Sow What?

It's remarkable how the Spirit of God impresses a timely message through those passages we've read over and over again. This morning I was finishing up a devotional reading of Galatians, coming across the familiar principle of what we sow, we will reap. What struck me this time, though, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, discerning the thoughts and intentions of my heart was the harvest of the sowing. "For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." (Gal. 6:8)

What jumped out at me was the word "corruption." I looked it up in the Greek and the range of the word has to do with anywhere from destruction to deterioration. What I sowed had direct relationship to the integrity, the wholeness, the holiness of my being. The mirror the Spirit was holding up to me in His Word showed some distressing things for a child of God, both in what was growing and what was not growing. And it was my fault, the consequence of the principle of the Christian life to which the Spirit was calling my attention.

Of course, the next question naturally followed and it was this the Spirit impressed upon my heart with great conviction. Just what am I sowing? As I see my inclination to indulge in sin and my cavalier attitude about my actions, what have I sown that those weeds have sprung up and even thrive? How am I denying myself eternal like, not in the sense of salvation but in the sense of abiding in Christ for good fruit and living out the life of the gospel on a daily basis?

Ministry Momentum

The past week has seen a number of reports from those currently conducting the Community Houses of Prayer ministry and from others who are poised to launch the CHOP ministry in their church contexts. I find it both thrilling and humbling to see that God is pleased to use this tool for the equipping of His saints and mobilization of His church for the sake of the gospel. I love it when people share stories with me about how God is working in the lives of those for whom they are praying through CHOP. You can see the reflection of the glory of God in their faces as they become animated in their descriptions of God's answers to prayer and shaping of them as His instruments. Pastors and lay leaders have shared with me their vision to use CHOP to engage their churches in the work of the kingdom and to cultivate a mentality of personal mission for the cause of Christ. I can only think that as God stirs His people to prayer through CHOP and other means that we are going to see remarkable things happen on a variety of fronts. I recently read a comment from a preacher who was asked by a young minister what was a matter of first importance for him as he undertook his new charge. The preacher's answer took the young man directly to the heart of operations, "Pray for a praying people." I see this as a prayer for revival and a prayer for a people engaged in the work of the kingdom. My prayer is that God would be pleased to use CHOP to equip and engage His people for the effecting of the gospel in their own lives and the lives of others that Jesus Christ may be praised. I hope you'll join me in this prayer.

Conduits of Comfort

Paul opens his second letter to the Corinthians by calling us to be conduits of comfort. God comforts us so that we can comfort others with the comfort we received from God. It's akin to why God gives us money--not only for our own needs but to be a blessing to others with the money we recognize as coming to us from the hand of our God. Later in 2 Corinthians Paul says, "You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God." (2 Cor. 9:11)

As we experience suffering and the grace of God to sustain us in it, so God equips us and enlists us for ministry to others. We act as conduits of comfort not by telling people, "I made it through; so can you." But by saying, "I couldn't do it, but God gave me strength." In 2 Cor. 1:9 Paul speaks of God's lesson through the severity of his affliction: "But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." Paul will reiterate this point toward the close of his letter when he says, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." That strength is found in the power of Christ and the sufficiency of His grace . (2 Cor. 12:9-10) That means for us to be conduits of comfort, we need to point people to Christ.

To borrow Paul's words regarding money, we are called to be generous in every way with the comfort with which we have been enriched by the grace of God. The upshot of the principle, whether it be comfort or money, will be thanksgiving to God through Jesus Christ.

Warfare Witness Study Guide

Warfare Witness: Contending With Spiritual Opposition in Everyday Evangelism provides the basic tenets upon which CHOP is built, exposing us to the spiritual opposition inherent in the work of evangelism, God's work through His Son to deliver and redeem, Christ's provision for His church in its outreach, and practical counsel for exercising our commission for the sake of the gospel.