God – Page 13 – John Markum

The Pain of Obedience

Posted on June 15, 2011 by johnmarkum

“If anyone will be my disciple, let them deny themself, take up their cross daily, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23

I think that the reason there are so many fair-weather church goers is largely because of unmet expectations. Whether the expectations are set by a pastor, friend, or their own assumptions, many people are falsely under the impression that once they “give their life to Jesus” everything gets easier. Nothing could be farther from the truth…

It is painful to follow Jesus.

I suspect this is not the word of encouragement you may have been hoping for. But the fact remains the same. While the gift of God is free, the cost of receiving it is high. In fact it’ll really only cost you one thing: everything. As a follower of Jesus, God will call you to do things that are outside your comfort zone. From trusting Him with your tithe, to sharing your faith, changing your major, breaking up with a boyfriend, inviting a total stranger to church, or relocating your family. It is painful to obey God.

But pain doesn’t have to just hurt. Pain has the ability to push us to do something different; to step out in faith and trust God as we boldly follow His leadership into the unknown and uncomfortable. When we do this we get to see not just what we are capable of, but what God is willing and longing to do through us. I don’t know anyone who God called to do ordinary, mundane things:

Abraham: “Leave everything familiar to you and go to a place that I will show you after you leave.”
Moses: “Demand my people’s freedom from the most powerful man on earth.”
Joshua: “Lead your army into battle against overwhelming odds.”
Jonah: “Go to a city you hate and preach to them.”
Mary: “Endure criticism and ridicule for being unwed and pregnant.”
Joseph: “Marry the woman who appears to have been unfaithful.”
Peter: “Step onto the water during a raging storm, in the dead of night, and walk to me.”

And on we could go. Obedience is painful. But the pain of obedience is far less than the pain of disobedience. God’s way is always better than my way. This is when faith gets difficult, but this is where faith counts. When we are at the brink of leaping into the uncomfortable or turning back into complacent disobedience God summons us, “jump!” Whatever we stand to lose pales in comparison of what we stand to gain when we get to see God move!

Don’t hold back! Be reckless! It might hurt. It will definitely cost you. But it’s so worth it! Endure the pain of obedience.

Blessings,

John

The Awakening turns 2!

Posted on May 31, 2011 by johnmarkum

This week, two years ago, Edgewood launched it’s first ever Saturday night worship service, “The Awakening.” We had a ton of ideas and dreams, and the opportunity to add a new worship experience to one of the most exciting churches in the Quad Cities. The leadership of Edgewood stood beside us and gave us the chance to begin something that few other churches are willing to take the risk on.

As a result, we have seen God move in incredible ways. We’ve experienced growth in numbers of people coming to Christ, getting baptized, families joining us, and we’re just getting started. The vision to see people far from God awakened with life in Christ beats strong in our hearts and we commit ourselves again to reaching people in the Quad Cities with the Gospel.

Two years have been amazing! Year three… you’ll just have to stick around and see what God does (although I suspect there are some soon-to-be-released posts that will give some hints)!

Join us at Edgewood this Saturday night, 6 pm, for our two year celebration.

To find out more about our Saturday night service, visit our website at www.qcawakening.com

Blessings,

John

Of Heaven and Hell

Posted on May 23, 2011 by johnmarkum

It seems as if there are times in everyone’s life that are marked with concentrated periods of stress, trouble, and tough times. It always seems to come in waves:

First you fight with your spouse over finances and the lack of time you’ve spent together.
You get to work and find out that your hours are getting cut in half.
Because you’ve been moved from full-time to part-time you realize you now lose your company-paid benefits as well.
On the way home the car starts overheating.
You check the mail on your way in to see the familiar stack of bills, that seem to be constantly rising.
You share all of this info with your spouse who starts to cry.
She then tells you all of the problems in her day: house, kids, depleted savings account, etc…
A family member called her because her mother (5 states away) is in critical care at the hospital.
To top it off, she suspects that she’s also pregnant.

Sound familiar? This story is not entirely hypothetical. More than likely, you have your own lyrics to the same song. There’s an entire message I could preach here about God’s grace through life’s difficulties, and His faithfulness to see us through. Or I could talk about the fact that God is not putting us through the fires of life to burn us, but to forge our faith and promote us to another level of His blessings. All of that would be true.

Instead I want to share a story and a simple thought that I got once from an amazing man, pastor, father, and mentor in my life from years back when I was in high school. His name is Norwood Tadlock. I went to school with all three of his kids. I knew him as my Bible teacher at my Christian high school. His wife passed away while I was still a teenager. Making similar observations as I have above, he once pointed out to me:

For those of us who know Christ, this is as close as we will ever get to Hell.

That’s a relief. The Bible even tells us that compared to Heaven, our present sufferings are but “a light affliction that is working for us a far greater weight in glory!” God is not minimizing our pain. He is simply encouraging us that one day, all of this will seem very small in comparison to Heaven. But “brother Tadlock” didn’t stop there. He quickly made the opposite observation:

For those who do not know Christ, this is as close as they will ever get to Heaven.

Frightening. And not what God wants for them, either. These thoughts coming on the back of a week full of natural disasters, false prophets, hurting people within my church, hurting people outside of church, and trying to pastor others through this messy thing called life, make me think 2 things:

1) Heaven must be unimaginably amazing. I want everyone to go there.

2) Hell must be unimaginably terrible. I don’t want anyone to go there – not even my worst enemy.

Let’s stop trying to guess at the day that Jesus is coming for us since He said that “no one knows the day, nor the hour of the coming of the Son of man,” and let’s get passionate about seeing people far from God awakened with life in Christ. We have a world to change. Let’s “endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” and make a difference.

Blessings,

John