I have a hope in God (a hope that these men themselves accept too) that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous. This is the reason I do my best to always have a clear conscience toward God and toward people.... (Acts 24:15-16 )
I am not a "hell and damnation" preacher.
However, the Bible is full of references to hell:
In hell there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
In hell where worms will eat your flesh
Luke 16 Story of Richman and Lazarus
“The rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades, as he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far off with Lazarus at his side. So he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in this fire”
The Bible is full of references to Hell.
However, I don’t pretend to know anything concrete about the referent to that word “hell” so carelessly tossed around by some Christians. But I do know that it has a referent. And there is enough description surrounding it to indicate that whatever hell is, it is a big problem. I also know that I am not God, so how I may handle this problem is irrelevant. God handled it by sending his Son to be killed by and for the world. He only requires the gratitude due, which, if genuine, will produce a commitment to the truth and a commitment to the way. Only to the grateful will the resurrection of life be granted.
I cringe inside when some uses manipulation like, "If you get hit by a bus tonight, do you know where you will go?". Jesus or Paul, never used shame to coerce people into belief. Yet Paul reminds us that when we die, none of us will just be “dead as dirt.” Ourselves, neighbors, co-workers
We all, both righteous and unrighteous, will be resurrected to a coming judgement. Jesus said, “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” (John 5:28-29).
Paul understands that he is an eternal being. He also understands that all people he has contact with throughout his life: his neighbors, co-workers, and friends, are eternal beings. So that all his actions and interactions with people have eternal consequences. This understanding dictated every decision he made in his life.
How often do thoughts of resurrection enter into and mold the basis of my interaction with people? How often do I remind myself that all people I contact everyday are eternal beings and that all my actions and interactions with people have eternal consequences? Unfortunately, not often enough .
Yet I am a person of the Creed. We are a church of the Creed. We believe in the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. I need to let this sink in and affect the way I live today, the way I interact with people today, how I share my faith today, and not just as a way to hopefully get me out of hell after I die.
Our existence, our church’s existence, any hope of this church growing at all, as a source of life, that baptizes people, and the relevancy of our church, of all Christianity rests completely on the hope of the resurrection and sharing this hope with others. If we do not share this hope, it will not happen. We need to be living in that hope today and sharing with others that hope today as resurrected people, and the future hope with those who are in Christ Jesus.
Take time in silence to ponder the resurrection of Christ.
Take time to ponder your resurrection in Christ.
As your knees get weak as you try to take in the enormity of it all, be thankful.
Be thankful to the Father who's unbelievable love conceived it.
Be thankful to the Son who's unbelievable love endured it.
Be thankful to the Holy Spirit who's unbelievable love empowered it.
Pray that you will begin sharing this resurrection through Jesus you are so grateful to have received with others.
Pray that you and that your church full of thanksgiving, can be a visible and living testimony to the resurrection hope in Christ to the world.
Pray that the Holy Spirit will remind you and give you an eternal perspective with every person you encounter in your day.
My family, I pray you reflect starting this morning and throughout this weekend on your belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Claim this belief again over your life, the life of your family, the life of your church. Then write down the name of at least one person you plan to share your belief in the resurrection with this weekend, In Jesus’ name. Please pray the same over me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below with us from todays reading.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Help Us Help Them!
I could use you’re the gift of your financial support for my family and those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please partner and support my family and ministries through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, 102 Champions Green Drive, Madison, Al 35758.
Thank You!
CLICK HERE TO GIVE
Good morning, Lord Jesus. Fill my mind with Your thoughts and my heart with Your desires, as I begin my day centered in You. ...
In the days that David prepared for war, he gathered among him “men of war, who could keep ranks” and came with “a loyal heart” for “all the rest of Israel were of one mind” for what was to be done (v. 38). And David took time to consult with “every leader” (1 Chronicles 13:1). Among those leaders where The sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32)
In our times, Israel is again at war. And the leaders of Israel desperately need to know what to do. They need to know how to root out the terrorists but also save the captives, how to pursue justice while remembering mercy, how to defend herself completely while honoring all with dignity and humanity.
Lord, raise up the prophets, the “sons of Issachar” who understand the times to speak into the hearts and minds of her leaders. Give her leaders ears to hear the truth and strategies that come from Your heart. You are the Wisdom she needs and the Power she needs, as Your Word declares: “To those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).
So come in Your mercy, come in Your Spirit, come and speak through Your prophets what needs to be heard and done. Probably most of Israel’s leaders do not yet know You, but all can humble their hearts to pursue the guidance of God. What You said to the leaders and the children of Israel long ago, You still speak today:
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 29:11-14).
May You even turn their pursuit of You in these desperate times into opportunities of salvation that comes from Jesus alone. In their seeking of understanding the times and knowing what to do, let them find You Jesus. And we know Your Word will one day be fulfilled, that “All Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins’” (Romans 11:26-27).
In Christ alone, there will be “one new man from the two, thus making peace” (Ephesians 2:15). If all those in Palestine and Israel find Jesus and He becomes their Lord, then there would be real peace. It would take a miracle, it would take a movement of God. Yet God still reigns and Jesus is still Lord today, so let it be so even in our time. Let all the leaders and children of Israel understand the times. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Mt family, I pray you may seek with all your heart the One who alone can give us understanding of the times, and I join with you in prayer for Israel, for the Palestinian people, and all the people who need to know Jesus and know Peace in these time, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below with us from todays reading.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Help Us Help Them!
I could use you’re the gift of your financial support for my family and those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please partner and support my family and ministries through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, 102 Champions Green Drive, Madison, Al 35758.
Thank You!
CLICK HERE TO GIVE
Good morning, Lord Jesus. Be at the center of my life, now and in every moment of my day. ...
“How great is the goodness
You have stored up for those who fear You.
You lavish it on those who come to You for protection,
blessing them before the watching world.
You hide them in the shelter of Your Presence,
safe from those who conspire against them.
You shelter them in Your Presence,
far from accusing tongues.
Praise the Lord,
for He has shown me the wonders of His unfailing love.
He kept me safe when my city was under attack” (Psalm 31:19-21 NLT).
There’s no safer place than “in the shelter of Your Presence.”
And Your Presence if available to all who call upon You, who fear and honor You, who put their hope and trust in You. “For ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Romans 10:13).
No matter who conspires against us, no matter whose accusing tongue condemns us, no matter who seeks to steal and kill and destroy us, You show us “the wonders of (Your) unfailing love” to keep us safe “before the watching world.”
In this broken and fallen world, we will go through tragedies and tribulations, maybe at times even unimaginable, horrific assaults and attacks. But You are with us, if our hearts are with You; You “come close to us”, as we “come close to (You)” (James 4:8).
Your Word calls us to “continue in the faith” knowing that “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22 NKJV). And the Promise of Your Words assure us, just as You spoke to Your first disciples, You continue to speak to us: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). “And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith” (1 John 5:4).
Fill our hearts with faith to trust in You, to turn to You, to find our security in “the shelter of Your Presence.” For that’s the only place in this broken and fallen world, full of tribulation and terror, enduring increasing darkness and evil, that we can find the peace and security our hearts long for.
Even as we obey Your calling and command to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) and pray for the peace of our city, our family, our people and the people of every land and nation, we are truly praying for the peace of Your Presence that we can only have when we find our Shelter in Your Presence--no matter where we are or what’s going on around us. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may you find the peace your heart longs for in shelter of God's Presence every moment of every day, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below with us from todays reading.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Help Us Help Them!
I could use you’re the gift of your financial support for my family and those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please partner and support my family and ministries through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, 102 Champions Green Drive, Madison, Al 35758.
Thank You!
CLICK HERE TO GIVE
Good morning Lord Jesus, mold me, make me, fill me, use me..
“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit, and joints from marrow; it is able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart. And no creature is hidden from God, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.” (Hebrews 4:12-13)
The Message Bible paraphrases these two verses this way. “God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one can resist God’s Word. We can’t get away from it—no matter what.”
You are never hidden from God. Whether in public, inside a church building, inside your home, sitting in front your computer screen or away on vacation; All your thoughts, desires, intentions, actions, attitudes, true character, honesty, and conversations are known to God. You can’t close the door to Him or step into the shadows where He can’t see you.
“He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the motives of hearts. Then each will receive recognition from God.” (1 Cor. 4:5)
“Where can I go to escape your spirit?
Where can I flee to escape your presence?
If I were to ascend to heaven, you would be there.
If I were to sprawl out in Sheol, there you would be.
If I were to fly away on the wings of the dawn,
and settle down on the other side of the sea,
even there your hand would guide me,
your right hand would grab hold of me.
If I were to say, “Certainly the darkness will cover me,
and the light will turn to night all around me,”
even the darkness is not too dark for you to see,
and the night is as bright as day;
darkness and light are the same to you.” (Psalm 139:7-12)
For God to be our “ever present help in time of need” (Psalm 46:1), he has to be present with us at all times.
“for nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing is secret that will not be made known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops.” (Matthew 10:26-27)
A day is coming for all of us in the future, where in the presence of everybody we’ve ever met, and everybody we’ve never met, we will stand before them in the throne room of God, with Jesus sitting on the throne. And our whole life, with every second and detail of it will be shown and revealed. Every second and every secret revealed. Before our spouse, parents, our children, our co-workers, friends, and neighbors … all will be revealed. All of God’s promises are true, including: “He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the motives of hearts.” “And no creature is hidden from God, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must render an account.” Does this scare you? Does this makes you think? It makes me think. Some Bible passages are warm and fuzzy. Some like this mornings are “sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey.”
My family, today God is your ever present help in time of need, and he is also ever present throughout every second of your day including any fakeness, things you do for show, or things you don’t do as your ignore them or pretend you don’t see. God Knows. I pray you will meditate on this and walk in the light in all you do today and everyday, in Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below with us from todays reading.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Help Us Help Them!
I could use you’re the gift of your financial support for my family and those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please partner and support my family and ministries through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, 102 Champions Green Drive, Madison, Al 35758.
Thank You!
Good morning, Lord Jesus. Put Your thoughts in my mind, Your desires in my heart, Your words in my mouth, as You lead me by Your Spirit through every moment of my day. ...
“But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive payment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for He Himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:27-36).
Being more like Jesus is as much about becoming more “merciful” as it is about moving in the miraculous. It’s as much about allowing Your Spirit to develop our character as it is about anointing us with charismatic gifts.
And at the heart of that supernatural character development is the evidence of how we treat people -- especially the most challenging people, like the ones that hate us and hurt us, curse us and mistreat us, judge us and misunderstand us, or even just flat out ignore us. Embracing the true character of Jesus is the most challenging choice we’ll ever face in this life.
We all know the Golden Rule, “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you,” which is taken from this very Passage of Scripture. But we don’t always remember just how challenging and counter-cultural this command of Yours really is. Being “merciful” as “children of the Most High” is marked by being much more radically loving, extravagantly giving, and graciously forgiving than even most of the most committed followers ever come close to living out.
We, of course, can’t even begin to do this or even desire to do this apart from You. It’s not in our nature. And that’s point. You want to change our nature, as You develop our character into the nature and character of Christ (Romans 8:29), as we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).
This transformation is not just a little tweaking here and there. It’s a crucifixion of our flesh (Galatians 2:20); it’s a circumcision of our heart (Romans 2:29). It’s resurrection of our new self as a “new creation” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), but it’s a resurrection lifestyle not merely a one-and-done prayer, as we “die daily” to our old ways of thinking and living, of loving just those who are easy to love and being merciful only to those who we think deserve our mercy (1 Corinthians 15:31). It’s answering a call and commitment asked of every would-be disciple and follower of Christ, as You continue to set before us this choice every day: “If any wish to come after Me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).
It’s not an easy road, even as we rest in You and trust in the finished work of Your cross. It’s not meant to be. In fact You said, “Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). Pressing even further, You said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from Me, you who behave lawlessly’” (Matthew 7:21-23).
How I need Your grace every moment of every day. I thank You for the grace that saved me, but I’m also desperately dependent upon Your grace to sanctify me, to make me more like You every day. Apart from You, I can’t begin to do this or even desire this (John 15:5). So I thank You that I’m not apart from You, that Your Spirit is living in me, changing my heart and developing my character to make me more like You, giving me both the desire and the power to please You and honor You with this sliver of time with the opportunities I have on this side of Heaven (Philippians 2:13).
My family, I pray you may choose daily to embrace the challenging character of Jesus, by embracing the power of God's grace and the work of His Spirit in you, making you more like Jesus each day, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections on this in the comments box below.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. I would also love to help you start a simple church in your home. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
“And now he’s found Jesus, which we do not want to hear about at this time. He’s apologizing to the mom, saying he’s found Jesus, we don’t care about that”
Yesterday morning, CBS Morning Show aired a story on Natalee Holloway murder confession. Joran van der Sloot admitted killing Natalee in 2005. It was a horrible, gruesome murder and Joran absolutely deserves to be punished for his crime. However, in the 18 years since Joran committed this murder, he repented and accepted Jesus as his Lord and savior. It is this conversion to Christ which convicted him to come forth and confess he committed this crime. At the end of the news story, CBS anchor Gayle King went off the script and said referring to Joran, “And now he’s found Jesus, which we do not want to hear about at this time. He’s apologizing to the mom, saying he’s found Jesus, we don’t care about that”
Again, let me be clear that the murder of Natalee by Joran as horrific and Joran deserves to be punished for his crime. However, we must celebrate that Joran “was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found.ʼ” ( Luke 15:32)
Author Max Lucado stated on the trial of serial killer Jeffery Dahmer: The most difficult thing for me about the trial of Dahmer is not the fact that he killed, mutilated and ate so many people; not the fact that he had no remorse, no apologies for his acts and to the victims families, not the fact that he sat cold-hearted, unemotional throughout his trial, The most difficult thing for me to accept and wrap my head around is that while Dahmer was in prison, he repented, confessed, and accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord. And if that conversation was honest and real, Dahmer will be standing next to me and all the saints in heaven.
Gayle King in her remarks stated ‘We”do not want to hear about it…; “We” do not care….. I do not know who, or identify with the “We” that she is referring to.
Paul remarks about another “We” in Romans 5:8, “but God shows his love for us in that while “We” were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That “We” I can identify with; as that “we” includes me, and it includes you, and all those who were saved, redeemed, and given new life by and through the blood of Jesus. I am not God. I do not complete understand or have to agree with, be completely comfortable with, or like God’s plan for our salvation. It is God’s plan, not mine. All I am to do is fall on my knees in complete surrender and gratitude and receive His salvation for me. As I to was dead and now alive, I was lost and now am found. To which I say, Thank you Jesus!
“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” (Romans 3:22-24) And that all includes Paul, Joran, Dahmer, Gary Liederbach, and you.
My family, I do not know the last time in prayer you thanked God for His plan of salvation for the world through Jesus, which includes you, and thanked him for saving you. I pray today and throughout this weekend you take time to read the story of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15. And as you do replace yourself in the story for the son, and fall on your knees in gratitude, and say Thank you!, in Jesus name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections on this in the comments box below.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. I would also love to help you start a simple church in your home. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
“Therefore Go, and make disciples…” (Matthew 28:19)
Just over a month ago I was so blessed to baptize 4 teenagers in a friends swimming pool. Since then they have started coming on Wednesday nights to the simple church held in my wife Nancy and my home. As they were new in their faith, we shared simple times of worship with them they entered into for the first time. We share the Lord’s Supper every week and they shared in that for the first time. We all say the Lord’s Prayer together as [part of the Lord’s Supper/. The teenagers just looked at each other as the rest of us recited it by heart. I was convicted in my assumption that everyone knows the Lord’s Prayer. They are new to the faith, my mistake. So next week I provided it to them to read along with us. Last week I taught them on prayer and it’s necessity as the life breath of a Christian. I led our group through an hour time of prayer. For the teens it was their first time in a long block of prayer.
Last night our simple church met at our house again, however we did not meet inside. I did a short teaching on prayer walking, we circled up and prayed in our front yard, then we divided up into groups and headed off in different directions to prayer walk our neighborhood. I was so proud of these teens! They were only baptized a month ago, yet they took up their mantle of authority they received in their baptism and went out into the streets to pray over and with their neighbors. They stopped and asked to pray with people out walking, in their front yards, and working in their garages. They prayed over houses and various know situations of neighbors. We prayer walked for an hour then all met up back at my house to share meal, the Lord’s Supper, and discuss their experience. I told them how proud I was of them! That they are new to the faith so they do not know how huge what they just did was compared to allot of Christians in the church. I told them how I pastored churches where many members had been baptized 20, 30, 40 or more years ago, have been Christians decades longer than they were, yet when I suggested we leave the church and go out in the streets and prayer walk and pray over our neighbors, they would not do it and looked at me like I was crazy. These teens just weeks into thier faith embraced a high level of obedience as disciples of Jesus. During our meal together they asked if we could go prayer walk their school sometime? I said absolutely!
After our gathering two of the teens came up to me and asked me if they could lead the group in the Lord’s Supper next week. I again said absolutely! And I gave them both print outs of the service to read over this week to prepare for leading next week. Praise God!
See, the goal of our missional life is not to grow churches. The goal of the church is to grow missionaries. The goal of the gospel is not to get people to church. The result of the gospel is that people will find each other and gather because of the deep meaning of a common experience. This is why I myself and I advocate other church planters not to start the church by launching a church service. Instead, I advocate that they launch people out with the Gospel and add the gatherings as needed. The challenge for a church is to sensitively "not provide" things at the gathering that you want people to experience in the world, and slowly reestablish the meaning behind weekly church service. Maybe, it should not be called a "service." That communicates, " You come here to get what you need." The key is to not let your gathering become something more than it is supposed to be, not let people depend on the gathering for things it wasn't supposed to provide in the first place.
I am reflecting on this simply to encourage you to think outside the box. To see church as a movement throughout your day instead of a location on one given day. But be prepared that if you pray for God to lead you to minister outside the box, he will honor that and show you what real out of the box faith, worship, and grace looks like. It is challenging me right now. I pray you are now or will come to the place it challenges you as well.
My family, we are all members of The Church. We are all part of the movement of God. We are all missionaries. The definition I use of a missionary is; “someone who is willing to sacrifice everything except the Gospel, for the sake of the Gospel.” I pray you will pray to the Holy Spirit and ask Him for guidance, then reflect throughout today on these questions:
Is your church life based on movement or a location?
How are you participating in the movement of God?
Where is church as the movement of God happening around you?
Where is God calling you to enter into his movement?
Please post your reflections as a comment below.
Also please connect with me as I would love to help, train, and walk with you, your small group, your church, in becoming movement.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. I would also love to help you start a simple church in your home. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Good morning, Lord Jesus. Put Your thoughts in my mind, Your desires in my heart, Your words in my mouth, as I listen for Your leading. ...
According to Your Word, there is “a time for war, and a time of peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:8 ESV). “For there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (v. 1).
And it’s always the time to pray (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
Even through the time of war, we pray for the time of peace to come. But even as we pray for peace, we remember Your words that the kind of peace we are praying for is not the world’s kind of peace--a peace that turns a blind eye to injustice, a peace that appeases evil, a peace that compromises with the “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” of the kingdom of God (Romans 14:17). No, we pray for Your peace, the peace of Your kingdom that only King of the Kingdom of God can ever provide. As You said:
“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).
So we pray for Your peace for Jerusalem, Your peace for Israel and Palestine, for all the Middle East and all the people and nations of this world. But it is a peace that comes when we call upon Your name, when we turn to You as the Source of true peace, for only You are “the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
So as our hearts break, as fears and anxieties of the state of our world and the horror and terror of these days seeks to rise in our minds and emotions, we turn to You and call on Your name and seek Your help. We lift up our hearts and our voices to You in faithfulness and prayer, because that’s where our Help comes from; our Help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 121:1-2).
No matter what time this is--for war, for peace, for courage, for action, for boldness, for faith, for hope, for love--let us answer Your call to this time of prayer, here in our own hearts and in the heart of all who call upon Your name and trust in Your Word and are led by Your Spirit around the world.
“And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:14-15).
So let us not pray according to the will of the world, but according to the will of God. Let us not pray for peace as defined by the world, but let us pray for peace according to the heart of God defined by the Word of God. Then “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard (our) hearts and (our) minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My Family, I pray you may join in prayer and take your stand for Israel and all the people of the Middle East and the world to know Jesus as Messiah, Savior, Defender, and Rescuer, as Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below with us from todays reading.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. I would also love to help you start a simple church in your home. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Good morning, Lord Jesus. You are my Rock and my Refuge, my Cornerstone and Coming King (Psalm 18). I listen for Your leading as I seek to begin my day embraced by my Father, centered in Christ, and filled with the Holy Spirit. ...
“The Lord is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land.
You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more” (Psalm 10:16-18 NIV).
10 days ago as Israel celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, rockets began to rain down terror in waves of indiscriminate horror on civilian homes. Women and children and the elderly were kidnapped and taken hostage. Hundreds upon hundreds of Jewish people were systematically murdered, slaughtered in moments of genocidal rage by racist terrorists.
We pray for a day when they will “terrify no more.”
King Jesus--Messiah of Israel and all nations of the earth--come in Your justice and Your mercy. Hear the cries of the afflicted, the fatherless, and the oppressed. Come set things right. Set the captives free and heal the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61). Even use what has happened to open the eyes of the world to the terror the people of Israel face every day.
Terror is never justified. The slaughter of the innocent is always evil.
Yet terror will not have the final word and evil will not have the final say. We don’t give in to a passive mentality that says “Whatever will be will be.” No, we take up the weapons of our warfare to fight in the Spirit by the leading of Your Holy Spirit in this spiritual battle of good and evil being manifested before our eyes (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). There is spiritual warfare behind this evil and terror. We fight this battle, we “fight the good fight of the faith,” on our knees in prayer and with our voices in faith (1 Timothy 6:12). We all need to join into this spiritual warfare by praying on our knees daily over the war in Israel and Palestine.
And as we fight, as we pray, we take our stand with You for Israel. We pray You would be a “Wall of Fire” of her protection, her vindication, and her restoration. “For I,’ says the Lord, ‘will be a Wall of Fire all around her, and I will be the Glory in her midst’” (Zechariah 2:5).
With Your Spirit in our hearts as we pray, we obey Your command and answer Your call to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Palm 122:6). We pray for the peace of God, the shalom of God, to cover all the people of that land and fill the hearts of all the people, whether Jew or Gentile, Israeli or Palestinian, even Iranian or Syrian, as You move to turn every heart to You as Messiah and King of all the earth.
We know from Your Word that horrific and evil events will occur on this earth before Your return. Both good and evil, the seeds of wickedness and the seeds of righteousness, will come to full maturity; but even that is preparation for the great “harvest” of souls at “the end of the age” (Matthew 13:39).
So let us be found faithful in our prayers for good to prevail and righteousness to come. Even cause this evil that has happened to work together for good (Romans 8:28) so that in the end, “All Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26).
Between this day and that day to come, come into that land as a Warrior and Defender, a Rescuer and Father to set things right in the righteousness of God that only You can do. Remind us that our true battle is not “against flesh and blood,” not even against wicked people and leaders of nations that would carry out their evil actions of terror and cruelty to seek to destroy a nation. But that our true battle is “against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
As we express our grief and sorrow, our shock and anger, at all that has happened and may yet happen, as we continue to pray and fight the good fight of the faith on our knees and through our authority in Christ on behalf of all people of this land and every land, let us remember “the battle belongs to the Lord!” (1 Samuel 17:47) And our God will always prevail (Isaiah 46:10). In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may join in prayer with me and take your stand for Israel and all the people of the Middle East and the world to know Jesus as Messiah, Savior, Defender, and Rescuer, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below with us from todays reading.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. I would also love to help you start a simple church in your home. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Good morning Lord Jesus, fill me completely so I can love today deeply….
“Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, partners in a heavenly calling, take note of Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess,….See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has an evil, unbelieving heart that forsakes the living God. But exhort one another each day, as long as it is called “Today,” that none of you may become hardened by sinʼs deception. For we have become partners with Christ, if in fact we hold our initial confidence firm until the end.” (Hebrews 3:1,12-15)
You and I in the moment we fell in love with Jesus, surrendered our lives to Him, and exchanged our lives from for His we were in that second justified, made whole, and initially sanctified with the power and presence of Christ and set aside into the family of God for His use and His glory. All that took place in a second. However, though this sure thing and gift of grace we started out in came in a second, we are not in Christ for a second. We are in Christ for the long haul. For how long, for how many days? This passage tells us as long as “today” is called “today.”
Every day we wake up and it is “today” we are to live out our “heavenly calling.” And we are not to do it alone, nor can we do it alone. This passage says we are to “Exhort one another each day.” Everyday we are called to encourage each other, pray for each other, lift up each other, warn each other, have each other’s back, keep each other vigilant and on our toes. We are in this for the long haul and we need each other to encourage one another along every step of the journey. Jesus sent out the 12 and the 70 two by two, side by side. He knew we could not do it alone. He knew we needed a church.
My family, If you are reading this then God gave you this gift you woke up in called “today.” Today you are to live out your heavenly calling. Today you are to exhort, lift up, pray for, and encourage others in their journey. Today I pray as you begin another week of your journey, you will pick up the phone and call someone or text them, or better yet invite them to have coffee or a beer face to face and encourage them to “hold to our initial confidence in Christ firm until the end,” in Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below with us from todays reading.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. I would also love to help you start a simple church in your home. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Good morning Lord Jesus, I am lost without you, please guide me through my day...
“For when he put all things under his control, he left nothing outside of his control. At present we do not yet see all things under his control, but we see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by Godʼs grace he would experience death on behalf of everyone. For it was fitting for him, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For indeed he who makes holy and those being made holy all have the same origin, and so he is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers; in the midst of the assembly I will praise you.” Again he says, “I will be confident in him,” and again, “Here I am, with the children God has given me.” Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise shared in their humanity, so that through death he could destroy the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil), and set free those who were held in slavery all their lives by their fear of death. For surely his concern is not for angels, but he is concerned for Abrahamʼs descendants. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. For since he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:8-18)
Here is the reflection on these passages from The Message Bible.
“It makes good sense that the God who got everything started and keeps everything going now completes the work by making the Salvation Pioneer perfect through suffering as he leads all these people to glory. Since the One who saves and those who are saved have a common origin, Jesus doesn’t hesitate to treat them as family, saying, “I’ll tell my good friends, my brothers and sisters, all I know about you; I’ll join them in worship and praise to you…
Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it’s logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil’s hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death.
It’s obvious, of course, that he didn’t go to all this trouble for angels. It was for people like us, children of Abraham. That’s why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people’s sins, he would have already experienced it all himself—all the pain, all the testing—and would be able to help where help was needed.”
When I read these verses, there is nothing I can add except Amen! Amen! And Thank you! Thank you!
My family, I pray you will read and let these timely words of God speak into the current situations: of war in Ukraine and now Israel; of the fear, and uncertainty we find ourselves in today and allow them to soak into your hearts and minds. If you are “cowering through life now “scared to death of death.” If you are experiencing pain, trials, testing you have a Lord and savior who is “not ashamed to call you his brother or sister.” And who has experienced everything you are going through, and is there beside you going through it with you, please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
What A Friend We Have In Jesus
What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can We find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus know are every weakness; take it to the Lord and prayer.
Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer
Please share your thoughts and reflections in the comment box below.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. I would also love to help you start a simple church in your home. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Comm
Yesterday (Wednesday) morning I went into my local Waffle House (WH) and sat at the low bar. I had been out of town Friday through Monday so it was the first time I had been there since last Thursday. I was talking to the waitresses and cooks catching up on life when an elderly lady walked in. Her and her husband are regulars at the WH. This was the first time I had seen her walk in by herself. The waitress whispered to me as she walked in that her husband had passed away on Sunday and they had his funeral Tuesday. My heart sank into sadness and I said, ‘Oh No!” I got up from the low bar as she was coming in and walked up to her. She gave me a warm smile and said, “Hello”. I told her I was so sorry to her about her loss and hugged her. As we hugged another waitress came around the bar and hugged her as well and the three of us with tears in are our eyes shared a long hug of love as the waitress and I spoke words of love over the lady. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said I had to come in this morning and see my family. And I have to try to move on into this new season of my life. We hugged, I kissed ger cheek, and she went and sat down at a booth, for the first time without her husband.
They were a wonderful, sweet, elderly couple who were so in love with each other. Her husband had Parkinson disease and it sadly slowly deteriorated him. He would sit at the booth and his leg would shake all the time. They used to laugh with me as my shakes all the time when I sit down. They always had a smile on their face and I was blessed to share life with them and pray with them. They were members of our WH congregation, they were family.
As I sat at the low bar and drank my coffee and talked with the staff and those patrons around me, I watched the booth the lady was sitting at. Throughout my time there someone would continuously sit in the booth in the bench across from her. A waitress would sit across from her and they would hold hands across the table and share. After five minutes of so, the waitress got up and walked around and hugged her. When the waitress got up, a regular patron walked over and took the seat across from her and this process repeated. Before I left, I took my turn in the seat across from her and held her hands across the table. In our conversation I told her I loved her, loved her husband, and if there is anything she needs help with to please give me a call. After we finished talking, I prayed over her, then walked around and hugged her again, kissed her forehead, and left for my day.
As I reflect on the morning, I loved the fact that the morning after she buried her husband, she wanted to come to the WH. It was her family, it was her “small group”, it was her church. And that morning even though her heart was broken with the loss of her life-long soul mate, it was a place where her heart received love, support, compassion and healing.
As a simple church planter, I have always said that if you start by trying to plant a church, you may end up with some form of community, However, if you start by forming and entering into a community, a church will always come out of it. The mornings this couple spent at the WH, they were with out labeling it, attending their small group, band group, or accountability group. It did not have those labels, it did not meet at a church or because of a sign up sheet passed around at a church, it did not look like what you would picture a small group would look like, but it felt like one more than ever. And it was real, and it was beautiful. And I am blessed to be a part of it. And it continues every morning I walk in the door and hear “Welcome to Waffle House” and sit down and love and receive love from those I sit down and share life with. Again, it is what legacy churches are trying to recreate, it is organic, it is beautiful
My family, I pray you will find your WH, your place where you can enter into the life and simply love your neighbors as yourself. As in doing so you will receive amazing love in return, in Jesus name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your thoughts and reflections in the comment box below.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. I would also love to help you start a simple church in your home. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Good morning, Lord Jesus. In these first moments of my morning, I lift up my eyes and open up my heart to deliberately, intentionally begin my day in the deep Presence of God. ...
"But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:4-7).
Father God, pour out Your Spirit upon me today through Jesus Christ my Savior. Let me live into the fullness of my inheritance as a son of God, now and forever. Let the understanding and the experience of the fullness of my salvation by true in the thoughts of my mind also in the nature of my heart.
I've been reborn and I'm being renewed -- all by Your mercy and grace, all by Your goodness and loving kindness. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, You've done a deep work in me; and "I am confident of this, that the One who began a good work (in me) will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6). In Jesus' name pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may desire, seek, and be renewed by the Holy Spirit as you begin your day, and every moment of every day, as the One who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friends!
I would love for you to please share your reflections with myself or others using the comment box below.
Please join me in prayer over the horrific attacks on Israel, the victims, families of victims, and the country as it works through this tragedy. Please keep those residents in Palestine in your prayers who are victims and pawns of Hamas presence among them, Lord Have Mercy, Christ Have Mercy, Lord Have Mercy.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Good morning, Lord Jesus. Help me hear Your voice and listen for Your leading, as I begin this day in the communion of prayer with You, my God -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. ...
"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is He who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for Himself a people of His own who are zealous for good deeds" (Titus 2:11-14).
Lord Jesus -- "our great God and Savior" -- manifest Your glory today. I know one day You will return in a spectacular, indescribable, world-wide manifestation of Your glory for all to see (1 Thessalonians 4:16). But at the same time, I know You also desire there to be a manifestation of Your glory here in my heart and in here through my life every day. "Christ in (me), the hope of glory" (Colossian 1:27).
You forgive my sins and purify my soul. You fill me with Your Spirit and anoint me with Your presence and power and purpose (1 John 2:17). And You send me out into my world, zealous for You with a passion for my Father's kingdom to come and will to be done, here on earth and here through my life, "to display (Your) glory" as one of those "called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord" (Isaiah 61:3).
When You walked this earth to show us the way to honor God with our lives, You said, "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become My disciples" (John 15:7-8). So Father God, in Jesus' name, I embrace Your Holy Spirit to manifest the glory of Christ through my life in my world today. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you will be continually filled with the Holy Spirit of the Living God, abiding in Jesus and His word, that your life may be a manifestation of the glory of Christ in your world every day, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below with us from todays reading.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Help Us Help Them!
I could use you’re the gift of your financial support for my family and those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please partner and support my family and ministries through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, 102 Champions Green Drive, Madison, Al 35758.
Thank You!
Good morning Lord Jesus, I rest in your love so I can give out your love.
Halloween is coming upon us. I am getting my Halloween decorations out of my attic and decorating my yard for our 10th annual Halloween yard party. It’s interesting to me that for many Christians this is a “hot button” topic to discuss. I posted an event for our Halloween Gathering to invite our neighbors on our Nextdoor App. A lady who claimed she was a Christian posted a comment that was really long and really antagonistic and un-Christian that basically said that I am a devil worshipper and all who celebrate Halloween worship Satan and are going to hell. Even a member of our ODC House Church said they do not know if they will come because thier mother told him it was wrong.
So as I did last year, I want to address the question: “Should we as Christians engage in Halloween or should we abstain?” In actuality if you start reading about Halloween’s roots, it’s hard to find an answer of where it came from. But, regardless of where it comes from, the question at hand should be: Why is Halloween celebrated today? For most of us, Halloween isn’t a time where we celebrate the dead, go and skin a goat and sacrifice it to Satan. For most of us, it’s a time to dress up our kids as a super hero and send them to strangers’ houses to get free candy.
It has become just part of our culture in the West and has very little to do with the “darkness”…it’s not good, it’s not evil…it’s just something we celebrate, like the 4th of July. I know we might have stories of darkness, but there are also many stories of overdrinking and evil happening on our other holidays as well.
The whole of the Bible talks of God bringing reconciliation and redemption to all things back to himself. That Jesus is Lord of everything and everyday. He bring peace to all things. Not only that but Paul speaks (1 Cor 8) to us about pagan festivals and says that there is nothing in them that is powerful, because there is only one God and everything and everyone comes through Him and have their being because of him.
Paul then talks about eating food sacrificed to idols…saying…it’s no big deal, unless you have a brother who would be deeply hurt by it because they struggle with the idol and eating of that meat because they actually used to worship that idol and eat those things.
Here’s how to contextualize Halloween: If you have a brother who used to worship Satan and they used to sacrifice goats and drink its blood, then it might be a good idea to walk through Halloween with them, guiding them so it would make that brother stumble. This does NOT mean, if you have a brother who merely thinks as his opinion it is wrong to celebrate Halloween that you should put it to the side. That’s never the intent with any of the passages of making a brother stumble…if that was the case, many of us would be in sin because of all the things we do that make other Christians merely uncomfortable. Jesus was not about making people comfortable.
And Jesus would have been in sin and made many people stumble with the life that he led around sinners as he ate and drank (yep wine) with them. Again…making a brother stumble and making a brother uncomfortable are completely separate issues.
With all that said, what are we to do with Halloween? If we are to look to redeem Halloween, what does that mean? If we are to do all things to the glory of God, what does that look for Halloween?
First, a few things you should probably STOP doing:
1. Dressing your kid up as St. Paul or Moses to try to prove a point.
2. Calling the Halloween Party at your church building a “Harvest Festival.” It is like an atheist calling a “Christmas Party” a “Holiday Party” and instead of saying “Merry Christmas saying “Happy Holidays” which seams to upset so many Christians. It’s just calling the elephant in the room a squirrel and it’s weird and disconnects The Church from the society around it.
3. Taking all your people away from being out in their neighborhoods and putting them into your building.
4. Wrapping a tract around an apple and handing it out to the kids who are trick or treating and calling it “evangelizing”
None of these things redeem anything, but just add to the notion that Christians want to be apart from the world and create their own subculture. Instead, let’s be like Jesus and celebrate it like he would have.
When we look at the life of Jesus and our God, we see that they always pursued the sinner and the world. They loved us right where we were and engaged us in the ways that we’d understand who God is and what He has done.
Not only that, but Jesus used the everyday celebrations as a way to build relationships so he could speak into the lives of those around him. He was continually at parties. So much so, that when Matthew was called to follow Jesus, it seemed normal to Matthew to invite Jesus and all the apostles back to his house to party with all his “sinner” friends. (Matthew 9:9,10; Mark 2:14-17) People knew that Jesus was about celebrating, he was about truth, he was also about pursuing and about building relationships with people. With that in mind, how can we then show people THAT Jesus to our communities during Halloween?
1. Be THAT House
You know “that” house. When you were a kid and you went to a house and said “trick or treat” and the person came to the door in a costume and smiled at you, complemented your costume, and they handed you a full size candy bar; it was like winning the lottery. You’d walk away from the house telling your friends, “They were really nice.” It was such good news, you’d tell strangers dressed up like a clown zombie where to find the goods. Everyone knew that house in the neighborhood and if you didn’t have one in your neighborhood, you’d travel what seemed to be miles to get to that house. Be THAT house. We have been blessed by God to be a blessing to others. Think about how this shows people the Father. Everyone is expecting to get a small fun size bar. It’s what they’ve earned by dressing up and having the courage to knock on your door and say “trick or treat.” What they know they haven’t earned is a full size candy bar…it speaks to this idea of grace and blessing.
You don’t need to tell the kids this, but it starts to tell the story of what your house is about to the neighborhood. It tells a different story than what they expect or are used to and this is exactly the story of the gospel. Spend the extra cash to make that happen. If you can’t afford it, get your Missional Community to all pitch in. Ask your church to put it in the budget for next year. As weird as that sounds your churches goal should be to reach it’s neighbors. Do whatever you gotta do…be that house! You’ll be amazed at what doors that opens with your neighbors to share The Gospel.
2. Be a Welcoming Presence
If our God is about pursuit, blessing and welcoming then what would it look like to be about pursuit on Halloween? How about instead of staying inside your house, be in the driveway or front porch. I know this isn’t available for everyone because of weather, but what would it look like in your neighborhood for people to feel welcomed to come to your house and feel blessed by it?
For The Liederbach's, we are have our 10th annual neighborhood Halloween gathering. We are going to have fire pit in our front yard where our neighbors will be cooking hot dogs over the fire and making s’mores. We have coolers of drinks, bags of chips and snake cakes; and of course, LOTS of candy! For our 10th annual party I even rented a mechanical bull for trick or treaters to ride. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, we will prayer walk our neighborhoods and personally invite or put invitations in 450 of our neighbor’s mailboxes. Last year we had over 350 kids trick or treat our house plus I don’t know how many adults that accompanied them come and hang out and cook a hot dog or s’more. It’s a way for us to come together and hang out and bless our neighborhood. It shows that we are more than about handing out candy, but we are here to bless their entire family and in a sense, welcome you into our lives.
Again, it shows something quite different than every other house. Last year a father with three young kids came up with them to our front porch to get candy. The father said, “The kids all discussed before we headed out they wanted to go to this house last. Save the best for last! Plus once we come here we always hang out awhile.” I put candy in his kids bags then they headed towards the fire pit and fun. We have been doing this for 10 years and the neighborhood now expects it and people come and hang out and have a great time meeting their neighbors.
If you can’t be outside, how can you bless the families that are walking around your neighborhood? Maybe offer coffee, tea, hot chocolate, etc. to the parents and trick or treaters that come to your door. Again…think, “How can I be a blessing and show that we are a welcoming and pursuing people like our Dad?”
Every year we have reached more non-Christians and have baptized more people we connected with who attended our neighbor Halloween Party than who attended any other of our other gatherings throughout the year including our Easter and Christmas gatherings!
3. Celebrate
It is not secret that Jesus loved to party. So much so, that people kept inviting him to parties. Pretty amazing to think about. If we have a Dad in heaven that loves us and accepts us, not for what we do or have done, but because of what his Son has done for us and now we are heirs to the throne of heaven…don’t we have the most to celebrate?
We should be defined as Jesus was defined: a glutton and drunkard. He was celebrating so much that the religious saw him as a glutton and drunkard but the sinners and the world saw him as a dude that they’d like to hang with. Where have we gone wrong here? Christians shouldn’t be the ones avoided for parties, but should be the ones that people are most excited to have come around because they bring the “better wine.”
We made it almost a rule in our house that if we are invited to a party…we are going and we are going to think through how we can bless that party as much as possible. We are always invited to parties because of this. People know what Nancy and I are about, they know we love Jesus. But they also know that when we enter a party we won’t make it weird, but we hopefully make the party more enjoyable by us being there. We have literally had people say, “if Jesus is like this…he was a lot different than we’ve ever been told.”
If you aren’t invited to parties…this Halloween is a great time to throw one. Throw a costume party, a pumpkin carving party, a cookie decorating party, have a photo booth at the party, have a party with games for kids. You can do all kinds of things for Halloween…it’s a party holiday. By doing this, meaning throwing an awesome party, you start to show off something different about you as a follower of Jesus and showing off who Jesus was and what he was about. And do this at your home in your neighborhood, don’t simply rely on your church to do this for you.
He was about parties because that’s where people were and that’s where people connect and share stories and start and continue relationships. Halloween is a really funny holiday when we think about it. But, it’s a holiday that is so easy to build relationships and bless the community and start (or continue) to show off what our Dad is like.
If instead, to “protest” against Halloween we turn off our front porch lights, lock our front doors, go to our church buildings and we have a “harvest festival” on Halloween, we show the world exactly what they’ve always seen about our God. He is closed off, judgmental and waits for us to come to him. This isn’t our Dad…he is quite different. He is welcoming, he is gracious and merciful and he pursues us and can’t wait to celebrate with us. Don’t use this holiday to make a point. Use this holiday to point to the true reason we all get to celebrate and bless…Jesus.
If Jesus was still walking the earth in the flesh this Halloween evening he would not be attending a “Harvest Festival” in a church. He would be out in the neighborhood streets interacting with his neighbors and looking for the lost sheep. .This is what we read of about Jesus in the Gospels. Deep inside we know as His followers and His church this is true, so why do we behave the opposite? My guess is that if Jesus lived in our neighborhood, everyone couldn’t wait to go to his house to see what he was going to hand out this year. Everyone would be excited to go to Jesus’ Halloween party and couldn’t wait to invite him over to their party. My only question I wonder is “Who would Jesus dress up as for Halloween?” Who knows…but you know it’d be a killer costume.
My daily prayer is, “Lord send us the ones no one else wants.”
I would love for you to please share your reflections with myself or others using the comment box below.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Good morning Lord Jesus, this morning I open my Bible on my lap to Romans 8 and soak in its words to soak in you…
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set (us) free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1-4 ).
The same power of Your grace that saves us and sets us free from the law of sin and death is the same power of Your grace that empowers us to “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (v. 4). In that place of growing in spiritual maturity -- not settling for merely our salvation, as wonderful and as essential as that is -- we also begin to experience the deeper life and fuller peace that’s now available to us through life in Your Spirit:
“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:5-8).
Praise You, Lord, for setting us free for life in You! We have life in You because Your very Spirit lives in us!
“(We), however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in (us). Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in (us), although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in (us), He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to (our) mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in (us)” (Romans 8:9-11).
Thank You for this grace! Thank You for this power of God abiding in us to walk in Your ways as You live out Your ways through us:
“So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if (we) live according to the flesh (we) will die, but if by the Spirit (we) put to death the deeds of the body, (we) will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:12-14).
All by the power of Your grace that saves us and is maturing us, we are sons and daughters of God, set free to live by the Spirit, as we are led by the Spirit to walk in Your ways by Your Spirit. And in this, we are truly blessed.
“For (we) did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but (we) have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs -- heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” (Romans 8:15-17).
What is to “suffer” is not our true identity as children of God in You. What is to “suffer” is our flesh -- that part of us that wants to be Lord ourselves instead of yield to Your Lordship, wanting to walk in our own ways apart from Your ways. It’s our flesh that needs to suffer and die by the mercy of Your grace so that we can truly live our life in Christ, as we allow You to live Your life in us.
That’s the blessed life! That’s our best life now! -- to borrow a phrase from a famous preacher and apply it to the will and ways of our even more famous Savior!
So I begin this day thanking You for Your grace to walk in Your ways by Your Spirit in the fear of the Lord. Keep putting Your thoughts in my mind and Your desires in my heart all day long. Keep filling me up with Your Spirit all day long (Ephesians 5:18). And I thank You now that it will be another good day in Christ. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may be empowered by God's grace to walk in His ways, with the Spirit of Christ living His life in you, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” (Matthew 25:34-36)
On Sunday mornings I pick up baked goods from Publix grocery store and take them to the Waffle House. I park my car by their kitchen back door and give out the baked goods to the WH employees and some customers in need. A waitress named Michele always gets baked items from me and is very grateful. Michele has been a waitress there for many years and I know her well. She is in her mid-fifties, has many tattoos, and a quiet personality. When I share my faith at the bar to waitresses and customers, she always stands and listens, however she rarely says anything. This past Sunday I asked her how was she doing. She said not very good at all. I asked her what was going on and she got quiet and began sharing.
She said she was having a sore throat, pain and having trouble swallowing. She said she finally went to the doctor a couple weeks ago (WH does not offer great health insurance) to have it checked. They found a large mass in her throat. On return visits and biopsy they confirmed it was cancer and it has began to metastasize into other areas of her body. She said she was going to have to receive both chemo and radiation treatments. She was going Tuesday (yesterday) to get a feeding tube inserted, as when they start the treatment her throat will be to sore, she will not be able to eat, and will be sick. She was scared and tearing up as she talked. She said today (this past Sunday) was the last day she will be able to work for a long time and she did not know how her and her husband were going to make it with loss of her income and medical bills. ( Her husband works at Walmart. ) For the first time in the years I have known her she asked me to please pray for her, and so I held her hands and I did.
I texted her yesterday evening and asked her how inserting the food tube went. She said it hurt way more than she thought it would, but she survived it.
Besides her husband George, Michele has no other family or support to help her or drive her to treatments and doctor visits. Her husband has to miss work to do this.
I love Michele. She is different, an outsider, one of the least of these. So I am going to do something I never have done in a morning devotion before, ask you who are reading this to help, encourage, and bless her. Here is her address:
Michele Jackson
2716 Monticello Drive NW
Huntsville, Al 35810.
(Her husband’s name is George)
What I am asking is that you take the time, go “old School”, buy a stamp, and mail her a card. Michele has been told she has stage 4 cancer, which is devastating. She is afraid, depressed, has anxiety, and unsure of her future both financially and physically. I can only imagine the surprise, hope, joy she would be blessed with by walking to her mailbox and receiving cards of prayers and encouragement from people she does not know. Maybe ask your small group, family members, or others to write her. She is facing financial hardships, so any financial support you want to include in your card of any amount I know she would appreciate. But simply receiving cards letting her know she is not an outcast, not alone, and loved would be such a blessing. And her experiencing the outpouring of “The Church” may help open the door of her heart where I can lead her into salvation of Jesus Christ.
My family, We all have busy agendas. I pray you may take the time to write Michele a letter or card, and be led by the Holy Spirit to see the other “Micheles” around you who are going through some kind of hell you be a source of light in their darkness and pain. In Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Good morning, Lord Jesus. I speak out Your name and listen for Your leading to start my day following You. ...
“The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers” …..“I am the good shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father. And I lay down My life for the sheep” (John 10:2-5; 14-15).
Lord Jesus, You’re the Gate and You’re the Good Shepherd. By the power and grace of Your Spirit, open my eyes to see where You’re leading me and open my ears to hear where I’m to follow.
I know Your name and You know mine (v. 3). Help me Jesus hear when You’re calling my name, when You’re stirring in my spirit, when You’re moving in my heart. Help me discern Your voice from the voice of the stranger, the voice of the enemy of my soul. Your voice leads to life, but the stranger’s voice leads to death (v. 10). Your voice leads to abundance, but the stranger’s voice leads to destruction (v. 10).
Align my spirit with Your Spirit, my heart with Your Heart, my thoughts with Your Thoughts, my words with Your Word, so that my ways will follow Your Way. For You are “the Way and the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6).
All these things must be spiritually discerned, with my spirit seeking the leading of Your Spirit, abiding in the fellowship and communion of Your Spirit:
“But, as it is written,
‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love Him’ --
“God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual…“But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:9-16).
To have “the mind of Christ” is have “the Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8:9). To have “the mind of Christ” is to abide in communion with Christ -- seeking Your face, following Your voice, filled with Your Spirit. “Anyone united with the Lord becomes one spirit with Him” (1 Corinthians 6:17).
By Your grace Jesus, keep me close, keep me in the holy communion of intimate fellowship with You. Keep me going through the Gate of the Good Shepherd into the abundance of Life in You that You desire for me. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, may you keep going through the Gate of the Good Shepherd, seeking His face and following His voice in communion with His Spirit, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below.
Please Partner With Me!
Help Me Share The Gospel and Make Disciples!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
GIVE TODAY, CLICK HERE
Let me help you!
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
