Happy New year to all

To all my family, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who may read this, I wish you all a very wonderful and prosperous New Year.  May God's very richest blessings be with you all.

Dock and Norma Caton

OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS

Sometimes the suffering you or I go through, is not for us at all but perchance for some one else.  Sometimes we don’t even know where the prayers we send up may be directed.  Sometimes the sins of another person will keep us in agony, and the one in sin may not be suffering at all.  It may be the one who is praying is doing so in the other persons behalf and the other person doesn’t even know he is walking on shaky ground.  A prayer may take a long time before it finally reaches it’s destination.  But be assured, when one truly prays in the spirit someone will be affected.    

This message has to do with righteousness, character, self -control, or discipline.  Call it what you will, but it has to do with walking close to God.  It has to do with fitness and preparation, before we are ready to carry the message with passion and power that Christ wants and expects of us.  It must be dealt with before we can be considered a disciple: His follower.

It has to do with the fourth declaration of the beatitudes: the call to righteousness.

It would be nice to sit here and write about all my righteousness, the things I have accomplished, my good deeds, etc.  But the truth is my righteousness is only filthy rags.  However, one thing I am gradually learning is a hunger and thirst to find righteousness.  Obviously, I will never reach it in this body, but it has become something that I long for.  My body hungers and thirsts and my soul agonizes for this righteousness that can only come from God.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.  Matthew 5:6

Notice that it is not the one who attains righteousness that is pronounced blessed, but the one who hungers and thirsts for it.  God knows the real you.  He sees the mixed impure motives behind your good deeds. 

It is a great comfort to know that God meets us at the point of our aspirations, not at the point of all the supposed successes, superficial achievements and accomplishments that we have attained in our present state of mass confusion.  He is far more interested in our intentions than any of our successes.  No matter how far we fall short from perfect righteousness, God will reward us if we hunger and thirst for it.  We will be filled.                                              

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus said,  “He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never be thirsty” John 6:35. 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.  

The reason for much of the disorder and conflict in our world can be traced back to someone settling for something less than God himself. The problem is not that we want too much, but rather we easily become satisfied with cheap substitutes of God, which in reality is idolatry.

Today we are threatened with many types of pollution.  Water, air, and noise pollution threaten our physical environment.  But it is the pollution in the heart that threatens our spiritual environment. It is contaminated by toxic substances like pride, covetousness, lust anger, gluttony, envy and sloth all deadly sins that contaminates our heart and blinds us to the presence of God. 

Every time I begin a true search for righteousness, I fall short and come up empty.  I am left wondering what I can do in my distress and agony to reach the heart of God.  And the more I search, the more I realize just how far from the measure I really am.  I can only turn to and scrutinize the words of our Master Teacher penned by the Apostle Paul:    

As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”  Romans 3:10-12

True righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  Romans 3:22

How could on possibly improve on such profound and prolific measures. 

Dock Caton 11/28/2011

ANGELS

What are Angels?  Are they for real?  Are they a figment of the imagination?  What a great topic to think about.  This subject came about as a result of our morning men’s quest to truly seek out the heart of God.

We plan to be very deliberate in this coming year on discovering what God wants and expects of us as his disciple.  We want to go full range from understanding the Word, and growing in the faith, to the ability to take it out to rub shoulders with the dying masses.  We want to learn how to share our faith with those in our (daily grind) in such a way that they can see God at work in our lives.   We were all in agreement to begin our next study from the book of Matthew, Scott Leuchter set us on a perfect (course) by asking some riveting questions from Matthew 2 and 3 such as:  How does God speak to you?  Does he speak through dreams, men, our conscience, or perhaps even through angels?   Out of chapter 3, in looking at the life of John the Baptist, Scott asked; do we practice what we preach?  How are we preaching and living out God in our lives, and would our friends and family concur with our answers to these questions. 

From our first study, emerged an interesting conversation around the study of angels, thus creating a spark, for the topic of our next study.  Let’s take a deeper look at angels, from the scripture particularly from chapters 3 and 4 of Matthew.   Note the words, voices, prophets, dreams, and demons; can any or all of the above be angels?   Exactly what are angels?  Dr. Paul Eymnann and Dr. john Bechtel put together a study from which much of the content in the following outline was taken. 

Angels are mentioned 108 times in the Old Testament, and 165 times in the New.  So where did they come from?  What do they look like?  Do they have bodies?  These and thousands of other questions could be asked on the subject.  As we attempt to answer a few questions, on this topic, we need to be very careful, to stay right with the scripture, and not reach out to hear say, or revert to stories that are unconfirmed.

Where did Angels come from?  Below you will find notations of scripture that touch on the reality of angels. 

  I.              They are usually described as a range of Spirits (both good and evil) that God created. 

II.            Do they have bodies?  Hebrews 1:14; Luke 24:37-39.

III.         They can take on many appearances.

A.   Ordinary people: Job 1:14; Luke 7:24; & 9:52.

B.   Prophets: Isaiah 42:19; Malachi 3:1

C.    Priests: Malachi 2:7

D.   Church leaders:  Revelation 1:20

E.    Pillars of cloud: Exodus 14:19

F.    Pestilences and plagues: 2^nd Samuel 24:16-17                     

IV.          What do they look like? Col. 1:16; 2^nd Kings 6:17; Genesis 18

A.   Appear as male and female: Zechariah 5:9

B.   Sometimes pictured with wings.  Isaiah 6:2-6; Daniel 9:21; Zechariah 5:9.

V.             How do they compare to humans?

A.   Stronger, but not omnipotent.  Psalms 103:20; 2nd Peter

                         2:9

                   B.  Greater in knowledge, but not omniscient.  2^nd Samuel.  

                   C.   Able to move around, but not omnipresent.  Daniel 9:23 

                          Daniel 10:14.                    

   VI.      Some Angels are elect: 1st Timothy 5:21; Matthew25:31;                                                   

              Mark 8:38; Matthew 12:32               

  VII.     There are bad angels under leadership of Satan (demons,                   

              minions) Matthew 25:41; 2^nd Peter 2:4; Jude 6;          

              Ephesians 6:12                    

VIII.     Job description:                        

A.   Cherubim:  Ezekiel 1

B.   Seraphim:   Isaiah 6

C.    Notable names:  Michael, Daniel 10:13; Jude 9

D.   Gabriel:  Daniel 9:21; Luke 19:26

  IX.     Their tasks:

A.   Worship / Praise:  Isaiah 6:1-3; Revelation 4:5

B.    Reveals: Acts 7:52,53; Daniel and Revelation.

C.    Guides:  Matthew 1 & 2 about the birth of Jesus.

D.   Provides:  Genesis 21:17-20;1^st Kings 19:6; Matthew 4:11

E.    Protects:  Daniel in the lion’s den; 3 friends in the fiery furnace.  Daniel 3:6.

F.    Delivers:  Acts 5 & 12

G.   Strengthens and encourages: Matthew 4:11; Acts 5:19-20; &12:1-17

H.   Answers prayers:  Daniel 9:20-14; 10:10-12;  12:1-17.

I.     Cares for believers at the moment of death: Luke 16:22

             

From this simple outline, a lot can be learned, but we cannot even begin to think we have captured the fullness of what angels really are, and what they do.   We can only look to the words of Daniel for a glimpse of what our true feelings and actions should be.  We see what happened to him in Daniel 10:7-12.  He had no strength.  He turned deathly pale, he felt helpless, and then he heard someone speaking.  He went trembling to his hands and knees.         He then stood up still trembling.  Then He heard the voice of God: “Do not be afraid Daniel.  Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.”

That’s the kind of disciple I long to be, and I pray that we all will set our goals and visions to be men of God, leaders of our Church and family that will take on such a prayer life, that the dreams, the voices, the messengers and angels, will speak back and say that He has come in response to our words.                   

Deb’s Saga Continues

Following is the latest information on our kids venture to seek permanent residence in Spain.  Below are Skype words from Deb, as she explains their situation.  

Debbie wrote on Skype... 10:30 AM, 12/16/11

Just got my letter yesterday.  I have to leave Spain. My appeal process got rejected.  (We knew it would) I'm actually fine with that, and so is everyone else

They don't have a deadline for me to leave but I’m officially "IRREGULAR" as of now, so the sooner the better.

If I were ILLEGAL, I'd have 72 hours.  Since I'm IRREGULAR I just have to prove I'm doing something. I have plane tickets (our old ones) so that's proof enough. But we need a couple of weeks to think about it all and pick our best possible solution, but the sooner the better....

Irregular means, if I were to hit someone while driving, and have to show my papers, I'd run the risk of EXPULSION, which would make me ILLEGAL.  At that point I wouldn't be able to enter again for three years, so we cannot afford that risk.  The lawyers are on it, and I won't drive a car etc., but since I’m irregular that just means I am invited to re-enter the process from my country of origin, but to do that I need a letter of invitation from HERE, so it's actually explainable for me to stay a few days to get that. That is one letter out of other things I have to collect to do the visa thing like Giles did. 

IF there are ANY other loopholes, to buy any more time...the lawyer will call on Monday, but it's doubtful for now...it looks like I'll come to the USA for two months, and the third month, possibly attend two conferences that I WAS going to miss (Women's retreat in Germany and Youth Summit with meeting Giles, in Croatia) then return to Spain as a tourist.  After that I would return back to the States in spring for IC then back to Spain till summer, and go WITH the family back to the States.  Giles speaks at TImberlee, so I would be with him, then remain in the States until my 6 months is up.  It should be fun Ha.  I might as well get some traveling done, huh? I MIGHT even get to be there in time to see a baby born?????

This also might mean I will miss Bekah and Jacob's bdays in January. But we may just do their bdays early with BIG presents instead of a party.  I guess there's still a chance that Monday we'll hear something else, But I think this is it

We had a great devotion time together, and we ALL know the Lord knows what he's doing again!

I'm gonna talk with Giles a few minutes, and will Skype you guys in a few hours when our guests leave and we have processed a bit.  Love you.    Deb

God has blessed me with the finest group of men who meet every Thursday morning at 6:00 a.m.  Intermingled within are some 15 triads, (groups of 3 men who meet regularly for accountability to each other.  The following two articles were originally directed to them, but hopefully might be of interest to others out in the cyber world.  

AN APOSTOLIC MOVEMENT, BASED ON THE DNA OF GC CHURCH

Recently I was challenged with a book recommended by our pastor, entitled “On The Verge”.   At first glance, I was not really interested, because I thought it was just another big splash and a “flash in the pan” copying other books of the past of reformation of the Church such as  “Jesus People,”  “Charismatic movement”, Contextualization (The Gospel in Context), The Chinese and Korean movements etc., all who in reality have said almost the same thing in just different ways.  And who knows, this could be just another of the same, but at least it is a fresh undertaking.  And even words out of the book say, if people are not constantly accepting change, they will die.

Apart from the fact that I still have not finished reading all of its almost 350 pages, and that it may be a little too deeply advanced theologically for my pea brain, once I got into it, I concluded it has a lot to offer.   I began to see, that the authors Alan Hirsch, and David Ferguson have put together some material that I believe could be beneficial not only to our men, but also to our entire Church.  As a matter of fact, I think we could say much of it is already being put into practice at Ginger Creek without our even realizing it. 

The thing we have been missing in our men’s ministry, and in the church over the past few years is consistency and sustainability.  In part that is a problem that comes from the loss of the Apostolic influence.   For the past several decades, we have looked at the Pastor as everything in the Church.  He is the paid solution to oversee every aspect of the Church; preacher, teacher, gardener, visitor, custodian, etc., In the 70’s and 80’s that began to change, and we began to see the mega churches began to develop which took on the appearance of a corporation.  Many books flooded the market on the gifts of the Spirit, and more people became involved in ministries of the Church on a voluntary basis.  But it appeared that one gift was sort of dropped out of the mix.  That was the apostolic gift.  Apostleship was sort of tossed out as we claimed that gift had died out.  But according to Hirsch, we must go back and fan into flame, or put in to practice the “gift core” Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds and Teachers, and mix this all up and tie it together with strings or cords of service with consistency.  Jesus was all of these, and was the example of what we should be doing as a disciple.  We must not run from the fact that we are called to be disciples.  As such we must put all of these into practice. The Apostle is the one who keeps stirring the pot. 

We have to retrigger what is already present in the body.  We have to awaken or reawaken the gifts, and see that they are all at work.  The Apostle is one of those gifts and Hirsch says that the apostolic life needs to be reclaimed.  In every seed, there is a forest, if the artist can capture the forest in his painting, or if the Church can see the gifts that lie within its body, then we will be able to see this great forest in the light that Jesus would have us to see it.   The Apostle is out sewing the seeds of heavens fruits.  The Evangelist is only there to bring in the harvest.  The Apostle is the seed scatterer, an ambassador of God.   We must have that to create a true people movement like has been seen in Korea, parts of China and other parts of the World.

Your baptism is your commission.  That is what ties us into the work of the ministry.  That is the outward expression of our love, and a sign to the world we are redeemed and are going to tell others about his love for us.  It is His love that works the miracles, and it is the love that is going to make us a “missional” church capable of reaching the 60%. 

We are to advance, not to be on the defense.  Our worldview  (paradigm) is or should be just one sentence of 3 words.   “Jesus is Lord”.  He is a sending God, and once again gave the example by sending the disciples out.  Friends become comrades, team players.

Our triads, and Thursday morning men’s ministry, has put us on the cutting edge of the word “missional“.  These have come into play even without having read Hirsch and Ferguson’s book.  I see the Women at work, our missions program, small groups, teen programs, worship team, and local ministries likewise are doing the same.  Ginger Creekers are more and more becoming team players, and I believe the movement is on.  The timing is right for us to really step out and make a great impact in our community. 

Dock Caton 11/09/2011

DIATRIBE

In our previous article, we spoke of a book, entitled “On The Verge” which was recommended reading by Pastor Charles. 


Lately, I have become intrigued with this book and in my  reading, some words started to jump out at me captivating my interest, and setting me on a new path of understanding Discipleship.  We previously wrote about two particular words from this same book, which were apostle and missional.  Intrigue alone, pushed me on to this writing, which deals with some more interesting words.  But more important than just reading a bunch of words, it set me on a new path of trying to improve our morning men’s group and our triads with a better understanding of disciple making.

Pastor Brett, in his writings for the 21 days of prayer has been discussing the use of the word Imago Dei and trying to help us understand the power of the “image of God”.  Hirsch and Ferguson, carry this to another level, by adding the term missio dei, “the” kingdom of God and the incarnation.” Lets see what it might look like to put the two of these together.  “The image and mission of God is to make disciples who will take the whole gospel to the whole person to the whole world. This goes far beyond the depth of practice for the average believer, none-the-less, let’s plunge even a little deeper by going back to “On the Verge” and take on yet another term that teaches discipleship that was seen through the image and eyes of Jesus Christ.

How did He build the body?  How did He build the Church?  One of His sources came from the word DIATRIBE.  Dia = through, complete, tribe = rub shoulders with.  He rubbed shoulders on a daily basis with his followers.    He set the example for us of how we should go about mission (missional) and how to build leaders (teaching).  He taught his apostles that they were to go and make disciples in their Jerusalem, the arena where God had placed them. 

Do your remember at our very first meeting over two years ago when Juan introduced us to Ogden’s studies? Do you remember the very first scripture verse that he tossed out at us?  I remember as if it were yesterday.  It was the great commission.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

Paul followed suit, and taught Timothy to teach faithful and reliable men, who also would be qualified to teach others.   

2 Timothy 2:2.  He taught us how to build men of character, to build leadership skills, and how to love our wives as He loved his bride, the Church.

Ferguson says “Apostolic Genius is present, but forgotten, latent but unused in every Church, and in fact, in the same way that DNA is in every cell in a body, mDNA  (missional) DNA is also present in every cell of the body of Christ.  In other words, every believer carries the church’s potential for world transformation, and every church has the selfsame potential infused into its system.”

Now the question arises.  What are we going to about it?  By going out in our Jerusalem, and rubbing shoulders daily with every individual God places in our path, we can bring this latent DNA to life.  That is my challenge to you.   I am not sure what all this is going to look like, but I know it will be building up men in the faith. 

With God’s help, that is where I am headed in this next year.  I plan to do my part in making and building up disciples. Can I interest you in going along with me? 

Dock Caton 12/02/2011