Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
9/23/2022
Who's Your 5?
I was watching the football game and saw Patrick Mahomes in a commercial talking about Owning the Moment. I paused the TV and started to write…
What if you could own a moment when everything is on the line? You know…4th quarter, you’re going deep. The last play of the game. It was all up to you… For all the glory.
Most of us don’t get those hail-Mary moments but Jesus does ask us to
“OWN OUR MOMENTS” But in Humility …. in dependence on Christ alone.
Romans 12:3 ESV
"For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned".
1 Corinthians 13:11 "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways."
Every day we get to decide to go left or right or forward or back. The truth is that too many of those daily choices have impacted and changed our lives and our families negatively. We need to own the truth of how we've failed walking alone, trying to do it our way.
Jesus is saying if you give me your life… I AM, The Almighty God of the Universe will give you a real-life worth living beyond your imagination. What would you do for that? What would you give up for that?
You get to decide how you’re going to live your life going from this moment forward. This is not about considering the failures of the past. And it’s not about the goals and dreams of the future. It’s about a decision that you make right here… right now to follow God with everything you have or to continue in the lukewarm, tentative, and halfhearted effort that we have lived in for too long!
Moses parted the Red Sea but when his arms grew tired and started to fail him, Aaron and Joshua held up his arms so the people could continue the rest of the way on dry ground. Take a look around you…Who are your Joshua and Aaron? Who makes up the five of your inner circle and what part are they playing in your spiritual growth and you in theirs?
Many of you are part of a small group of people you are growing with in your faith. But it isn’t enough to just sit with them… we have to be transformed by the renewing of our minds to make a difference in the secular side of our lives. Each of us needs people on our left and right to hold us up when we are faltering or failing beyond meeting them on Sunday or in a small group.
Why? So there is someone to hold up your arms when you grow weary. When you grow weak… when you stumble and falter and maybe fall at times. You'll be there to pick them up too.
Romans 12:2 says…” AND DO NOT BE CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD, BUT TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND, THAT YOU MAY PROVE WHAT THE WILL OF GOD IS, THAT WHICH IS GOOD AN ACCEPTABLE AND PERFECT”. We cannot hope to do that by walking alone.
We are certainly not smarter than Moses. Exodus 14:21 I don’t get the impression that Joshua or Aaron waited for Moses to say my arms are growing weak, support me! I think they were so close to him that they saw it.
I think Joshua hollered at Aaron over the roar of the water, being pushed back by the wind, and shouted… “Aaron grab ahold of his arms, lift them up… he’s getting tired”. And they had his six.
That’s what accountability is, that is what brotherhood is…you make time to make a call and say I’m struggling with this flirtatious person at work. Or I'm struggling with porn help me, or my temperament at home is destroying my marriage, point me in the right direction.
But they’ll be more times that those brothers and sisters on your left and your right are going to just ask you point blank about what you’re struggling with today. They will have been praying for you and lifting you up in the spirit to give you the strength you can’t even see. And it won’t be long before you grow enough in the spirit that you’ll be doing the same for them.
If you want to own a moment that will be part of your highlight reel… it can start right here… right now. Lift up your hands this morning and pray this prayer with me.
Father God… Forgive us… Lord we repent of the Pride to do life on our terms, our way, and today Lord we are tearing down those walls of pride, self-sufficiency, and self-exaltation and we surrender ourselves at the foot of the cross and crucify our pride!
Father, I lift up my hands and I pray for those people you have ordained to be in my life to be my Joshua and Caleb. Father, I commit to praying them into my life. Lord, I’m committed to finding my five…my accountability partners.
Lord Help me to be a person humble enough to ask for help… transparent enough to speak the truth about my struggles and failures so I can be a better child of God, parent, and friend.
TODAY LORD…Not tomorrow… WE ARE GOING TO OWN THIS MOMENT AND WE ARE DEDICATING IT TO YOU AND COMMITTING to pray these people into our lives. Lord we are making more room inside by denying and killing our old man, so you can work more mightily in us. It is not by might, not by power but by your spirit that we can do this, saith the Lord. AMEN
God of Revival Jen and Brian Johnson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFWF9rSAWF8&list=RDCLAK5uy_mU14EejSbDsfLuPc9KpNzoC0o-YQvi6I4
