Category Archives: Conferences

Legacy

1 Reply

Everybody has received a legacy. Whether for good or for bad, we’ve all been taught things by those who went before us! In recent years Christians have been encouraged to sever or cut off the spiritual links that tie us to ungodly patterns in our family history. That’s good advice. But have you also considered that there may be some GOOD THINGS in your family line that should be embraced and even cherished? Don’t be too quick to throw such a suggestion away!

The Bible tells us that God made a plan for each of His children before He created the universe. In Psalm 139:15-16, David declares,

“My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them.” 

If God planned me (and you) before creation, then there was some powerful DNA being set-up when He made Adam and Eve! God must have foreseen all the generations of  people that would proceed from that first couple right down to my own parents who conceived me. So what did God purposefully put in the generations that preceded me to bless me? What equipment for advancing the purposes of God is offered to me through the genetics of my ancestors? What are the good things in my heritage, deposits of God-given blessing intended to advance God’s Kingdom in the earth?

If you study the genealogy of Jesus you find a prostitute, some drunkards, several adulterers, and a long list of ungodly kings along with some people we all greatly respect. Have you considered that none of the sins of Jesus’ ancestors was able to thwart God’s purposes for His life? What about you and me — surely the sins of our families are not too difficult for God to redeem in our lives as well! Sometimes, in our zeal to cut off the sins of our ancestors, we forget to look for the blessings we have inherited. What is your legacy? Is any of it worth saving?

Here are the two major thoughts we will be exploring at the Legacy Conference September 28-30, 2012: What have you received? and What will you leave behind? What is your legacy?

Why not prayerfully consider joining us in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. Find out more at

http:/www.legacyconference.net

 

Pattern of the Kingdom

Leave a reply

I’ve been talking here about exchanging the negative, destructive patterns in our lives for the grace-filled patterns of the Kingdom of God. When we are born again we all enter our new relationship with Jesus carrying excess baggage we’ve hung onto from our old life before we knew Him. We learned certain ways of getting along in the world, many of those based on painful experiences.  Rejection produces patterns of self-protection, fear of failure produces patterns self-promotion, and so on. Jesus offers to exchange those patterns based on self-effort for new patterns founded in His grace.

Discipleship is the basic grace-pattern of the Kingdom of God. We see it first in the relationship between the first couple and God. God could have created Adam and Eve with full knowledge of what they were called to do and  how to do it. Instead, God gave them a general overview of their assignment at the start, but the kind of guidance that would enable their success was dependent upon daily talks with God in the garden.   Adam was told to tend the garden, but how far apart do you plant the cabbages? and how deep do you plant the tulip bulbs? and how many watermelon plants can you grow in a single mound? That time every day when God visited them in the garden was pretty important! Adam and Eve were given the opportunity to be discipled by God, and then to make disciples of their own children. 

Adam and Eve were not obedient disciples, but that does not negate the truth that God designed men and women to be discipled and to make disciples. Down through the ages, men and women who walked out the plan of God for their lives, made disciples and trained them to fulfill their own God-given plan. Consider Moses with Joshua, and  Elijah with Elisha. These were mighty men of God who raised up their successors to go even further than they did in advancing God’s Kingdom in the earth.

Then came Jesus, the greatest disciple and the most effective discipler of all time. Jesus said, “I can do nothing of Myself, unless it is something I see the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner” (John 5:19-20). Jesus broke the pattern of rebellion established for man by Adam and Eve and chose to follow instead the pattern of the Father. He embraced the discipleship of the Father rather than going His own way as Adam and Eve had done. When Satan tempted Him, Jesus relied upon the Father and His word. When people had needs, He relied upon the Father to heal, deliver, comfort, teach, confront, correct, and exhort through Him. When He had needs, He relied upon the Father, drew aside to hear from and talk to the Father.  To know what to do and where to go every minute of every day, Jesus was totally dependent upon the Father.

And Jesus made disciples. For three years, twelve men plus the “ministering women” followed Him and watched Him. They saw how He lived, they soaked up His presence and His way of life daily, they were taught by Him, had the scriptures explained by Him, and they gradually came to imitate Him as He imitated the Father. Through Jesus they came to realize that they too could “do nothing of themselves”, so, after Jesus was resurrected and ascended into heaven, they waited obediently in Jerusalem to receive the promised Holy Spirit. They knew they needed the power of God and intimate, daily communion with Him through the Holy Spirit in order to see what God was doing in their day and to allow Him to work through them.

And those disciples, as they walked out their lives, made more disciples. They repeated the pattern of  Jesus and took people with them wherever they went, allowing those companions to get to know them, to see how they lived, to see their relationship with Jesus, to see their dependence upon the Holy Spirit. They preached and taught publicly, but they also had disciples to whom they privately explained the ways of God more thoroughly.

Paul and Timothy’s relationship is the most talked about discipling relationship in the New Testament. We don’t know exactly how Timothy first became a disciple of Paul, but we do know that Timothy was with Paul to follow his “teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and suffering, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me!” (2 Timothy 3:10-11). Timothy was allowed to come in close and get to  know Paul and to see how he responded under pressure. Paul’s life and ministry discipled Timothy to become a man of God himself.

I hope you will join me at Living Way Church in Greensboro at the Wellspring Day Seminar on June 23 where we will be talking about some of these discipling relationships and what they mean to us today. Jesus commanded us to “go and make disciples …” so it would seem that His is a pattern worth repeating! The seminar will begin at 10:00 AM with worship led by Jessica Cotten followed by my teaching. Then we will have lunch together (bring your own bag lunch and the ladies of Living Way Church will provide drinks for us). After lunch, we’ll divide into small groups where we will discuss how to implement the pattern of Jesus in our own lives. At the end of the day we will regather the full group for a question and answer time, worship, and personal ministry, all ending by 4:00 PM. All the details may be accessed by clicking on the RSVP button below. You can also register there (www.wellspringwomen.com), which will help us with planning. The $25 registration fee will be collected at the door and may be paid by cash, check, or credit card. I hope to see you there. It’s going to be a great day!

[button link=”http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=vmg76ejab&oeidk=a07e5v6ci9t9add18d4″ newwindow=”yes”] RSVP[/button]

 

 

IMITATION Written by Michael Cotten

Leave a reply

(This post was contributed by my husband, Michael Cotten. lt first appeared on his personal blog, www.macotten.com, on May 24. I hope it blesses you as much as it did me!)

Have you ever noticed how little children mimic and imitate their parents? It’s how they learn to talk, walk and relate to the world. God puts it in their hearts to do that. Even after all these years, I still see my Father in the walk and mannerisms of my brother, Wes. It’s an unconscious gift, this imitation and has the effect of creating a living remembrance of our Fathers and Mothers.

Even as this is true in the natural, it’s also true in the spiritual realm. Paul said “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1 ESV) This is a bold statement and at first glance seems to be prideful and a little egotistic. I certainly reacted that way the first time I read it! But there’s more.

“For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me.” (1 Corinthians 4:15–16 ESV)

“So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.'” (John 5:19 ESV)

This is true imitation! Jesus said He only did what He saw the Father doing. In this statement, He also sets the pattern we’re to follow with Him. As I see Him only doing what the Father is doing, so I desire to only do what I see Jesus doing. And so Paul says to the Corinthians, “Be imitators of me . . . “

Then we are drawn to the conclusion that we have to get integrity — that means the inside life matches and is in unity with the outside picture. That is, what is on the inside is true to my words. There are multitudes of people in this world who are crying out for someone to believe in — just somebody who is not going to fall by the wayside; who is not going to sell out their life, ministry and integrity for a bit of momentary passion.

If we are not saying to someone, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” we have not yet seen the fullness of our call to Disciple the Nations.

Michael and I will be hosting The Legacy Conference September 28-30, 2012 at Ridgecrest Conference Center. Registration goes live June 18. Check back here for details.

Patterns of Grace

2 Replies

All of us enter into the Kingdom of God with patterns of living and responding to life we have learned from living in the world. These destructive patterns are the logical conclusions of life lived without Jesus. We experience rejection so we adopt patterns of self-protection to keep from suffering that pain

again. We are attacked so we develop patterns of self-defense to insure that we always feel safe. We are threatened so we retreat into patterns of self-preservation to make sure no one gets the upper hand over us. We are betrayed or undermined in some way so we adopt patterns of self-promotion to insure our personal success. All of these patterns are ultimately self-destructive because they form an armor that no one is allowed to penetrate. We hide inside this armor, distrustful, lonely, afraid, and feeling vulnerable. Miserable.

Those who are born again have experienced the infiltration of the Holy Spirit, Who manages to get inside our armor to the place where the “real me” hides. He comforts and confronts and coaxes us, using the powerful revelation of the Love that Jesus has for us, to come out and meet the Savior and to relinquish control of our lives to Him. As soon as we listen to the Holy Spirit and accept Jesus into our hearts and lives, He begins to replace those old negative patterns of our lives without Christ into the life- giving patterns of the Kingdom of God. We are set free to be ourselves as our focus of concern gradually shifts away from our own safety and promotion and onto a desire to  glorify God with our lives and to see other people blessed. This is transformation and it happens from the inside out.

Some transformations happen quickly and suddenly. I have a friend who was instantly delivered of a 15 year addiction to cigarettes when she was born again. Another friend stopped cursing and drinking alcohol instantly when she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior. And yet there are others for whom freedom from these same bondages took years to attain. I don’t have easy or simple answers to these dissimilar methods of the Holy Spirit, but I have noticed that when a mature Christian takes an interest and spends time with a young one, the spiritual development of both is enhanced. When someone else thinks my life is worth her commitment to see me through to maturity, then hope is quickened in my own heart and I begin to value my life enough to persevere.

Jesus told His disciples to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I commanded you … ” (Matthew 28:19-20) Becoming a disciple and making disciples was commanded by Jesus as the life pattern of His  Kingdom. Making a disciple involves more than introducing someone to Jesus. Making disciples involves teaching and shepherding people, holding them accountable and modeling obedience for them  so that they, in turn, become makers of disciples themselves. 

My life is being consumed by this concept of discipleship, and here at Wellspring we are excited to teach and impart, with the help of the Holy Spirit, what we are learning to any who will listen. We are holding our second Wellspring Day Seminar on Saturday, June 23, 10 AM until 4 PM, at Living Way Church, 4433 Rehobeth Church Road, Greensboro, NC 27406. There will be teaching, fellowship, small group discussions, and time for questions and answers. I am hoping to see you there!

It would help us if you would RSVP by clicking on the link below. Complete details are on the registration page as well.

[button link=”http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=vmg76ejab&oeidk=a07e5v6ci9t9add18d4″ newwindow=”yes”] RSVP[/button]