls, is your life. If I place the glove on the ground and throw a baseball at it, is the glove likely to make the catch? Of course not.

Now, if I place my hand, which will represent the Holy Spirit in our illustration, in the glove and ask my friend to throw a few with me, the glove will do what it was designed to do.

Likewise, even though you (the glove) are designed to love God and others, and even though you may be passionate about fulfilling this purpose for which you were created, you are utterly helpless to do so until you are filled with the Spirit of God (the hand). At this point, my illustration breaks down because my baseball glove doesn’t have a will. You have a will; I have a will. That’s what makes it even more challenging. We’ve got to die to our will, and let Him take control every moment of every day.

And here’s the best part. Remember my beat-up, old glove? I still say it’s perfect, and here’s why. Every ball player will tell you a glove really isn’t a glove until you break it in. New ones are stiff and difficult to manage. God has to break us in. He has to bend us. He has to beat on us. He has to twist us and roll us. And you know what? He uses all the circumstances and events in our lives, even when we’d like to say, “God, if that hadn’t happened, I could have . . .” No, God doesn’t waste anything. He uses it all to make us telios, perfect in His image.

CALLED TO A PERFECTION OF DEPENDENCE

Jesus calls us to a perfection of dependence on Him. So when Jesus says you can be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, He doesn’t mean you’ll be free from mistakes or misjudgments or infirmities or temptations. In fact, God even uses those things to make you like himself. It doesn’t mean you’ll have perfect judgment. You can have all kinds of scars and tears and rips and smudges in your life and still be perfect as long as you love God with all of your heart, all of your soul, mind, and strength.

Jesus calls you to be perfect. It is a perfection of purpose as you daily focus on Him; it’s a perfection of love that brings out the best in you when the world puts the worst on you. I remember Dr. James Diehl asking several years ago, “What comes out of you when life puts a squeeze on?” Whatever we’re filled with, that’s what’s going to come out. I want to be so filled with Jesus that when the world squeezes in on me, when my enemies surround me, when all hell is breaking loose around me, it will be His Spirit and His love that will flow out for His glory.

I’ve been in the church all my life, but serving in the church in leadership, I’ve seen the underbelly of things. It’s easy to get a little frustrated with the institutional paralysis of bureaucracy, and I have said some things in certain settings that were pretty cynical and sarcastic. One night as I was listening to a message preached by Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, the Holy Spirit nailed me. He said, “Mark, I really want to use you to frame My gloriously liberating message of holiness in the 21st century. But I can’t use you when your attitude’s like that, when you’re cynical of My bride, when you’re sarcastic. I can’t use you.” I humbled myself that night, and I said, “Lord, open up the floodgates of heaven.”

Not much has changed in the frustrations I feel, but God has renewed me, and my love for His church is burning brightly. I’m more committed than ever to be His herald, to be His messenger, to call a world that wants to see genuine, authentic holiness lived out. I want to live that way. How about you?

1. telos. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/telos (accessed: July 14, 2010).

6

THE GIFT OF
TRANSFORMATION

David Graves

Romans 6:5–14 (NIV)

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

—Romans 6:8

I want to see a move of God where I live and where I pastor. And I want to see a great move of God in my heart and in the people I pastor. It seems like we’re in between two groups of people in our churches: a group of people who are desperate and hungry and longing for a move of God, and another group who have given up hope. They’ve given up belief that what we have taught and what we have preached and what our church was founded upon is even a possibility. Oh, it sounds good on paper, and it might even sound good being preached, but when they get out there in the real world, it’s not reality.

I’m reminded of a young man who came to see me not too long ago. We chatted a little bit about his life, getting acquainted. And then I asked him, “What can I do for you today?”

A HUNGER FOR HOLINESS

“Well, Pastor, I have a deep hunger in my heart to live a holy life. I really do want to be all God wants me to be. I struggle and I pray and I try, and I do okay for a little while, and then I find myself right back where I started. Then I repent and I confess my sins and go along well for a little while, and then I find myself right back struggling with pride and jealousy and envy. I find myself caught up with materialism. I find myself struggling with lust. I’m on the computer, and the next thing I know I’m looking at things on the Internet I shouldn’t be looking at. I sit and watch TV, and I find myself searching for things that will feed the lust in my flesh. I want to slap one hand with the other and say, ‘Stop doing that,’ yet I find myself constantly going back and watching movies I shouldn’t be watching.And then I get out and compete in sports with my friends. When I’m winning, everything’s great, but when I start losing, that old temper comes back and I get angry and filled with rage. Then the words and the language I used to use come back. Pastor, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I live this holy live that I’ve heard you and others preach?” Then he added, “What’s wrong with God? And what’s wrong with His grace that I’ve heard about most of my life that it doesn’t work for me?”

As this man talked, I realized he’s just one of hundreds like him in my church. If we believe the statistics that 50 percent of Christian men view pornography, then this young man was not the only one in my church struggling to live a holy life. And if a high percentage of pastors are viewing pornography, struggling with the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, then this young man is not the only one who is struggling to live a holy life.

That day as I sat there in my office, I felt the Lord lead me to take my Bible and say, “I want to share some things with you. I don’t want to preach to you; I just want to share God’s Word with you.” And I turned to Romans 6.

UNITED WITH CHRIST

I said to this young man, “We need to start at the beginning. Romans 6:5 says, ‘If we have been united with him . . .’ Stop right there with me for a moment. Have you been united with Christ?”

“What does that really mean?”

“Have you joined Christ’s team? Brett Favre played for the Green Bay Packers for 16 years, and then he got traded to the New York Jets. Have you changed teams? Have you gone from the devil’s team to Christ’s team?”

“Well, what do you mean?”

“Have you ever asked Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins? Have you confessed your sins to Him and repented?”

“Yes, Pastor, I have.”

“That means you have been united with Him; you are part of His team now. You have moved from Satan’s team to Christ’s team. You’ve made that change; He has come to live within you. You understand that?”

“Yes sir, I do understand that.”

“Then let’s read on. Verse 6 says, ‘For we know that our old self was crucified with him.’ Stop right there for just a moment. Not only have you changed teams by repenting—or confessing—your sins, you’ve opened up your heart and invited Jesus Christ to be your Savior, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then not only must you change teams, but you also need to be crucified with Him.”

“What?”

CRUCIFIED AND RESURRECTED WITH CHRIST

“You need to be crucified with Him. Verse 5 says, ‘If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.’ Verse 6 goes on to say ‘For we know that our old self was crucified with him.’ You understand when someone was crucified, he died. This walk with Jesus is more than just asking Him to forgive your sins and crying over the bad things you’ve done. It’s more than saying, ‘Lord, I want You to keep me out of hell.’ It’s coming to the place where you are willing to die with Christ, to die to yourself, to die to your way of doing things, to die to controlling your own life. It’s more than just you calling the shots, you doing what you want to do when you want to do it, how you want to do it; it is dying to yourself and making Christ the Lord of your life. It means dying to Satan; he no longer is pulling your strings. He no longer is controlling your life. Now you have surrendered ultimate control of who you are and all you are to the control of Jesus Christ. That’s what it means to die with Him. It means to die to sin, to pride, to jealousy, to envy, to the lust of the flesh and to the pride of life. It means dying to all of those things. Are you willing to die? Are you willing to be crucified with Him?”

He didn’t answer right away. He was thinking about it. I said, “Look at verse 11 with me. ‘In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.’ You are to die to yourself and to sin and to Satan, but you don’t stay dead. He wants to resurrect you. He wants to give you a brand-new life; it is now His life that is going to be living in you and through you. That’s what Paul was talking about in Galatians 2:20, where he wrote, ‘I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ You see, when you are willing to die, Christ will resurrect you to a brand-new life and it will be Jesus Christ living His very life through you.”

He said, “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“It’s more than you just trying harder; it’s more than you just struggling to overcome. It is you actually being willing to say, ‘Lord, not only will You be my Savior, but I want You to be the Lord of my life; I want to die to everything in the past. I want to die to everything in the present. I want to die to everything in the future. Lord, I want You now to live Your life through me.”

He thought about it for a moment, then said, “You mean I am to die to the reign and the rule, the control of sin in my life?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m to die to myself and allow Christ to live His life in me?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Well, Pastor, if in fact I do that, if I die to self and Satan and sin, and if I die to the reign and rule of sin in my life, then why in the world do I still struggle with sin?”

“Paul talks about that in verse 12. He said there are some things you’re responsible for doing. It’s not a matter of you just coming and saying, ‘Lord, I receive Your forgiveness, I die to self and You’re going to live within me,’ and then God’s going to take over and take control of everything. There are some things you have to do.

DOING OUR PART

“Look at verse 12: ‘Therefore [since all of that has already happened] do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.’ Paul is saying that since we have died to all those things, it is now our responsibility as born-again believers not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies. You see, every one of us is a born sinner. And every one of us from birth has developed our own habits of sin. Some of us have perfected those habits. Some of us continue to add new habits to our old habits. We are products of being born sinners, and there are certain things we do as sinners that we don’t even want to think about. There are other things we have created habits of doing. I like what Dr. Jay Adams says in Godliness Through Discipline: ‘We were born sinners, but it took practice to develop our particular styles of sinning.’”1

From the very beginning we create habits. My wife and I have four children. We did not consciously teach any of our four children the word mine. They never heard me come up to them and say, “Don’t touch that; it’s mine.” They didn’t hear their mother say it. I don’t know where they learned that word, but they learned it. And they would use it with their brothers and sister. I never taught one of my children to throw a temper tantrum. Neither did their mother. We didn’t teach them those things; it was part of the nature within them. And even though that sinful nature is a part of us, it has taken many of us years of sinning to develop our particular habits of sinning. It’s a habit to look after ourselves instead of to look after others. At the grocery store, we’ve developed the habit of rushing to the shortest checkout line. Why? Because we want to get there first; we want to get out fastest. I very seldom have seen anyone in a Wal-Mart checkout line say, “Go ahead of me; you first.” No. Something within our nature makes us want to put ourselves first. It’s part of our nature to retaliate when injured in some way. It’s part of the sinful nature to indulge the habits of our bodies. It’s part of our sinful nature to live for ourselves instead of living for God and for others.

I said to the young man in my office, “You have lived all these years for yourself, putting yourself first and doing what pleases you first. And now you’ve come to the place where you say, ‘I want to die to myself.’ You’re going to have to learn some new habits, to put the old habits away.

“Just because you surrender yourself to God doesn’t mean all those habits of 25 years are going to instantly dissolve. That’s what Paul was saying in verse 12, ‘Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.’ You need to create a new habit of spending time in God’s Word. You have to spend time talking with God in prayer, and not as merely a duty. As you begin to develop prayer as a habit, it becomes a delightful time of being in communion with God. You need to find a group—a Sunday school class, an accountability group—where you can be honest with them, and they will be honest with you. You must begin to create some new spiritual disciplines, new spiritual habits, so that you can become the person God wants you to be.

“There’s another thing you need to do. You need to come to the place even today where you are willing to say, ‘Lord, I’m totally Yours. I commit myself 100 percent to You. Nothing held back, nothing in reserve. I’m not just giving You a closet in my home. I’m not just giving You one room, but, Lord, I am giving You everything.’ We call that consecration. That’s what Paul was talking about in verse 13: ‘Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.’ All these years you’ve been offering your body as an instrument of wickedness. But now you can say, ‘Lord, here am I; I’m willing to give everything to You. I am willing to give my heart to You to become an instrument in Your hands, an instrument of righteousness.’ That’s what Paul was talking about in Romans 12:1: ‘Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.’

“Remember I said you’re to be crucified with Christ, you die to self, you lay down your life on an altar to Him and say, ‘Lord, I offer myself totally unreservedly, unconditionally to You.’ But Paul doesn’t stop there. In Romans 12:2, Paul says, ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.’ You must come to the place where you are no longer conforming to the patterns of this world.

“Now, the world wants to squeeze you into its mold. Your old friends will want you to do the old things you used to do, go the old places you used to go, be the old person you used to be. That temptation will be there; don’t allow it to happen. Offer yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. And if you do that, the Word of God tells us in Romans 6:14: ‘For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.’ Sin doesn’t have to have control over you; sin will no longer be controlling you and ruling you; you will be free to be the person that God wants you to be.”

The young man then asked, “Does that mean I’ll never be tempted?”

“No,” I responded. “You’re going to be tempted. Sometimes God uses temptation to grow you and mature you. It doesn’t mean you’ll never fail or mess up again. It does mean, however, that Satan is no longer pulling your chain and controlling your life. Now it’s God who’s ruling your life.”

LETTING THE HOLY SPIRIT DO HIS PART

I thought I was getting through, until he said, “Well, I guess what I’ll have to do is just try harder.”

“Well, that wouldn’t hurt,” I responded, “because there’s part of you yielding yourself to God, part of you that is not allowing sin to reign in you. But I want you to understand something: It’s just not up to you, for God has given us a helper, and that helper is the Holy Spirit. Jesus said to His disciples in John’s Gospel, ‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever (John 14:16)’. You see, Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit, ‘and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you’ (Romans 8:11). You haven’t been crucified with God’s Holy Spirit, but He’s resurrected you to new life, and this new life is the presence of His Holy Spirit living inside of you. It’s His Holy Spirit who is going to enable you; it’s His Holy Spirit who is going to empower you. It is the Holy Spirit who is going to change you. It is the Holy Spirit who will come and be with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He will be your constant companion, your ever-present friend, your help in troubled times. His Holy Spirit will be with you, and not only will He be with you; He’s the One who is going to purify you.

“That’s what David wrote in Psalm 51, where he cried out, ‘Create in me a pure heart. Lord, You do it; I can’t clean it out myself. I can’t reform myself. I can’t do it by just trying harder and working to be better. Lord, I need a pure heart, and only You can cleanse it. Create in me a pure heart. Renew in me a steadfast spirit; grant me a willing spirit to sustain me’ (author paraphrase). You see, the Holy Spirit wants to come in and not only be your friend, but He wants to come in and cleanse you and purify you and give you a willing heart and a willing spirit. He wants to give you the power to sustain you. In fact, not only did He come to purify you, but He comes to empower you.

“That’s what Jesus meant in Acts 1:8, when He said to His disciples, ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.’ You see, He gives us the power we need to say no to sin, to old habits of life. And He gives us the power to say yes to God in righteousness, in holiness. It’s Him, the Holy Spirit, living in us, purifying, empowering.”

Then I read to him Ephesians 3:20: “Now to him who is able to do…” That wasn’t good enough. “Now to him who is able to do…more…” That’s still not adequate. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more…” That’s still not good enough. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” Wow! That opens the whole thing to us, doesn’t it? It gets even better though: “According to his power that is at work within us.”

I said to my young friend, “That which you can’t do by yourself, He is able to do. And not just do a little; He’s able to do immeasurably more than you can even ask or imagine. And do you know how it’s going to be? It’s going to be through the power of His Holy Spirit living in you, purifying you, empowering you, cleansing you, changing you, transforming you, sending you out into the world to live the victorious life you really want to live. How does that sound?”

He said, “That sounds pretty good.”

“God can begin that work right now in your heart.”

And there in my office on that day, I had the privilege of watching the transforming power of our message change a young man’s life.

Recently, that same young man came up to me after a service and gave me a big hug. I asked him, “How are you doing?”

He knew what I was talking about and said, “I’m doing great.”

“Do you have the victory?”

“God’s Spirit has transformed my life.”

That’s our message, that’s our hope; that’s His gift to us.

1. Adams, Jay. Godliness Through Discipline. Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1972. www.peacemakers.net/resources/adams/gtd.htm. Accessed July 14, 2010.

7

THE REWARDS OF WAITING

Tom Hermiz

Acts 1:1–9 (NIV)

Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.

—Acts 1:4

In Acts 1:1–9 we read the following:

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

In these verses, Jesus is sharing His final message before ascending back to heaven. Since Jesus knew these were His last words, we must conclude that they were carefully and specifically chosen. Thus, they demand our thoughtful consideration and our obedience.

WAIT

In light of what Jesus knew to be their desperate need, He gave the disciples a specific command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:4-5). The promise of the Spirit was given in Ezekiel 36:27 where God said there was going to come a day when He would pour out His Holy Spirit on all flesh: “And I will put my Spirit in you.” The Spirit would not simply come upon us from time to time for some momentous occasion, but the day would come when we could enjoy the constant, continual indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Now as Jesus was about to ascend back to the right hand of the Father, He looked at His disciples and used a word we would rarely hear in a church growth seminar: wait. He was saying to them in so many words, “Don’t even think about going out and doing ministry; don’t even think about going out and raising the dead and healing the sick and trying to cast out demons. Don’t even think about going out and preaching because you’re not ready.”

Not ready? These men had been with Jesus for three years in on-the-job training. They had listened to almost every sermon He’d ever preached. They had observed almost every miracle He’d ever performed. They had had the opportunity to ask Him scores and scores of questions as they walked the dusty trails of Galilee. And now after three years, Jesus looked at them and basically said, “You’re not ready. Not until you receive the promise of the Father, which is the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus knew this was absolutely essential. If the church was to survive and thrive, these men—the leaders—had to empty themselves of their own agendas, of their own self-centeredness, ambitions and desires; they had to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

THE NEED REMAINS THE SAME

Today we have all kinds of meetings to try to evaluate the church—where we’ve been, where we are, where we’re going and where we want to go. Those are important exercises, but sometimes we come to the conclusion that what we really need in the church today is better organizational structure. If we could just get our structure together, if we could get a pithy vision statement, if we could just get our goals, our ambitions and our dreams all down on paper and put together a good business plan—we could really do something for God.

Having spent decades of my life in administrative work, I understand the value and importance of good organizational structure. I understand the motivation of goals and a game plan. These all have their place, but God does not move on structures or game plans or vision statements. His Spirit might inspire them in our hearts, but when God moves, He moves on and in and through people. I am convinced it isn’t another seminar planning session we need. We desperately need to empty ourselves, so that we might be filled with the Spirit of God.

Sometimes we look at the church and say, “If we just had more talent, better personnel, a more highly trained and sophisticated leadership team, we could really do something for God.” I value training, and I admire talent. In fact, I’ve been in some places where they don’t have much of either one, and I missed it. I remember going into a meeting in a church where one woman was playing the piano and another was playing the organ. Both of these dear ladies were in their 80s, and I admire them for their willingness to continue using their gifts. The problem was the lady playing the piano was nearly blind, and she could only play by reading music. And the lady playing the organ was nearly deaf, and she could only play by ear. There I was in the middle of the platform—the piano and organ on either side—and on every song we sang that week except one, the piano and the organ were in two different keys. It was painful.

Talent and training are important, but all the talent and training in the world will never take the place of the anointing. It will never take the place of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes we say, “We need better doctrine.” And so we try to come up with user-friendly doctrines and user-friendly terminology that will not offend anybody. May God help us! We don’t need to be so concerned about being politically correct; we need to be concerned about being biblically correct.

Like many of you, I have had the opportunity to study most of the great systematic theologies, and Wesleyan-Arminian doctrine and theology will stand up with any one of them. Our problem is not our doctrine. That’s not what hinders us. We need to understand our doctrine and articulate it and live it. We need to proclaim this message for the glory of God. And in the dumbing down of America, we love to say around the church world, “Doctrine isn’t important anymore. We just preach Jesus at our church.” I hope you haven’t said that, because if you preach Jesus, you’re going to preach doctrine. The question is, is it going to be good doctrine or bad doctrine? Is it going to be systematic, or is it going to be some sort of a hodgepodge? Why not get a good, clear systematic doctrine and theology in your heart and in your mind and in your bones, and build your messages and the Word of God on that kind of truth? We have a wonderful doctrine. It is a liberating, transforming truth, and it has stood the test of the years. Our problem is not our doctrine.

Here is another issue. We evaluate the church and say, “If we could just figure out how we’re going to worship; if we could just get our forms and our styles of worship.” Some churches have worked this out and have it pretty well resolved. But I’ve observed, as I move across this land of ours, it is not resolved in the hearts and minds of a whole lot of people. So we have these big debates: Are we going to sing choruses or hymns? Are we going to sing off the wall or out of the book? Are we going to be casual? Are we going to get rid of the pulpit? Are we going to wear a sport shirt, or are we going to be old-fashioned and wear a tie?

All these things are important; they deserve our time and attention. They all have their place, but my concern is that the most urgent need in the body of Christ is the one that’s getting the least amount of attention. And it’s the one that we desperately need to be presenting to our people that they might know the fullness of the Spirit in God’s sanctifying grace.

The disciples obeyed the command of Christ; they stayed in Jerusalem in an upper room in constant prayer. Had they grown impatient and failed to be obedient, they would have never received the gift of the Holy Spirit. And without the Holy Spirit, the church would not have existed. There is no substitute for obedience. There is no personal Pentecost without obedience. There is no entire sanctification without complete obedience to the known will of God. We sign our own spiritual death warrant when we fail to obey that divine command to wait before God in a great self-emptying until we have been filled with the Holy Spirit. Our failure to continue moving aggressively in this area is one of the reasons we have so many sterile, barren, fruitless Christians in our churches. I think it was D. L. Moody who said, “You might as well try to see without eyes and hear without ears or breathe without lungs as to attempt to live the Christian life without the Holy Spirit.”

So the disciples secluded themselves. They got away from all distractions, they got really focused, and they waited. That’s hard for us to do in this day and age of instant everything, but they did not want to settle for a weak substitute. And sometimes it seems to me we’ve settled for substitutes for the Holy Spirit. There was a time in our history when we substituted legalism for the Holy Spirit; we thought if you looked a certain way and didn’t go to certain places you were holy, but we found out that was not always the case. I think, too, there may be times when we substitute emotionalism for the Holy Spirit; we think the more noise and the more demonstration there is, the more we have the Spirit. In days past, we used to get in those services where if the preacher didn’t get to preach, we celebrated. But after awhile we learned how to manipulate that. We have become masters at manipulating the mood of the congregation. We can do it with our voice, we can do it with our sound system, we can do it with the lights, we can do it in so many different ways—including through emotions. However, manipulation simply does not produce holy men and women. It’s going to take the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to produce true disciples and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I get so sick and tired of the canned preaching I hear over and over again. I know exactly which websites those sermons come from, and I pray, “O God, bring about a day when our ministers live in Your Word and walk with You and get on their knees and get into the Scriptures, and find something fresh from the throne of God, so that when they go in front of their people, they will have a message that is anointed and blessed by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

In Acts, the believers prayed; they didn’t gather to grumble. They didn’t gather to eat; they didn’t even gather for fellowship. They came to seek the face of God. They were in one accord. They were of one mind. They wanted the promise of the Father, the gift of the Holy Spirit. They wanted it more than a drowning person wants air. They wanted it more than a thirsty person wants water. They wanted it more than a starving person wants food. They longed for the presence of God.

Well, the disciples got the desired results. Acts 2:1 and 4 says, “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. . . . All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.” Two powerful things happened when they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

PURIFIED BY FAITH

First, their hearts were purified by faith. We are in danger of losing this aspect—purity of heart—of the Wesleyan message today. We love to throw around the word holiness; we love to talk about being holy. We’re very free in using the phrase “Spirit-filled life.” But we don’t often talk about the deeper cleansing of the blood of Jesus Christ. You see, there is a war going on in the heart of every born-again believer; it is a battle with an anti-God disposition you inherited from Adam that came with you into this world. You cannot simply outgrow it. You cannot simply somehow correct and train it. However, in your heart is also the Holy Spirit, helping you to suppress that disposition, which enables you to live a Christian life. You can thank God you ever showed up at a holiness church because tens of thousands of people who go to church every week—they love God, love their church, love their pastor, love the Word—have never heard there’s a solution for that pollution. They have never heard there’s a deeper cleansing of the blood of Christ in God’s sanctifying grace, in which that sinful disposition can be cleansed.

Meanwhile, we debate what terminology to use. Dr. Dennis Kinlaw said, “When you are sanctified holy, that carnal disposition is gone.” I don’t know any better way to say it than that. There is a cleansing in which you can be set free from that carnal disposition, have a heart that’s clean and pure, begin to grow and progress in holiness, and become more like Jesus.

Peter testified about that when he said God gave the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles just as He had the Jews (Acts 15). Acts 15:9 says, “He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.” You can have a pure heart. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). The psalmist said, “Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? . . . He who has clean hands and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3–4). You can have a heart that is clean and pure through the blood of Jesus Christ and the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

FILLED WITH POWER

Second, the disciples in that upper room received power. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” (Acts 1:8)—power to witness, power to preach, power to teach, power to say no to the devil, power to say yes to God, power to become a dynamic witness, power to reach lost people for Christ. And with that power comes a passion to know Christ intimately, a passion for lost people. The Holy Spirit will not lie dormant within us. If we expect to live a Spirit-filled holy life, we must allow the Spirit of the Lord to move us out of our comfort zone into the world where we can be effective for the glory of God in reaching lost people for Him.

Think about this. The disciples didn’t have any structure; they didn’t have any money; they didn’t even have any buildings. All they had was Holy Ghost power. And here we are today. We have structure coming out of our ears, we have more money than we’ve ever had before, and we have nicer buildings than we’ve ever had before. But where is the power? Why is it we can see this power in other parts of the world, but we’re not seeing it right here in our own nation? God’s the same here as there; He has not changed. Somehow we’ve got to break away from the apathy and the nominal life we are living and begin again.

Linda Seaman said a former church leader told her the church had to make a decision: Are we going to be a great church or a holy people? We decided to be a great church. As sad as this sounds, I don’t think they’re incompatible. I think we can be a holy people and be a part of a great church—the church of Jesus Christ. We battle that same battle in our denomination, and our prayer is that God will above all else help us to be holy men and women, living dynamic, fruitful lives, and that we’ll see men and women coming to Christ.

THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL

My dad’s family had been Assyrian Orthodox and then they were led to the Lord by missionaries into a personal relationship with Christ. When he was five, my dad and his extended family emigrated from Iraq to Turkey because of Jihad. But in Turkey, the Kurdish Muslims invaded the village where he lived. By the dawn of the next morning, every adult male in the village had been killed. Then the fun and games started—all in the name of Jihad, all in the name of Allah. My dad, at age five, watched those soldiers take his cousins—little babies— twirl them by their heels and bash their heads against stone walls. He watched them throw some of his cousins into the air, catch them on bayoneted rifles and rip them apart. He saw homes looted and plundered. He heard the screams of the women as they were brutalized, beaten and raped.

Later in the day, they lined up the women and said, “If you’ll renounce your faith in Jesus, we’ll let you live. If you refuse, we’re going to kill you and take your children and raise them in the Muslim religion.” My grandmother looked down the barrel of a bayoneted rifle into the eyes of that Muslim soldier, holding the hand of her five-year old son and four-year-old daughter, and said, “Kill me if you must; take my son and my daughter; love them and take care of them. But I cannot, I will not, renounce my faith in Jesus Christ. He is my Savior.”

They marched those women out of town, shot them and buried them in shallow graves. A Muslim soldier picked up my dad, took him home, and until he was nine-and-a-half, my dad was kicked around from one Muslim family to another and raised in the Muslim religion. At that point, one of my uncles miraculously found him, kidnapped him, smuggled him out of the country and sent him to the United States.

As a teen immigrant growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, my dad was filled with rage, hatred and thoughts of revenge. He lived for the day when he could get back to Turkey and find those people who had massacred his family and make them pay. He had a hair-trigger temper, and the kids at school made fun of him because he had a heavy accent. He was ready to explode.

But in His wonderful providence, God put my dad right next door to a Sunday school teacher and his wife—Mr. and Mrs. Hood—in a little primitive Methodist church. They got him into church, and at 15, he found Christ as his Savior. The blood of the martyrs was crying out to God in heaven, and all those prayers my grandmother had prayed were answered.

From 15 to 17, my dad struggled and wrestled with very little guidance, trying to live a Christian life but struggling with bitterness and hatred, knowing it wasn’t right and praying over it and seeking God.

Then at 17, he heard the first sermon he had ever heard on perfect love, on a second work of grace. It was a message on loving God with all your heart, your neighbor as yourself, and even your enemies—Muslims, in his case. He knew it was exactly what he needed, and he hit the altar that night.

The last time I visited my dad, I had no idea it would be my last conversation with him. He was 86 and in failing health, but he had just preached the day before for my brother in Columbus, Ohio. I was getting ready to head home when my dad said, “Son, before you leave, if you have time, I’d like to share my testimony with you one more time.”

I said, “I’d like to hear it one more time.”

He went through that story I’d heard a thousand times, and when he came to that day when he went to the altar to seek sanctification, he said, “This is what I want to tell you one more time. When I knelt at that altar, I was struggling with bitterness and hatred and revenge and malice. But when I got up from that altar, I left it there. All I know is that when I got up, all of that hatred and bitterness and rage was gone. And in its place there was a new passion—to go back to the Middle East and find the people who had massacred my family and share the love of Jesus Christ with them.”

After he put his six kids through college—no easy task on a holiness preacher’s salary—every time he could scrape together enough dimes, dollars and nickels, he’d head back to the Middle East. And when my dad was in his 80s, God gave him one of the most remarkable ministries one could ever hope to have among Muslim people—through love he led many of them into a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

This message works; it’s real; it’s genuine. God can do more for us if we’re willing to surrender and abandon and say the big yes to Him and let Him do a work of grace. I’m not putting down psychologists and psychiatrists—we need them in this day and age as never before, and some of them can be very helpful—nevertheless, God can do more at an altar of prayer than a therapist can do after many visits and hundreds of dollars.

I said to my dad that day, “I would have never dreamed you ever had trouble with rage; I would have never dreamed you ever had any bitterness; I would have never dreamed you had ever had any hatred in your heart. I never saw that, and one of the greatest reasons I came to the message and to the experience of heart holiness is because I saw it reflected in you when you didn’t know I was listening in at your board meetings. You never disappointed me, and you never let me down. Even though we criticized all those church bosses and those mean bullies in the church who were picking on you, you would never allow it in your presence. You would say, ‘We need to pray for these people, and we need to love them.’ You taught me this message of holiness sometimes is better caught than taught.”

Thank God we can have it both ways—a great church and a holy people. I saw it in my mom and dad, and I’ll preach it as long as God gives me the breath and the strength because I believe it’s liberating and transformative.

8

ORDINARY PEOPLE

Dennis Kinlaw

Romans 5:1–11 (NASB)

The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

—Romans 5:5

The Word of God, Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 5, verses 1–11:

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

I wondered for awhile why God was letting me live so well and so long, so I asked Him about it. He answered me, saying, “You’re too ignorant. You’re not even ready to graduate from kindergarten yet; you certainly aren’t ready for the first grade.” I can’t thank Him enough for telling me that because this world is not the end of anything for you and me if we know Christ. It is only the preparation for the real stuff that is to come.

I began reading. I sensed gaps in my knowledge, and I experienced the adventure of learning new things and seeing in a fuller way the work of God and of the Bible itself. Who can ever be satisfied with his or her knowledge of the Word of God? You can never learn it well enough; it’s too rich and too deep.

SEEING THE BIG PICTURE

As I lived more and more with the Scripture—though I’ve tried to read it all my life, and read the things that helped me understand it better—I remembered something I’d heard from a professor in class at Princeton. He said, “I know you guys out there underline your Bibles. I can even tell you the verses you’ve underlined.” I closed my Bible so he wouldn’t see, but I realized he was dead right; he knew exactly the verses I had underlined. Then he said, “Now, the verses you haven’t underlined are just as much the Word of God as the verses you have underlined. Who are you to pick what you’re going to listen to in the Word of God? I know you have to start the way you did; you have to start with the verse. You may go to a paragraph, and from a paragraph you move to a chapter and maybe to a book. But God wants you to get to the place where you can see the Scriptures whole; study a subject as it’s introduced in the beginning and the way that motif is carried through the entirety of the Word of God.”

I spent much of my life in evangelism, so I often started with Genesis 3. I’d talk about sin, then redemption and the Cross and heaven and how God saves those who believe in Him. But there’s a Genesis 1 and 2 as well as a Genesis 3, and I began a few years ago to look more carefully at the doctrine of creation. I found several things, but here are just a couple examples.

God formed Adam from the dust of the earth, so we’re actually a part of this world. Then, He breathed into Adam the breath of life, His own breath. That means the first man who ever lived was filled with the Spirit.

Then Adam sinned, and when he sinned he lost the Spirit that was within him, and he was empty. Because we don’t understand some of these things, we mistranslate the Bible. Now, I’m not a great Greek scholar, but I worked with Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” I noticed that the term “fall short” in the Greek is the same word Mary used when she looked at Jesus and said, “They have no wine” (John 2:3). And it’s the same word Jesus used with the rich ruler when He said, “One thing you lack” (Mark 10:21). And here, then, is a biblical principle: All have sinned and lack the glory of God. And what is the glory? It’s the divine presence. The way the presence filled the Temple, the way the presence came at Pentecost—that presence wants to fill you and me, and that’s the key to the Christian life. However, when you sin, you grieve the Spirit. As old Commissioner General Orswell of the Salvation Army said, “When the Spirit’s grieved, the Spirit leaves.” And that brings us back to Genesis 3, the story of our sin.

Another example of the big picture of Scripture comes from Genesis 2. The capstone to that chapter is God’s forming Eve from a part of Adam. The first woman came out of the first man, and every man since has come out of a woman. God has a wonderful sense of humor; He has a way of letting us know how interrelated we are. You remember when Adam saw her in absolute awe—because there’s no question the most beautiful thing God ever made is a woman—he said, “Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). And one day it occurred to me that Adam’s statement can be related to Revelation 21 and 22. When Jesus comes back for us, we can say, “Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23) because He bears our flesh and took our flesh so He could redeem us.

I realized as I worked with this that God left us with work to do. And that work has to do with our understanding of the Word of God. We have not begun to exhaust in any sense the richness of the Word of God.

A THEOLOGY BORN OF CONFLICT

There’s been a radical change in some of the top intellectual circles in the world regarding Christian theology in the last 80 years. The First World War shook thinking people up—that man could be that destructive, and that our world could be engulfed in that kind of war. They said, “Wait a minute. The God we’ve been talking about doesn’t fit this.” And that was pretty well the end of the old modernism I grew up in. You see, by the time I was 16, I never expected to meet an educated man who believed in the deity of Christ. And when I was ordained into the Methodist ministry in 1950, my bishop preached an absolutely Unitarian sermon. As I walked forward to be ordained, I had to walk past a door that led out of the church. I thought, Do I walk out, or do I go forward and have a man lay hands on my head who doesn’t even believe Jesus was the eternal Son of God? That’s the world out of which I came.

Before long, however, thinking people said, “Wait a minute; that won’t go.” As a result, there’s been more discussion on the doctrine of the Trinity in the last 80 years than there was in the preceding 800 years of the church. And, if you understand the doctrine of the Trinity, the God that you’ll understand will be different than the God of Mohammed or the God of the Jews or the God of most Christians. He’s one God in three persons—a community of Father, Son and Spirit. And what binds them together is a love in which each one cares more about the other than He does himself. Their lives flow out of each other and into each other and give us a picture of the fellowship into which God is calling us.

Interestingly, when Jesus died, even when Paul was martyred in Rome, nobody had ever heard the word Trinity applied to God. Some things God doesn’t answer for us; He leaves them for us to dig out. And He left it for the church to find out some of the richness of what’s involved in the statements that we have in the Scripture about Jesus. When God took the Children of Israel out of Egypt, carried them to Sinai, then brought them across the Jordan and into the land, He said, “There it is, boys; go take it.” There’s a sense in which Jesus did the same when He ascended into heaven. He stood there with the disciples and said, “Boys, there it is. Geographically, go take it; missionally, go take it; but intellectually, go take it, too.” And that was the beginning of the challenge to Greek philosophy and the intellectual centers of that world that had to be conquered in the name of Jesus just like territory and hearts.

I think we’re back to that point. Recently the pope was here celebrating mass. In the commentary, one of the top newscasters in America turned to one of the others and said, “I’m lost. I don’t have the vaguest notion what’s going on. Can anybody explain to me what’s going on?” That’s the world in which we live, and we owe the world answers to those questions. And God has given us the responsibility for doing that.

Typically, however, progress and understanding come out of conflict. The first 500 years of the church were filled with conflict, conflict, conflict; and out of each conflict came a little clearer understanding of the nature of the gospel.

Within the conflict came the sharpening of mental understanding and the sharpening of definitions. The same is true today. The big question now is, who was Jesus? Even though the first 500 years helped to develop a vocabulary to describe who Jesus was and what He came to do, we’re going to have to do some of that work over again. But we cannot give away the gospel while we do that. We cannot give away the truth God has given to us.

Now, when you get this kind of discussion going, it’s always creative. Back in the 1500’s in Cambridge, some Roman Catholic bishops grew hungry for God and weary of the “works righteousness” of Roman Catholicism. Each one got a Greek New Testament, and they began meeting at the White Horse Inn. In a private room there, they hid their Greek Testaments in the wood box next to the fireplace. When they got together, they’d lock the doors, take out the Greek Testaments, and study them together. That was the beginning of the English Reformation.

Nobody would have ever heard of John Wesley if it hadn’t been for those guys huddled around the Scriptures at the White Horse Inn. It’s incredible what happens when men get together around the Word of God, open themselves to it, let it speak to them and begin to see the richness of the gospel.

Many of the men in that group were burned at the stake, but two were martyred on one particular day. Just before he died, Hugh Latimer said to Nicholas Ridley, “Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” And that’s the way they died, but it started with questions and a subsequent search for answers from the Word of God.

Now we have treasures that are ours because somebody else paid a price for them. And we need to be ready to pay a price so the rest of the world can know the things we know.

Let’s take a look at the concept of the Trinity again as an example.

What binds the Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—together? Their “personhood.” We wouldn’t have the word person if it weren’t for the doctrine of the Trinity. We got it because we had to find a word to describe a Son about whom you could say, “He’s not all of God, but all of God is in Him.” And of the Father you could say, “He’s not all of God, but all there is of God is in Him.” And the Spirit, “He’s not all of God, but all there is of God is in Him.” Theologians said, “Where do we find a word to describe that?” And they chose the word person, which became a word that could show how one being can penetrate another being, and even how one can carry somebody in the soul the way a woman carries a fetus in her womb. Every person you ever met began by being carried, borne, by somebody else.

LOVE DIVINE

That’s not only biblical theology; it’s also a pattern for pastoral ministry. I love the way God has made everything analogically. Do you know nobody is ever saved until somebody has carried him in his heart? In other words, one person comes to the place where he cares more about somebody else than he does himself. This is not ordinary love; in fact, it isn’t even human love. Caring more about someone else than you do yourself is divine love.

I don’t know any way to get that other than through the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost. Romans tells how we get into a right relationship with God. And the capstone is in Romans 5 where Paul is saying that now we are in a right relationship with Him; we have peace with God. And when we have peace with God we have access to Him, and when we have access to Him, His Spirit comes into us, and what does He do? He pours out His love in our hearts.

What is the difference between the love of God and fully sanctified human love? There is as much difference between the love of God for us and the highest, holiest love we of ourselves can ever know as there is between God and a creature. My love is human at its best, but when the Holy Ghost comes, He puts in me the very love that binds Father, Son and Spirit together and makes them absolutely one. That’s what Jesus was talking about in John 17:11 when He asked the Father, “that they [meaning us] may be one even as We are one.” Then, when I care more about you than I do about me, and you care more about me than you do about you, it’s sort of hard to get problems, isn’t it? This is absolutely essential to understand if you’re going to understand the message of holiness.

My friend Steve is an Australian and lived with a buddy in a drug colony where they raised marijuana to sell. One day a short, old guy knocked on their door. Steve answered and looked beyond the man to his beat-up, loaded-down car. The guy said to him, “I’m looking for a young lady. She has a baby.” And he described a girl in the drug colony.

Steve wasn’t sure who this guy was, so he said, “Why do you want to find her?”

“Well, I’m a follower of Jesus, and He told me to bring her some money and some food and some clothing.”

Steve told me later, “I was into Eastern religions, and that expression ‘follower of Jesus’ sounded sort of romantic. It captured me, so I opened up to him.”

The man looked up at Steve and said, “Son, you look like you have problems.”

“Old man, have you got two weeks?”

He told me that a week or so before, he’d been walking through his marijuana patch, and until then he’d always known he could quit it anytime he decided to. But as he walked through the marijuana patch that day, he heard a cackling voice behind him that said, “I’ve got you and there’s no way out.” Steve said, “I knew who it was, and I knew I was doomed.”

That day at the door, the man said to Steve, “Son, there’s only one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s sin.”

Steve was sure the man wanted him to cut his hair, shave his beard, get a white shirt and a dark suit, and become a banker. That was what he thought it took to get out of sin.

The man shook his head, said, “Could I pray for you?” and dropped to his knees.

Steve told me, “I’ll never forget it. Kinlaw, I suddenly saw two tears, big tears, pop out of those eyes, and I thought, That guy loves me. Do you know how long it had been since anybody cared about me? And the next thing I knew I was on my knees beside him, and when I got up I was in a new world, transformed. So there I was in this new world I didn’t understand and couldn’t explain, when suddenly I found myself yelling: ‘My buddy, my buddy; I’ve got to find my buddy and tell him there’s a way out.’”

Now that’s the mark of the new birth—repentance—when for the first time in your life, suddenly you care more about somebody else than you do yourself.

As you begin to walk with Him, however, you find that new love is not in full control. Then the question comes: Shall I let that kind of love fill me and possess me? Now, I appreciate all the negatives here: crucifixion of the old man, the death to self, the extrication of the carnality of the mind. But don’t stop short of the fullness, because when God Himself comes, He is agape love. When agape fills you, it makes a difference. And when the world sees it, they can’t keep from recognizing it.

AGAPE IN A PRISON CAMP

Several weeks ago I picked up the Wall Street Journal. I don’t own a single share of stock, but I do subscribe to the Wall Street Journal because I get the best editorials I can find anywhere, the most balanced and the most reasonable. That particular morning I turned to the editorial page and stared. There in the middle editorial was a person’s picture, a World War II G.I. by the name of Jake DeShazer. The editorial was titled “War and Forgiveness.”

A bombardier and one of “Doolittle’s Raiders,” Jake DeShazer was on KP duty at an army base in Oregon when he heard about Pearl Harbor. He hurled a potato at the wall and said, “The Japs will have to pay for this.” Shortly thereafter he volunteered to be part of a special unit formed to attack Japan. His plane took off from the deck of the Hornet and made its bombing run over Nagoya. On the return trip, the plane ran out of fuel, so the crew bailed out over Japan and were captured the next day. For 40 months he was a prisoner of the Japanese. He and three of his buddies were brutalized mercilessly, and Jake spent 34 of his 40 months in solitary confinement. Jake said, “I knew what hatred was. I knew plenty what it was.”

Jake begged a guard for a Bible and finally received one two years into his captivity. The guard told him he could only keep the Bible for three weeks, so Jake read every minute he could. He memorized the Sermon on the Mount and found Christ. Some months later the Spirit came and filled him, and Jake said, “I knew I was free from sin. And I looked at my guards and thought, They’re so cruel because they’ve never heard of Jesus. What a tragedy that nobody’s ever told them.” God began speaking to Jake, challenging him to treat his captors with respect and to return to Japan after his release. And that’s exactly what he did. His story was written up in a tract, and a million copies were distributed in Japan shortly before Jake arrived there.

One of those copies went to a man named Mitsuo Fuchida—the man who coordinated the entire air attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result of that tract, Fuchida came to Christ, eventually met DeShazer and spent the rest of his life as an evangelist.

The last sentence in the Wall Street Journal editorial read, “It is one of life’s safer bets that he is resting in peace.”

Jake DeShazer told about the love that flooded his heart for his captors, and a worldly publication stopped to take note.

Now, you don’t have to be a war hero to show God’s love. You can be a farmer in Kentucky. In fact, I knew one.

They sent a preacher to his church, and the preacher’s first service was a Wednesday night prayer meeting.

Before the farmer, Mr. Sheehan, and his family went to church, he turned to his son and said, “Go to the smokehouse and get the biggest ham that’s there; we’re going to take it to our new preacher.”

At the service, Mr. Sheehan gave his testimony about how God had saved him and filled him with the Spirit and with God’s love. At that, the preacher looked at him sharply and said, “We don’t believe in that stuff here, and I don’t ever want to hear it mentioned again.” All of the kids nudged each other along the row, and afterward went outside and said, “I wonder what he’ll do about the ham.”

They got to the buggy and Mr. Sheehan said to his oldest son, “Give me the ham.” He took the ham in, gave it to the preacher, and said, “We want to tell you how grateful we are that the conference has sent us a pastor. Here’s a small token of our love.”

Early the next morning, the family saw an unfamiliar buggy coming down the road. It was the new pastor. He came in and said, “Mr. Sheehan, I want to apologize for last night. If you can do what you did last night, you can witness to anything you want to in any service I’ve got.”

That’s what Jesus died on the Cross to do—to put himself in His fullness within me and within you. Now, the world needs to hear this at every level. We need to explore it more richly because this understanding of God is very different from the God that is preached in most of our radio and TV broadcasts in the United States. We need to do our work and our evangelism and our missions and our witness, but it will not be effective unless we ourselves know that fullness.

God’s not looking for special people; He’s looking for you. It’s ordinary people He wants to fill with His Spirit. And it’s a gift. It’s not something you work to get; it’s not something for which you discipline yourself until you can handle it.

The Greek word for love that was used all over the Mediterranean basin when Paul and John were preaching never occurs in the New Testament. Do you know why? Because what God has to offer is so much better than anything that can be experienced apart from His grace that they said, “No ordinary word can describe it.” And so they took the word agape. Are you full?

9

THE PROMISE OF HOLINESS

Jesse Middendorf

1 Peter 1:1—2:10 (NRSV)

It is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

—1 Peter 1:16

It’s interesting to me that the letter of 1 Peter is written to places that there is no record Simon Peter ever visited, yet he knew them well, and he cared deeply for the people there.

Let’s begin with verses 1 and 2 of chapter 1:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood: May grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Then, after some wonderful words of encouragement and instruction, Peter wrote,

Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and your hope are set on God. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God (1 Peter 1:13–23).

Peter continued in chapter 2 verses 9–10: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia border the southern shore of the Black Sea in the land we know as Turkey. Peter wrote to people who understood what it meant to be under the dominance of the Roman Empire. However, they well remembered that though Rome was in charge, they were still Asians, Cappadocians, Galatians, and so forth. They maintained the identity—language, dress, traditions—of their cultures.

Ever get the idea that God has favorites, that He prefers to choose some over others, that there just seem to be some who get a little better treatment than others? Simon Peter was writing into this assumption, saying, “This is a God who has chosen you. He’s called you. You’re not here because you chose Him. You are here because He chose you.” It’s been that way throughout the Book of God. Back in Genesis 12, God chose a man whom we could, at best, call a pagan saint, a man who worshipped other gods, a man who was a part of the culture around him, a man God told later, “I didn’t choose you because you are numerous or good, or better than anybody else. I just chose you.”

The choosing of God ought to make a difference shouldn’t it? Something ought to happen in us when God chooses; it ought to break some things down, and it ought to cause us to see things differently.

Notice, now, in the second chapter, Peter has identified the recipients of the letter—he’s acknowledged them, bowed to the cultural realities, indicated some things he knows are true—and then he says, “But you are a chosen race”—and he’s using a collective you—“a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1 Peter 2:9). Something happens here. And it’s something endemic in the very message of holiness. In this passage of Scripture, almost midway between 1:1 and 2:10 is this phrase: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). And I begin to hear him defining holiness in ways and at depths that sometimes will conflict with the settled easy comfort we have with our cultural markings. How deep does your holiness go?

One of my favorite preachers is a guy named Middendorf. He’s my son John, pastoring at Oklahoma City First Church. I was listening to one of his sermons the other day and something he said rearranged everything in my mind. He said, “I want you to picture this: Jesus walks up to you and says, ‘I see something in you that causes Me to believe you could be like Me. Therefore, I choose you.’” I’m struck by how many times 1 Peter references our calling, our chosenness.

I grew up in the Church of the Nazarene. I’m a Nazarene from the top of my rather balding head to the bottom of my number elevens. I know us from the inside out. Unfortunately, I’ve lived much of my life under the influence of holiness as demand: You’ve got to do this; you’ve got to do that; measure up here; measure up there. But in recent years I’ve discovered holiness is promise—not the God I have to pursue because He’s elusive, but the God who pursued me even when I was elusive and hunted me down and found me. And I want to talk to you about holiness as promise.

THE PREPARATION FOR HOLINESS

First of all, there is a preparation for holiness. Look at 1 Peter 1:13: “Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves.” Holiness has always required discipline. It has always demanded that we open our hearts to what God is trying to do. In Colossians 3, Paul tells the church to get rid of a long list of things—anger, malice and lying among others—and be clothed with compassion, patience, love and so forth. There is an appropriate discipline to holiness. When I come to Christ, there are some things I stop. When I come to Christ and become like Him, some things should be rearranged.

Some of us can give some incredible testimonies of what happened when we first came to Christ. My wife and I have three children. Two of our children, it seems, knew from the beginning that following Christ was the only way. But our youngest spent 18 long years enmeshed in addiction, broken relationships, prison, you name it. I had been saved as a six-year-old, so I struggled to identify with our son. I became intimately aware, however, that you don’t know how badly you can hurt until you hurt for your kids. Susan, my wife, and I spent hours weeping, praying and fasting.

But not too long ago, Susan had the privilege of being in Oklahoma City when our older son, John, baptized our younger son, Jim. Their sister, Marlo, read the testimony and couldn’t control her emotions. Susan came close to walking the backs of the pews in that service. But what we’ve discovered for Jim is what Jim has discovered for himself: There’s a discipline that goes with being changed, a preparation for holiness.

Here’s the most important element of this preparation: “Set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed” (1 Peter 1:13). The first preparation for holiness is the realization that you can never sanctify yourself. You are sanctified entirely, solely, by the blood of Jesus through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. You can never discipline yourself into the holy life. You can never do enough. There are not enough good deeds to perform. There are not enough good habits to form. Have you ever read what Paul said about the Ten Commandments? It went something like this: “If you think you can obey them, you’re nuts.” (That’s the Middendorf Revised Standard Translation.)

Joshua said to the people of God as he was concluding his ministry, “Revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness” (Josh. 24:14). And they said, “Okay, we will.” He responded, “You can’t.”

The most important preparation you will ever make for holiness is to believe that the only way you’ll ever be holy is for God to do in you what only God can do on the sheer merits of the finished work of Jesus Christ. The most important preparation for holiness is trusting Him who alone can make you holy.

THE STANDARD FOR HOLINESS

Notice also, there’s a standard for holiness here: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). I don’t care who you know who may be holy, the holiest man or woman you know is not your standard for holiness.

My 92 year-old dad is a retired Nazarene pastor. He’s my hero. I love to talk to him. I love to listen to him. At 92, he complains to me that they don’t call him to preach as often as he thinks they should. I said, “Well, Dad, they’re just afraid you might not survive the sermon.”

I watched him as I was growing up. I saw him in circumstances that were incredibly difficult. I saw him accused of things that he and others knew he did not do, but he refused to retaliate, so he might have a platform later to have a redemptive relationship with those who accused him. I saw him literally lay his life on the line trying to protect two African-American fishermen who were being attacked and assaulted by drunken white men. They tried to kill him. I saw him preach holiness when people were deriding him for believing anything like that. I saw him live holiness during a time of brokenness in our home that was indescribable. And when I began to think about holiness for my own journey, when I realized God was speaking to me about a deeper work He longed to do in my life, I said, “But, God, I can never be like my dad.” The most important day of my life was when God said to me, “No, you can’t. You just don’t have it in you. You’ll never be like that.” And I thought, A lot of help You are. But God continued, “Your dad is not your standard. He may be a good example, but he is not your standard. It doesn’t matter how holy he ever gets, he will never be standard enough for you to say, ‘I want to be holy like he is holy.’”

The only standard for us is God himself, the God who said, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). The standard for holiness is the life of Jesus Christ, who said to His disciples, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Our standard for holiness is not the guy next to us. Our eventual disappointment in him gives us no right to complain that holiness doesn’t work because he’s not holy. That guy is not the standard. The standard for holiness is not the holiest man or woman you know; the standard for holiness is not the most miserable failure you know, the one toward whom you want to cast your accusations and say, “I can’t be a Christian because of him.” He is not the point. God alone is the standard.

THE BASIS FOR HOLINESS

Let’s look at the basis for holiness. It certainly isn’t our good performance. It’s not the experience of some other person. The basis for our holiness is the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. He and He alone is the foundation on which our holiness is built. Listen to these words:

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God (1 Peter 1:18–21).

Your hope is not in you. Your hope is not in the articles of faith of your denomination. As much as I love the Word, your hope is not even the Word. Your hope is the blood of Jesus Christ, who died for you. He alone is the atoning sacrifice for all our sins, for sin in deed and sin in being. He alone is the only adequate resource to which we can turn for the cleansing of the heart as well as for the forgiveness of our sins. He is the basis for our holiness, for our sanctification. Through Him we have come to trust in God. He alone is the basis on which you and I stand tonight. You’re not accepted before God because you were sanctified 40 years ago and are living it right now. You’re sanctified and able to stand before God only because whatever God did 40 years ago, you’re still saying yes today, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son continues to cleanse.

Yes, I believe in the “crisis,” but if all we believe in is the crisis, we’ve missed the point. We’ve often asked, “Is it crisis or process?” Of course, the answer is yes. We must be sanctified in that moment of utter yielding to Him, but we must trust Him daily for the continuing growth in grace that is necessary, because when we’re sanctified, we’re not yet glorified. He’s not finished with you at that altar of prayer. He started with you there, but He’s not finished.

I mentioned that I was saved at six years of age, kneeling by my bed in the parsonage of First Church of the Nazarene in Charlotte, North Carolina. My brown-eyed mother, in her soft southern drawl, led me to the Lord when I asked her, “Mom, why did Martha”—my younger sister—“go to the altar tonight?”

“Oh Jesse,” she said, “Martha has invited Jesus to come into her heart.”

I puzzled for a bit. I had heard all of this stuff. Dad was a good preacher. But somehow it never seemed to apply to me until that night when it applied to Martha. And anything that applied to her had to apply to me. I don’t know how to describe it any other way than as the sweetest experience I can remember. There was no demand. My mother didn’t beat me on the back; she didn’t try to tell me what a rotten, dirty sinner I was. She said, “If you want Jesus to come into your heart and life, if you want to give your life to Him, you can do that right now.”

I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt this rush of emotion, tears streaming down those six-year-old cheeks, and it was done. I didn’t see any flames; I didn’t hear any angel choirs; I just knew.

The next morning at breakfast, my mother said, “Jesse, why don’t you tell Daddy what happened last night.” There wasn’t any doubt in my mind what she wanted me to talk about.

“Dad, last night I asked Jesus to come into my heart.”

He stood up, walked around the table to my chair and shook hands with me, while saying, “That’s wonderful, Jesse.” And then he embraced me.

Time passed, and I grew into a typical teenager. At youth camp I felt the first stirring of a call to ministry. Eventually I attended Trevecca Nazarene College and majored in religion. From there I went on to seminary, and in my senior year there, I could hardly wait to get out into the ministry.

Several times I said to the Lord, “Do You have any idea how lucky You are? Lord, we’re gonna take the world. I can hardly wait to get out there and show ’em how it’s done.” I was sure I had it all figured out. I could tell the Lord pretty easily, “I really appreciate Your calling me to preach, and if You’ll just get out of the way and let me do it my way, this is gonna be a pretty good work.” Increasingly that senior year something began to gnaw at my heart. The closer I got to leaving that place, the more I realized something was wrong.

In a chapel service—I don’t remember the preacher or his text—God and I got serious. It wasn’t so much that I was clawing after Him as He was inviting me to Him.” The longer that service went, the more uneasy I became about stepping out into the future. Eventually I came to the conclusion, “O God, if You don’t do something, I will be a mess out there.” It was as if He replied, “You’re catching on.” As the service ended, I said, “Lord, I don’t care what anybody else does, I’m going to pray. I’ve gotta have Your help and I’ve gotta have it now.” I looked up, ready to stand and step into the aisle, and I realized nobody else was in the pews. They were already at the front. There wasn’t any place to kneel; all of the altar was covered. The only place I could find was under the grand piano. So I knelt with my head under the grand piano, but I didn’t have to stay there long, because by the time I got there God had already been saying to me, “I see something in you that causes Me to believe you could become like Me. Jesse, I’ve chosen you. Are you willing to say yes? How deep is the yes you’re willing to say?”

I don’t know whether my knees ever hit the floor. I just know it was settled. From that point on it was settled; it didn’t matter what happened. It didn’t matter how miserable a failure I might be or how much success I might achieve. I didn’t care for anything but finding and doing the will of God and doing it God’s way. He was sovereign Lord and I was finally off the throne and out of the way enough that He could say, “This is what I want.” And I could say, “Let’s go that way.” The crisis for me was not when I found Christ. The crisis for me was when Christ found me at that level of demand that said to me, “If you’ll let Me, I’ll rearrange everything there is about you, but you’ve got to let go.”

Was I instantly mature? Don’t talk to any of the churches I’ve pastored. I had a lot of growing to do and lots of places where the Lord had to bring me up short. And there were times when I had to pound my way to an altar again and say to Him, “O God, I didn’t mean to do that. You know my heart. I really do desire to bring honor and glory to You.” And He would say, “I know that’s your heart, and I’m walking with you. If you’ll just be more sensitive to Me, I can shape you in ways that you don’t even know you need to be shaped.”

Always follow the process of the honing, finishing, maturing and shaping that God and God alone can do when He has absolute control. The basis for holiness is not our good work, not our difficult discipline, not the fact that we had a good idea and we need God to get on board. The basis for holiness is the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.

THE EXPRESSION OF HOLINESS

The fourth element of holiness is its expression. Peter wrote, “Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart” (1 Peter 1:22). Peter was writing to a variety of people from a variety of cultures, and in that context he said, “Love one another deeply from the heart” (1 Peter 1:22b).

I’ve had the wonderful privilege of traveling across the church in many different nations. In some places we’ve begun a district assembly by singing that particular country’s national anthem. We had a little debate in our church for awhile in Kansas City about which flag to fly. There are 28 or 29 different nationalities represented on any given Sunday, so it seemed a little inappropriate to put just one flag up there. We finally figured the Cross is enough and called it good.

I was in Zambia, Africa, some years ago for a field conference, which included not only Zambian believers, but many from other nations as well. On the opening night of the conference the person leading the music announced, “Tonight we’re going to sing our national anthem.” And my heart just sank. So many nations were represented there, I couldn’t imagine what that man was thinking. Right then I heard the familiar notes of “Called unto Holiness, Church of Our God.” That guy had been reading 1 Peter.

I have an idea that the Lord may be saying to you, “I see something in you that causes Me to believe you could be like Me.” Have you said yes? How deep is the yes you’ve said? Have you said a deep enough yes that the cultural markers, the linguistic distinctions, the racial characteristics, the denominational boundaries have been laid aside? Have you said a deep enough yes that you’re willing to allow Him to confront your personal prejudices, to characterize your life by Kingdom likeness rather than cultural distinctiveness?

Now that you have put off all of these other things, now that you are a chosen race, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, a people chosen and called out from whatever you were to whatever He desires you to be—now that you’ve reached that place, are you saying a deep enough yes? Oh, but I said yes 10, 20, 40 years ago, you say. Thank God; I’m glad you did. But have you said yes today? How deep is the yes you are saying? Will it reach deeply enough that the unchallenged resistance to holiness, the willingness to allow distinctiveness to define you, can be set aside in favor of the holy love of God? Because according to what Peter is saying here, the holy love of God is the ultimate characteristic of holiness. If it is not holy, it cannot be love. If it is not love, it cannot be holy. It must be holy love, and it must be bound together through the power of the Holy Spirit, who alone can accomplish this in us.

Would you let Him speak deeply enough into your own soul that you are willing to lay aside anything that puts a barrier between you and any other person on the face of the earth, whatever the distinction, in favor of the One who says, “I see something in you that causes Me to believe you can be like Me, therefore, I choose you.”

Are you saying yes?

10

SEEKING A PURE HEART

Nelson Purdue

Matthew 5:8 (KJV)

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

—Matthew 5:8

Matthew 5:8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Now, that’s a very brief text, but it speaks volumes to my heart. You know, of course, this is found in the great Sermon on the Mount, which is the longest recorded discourse of our Savior and is called the “Constitution of the Kingdom,” the “Charger of the Church.” There are some who would tell you that sermon was not meant for the age of grace, rather for some future millennial state. They would even say it’s a wonderful standard to try to approximate, but it can never be fully realized in this life. However, Jesus proclaimed it while He was here in the flesh, and He sealed it with the blood of His Cross. And when He died and rose again and ascended back to the right hand of the Father, He sent the Holy Spirit to be the power of its performance and the secret of its realization in the lives of redeemed men and women.

The beatitudes seem to be the text for the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. I think 15 different times, if my memory serves me right, the seed thought of this sermon moves back to these beatitudes.

They start with “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:3). No one understood poverty better than our Lord Jesus Christ. He who was rich became poor that we, through His poverty, might be made rich. “Blessed are they that mourn” (5:4)—He was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. “Blessed are the meek” (5:5)—He was meek and lowly in heart. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness” (5:6)—He was declared to be the righteous branch. “Blessed are the merciful” (5:7)—He had compassion on the multitudes. “Blessed are the pure in Heart” (5:8)—there was no guile found in His mouth. “Blessed are the peacemakers” (5:9)—He was the only ambassador God sent into a rebellious world. “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake” (5:10)—He was despised and rejected of men. When you read the Beatitudes you have disclosed the very life of Christ himself. But they also convey to us the necessary process through which Christlike character must be experienced and exemplified in the lives of human beings.

Blessed are the pure in heart. If Dugan Clark were alive, he would say that’s not too idealistic to be realized; it’s simply too realistic to be idealized. In this war-ravaged world in which we find ourselves teetering on the brink of moral collapse, with all the political upheaval, spiritual idolatry, and theological uncertainty, a pure heart is not only desirable, but it is also very possible. In fact, I would say it is not only reasonable; it’s absolutely essential that we experience this pure heart.

THE CONDITION FOR PURITY

Now, I would be the first to say to you that this sermon cannot be lived out unless Christ lives within. That’s the key. We tend to adopt a few of the principles of Christianity with little or no reference to the person of Christ himself. We like to pick and choose our little statements out of the Bible, but we cannot embrace the principles and we cannot enjoy the privileges unless we experience the person of Christ in our hearts. When He comes initially, He does not come to cohabit with sin. Rather He comes initially to gain our consent and our cooperation that He might cleanse us and purify our hearts in order to make these bodies the temple of His dwelling.

Regarding the second chapter of Acts, Richard Taylor said that the purifying of the heart was the heart of Pentecost. I think that’s borne out very well in Peter’s encounter in the house of Cornelius. Many years later Peter said, “God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them [the Gentiles] the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us [the Jews on the day of Pentecost]; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:8–9).

Interesting that he doesn’t mention any of the other manifestations of the Spirit on that inaugural day, simply because central to Pentecost was the cleansing—the purifying—of the heart that would, in turn, empower and equip us for the evangelization of the world. It is also interesting to note that faith was designated the necessary condition for one to be pure. What is a pure heart? Let’s start by looking at what the heart is. (The word heart is used more than 800 times in the entire Bible, and just over 150 times in the New Testament.) The biblical use of heart doesn’t refer to the muscle that pumps blood through our veins. Rather, it involves the seat of man’s affections, the inner life, the real you and the real me.

After man sinned in the garden and was driven out of Paradise, God was grieved that He had ever made man in the first place. Then, of course, He sent the flood to destroy the earth, saving only eight out of the population of the world. Genesis 6:5 says, “God saw that . . . every imagination of the thoughts of [the] heart was only evil continually.” Now, I understand this to mean the heart is capable of thinking.

Daniel “purposed in his heart” not to defile his body with the portion of the king’s meat and the king’s wine (see Dan. 1:8). From this statement, it’s obvious to me that the heart has the capacity to rationalize, to deduce, to make decisions and choices.

Other places in the Bible describe the heart as bitter, sorrowful or hardened. Romans 10:10 says it’s “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” The heart has the capacity to believe. Paul wrote to Timothy: “The end of the commandment is charity [love] out of a pure heart” (1 Timothy 1:5). Jesus told us to love Him with all our heart. So, the heart can think, will, choose, believe and love.

The psalmist asked, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3–4). James picks up that statement in the fourth chapter of his epistle, and he says “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded” (James 4:8).

Can a person be cleansed from all sin in this life and live without sinning? The Bible says you can. In fact, the Bible says you must. Now, we need a biblical understanding of the nature and extent of sin because our concept of sin colors our concept and understanding of salvation itself.

THE DISEASE OF SIN

Sin is not only a deliberate act; it’s a diseased state. Consequently, the act needs to be forgiven, pardoned. The disease must be cleansed or purified. John says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

This distinction reveals both the nature and the necessity of entire sanctification not only as a subsequent but as a second experience in the life of the believer. Purity is initiated in the new birth. Obviously there is a judicial cleansing when a sinner confesses his sin and is born of the Spirit of God. The mark of a truly born again Christian is that he cannot tolerate sin in any degree in his life.

I met Jesus 50 years ago, and only four weeks later I was sanctified entirely. Soon after I was converted, I listened to the great Dr. G. B. Williamson. He was preaching out of Romans 12, and he lifted out verse 9: “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.” Then he made a statement that’s been burned in my mind: “Our tenacity in cleaving to the good is no greater than the intensity of our abhorrence of evil.” You cannot love God with all of your heart without hating sin. My concern is that we say we love God, and yet we make all kinds of excuses for sin.

John tells us, “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4, NIV). It’s not a mistake; it’s not an accident; it’s not ignorance. It’s intention. But Jesus “was manifested to take away our sins, [and] Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not” (1 John 3:5–6). Or, whoever abides in Him does not choose the pathway of lawlessness. Then in verses 7 and 8, John contrasts the sinner and the saint: “He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he [Jesus] is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil.” Now that’s a powerful statement, but verse 9 gets even stronger: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his [Jesus’] seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”

When he says “cannot sin,” John’s not talking about a physical cannot. It’s a moral cannot. The Christian is never unable to sin, but by the power and grace of God the Christian is able not to sin. You retain your volition, even though you are a Christian. If you are born of Him, you “cannot sin” is not the cannot of inability but the cannot of disinclination. Dr. T. M. Anderson explained it this way to L. B. Hicks many years ago:

“Last evening as you were sitting on the living room floor, playing with your daughters, you could have put your hands around their throats and choked the life out of them, right?”

Hicks replied, “Yes, I have the power, but I couldn’t do that.”

Anderson said, “There’s something in you bigger than the power of your muscles and your hands that’s called the parental love. You’d have to be a reprobate before you’d purposely harm your daughters.”

When His seed is in you, when His love and righteousness dwell in you, you cannot with impunity sin against Him. First John 2:1 says, “These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ.” Dr. Ora Level commented on this passage, saying, “That’s not an escape mechanism. That’s not for you to sin, come back and ask God’s forgiveness, and sin and come back. It’s just there as an emergency measure.” I’m glad it’s there.

There remains in the heart of a newborn soul a principle of proclivity that is the seed of every evil act that was ever committed. It’s in the heart of a born-again Christian who has not yet experienced the cleansing, the purifying, of the heart. And it manifests itself in the demand of self-sovereignty, as an anti-authoritarian spirit. It won’t obey the law of God. Sin is hell in the breast.

The good news is Jesus has provided a cleansing of heart from this evil propensity in order that we may be pure. By the way, that’s not accounting us as holy when, in fact, we aren’t. Some people say, “God just sort of puts the ‘righteousness of God’ canopy over me and I’m sinning all the time, but God doesn’t see me.” Beware of playing that silly game. “Reckon . . . yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11). To reckon does not mean to assume what isn’t true. Reckon in the King James Version is a mathematical term, a statement of fact. I’m not a mathematician, but I know if you add two and two, you get four. You take a sinner, add to him the birth of the Spirit plus the baptism of the Spirit, and tally it all up, it comes out to perfect love and a pure heart every time. So this holiness, this pure heart, is not an imputation that is merely reckoned ours through proxy. It is the impartation of the very nature of God received in the heart of a believer by faith.

In Mark 7:21–22, Jesus gives us the picture of an impure heart: “Out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, [and] foolishness.” This is a condition in the depth of a man’s soul in the moral nature that pardon cannot reach. The first work of grace does not deal with it. So does God provide a remedy for the deeper need of man’s heart? Jesus prayed, These are not of the world even as I’m not of the world. You’ve given me them out of the world; I’m praying not for the world; I’m praying for those you have given me. And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they who are not of the world might be sanctified through the truth (see John 17:9, 19).

In 2 Corinthians, Paul quoted the prophets, saying, “Come out . . . and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters…Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 6:17–18; 7:1).

In Ephesians Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25). He didn’t get the church mixed up with the world. He loved the church and “gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:25–27).

In 1 Thessalonians Paul was praying for those who had a work of faith, a labor of love, a patience of hope, for those who’d received the Word of God with much affliction in the joy of the Holy Spirit. He was praying for those who had the credentials of a born-again believer, and yet he was concerned, “night and day praying exceedingly” (1 Thessalonians 3:10a) for them. Why? “That we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith” (1 Thessalonians 3:10b). And later, that “the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). And he goes on to say, when you read this epistle, read it “all the holy brethren” (1 Thessalonians 5:27). And when the holy brethren read it, he’s praying that they would be sanctified wholly.

Paul wrote to Titus, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people” (Titus 2:11–14). Hebrews 13:12 says, “Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered.” And 1 John says, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. . . . Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself” (1 John 1:7; 3:2–3).

A great Methodist theologian of another day, Dr. Daniel Steel, made the statement, “If the Holy Spirit cannot eradicate sin through faith in the blood of Jesus, what assurance have we that He can sanctify us holy at all?” Our bodies are not dungeons where Satan is chained in the basement, and we’re hoping he doesn’t get away. No, our bodies are temples from which must exude the glory of God. If you surprise a burglar in your house tonight, tie him up, and lock him in the closet, you’ve got him suppressed. But how much rest will you get? You don’t want to hold him down; you want him off the premises.

Suppression doesn’t change the nature of carnality any more than the prisoner’s cell will change the prisoner’s mind. Suppression is never ascribed to the blood of Christ; it’s always the total purifying efficacy, total destruction and cleansing of sin.

THE COST OF PURITY

Now, because this second work of grace meets the need in the deeper area of man’s moral nature, to neglect it is dangerous and to refuse it is sinful. It required the blood of the Lamb. He came the second time and cleansed my heart after I totally abandoned my will to His and expressed faith in His will.

Why does it take two works of grace? Why doesn’t He do it all at once? Was the first work complete? If it isn’t complete, doesn’t it reflect a bit adversely on the efficacy of the death of Christ?

Wilbur Dayton made a statement I thought was so monumental. He said, “If it were like removing an appendix instead of purifying a mindedness, He probably could have done it all in one operation. But holiness is spiritual mindedness; it’s a pure heart; it’s perfection of love to God and man, and love cannot be compelled; it must be won.” Provisionally, He did it all at once. When Jesus died, rose again, ascended back to the Father, and sent the Holy Spirit, it was all done. But if I’m going to actualize what He provided on the Cross and appropriate it in my heart by faith, I have to do it as the Bible says—by faith in His blood—and I cannot exercise faith for more than one thing at a time. For example, when I was a sinner I had to repent, ask God’s forgiveness, and, by faith, receive His forgiving grace. When that happened I came alive unto God. It wasn’t but four weeks later I heard the call to holiness, which required me to present my body a living sacrifice. I couldn’t have done that before He made me alive. It’s not a shortcoming on God’s part; it’s on my part.

You see, the pure heart is not the perfection of intellect; it’s the purity of intention. We understand that oftentimes our methods are flawed, but our motive can be pure. And so He gives us a pure heart; He doesn’t give us a perfect head. There is the continuation beyond the crisis, the progression of holiness. It’s not finality; it’s fitness. It’s not maturity; it’s purity. And the crisis of cleansing wrought by the baptism of the Holy Spirit puts us at the threshold of unlimited privileges and then measurable development. I dare say the foundation of our faith is to be saved and sanctified. And the superstructure is that which follows. Some might make being saved the foundation, and then we struggle to progress in sanctification. No, no, no. It’s saved and sanctified.

Purity of the heart also provides for a believer’s security. There is Christian security. Not unconditional, but there’s a security because there’s a vital factor of moral safety in the teaching of entire sanctification. Jesus contemplates permanency when He sanctifies you.

I remember standing at an altar so many, many years ago with the woman who became my wife. I made a consecrated vow to her that I’d love her till death do us part. That wasn’t on condition. You burn the biscuits tomorrow, I’m leaving you. No, sir. It contemplates permanency. Likewise, Jesus sanctifies wholly, preserves us blameless unto His coming (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23). By the way, this is not only supported by holy Scripture, but also by sound psychology and medicine, both of which teach that there cannot be any outward efficiency unless there’s inward harmony. If you question that, go out to your car, pull a couple spark plugs off, then go. I’ll guarantee you it won’t function very efficiently because there’s something that’s not in harmony inwardly. This malady of the soul—the disease of sin—as long as it’s there, keeps you from being an efficient, effective servant of God. Tennyson wrote, “My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.”

The father of a friend of mine went in for very minor surgery, but because the surgeon’s instruments weren’t properly sterilized, the man contracted a rapid-moving staph infection following surgery and died only days later. You and I, who are vessels for God’s use, had better have clean hands, or we’d better not deal with the festering sores of sin in our society, lest we do tremendous damage. That’s why Paul told Timothy to be “a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Timothy 2:21). But we don’t want to do that. We get them saved and want to make them chairman of the board.

Dr. G. B. Williamson said, “We must believe scriptural holiness is a life or death issue, and we must have a new appreciation for the distinguishing doctrine of second blessing holiness. Those who would dilute our doctrines, discount our experience, compromise our standards, and divert us from our purpose are the most effective agents of our destruction. We must be scriptural and clear in the articulation of this vital truth, because we find ourselves in the most vulnerable position when the lines of demarcation are dim.”

Someone has said, “Religion is not only dangerous for the errors it espouses, but for the truth it omits.” You and I have been called to preach the whole counsel of God.

11

“I WILL BUILD MY
CHURCH”

Howie Shute

Matthew 16:17 (NIV)

I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

—Matthew 16:18

One day Jesus and the disciples arrived together in Caesarea Philippi. There Jesus turned to His disciples and asked, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13).

They had all kinds of answers; they had heard the stories. Everyone was amazed at this man Jesus. Some said He was John the Baptist come back to life; others said He was Elijah; some said He was Jeremiah; and others just said He was one of the prophets (see Matthew 16:14).

Then Jesus asked that personal question: “But…who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15).

And in Peter’s finest hour he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living

God” (Matthew 16:16).

Jesus answered, “You didn’t get that from other men. You heard this from My Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:17, author paraphrase).

At that point in time Jesus began to give the disciples some very important teaching. He communicated three simple but very critical truths in Matthew 16:17–24:

“Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

“I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18). That’s one of the greatest promises we’ve been given. Sometimes we think everything’s working against us: It’s the culture; people’s lives are so busy; and so many things are going on in the church. We think we’re never going to be successful at building the church and extending the Kingdom. But Jesus made this promise to His early disciples, and He makes the same promise to us today: I will build My church.

“I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH”—EVERYWHERE

A man in a small village in southern Sudan suffered for years from terrible migraine headaches. He didn’t know the terminology, but he knew he couldn’t stand the pain much longer. He had to get rid of it. There were no hospitals or doctors nearby, so he went to the witch doctor there in the village and asked for help.

The witch doctor said, “Yes, I can help you, but you must follow my instructions exactly. You’ve got to find one of your closest relatives, someone you really love, and cut off that person’s head. Bring the head back to me and I’ll lay my hands on it and say the right words, and your headache will be transferred to this other head.”

The man didn’t want to behead his closest relative, but he was desperate, so he agreed.

He took a few days to consider who he would approach, and during that time a couple Nazarene missionaries came into his village and set up a big screen and video equipment. That night in the village, the JESUS Film was seen for the very first time. And among the crowd was the man with the headache, still trying to figure out whose head he was going to get.

As he watched the film in his own language, he saw Jesus healing so many people. And this man who did not know God in any way prayed his very first prayer. He said, “Jesus, if You can do it for them, You can take my headache away.”

Later, this man testified that after he prayed, “I felt a cold feeling moving from my head all the way down to the bottom of my feet. When that cold moved through my body, it was instantaneous. My headache was gone.”

He lost more than his headache that day; he also lost all those sins he had been carrying. He became a Christian and now is a very active member in the Church of the Nazarene.

Recently in Leere, Ethiopia, some Nazarenes came together for a holiness conference. In the Horn of Africa more than 200 holiness conferences take place every month. The pastors rotate the location among 10 or so churches in their “cluster,” and they all walk, carrying their sack of grain for their meals. They preach and teach about holiness, then go out into the community to evangelize and do compassionate ministry, much like the book of Acts, where it says the disciples met together regularly in fellowship and the breaking of bread (see Acts 2).

On this particular day, about a thousand people—Nazarenes as well as other evangelicals—had come together to worship.

Around the perimeter stood many Muslims, looking for some way to criticize or do something; we were in their community, after all.

In the middle of one of the sermons, four Muslim men, carrying their friend who had been crippled from birth, walked to the front and laid him on the altar.

The pastor stopped. He knew the man and knew he had never taken a step. The pastor stepped down and said, “God can do anything. We’ve been reading in the book of Acts, and God’s not changed, so let’s pray for this man.”

While the pastor prayed those twisted, skinny legs that had never been used, began to straighten. Those who were there tell how it looked like the legs were strengthening and expanding. Pretty soon the man felt a difference—and he stood up. The next thing they knew, he was running and singing and praising God.

Forty Muslims who saw this ran to the front of the church, knelt before the pastor and said, “We need Jesus.”

It wasn’t doctrine that changed them. Doctrine is important, but doctrine didn’t change those people that day. The power of God at work in their community changed them. They knew this Jesus was different than the person they’d been following before.

The place broke out, a thousand people cheering. Some of them jumped up and down, and everyone was excited. Even the Muslim people were moving around.

Finally, when people calmed down some, the man sat down, and the pastor began preaching again.

A woman in the back said to her friends, “That man was a Muslim and Jesus healed him; I’m a Christian and I need healing, but I can’t go up there. Not after what God has just done. What if I go up and God doesn’t heal me? The whole environment would just crash. It would take away the excitement of this meeting.” Her friends agreed, “No, don’t go up. We don’t want to ruin this thing. We’ll take you to the doctor on Monday morning.”

This woman had some kind of infection; she had not urinated in three days. Her abdomen was bloated and she was real sick.

Somehow the word spread through the congregation, and pretty soon the pastor stopped preaching again. He said, “If there’s someone else here who needs to be healed, bring the person up front while God is still here.” So her friends carried this woman up, and the pastor laid his hands on her and began to pray. The results weren’t pretty, but they were definitely effective: While he prayed, urine gushed out of this woman, and she was healed. Sometimes Jesus reaches down and touches us at the very basic places.

That place went crazy again, and the stories haven’t stopped. One church in that community—whose pastor was going to leave because he couldn’t support his family—went from about 30 people to 250 in attendance. It continues to grow and has begun planting other churches—some in an area the Church of the Nazarene International doesn’t know anything about yet. It’s not even a pioneer area. It’s a target area in our minds, but this pastor didn’t know that. He simply walked into a village in a very difficult place, began to preach Jesus, and the whole village came to Christ!

Jesus has not changed. There’s nothing He did in the past that He can’t do today. We Westerners listen to CNN too much. We think everything’s bad news—that God is losing. God is not losing; Jesus is building His church.

That bears repeating: Jesus is building His church—today, everywhere that will have Him. But we need to tie some other truths to this one.

THE CHURCH'S FOUNDATION OF TESTIMONY

I said nothing can stop Christ from building His church, but Jesus plopped in the Matthew passage one exception to the rule. How is He going to build His church? He said, “I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (16:18). The rock is not Peter himself. Some have looked to Peter as the foundation, but God does not build His Kingdom on personalities. I don’t care how personable you are or how winsome you are or how gifted you are, if your church is being built on your personality, it will fall.

Jesus promised to build a church on one foundation alone, and this rock He’s referring to is Peter’s testimony. Jesus asked him, “Who do you say I am?” and Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:15-16). It’s that profession of who Jesus is and what He’s done and what He’s doing in our lives that bring people into the Kingdom.

I’m afraid we so often get it all wrong. Recently somebody told me, “Stop planting churches.” At first I didn’t understand what he meant, but we talked a bit more and he said, “Don’t plant churches; plant Jesus.”

When you get down to the bottom line, the Kingdom grows as we plant Jesus, as we preach Jesus, as we testify to who He is, as we testify to what He’s doing in our lives. That’s what brings people to the Kingdom. That’s how churches grow; that’s how the Kingdom spreads.

The Kingdom is growing in the Horn of Africa, and I know why. I see our Nazarenes sacrificially walking and going places and talking about Jesus, preaching Jesus and teaching Jesus. Let’s stop planting churches here in America and start planting Jesus. The church will grow because Jesus will build His church on that. We plant Jesus, and He builds the church.

I met a man in Ethiopia—I’ll call him James—who had served as a commander of the rebel army there. Many feared him, and thousands had died at his command. One day, he came in contact with a Nazarene Christian who told him about Christ. I’ve never heard about such a radical change in a man. I’ve never met anybody who smiled so much, who loved so much, who was so passionate about Jesus.

At that time, James owned a restaurant. He said to some of our leaders, “I’m not a pastor, but I can open my house and we can have a church here.” Soon he had a good-sized church going, so they decided to plant other churches. James said, “I can help you plant churches. I just planted this one, so I know a little bit about this.”

Then he started showing some of the people from his congregation—even though he’s not the pastor—how to plant churches, how to plant Jesus so the churches could grow. James has planted many churches this way—taking somebody with him, establishing a church, and then going back and saying, “Okay, you’ve been a church now for a month or two; you’re already mature enough. We need to go out and plant another church.”

When I first visited his church, in eight months he had planted five churches. And those five churches had already planted churches.

Because James was always out planting churches, his wife became very concerned. One day she said, “You’ve got to stop this. I believe in what you’re doing, I know God’s called you into the Great Commission, and I’m for it. But you need to spend some time here running your restaurant. It’s falling apart, and we’re losing our customers. We don’t have enough money now even to send our kids to school and feed our family.”

James said, “Let’s pray about this and see what God says.” When they finished praying they were convinced God wanted her to run the restaurant so he could continue planting churches. And that’s what they did.

James planted more and more churches in the surrounding villages, and people from those churches came to his town to market twice a week. Around lunchtime, those Christians chose to eat at James’ restaurant—and only James’ restaurant.

As a result, people often waited in long lines to be served there. James grew frustrated and encouraged people to eat elsewhere so they could get their food faster. To a person, they replied, “No, we will only eat in your restaurant.”

James and his wife again asked God for guidance and decided God wanted them to open another restaurant. As James continued to plant churches, believers continued to come to town to eat at his restaurants. Before long, both places had long lines at lunchtime. Now they’re planning to start a third restaurant. I told him his best business plan is to plant more churches!

God has worked through this man in such a powerful way. It’s amazing. One man, a layman, started a church in his home and it grew into a church that was excited about holiness and the Great Commission. Then that church began planting other churches. At last count, about 300 churches have come into being as a result of this one man’s passion for planting Jesus.

God’s going to build His church, and He’s going to do it through His disciples who are proclaiming Jesus Christ.

DARING TO DIE

Jesus continues to build His church. He builds it on the foundation of the testimony of His people, and we need to look at one more truth from Matthew 16. Verse 21 says, “From that time on.” Jesus had just made His promise: I’ll build My church; I’m going to do it through the testimony of My disciples. Then from that time on, He began to talk about death—His own, first.

Then in verse 24 He spoke these words that demand our attention: “If anyone would come after me, he must”—not should, not might, but must—“deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” He must. If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, you must take up your cross and follow Him.

One of my frustrations is the common misunderstanding of what it means to take up our cross. I’ve heard people say, for example, “My cross to bear is my child who was born with this disability” or “My cross is my unbelieving spouse.” Sometimes we think about the cross as a burden or difficult circumstances, but the cross is a symbol of death. All disciples must die, though not physically, of course. We need to die to self.

Abraham was a priest in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Now you have to understand what it means to be an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian. What it means is you have the Ark of the Covenant. If you’re looking for the Ark, don’t ask Indiana Jones where it is, just ask one of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. It’s in Ethiopia. They have the Ark. They believe they’re the only true church because they are the only ones who have God, who somehow still exists in this box they claim they have. Every Ethiopian Orthodox Church has a holy of holies, and inside they have a replica of the Ark of the Covenant. They observe angels’ days and saints’ days, but they never talk about Jesus.

An evangelist in the north—that’s where the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the strongest—started talking about Jesus in this orthodox community. Some men rushed up to him and held him tightly. One reached in his mouth, grabbed hold of his tongue, and stretched it as far as he could. Someone else cut off the man’s tongue so he could never again mention the name of Jesus.

Another evangelist who dared to preach in an orthodox community was hacked to pieces by angry church members. Abraham was a priest in this church.

A priest who had been converted and was now a Nazarene talked with Abraham, and Abraham accepted Christ. He got sanctified and became a house church pastor. In that area, the church is underground. The members don’t preach publicly, but they risk their lives daily talking with people about Jesus.

One day during Abraham’s personal devotions, God said, “I want you to change your strategy. I want you to begin to speak publicly about Me; I want you to be bold about My witness here in this community.”

Abraham immediately obeyed, telling people what Jesus had done in his life. The priests in the city became very upset. They had him put in prison. At that same time eight other evangelical evangelists who were in that community were also imprisoned for talking about Jesus.

The orthodox priests called a meeting of the whole town; about 6,000 people gathered in the square. The priests brought the nine evangelicals before the crowd and said, “You will deny Jesus Christ publicly today. If you don’t, we’re going to beat you; we’re going to put you back in prison. We might even kill you. You have been proclaiming Jesus publicly, and now you will deny Him publicly.”

One at a time, each evangelical had to step forward. And one at a time, these men said, “I deny Jesus. He’s no longer my Lord and Savior. From this day forward I walk without Him.”

Then Abraham stepped forward.

He said, “You can do to me whatever you want; you can beat me; you can put me in prison and throw away the key; I don’t care. Yes, you can kill me. I can’t stop you. But whatever you do to me, I’ll never deny Jesus. He is my Lord, my Savior. I’ll never deny Him.”

The priests were so unhappy their henchmen rushed forward and began to beat the men right there before the crowd. And then something amazing happened. People who knew Abraham said, “Stop. Don’t beat that man. We see the way Abraham lives. He lives better than any of us. In fact, he lives better than you, our religious leaders. You leave him alone.”

Now the priests weren’t very happy, but because of the pressure of the crowd, they had to let Abraham go that day. But before the crowd dispersed, one of those men who had denied Jesus stepped forward and addressed the people: “Please don’t go. I need to talk to you. I’ve sinned against you; I’ve sinned against God. I’ve sinned against the church, and I did it because I was afraid. I thought for sure I was going to die today, and I denied Jesus. I should not have done it; I’ll never do it again. I take it back. Jesus is my Savior and I’m going to follow Him; it doesn’t matter what you do to me.” Five of the eight other evangelicals stepped forward and said the same thing. Unfortunately, three went away sad, like the rich young ruler.

One of the five who stepped forward and retracted his denial said, “Besides that, we’re going to follow Abraham. We see the way he lives; there’s something different about his life. As he follows Jesus, we’re going to follow him.”

Today, right there in the middle of a strong orthodox north, something amazing is happening. In a place where no one can publicly mention the name Jesus, His name is heard everywhere.

In the schools, the children are talking about Him. In the marketplace, the women buying their vegetables are talking about Jesus. In the coffee shops, the men are having coffee and talking about Jesus. They’re asking, “Who’s been telling us the truth all these years? Is it Abraham or our religious leaders?”

I don’t know what’s going to happen there, but I believe God’s up to something—through one man who made a decision to die to himself. Before he was faced with the prospect of physical death, Abraham considered himself a dead man.

Jesus said He would build His church through the testimony of His disciples, disciples who are dead to themselves. We cannot be used of God to build the church in the Kingdom in a carnal state. We have to die. Are we ready to lay down the rights that we hold on to so strongly? We guard ourselves with such intensity. We protect those things we think are due to us, the things we deserve, the rights we have. And God can’t use us that way.

The reason we don’t have more sanctified Christians—one is that we don’t preach it enough—is that we don’t want to die. We’ll pray the prayer, but we don’t want to die. We want to hold on; we want control.

I’m glad I’m an optimist, because even though I recognize that something may be wrong, I believe Jesus Christ wants to renew us. I believe He’s calling us into a place of dying to self. And if we’ve done it before, to die again and again and again until all we know is what the Lord Jesus wants.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go on the same way. I personally want to change; I want to see our people change. I want to hear from our American and Canadian churches the same types of stories I’m hearing from our African brothers.

We look around and say the church has to change, but we’re the church. If we don’t change, the church is not going to change.

DRAWING THE CIRCLE

Gipsy Smith was a British evangelist of the 19th and 20th centuries, who came to Christ and was discipled through the ministry of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. Someone said to Smith one day, “The church needs revival.”

The evangelist replied, “You want to see the church have revival? I’ll tell you what to do. Do you have a prayer closet?”

The man nodded.

“Go to your prayer closet, and take with you a piece of chalk. When you get into your prayer closet, draw a circle on the floor all the way around yourself. Stay in that circle and begin to pray, ‘O Lord, bring a revival inside the circle.’”

I’ve drawn my circle. I move around quite a bit, but my circle goes with me. I’m praying for a new passion; I’m not content. I want more.

The person who hungers and thirsts after righteousness (Matthew 5:6) will be filled—that’s the promise of Jesus. Are you ready to take your hands off the controls of every area of your life? To die to yourself? I challenge you to draw your circle—and see what God will do.

12

REFLECTING THE
HOLINESS OF GOD

Stan Toler

Exodus 3:5–6; Isaiah 6:1–5 (NIV)

Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.

—Isaiah 6:3

I would like to launch this message on reflecting the holiness of God by reading Exodus 3:5–6: “‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ Then he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” Reflecting God’s holiness means the putting aside of self and selfishness for the redemption of others.

Do you remember the first time you heard your own voice recorded and played back? It was a frightening experience for me hearing such on an old reel-to-reel recorder. Unfortunately, I was practicing a sermon, and I was trying to read that passage where it says, “Not in the lust of concupiscence” (1 Thessalonians 4:5, KJV). However, as a teenage preacher I had trouble with that word. I still shudder to think of that being replayed over and over again. If you have heard your voice, you probably reacted like others. Do I really sound like that? I’m just an old boy from the hills of West Virginia, and so when I listen I always think, I really do sound like an old boy from the hills of West Virginia. Or have you ever looked at a photo of yourself and thought, That doesn’t look at all like me.

I think that’s what happened to Moses. He saw himself and he didn’t like what he was seeing. He was struggling with sight and with sound. And as we think of this whole matter of reflecting the holiness of God, a question arises: Why should we be concerned about holiness? Second Corinthians 7:1 reminds us, “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”

THE HOLINESS OF GOD

Isaiah saw the holiness of God, he heard the reaction of the adoring angels in the presence of God, and then Isaiah, according to chapter 6, verses 1–5, looked at himself and said, “That doesn’t look like me. I don’t sound like that. For sure it couldn’t be me.” But it says,

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

Now, I’ve seen a lot of people who claim to be holy, but holiness is pretty hard to fake. I was raised in the hills of West Virginia on what I call 4-H preaching: hair, hose, hemlines and “hell-avision.” They were against everything. Nothing would escape the wrath of the preacher. When I went to those services, they’d scare the puddin’ out of me. They’d give an altar call and sing 29 verses of “Just as I Am,” and if you didn’t come forward, they came and got you. I’ve been pulled on, pleaded with and prayed for. But the people who try to get it usually end up looking grim and joyless, and they’re no fun; they look like they’ve been baptized in embalming fluid. What an inaccurate reflection of God’s holiness, and how out of tune were those individuals with the seraphs that sang around God’s throne.

Personally, I’d rather be around the genuine. C. S. Lewis once said, “How little people know who think that holiness is dull.” I’m having more fun right now than I’ve had in my entire life. Some of you just need to lighten up and live a little bit. You need to relax in God’s love and learn how to laugh. Some of the happiest people I know are the holiness people—the people who really have experienced God. And when we have met the real thing, C. S. Lewis said, “It is irresistible.”

Isaiah gave us a glimpse of the holy, genuine One seated on a throne high and exalted. Looking so out of place in God’s presence, the prophet expressed an agonizing longing to reflect what God truly is—holy.

What’s holiness look like? Well, that’s a problem isn’t it? Some thought it was hair, hose, hemlines and hell-avision, but I’ve never been a “things” preacher because I think it creates a whole set of scenarios that become quickly outdated as our culture changes.

In that regards we’re kind of like the Sunday school student who was asked to draw a picture of something in the Bible. When he finished, the teacher said, “What’s that?”

The child said, “That’s God.”

The teacher was concerned and replied, “Honey, nobody knows what God looks like.”

Somewhat puzzled, the student looked back and said, “If we don’t know what He looks like, then how can we be like Him?”

All of us have created our designs, but this I know: When we get into His presence, we will know what we’re to look like. I’m glad He gave us the solution and solved the problem by giving us a glimpse of himself in His Word as much as we can stand this side of eternity.

For you see, first of all, I believe holiness characterizes God. First Peter 1:16 says, “For it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’”

Some time ago, I read nine classic books on holiness in a week. (I’m a speed reader.) They were:

- Beliefs that Matter Most by W. T. Purkiser

- Entire Sanctification by C. B. Jernigan

- In His Likeness by John Allan Knight

- Be Filled with the Spirit by W. S. Diehl

- The Fullness of the Spirit by William Greathouse

- Holiness in Practical Living by Lewis T. Corlett

- Entire Sanctification: A Second Blessing by C. W. Ruth

- Life in the Spirit by Richard S. Taylor

- Holiness: The Heart of Christian Experience by J. B. Chapman

Sadly, these books are out of print. Yet J. B. Chapman wrote in 1943, “The Wesleyan revival that emerged came through the distribution of literature, books, and teaching.” He went further to say that “John Wesley himself financed many of the books and the pamphlets that were distributed out of his own pocket in order to see to it that the message of holiness was gladly heralded around the world.”

Our voice is growing silent in this realm. These classics need to be updated and reprinted. We need to get our message out. Perhaps you need to write your book, to name this cause, and you need to stand up for right and righteousness as we begin to reflect the holiness of God once again in a powerful manner—not only in the preached word but also in the printed page. I believe God is speaking to us as a movement about what characterizes Him; it is the people who follow Him, who testify for His glory and His grace.

There’s a second thought, and that is, “Holiness is single-minded devotion to God.” R. S. Taylor once said, “Holiness is not an option; it is as necessary for our spiritual life as food is for our physical life.” Chapman went on in his book to say that “the mark of the holiness believer is entire devotement to God.” And the clear call for us, as we stand up and preach and reflect from our pulpits the message of heart holiness, is that our people would fall on their knees before God and devote their lives entirely to His glory and to His will and to His way.

OUR RESPONSE TO GOD'S HOLINESS

So what, then, is our response to God’s holiness? Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” I believe our first response is a zeal for God.

ZEAL FOR GOD

The passion has to come back into Wesleyan pulpits. We are so reliant on technology and programming (and I have no objection to their use) that if someone pulled the plug in most churches, we wouldn’t have a prayer of having a worship service.

I went by a church the other day and saw a sign out front that said “Casual worship here.” I think they meant “come as you are.” But let me tell you, you cannot worship God casually; that is an oxymoron. You have to give your heart to God and come with a zeal and a passion—not with your iPods, but with your Bibles open, trusting that God will give you the victory. Now, if you have the Bible on your iPod that’s okay, but don’t be listening to the ballgame while I’m trying to preach.

Matthew 6:24 says, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Money.” At its center, holiness calls for us to zealously make God our highest priority.

I remember distinctly when I made that decision for myself. I’d left school in May 1973 to plant a church in Tampa, Florida. I have to confess that it was not going well, and I had reached one of those discouraging moments in my ministry when I thought about quitting. I was seated behind an old metal desk in the parsonage in Tampa, and I looked up toward heaven and said, “God, if You don’t help me, I’m going to go back to Ohio where someone knows my name.” And in the moment, something happened. I looked down at some words on my desk pad that simply said pray for power. I’d been to a conference where the preacher had preached a messaged called “Pray for power.” At that time we didn’t have computers and cell phones, but I had one of those label guns. So I made labels that said pray for power and put them everywhere—on my alarm clock, on my desk pad, on my planner, on the dashboard of my car (and that little 1964 Rambler push-button needed it). I put pray for power on everything I could find. In that moment of discouragement and defeat my eyes focused on those words—pray for power—and God said something rather astounding to me: “Why don’t you do that?”

At that moment, I pushed back my chair, crawled under that old metal desk and laid facedown on the floor. I struggled internally for a while, but then I said, “God, I’m as low as I can get on this earth; I am a worm in the dust. I can’t even look up like Isaiah and Moses did. I can’t make it any longer without Your help. God, will You send Your sanctifying presence and power into my life?”

In that moment, the glory of God descended into my life. I became a power-filled preacher, and the Spirit of God filled my life to overflowing and He cleansed me. Every time someone has asked me, “What’s the secret of the growth in the churches you’ve served and the ministry you’ve had?” I have always said, “It was that moment when I fell before God and got as low as I could and said, “I’m not smart enough, I don’t have the brain power for this, I can’t preach well enough; I have to have Your help.”

To this day, every Sunday morning after my prayer partners take time to pray with me, I look at my message and say, “God, I really thought I had a good outline going here, but I’m telling You it’s inadequate. You’ve got to help me or I’m sunk today.” I kneel down beside my chair, cry out to God in heaven, and anointing and unction and authority come into my life; I begin to believe God is going to build His church and He’s going to move and do something in my life and ministry as I stand behind the sacred pulpit and preach His Word.

We have to move back to that very simple belief that He has the power and authority and ability to fill our lives and empower us for ministry and service. But it comes when we give our all.

SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD

Our second response to holiness is that it involves a separation from the world. As I said, the church I grew up in was against everything. Today, though, our problem is not legalism; our problem is liberalism. Our concern ought to be the fact that anything goes. Our concern ought to be the fact that people come into our churches and they’re biblical illiterates. Our concern ought to be that this nation is lost. Our concern ought to be the fact that God is calling holiness people not to talk like the world, not to act like the world, not to live like the world, but to stand up and have the courage to say no to that which is wrong, and the ability and the power to make decisions whenever there are questionable issues between right and wrong. We are called to step out and shine as lights and shine God’s light on what is right. Holiness reflects God’s moral perfection and separation from anything that is ethically unclean. It calls for integrity in our communication and purity in our lifestyle. When the holiness church and when holiness people stand up and become holiness Christians, we will see a revival in this nation like we have never experienced before.

A DESIRE TO BE LIKE CHRIST

Our third response to holiness is that it involves a desire to be Christlike. Matthew 22:37–38 says, “Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” If I know my heart today, I love God. I was saved as a child. I’ve spent my whole life in ministry. I have a very simple faith in God, but the deepest desire of my heart is to be like Christ.

Reflecting God’s holiness seems implausible at first because of who He is. He could never be like us. But because of who He is, He invites us to be like Him as much as we can be while living in the confines and the confusion of planet earth. The impossible becomes possible through the provision of His Son, Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Wesley once said, “The Holy Spirit is the immediate cause of holiness.”

REFLECTING GOD'S HOLINESS

So, then, why should we be concerned about reflecting the holiness of God? First Corinthians 1:30 says, “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” We reflect God’s holiness by cultivating three attitudes and habits: (1) an unconditional hatred for sin, (2) an unconditional love for people, and (3) an unconditional sacrifice for the love of others.

AN UNCONDITIONAL HATRED FOR SIN

Reflecting the holiness of God means rejecting sin. At the very heart of the problem is that we don’t understand the sin problem. And I’m saying I object; I reject the sin business, and I hate what it has done to our world. I hate what it’s done to people. I hate what it’s done in terms of wrecking lives and ruining people because of their failure to follow God.

Corlett, in his book The ABC’s of Holiness, said, “Holiness as an ideal sets up very definite standards of right and wrong. It does not lend itself to the prevalent disposition of this age to eliminate the distinction between sin and righteousness and to live in the haze of gray.”

Stealing is now “shoplifting,” and adultery is now “having an affair.” We have watered down all the terminology, and I’m angry about sin. I’m angry about how it’s wrecked and destroyed my mother’s family. I thank God every day that her great-uncle, who was a preacher in the hills of West Virginia, saw fit to send her along with his daughter to a little school in Cincinnati, Ohio, called God’s Bible School. There she met Jesus Christ as a teenager, and her life was transformed, but she is the only one out of the whole family who’s followed the Lord. The grace of God makes me thank Him every day for my mother, but I’m also angry about what sin has done in the lives of her family members. I’m saying I hate it, and we have to stand up and speak against it.

AN UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR PEOPLE

I spoke with a ministerial student recently who said, “I’m so excited about going into the ministry. I’ve just graduated from seminary, and I’ve got it all together. I’ve only got one problem.”

I said, “What is it?”

He replied, “I hate people.”

You know, if you hate people, you may want to wait awhile. The hardest job I have is loving God’s people. In fact, I’ve got a book in the works right now titled If I Could Only Relate to the People I’m Related To. The hardest job in the world is getting along with the people to whom you’re related. But 1 John 3:1 says, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” God’s heart looks beyond the deeds of the doer. He can’t accept the sin, but He can wrap His arms of acceptance and forgiveness around the repentant sinner.

As a boy attending Mount of Praise camp meetings and youth camps over on East Ohio Street, I remember those times following a stirring service when we would gather for a time of praise and reflection around a campfire away from all the activities. As other young people arrived, that circle kept getting larger. Some of those who joined the circle later weren’t necessarily, in my opinion, the holiest in disposition or conduct—at least before the service. But as we gathered around those campfires, the presence of God and the warmth of the fire and the glow of our hearts always made a place for them in the circle. Reflecting God’s holiness means no more closed circles. That doesn’t mean that we stamp our approval on sin in any form; it does mean, however, that we have a heart—the heart of God—that is inclusive rather than exclusive.

AN UNCONDITIONAL SACRIFICE FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS

Third and finally, reflecting God’s holiness involves an unconditional sacrifice for the good of others. Nobody wants to talk about sacrifice today, and nobody wants to talk about radical obedience. I watched a report on CNN regarding the recent tax rebate checks. Only three percent of people surveyed said they were going to give any part of the money to charity. When we look at the decline in giving levels of Christians in churches everywhere, I think we all could fall on our knees and cry out, “God, help us.”

But when people get sanctified wholly, God gets everything they have. That’s what happened in Acts 4. Not only were the believers filled with the Holy Spirit, but verse 32 says, “No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.”

When we have a movement of a holy God upon His people and they seek Him, then they reflect that holiness, and they sacrifice to meet the needs of our world.

Some time ago I sat in a meeting in which we were interviewing ministerial students for possible licensing and ordination. One man asked a student to explain entire sanctification. The guy really struggled, and I felt a bit sorry for him. Finally I said, “Just give me one Scripture verse on sanctification.”

“Oh man,” he said, “that’s a hard job.”

“Well, just one.”

He thought about it for a little bit and finally said, “John 3:16.”

I laughed inside and thought, He’s dead. He could have gone with 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Corinthians 4:7; Isaiah 6; but no—John 3:16. Then I thought about the fact that John 3:16 has been made fun of and mocked by football fans and wrestling promoters and stand-up comedians, but it will never be replaced as the definitive word on God’s commitment to His creation: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” And in that love, He paid the ultimate sacrifice for every person.

Reflecting God’s holiness means the putting aside of self and selfishness for the redemption of others. According to the apostle Paul, it’s something seen in the home as well as on the highways. Holiness, Chuck Colson said, is the everyday business of every Christian. Holiness Christians and holiness churches should be about the business of compassion, about sacrificing for the needs and the good of others. We are called to feed and clothe the children of God’s big world.

When I was 11, my family moved to Columbus, Ohio. My dad was a coal miner, and we were extremely poor. Dad finally found a job but was soon laid off. We didn’t have a thing in the house to eat. But a little holiness church on 5th Avenue in Columbus, Ohio, fed and clothed my family. My brothers, Terry and Mark, and I often say how, on those Monday mornings when we just feel like hanging it up, turning in our resignations, and driving off into the sunrise, the thing that’s kept all three of us in the ministry is the holiness of those people loving us through the very difficult times. After Dad was killed in an accident, the people of that church wrapped their arms around us and showed compassion and love as we worked our way through the death of our earthly father.

In those people I saw God’s reflection. Their compassion, concern and love not only pushed three boys through Christian holiness university, but also out into God’s big world where we all three today are preachers of this great message. We’re at our best when we get out there and meet the needs of the people who need Christ. And our reflection of God’s holiness, will impact them for Christ and make goodness attractive.

13

THE LIFE-CHANGING
PRAYER OF JESUS

Norman Wilson

John 17 (NKJV)

Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.

—John 17:17

Let’s begin by looking at John 17, the high-priestly prayer of Christ:

Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. . . . Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. . . . I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth” (John 17:1–3, 11, 15–19).

There are three different locations in the book of Hebrews where the writer tells us the place, the position and the activity of Jesus Christ at the present moment. Hebrews 9:24 says, “Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands…but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” Chapter 10 verses 11–12 says, “Every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.” These verses tell us the good news that Jesus is now in heaven seated at the right hand of God. Hebrews 7:25 tells us of His activity: “He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”

Jesus is in heaven, seated at the right hand of God, praying for you and for me—praying for all of us. He makes that clear in John 17:20: “I do not pray for these alone,”—that is, these who are here with Me now—“but also for those who will believe in Me through their word.” That’s for you and for me. Jesus Christ is praying for us at the right hand of the Father.

What is He praying about? What would be the burden at the heart of Christ as He prays for you and me, for all people? I don’t know of any place in Scripture where we are told specifically what He’s praying about at the right hand of the Father, but there is a place that tells us what He prayed about just before He went to the Father.

CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR SALVATION

This was the burden of the heart of Christ as He prayed for His disciples and us in John 17. It is perhaps what He’s praying for us now.

TRANSFORMATIONAL REGENERATION

The first part of His prayer is this: “That He [Jesus] should give eternal life to as many as You [the Father] have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:2–3). Jesus is, first of all, praying for everyone, including us, that we would be saved. For God is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He wants us all to be saved.

Some time ago, I got a letter from a man who said something like this: “You preachers are always talking about people needing to be saved. Saved from what? I’ve lived for 80 years! I don’t need to be saved from anything.”

Well, I could tell him—and anyone else—what you need to be saved from. The angel said, “Call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). People need to be saved from their sins. The Bible says you need to be saved by Him from wrath, from hell. You need to be saved to be right with God. The foundation of all we do in our churches, the foundation of every message we preach, ought to be that people repent and be saved and believe the gospel. We need to see people saved genuinely and completely—totally converted.

A few years ago Keith Drury and I were chatting one day over coffee, and he said, “Norman, you know what’s the matter with us? You know why we’re so frustrated?”

I said, “Keith, am I frustrated?”

“Yeah,” he said, “we’re frustrated. And you know what it is? You and I are out there week after week trying to get people sanctified who aren’t even saved.”

I’m afraid he was right. There are scores of people in our churches today who are good people. They’re nice people. They’re in the body as far as their membership is concerned, but they are not a part of the body of Christ. They have never been born again.

Before he died, William Booth spoke, I think, prophetically when he said he was afraid that in the coming century—which for him was the 20th century—the dangers that the church would face were religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration and politics without God.

What is happening today? God has been expelled officially from the politics of America. Salvation is taught without regeneration. People are talking about being saved without anything happening, without anything changing.

I was present in a church when they were receiving 17 new members into the fellowship of the church. The pastor took the microphone and went down the line of the 17 people and asked them to give a testimony—to give a word as to why they were joining that church. This is the composite testimony:

“Well, my life was kind of a mess, and things were not going well for me. Then somebody invited me to come to this church, and you people were so nice. You just seemed to welcome me with open arms. I felt like I was so accepted, and I liked you, and I just wanted to be a part of you, and that’s why I’m joining the church.”

One person out of the 17 said, “I found Jesus Christ as my Savior.” Where is salvation if there is no regeneration?

I was at a baptism service some time ago, and they asked those being baptized to give a word. One person said, “I’ve always believed in God, and this just seemed like the next step I ought to take.” Where is the regeneration?

This is a testimony from a holiness church. They asked this new “believer” to give his testimony. Here’s what he said:

I never had much to do with God; didn’t like church. But I got acquainted with this guy at work, and my wife got acquainted with his wife. And they kind of befriended us. One day I came home from work and my wife said, “We’re going on vacation.”

“We are? What are we gonna do?”

“We’re going with this couple,” she said.

“We’re going on vacation with them? Church people?”

She said, “Yeah.”

So we went on vacation. I thought, What am I getting myself into with these weird church people? But I found out on vacation, these are just regular people. They’re just like us! We had a wonderful time. When we came back, because we’d had such a good time, I started coming here to church with them, and I got involved in one of their home small groups.

After several months, I woke up one morning and said to my wife, “You know what? I think I’ve become one of those crazy Christians.”

You don’t just wake up and think that maybe you’ve become a “crazy Christian” if you’ve been born again. The Bible says being born again is coming from death to life. I don’t think when Lazarus came walking out of the tomb that he wondered if he was alive or not. I think he knew something had happened. There was a transformation. He became a new person because of Christ Jesus. The Bible says, “If anyone is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation; old things have passed away”—and I like the next word—“behold [Look! You can see it! It’s obvious! Look at him!] all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

We are in grave danger of losing transformational regeneration from our message; instead we have regeneration by assimilation. People come in, and they like our fellowship. We like them. They like us. They’re nice people. They want to be a part of our fellowship, so we assimilate them. But at birth there is a process that leads to a crisis moment. And when that birth comes, everybody knows a new person has been born.

A CONFRONTATIONAL GOSPEL

We’ve got to get back to the place where we preach a confrontational gospel that lets people know there’s a cost, a price. Now, I know the price has been paid. But the fact of the matter is, Jesus said, we need to count the cost. That’s what He preached about. You don’t start building a tower, you don’t start building a life—a supposed Christian life—without figuring out what it’s going to take to build that tower.

Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross” (Matthew 16:24). In the pathway of every one of us, between each person and his or her relationship with God, there is a cross. There, we can do one of two things: We can deny it or we can die on it, but we cannot ignore it. People have to be made to understand that coming to Christ isn’t just turning over a new leaf or joining a new fellowship or becoming a part of a cultural transformation. When you come to Jesus Christ, standing between you and Him is a cross. It’s the cross Jesus died on, and it’s the cross you must die on and take up. You are dead, and you have to go through the death of the cross to become alive in Christ Jesus.

I’ve preached at the indoor camp in Columbus, Ohio, several times. One particular time that church was about full. Just as I began my message, I looked at the back door, and a man came staggering in, dressed in nothing but a pair of shorts. He had no shirt, no socks, no shoes; just a pair of shorts. I was trying to preach and concentrate on my message, but I kept seeing what he was doing.

One of the ushers grabbed him and took him out, so I went on preaching. In a little while, they came back. The usher was with him—the man now had on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt—and they sat in the back together.

I concluded my sermon and started and invitation with words something like this: “I wonder if there is anyone here tonight—” and that man shot to his feet, stepped out in the aisle, threw his hands up in the air, and said, “It’s me! It’s me! I’m the one! I’m the sinner! I’m lost! It’s me,” and he started down the aisle. “It’s me! It’s me! I’m the one! I’m lost! I need God!” And he came down to the altar. Some of the men came and knelt with him while we went on and sang a little bit. You can imagine what that did to the atmosphere—nobody else came to the altar. Nobody came within many feet of that altar.

I prayed and closed the service. When I went out of the church, he was sitting in the back again. He grabbed my hand and kissed it and said, “Thank you.” He was obviously totally inebriated, and my heart went out to him. But Jesus asks this question: Do you think that that man was a greater sinner than some of the others who were in that congregation? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will also perish.

On the other side of the coin, we see nicely dressed, sophisticated-looking people sitting in our churches, and we don’t dare talk to them about sin and wickedness and confession and hell. But unless they repent, they too will perish. And we in the holiness movement had better be at the forefront of seeing to it that we preach a confrontational gospel. We can concoct all kinds of different ways to try to ease people into it, but at some point, we must realize there is no easy way. At some point we have to have a godly sorrow. I think the thing that is missing in most so-called conversions today is people have never become sorry for the fact that they have sinned. They’ve never been presented with the alternative of what that sin is going to mean to them, and they’ve never been so gripped with conviction that they say, “Not that I’m sorry that I got caught, not that I’m sorry about the consequences, not that I’m sorry I hurt somebody, not that I’m sorry that I lost my job or my family left me, but I’m sorry I ever did anything against my Lord Jesus Christ that I sent Him to the Cross.”

Jesus is praying for every person—those who don’t know they’re saved, who don’t know their sins are forgiven, who don’t have the assurance that their past is under the blood and their sin has been cast into the sea of God’s forgetfulness. He’s saying, Father, save them. Let them know You, the true God, and that the only way to know You is through Me. There is only one God, and the only way to know the true God is through His Son Jesus Christ. “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR SANCTIFICATION

When people are truly saved, when they’ve been born again, regenerated from within, there’s going to be a longing and a hunger in their heart. They’re going to want something more. Jesus prayed for them to be sanctified: “Sanctify them by Your truth. . . . And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified” (John 17:17, 19). Once individuals know they’re saved, Jesus prays for them that they might be sanctified, that they would enter into this second work of grace whereby they surrender all they understand about themselves to everything they understand about God. They bring all they are and all they ever will be, all they have and all they ever will have. And they either figuratively or literally lay it on the altar, and say, “Lord, here. I give myself away.” And when they come to that place of surrender, what happens to them is the sanctifying grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, sometimes when we preach sanctification, somebody will say, “I really don’t understand this sanctification business. I’ve never been to Bible college, and I’ve never studied theology; I don’t understand all these theological terms.”

Well, instead of staying away from Bible terms, why don’t we explain them?

Every area of life has its own lexicon. As the director of the department of communications at The Wesleyan Church World Headquarters, I supervise information services; I’m responsible for all the computers there. Somebody said to me one day, “You’re over communications and computers?”

I replied, “The president of General Motors doesn’t have to know how to build a car; he just has to know how to hire people who know how to build cars.”

When I got into computers, I found these people speak a language I don’t begin to understand. I still don’t know much about it. They talk about bits and megabytes and rams, and I always thought a ram was a male sheep with curled horns. Regardless, nobody said to me, “Wilson, we know you’re a computer illiterate, so we won’t use those terms around you.” No, they said, “Wilson, you’re an illiterate. You’ve got to do some studying; you’ve got to learn these terms.”

Likewise, we need to recognize there’s a lexicon of the Bible that the world doesn’t know. They don’t understand it because the concepts are of the Spirit and are spiritually discerned. Also, people haven’t been educated. So, let’s educate them. Rather than saying, “Don’t use the word sanctification; they don’t understand it,” let’s explain the term.

Thus, when someone says to me, “I don’t understand sanctification,” I say, “Can you understand this: ‘This is the will of God, your sanctification’ (1 Thessalonians 4:3)?”

Usually they’ll respond, “Well, I don’t know what sanctification is.”

“I didn’t ask you if you know what sanctification is. Can you understand it is the will of God for you?”

“But I don’t know what it will do for me.”

“I didn’t ask if you know what it will do for you. Can you understand it is the will of God for you?”

“Well, I don’t know how to do it.”

“I didn’t ask if you know how to do it. Can you understand it’s God’s will for you?”

“But I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t have to explain it; can you understand that it is God’s will for you? If you understand it is God’s will for you, and you want God’s will in your life as a Christian, then that’s what you want.”

According to legend, a student approached a learned philosopher and said, “Wise teacher, I would like to be like you. I would like to learn the kind of wisdom and knowledge you have. Can you teach me?”

The philosopher replied, “Yes. Come and walk with me.”

They walked side by side for many miles. The student expected at any moment for the teacher to start the lesson, but the man never said a word; they just walked. Finally they arrived at the shore of a lake; still no word was spoken. They reached the edge of the water, and the student paused and looked at the master; not a word was said. They walked into the water—to their knees, their hips, their armpits, and they stopped. The professor turned, grabbed the student, pushed him down under the water and held him there. The student began to struggle, but still the master held him down. The young man kicked and flailed his arms, but the teacher kept him under the water. After awhile bubbles broke the surface, and the man finally pulled his student out. With the student still gasping for breath, the philosopher asked, “When you were under the water, what did you want more than anything else in all the world?”

“Air to breathe.”

“When you want wisdom like you wanted air, you’ll get it.”

When you want the will of God more than you want a promotion at work, more than that bigger house, more than that relationship, when you want the will of God more than you want anything else in all the world, do you know what you’ll get? Sanctified. Because that’s God’s will for you.

When you get to the place where you want the will of God more than anything else, that is sanctification. And that is the message people who have been born again need to hear.

CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR KEEPING

Let’s look at one other part of Christ’s prayer for us. John 17:11, 15 says, “Keep through Your name those whom You have given Me. . . I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” This part of His prayer is for those of us who have been saved and sanctified, filled with the Holy Spirit. You may wonder why we need that prayer now. Because, friends, we’re not home yet. We still have many battles to fight, many trials to face, many temptations to endure and many difficulties along the way. There’s a rough road between us and glory, and we’ll encounter many opportunities to fall by the wayside, so Jesus is praying that we’ll be kept in Him in the midst of all this.

Paul said—I think he was describing our time—we shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (Philippians 2:15). Do you know what that means? That means this is a generation of crooks and perverts. No one would deny that our world is filled with crooks—people who want too much of our hard-earned money and other resources—but what did Paul mean by perverse? Immediately when we refer to someone as “perverted,” our minds run to one thing: sexual perversion. But that’s only one part of the meaning of the word. Perversion means to call good that which is bad, and call bad that which is good. We see this everywhere in our culture, and yet we’re called to be clean in spite of what’s around us, and that can be a significant challenge.

From church on Sunday, we send our young people into the public high schools on Monday, where they’re surrounded by drugs, elicit sex and pornography, and terrible language—and we tell them to stay clean. Men and women working in offices and factories face the same issues. How can we possibly stay pure amid the sin and perversion?

Think about dressing a West Virginia coal miner in a white tuxedo and saying, “You go down into that mine and work as hard as you can. When you come out, you be sure that suit is white and that silk tie is spotless. Don’t come out here with any dirt on you.”

Well, after our miner’s been underground all day with a jackhammer, working the face of the coal, he’ll come out black as can be. Every part of his person that was exposed to the environment of the mine will be covered in coal dust—every part but one. His eyes will still be shining bright. Why? Because there’s an internal mechanism that keeps the eye washed and clean.

We live in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Jesus prayed that we’d be kept clean in spite of what’s around us, and He knew that would be possible as we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Jude wrote praise to “to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory” (Jude 24).

Jesus Christ is in heaven right now, seated at the right hand of the Father, praying for all of us to be saved, sanctified and kept by His glorious power. Thank You, Jesus, for Your prayer.

14

THE FIRST LOVE

Christian Sarmiento

Ephesians 3:14–21 (NIV)

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

—Ephesians 3:17–19

I am very impressed by the words that describe the width, the length, the height and depth of the love of God. His desire is that we die to ourselves and have the whole fullness of His love. This is a key prayer. If you go through the whole book of Ephesians, this prayer is like a door. It closes after chapters 1–3, and then opens at chapters 4–6. He wants us to have the full nature of His love. He wants us to have himself, the fullness of himself.

Let me tell you a story that happened in 1977. I came to the Bible College from the seminary in Costa Rica. I was learning English, and I had to buy a car. I did not know how to drive, but I bought a car. I had never had a car before; my dad never had a car; my granddad never had a car. I did not know anything about cars, so I got a little Austin American. I was 20 years old, had been married for a year-and-a-half, and was having what any young person would desire. We went everywhere in that car. I learned the city, learned how to go to the mountains, and was amazed by the scenery of this beautiful land. About three months later my wife, whose father had had a car, asked me, “When are we going to change the oil of the car?”

I said, “We don’t need to change the oil because this car is new; it’s a great car. It has very little mileage, only 80,000 miles.” For me, it seemed like a brand new car. So I said, “Well, we will do it later.”

Three weeks later she asked me again, “When are we going to change the oil of the car?”

I said, “Later.”

Five months later, she again asked, “When are we going to change the oil of the car?”

I said, “Well, let me think, you know, we don’t have money. We are earning $1.50 an hour and are barely able to make it. What we need to do is go to a mechanic shop, buy a book, buy the tools, and buy the oil and the filter and we will change the oil ourselves. You will help me.” She was so happy. I bought the book, and I put the book in the trunk of the car. I also put the oil and filter in the trunk of the car, along with the tool to change the filter. And it was there for two more months.

Again my wife said, “When are we going to change the oil of the car?”

I said, “Honey, we have the oil for the car. We even have directions how to do it. It is in the car.”

Well, another month went by and a red light came on the dashboard. Soon it was flashing all of the time; you could not avoid it; it was telling you something. So my wife said, “There is something wrong with the car.”

I said, “Yeah, it must be the electrical system.” We did not know anything about cars.

I went to a mechanic friend who was one of the students here. He said, “I will fix it for you, don’t worry.” He unplugged the red light.

A year went by. It was September 1978, and we were going to Manito Springs. The car started shaking. And then we heard a horrible noise and the motor exploded. I had never checked the oil of the car.

My prayer today is that God will come and put the dipstick in our hearts and check where we are in our level of love for Christ. And as He speaks to us, we may need to respond and say, “Lord fill me up again. I am dry. I am shaking. I have seen all of the red lights, but I haven’t paid any attention to them.”

As I said, this prayer is like a door, and if you go from chapter three to chapter four, immediately you see many commands. There are not too many instructions in the first three chapters, but beginning in chapter four there are many imperative verses. Consider verse one of chapter four: “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called” (NKJV). Paul is calling us to live worthy of the calling, and then he goes on in verse 25: “Therefore, putting away lying” (NKJV). It looks like there were some people with low oil, and they were doing many things there in that church. But here he’s saying directly to be like Christ: “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1–2).

These are orders, and if you go through the whole chapter, it says, “Be filled with the Spirit” (5:18). He also gives the husband an order: “Love your wives” (5:25). This is practical holiness in the real life. This is not theology; this is just real holiness, how to live your life where you are. It says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord” (5:22). Husbands, take the example of Christ, die for your wives, honor them (5:25). Parents, treat your children decently (6:4). Children, submit to your parents (6:1-2). Directors, try to teach your people like Christ does (6:9). People that work for others must submit to them with respect (6:5-8). Then he says that we do not have this war against principalities, we have that in the heavenly places. So he tells us to be dressed with the whole armor of God (6:10-18).

I hope this joke is culturally acceptable to you because I would like to illustrate what I am going to say. There was a baby that was born without arms in Switzerland. The doctors put arms on him. His name is Roger Federer—at one time the number one tennis player in the world.

Another doctor, an American doctor said, “Oh that’s nothing. Many years ago a baby called Baby Ruth was born without arms and became the best baseball player in history.” You know, they were bragging among doctors.

Still another doctor said, “In my country a baby was born without brains; we filled his head with garbage and he became the president.”

What I am trying to point out is that you cannot tell anybody to play tennis if the person does not have arms or legs to run. You cannot tell somebody to direct a country or be the president of an institution if he does not have a brain to do it. And that is what the apostle does in chapters 1–3. He tells us that we have to fulfill the orders in chapters 4–6.

Let us see what God has done for us. It is incredible and starts in verse three of chapter 1: “Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (NKJV). How many blessings has He given us? He has given us every spiritual blessing. Where are those blessings? They are in the heavenly places. We have everything. We do not lack anything. The problem is to get to those heavenly places. If I knew where those heavenly places were, I would be there and would be enjoying every spiritual blessing.

Paul goes on. God adopted us and in Him we have redemption and forgiveness. He has even given us the mystery of His will (1:5-9).

Verses 19-20 say, “And what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places” (NKJV). Do you see it? The Ephesians have had every spiritual blessing, and now Paul is praying for them to have wisdom and power which are in the heavenly places. Resurrection power came through Jesus who is in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 2:8 tells us, “For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves” (NKJV). Verse six says, “And raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (NKJV). Where are you today? In the heavenly places? What do you have? Every spiritual blessing? You have everything that you need to live a powerful Christian life. In fact, the next place where he mentions the spiritual places is somewhat scary. In Ephesians 3:10, he is speaking about the church, speaking about the body. And Paul, in 3:1–12 is giving his personal testimony. He says, “Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things” (Ephesians 3:8-9). Do you see that?

He wants the Ephesian church to become a powerful church that will share Christ everywhere, because that church has everything that it needs to share the gospel and the message of holiness.

In verse 14 he kneels down “For this reason, I bow my knees.” And he prays that we will have the fullness of the Spirit of God, and that we will comprehend with all the saints the size of the love of God. Remember, the church in Ephesus is a great church. When the church had started, there was an eloquent person in that church preaching. His name was Apollo. Two lay people told him about the Holy Spirit. Paul was there for about two-and-a-half years, and they started that tremendous church. He left Timothy there as a pastor. When John the Apostle left the Isle of Patmos, he was one of the last pastors that we know of in that church.

We were in Ephesus one day with several church leaders in front of the temple of Diana. We had a young tourist guide, and she said, “I have a letter that I want to read to you.” She got her little New Testament out of the packet and read the letter that I am going to read to you. This is the letter in Revelation to the church in Ephesus, the great church with a great inheritance.

“To the angel of the church of Ephesus write: ‘These things says He who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary”’” (Revelations 2:1–3, NKJV).

That sounds like our church, a great church. We have not been weary; we are moving all over the place. We are against evil. John wrote, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Revelations 2:4, NKJV). Remember my car? Remember the dipstick? I don’t know about you, but I know about me. I remember a few years ago I was preaching in an evangelistic campaign in Riobamba, Ecuador. I was driving late at night probably about 2 o’clock. The altar had been full that night, but I sensed that I had lost my first love.

I have had only one girlfriend, my wife. We have been married for 32 years now. Actually, she shared the gospel with me. We are still married, and have three young adult children. I remember when I was dating her. We did not have a car. I was a university student and did not have any money, so I had to walk 50 blocks to see her. I wanted to take her to school. Guess what? I got up at five o’clock in the morning, and I walked 50 blocks to meet her and to take her to school. It took 20 minutes to take her to school, but it took an hour and a half to get to where she was. Then I would walk back in the afternoon.

We just had a retreat with the district superintendents in Colombia, South America. They have gone through a lot, but they get up at four o’clock every morning with their churches. They want to meet Him; they have not lost their first love. These are not just older people; there are also 12 year olds and 14 year olds. The prayer service is at five o’clock in the morning. When you come into that room, you see about one thousand people just walking. It is so early in the morning; they have to walk to keep awake while they pray. When you enter, it is like when you come out of the air-conditioned room to the heat and it hits you in the face. That is how you feel the presence of God when you come in. You forget about your problems—my knee hurts or please help me with the board meeting next week. You come to praise God and to have fellowship with Him. How deep is your love? Maybe this week is the week of red lights that are warning us on the dashboard. Maybe we have the book, and maybe we have the oil, but they are not in the right place.

During the first week of August, Dr. Bustle and I were in a pastor’s retreat in Peru. We had an awesome time. There were 750 pastors, ministers, and leaders. All of the generations were represented. The Peruvian Nazarenes are incredible; they have the first love. When a lay Peruvian moves to another town where there is no Nazarene church, he does not go and find another church. He starts a Nazarene church in his home.

We met an 82 year-old man who sold hats in the artisan market. We found out that he had started many churches as a layman. In fact, he was starting four new churches at that time. Louie asked him, “What is the key?” And he said, “Well I want to show you the key.” He showed us his much-calloused knee. He said, “I get up every morning about 4 o’clock and I have a meeting with Him, and I can’t wait to open another place for people to come and meet God.”

The church in Ephesus had every spiritual blessing; it had the best leaders that the church has given us: Paul, Timothy and the Apostle John. However, in 431 A.D. they held the Council of Ephesus in that church, and then it became the church of Martha and Mary.

I remember what the tour guide said, “There is no church here in Ephesus.” We were all crying; six regional directors, a general superintendent and the World Mission director. Why is there no church in Ephesus? They had lost their first love.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Foreword

1 - No More Mr Hyde

2 - Right Next Door

3 - In Lieu of Laminate

4 - Three Blessings of Holiness

5 - Called to Perfection

6 - The Gift of Transformation

7 - The Rewards of Waiting

8 - Ordinary People

9 - The Promise of Holiness

10 - Seeking a Pure Heart

11 - I Will Build My Church

12 - Reflecting the Holiness of God

13 - The Life-Changing Prayer of Jesus

14 - The First Love