A PERCOLATING FAITH

Editor’s note: I have a glass knob from my grandpa’s old percolator coffee pot sitting on my desk. I never connected it to our growth in faith until now. -- DW

A PERCOLATING FAITH

There’s something almost sacred about an old‑fashioned coffee percolator. Long before single‑serve pods and instant brews, coffee took time. Heat rose slowly. Water pushed its way upward into the glass knob. The aroma filled the room long before the coffee was ready. Nothing rushed. Nothing forced. It simply percolated -- moving, rising, transforming little by little until the whole pot was changed.

Our spiritual lives often work the same way. We want instant answers, instant growth, instant clarity. But God rarely works in microwaves; He works in percolators. His truth moves through us slowly, steadily, repeatedly -- circulating through our hearts until it becomes part of us.

Sometimes we don’t notice the change right away. We read Scripture, we pray, we show up to worship, we gather with others, and it feels small… almost too small. But like that old coffee pot, something is happening beneath the surface. God’s Spirit is warming us, stirring us, rising within us. His grace is moving through the places we thought were cold or empty.

And then -- often unexpectedly -- the aroma of transformation begins to fill our lives. Peace where there was anxiety. Hope where there was heaviness. Strength where there was weakness. Not because we forced it, but because we let God’s work percolate.

“Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion…”  (Philippians 1:6)

Today, don’t rush what God is doing. Let His Word circulate through your thoughts. Let His presence rise in your spirit. Let His grace percolate until your life carries the unmistakable aroma of someone being transformed from the inside out.

-- SOUND BITES Ministry™

#6460

GOD’S WORD IN EVERYDAY LANGUAGE

“I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.” (Psalm 119:11 NIV)

Peter Waldo, a business-man in Lyons, France, in about A.D. 1170 became intensely curious as to the content of the Scriptures. But he could not read Latin, and so the Scriptures were a closed book to him.  However, he hired two money-minded priests, who, in violation of strict regulations, translated the Bible for him into Provencal, the language of southern France.  The content of the Word of God made such an impression upon this earnest man that he gave up his business, took upon himself a vow of poverty, and dedicated himself to the simple preaching of the contents of God's Word.

The Latin of the Church only mystified its hearers, [but] Waldo's humble preaching edified the souls of men.  His words were not spectacular but powerful, as he pleaded with them to repent.  Much of his preaching and that of his followers consisted in reciting long passages of Scripture in the vernacular.  Many of them could not afford an expensive handwritten copy of the Bible, and the ecclesiastical authorities could too easily rob them of such a book; but they could not erase the words which were treasured in the heart. 

-- Eugene A. Nida in “God's Word in Man's Language”

#6444

THE GOSPEL MEASURES US

“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”  (Hebrews 4:12 NIV)

Every now and then someone comes up with a phrase which leaves you thinking, "I wish I'd said it that way." Prof. G.L. Carter did it to me this week when he responded to one point in last Sunday's sermon by commenting, "It seemed to me that you were saying, 'Instead of asking whether the Gospel is relevant to us, we ought to be asking if we are relevant to the Gospel'." I felt that G.L. had summarized the matter perfectly; I wish I had done as well.

You see, this is the forgotten mood in much current theological chatter: not whether Christianity is relevant to us, but whether we are relevant to Christianity. We are not the measuring stick of the Gospel; the Gospel measures us. We do not set a standard for the faith; faith has set the standard, and the only really relevant question is this, do we meet the standard?

There is a certain inherent arrogance in all the talk about relevance. I suppose, in the end, that this is why I usually find the word not only trite but distasteful. We seem to think that we can treat the Gospel the way we treat the television screen, switching to another channel when the theme doesn't please us.

Without a doubt the church sometimes misshapes the Gospel until it ceases to be relevant. But I'm sure that sometimes modern man accuses the Gospel of being irrelevant when in truth it is only discomfiting. He needs then to remember that the Gospel judges him, and it is his own relevancy which is at stake. 

-- Ellsworth Kalas (1923-2015), originally published on December 15, 1966 in the newsletter of First Methodist Church of Madison, Wisconsin. Source https://ellsworthkalas.com/blog.

#6410

THE WORD AND THE WORLD

Jesus prayed, “I have given them Your Word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth.”  (John 17:14-17 NKJV)

God's Word teaches forgiveness and the world teaches revenge. The Word teaches sharing and the world teaches hoarding. The Word teaches humility and the world teaches pride. The Word teaches dependence on God and the world teaches self-reliance. The Word teaches us to love God and the world teaches us to love self. The Word teaches us to help those in need and the world teaches us to "take care of your own".

And perhaps one of the most disheartening is that God offers us faith and the world seems to underscore and build fear. It is only with worship to God Almighty that we learn to have complete faith in this life as well as total assurance in the life to come - eternal life. The best, the very best, this world can offer is meaningless compared to the benefits of worshipping the Lord. 

-- Pastor Gary Stone

#6380

 

BREAKING OUT

“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”  (1 Peter 2:2-3 NIV)

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is -- His good, pleasing and perfect will.”  (Romans 12:2 NIV)

We must try to break out of our culture’s mindset and seek to discover “that good and perfect will of God.” In short, we must somehow get hold of “the pure spiritual milk” of the Word, as opposed to the diluted baby formula that has become the diet prescribed by society. We must escape the tendency to conform to society – even within our most crucial spiritual disciplines.

It seems to me that only a strong doctrine of the Holy Spirit offers us any hope of reading Scripture without being influenced by our culture. There has to be something of a miracle involved in true revelatory Bible reading. And the good news is that such miracles happen. As I read the Scriptures, without the help of commentaries or interpreter’s notes, more times than not, I am conscious of the Spirit’s presence. There is revelation, and in it the Spirit applies what I read to my life. I sense I am “breaking out” of culturally controlled modes of interpretation, even as I sense the “breaking in” of God. 

-- Adapted from an article by Tony Campolo (1935-2924) entitled “Getting Out of the World Alive” in Discipleship Journal, No. 86

#6373

THE GREATEST THREAT TO THE CHURCH

“So Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip His people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”  (Ephesians 4:11-16 NIV)

What do you think is the greatest threat to the church of Jesus Christ? Hypocrisy? Apathy? Bad preaching? Sexual immorality? Persecution?

My take? Thanks for asking. I think it is immature faith. Paul is especially concerned with those who lack maturity in faith – “infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.”

In terms of faith, maturity has little to do with how long one has considered oneself a Christian. Many times, people who have ardently followed Jesus a short time are more mature than those who have sat around in church all their lives. Maturity is the fruit of a life consistently immersed in the Word of God and the Spirit of God. It is not signaled by a certain level of knowledge but by a growing discernment. The metric for Christian maturity is not competent skills or great gifts, but humility and holy love. The secret to maturing in Christ comes in the quality of one’s trusting abandonment to Him.

When Paul says “infants” don’t think kids, but people who aren’t yet mature in their faith. Immature faith works like a magnet to attract false teaching. Immaturity can be like a weak immune system. False teaching is like a virus, taking advantage of the body’s weakness. The trouble with false teaching is it has an air of plausibility to it. People not steeped in Scripture and the Spirit are most susceptible to buying into false teaching or following after false teachers. There’s only one way to deal with false teaching: maturity.

We must grow in maturity by consistently immersing ourselves in the Word of God and the Spirit of God so that we can discern the truth from the lies, “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” 

-- Excerpted and adapted from “Wake-up Call” by J. D. Watt

#6121

THE SUPREME ACT OF KINDNESS

“…God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of His grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all He has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.”   (Ephesians 2:7 NLT)

Jesus is God’s kindness, God’s big gift of kindness that came in a small package of swaddling clothes, a baby sent to save us. God is so kind that Jesus did not count equality with God as something to be grasped and therefore emptied Himself of His place in heaven (Philippians 2:6-7). Jesus became flesh (John 1:14). His very enfleshment personified kindness.

Jesus represents the kindness of a God who became one of us. Religions have famous teachers and prophets. Religions have teachings about God. But only the Christian faith professes that God became flesh as the supreme act of kindness toward His creatures. He came to us so that we could come to Him. God’s loving gift of Jesus to you is a miraculous act of kindness that sets the tone for your life.

In fact, that is what Jesus does. He shows you God. In order to help you become the-best-version-of-yourself, Jesus will guide you home. He will embody in Himself who and what you are called to be. He is the Word of God made flesh, living right here among us.  

-- Allen R. Hunt in “Nine Words: A Bible Study to Help You Become the Best-Version-of-Yourself” 

#6032

FORGETTING GOD

“After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the LORD or remember the mighty things He had done for Israel.”  (Judges 2:10 NLT)

When I read those words, my heart breaks. My heart breaks for this generation that is summarized in a sentence of not knowing God and who He is. And my heart also breaks because I know that it’s easy to read those words and think, how could they? And I know how easily that could be us, too.

In a world that is so distracted, and in a world where we compete for truth and what’s real, and in a world where there’s so much going on, so much that we would say is against the Word of God, this could easily be us. And I just want to say as one of your pastors, speaking on behalf of our pastors at Grace Church, the staff at Grace Church, the volunteer and leadership teams of Grace Church, this will not happen on our watch.

We will not be a generation that forgets, that leads to another generation not knowing the glory and goodness of God. But here’s the reality, it takes all of us. 

-- Pastor Taylor Brown, Grace Church, Cape Coral, Florida, from his message on 9/22/24

#5953

GOD’S HEALING WORD FOR TODAY

“Cause me to understand the way of Your precepts, that I may meditate on Your wonderful deeds. My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to Your Word.”  (Psalm 119:27,28 NIV)

The Word of God is not a word to apply in our daily lives at some later date; it is a word to heal us through, and in, our listening here and now.

The questions therefore are: How does God come to me as I listen to the Word? Where do I discern the healing hand of God touching me through the Word? How are my sadness, my grief, and my mourning being transformed at this very moment? Do I sense the fire of God’s love purifying my heart and giving me new life? These questions lead me to the sacrament of the Word, the sacred place of God’s real presence. 

-- Henri J. M. Nouwen in “With Burning Hearts”

#5813

DWELLING WITH THE WORD

"Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God." (Colossians 3:16 NIV)

"Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly." It is very different to read and know the Word than it is to let it "richly dwell" in your very spirit. This means we find the purpose and pleasure of God's Word. It means that God's Word directs our paths and that the very core of our being is filled with the Word. We don't have the Word as a mere visitor to our lives -- Sunday morning Bible readers! Rather we take the Word of God and let it sift through the "stuff" of our lives until it rests richly in our heart. Then we find the Word on our fingertips and tongues in each and every situation we encounter. As God's Word dwells richly we reap the rich rewards.

-- Pastor Gary Stone 

#5807

GOD USES HIS SPIRIT TO CHANGE US

“But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to Him at all.) And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.”  (Romans 8:9-10 NLT)

When we commit ourselves to Christ, the Holy Spirit comes into our lives to empower and direct us. The Spirit of God gives us new strength and vitality and the desire and power to do what is right. As the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like Him…

God’s number one purpose in your life is to make you like Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to make the child of God more like the Son of God. And what is Jesus like? His life on earth embodied the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

-- Rick Warren in “God’s Power to Change Your Life”

#5776

WAITING WITH THE WORD

“But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”  (Isaiah 40:31 NKJV)

Our waiting is always shaped by alertness to the Word.  It is waiting in the knowledge that someone wants to address us.  The question is, Are we home?  Are we at our address, ready to respond to the doorbell?  We need to wait together, to keep each other at home spiritually, so that when the Word comes it can become flesh in us.  That is why the Book of God is always in the midst of those who gather.  We read the Word so that the Word can become flesh and have a whole new life in us. 

-- Henri Nouwen in “Weavings”, January 1987, published by The Upper Room, Nashville, TN.   Used with permission.

#5682

RECOGNIZING THE VOICE OF JESUS

Jesus said, “The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”  (John 10:2-5 NIV)

Every day, we recognize voices. Famous people, everyday people, family, friends, and local people. People in our community. The voices of our pastors, leaders, and teachers. Each voice is unique in tone and character, inflection, and delivery. But there is one voice that has the power to command the attention of every earthly and heavenly soul. Jesus. He is the living Word of God. When we read the Bible, we are ingesting His voice. His unique tone and character, inflection, and delivery. His supernatural ability to inspire writers to pen His voice and meet us in our everyday lives through it. 

-- Meg Bucher  

#5605

GOD’S GUIDING WORD

“Your Word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”  (Psalm 119:105 NLT)

Many people get very nervous when ordinary human beings speak about being spoken to by God. I get nervous about the idea myself. It has often been abused…

However, we cannot be transformed if we close ourselves off to the guiding power of the Holy Spirit. We must come to believe -- mind-stretching as it sounds -- that God really can and does personally attend to us. As long as we are going to pray to the God who spoke the creation into being, who communicated to prophets and priests and kings -- and ordinary people, who wrote a thousand page book we know as the Bible -- and who refers to His Son as "the Word made flesh," then surely we can accept the possibility that sometimes He may want to get in a word or two with us.

-- John Ortberg in “The Life You've Always Wanted”

#5397

TAKING THE BIBLE SERIOUSLY

We need to take the Bible seriously. That means taking seriously the context in which each book was written and the rich variety of literary forms in which it comes to us…

Sometimes it reads like the front-page account of an actual historic event. Sometimes it’s like reading… parable and poetry, story and song. Sometimes it feels like… good and evil struggling to win a victory. Sometimes Paul’s letters are like reading a [personal message to a particular group of people] while reading the prophets is… filled with fantastic images and mind-blowing metaphors. None of it reads like a scientific textbook or a self-help manual.

The grand sweep of the biblical story is the account of a life-changing experience with God that required the use of nearly every literary form to attempt to convey it.

When we take the Bible seriously in terms of the context in which it was written and the form in which it comes, we begin to discover what Paul meant when he said, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NRSV)

-- Adapted from James A. Harnish in “A Disciple’s Path: Deepening Your Relationship with Christ and the Church”

#5352

THE CENTRALITY OF CHRIST

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.”  (Colossians 1:15-20 NKJV)

The Cross of Christ is the heart of the Gospel. It takes the entire Bible to explain it. All our teaching must relate to that, like all the spokes and rim and tires of a wheel relate to the axis. Jesus is the center, the pivot. Everything else will fit into place around Jesus. Indeed the entire Word of God revolves around Him. If Christ is not the hub the wheel will wobble and break. 

-- Reinhard Bonnke in “Christ for All Nations”

#5336

SLEEPING WHEN THE WIND BLOWS

Years ago a farmer owned land along the Atlantic seacoast. He constantly advertised for hired hands. Most people were reluctant to work on farms along the Atlantic. They dreaded the awful storms that raged across the Atlantic, wreaking havoc on the buildings and crops.

As the farmer interviewed applicants for the job, he received a steady stream of refusals. Finally, a short, thin man, well past middle age, approached the farmer. "Are you a good farmhand?" the farmer asked him. "Well, I can sleep when the wind blows," answered the little man.

Although puzzled by this answer, the farmer, desperate for help, hired him. The little man worked well around the farm, busy from dawn to dusk, and the farmer felt satisfied with the man's work.  Then one night the wind howled loudly in from offshore. Jumping out of bed, the farmer grabbed a lantern and rushed next door to the hired hand's sleeping quarters. He shook the little man and yelled, "Get up! A storm is coming! Tie things down before they blow away!" The little man rolled over in bed and said firmly, "No sir. I told you, I can sleep when the wind blows."

Enraged by the old man's response, the farmer was tempted to fire him on the spot. Instead, he hurried outside to prepare for the storm. To his amazement, he discovered that all of the haystacks had been covered with tarpaulins. The cows were in the barn, the chickens were in the coops, and the doors were barred. The shutters were tightly secured. Everything was tied down. Nothing could blow away. The farmer then understood what his hired hand meant, so he returned to his bed to also sleep while the wind blew.

MORAL: When you're prepared, you have nothing to fear. Can you sleep when the wind blows through your life? The hired hand in the story was able to sleep because he had secured the farm against the storm.  We, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, secure ourselves against the storms of life by grounding ourselves firmly in the Word of God.

-- Author Unknown

#5262

KEEPING THE WORD OF GOD

“It shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them.”  (Deuteronomy 17:19 KJV)

The key word here is keep, so let me drill down on it. The Jewish rabbis said that every word of Scripture has seventy faces and six hundred thousand meanings. This is one of those kaleidoscopic words in Hebrew.

The word keep means keepsake, as in a treasured possession. It means to guard something, as if your life depended on it. It means to keep track of, like a courtroom stenographer. It means to watch over, like an air traffic controller. It means to keep watch, like a night watchman. It means to preserve, like a taxidermist. It means to examine, like a forensic scientist. It means to cross-examine, like a prosecuting attorney. It means to put in a vault, like a banker. It means to put a contract on something, like a real-estate agent. It means to decipher secrets, like World War II code talkers.

To keep the Word of God in our hearts, to keep our minds set on the Spirit, requires that kind of due diligence. Few things are as exhausting as intentionality, but the payoff is always worth the price. You pay the price by getting into God’s Word daily. Then the Holy Spirit… brings to memory what we need to know, when we need to know it. 

-- Mark Batterson in “If: Trading Your If Only Regrets for God’s What If Possibilities”

#5171

LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE

"You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."  (Matthew 5:14-16 NIV)

The Word of God tells us that we are the light that Christ has set in this dark world. We are given the noble task of shining bright so that God could be seen, heard, felt, and be praised and glorified even by those who do not know Him. Truly, it is an honor to be chosen by God to represent Him in this world. 

-- J.B. Cachila in an article entitled “3 Ways to Shine the Light of Christ to the People Around Us” at chrstianitytoday.com 

#5020

PREACHING THE WORD OF GOD

“Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God… For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”  (2 Corinthians 4:1,2,5,6 NIV)

When we listen to preachers who are really available to themselves and, therefore, able to offer their own life experience as a source of recognition, we no longer have to be afraid to face our own condition and that of our world because the one who stands in front of us is the living witness that insight makes us free and does not create new anxieties.  Only then can indifference and irritation be removed, only then can the Word of God, which has been repeated so often but understood so little, find fertile ground and be rooted in the human heart.

-- Henri Nouwen in “Creative Ministry”

#4784