Hearing God in Faith

It takes faith to hear from God.

Hebrews 11 tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God and that we must approach the Father believing first that he is and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.

For some, that’s a difficult concept to wrap their arms around. First that God is and second, that he rewards those who diligently seek him.

Faith is:

• Substance - its the fact that we can be confident that the things God promised we will experience
• Evidence - its the Holy Spirit conviction down on the inside that we know our God will watch over his word to perform it
• Witness - its the “good report” Hebrews 12 refers to. After all, our faith isn’t about what we can have or accomplish by using it...it is about having a message to pass on to the next generation. It’s the “so that...”

Faith will enable us to understand, see and hear what others cannot. Some may even mock or laugh at us while we step out in faith in this life. But be encouraged for many people laughed at great men and women of faith throughout history.

Maybe you’re ready to set sail and let God take you to new and greater places, but you don’t feel the wind of his presence pushing you. Don’t wait until you “feel” something...hoist your sails, pray and believe God. Be full of faith and watch his promises be fulfilled in your life TODAY!

Set your sails and watch God move. There’s a great cloud of witnesses watching with you.

Right thinking,

Pastor Steve

Hearing God in You

One of the top 3 questions I get asked on a regular basis is “How do I know that I am hearing God’s voice... What does it sound like?”

One thing I think I know about God’s voice in your life is that you must be open to change. Don’t expect what happened last week to occur the same way this week. God wants you totally dependent on Him...not His methods.

God’s principles remain the same forever...but his methods change.

Sometimes I feel like people are more concerned about HOW God speaks rather than what He is saying. In just a brief review of your Bible you will find God spoke through:

• His written Word
• Signs and wonders
• Nature
• Visions and dreams
• Angels
• Prophets and fellow saints
• Words...direct messages

As you look through the list, is there any method of communication that you are not open to receiving from God? As you grow in faith expect to hear God with fresh anointing and in new ways.

God is a communicator. He spoke life into the Earth and Heavens. Surely, he will speak to us in our time of need.

God has a reason for speaking. He cares about you and wants to see His plans produce fruit.

Listen for His voice this week. Really listen.


Right thinking,

Pastor Steve

Hearing God in Fruit

The correlation between hearing God and seeing fruit in our lives is undeniable.

When God speaks, this is what he expects from us in return:

1. God expects our immediate and wholehearted response to his voice. If we’re not sure it was God it’s okay to ask for confirmation; but, once we have it, Instant Obedience is a Bible principle. (Matthew 4:21-22)
2. God wants us to have urgency about souls. Ask yourself, do I have compassion for the lost and hurting people in this world? (Matthew 9:36)
3. God speaks where we need more of his voice, where we are often weak or lacking. The Bible offers countless examples of when God spoke and how it directly related to a weakness of the hearer.

If the Kingdom of God is right thinking, peace and joy then let’s start the week by thinking right about hearing God’s voice and expecting results in our life.

When we hear God, it should change our belief system which will cause us to have intense focus on producing fruit for his kingdom. Believing releases God’s thoughts into our minds. Right believing shuts down temptations and detours in God’s plan for our life.

When the Word goes forth it will PRODUCE a RESULT. It will not return to God empty. (Isaiah 55:9-11).

Believe God and ACT immediately on His word.

Right thinking,

Pastor Steve

Eternal Light

Eternal Light is out there somewhere, but it’s a hard concept to grasp.

It's hard to understand or describe something we haven’t experienced.

But we can look forward to Eternal Light. Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:11 that “because we are looking forward to this eternal light or eternal glory that we should make our lifestyle focused on living Godly and right”

CS Lewis said, “It is because Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one.”

We have an obligation to live our lives with an eternal perspective.

There are some things we probably wouldn't do or say if we lived today in LIGHT of eternity.

Know that the promise of eternal light is for you. Make it personal!

Be effective in this life and walk in love today.

When we walk in love, we show the Light of Jesus.

Right thinking,

Pastor Steve

Fading Light

Do you ever feel like you're running on empty?

When we feel like we are on running "E" it’s a good sign we need revival in our lives. Revival shouldn't be a designated week every year in which we seek God for a fresh touch.

Revival should always be an event that is followed by a process.
The process for revival should be a series of choices we make everyday to seek fresh light from God in his presence.

Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). It's rare that we miss a meal, but often some Christians will go days, weeks or even longer without prayer and scripture reading. Is it any wonder so many of us are empty?

Living life, serving others, and using our gifts takes fuel that can only be found in God's presence. This week let's seek more of God's light and wake up every morning with an expectation of revival in our hearts.

Revival is a matter of choice. Be intentional. Don’t let your light fade.

Right thinking,

Pastor Steve

Spot Light

If what Shakespeare said is true, "All the world is a stage..." then what would be different in the world today if we focused our spot light on other people instead of shining it on ourselves? What would happen in our lives if we made our focus more about others and less about ourselves?

The temptation to focus on self instead of others is probably the greatest temptation believers face today.

It's true temptation can come in many different forms. The things that tempt you may not necessarily tempt me, but there is one principle that all temptation seems to share When it comes to sin and temptation - it's all about me. The spot light goes from being focused on others to being inwardly focused. It becomes all about me, what I want, what I need, what I think.

Temptation leads us to believe that life is all about us.

We must shine our spot light on others, submit ourselves to God, resist every temptation with the Word as Jesus did. When we do that, “ the devil will flee from us.”

Take courage...he himself suffered when he was tempted and his able to help those of us being tempted. You WILL be able to stand up under it.

Want less. Serve more.

Right thinking,

Pastor Steve

Parable of the Two Sons

Jesus always gives us an opportunity to repent and be restored. I’m so thankful for his grace.

In the Parable of the Two Sons, the Father gave his sons an opportunity to honor him through obedience. We read that one son openly rebelled against his father, later repented and went to work. The other son gave his word he would help but later broke his promise to his father.

When Jesus asked the Pharisees and Sadducees which of the two sons had completed the request of the father ... Jesus asked us to search our hearts through the mirror of the Word. Are we instantly obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit?

How often do you feel the move of the Spirit but fail to step-out to do what your heart is telling you to do? The Spirit of God instructs us throughout the day--not just at church. Hurting people in your life may be depending upon our instant obedience to the spirit.

Let us be known as a people who value actions over words.

This week, make a decision to be instantly obedient to our Heavenly Father in every aspect of His leadership. While we are busy DOING the work of the Lord, young lives will be impacted as we preach a sermon by our actions.

Generations to follow will be impacted by what we do today. Our sons and daughters hear what we say and watch what we DO.

Let’s not let our good intentions be trumped by a failure to do.

Right Thinking,

Pastor Steve

Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders

Does your hearing lead to doing?

Kingdom Living is hearing what God is saying to you and then doing it. As it says in the book of James, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." Your foundation becomes solid when you base it on Jesus and come up higher in your daily walk with Him.

Consider the parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders. Jesus doesn’t teach us how to build our house in a storm free area. Instead, He teaches us to build our house on a foundation that can survive in the midst of a storm. His words are a guide to storm survival and obeying God with all our hearts.

I think most of us living in tornado alley know about storms. It seems every news channel routinely offers tornado survival tips and how best to prepare when a deadly storm hits.

How much more prepared should we be for the storms of life by building our foundation on the Rock of the Lord Jesus Christ! We’re to build our house on Kingdom Living principles…and strive to live in complete obedience to His Word.

It is easy to understand why Jesus begins many of His parables with the simple word, “listen.” He wants to show us how to plug into His power through a willing obedience in Him.

Build a strong foundation on His Word. Upon that rock, your house can weather any storm.

Right thinking,

Pastor Steve

Parable of the Banquet Table

Do you struggle with Kingdom Living? Is it hard to think right and live in peace and joy?

We all know that there are only two kingdoms. So, if I manage to yank myself out of the Kingdom of God with stinkin’ thinkin’...there’s only one other kingdom available for me. And I don’t want to spend one minute in the Kingdom of Darkness.

The Parable the Great Banquet is a parable of Kingdom Living. This parable suggests it is possible to have a feast at the banquet table in this life. Don't wait to celebrate and live a joy-filled life once you get to heaven, live a life of joy today! Jesus said, “I come that you might have life and that you may have it more abundantly.”

Are you living an abundant life? Really think about it. Abundant???

This parable should remind us that Christianity is not about what happens to you when you die, it is about the quality of your life on Earth. Better Outcomes!!!

We all need to LOSE THE EXCUSES we have for not living in the kingdom of God here on earth. Excuses are a condition of the heart, ask God to remove excuses of any kind from your vocabulary.

Enter His presence and understand who He is, what He says about you, and what He wants for you.

Let's think right and connect with one another at the banquet table of abundant living.

The Kingdom of God is within you!

Right thinking,

Pastor Steve

Parable of the Tenant

The first question that needs to be answered in a study of parables is the same question asked by the disciples of Jesus.

“Why do you teach in parables?”

The answer Jesus gave his disciples is that those who seek him earnestly will be rewarded with fresh anointing. Scripture confounds the wise. Knowledge is good for building a religion...not so much for building a relationship. Jesus is always interested in building relationships and will continue to teach people who want a relationship with him.

In Matthew 21:33-40, Jesus tells the Parable of the Tenants. The tenants do not want to abide by the agreement (covenant) they made (cut) with the landowner to share the harvest. They wanted to keep everything for themselves. The tenants even beat or killed the landowner’s servants and murdered his son when the landowner sent them to the harvest to collect his portion.

I believe Jesus taught this parable so He could teach us three critical truths about His kingdom and the steps to gaining His blessings through His covenant relationship with us.

Love God (the Landowner) with all our hearts and minds. He is the one who gives us breath and every good thing in life that we enjoy. Love God and honor Him.

We produce fruit by loving one another. Through love we spread the LIGHT of Jesus to our community.

Give back to God what is already His. God’s kingdom works on the powerful principle of sowing and reaping. Bring God your First-fruits.

Remember, ducks weren’t created to simply waddle through life from pond to pond. God gave them wings to fly. When ducks take flight, they produce the fruit God intended for them.

God gave you special gifts and talents to help you produce fruit in the vineyard God created for you.

This is your year of great possibilities.

Trust God. Waddle less. Fly more.

Love,

Pastor Steve

Life Made Whole

In the last few weeks, I’ve been speaking about the ways we scramble our lives and how we can make things better in a right relationship with God.

It’s my belief, there’s no habit, sin, or lack in our lives we can’t overcome if we correct our wrong thinking, now. We all need to seek the Lord for a fresh and re-newed way of thinking.

I believe it’s His ultimate desire to see us transformed. But it has to come through a process of learning to be in His presence and to love people.

As a church, our goal is to take people through that process every day to help them find significant living in Him.

It all starts with a commitment to Connect. The leaders at Bixby Community Church are committed to helping you connect with God and encounter Him in a real and meaningful way. By connecting we learn to love.

When we connect with God we will be lead by Him to connect with His people. We encourage you to connect with other people who are connected to God.

The next step in the process is to help you Grow. Through our Wednesday and Sunday services, Business Fellowship, leadership training, children’s classes, adult Sunday school classes, youth gatherings, prayer meetings, social media and Daily Bible Reading, we want to help you grow in your relationship with the Lord Jesus. Growing in Him helps us to be renewed in our minds and hearts.

How do we develop right thinking and better beliefs? By training! Through classes and Bible study, more light will appear in your life to help your beliefs line-up with what is true.

The final step in our process is to Serve. In fact, that’s the reason we connect and grow …to serve God and to serve the needs of others. By serving God and serving others we will have the greatest opportunity to impact the fourth generation.

Life is made whole by connecting, growing and serving.

I’m very blessed to connect with you as your Pastor, to grow together, so that we can serve and impact Gen 4.

Don’t miss our July 4, Sunday morning service. I will be preaching a powerful lesson on freedom. We are all in a form of bondage to ourselves. Let’s make this 4th of July Celebration, a life changing weekend as we learn to celebrate freedom from our limiting beliefs.

Please help us Feed Families on the Fourth. Visit our website if you would like more information. BCC will bless 100 families with a great basket of food on this holiday weekend. Be a part of the giving!

Love,

Pastor Steve

Learning Made Whole Blog

Are you closer to God today than you were last year at this time? Are you healthier, wealthier today versus last year? Are you happier?

If your answers to these questions are no, then maybe you're not learning from the lessons in your life. Learning impacts our beliefs at the point where we make our daily decisions. If our beliefs don’t change according to what we learn in life, then how will our decisions produce a positive outcome?

The reality is if you don’t make changes based on your learning…then the quality of your decisions will show it…and so will the outcomes in your life. We all need to learn that there is a vast difference between knowledge and learning. "Knowledge puffeth up." Learning causes change to occur in our life.

Consider King David in the Old Testament. David knew God and understood His precepts. Sadly, David, a man after God's own heart, struggled to learn. After David sinned with Bathsheba, he prayed in Psalm 51:10, "create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." David asked God to show him how to learn because his sinful nature was clearly getting in the way of his spiritual growth. He cried out to God with a strong heart seeking change.

Maybe you're like David and need a fresh touch from God to help you to learn and create true change in your life. Maybe you need a breakthrough that will help you apply your understanding to know God in a new and intimate way.

Whatever the case, I want you to know, your learning can be made whole through God’s fresh anointing today. Walk in the light of His Word and seek His face.

Flee from darkness and seek FRESH anointing from God today. "Here a little, there a little, precept upon precept, line upon line.

Stay out of the shade!

Love,

Pastor Steve

Power or Effort?

If you didn’t realize it before I started this series, there are some remarkable similarities between Bixby, Corinth and probably any other city we could name.

This past Sunday, we looked at how the Church in Corinth was beginning to move in their own effort and strength. What they failed to realize was that as men their fruits were limited and their effectiveness was doomed to failure because they were working from a purely self-motivated mindset.

Sounds like something all of us have been guilty of in some capacity or another.

If we’re doing something on our own without God, and we’re struggling at it, then we’re trying to work in our own strength. That’s a sure sign of failure and will only result in our nature working against us. Not only that, but when it's our effort, most times, our work will never reach heights of significance.

Have you noticed how most people, who work in their own strength or in their own effort, are often double minded or even multi-minded? James 1:8 says that a "double minded person is unstable in all his ways."

If there are days you are confused and deeply divided, if you find your values are being compromised, that is not God's best for you. Try to quit working in your own strength, in your own effort and allow God to use His power through you.

There is one simple key to operating in the power of God and not in your own effort…we must enter His presence.

Remember in Exodus 33 how he yearned for God’s presence whether in the desert or in the Promise Land. Israel wasn't about to move into the Promise Land in their own effort. Moses refused to go anywhere, including the Promised Land, unless they were being lead by God’s presence. Moses told God, unless you go before us, we'll stay here. We will not leave your presence.

Don't you wish we could say what Moses said. In God's presence, our thinking becomes right, and peace, joy, and love become more evident in our hearts.

If we step away from it or try to operate in our own strength, then it can spell trouble for us. Start your day in the presence of God through prayer, Daily Bible Reading, praise and worship. And then CHOOSE to seek His presence throughout your day.

The kingdom of God is not a matter of talking, it's a matter of power. Power is received in God's presence.

Love,

Pastor Steve

PS. Make a commitment this week to pray this prayer found in Exodus 33:13-14: "Dear God, I pray that you would be pleased with me, continue to teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you, and so that your presence will go with me, and you will give me rest."