Pastor's Perspective Articles:

April 2008: Elder Phil Steckmann
March 2008: Elder Ed Gann
February 2008: Elder Rob Wiggins
January 2008: Elder Dr. Steve Stephens
December 2007: Elder's Perspective
November 2007: Thankful for Broken Things
October 2007: God Rubs Off
September 2007: Have you ever gotten it wrong?
August 2007: Belize Journal, July '07
July 2007: What's the picture of the church?
June 2007: Making the Complex Simple
May 2007: Majesty

Sept 2007 - Have you even gotten it wrong?

For every one of us, there was a time when we thought that we knew it all. Maybe you feel like you are still in that stage. The older I get the more I realize how little I really knew. The older I get the more I see just how gracious God's been to me, to walk with me through my own self deception and arrogance. The older I get and the more I humble myself before Him, the richer and fuller God's grace and truth becomes to me.

Do you remember, if you are a parent, how stupid and whit-less you become as your children went through adolescence. Those where the days when they just knew that they were smarter than us. Then, one day it's reversed. It was an amazing thing that transpired as our children got older, almost overnight we went from the stupidest, silliest people on the planet, to the smartest and wisest. We went from fully pathetic to professional, all at once. What happened, did something change in us? Did we really get smarter all of a sudden, when our kids graduated from college, or was something else at work called maturity.

Ephesians 4:13

"until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."

So, let me ask you, have you ever gotten it wrong? God doesn’t change, but we often need to.

As we stay faithful, available and teachable, as we received fuller insight and understand as we became more complete in God's fuller revelation to us, we saw that we were the ones who had to make adjustments, not God. Paul speaks about this deepening, fuller, understanding of God's revealing work and He ties it into the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

I Corinthians 2:10-13

"but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words."

Would you let me share with you just a few of the places God's spirit has given me more breadth and depth of understanding and greater obedience in my years so far of walking with Him.

1. Grace - my spiritual upbringing was in a church where grace seemed only for salvation. I see today that grace permeates everything that God does, or wants me to do.

2. Prayer - I lived for a long time as a prayer-less pastor. I prayed like most every other Christian that I knew, but I missed intimacy with God, and the value of worship and praise in my prayer life.

3. Good works - were always divorced or dropped from the gospel, it was a second class expression of God's love. I have found that to be false, even deceptively empty.

4. Partnership with pastors - Isolation, skepticism and fear was what was modeled to me. I realize today, that this is part of how God desires to grow His church and redeem and transform whole communities.

5. Women in the church - where I grew up women in the church had real second class spiritual status. I understand today, that they are capable, gifted and competent to lead in the church alongside and in partnership with men.

Today, in honesty and transparency before God, I ask myself, what else does God want to reveal that I haven't yet gotten quite right? How about you?

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