The Final Conversations with Christ- Part 7

 

During Jesus’ time on earth, the disciples boldly followed him, often disregarding their “common sense” to take part in something beyond human comprehension. Whether it be following Jesus and walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33), shamelessly proclaiming the gospel (Mark 6:12), faithfully praying over the sick (Luke 9:1-6), or boldly casting out demons through Jesus’ authority (Luke 9:1-6), the disciples took part in some crazy stuff! However, following Jesus while he was on earth was only the beginning of their journey. They would go on to give their lives and change the world through proclaiming the gospel.

Reading the history of all the adventures, trials, and miracles the disciples were a part of in the Bible can seem a bit “story-like,” or unrealistic in comparison to what we know as “modern-day Christianity” at times. In reality, however, God CAN and does still move though people in a mighty way. It wasn’t Jesus leaving earth that changed anything, as we see through the countless number of miracles that took place after his ascent. Rather, it is a matter of obedience. In John 14:26, Jesus tells the disciples of a new teacher that would lead them. As he describes, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” Furthermore, Jesus describes in John 16:8-11 that the Holy Spirit will bring a new understanding of righteousness. Likewise, instead of verbally hearing Jesus’ instructions, the disciples would shift to listening through the Holy Spirit.

Although Jesus was not physically present after his departure to Heaven, the disciples still maintained a responsibility to be obedient to God. As it is recorded, their obedience after Jesus left earth continued to enable them to take part in incredible things. They prayed over people who were healed (Acts 3:6-8), they boldly prayed with God’s authority to cast out demons (Acts 5:16), and they passionately preached the gospel.

In the same way, we, too can be a part of God’s incredible plans. However, that is dependent on our willingness to follow the Holy Spirit. Let us follow the example of the disciples, and boldly obey God’s direction. Imagine what would happen if we completely surrendered our “common sense” our dignity, or our earthly desires to be a part of something so much greater.

Written by: Tamara Sturdivant

Edited by: De Ann Sturdivant

The Final Conversations with Christ- Part 6

I love how God orchestrates the way we receive the teaching of His Word. If you’ve been attending church on Sunday for “The Final Conversations of Christ,” as well as Thrive on Wednesdays for Randy Brokaw’s “A Vital Connection: Are you IN?” then you’ve experienced the connectedness between teachings. And I can assure you that Randy and Aaron did not plan that. The Holy Spirit did.

We probably aren’t strangers to this portion of scripture – John 15:1-17. The whole “He is the vine, we are the branches” passage is one we’ve read a million times, so I was convinced that no new revelation would be presented. Plus, I was a pretty good student back in school, so the vine/branch analogy wouldn’t be lost on me. However, I realized after Randy’s teaching and Sunday’s message that I must have completely spaced out during the biology unit in school regarding horticulture and plant stuff – yes, “plant stuff.”  I realized that I hadn’t grasped the concept as well as I thought I had all these years.

Again, I love the way God orchestrates the teaching of His Word to reveal new revelations to those of us who’ve “heard all of this before” – specifically with the idea of “bearing fruit.” I often read scripture and think, “How does this bless me? How does this make me a better person?” (gasp! ) These teachings on the Vine and the Branches revealed to me how little “bearing fruit” has to do with me at all! When I, as a branch, bear fruit as a result of being in the Vine, that fruit is meant to sustain and nourish those around me. The branch doesn’t eat its own fruit. The fruit is to nourish others with love. If I’m not exhibiting such love, then I’m just like that weird, dead branch that was on the stage Sunday. (See what excitement you lose out on when you miss church?)

As we begin to wind down these final conversations of Christ, my prayer is that I would bear much fruit to bring health and love to those around me! That’s my prayer for you, too!

Written by: Jaime Hlavin

Edited by: Tamara Sturdivant

The Final Conversations with Christ- Part 4

At church camp several years ago, I distinctly remember pushing my way up to the front of the sanctuary on the infamous “Holy Spirit Wednesday,” hoping that it would be my year. The speaker, per usual, gave an incredible, compelling message that inspired everyone to actively pursue the Spirit. As hundreds of us gathered at the altar, I quickly began to hear the voices around me speak in tongues, crying out, and joyfully praising God. As I stood there, surrounded by friends that seemed to be having an incredible encounter with God, I was wondering why I wasn’t experiencing the same thing. The Holy Spirit was for everyone, right?

As I look back on this moment, I see many issues with the way I was “pursuing” the Spirit. First of all, I was comparing myself to everyone around me, and asking God to give me what He was giving everyone else instead of being open to whatever He wanted to speak into my life. Secondly, I was pursuing the act of speaking in tongues instead of the Holy Spirit, himself. Moreover, I wasn’t willing to wait patiently on God.

Several months later, I began to sense that God was speaking to me on this issue. Through personal Bible reading and a very specific sermon about waiting on the Lord, I started to feel convicted of the way I was pursuing my relationship with God (and the Holy Spirit). I had become so consumed with what I wanted God to give me that I was missing out on what He was actually speaking to me.

Shortly after coming to this realization, there was an opportunity for an open altar time in youth group. On this particular Wednesday, I had plans to hang out with friends at Wendy’s—so I was not really “feeling” the whole “seeking the Holy Spirit” thing. However, as my friends began to exit the sanctuary, I felt God nudging me to spend a little bit more time in His presence. Honestly…in that moment I was very tempted to go get my chicken nuggets and fries instead of hanging back in prayer. However, I chose to listen to God and spend more time seeking Him. It was that evening that I was baptized with the Holy Spirit.

As ridiculous as my story may be, I learned a very important principle through this experience. As Pastor Aaron challenged us on Sunday, we must be willing to linger longer in the presence of God. His presence is always with us, but how often do we just move on to something else that grabs our attention?

Secondly, Pastor Aaron challenged us to listen up. It’s so easy to fall into the habit of making a prayer “checklist,” but what would happen if we were willing to simply listen for what God is speaking to us?

Finally, in order to become closer to the Spirit, we must live out our faith. As John 14:15-17 states,

If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

What Jesus is speaking to the disciples about in this passage is that they must learn to be obedient to God’s voice. They must seek the guidance of his Spirit, and follow His instruction in order to remain close to God after Jesus departs from earth. In the same way, we must actively pursue God. We must listen for His voice. We must be willing to linger in His presence. We must be willing to live out the instructions He gives us.

I encourage you, if you can relate to my story, to stop limiting God to what you want Him to do. Start seeking all that he is, and all that He has for you. When we are open, willing, and actively pursuing, God WILL speak.

Written by: Tamara Sturdivant

Edited by: Jaime Hlavin

The Final Conversations with Christ- Part 3

As soon as Judas left the room, Jesus said, “The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory, and God will be glorified because of him. ³² And since God receives glory because of the Son, he will give his own glory to the Son, and he will do so at once. ³³ Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can’t come where I am going. John 13:31-33

Imagine being a disciple, sitting in the room with Jesus as he was speaking these words. For approximately three years, the disciples’ lives had been devoted to simply following Jesus. They learned from him, modeled his lifestyle, and had become dependent on his guidance. It must have been such a confusing, scary, and challenging moment. While Jesus had given the disciples plenty of warning as to his death, and had promised them great hope for the future, the disciples simply could not wrap their minds around the fact that their leader was physically leaving them. Today, we are blessed to know how this story ends. However, that was not so for the disciples.  Rather, this final conversation was a moment in which the disciples had to trust that Jesus would see them through, despite the fact that they did not know what their future would look like.

This week, I would like to share a poem written in memory of my grandfather (written by my father, Rob Sturdivant). While trusting in God now may look a little bit different than it did for the disciples, the principle they modeled is something extremely relevant today. The fact is, while we may sometimes feel like we are in a free-fall, God’s plan is still underway. Likewise, we must put our trust in Him to see us through.

Why? To Wow!

Why?

Why did I get brain cancer?

I don’t know, but this I know…God is Good.

Why haven’t I been completely healed from this cancer?

I don’t know, but this I know…God is Good. 

Why wasn’t the surgeon able to remove all of the tumor?

I don’t know, but this I know...God is Good.

Why didn’t Chemo and radiation stop the tumor?

I don’t know, but this I know…God is Good.

Why have I had to endure this diminished quality of life?

I don’t know, but this I know…God is Good.

Why have I had to endure the indignity of lost physical and mental capabilities?

I don’t know, but this I know…God is Good.

Why have I been spared from even the slightest headache from this brain cancer?

This I know…God is Good.

Why have I been surrounded by friends and family to support me through this?

This I know…God is Good.

Why have so many people been given the opportunity to share with me how I have touched their lives?

This I know…God is Good.

Why have I been blessed with a wife that has a gift of caregiving?

This I know…God is Good.

Why have I been blessed with two beautiful grandchildren this year?

This I know…God is Good.

Why have I been given the opportunity to share Christ with new people brought into my life this year?

This I know…God is Good.

Why, in spite of my failings in life, have I been chosen to be a child of God and a joint heir with Christ?

This I know…God is Good.

When at last this journey is over and God calls me home, I will kneel down at his feet and declare…

This I know…my God is Good.

Wow!

I encourage you this week to reflect on the story of the disciples in Jesus’ final moments. They had to place their trust solely in Jesus, despite the fact that they did not know what their future would look like. They had to remember as their teacher, friend, and Savior was being crucified, God still had a plan in order. As you are going through life, perhaps there are challenges that seem simply inexplicable. I challenge you, instead of fretting, to place your trust in the Lord. While you may not know the why, you may hold tight to the fact that through it all, God IS good.  

Written by: Tamara Sturdivant/Rob Sturdivant

Edited by: De Ann Sturdivant

The Final Conversations with Christ- Part 2

NyQuil is a beautiful, beautiful thing. As someone who spends the 3-6 days of a cold feeling like I’m constantly being punched in the face while wearing nose plugs, I’m all for an over-the-counter nap in a bottle. And who can blame me? Being sick is the worst. So of course when I’m up all night thinking about how much I can’t breathe, I’m gonna take a dose. And that’s fine.

What’s not fine is taking a swig for the next 4 months every time I sneeze. You might say “Well duh, that’s excessive and dangerous and bordering on dependency.” But what you don’t know is I am totally guilty of this.

And so are you.

What?! That’s crazy, I know. But hear me out, because the collective body of Christ has been coddling their hurts long past necessary for generations, and it can put us in a spiritual coma. In my own life, I’ve seen this manifest in two ways: my unwillingness to stop being a victim, and doubting God when He miraculously intervenes. What does this look like exactly? It looks like the times I am hurt or betrayed and my primary interest is letting the world know my pain and not finding resolution. It looks like digging up old dirt and smashing it on my shirt like a badge of honor. It looks like receiving rapid and miraculous emotional healing from the Lord after one of the most difficult times of my life and denying it because I “feel like I wasn’t grieving long enough.”

During Sunday’s message, Pastor Aaron said that “the time of your struggle will depend on who you run to first.” I’m pretty sure this advice will be among the first I give to my children one day, because boy could I have stood to hear it five, six, even ten years ago. King David, a man with more struggles than you and I could ever hope for, knew it. In Psalms 39:7 he writes “And so Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you.”

Knowing what we know about God being a rock on which to stand, a shelter to seek refuge in, and the guard of our hope, why then do we continually run to our own publicized despair for fulfillment in times of crises? Would you refuse to walk for years after breaking a leg? Did the blind man Jesus healed refuse to open his eyes and see because that’s not how you deal with being blind? Absolutely not.

Do not mistake me, I am not suggesting that we all adopt a “rub some dirt in it and buck up” attitude when it comes to emotional and mental trials in our lives. Some wounds really do take time and time and more time to work through, whether it’s through prayer, counseling, support groups, doctors, or all of the above. You wouldn’t offer a Band-Aid to a gunshot wound, and emotional wounds should by no means be treated that way either. But eventually, we must stop with the quick fix, spiritual “NyQuil” to which we can become addicted. Each time we drink in the same despair and self-pity we use to feel better temporarily, we are putting ourselves to sleep spiritually. So often we do not evaluate the cost of the time spent dwelling on things God has already tried to speak freedom from for us, and the cost is the deeper spiritual growth we have not experienced because we are too busy licking old wounds.

I spent years sipping spiritual NyQuil like tea-finding a whole array of things to be hurt over for the sake of being hurt. It was not until I began truly and honestly running to God, and not any ear that would listen, that I accepted the healing He had for me and began moving on to bigger things, things I had no idea were in store for my walk with Christ. So this week I leave you with this challenge: Take time to examine your own heart about the wounds you wear, and keep on keepin’ on.

Written by: Brianna Vanderveen

Edited by: Jenelle Kelly

The Final Conversations with Christ- Part 1

“It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father…” John 13:1

The idea of Jesus sitting down with his disciples and having a final conversation with those He loved was especially poignant for me, as Sunday was also the anniversary of my mother’s death.

My mom knew she was dying long before it occurred to me – I think I was in a sort of denial, unable to see the forest for the trees. During that stretch of time, we had some special conversations and experiences.

Then we were informed that Hospice would come in and make her as comfortable as possible during her last days. Those days passed quickly. And in the early hours of January 10, 2009, as I sat by her bedside, she breathed one last time.

In the sad and confusing days and weeks that followed, I clung tightly to our final conversations. And while, obviously, the situation surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection was significantly different than the passing of my mother, I imagine when the disciples realized what Jesus had been doing for them during those final hours they were amazed and deeply comforted.  

I think sometimes we just skim through these last chapters of the gospels because we know how it ends. But over the next few weeks, we’re really going to get deep into His final words to His disciples – words that would include events that seem unsettling – not what they would expect from a savior. But those words also included specific instructions and pointed to comfort.

In the portion of scripture we studied, while Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, he talked about His relationship with humanity, about humanity’s relationship with Him and how humanity is to relate with one another. We focused on the idea that Jesus wants to wash away the dirt and the grime that gets on us just by nature of going through life.

I love that about Him. I take great comfort in the fact that He left intentional final words to those He loved.

If Sunday was any indication of what we’re in for during this series, then I think we should be expecting greatly from the Lord.

Written by: Jaime Hlavin

Edited by: Tamara Sturdivant

Choosing Today

I have an irrational aversion to being reminded about things that, I sincerely believe, I haven’t forgotten. The same goes for being asked to do something that I very much wanted to do for another person without being asked. If a valuable project at work is being neglected, or a family member is running out of a favorite after dinner treat, I will sometimes take it on myself to take care of it. But as soon as I get the resolve not to wait to be asked, I get worried that before I’m under way I will be asked – and then the thoughtful gesture I’m planning to make won’t seem so thoughtful anymore. Because once you’ve been asked it’s more a matter of obligation, and you get no credit for showing initiative.

Nobody thinks this is my best feature – in all honesty it’s a kind of pride.  So when the new year came around and I was in service this Sunday with a slew of resolutions already in mind to improve my relationship with God, imagine my chagrin when we got a litany of five choices we can make to be more engaged in the Body of Christ. Some of these were in areas I had forgotten I had realized a need for improvement before. And some were areas I already wanted to change; so if the Holy Spirit wanted to lay it on our hearts today and my resolutions weren’t in the execution phase yet, then how would I get any credit for wanting to do those things already? Didn’t God know I was working on that?

To recap, the five choices in Sunday’s message we can and should make are:

1.     Choose to take responsibility for your own spiritual growth.

2.     Choose to practice contentment in all areas of your life.

3.     Choose to serve with regularity in your church.

4.     Choose to invite people, routinely, to meet Jesus through seeing Him in the lives of His people.

5.     Choose to bring your full tithe to God each week.

David in the book of Psalms reminds us that “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it; the world, and all who live in it,” (Psalm 24:1). That includes you and me. We have nothing the Lord didn’t give us, and we can do nothing that He doesn’t enable, or at least permit. That’s good to remember in a culture where we often find a church to attend and wait for it to do something for us. We need to refrain from a consumer mentality toward church, and instead find our own shape within the body and strive to interact within the whole. That way the focus is off ourselves and on the Lord and his people.  Matthew puts it better in saying “the greatest of you will be a servant” (Matthew 23:11), and this verse comes in a larger passage about avoiding self-aggrandizement, impressive titles and hypocrisy. This is a very practical cure for the temptation to be proud – after all, servanthood is real work, and there’s nothing wrong with being too busy for sin.

Some of these applications are very practical, and those kinds of messages are my favorite since I’m most likely to follow up on them. If I resolve to be more responsible with my financial giving, to take the initiative to invite someone to a church event, or to find an area of need where I’m gifted to serve, that’s more likely to yield fruit than just promising God that I’ll be a better witness or become more sacrificial in general. These are steps I plan to take, or at least I want to take. You and I could probably improve upon at least two of these this month, and maybe all five of them given enough time.

But apparently I still need the reminders. Don’t give me too much credit.

Written by: Chad Halcom

Edited by: Brigit Edwards