Ben Rath Live

Do you have this sense that there is some greater contribution that your life can make in the world you live in? Do you feel like your life isn’t living up to it’s full potential? Do you still feel like you are looking for your life’s purpose? Maybe your life is generally in a good place, you’ve got a good job, good friends, good church, a good marriage but something still feels incomplete, like there are gifts inside of you that currently exist as untapped potential. Or maybe you are just looking for a new adventure, a change from your current “mundane” day to day. If you want to stretch yourself, grow and really experience a life lived to it’s fullest potential, you’ve got to find the place that you were designed to be a part of, the place where all of your gifts can be used for something greater.

If any of those descriptions above sound like you, then I want to encourage you to go exploring! Colossians 1:16b says: “all things were created through him and for him.”  Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” You were created By God, For God. Your life won’t ever make sense apart from God. And a Christian’s life won’t ever make sense apart from finding your place in the local church where the gifts inside of you were designed to be utilized!

If you’re looking for more from your life, you feel change stirring inside of you, or you are ready to get serious about discovering your life’s purpose, then I want to encourage you to come to our next Visioneering Meeting this Sunday, 6PM at the Heritage Creek Clubhouse (click here for details).

Come and see if God is stirring in you to be a part of a new thing that He is doing in Pittsburgh! One hour, could change the direction of your life forever!

I know the title above sounds like an oxymoron, but let me explain. I had the opportunity to speak at Champion Life Church a few weekends ago. They were in a series called “Unstoppable”. When Pastor Larry asked me to speak, I felt like God spoke so clearly to me to speak on finding contentment in Christ and how when you find that, you become unstoppable even in life’s toughest and darkest moments. To me it’s clear, both in the Bible and in my life that it’s not our dark situations that derail us from God’s purposes, it’s our discontentment in those situations that causes us to become distracted and that can eventually derail us from God’s purposes (because we wander away).

I think we see this over and over again in the BIble, but never more clearly than in Paul’s life. I mean who else can say things like “we are victorious in Christ” and “we are more than conquerers” in the midst of awful situations. Paul was shipwrecked, beaten, jailed, snake-bitten and eventually martyred. But somehow he had a contentment that I think came from his relationship in Christ. He knew that no matter how things were going here on earth, that there was something better before him, even if it was on the other side of death and in heaven. And as a result, no situation derailed him from always “abounding in the work of the Lord”. He turned every pit into a platform to do God’s work. In Romans 8, Paul paints a picture of how he lives his life, in light of what he expected his circumstances to be but also in light of who he was “In Christ”. He gives us 5 things (at least) that he does in order to not get derailed even when the lights went out on the situations of his life. Here they are:

1. Refocus:Stop looking at yourself and start staring at Jesus (Romans 8:5-6)
2. Recalibrate: What’s the size of the prize that you’re after? You can have your life here the way you want it (at the cost of eternity the way God desires it) or vice versa (Romans 8:18)
3. Re-establish: the timeline that you’re on. Your existence is more than your tour on earth. You are on an eternal timeline. When you get a revelation of the ultimate glory that awaits you won’t even be able to compare it to what you’re enduring now. (Romans 8:23-2)
4. Rely: on the help system that God has established. The Holy Spirit is working on your behalf in the midst of your bad situation (Romans 8:26-27)
5. Remember: In the end, God is all about one thing: His glory. And whatever we are going through can ultimately give him glory (and turn out for our eternal good) if we don’t let our discontent distract and derail us. (Romans 8:28)

Here’s some other thoughts:

• Paul’s life tells us it’s not about not ever having bad situations, it’s about having a belief system that gets you to the other side of them
• If there’s never a battle fought, then there is never a victory achieved. The whole premise of “victory” assumes there was a “struggle”
• Discontentment distracts us. And distraction derails us.
• Opposition is a fact, the Christian who is not conscious of being opposed is in danger of severe disappointment
• One day we will see that nothing which could have increased our eternal happiness has been denied us, and that nothing that could have reduced that happiness has been left with us.
• Your ability to have “Contentment when” (your situation sucks) is directly correlated to your “Confidence in” (God)
• Your discontent is your flesh saying that the blood of Jesus wasn’t adequate enough and the plan of God isn’t good enough
• God is not going to be found in the “unfaithful” column of your life’s account
• How you spell Contentment: JOY
• Happiness requires positive happenings, but joy and contentment is only found when you are totally wrapped up “in Jesus” and his love for you
• Unstoppable Contentment (Joy) is about wanting nothing more than more of Jesus
• If you are “In Him” your current situation doesn’t have to be your final destination
• If you are “In Him” Your situation is not a surprise
• The good news of the gospel is this: That you get Him. And no matter what circumstance comes or how they turn out, you end up with Him and He is enough!

I hope this encourages you as you read through it. Know this, that if the lights have gone out in a situation in your life, know that God can use that as an opportunity for His glory to shine brighter through you! If you want to listen to the message in it’s entirity, you can find it by clicking right here.

18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock,22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” – Exodus 33:12-23

I can relate to Moses. Here’s a guy that goes into a tent, has a conversation with God, gets some direction and then when he walks out, he’s immediately doubting what he heard. It’s like all of the confidence leaves him when he walks out of the presence of God. Granted, he had a lot of reasons to want to be extra sure of his calling. In fact he had about 2-3 million reasons because that’s a rough estimate of how many people he was leading. So he challenged God and said, I’m not doing this if you don’t give me some evidence of your presence in our midst (keep in mind, he is in the middle of a 2-way conversation with God when he makes this demand). If you read the entire passage, starting with about verse 12, you’ll see that Moses was worried because he wasn’t sure who was going to help him or how he was going to lead all of these people to their destination, so he basically demands that God give him more evidence and details before he signs up for the mission.

This makes me feel normal. I find myself doing the exact same thing. I’ll have a moment or moments in my life where I feel like I’ve heard from God so clearly, but when it’s time to take action and get down to obedience, I always second guess myself because there isn’t any proof in the moment that God will actually be on the other side of my obedience. This has never been more true for me than with planting iChurch. Every step seems so clear and yet so uncertain at the same time. It’s like I have total clarity and confidence, to make that important call, setup that important meeting, make that big announcement, make that big ask but when I’m ready to do it, I start to doubt because I don’t know what’s on the other side of my obedience. I think things like: What if they say no?, what if I they don’t call me back?, what if it doesn’t work out, what if I misunderstood God?

All Moses wanted was for God to be right with him every step of the way, but God said no. What God said, was you can’t see my face, but you can follow my back. God was teaching Moses that if he would just lead the people forward, they would walk into every uncertain moment and see that God had preceded them.

We’re young in the days of launching iChurch. Some of our biggest challenges (steps of faith) are still ahead of us. But already, I’m learning this principle that God taught Moses. My job is to move forward. God’s job is to prepare the way. Take for example, the launch team that God has started to assemble. Many of them have said that they felt God stirring them change or to help start something new a few years ago (not coincidentally, that’s when we first sensed God calling us to plant a church). Yet when we announced we were starting the church, we didn’t know for certain that anyone was going to come along to help!  Or there is that time when Alicia and I were in a church service and there was a guest worship leader and I leaned over and said to her “this guy is great. He just set the bar for the type of worship leader I want at iChurch.” Then a few months later after obeying what I thought was God leading me to ask, that very “guy” felt like God was calling him to help us launch iChurch and lead worship.

Those are just two examples and I know we’re not on the other side of some the biggest challenges that we’ll face. So I’m not  pretending to be some hero or role model for you. I don’t have this all figured out, sometimes I’m wrong, and I don’t always instantly obey what I feel like God is leading me to do. But I’m trying. And I hope that encourages you to try also. Because let’s face it, if you’re going to follow God you’re never going to be on the other side of having to trust him. The point is that God doesn’t give you everything you need in the moment you want it. But if He calls you to do something, then He does promise to be ahead of you working in situations so that you have everything you need when you need it. I’m learning to love stepping out in faith and trusting that He is working ahead so that everything will be in place when I need it. I’m calling these “Sticky Note” moments because that’s what they feel like to me. They feel like a sticky note left by God that says “I was here, and now I’m on to the next thing.” I’m actually going to start to write these moments on real Post-It notes and save them in a folder. Someday soon I’m sure I’ll need to remind myself of all of the previous sticky notes so that I’ll have enough faith to step into the next thing God leads me to do. I’d encourage you to do the same!