(Get Ready)New Wine on the Way

Luke 10:38 – 42 Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. 39And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. 40But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. 41And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: 42But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

 Martha, just trying to take care of serving what she thinks to be a legitimate need of Jesus, wants to prepare him something to eat. She is probably doing what any other woman would have done if they had the opportunity to have this wonderful guest at their house. As she is serving, she notices very quickly that her younger sister Mary is not up helping her in the responsibility. Mary is sitting down at the feet of Jesus, simply listening to him talk. Martha becomes aggravated and irritated about Mary not helping her do the work that she thinks needs to be done.

When Martha addresses this situation with Jesus, the person she thinks will help her get it resolved, she says, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Please tell her to help me.” Now, when Jesus gives the answer , it’s not Mary that he addresses with the problem but Martha. “Martha, you’re concerned about a whole lot of things, but only one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that which is best, which shall not be taken away from her.”

In another passage of scripture when asked if someone had given Him meat, Jesus replied, “My meat is to do the will of the father who sent me. Jesus was fed by ministering to the needs of others. Then in Mark Chapter Ten, He says, “I came not to be ministered unto but to minister.”

The powerful truth that is conveyed in this story is that Martha was just busy trying to feed Jesus! But Mary, who was sitting down, was doing the real feeding of Jesus by providing him her own hunger. How about you today? Are you trying to get Jesus to get someone to help you with what you’re doing or are you ready to sit down and let him be the supplier to your every need!

Martha is a picture of people who are trying to give Jesus the sacrifice of their service. It’s not a bad thing; it’s just not the best thing. It makes us feel better but has no power to make us better. Martha is a picture of people who are under the law, still trying to give God their own abilities and they always come up short; and they start getting mad at other people because they’re running out of energy. Mary is a picture of people under grace, just receiving from Jesus the Word of life and love that gives a wonderful supply for others and we never run dry!

Are you living more like Mary or Martha today?

 The message that we have presented as preachers is often filled with a good balance of Grace and Law. Yet Jesus told us that new wine can’t be poured into old wine skins because the wine would expand, the bottles would brust and the wine would be wasted. God wants to supply us with His power through grace to receive this wonderful wine (the Holy Spirit)! We must recognize that we are empty and stop trying to supply our needs through our own works. We must simply sit at his feet and receive the new wine so that we can have a full, expansive life. Jesus said, “As you have freely received, freely give. We get from God, not by trying but trusting, not by running but resting, not by wondering but by praying—that’s where we will find, strength of our Lord!

Redeeming The Time

 So, then, be careful how you live. Do not be unwise but wise, ¹⁶making the best use of time because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15-16 ISVNT

King Solomon had to have one of the most brilliant minds of all time. He is described as one of the wisest men that ever lived. It is evident, if we view his writing in Ecclesiates 3, that he was able to grasp the concept of time managment. In verse number one he states that everything has a season and a time to every purpose.

A group of us were meeting together to pray and study the word of God in the mornings, and we were challenged last week by the verse in Ephesians Chapter Five:  ”Redeem the time,” as it says in the King James version.  As we began to review where and how our time was being spent, we noticed that we were wasting one of the most valuable gifts that God has given us. We all kept saying,  ”Where has this month gone?” and “Hasn’t this year flown by?”  Yet one of  the reasons we were unaware of the loss of all that time is because we  recognized that we hadn’t taken advantage of every moment.

As we began to make a list of the things we needed to accomplish and the tasks that we were already doing, we decided to make a plan of how best to start making every moment count.  Life is going by so fast these days. It seems that we must begin redeeming the time as soon as possible or we will wake up and be so old that our lives will be filled with much regret.

God has allotted us all a certain amount of time.  Why not evaluate your time and start controlling it, instead of it keeping your life out of control?

How do we redeem the time?  First you have to understand that redeeming the time means to make the best use of the time that God gives you on this earth. Allow me to share with you the top three things that we can do to redeem the time.

1. Make a list of things that you regularly need to do during the day.

2. Then list things that you need to get accomplished.

3. Prioritize the list in onder of first things first.

4.  Now place them on your day timer and begin the process of seeing how much productivity you can have during your day.

Note:   It is important that you get rid of all the unnecessary things in your life.
* Arguments with insignificant people.
*Worrying about things that you cannot change.
*Filling the voids in your life with things that will never bring you joy.

You also have to unload unhealthy habits that will prevent you from running your race:

• * talking with time wasters–unhealthy phone calls;
  * texting continually with people who have nothing to do;
• * people just dropping in or hanging around robing your schedule of productivity.

Please do not waste your time in life on things that are meant to steal your time.  You can redeem the time by unloading all of the time-consuming enemies of your life.  REDEEM THE TIME!

 

Just a small disclosure -  for those that don’t want to have a time for every purpose -please if you don’t want to stop wasting your time don’t waste the ones that are trying to redeem theirs.

The Trail of Faith

“If you have faith as a mustard seed … nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

When I was young in Christ, my faith toward God was based on prayers  that consisted of my circumstances being changed to accommodate me.  I remember praying for an engagement at the First United Methodist Church that I was asked to preach for.  I think this was my first sermon!  I was recently called to preach, but I didn’t have a suit or any nice clothes or shoes to wear, so I prayed to God one night, telling Him that I didn’t have a suit or any shoes to preach in, and I asked Him  to please provide these for me.  When I woke up  the next morning and went to work, about mid-day one of the sisters from the church pulled up outside. She was carrying a bag from JC Penney’s.  She said that the Lord woke her up that night and told her she needed to go get these two suits, two shirts, two ties, and the shoes for the ministry God was calling me to. They were brand spanking new and I was amazed at how quick God, who was the only one I had told, came through for me. Yet this was the elementary or embryonic stage of development for my faith where I learned how to relate to God as a blesser.

There is no need to become too comfortable with this revelation of Christ because my faith must grow beyond making God become everything I want Him to be instead allowing Him to reveal all of who he is to me! I must grow to the place that He doesn’t have to answer so quickly or even at all. I must develop a confidence in Christ, knowing that He is God! I must believe that all things work together for the good of those that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose–that He is bigger than my circumstances and capable of testing the caliber of my faith with the crisis He sends or allows to touch me.

A faith that cannot be tested can’t be trusted!  He often shows me who He is by what He is not!  God is light, but what is light if we haven’t had darkness?  God is good, but what is goodness if we haven’t experinced what is bad?  God is a healer, but what is a healer if we haven’t been sick!  We understand who God is by experiencing what he is not!

Don’t let the trying of your faith test your trust to the place where you turn your Christ into a crisis solver.  But allow Him to show you who He is by sometimes placing you in things that He is not! That is where I find that the impossible is possible by being place only in an inviroment of impossiblities!

Rigid or Flexible

The definition of being flexible is “being bent without breaking”.  I enjoy working-out, but I have always hated doing the stretching exercises before the workout. I don’t know why, I just hate it! Yet recently, I bent over to pick up something from off the floor and pulled a muscle in my back that has stop my daily duties.

 The older I get, the more important I see the need to stretch. It is important to remain flexible because our body is getting less and less pliable. As we get older we also find that to be true in other areas of life. We don’t like to be stretched as much as we used to. We don’t like to try new things or hear new ideas as much as we used to. We don’t enjoy being around people who are different. That’s called getting old! That is why it is so important to work at remaining flexible and open to being stretched by new ideas and new methods.

If being flexible is the ability to bend without breaking and we gain some understanding of that through our bodies ability to resist that process, I wonder what happens in our minds that cause us to be so rigid in our thoughts. Do we prevent our faith from reaching its fullness by getting stuck in what God said that we can’t hear what He’s saying?

In essence we are talking about growing beyond being the”weaker brother”, as Paul calls it in 1 Corinthians 8. Certainly, we all must go through that period in our development where we cannot bend for fear of breaking. However, there is a place of development where we truly experience a fuller expression of our freedom in Christ as we allow the stretching of our conscience to release our cultures differences.  Then we can love more!

I am not talking about compromising our conscience. I am not talking about violating the Scripture. I am saying that maturity brings flexibility without compromise. The Pharisees were totally rigid in their spiritual vision and their blindness cost them the Christ. I wonder where you and I might be too rigid at this very moment.