Judge Yourself

The Word of God never returns empty or void, It always accomplishes It's purpose. But sometimes It cuts particularly deep as it did this last Sunday at TFI Gateway. I have lost count of the numerous testimonies which have come to me of how this particular teaching has impacted lives. I'm blessed and thrilled!

The key verses are 1 Corinthians 11:31 & 32. (NIV) "³¹But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. ³²When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world."

There is one kind of judgment you don't want. And that is at the end of this age, to be judged with the world, attached to the world, condemned with the world, doomed to everlasting punishment with the world. The better options which are for those who are destined for eternal life which are to be judged before the end of the age. According to our aforementioned scripture, the two options are to proactively do it yourself, or to procrastinate which will lead to the Lord "doing it for you", after having out-waited the "grace period" which only God knows the length of. Our Righteous Judge wants us to turn ourselves in. He doesn't want to send for you. If you turn yourself in, there is leniency available from the court of the Lord.

It is clear from the scripture that even when we have failed to judge ourselves, that the Lord does it out of grace and with mercy so that we will not be condemned with the world. He truly loves us! But let me tell you friend, it hurts allot more when God does it because that means He is dealing with our pride, arrogance, disobedience and a generally uncooperative or even unteachable spirit. That calls for a bruising! And it's so unnecessary. Why lose the finances, the relationships, the opportunities, why suffer in health and in so many other ways just so that God can get your attention. (whether it's He Himself or Him allowing these things to come your way is a teaching for another time). Why indeed, when the Word of God says we can avoid all that mess and pain by simply judging ourselves!?

So how do we judge ourselves? I asked this question at one of my Life Groups last night and got some good answers. One lady said that she evaluates her day, every day and writes down everything noteworthy and flat out asks the Lord in prayer and with Holy Spirit interaction, what she did that pleases Him and what she did that could have been better and also what she did that did not please Him. She then thanks God for assisting her in her good decisions and she asks God's forgiveness in the areas she came up short or was sinful. She then repents. To repent is more than to ask forgiveness. It is to make a decision to turn from a wrong way and go in the right direction. "Sorry" may wipe your slate clean, but it won't prevent it from getting immediately soiled again. Repenting changes everything because it involves a commitment to make better decisions. To change. Her goal is to clear herself before her God every day and just as importantly to improve herself according to His ways every day. Another man talked about how he prays "purging prayers" every day. Praying through every issue and praying things literally out of himself. And another lady told us about how she gets together with a group of spiritual friends and they work together to judge themselves using an honest group evaluation. All of these are great examples of how we can judge ourselves.

The context of our scripture if you read all of 1 Corinthians 11:17-33 is that of judging ourselves before partaking of the Lord's Supper (Communion). The scripture exhort's us to first examine ourselves and then to judge ourselves. This means to us that one of the primary reasons for the ritualized partaking of the Lord's Supper in the organized Church is that it is an opportune time to examine and judge ourselves. However, the once a month that most Churches offer a communion element to the service is simply not enough. It should serve only as an example of what we need to do daily. In the New Testament, it is obvious that in the house Churches, they were participating in the Lord's Supper most every day. I believe that this is a call that before we partake of our food at every meal and even between meals, we need to be in constant examination of our motives, our words, our hearts and our deeds. Self judgment according to God's Word is 24/7.

Allow me to pose a few final questions: What good are Kingdom blessings received if they are continually eroded because we fail to judge ourselves and the judgments from outside ourselves just keep on coming?? Rather than just being focused on getting more blessings, why don't we try to hang on to some of them by avoiding judgment? Better yet, why don't we stop living by striving for blessings and learn to truly seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and then all of these things will be added, not subtracted to us?

Pastor People

Ezekiel 34 (NIV)
1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? 3 You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock.

I’m not teaching specifically from the above scripture today but I am referring to it to present the fact that God has always been concerned about Shepherds properly handling the Flock. This of course is His choice metaphor which references Pastors and Congregations.

I was going for my evening prayer walk a few weeks ago and I was discussing ministry strategy with the Lord. I told Him about all of the potential plans and possible programs as I sought direction.

The Lord spoke something very simple to me on that night. So simple that I almost missed it. He said, “Pastor People.” In that moment, I thought of the millions of people who attend Churches worldwide and I felt the heart of God… Though Churches are full of people, many are not being “pastored.” Hearing a sermon, even a good sermon once or twice a week does not mean that someone is being pastored. The more I considered what God was saying, the more I realized even that just because someone is in a discipleship group or program does not necessarily mean that they are being pastored. All of the organization and all of our efforts, if they lack love, genuine relationship and caring for the basic human & spiritual needs of people cannot be considered pastoring or shepherding people.

A more challenging way to think about it but really the way I believe God is challenging me is that true Pastoral Ministry is the ministry that does not lack godly compassion or the human touch. A Shepherd willingly lays down his life for the sheep.

Needless to say, I was cut to the heart and challenged in a tremendous way. In my 80+ hours of work a week, how much pastoring of the people am I really doing? I was reminded of a conversation that I once had with a friend of mine, Pst Dave Kenney who truly “Pastor’s” a great congregation in Jakarta, Indonesia, “IES” or “International English Service.” In a nutshell, he told me that the key to the growth of IES is that they take care of their people and other people see that they take care of their people and other people then want to become their people. Not an exact quote but I think a good way to say it… J Keep up the good work Dave!

Here in Manila, I have been very impressed with another congregation that is absolutely known for their quick response to the needs of their people and anyone else they can touch. Within hours that someone is admitted to a hospital, the norm for this Church is that dozens of people will visit. It’s important to them and it happens so naturally because they are a Church of Shepherds. Powerful! I use them as an example of how responsive I want our congregation to become. It takes constant nurturing and teaching to develop this kind of a culture.

As a pastor, one of the things I have figured out through the years is that people will likely not remember my sermons, but they will remember when I visit them not only in their time of need but even at random times as led by God’s Spirit. Or call them, E-mail, text, chat with them after service, etc. But the most impacting element is the personal visit.

And so I sounded the alarm in the Church. Noting the fact that God wants us to Pastor People among other things the Lord had laid on my heart including a call to double in finances and in numbers of attendees in the next 6 weeks. On a side note, next week is six weeks and the finances have almost doubled and the numbers of attendees has increased as well, going into a major evangelistic event next week. God is good and we are positioned! It’s time to double!

It is amazing how the people who need pastoring have come out of the wood work and how the people of the Church have risen to the call. Maybe we didn’t notice so much before? I would estimate that the number of home visits and prayer calls have increased 500%, maybe even more. It is resulting in amazing testimonies and Kingdom growth.

So my encouragement is this. When you need to organize a program or set up a structure, do it. Preach good sermons, raise up disciples and more. But don’t lose focus of the very basic fact that we must not fail to be Shepherd’s to the Flock of God. Love people, visit them, listen to them, offer an ear, a shoulder, care for them and care about them. My favorite life quote is this and I believe it with all my heart. “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

As a final point, I must balance this with a warning not to sacrifice your family, your work or job, personal devotion time, physical fitness time, rest time and more. Do not burn out. But I would say to find time that you can sacrifice. We all have some “fat” that can be “cut out” of our lives, I’m sure. And it’s not about a few visits that take you hours each. It’s about being consistent with short visits. My average visit these days is well under an hour. I simply don’t have time to stay for 2-3 hours each visit and people appreciate the 30 minute visits too. May God bless you as you organize your life to be a further blessing to others. Pastor People.