Will Davis Jr.'s Blog, page 5

Living in God’s New Community

I ended the Spring teaching season this weekend at ACF. Let’s just say I tried to go out with a bang. Here’s this weekend’s message.

 

May 21 Video from Austin Christian Fellowship on Vimeo.

Dear New Believer: Think Like This . . .

This week we’re going to spend some time learning about Jesus.

The passage below, written by the Apostle Paul to the believers in the Roman colony of Philippi, is one of the most beautiful in the Bible. Many scholars think this passage is actually part of a song that early believers used to sing in their worship to Jesus.

Why don’t you read it out loud two or three times so you can get the feel of it:

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11

Look at the first statement one more time:

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. 

Now consider all that Paul said:

Jesus was fully God and became fully man. He gave up his rights, privileges and entitlements and emptied himself of everything that was due him.

He did so out of obedience to his Father. That obedience led him to embrace humanity and eventually die in a horrible way. A death, by the way, that was vicarious in nature. It was for us.

As a result, God exalted him and restored him to his rightful place.

Jesus did not live up to his potential, but he did live up to his assignment.

The reason Jesus set aside all that was his can be summed up in one word — others.

Jesus did not put himself forward; he chose to put himself last.

And Paul says — think like that.

Curiously, the point of this great passage is not the deity of Jesus; it’s the attitude of Jesus. His self-emptying sets the standard for all those who choose to follow him.

This is why people who have the potential to earn millions in the marketplace choose instead to give the best years of their lives serving poor, the underserved and the unreached in remote places. This is why Christians are willing to die with and for the people they are trying to reach. This is why “others” are at the heart of every genuine Christian movement and ministry.

Because it was at the heart of our leader.

Friend, you’re at an interesting place in your life. I might need to warn you that as you grow in your relationship with Jesus you’re quite likely to find yourself thinking about how you can serve others.

Christians and America’s Gender-Identity Crisis

This is not a post I want to write. It is not a post, quite frankly, that I ever dreamed I’d need to write.

Our culture has experienced such dramatic change in the last few years that I still find it dizzying. The events of last week are simply Exhibit Next.

In case you missed it, the Obama Administration (the Education and Justice Departments) sent letters to every school district in America threatening them with legal action and the withholding of federal funds if they fail to allow transgender students use the bathroom or locker room of their preferred gender identity.

Coupled with last summer’s sweeping Supreme Court decision to require all states to allow gay marriage, the Administration’s action is yet another graphic example of how the Enemy (and by “Enemy” I mean Satan, not the Administration) has successfully flipped our collective consciousness to embrace what is wrong, sinful, backwards, upside-down and obviously unnatural.

While my words may sound harsh, I am not overstating the case. The scriptures clearly state that as a culture strays from its respect for and adherence to God’s revelation, it will begin to exchange what is normal and natural for what is abnormal and unnatural. It will flip what is defined as evil and good, and promote the former while opposing the latter.

In light of our society’s ongoing rush toward “casting off restraint,” (see Proverbs 29:18), I feel the need to once again offer encouragement, perspective and guidance to all Christ-followers who are equally concerned for our nation’s well being.

Don’t believe the hype, this stuff is still sin.

Every day it seems that yet another Christian celebrity or blogger comes out in support of the gay and transgender movements. Some do so for shock value; some, quite frankly, to attract attention; and others in misguided efforts to make Christianity seem more inclusive.  And while these people may find themselves on the “right” side of current cultural trends, they place themselves perilously on the wrong side of biblical teaching and, even worse, God’s judgment.

We need to keep our biblical wits about us and be neither bullied nor worn down into condoning behaviors that God’s Word repeatedly warns us against.

Remember that our gender defines us, we don’t define our gender.

In the creation account found in Genesis 1, Moses tells us that God’s creation of humans was separate and distinct from the rest of his creative work. We were formed in his image and made “male and female.” The lines for our gender identity were clearly drawn for us by God when he created each of us. Being male or female is not something we choose; rather, it is chosen for us by our Holy Father and Creator.

That does not negate, however, the very real struggle that some boys and girls and men and women feel with their gender identity. Such battles can be very real, and devastating for those who must endure them.

(By the way, the best available studies suggest that 0.3% of the adult population identifies as transgender. If we add in children and youth, that number is likely to increase somewhat. Regardless, it is curious that this cultural trend has garnered such momentum and power given that it represents such a small percentage of the general population.)

The gender crises these people experience are the evidence of what I call the Genesis Three Reality in our world. They are proof of the destructive work of sin and Satan, not the work of a loving and caring God. A God, by the way, who never authors confusion.

Our response to those with gender confusion must be as compassionate as it is unwavering. Acquiescence is not compassion. Truth offered in love is.

Our response to those with gender confusion, like those of same sex attraction, must be to continue to point them to Christ and pray for their healing.

Giving in to their chosen lifestyle or gender confusion isn’t loving at all. Rather, it’s abandoning them to the Enemy’s work of stealing, killing and destroying.

Don’t be surprised by what’s next.

Surely you must know that this journey down the slippery slope of sexual relativity is by no means finished. The chilling words of Romans 1:18-32 could well have been written last month, and they give us a forecast of what new moral challenges we might just face as a nation.

Is it legalized pedophilia? The decriminalization of rape or incest?  Please don’t feign shock at such suggestions. Why would we stop where we are? Why would the Enemy slow his attacks when we are so close to cultural self-destruction?

The frog in this kettle was done decades ago. You may be disgusted by the brazenness of groups that lobby for such behaviors, but you better buckle up. These fights are coming.

Pray, fast, and cry out to God to heal our land.

The only thing that can stay the hand of God’s judgment on our nation is spiritual awakening. No legislation or court decisions can ever haul us back up and over the slippery ledge of surrender to sin. Only the miraculous, healing work of God can fix what is broken in our land. And only sacrificial, food-denying, sleep-depriving, 24/7 prayer has any chance of moving the heart of our holy God to withhold the judgment we are due and actually send the blessing of revival instead.

The prophet Joel might as well be speaking to you and me when he wrote these words 2700 years ago:

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning; and rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and relenting of evil. Who knows whether He will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him? Joel 2:12-14

I am asking you to give yourself to unceasing prayer.

I am asking you to repent of your distractions and to seek God’s Kingdom and God’s righteousness above anything else in your life.

And, I am asking you, through spiritual warfare, to violently and forcefully oppose the powers of darkness that are ravaging our land.

Because if we do not, if we remain silent before God and continue to act is if nothing is going on, then we only need to look back in history to see the inevitable outcome.

I do not make that statement lightly. Friends, we are doing way more than flirting with national disaster; we’ve spray-painted a bull’s-eye on the heart of our country and are daring God to take his best shot.

Pray he doesn’t honor our request.

I long for a better ending. And honestly, I am believing for one as well.

 

 

A Man Who Told Us the Truth is only $5 through Friday. Click here and enter the coupon code “maysale” (lower case) at checkout.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today-Friday, A Man Who Told Us the Truth is Only $5

I remember exactly where I was.

I was sitting at the dining room table at my family’s cabin outside of Estes Park, Colorado. I was having my morning devotional, with view below to inspire me. Not a bad way to find some morning inspiration.

The morning sun hits the cloud-laced mountains, as seen from our cabin.

I was reading in John’s Gospel, it has always been one of my favorite books in the Bible.

I love John because it’s a mix of theology, philosophy and apologetics. John gives us signs–miracles–to support Jesus’ claims of deity. And it’s one of those claims that got my attention that morning at the cabin.

I was reading in John 8 and I came upon this statement of Jesus in verse 40:

I know I’d read the statement before, probably dozens of times. But this time it slammed into me. There stood Jesus, addressing the religious elite of his day, claiming to be the man who told us the truth–the truth, by the way, that he heard directly from God.

That statement on that day in that setting forever changed how I see Jesus. I saw him as the man that God sent to tell us the truth–the truth about ourselves, about God and about eternity. And I knew right then and there that I would write a book for spiritual seekers based on that claim. I wanted to write a book that I could hand to an unbelieving friend as a resource that would help him or her understand Jesus better. A Man Who Told Us the Truth is that book.

Fast-forward over a decade later, and that book is here. And, God is using it:

I read this book with a highlighter in my hand and there are very few unhighlighted pages. If you are not a Christian, you should read this book. If you are a young Christian in the faith, you should read this book. If you a long time Christian (like me) you should read this book. Oh did I mention, you should read this book!–Amazon Reviewer
It is refreshing to have a talented pastor like Mr. Davis boldly take on these issues that it sometimes feels like Christians skirt around or provide non-answers about.–Amazon Reviewer
While the book is targeted for a nonbeliever audience, it’s very valuable in helping believers better understand the nonbeliever point of view as well as reinforcing and deepening the believer’s meaning of truth.–Amazon Reviewer

Will you please help me get this book in the hands of the people who need it?

Today through Friday, A Man Who Told Us the Truth is only $5. Click here, enter the number of books you want, and enter the coupon code “maysale” (all lower case).

Thanks and God bless you!

 

 

Are You Living on Mission?

As you go, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out the demons. Yes, you.

May 14 Video from Austin Christian Fellowship on Vimeo.

Letters to a New Believer: Getting Started in Prayer

Good morning,

Today we jump into the nitty-gritty of prayer.

I want to teach you a four-part approach to prayer that I have used for decades. It’s not original to me. In fact, I have no idea who developed it.

It follows the acrostic ACTS, which stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication.

Today, we’ll talk about the first part of prayer — Adoration.

Other words for adoration are praise and worship. Adoration is exactly what you think it is — it’s adoring God.

Adoration is talking to God about God. It’s bragging on God to God. It talks directly to him. Instead of saying, “God is holy,” adoration says, “God, you are holy!”

If you study the prayers in Scripture, almost every one of them begins with adoration. Even prayers for deliverance begin with declarations about the greatness and glory of God.

Worshipping God at the beginning of your prayers sets the tone for the rest of your time with him. It acknowledges that you are approaching a sovereign — someone infinitely greater than you. That appropriate posture of humility before God grants us access to him and attracts his holy presence.

God opposes the proud but he is drawn to the humble, and the language of humility is worship.

This is great discipline in prayer to learn now. Train yourself to begin your prayers with the worship of God. You’ll notice the difference when you do.

So here’s your assignment: Write down twenty things about God that are true and praise worthy. Write them directly to him. I’ll get you started with your first five, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

God, you are holy
God, you are lovely
God, you are mighty
God, you are infinite
God, you are gracious

Are You a Mama?

It is quite possible to be a mama without being a mother. Mama’s are women who choose to invest in and support younger women. The next generations need mamas. Will you be one?

Here’s my wife Susie‘s Mother’s Day Message at Austin Christian Fellowship.

 

May 07 Video from Austin Christian Fellowship on Vimeo.

What is Your Opinion of Jesus Christ?

It was a cool morning outside the courthouse. The sun was beginning to make its daily appearance just off the eastern edge of the mountains, but it had not yet risen high enough to remove the chill from the air. Honestly, the governor thought, I doubt even the sun’s full heat could take the chill off this day.

Standing directly before the governor was the bound prisoner. The two stood very close, making quiet, almost whispered conversation. They were a strange study in contrasts: The governor, no doubt holding all the cards, seemed nervous and unsettled. The prisoner, knowing that the governor could not possibly rule in his favor and spare his life, seemed oddly at ease.

If their appearance was strange, their conversation was even more so. It bordered on the philosophical; they were discussing truth:

Governor: Look, I need to know the truth about you. You were brought before me because you keep talking about your own kingdom. You have made too many of the wrong people mad and pushed too many of the wrong buttons. Tell me who you really are so I can help you.

Prisoner: My kingdom has nothing to do with this world. It’s not really something you can understand right now. Perhaps later.

Governor: So you really think you are a king? Please tell me that you don’t really believe that.

Prisoner: I am a king. It’s why I came into the world. I came to set up my kingdom and to help people see the truth. In fact, you need to know this: whoever is on the side of truth will listen to me.

Governor: Give me a break. Don’t talk to me about truth. You know how many prisoners have stood before me begging for their lives, and doing so in the name of truth? You can’t possibly imagine how many versions of the so-called truth I hear in one day. And then you come along and have the audacity to tell me that you really do rule a kingdom and that it is based on truth. You…this rejected, pathetic prophet…dare to stand here and talk to me about truth? You really are nuts. Well, here is something that you need to know, Your Majesty: I learned the truth a long time ago. You know what it is? It is that truth, if it even exists, is slippery, evasive and very relative. All people have their own version of it; some even have two! For me, I have quit trying to figure it out. I have given up on truth. (For the more literal version of this conversion between Pilate and Jesus, see John 18:33–38.)

Maybe you can relate to Pilate’s cynicism. I certainly can. In a day and age where just about anything goes in spiritual discussions, where straight-faced adults pray to everything from trees to aliens to frogs, and in a world where everyone seems willing to opine about the frivolous and yet no one is willing to offer meaningful answers on the really hard questions — like why daddies abandon their daughters, why there is tribal genocide, why the rich won’t share with the poor, why mudslides take out entire villages or why children are born with severe birth defects — it is certainly easy to become skeptical about serious conversations on truth.

And yet there stood Jesus, a stark figure in history, making bold and comprehensive remarks about what is ultimately real. That is why I think we owe him a hearing. Think about it: the man stood bound and bleeding before the judge who could condemn him, and yet he talked about his kingdom.

Now one of two things is probably true about a man like that. One, he’s just plain crazy — well meaning, perhaps, but crazy. That is the case about 99.9 percent of the time. Or two, he’s not crazy, and he knows something we don’t know. That only happens about 0.1 percent of the time, or only once in history. Hmm…

What do you say?

From A Man Who Told Us the Truth.

Letters to a New Believer: On Not Being Religious

Good Morning, I pray you are well.

Here’s one more thought on Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus before we move on to another scripture next week.

Jesus’ call for Nic to be born again is one of the things that sets Christianity apart from other religions.

In fact, I don’t believe Christianity is a religion at all.

Nicodemus was religious — extremely religious. And yet Jesus said he was missing what mattered most.

Religion — Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. — tries to reform man from the outside in through human effort — meditation, prayer, good works, etc. In grammar, religion is a middle voice verb: It’s a subject acting upon itself. And while such efforts can indeed elevate a man to a higher, perhaps nobler way of living, they can never get man to God. That was Jesus’ point to Nic.

Christianity transforms humans from the inside out through God’s effort. In grammar, it’s the passive voice — a subject being acted on by an outside, third party source.

We are saved, forgiven, called, blessed, redeemed, healed, sent, etc. All are passive verbs. God does them to us through Jesus. We don’t do them to or for ourselves.

Religion is man trying to do for himself what only God can do for him. Christianity is God doing for man what man could never do for himself.

When you said Yes to faith in Jesus you gave God permission to do in you what you could never do for yourself. And it started when God deposited his Holy Spirit, the Great Transformer, in you. It started when you were born again. Yea God.

 

The God Who Is Worth it–Our Value and Purpose

There is a direct correlation between your value and your purpose: the more you live with a sense of your value, the more you’ll live with an awareness of your purpose.

Here’s my weekend message on our great value to God, and his call on our lives to live accordingly.

April 30 Video from Austin Christian Fellowship on Vimeo.