Cultivate
Cultivate Your Mind
October 1, 2017 • Graeme Sellers
We must cultivate our minds—prepare them to raise crops of life, hope, purity, faith, joy. This means cultivating the mind of Christ the Father has given us. To have the mind of Christ is to think as he thinks so we can join Father where he’s working. The mind of Christ isn’t air-dropped into us when we become Christians, fully formed and functioning flawlessly. It is something we cultivate, tend to, work on. This won't happen unopposed. There is a battle for our minds. This is war, as Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” We’re going to need well-tended, carefully cultivated minds to make it in a world that’s hostile to God.
Two Wrong Choices
September 24, 2017 • Meg Crossman
This morning we talk about knowing some of the wise ways to cultivate the fields the Lord has given us. Cultivating particularly involves destroying weeds and allowing our seedlings to grow well. This involves knowing how to combat the weeds without destroying the vegetables or plants we want to develop and maintain. Our Lord warns us in John 10:10 that “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 2:11 that “no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.” If we are going to be successful in cultivating our fields, we need to know who our enemy is and how he works.
Why Ask Why?
September 17, 2017 • David Hammerslag
As we press into cultivating and simultaneously being cultivated, many forces can pull us away from obedience. For some of us, one of the most powerful can be a desire to know "why." Our desire to understand how our obedience will yield any fruit can stand forcefully in the way of obedience. Science and faith converge tell us that the knowing we seek is not possible. Chaos theory and the "Butterfly Effect" tell that we can't foresee the end results of even the smallest actions; faith requires that we move without knowing. As Isaiah said, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord."
Going Up | Giving Up...A Dilemma
September 10, 2017 • Graeme Sellers
This is where a number of us find ourselves: thinking we’d be further along by now and wondering, "How much longer, O Lord?" Maybe the field you’ve been cultivating is your marriage, maybe it’s the care of your soul, perhaps it is the ministry theme of inviting. You’ve done all the work you know to do, that you’ve sensed God inviting you to do, and this is result: mountain after mountain after mountain. And you just don’t know if you can do it anymore, if it’s worth it to do it anymore.
Obedience (An Object Lesson)
September 3, 2017 • Dr. Kim Engel-Pearson
We are workers in the field, eager for a kingdom harvest, and simultaneously we are the field God is cultivating. We can’t know the work Father wants us to do with him, as we co-labor, unless we hear him and are obedient to his call. This is part of the cultivating work God is doing in us. In the story of the widow and the miraculous jars of oil, the Lord tells the needy woman, “Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.” (2 Kings 4:4) Filling jars is time consuming but not mind consuming. But because of her obedience the widow is not only able to pay her creditors but also to have so much left over that she and her sons are able to live. The story doesn’t say this directly, but it’s natural to conclude she was able to live well. Father blessed her obedience with abundance. That’s what He wants to do for us, too.
A Puzzling Paradox
August 27, 2017 • Graeme Sellers
Here is a puzzling paradox: If God Can vs. When God Doesn’t. Which is it? Is it Psalm 37:4, "If you delight yourself in the Lord he’ll give you the desires of your heart," …OR… "What make you think it’s a good idea to get what you want?" What would the impact be if these two things lived comfortably side-by-side for us, not in conflict or contradiction, but in beautiful mystery?
If God Can
August 20, 2017 • Mike Bradley
The purpose of this message is to help position each one of us to hear the Lord speak a word of hope and faith; a word of rest and peace; a word that he wants us to hang on to, and that he wants to fulfill in our lives. This word that Father wants us to hang on to will be a scripture, a picture, a thought, a prophetic word or word of knowledge that carries such a weight that it just will not leave you alone.
Found Wanting
August 13, 2017 • Graeme Sellers
Recall from last week that as we’re working in the fields the Father has called us to, we are simultaneously the field he’s cultivating. Our goal is the desired result of our work; His endgame is us, that we should look more and more like Him Thus we would do well to consider the possibility that maybe what most needs to be transformed in us is the unchecked desire to always get what we want. Consumerism–the desire to always get what we want–is cannibalizing our souls, and (in the words of Tony Kriz), “A cadaver soul impacts everything.” What matters most for how life goes, for how we do life, is what we are on the inside; maybe that’s why getting what we want isn’t best thing for us.
Cultivate: A Word of Encouragement
August 6, 2017 • Graeme Sellers
In the midst of cultivating, as we work toward a desired result, something’s happening we aren’t looking for: something in us. Paul indicates this when he tells us, as we are working the Father’s fields, “You are God’s field” [1 Corinthians 3:9]. We are workers in the field, eager for a kingdom harvest, and simultaneously we are the field God is cultivating for a harvest pleasing to him. Two works unfold concurrently: what’s happening through us and what’s happening to us. In both fields it’s God who brings the growth. And mark this, there will be growth. There will be results.