Now I am all for going to church, so don't get me wrong, but church is the place many people go to get their dose of truth once a week. They sit in the pews and listen to someone they mostly agree with talk about things they mostly agree with and then head home to forget most of what they heard. However the Bible is a large and complex piece of literature that presents complicated truths and makes seemingly contradictory statements. Sitting in a 20 to 45 minute service allows a pastor time to present one basic principle but it doesn't allow time to discuss any of the complexity of the principle. An example of this is tithing.

Sermons about tithing focus on giving money to God. How 10% of your income belongs to God as an indication of how He should be controlling all of your income. I have yet to hear a pastor spend time talking about how other behaviors can negate tithing. I know for a fact (from personal experience and observation) that poor money management regardless of how much you tithe negates the benefits of tithing. If you habitually steal from others it too negates the benefits of tithing. If you're greedy or give out of selfish motivations these negate the benefits of tithing.

So when you go to church and are listening to a sermon remember that the pastor is presenting a fraction of the topic. He or she is offering a microscopic view of a big issue. No sermon should be taken at face value but rather it should be used as a beginning place for personal investigation and prayer. The pastor is presenting principles that are intended to help you grow in your relationship with God but listening to a sermon never helped anyone's relationship grow. It's only through meditation, study, developing a personal relationship and application of biblical principles that is motivated by a love for God that real growth takes place.

“I am just a human being who sins constantly. How can I ever be 100% sure that I’ll make it to heaven?”

Sally texted me from a train en route to her parents’ home. She is one of many at our International Church who have recently responded to our evangelistic efforts. Sally received the gospel years ago and has had significant evangelistic training. Yet a lack of understanding the gospel kept her from finding assurance of her salvation. I wrote to her in reply, “If the only way you can be sure you will go to heaven is to stop sinning while you are on earth, you will never be sure. I am a human being who sins constantly. But I am 100% sure I will go to heaven because my salvation does not depend on my righteousness, but on Jesus’ righteousness.”

Over the past 6 weeks I have had two opportunities to ask the members of our congregation to fill out response cards if they are not 100% certain they will go to heaven. We’ve received 300 responses.

At the same time I recruited a 25-member Evangelism Team from around the world. Each of them called, texted, and used other means to contact 10 to 15 people, asking for a time to meet to share the gospel. Lunches, coffees and small group meetings occurred at various times and places around our city.

This decentralized approach has brought about a lot of personalized ministry. Some had theological questions, some wanted to be connected to a small group or singles ministry, and some needed to be baptized. Many simply wanted our basic evangelistic materials to share with their family and friends. A woman signed up on the first visit of her life to a Christian church! Pastoral care was given to a brother whose wife recently passed away from cancer.

What we experienced most often was believers who lack assurance of salvation. They have a vague, fuzzy notion of trusting Christ as savior, but had never thought of it in terms of the kind of absolute certainty that John writes about in 1 John 5:13: “These things I have written to you who believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” An hour together studying the Word of God helps them clearly understand the nature of salvation, so they can find certainty of eternal life.

Sally continued in her email, “I always feel I’m not good enough to accept such generous grace.” I replied, “You are correct. Nobody is good enough to accept God’s generous grace. That’s what makes it grace—we don’t deserve it. As Romans 5:8 says, ‘But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ If the only people who received God’s grace were those who were good enough, nobody would receive it!”

Praise God for grace freely given to us undeserving humans. And praise God for the opportunity to freely share that grace with others.

Following Him,
Your brother and sister in Christ

This is a recent message from missionary friends of mine who I cannot name, but their message is so relevant and clear that I wanted to share it with you. I hope you find it as encouraging as I do.

My gift-giving skills, I’m told, are intimidating. I am known for giving, not only the perfect gift, but gifts that seem to go beyond what they were meant for. This has always come naturally to me, but as with any talent, there are basic principles I can share and that’s what I’d like to do now.
 
When I buy gifts I look at the purchasing process a little different from most people. I am empathetic, so I feel emotions. When I go shopping for a present, I look for things that remind me of the person, something that makes me feel the way they make me feel.
 
So, the first step is to think about the person that you're buying for. Think about what they like to do, what their favorite activities are, what their favorite hobbies and sports are, and what they do outside of work. What is their favorite color, favorite animal, favorite season of the year, and what makes them proud? Think about things that they've bought for themselves, for example, video or card games, the latest electronics, apps, style of music, those types of things. With all of those things in mind, the next step to consider are things that you are familiar with that fit into those categories.
 
I had a co-worker who was having trouble figuring out what to get her dad, so I asked her a little bit about him. I already knew that he was in banking, and he was a very organized, detail-oriented individual, but I found out that he had an LP collection that he very much loved and he had his own library or study and he did a lot of traveling. He reminded me of an app that I have called, Splash Shopper. This app gives me a grocery shopping list on my phone, where I can check things on and off. I can put as much detail about an item as I want. It also has other types of lists. It has categories for things like music and travel. I thought maybe her father would enjoy an app that would allow him to organize all of his LPs. He could input the artist and album title and the style of music and he would have a quick list of everything he owns and be able to see it nice and organized and available on his phone anytime he wanted. She agreed with me. She got her dad an app, not the one I recommended, but a different one that she found and thought he'd appreciate and sure enough she saw him using it over the holiday and was very excited to be able to give him something that was so personalized.
 
I also used this technique when a co-worker had a niece's family moving into a new house and she wanted to get them a housewarming present. The things I know about her and the niece were actually presents she had already given them, so it made sense she was having a little bit of trouble and then it hit me that at my house we had been enjoying yard art of recent days and I said as much. My co-worker immediately knew what she wanted to get them.
 
When you're thinking about buying someone a gift, it's not so much that you can't get what you like, but you have to make sure that what you get overlaps with what you like and what they like, more specifically, the gift should reflect a part of them that you like.