My younger readers may not know that the title to this post is also a title to a old school popular song at one time.  If you are not familiar with it, it is essentially about a guy who goes to a gipsy and gets a love potion.  This potion causes him to fall in love and want to kiss everything he sees.  Sometimes I wonder if following the second greatest commandment would be easier if we all had a little love potion no 9.

What prompted this bizarre chain of thinking was my prayers the other day.  I was praying for someone who tends to be a little difficult for me to interract with.  As I was talking to God, God said, “Do you love him?”  Well, I have been trying to show him love, I replied.  God answered back, “I didn’t ask you to show him love, I asked you to love him.”

For many of you this may seem like a simple no brainer, but for me it was profound.  How often do I try to show someone love rather than really trying to love them?

This can tend to a challenge for me.  People can get on my nerves.  Prekids, I used to tell my wife that if God took her home early, I would probably become a hermit.  So this lesson from God really home.  Loving instead of just showing love.  Love will be shown naturally when I love, but loving will not naturally happen when I show love.

Showing love is fake, in and of myself, and is absent of the work of God.  Loving is a miracle from God.  Loving takes transformation.  So God, please teach me to love, and not just show love.

Today, I was just preaching at myself.  If anyone else benefitted, I am glad.  Let me know if you have any thoughts on this.

Technorati Tags: fake, god, love, potion, real, show

Are you really reading this?  Is there actually a post from Kurt after all this time?  Yes and Yes.  This is my final post in this series, and then I hope to start afresh.  I honestly cannot tell you what happened to my initial energy with writing for this site, but it went somewhere.  So I will try to reawaken myself.

In the next few weeks, you should begin seeing some changes to design etc as I work to improve the site. 

Regarding our tripod for church growth- Our tripod is complete.  Prayer, Fellowship, and meeting needs.  However, there is one more aspect which is part of fellowship that I wanted to highlight.  In John 17, Christ prays for us believers.  In it He prays for us to have unity.

He prays for us to have unity so the world will know we are His.  How often do people leave churches over music style or carpet color?  God has called us to be unified.  In fact he prayed for us to be unified.

I truly believe if the American church would follow the tripod to church growth, and be unified in it endeavors, there would be a spiritual explosion in the U.S. that would light the world on fire.

Speaking of fires, hopefully the writing fire has been reignited and you will hear from me again shortly.

A disturbing trend we are seeing more and more here at increasing faith is the plight of retired missionaries.  These are folks who have sacrificed their lives and their financial security for the cause of Christ, and when they make the difficult decision to retire, they more often than not have nothing to retire on.

I know and have known many missionaries on a personal level.  They typically come home for 6-12 months every few years to visit supporters, get refreshed, and make certain their support is up to 100% before returning to their field of service, wherever God has taken them.

Oh, wait, I just described the ideal situation.  In many cases, the missionary comes home after watching their support erode for multiple years due to lack of commitment from those who pledged to support them.  They spend so much time and energy visiting supporters and finding new ones that they look forward to returning to the field to get some relaxation and relief from the constant schedule here in the states.  In a future post, I will layout a more efficient system.

After spending all that time, they are often faced with the reality of only be 80%, 90%, or some other figure less than 100% support pledged.  To give you a more clear picture of what that means, lets look at $100.  Out of each $100, lets assume, $10 goes to the mission to support the support staff, conduct mailings, and other administrative duties.  Lets now assume $10 goes toward the missionary’s health care, and that leaves $80 to fund their ministry on the ground and to live.  Further assuming a 10% funding shortfall, that does not leave the numbers at $9, $9, and $72.  It leaves them at $10, $10, $70.  The first two numbers are fixed, the last is the only one that can fluctuate.

In this scenario, a 10% drop in support results in 12.5% drop in living and ministry funds for the missionary.  Sorry to get all mathy on you, but this is the reality many missionaries face on a daily basis.  Talk about increasing faith, do you go under funded and trust the Lord, or do you stay and continue to work towards being fully supported.  The greatest area that suffers is usually their savings.  Many missionaries come to the end of the time as missionaries facing the harsh reality of no retirement funds, and support virtually disappearing once they retire.  This is a crime against Christ, and we need to stop it.

Allow me to make this a little more personal for you.  Imagine after working for your boss for a few years, your boss comes to you and tells you he is cutting your salary by 10%.  Do you return to work the next day, or do you quit and find another.  Lets assume you stay at this job, and every so often your boss repeats this song and dance.  To make matters even more troubling, he often promises to restore you to your previous funding levels, only when you get the check you see that he somehow forgot.  After 30-40 years of this, you decide to retire.  Do to your lack of a decent salary, you have not been able to save any money for this event, but surely your boss whom you have served so faithfully for the past 30-40 years will keep paying you.  Surely he has set aside something to care for you. Umm no.

We would not tolerate this, but for some reason we expect our missionaries to.  Why?  Make a difference today.  Make contact with a retired missionary, and send them some financial support.  We must honor these workers of faith, not forget about them.

Technorati Tags: faith, increasing faith, missionary

Does your faith change your actions?

Have you ever known you should do something and hesitated or did not do it at all?  Even with increasing faith, we sometimes fall back.  If we look more deeply into situations like these, we get a profound insight into our faith.  Let’s look for example at making peace with someone we are at odds with.

Biblically, we are to do everything in our power to live at piece with all men/women according to Romans 12:18.  What about those times when we are so annoyed with someone?  We know we should be the bigger person, and make the first gesture of peace, but we hesitate.  We do not do it.  We stay where we are living in our walls we have built up between us.

At this point we are at a crisis of belief.  We hesitate for one of two reasons.  Either we do not believe we can do it, which is lack of faith in I Corinthians 10:13.  In other words, we are tempted to disobey Romans 12:18 and do nothing, yet God promises in I Corinthians 10:13 to not allow us to be tempted more than we can handle.  So we have the strength, and we can do it.  Do you believe?

The second reason we hesitate would be a lack of faith in the truth of the text.  Does God really mean this?  Does it apply to this circumstance?  So and so was really mean to me, etc. etc.  Remember once we start throwing out scriptures, you are on a slippery slope.  It is better to have faith and trust what God has written, and build from there.

Granted, sometimes the issue is you just do not feel like it.  You acknowledge it is wrong, but you just feel like being wrong sometimes.  I get that.  This brings me back to my original question.  Does your faith change your actions?  In any circumstance where you find yourself hesitating to do what is right, check your faith.  Do your beliefs align with the scripture?  If so, act.  Let your faith change your actions so you can change the world!  Increase your faith and increase your actions.

Technorati Tags: faith, increasing faith

Tonight, I want you to take a moment to take on the mind of God.  Imagine sending your child to die for someone who hated you.  If I stretch my mind, I can almost imagine this.  I can almost imagine sending my son to die for those that hated me, if I knew he was going to be resurrected again, but then it hits me.  Could I ever concieve sending my son to suffer to the degree Christ did?  Could I allow my son to go through what Christ went through for people who hated me?  Heck, I couldn’t even do this for people who love me.  This is what God did for us.

He sent His Son to be beaten, to be whipped, to have his skin ripped right off his back.  He sent His Son to have huge thorns pressed through his scalp.  He sent His Son to have nails hammered through His hands and feet.  He sent His Son to be rejected.

He loves us that much.  Thank you Father.

Technorati Tags: christ, Easter, Father