Terry Felton

Will “God-Called” people of God stand up and minister? In our pulpits, you can see a lack of God-Called men in our pulpits. There isn’t passion in the preaching and the idea of giving motivational talks seems to influence too many pulpits. I believe there are three major culprits behind Spirit-annointed preaching. First of all, there are God-called men who have taken the easy way out and are not wanting to give people the full counsel of God’s Word and are out to please people and would never dare offend anybody. Secondly, there are men in the pulpit who are not called by God. They saw the pulpit as a place of authority or influence and got into ministry for the wrong reasons. Finally, there are many God-called men who never surrendered to that calling and are busy living their lives doing something else than what God is desiring they do. May all the God-called men rise up and preach the word with the help of the Holy Spirit!

I don’t know about you, but I am horrible about beginning to read a book and then picking up another one before I finish the first one. I just can’t seem to help myself. With that said I am currently in the midst of reading three high-quality books. I thought I would share a couple of quotes from them and encourage anyone to read them. The books I am reading are: Brothers, We are Not Professionals by John Piper, The Old Evangelicalism by Iain Murray, and Breakout Churches by Thom Rainer. Here are the quotes….

The first writer I’ll quote will be Piper and this first quote is in the context of illustrating God’s devotion to His glory.

“God’s most fundamental allegiance is to His own glory. He is committed to being God before He is committed to being anything else”(9).

The second quote is in regards to the fact that we don’t do anything for God, but He does things through us.

“Any servant who tries to get off the divine dole and strike up a manly partnership with his Heavenly Master is in revolt against the Creator” (42).

The second author I’ll quote will be Murray regarding justification..

“The doctrine of justification is all about Christ. God does not save sinners by overlooking their sin, or by lowering the demands of his righteousness. It is not love at the expense of justice. It is not mercy overriding law and setting it aside… ‘To justify’ means to pronounce-to reckon and count- righteous, and that pronouncement cannot be made except on the basis of an existing righteousness. That basis is Christ’s doing and dying in our place” (82-83).

The final quote will come from Rainer’s book regarding churches that overcame mediocrity to become highly effective for the kingdom of God. He defined breakout churches by strict criteria and much research.

“It is a sin to be good if God has called us to be great” (15). One other observation that Rainer and his research team made was the average tenure of the pastors of these ‘breakout churches’ compared to other churches. The average tenure of the 13 breakout churches’ pastors were 21.6 years compared to the average tenure of the comparison churches of 4.2 years (57) There is definitely something about a pastor who can remain with the same congregation for an extended period of time.

Hope these quotes bless you and even though I’m not completely done with the books, to this point, I recommend all three

It just goes to show you that games are played on the field. I will cease from predictions.

Today is almost like Christmas or my birthday! It is the official beginning of the College Football season and i cannot wait. The only shame for me is that I cannot watch every single game of my beloved Volunteers because of my residence in the north. Here are a couple of predicitions for this first week.

UT 42 UAB 14
GA 31 Boise St 28
USC 45 Hawaii 21
Auburn 24 GA Tech 14
Game of the Week Pitt 38 Notre Dame 31

In light of the horrible situations in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama I am seeking out what I and the youth group I minister to can do for hurricane victims. I want to do more than just give money to the Red Cross or the SBC Disaster Relief fund, if I give anything I want to give some type of tangible item. If anyone knows of any links or organizations that I can tap into that would fit these desires please let me know. Of course, the main thing we must do is pray. I heard on Wednesday that 17 people had committed suicide in the Superdome. I cannot imagine what these hurricane victims are going through, may God reach down to these areas and make His presence known in a great way

My buddy Jeff Wright has already written a great post about Pat Robertson’s comment on killing the president of Venezuela, so I won’t bother typing all the info because Jeff did a great job. I just want to reinforce the point for any unbelievers who would be on this site, that Robertson’s comment does not in any way, shape, or form represent the views of this Christian and I would say for that matter a high majority of Christians. We must be reminded in this present day that we were never taught to kill in the name of Christ, contrary to much of the motivation behind the Crusades. On the contrary, we were taught to love our enemy, turn the other cheek, and allow vengenance to be left in the hands of God. I pray that many will see this comment as one man’s opinion and that it will not be viewed as the belief of evangelical Christians.

Recently I picked up Iain Murray’s book “The Old Evangelicalism” and I have not been able to put it down. Granted, I am not breaking any records for speed in my reading of it, but the reason for that is that every few pages I have to put the book down and ‘chew’ on what is being said. To say the least, it is an awesome book and it is inspiring me greatly.

There is a quote in chapter one that describes the message coming out of too many churches today, this quote I believe describes the “Gospel Fraud”:

“Where the gospel is presented solely as forgiveness, only as a change of status before God, it may appeal to the self-interest of the unregenerate. A person may ‘believe’ that message and still be content to live an unchanged life; he becomes a ‘Christian’ and yet knows no moral, ethical revolution. But where conscience is more thoroughly dealt with by the law of God, a larger need comes into view and one which forgiveness alone would not answer. There must be also a change of nature, a deliverance from self, a new life. The desire of a true convert is that he may never sin again.” (Murray 13)

I don’t know about you, but for the Gospel to be given clearly and truthfully, not only does the forgiveness of God need to be explained, but just as emphatically the justice and wrath of God on sin needs to be defined. If it is not, then we run the risk of giving people a false message, us as messengers coming under condemnation, and worst of all, some people relying on a false experience for salvation. We must be true to Scripture and tell the WHOLE Truth!

I am growing more and more concerned with a trend in evangelicalism. The trend I am referring to is the way we allow new Christians who are movie stars, athletes, or some other high profile to have immediate places of leadership and influence in ministries and some churches.

I could refer to a few just off the top of my head who are keynote speakers at gatherings who have barely been Christians a year. In Galatians chapter 1, Paul describes his past before Christ radically saved him and then he tells of where he went immediatley following his conversion. Verse 18 states that after 3 years Paul went back to Jerusalem and when he did he met up with Peter and James and no doubt talked with them about Christ. Furthermore, in 1 Timothy 3 Paul declares that an elder should not be a novice/new convert. If Paul wrote this standard (while inspired by the Spirit of God of course) and Paul practiced this standard himself then why should it be any different for anyone else?

The bottom line is, this celebrities are put on pedestals and too often they, as we all do, go through a dry time after their salvation, but the difference is when they sin it is magnified. It is not their fault that they desire to share about how Christ radically saved them, but when pulpits and ministries give them opportunities over and above them sharing their testimonies they not only allow for very little of the word to be taught, they also open the door for something false to be taught. Again, I do blame the individual, I blame the “mature” pastor, ministry head, or Christian who gives a new believer liscense because of their social status.

We not only set them up for a fall, but other believers and non-believers as well.

Let me just go ahead and say that I am not half the writer that the other two-thirds of exaltchrist.com are. I’m a very weak writer to be honest, but I agree with my friends that this is a great way to get our opinions out and let people agree and be correct , or disagree and be wrong . All joking aside, this week in my quiet time I read one of those stories that I’ve heard since I was in Sunday School, Jesus feeding the 5000. It would have been very easy for me to just “skim” the text since I know it by heart, but as God does many times he arrested my heart and mind at a certain point in the text.

In Matthew 14:15-18, the disciples tell Jesus to send the people away cause it’s late and they’re hungry. In verse 16, Jesus responds with an interesting statement, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” In verse 17 the disciples reply all we have are 5 loaves and 2 fish, then Jesus replies in verse 18, “Bring them here to Me.” I write all this to ask you the same question that the Holy Spirit asked my heart, “How do I respond when God asks the impossible of me?” Here you had 12 misfits, asked to feed 5000 people with some fish and chips. They responded honestly, yet they did not recognize who was with them. The same holds true for us today, when God asks you to do something you deem impossible remember who is with you, because if you do you may be amazed at what is accomplished in your midst.

I hope that God blesses you greatly! May He somehow use some things that I write to encourage the saints.