In the World, Not of It

Many of us have heard that:  as a Christian, you are in the world, yet not of it.

How does that happen?

The Sunday School answer is that Christ is in you, so you are to be different.  The reality is it is immensely difficult.  The world is very tempting:  physically, emotionally, spiritually.  We look to the world for good times, good advice, and good feelings.  As a Christian, we are to always look to Christ.  For His strength, His Word, His Power, His Love, His Mission.  

Then, when we do look to Him, and when we proclaim Him, the world wants nothing to do with us.  We see this all the time – from celebrities who profess Christ and are ridiculed, to professing Christ to friends and not getting as many invitation to parties.

Jesus says that His followers would “have His joy fulfilled in themselves”  (John 17: 13).  How can we have joy when we are persecuted?  When we suffer dishonor for His name?  How can we truly live in this world, yet not be of it.

This Sunday at Bellwether, we try to answer that question.  We will focus on John 17 and the message is Jesus’ Prayer.  In Jesus’ Prayer, He shows us how we can have His joy, and how we can live in this world now, yet be completely His – which is not of this world.

We hope you can be with us for worship Sunday morning.

We hope you will pray, as we continue “Utter Dependence – Prayer & Fasting.”  You can text in prayer requests, time prayed or fasted, and testimonies to 601.896.3200.

We hope you will be with us Sunday Night for our Night of Worship at 6:30pm.  And bring a friend!  

The Holy Spirit in Prayer

Many people ask these questions:  why should I pray?  Does it really work?  What happens in prayer?   

The short answer to such questions would be: Yes, in prayer we are communicating with God our Heavenly Father.  He is with us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  

How all this happens is reliant and dependent on that, the power of the Holy Spirit.  He (not an it - the 3rd person of the Trinity) is our Mediator, Helper, Counselor, and Advocate.  He is real.  He speaks to us in our prayer.  He reveals the things of God to us, as amazing as that sounds.  1 Corinthians 2: 12 says - "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God."  

That we may understand the things of God - our sin, the Truth of our salvation in Christ, and His guidance - by prayer.

We are focusing on prayer during this Lenten campaign called:  "Utter Dependence - Prayer & Fasting."  As we pray and look at prayer in Scripture, we must focus on the Holy Spirit - who leads us and speaks to us in prayer and even prays for us......when we don't know how. 

Ultimately, if we have salvation in Christ, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Often, we don't fully know or understand the power of the Holy Spirit - what He can do in prayer for us and through us.  We hope to help you understand what He can do for you as our Helper, Counselor, Advocate, and Mediator.  We want you to know this, believe this, and feel His presence in your prayers in a fuller, greater way.  Because if Christ is in us, the Holy Spirit is speaking and working on us.

This is our focus Sunday morning as we worship at Bellwether - "The Holy Spirit in Prayer."  Our Scripture passage will be John 16: 7-16.  We hope you can be with us for worship and prayer as we lead up to Holy Week & Easter Resurrection.

More so, we hope you will know how the Holy Spirit helps you in prayer and even prays for you.  May we all rely on Him to fill our lives.

Life...IN...Prayer

Often we hear about people who lead a life OF prayer.  We all know them - saints, pastors, mentors, or simply our "prayer warriors."  Hopefully we all have them in our lives.  

We can easily say - "that's not me.  I can't lead a life of prayer.  It's not my gift or my thing."  Instead we focus on achieving, accomplishing, producing, and doing.  We let other people pray for us.  Until things in life hit the fan and we fall on our knees.  

What if, instead of thinking about living a life OF prayer, we lived a life IN prayer.  That is, each day, we were constantly lifting up prayers:  when we woke up, during meals, driving our car, in between meetings, playing with our children, even in the middle of a conversation (they won't realize you're doing it) and before we end our day.  What if we could focus our life being lived IN prayer.  

Every day.  Every hour.  Lifting up prayers.  To Christ.  In Christ.  For Christ.   

We can do this.  And it will benefit us.  It will draw us closer to God.  We will be in constant communication with Him.  We will hear Him more.  We will, I believe, see results.  Even if it may not always be the result we want.  

"Utter Dependence:  Prayer & Fasting" continues over Lent at Bellwether Church. We hope you are praying more.  We hope you are fasting from something to get closer to God.  Why?  Because life in prayer matters, is real, and what our lives are to be all about.  It is life with God, our Heavenly Father.

Sunday we talk more about what Life IN Prayer looks like.  Our Scripture will be from John 14: 12-20.  We hope you can be with us, invite someone to worship with you, and continue this Lenten season in prayer.  Our prayer is it leads all of us to living our lives IN Prayer.   

Who we pray FOR

When the majority of people pray, they believe they are praying TO God.  As Christians we pray to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Other religions believe they are praying TO some other god (even if they are praying to a false god).  Even agnostics would admit that when they pray, that their prayers are going TO some higher being.

Yet the bigger question is, in our prayers, who do we pray FOR?

We all pray for different people:  the loved one we know we want healed, the child we want born healthy, the spouse we want to love again, the past relationship we want healed.  When we pray, most times, we are praying FOR someone else.

Often times we simply pray for ourselves:  the job we want, the marriage we want, the child we want, the family we want, the love we want, the healing we want, the peace we want.  We could go on and on.  Our prayers, for the most part, revolve around ourselves.  We are praying for US.

All that to say, do our prayers reflect Christ?  Do we pray for Him?  Not that Jesus needs anything from us.  However, He does need to be lifted up in this world.  He does need to be proclaimed over and over again to the ends of the earth.  Do we pray FOR His Name to be exalted?  Do we pray FOR the glory of God?  Do we pray for Jesus to be honored – in our prayers, in our churches, in our families, in our lives.

We should.  That is what prayer is essentially all about.  It is what the Lord’s Prayer – our Lord, Jesus Christ – instructed us to pray for:  ”Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Your Name, Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven….”  His Name uplifted.  His Will done.  

During Lent, Bellwether is doing a campaign for Prayer and Fasting.  We call it “Utter Dependence.”  It is to do just that:  utterly depend on God by prayer and fasting for all our needs.  If we believe this – that we have to totally depend on God, then we need to be praying FOR His Will to accomplished in our lives and in our world.

Tomorrow at Bellwether, we continue this preaching series with “The Names of Prayer.” We hope you can be with us for worship, prayer, and holy communion tomorrow morning.  And may we pray in this Lenten season for God’s Will to be done and for Jesus Christ to be heard, seen, and followed.

Does Prayer Work?

We live in an increasingly “get ‘er done” world.

We do.  We achieve.  We work.  We plan. We check things off our list.  We set goals.  We accomplish them and set bigger goals.  We run like machines.  Why?  So we can be in control, so we can rule – whatever there is for us to rule – our lives, families, businesses, parties, churches, nations.

And we believe we can do it.  We can get it done.

Questions:  do we achieve more than prayer can achieve?  Do we even believe prayer can accomplish things?  When our prayers aren’t answered (if we  actually pray) do we stop believing in the power of prayer?  The honest truth is, many of us do.  And we fall into the faith that we….can accomplish more….than prayer.

Lent has begun.  We have 40 plus days until Resurrection Sunday.  Why honor Lent?  Because it is historically, traditionally about turning to God in repentance.  It is about turning to God in prayer.  Real prayer.  Prayer we believe in.

Thus, for the next 40plus days, we are engaged in a campaign we call “Utter Dependence:  Prayer & Fasting.”  We are encouraging one another to pray, and to fast.  Why?  Most of all, becausethe words of Christ are clear:  ”and He told them….they ought always pray and not lose heart” – Luke 18: 1.  

God desires us to come to Him in prayer – to open our hearts and empty ourselves where He can fill us with His Strength and His Spirit.  This occurs even when we don’t receive the answers to our prayers – or at least the answers we want.

So, we are encouraging everyone to pray, and fast.  We are challenging people to pray 30 minutes a day.  Not because you have to, but because we hope you will draw closer to God.  We are challenging people to fast a day a week.  Not because you have to, but because you will become more dependent on Christ.  

We also want to hear about how you are praying and fasting, or any testimonies you may have from your prayers.  You can text the time you’ve spent praying, fasting, and testimonies to Bellwether’s number of:  601.896.3200.  

We hope you can be with us for worship each Sunday over Lent as we proclaim God’s Word about prayer and fasting.  This Sunday the message will be:  ”Why Pray” and the Scripture focus is Ephesians 1: 3-6, Matthew 11: 28-30, and Luke 18: 1-8.  

Most of all, in Lent, our prayer – is that you know Jesus in a greater, deeper way, and that He totally overwhelms your life, your family, your church, and your world.  He can, and will, through prayer.   

Ash Wednesday

We hope you can be with us for worship & communion this Wednesday at 6:30pm at Bellwether’s Fondren Space.

This is our traditional Ash Wednesday service, marking the beginning of Lent – the 40 days leading up to Easter.  Again, it will open this special time of year with worship, communion, and a message of:  ”The Marks of the Cross.”

It will also lead into the launch of our Lenten campaign on Sunday Feb 26th of:  Utter Dependence, Prayer and Fasting.  Over the next 40 days in Lent we will be preaching, studying, and living out prayer & fasting at Bellwether.  This week, we hope you will commit to go to God more in prayer over Lent (we are challenging people to pray 30 minutes a day – not necessarily all at once), and even consider fasting one day a week.

Why are we doing this?  Simple.  To be utterly dependent on God.  And it begins with prayer.  We want to empty ourselves and let Christ fill our lives, our families, our church, and our world.  This is possible.  Yet it’s only possible when we come to Him in humble, utter dependence.

We hope to see you Wed night at 6:30pm to begin this time.  We are asking all B Groups to join us for this service so we can be united as a church body and move forward over the next 40 days in utter dependence on God.  

Looking forward to all Lent will bring us and we hope to see you Wednesday evening.

The Hope of the World

In your world, what is your hope?

Is it your career?  Your country?  Your family?  Your spouse?  Your children?  Yourself?  Do what hope do you - we - hang our hats?  

Many times, I've said and believed:  "the local church is the hope of the world."  That phrase is not new.  It was actually stated in a sermon by Charles Spurgeon in the late 19th century in London.  Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Church outside Chicago, says it often in his sermons and leadership talks.  Many pastors believe it and recite it now.  

 I love the saying, yet I would offer a slight tweak to it at this point in ministry and my Christian walk.  It would be this:  "The Gospel of Jesus Christ, through the local church, is the hope of the world."

Without Jesus, there is no church.  Without His Gospel:  of God's love for us in Christ, His death and resurrection, forgiving us of our sin and living with God by the Holy Spirit - no church can offer hope.  With this Gospel, individual lives, families, marriages, nations and the world can - and ultimately will with His Return - change.  

We have been talking the last few weeks of "What is Bellwether?"  We have seen the church is both Jesus (His Body) and His Church (His Bride).  We will be closing this series tomorrow with Part 4 - "Give & Go."  More so, we will proclaim and see how:   The Gospel of Jesus Christ, through the local church, is the hope of the world.  That means it is hope for YOU individually.  We hope you will believe it.

Have a great day, and we look forward to seeing you at His Church. 

Our Scripture reading will be in Acts 2, 2 Corinthians 8-9, and 1 Corinthians 9