Today is the second day of tbe ministers conference. Again, tbe worship was just on another level, helping us point to Jesus.
Then in the first session, Mike and Carrie Pickett told us about the pyramid of ministry, and the base of tbe pyramid is our walk with God. I must admit that, partly because my dream has always been huge, and partly because we are pioneers bringing things out of nothing, but I have always done whatever it takes to keep a strong, healthy, vibrant walk with God. Neglecting God has not been an issue of mine, but it is always good as a reminder.
Mike Pickett said that we should not be ashamed of the gospel and reminded us other people are not ashamed of anything. We are only ashamed of the good news because we haven’t realized it works for us. He also reminded us that we are the salt of the world and should therefore have some flavour! That’s inspiring, we need to be salty and stand out rather than bland and fade away.
Carrie said we must reach a place where we do not care what other people think, or that will always stop us doing what is necessary to extend the kingdom.
Mike then said we need to be examples to ourself, speaking right and showing ourselves we can declare truth.
Following a far too short break, we heard Dave Hinton play a couole of powerful songs about how God has been good to him. Then Bob Yandian took the stage.
If you know me, you know Bob Yandian is one of my favourite speakers. I not only always seem to learn new things from him, but he always seems to inspire me to dig deeper in the Word and stand for the Lord.
Pastor Bob started by letting us know that believer love God, but we are called to step up, become disciples and love people too – which is harder. I thought that was a great way to frame the difference. He further explained that believers do not get persecuted, but disciples do, and that he wanted to talk about dealing with persecution.
My ears pricked as persecution is something we have gone through a lot at Tree of Life. I have been lied about, had people curse is, write blogs about us and all sorts of spiteful and cruel things. I have had a lot of persecution, and I am not always sure I deal with it well, but then again, I’m still standing.
Bob was keen to remind us that no problems come from God but persecution comes from satan, people’s flesh and the world. He gave us several pieces of advice to deal with persecution, in his rapid fire, point after point style, and tbe one that hit me the hardest was that God is never surprised.
When we get a venue telling us what kind of Christians we should be, when other ministers spread rumours about us, when people you thought loved you stab you in the back, we didn’t know, and the surprise is always part of the pain.
But God is never surprised. James tells us we don’t know what tomorrow holds, but God does. We didn’t see it coming, but God did. So we can know that if God saw it coming, God has already got a plan.
God’s plan was put in place before your persecution began. That brought me a lot of encouragement. Especially for when people have lied about me, God has a way for the truth to come out.
Bob finished by saying we don’t have to meditate on persecution and don’t even have to solve it. What we have to do is stay close to God. Echoing how both Andrew and Mike and Carrie ended their message, Bob made a call to focus on the Word, prayer and walking with God. That challenged me – when tough times come, we don’t need to lose our focus, we need to focus harder on tbe Lord.
Persecution is a distraction. Don’t let it distract you. That message alone has been worth the ticket price.
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