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!!!!
posted by Shane A. Miller @ 10:17 AM
8 Comments:
Shane wrote,
"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."
God Wrote,
"Cease striving and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Ps 46:10).
A translators note in the NASB by that word "cease" says it means, "Let go, relax". Or to put it another way,
"Lord, You will establish peace for us,
Since You have also performed for us all our works.
New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Is 26:12).
God doesn't ask us to have a great mission in life. He asks us to have a great faith. William Booth was a man of great faith. God accomplished a great mission because William Booth's faith made him available. "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek him." (Hebrews 11: 6) Start with faith. The mission will be accomplished. God does all our works for us. Amen? Amen.
Yes it all starts with faith in God for we are all in a great cloud of witnesses that had great faith before us. Moses, Daniel, Abraham, they all started by puting there faith in God and trusting God. We are also saposed to be HOLY before God, holiness is the process of examining our lives and looking to the scriptures to see what things in our lives we can change to be more like christ. When we read daily God changes our behaviors and lives, as we read we realize that there are behaviors in our lives we need to stop so we can be more like Christ. If we know gossiping is wrong we should try to avoid it, if we know our bodies are a temple and we shold not smoke then we should quit smoking that is what I ment. We constantly need to compare our lives against the scriptures so we can prune the behaviors that do not reflect christ. When we read God helps us to realize these things in our lives that we need to change. Constantly changeing to be more and more like christ is not a bad thing paul even said this in Philipians. You are right we need to stop striving in the things of life and let God take over our lives so we may serve God. Chistian lives should constantly be changing and being made more and more like christ every day. The word christian means little christ. The striving I was refering to is looking at our lives and comparing it to scripture so we can be more like christ. You are right we are saposed to cease striving after the world and worldly things. We do need to Run the race that is set out for us. Using God as our leader and guide. Without God we can do nothing you are right. With out God we are lost you are right. It is only God working in our lives that things get done because God makes them happen you are right. But dont confuse running Gods race and finishing well with striving for worldly things. We are to put 100% of our faith in God it starts there. Then the holiness part is examining our lives in light of what the scriptures say so we can prune the sin out of our lives with Gods help cause without God I cant get rid of any sin in my life. It is all done by God for the Glory of God. It is God working in our lives that we are able to do things. I realize this now. I hope that clears up what I was tring to say. It was not I that said it but the Scriptures.
Shane, you are setting yourself up for legalism and failure. What you say makes as much sense as saying, "I will do open heart surgery on myself". Doesn't work that way. Ezekiel 36: 22-32, "Thus says the Lord God...I will vindicate the holiness of my great name...And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." I did not say to cease striving, God said it. Please interpret His words in the context of scripture, not in the context of what you think I am saying.
I am quite happy with a variety of preaching styles so long as they challenge me deeply!
With regard to raising funds, over the years I have tried many ways, both for church and charity and my own household on occasion. I have only found two ways that work, one is going out to work and earning it, and the other is repentance. My sure-fire way of solving financial problems when I am genuinely unable to earn enough, is to repent - to find one solid, tangible thing in my life I want to put right before God. This means heartfelt repentance, sometimes struggling with God over my hard-heartedness, and it most definitely means asking people for forgiveness where I have hurt them, and making solid, tangible steps towards putting something right. God responds with blessings in amazing ways. I can't begin to list the ways I have been blessed through this. And at the end of the day, even if God's will is that my specific prayer is not answered the way I long for, I have lost nothing, and grown immeasurably in the joy and affirmation of knowing once again his forgiveness, and the immensity of his mercy.
Pax et bonum
Pyromaniac blogs on current preaching trends:
"Something seriously needs to change in order to rescue the idea of historic evangelicalism from the contemporary evangelical movement.
And here's a good place for the change to begin: A generation of preachers needs to rise up and be committed to preaching the Word, in season and out of season, and be willing to ignore the waves of silly fads that come and go and leave the church's head spinning."
http://phillipjohnson.blogspot.com/2005/07/whats-wrong-with-jumping-on-and-off.html
So are you going to be the change in the Salvation Army?? Aree you going to join with other Salvationists and bring The Salvation Army back to it's roots?? I know you don't know me but I'm curious.
In answer to your Question I beleive God has called me to bring change to the Salvation Army. I beleive that God has commissioned me with a task and I am going to step out in faith and trust God knows what he is talking about. Without Jesus I can do nothing. I beleive that in a contuial state of christian faith and practive I can help change The Salvation Army. I would love to go to The War Collage and get all my debit payed so I can become a Salvation Army Officer and fulfill Gods calling for my life.
I agree that we need a new christian generation of Pastors to rise up in The Salvation Army comitted to timothy's call, to preach the word in season and out of season. To preach the word of God only. The point is that topical sermons can not challenge you biblically because all you can do topically is scratch the serfous. Also with a topical sermon the pastor picks the subject then finds verses that line up whith what he is trying to commuinicate. That is self centeredand backwards. We need to pick a passage of scripture like a chapter or 10 versus and let scripture interprate scripture. WE need to get back to the samuel brengle books about holiness and actually teach them. I would settle for letting the scriptures interprate the scriptures. I have no idea what God has planned for me I just know I need to step out in faith and trust God 110% and let him lead my path. With GOds word as my tool and the holly spirit as my guide. I can't do anything. All I can do is trust God and beleive what he has planned for my life. I created this blog to express in public what God is saying to me in my heart. That is all. To GOD be the glory, forever and ever AMEN!!
ok just a note. I did not mean that with Gods word as my tool and the holly spirit as my guide I cant do anything. That is not what I meant.
I meant That I can not do anything on my own or in my own power. Everything comes from God, I am GOds tool and I am making myself available for God to use. Here I am Lord Send me. Here I am Lord your humble servant.
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