Gods Calling in my Life

For those of you who don't know me my name is Shane A. Miller and I am a Member / soldier of The Salvation Army Church. I live in beautiful fort Collins Colorado where I live with my wife carolan and our kids. In the past years growing up in The Salvation Army God has impressed upon my life to become a Salvation Army Officer or pastor. Over the years I have resisted this because I am hard headed and always wanted to do what I wanted instead of what God wants me to do. I have come to the understanding that God does want me to become an officer / pastor now all I have to do is hold up my end of the bargain. Not an easy thing to do that is for sure. I am now trying to pay off all my past debit so I can one day enter into The Salvation Army as a minister or pastor. I know I have an interesting road ahead of me to becoming a minister and paying off my debit this I know. I used to doubt what God wanted me to do but anymore I am more sure that this is what he wants me to do. Now learning the discipline of balancing my finances is going to be hard for me because this is one area I have not been good in so Now is my time to learn. Any suggestions in this area are gratefully appreciated.

So here I am in Fort Collins with Gods calling upon my life to help The Salvation Army get back to its roots and get back to teaching Gods word the way God would like it done. Too often the world is creeping into our preaching style as a church, we are offering a watered down version of the bible instead of just speaking the TRUTH of the bible like God has always intended us to do. Peter never watered down the Gospel to make it easier on the people NO!! Paul never lessened his expectations upon the Gentiles he expected them to grow and apply Gods word to there lives and when they didn't he told them what they were doing wrong. We need to get back to the Blood and FIRE Excited for Jesus Christ Army that we used to be when we first got started. WE NEED TO BE ON FIRE FOR GOD!!! Every aspect of our lives needs to point to Jesus. It is time we look at HOLINESS for what it actually is and build up our congregations to understand what this means. True holiness is getting rid of habitual sin in our lives. Its taking a Good look at our lives and comparing it to scripture and realizing that certain behaviors need to be taken out of our lives. Holiness is a process that GOD wants EVERYONE to go through.

Hebrews 12:14 says Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

With out holiness nobody will see the lord. Just like the virgins sitting and waiting upon the lord they were ready but they ran out of the holy spirit or oil and they needed more. THEY MISSED JESUS, they were too busy concentrating on other things rather than looking at and concentrating on JESUS.

We need to concentrate on JESUS and GODs word and teaching the congregation to do the same. We need to constantly prune the sin in our lives so we can be holy. Philippians 3:12-14 SAYS:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

WE all need to constantly strive for the PRIZE of heaven. That consistent striving is the process of being maded perfect or being made holy before God, constantly taking out the sin in our lives that we know we should not be doing. Will we ever stop sinning NO. But we need to keep striving to improving our lives and becoming more and more like Christ every day.

I have recently re-learned the power of Gods word and how if affects out lives and attitudes. When you don't read your bible you mind gets saturated with the world and you push the things of God deep into your mind. Your attitude changes slowly and eventually you become a different person all together. With out reading EVERY day the world takes over our thoughts and mind and we loose God in the mix of what the world wants and we loose what GOD wants us to do in our lives and we turn to what WE want in life instead of what GOD wants with our lives. It is soo easy to do. and it happends soo slowly. Without constant prayer and bible reading our lives turn to self and what we want to do. Instead of what GOD wants us to do.

We need to get the church reading and praying DAILY. With out these simple things the church will die. WE need to preach the word verse by verse and chapter by chapter pick a book stick with it until its done THIS is hoe people learn. WE NEED TO STOP watering down the word of God with TOPICAL preaching. Let Scripture interpret Scripture. FEED the people meat not water. Whenever we do a TOPICAL or an INDUCTIVE sermon we DO NOT FEED the people what they need spiritually. Also we end up WATERING down GODS word which is just wrong. We need to get back to THE BLOOD AND FIRE CHRISTIANITY that we used to have. THE only way to do this is by teaching the word and feeding the people. Then we need to empower the local officers to read daily and pray daily and give them more responsibility in the church. Let the people teach bible study, let the Corps Sargent Major preach once a quarter. TEACH your people how to talk to others about Christ Tech them to be Salt and Light in the world.

I am just one person I realize this. Through Jesus anything is possible. I know I am not perfect but I strive daily for Holiness in my life I will never stop striving like I did just a few weeks ago. I need to keep my eyes on Jesus and what GOD wants for me to do. WE all need to do the same. Keep striving towards God and always searching our hearts and lives for ways to be closer to God. IF that means taking your video library and getting rid of all the Nudity and violence then DO IT. I had to do that to my library, I had to prune it, because too much of the WORLD was getting to me through my videos so I got rid of a lot of them.

Let us all read our bibles daily and pray daily and ask GOD to help us all change The Salvation Army. Its not just me with this vision either. The more people in their thirties I talk to the more I realize that we all want the same thing to get back to our roots to get back to THE BLOOD AND FIRE ARMY we used to be. SO LETS GET GOING!!!! Sound the alert, let the band play, let us announce to the world THAT THE SALVATION ARMY IS A CHURCH. Proclaim it in the streets, JESUS CHRIST IS LORD!!!!