Corby Stephens

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” John 15:7

It would be very easy to go on a tangent that most prosperity teachers go on when confronting these words of Jesus. That tangent would be focusing asking for what you desire and it being done for you. While this isn’t something to neglect it isn’t the main thing. Yes God wants to bless us. Yes God wants to do amazing things in and through us. What is the main thing in this verse? It’s the word “abide”.

“Abide” means to remain, not to depart, to continue to be, to wait for. Jesus tells us to abide in Him. The focus of our lives ought to be Him. Everything in our lives ought to be in Him. There ought to be no difference between sacred and secular. Everything is sacred. Live in Christ.

Next Jesus tells us that His words are to abide in us. Jesus spoke commandments. He spoke encouragement. He spoke correction. He spoke instruction. How do we get His words to abide in us? What does that mean? In many other places Jesus calls His words, and indeed Himself, the bread of live. You eat bread. You consume it. It goes into you and feeds your body. That’s what we need to do with His word, the Bible. With all the technology we have to day you can read it, you can listen to it, you can watch it, you can memorize it, there are all kinds of ways to get it into you. If you get it into you, it will feed you, just like bread. Most people eat food everyday, We need to “eat” God’s word everyday.

What do iPods have to do with this? I think every Christian ought to have an MP3 player. Why? Because you can get the Bible on CD and “rip” it into your computer, put it on your iPod, and listen to it anywhere. You can even get the Bible in MP3 format. In addition to God’s word, you can get great Bible teaching in MP3 format. Over the last two years I have listened through the Bible twice. Once through the text of the Bible and again listening to one of my favorite teachers teach verse-by-verse through the Bible. True I used to spend 4-6 hours in the car everyday, but we all have time in our day where we can listen to God’s word so that it abides in us. You can do it while you exercise, while you go to work, in some cases while you are at work, you might even give up your favorite TV show and listen to a couple of chapters a night. Get an MPr player. You can get them for around $100. It will be a tremendous spiritual investment.

Here is the pay off. As Jesus said, if we abide in Him, and His words abide in us, guess what kids of things we will desire? Instead of desiring things that feed our flesh like new cars, clothes, computers, etc., you will desire the things you have been learning from Jesus. You will desire the things He wants for you and of course, He will do those things for you. See? In the proper context, when you look at this verse in its entirety, you see that it isn’t about what you want or your flesh wants, it’s about growing in Him.

Push play.

The world’s concept of love, even much of the church’s concept of love isn’t always what the Bible teaches us about love. One concept of “church growth” is to “love people into the kingdom.” What they mean by this is to be extra nice to people, invite them over for food, develop relationships with them, things along those lines. Those things are great. There is nothing wrong with them and we should do them, but not with some ulterior motive in mind, even one so noble as getting people saved. Those kinds of things ought to be an out-growth, a fruit, a byproduct of genuine Biblical love.

What kind of love did Jesus practice? When He was with hookers, tax collectors, and “sinners” He pointed out their sin (John 4), but not in a condemning way. These people already felt condemned. They recognized their need of a savior, someone who could take their guilt and shame away and not throw it in their faces. That’s what Jesus did. When Jesus was with the Pharisees and self-righteous religious rulers, he most directly pointed out their sin, their pride, their spiritual faults. Did He do it in order to condemn them? Did he do it to shove it in their arrogant faces? Nope. He did it with the same heart and same goal in mind He had with the other “sinners.” His desire, His heart for all of us is to have a right relationship with Him.

What does this mean for us? How do we love someone into the kingdom? We show them Jesus. We reflect Him in our lives. When someone knows that they have blown it, they don’t need us to make them feel better about themselves, nor do they need someone to hold it over their heads. They need someone to point them to the forgiveness and restoration that comes through Jesus. When someone is a bit to full of themselves, when they think they have it all together spiritually and go around pointing out the flaws in others, we need to show them Jesus too. We need to point out to them His example of humility, self sacrifice, and what their true position in Christ is. All of these things are examples of Biblical love in our lives for others.

So, all you need is love. Jesus’ love.

How do you measure growth? And once you know how to measure it, how do you achieve it? Many, if not most, churches and ministries these days measure growth by the amount of activity that is going on and by the amount of people involved in those activities. Those people may be leaders or participants but it seems like “bigger is better” in the eyes of the church. Back in the gold rush days many people were fooled by fool’s gold. They thought they had the real thing only to find out it was worthless. In the same way, big numbers are the church’s equivalent of fool’s gold. While it is true that the Holy Spirit blessed the early church with large numbers of converts, how did that happen? God did bless with numbers, but what was the process or the cost of those numbers? The answer is simple: personal, individual growth.

What you need to do to grow your ministry is to first grow yourself. Growth has to happen in you before it happens in others over which you have influence. How do you grow yourself? You don’t do it by setting up a set of rules for yourself like I tried to do. That’s legalism. It’s true that there are certain TV shows, movies, music, hobbies you probably shouldn’t participate in. But the reason for not participating in them should not be simply because it may be bad for you or God might not like it. It should be because you don’t want ANYTHING to interfere with your love relationship with the Lord. That’s holiness. The difference between legalism and holiness is where your heart is. If you want others to love God then you need to love Him. They need to see it in you. It needs to ooze off of you and on to others.

Study God’s word for yourself, for your own benefit. Keep track of what you learn and how the Lord changes you through your study of His word. Then, teach others what you have learned. Teach them what you learn, what is changing in you, how you are growing. As you do this, growth will happen in the lives of your people. Personal growth begins with personal Bible study but it doesn’t end there. It used to be that people would share tapes of great Bible studies or great Bible teachers with each other. Now the thing is MP3s and podcasts. Over the past two years I have been an MP3 fiend. I used to spend 4-6 hours in the car every day. To kill time I would watch DVDs on my laptop. Well, I wouldn’t watch them I would listen to them. Listening to a 2-hour movie makes a 2-hour dive go much faster. Once I got bored with my movies I discovered a teacher of mine from Bible college who had all his stuff in MP3 format. He was now a full-time pastor teaching through the Bible. So I downloaded his stuff to my computer and listened to that in the car. I then won an iPod in a contest and put all his stuff on that, in addition to another pastor I really enjoyed. It was awesome! I realize that most people don’t have that much time to listen to stuff but most people have more time than they realize. What is more beneficial for your walk with the Lord: catching your favorite TV show or digging into an MP3 of what you are studying? Again we come back to the legalism/holiness question. I would never presume to tell someone what to do or not to do in this situation. I would tell them to seek the Lord about it.

So what I’m trying to say is grow yourself. Spend your time, effort, and energy in making that your priority. As you do, those in your ministry will grow. As they grow, they will automatically tell others about their relationship with Jesus, and the numbers will come. The numbers aren’t to goal, they are the fruit, the byproduct.

To do, or not to do? What is it we want to be or do? If you want to be like Mike you learn how to play basketball. You live and breath basketball. You play it. You practice it. You hang around others who have a similar passion for the game. All of that is important. What is just as important is learning how not to play the game. It’s true that if you spent all of your time focusing on what not to do you wouldn’t learn what to do. My point is that you can’t ignore the lessons of what not to do.

I have been a full-time and volunteer youth pastor in the past. I have never sat in “the big chair” of being THE pastor of a church. I have learned a lot about what to do and how to be a pastor. I also have much more to learn. I have recently learned some lessons on what not to be and to do and fortunately I didn’t have to learn it for myself. I had the chance to observe it in someone else.

I don’t want to go into to many details. Suffice it to say that if you want to see growth in a church or ministry, you need to have your focus in the right place, not in the wrong place. We can focus on the wrong thing and hope to have a particular result, but we won’t get it. We need to focus on the main thing, deliberately, in order to see the results you seek.

I know this whole entry might sound cryptic or ambiguous, but I hope you see my point. Make the main thing the main thing. Focus on what is important, not on what you want. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”