I listened to a sermon recently on how easy it is to live from instinct rather than identity. As believers, all too often I think we live from our past brokenness rather than from who God says we are, and who we should become in him.

Somehow the body of Christ seems to think that if we are humble we should never desire or even confess the desire to be great. Why is this? Is it because we think or have been taught that to desire such a bold thing is sinful or carnal? 

The body of Christ so often seems to have the ability to take a revelation that God gives us about some important spiritual truth and turn it into some doctrine or theology instead of learning how to apply that truth. Shouldn’t we be asking the Holy Spirit to explain how that revelation should be understood and applied? After all, Jesus specifically said the Holy Spirit would be our counselor.

Do we have any responsibility for making a miracle happen? Granted we all should realize that God is the only one who can truly make a miracle happen, but we need to consider a few things about what provokes God to move on our behalf.

In article one, I shared how many believers never seem to get past the infancy stage in their Christian walk because they have not been taught to live a surrendered life to Christ and the kingdom of God. They agree with the principles Jesus taught about seeking the kingdom of God but, for them, that mainly means not engaging in a sinful lifestyle. Most of their personal study in the scriptures revolves around discovering God’s promises on how to get their personal needs and desire fulfilled rather than embracing God’s promises to fulfill God’s purpose for them.  The idea of living for a higher calling, one of divine purpose, seems to always be challenged by their focus on themselves and thus they can’t hear God’s voice on much else.

A calling, as defined in the first article, is when we perceive God defining a purpose we are intended to pursue to change the world around us. In Matthew 5, Jesus is teaching on what is called “The Beatitudes” in which he defines people who will be blessed by God. One category of such people are those who work at establishing peace.

I was recently asked to teach a group of pastors in Tanzania about what it means to know you’re calling and how to identify it. I have taught on Christian leadership for many years but have never been asked to teach specifically on an individuals calling. That being said, I dove into the subject and studied what the word had to say. Through these articles I will try to unpack what I have learned and identified about my own calling, which will hopefully help you discover your own.

Each year people make what are called New Years Resolutions. The reason, supposedly, for making these resolutions is that people are hoping to resolve something they did or didn’t do in the last year. Sometimes there was a mistake or sometimes they could have done better. Sometimes they didn’t do anything at all. The problem with resolutions is they are often done half hearted and we are only slightly committed to them. Mind you we may have good intentions to resolve these missteps, but rarely do we have any real conviction about them.

When I tarted this series on prayer, I wanted to address some misconceptions about prayer, and some habits many Christian have developed that are not productive. Our misconceptions come to us from a number areas such as poor teaching, personal challenges and a lack of understanding of the character and nature of God from the scriptures. 

In this series on prayer, I have dealt with a number of reason why people struggle so much with having a fulfilling prayer life. In this article I want to talk about two very big hindrances to Christians having real faith when they pray. These two subjects have been taught by many pastors and teachers over the years because in the body of Christ no one wants to be labeled as a teacher of wrong concepts or theology, and because these teachers have been trained to embrace reformed theology in particular. In my mind, these teachings are damaging to not only the practice of prayer but to evangelism and reaching unbelievers.