HCC Monthly Harvest Seed

Philippians 3:10 – that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

(AMP) - And this, so that I may know Him [experientially, becoming more thoroughly acquainted with Him, understanding the remarkable wonders of His Person more completely] and [in that same way experience] the power of His resurrection [which overflows and is active in believers], and [that I may share] the fellowship of His sufferings, by being continually conformed [inwardly into His likeness even] to His death [dying as He did];

This year our focus is on Koinonia. The Fellowship that we have with each other and the Fellowship that we have with the Holy Spirit.

One of the ways that we grow in the Holy Spirit and in our relationship with God is to Fellowship with His Sufferings.

We don’t like to talk much about suffering in the church.

For many it is an uncomfortable thing although all of us experience.

Suffering for Christ and with Christ is talked about often in the Word of God.

~ Dallas Holm – One of today’s great worship leaders and song writers said –

Here in America (and elsewhere) we have so-called ministers and ministries that unashamedly proclaim that Christians should never suffer…anytime, anywhere! Their theology (or lack thereof) is illustrative of their complete ignorance of sound biblical teaching, and their insensitivity to suffering saints. I believe it also evidences a kind of elitist spiritual arrogance that is truly breathtaking! Scripture simply calls them “false teachers.”

 Fellowship and suffering? Sounds like oil and water…incompatible…opposites, unable to be together in any meaningful way.

Yet, Paul in a profound (Holy Spirit inspirited) way is able to wrap words around this sacred place of intimacy and aloneness, love and fear, peace and conflict, healing and pain…fellowship and suffering. When we walk with Jesus, We will suffer through life’s trials, but in the process of our pain we have the opportunity to fellowship with our friend, Jesus.

His sufferings become our sufferings and our sufferings become His.

- Fellowship is the union of friends sharing similar interests or problems. To suffer is to feel pain or distress.

Precious fellowship with our Savior is where we learn of Him, grow in Him and become like Him.

Webster’s definition of fellowship: companionship, a mutual association on friendly terms, a partnership or joint interest, as a fellowship of pain.

Someone said that - Our partnership of pain with Christ is an equally yoked venture with the owner of all you have—He is for you. In pain the Spirit takes you to intimate places you have never been, so you can take others to intimate places they have never been.

Suffering comes in all sizes and shapes, for many different reasons and in many different seasons.

~ Charles Spurgeon - God’s people have their trials. It was never designed by God, when he chose his people, that they should be an untried people. They were chosen in the furnace of affliction; they were never chosen to worldly peace and earthly joy. Freedom from sickness and the pains of mortality was never promised them; but when their Lord drew up the charter of privileges, he included chastisements amongst the things to which they should inevitably be heirs. Trials are a part of our lot; they were predestinated for us in Christ’s last legacy. So surely as the stars are fashioned by his hands, and their orbits fixed by him, so surely are our trials allotted to us: He has ordained their season and their place, their intensity, and the effect they shall have upon us. Good men must never expect to escape troubles; if they do, they will be disappointed, for none of their predecessors have been without them. Mark the patience of Job; remember Abraham, for he had his trials, and by his faith under them, he became the “Father of the faithful.” Note well the biographies of all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and you shall discover none of those whom God made vessels of mercy, who were not made to pass through the fire of affliction. It is ordained of old that the cross of trouble should be engraved on every vessel of mercy, as the royal mark whereby the King’s vessels of honor are distinguished. But although tribulation is thus the path of God’s children, they have the comfort of knowing that their Master has traversed it before them; they have his presence and sympathy to cheer them, his grace to support them, and his example to teach them how to endure; and when they reach “the kingdom,” it will more than make amends for the “much tribulation” through which they passed to enter it. – (Morning and Evening-March 8, Charles Spurgeon)

Soon after Paul's conversion, Ananias delivered a word from the Lord to him.

Acts 9:16 - For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

It was to be more than the personal distress of shame, rejection, persecution, and hardships. He would suffer through shipwreck, stonings, beatings, and afflictions of body and soul. He would joyfully suffer the loss of all things. In triumph over all these personal sufferings he would proclaim,

Romans 8:18 - For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

There is a glory that God wants to reveal in all of us. There are some things that we only learn, gain, and grow in only through suffering.

It is through suffering that we really learn to know Christ.

God helps us prepare for suffering by teaching us and showing us that through suffering we are meant to go deeper in our relationship with Christ.

You get to know him better when you share his pain. The people who write most deeply and sweetly about the preciousness of Christ are people who have suffered with him deeply.

It is amazing how quickly our suffering draws us to a greater intimacy with Jesus.

Think about the times you have shared with your spouse through times of suffering. This is when you really got to know one another. To understand one another.

It is a time where you drew from each other more deeply than you thought possible.

It is when you learned to be tender to each other in ways that deeply affect you.

Suffering was part of the calling of Jesus. – He came to be a living sacrifice. The same is true of us.

Philippians 3:10a - that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection,

Suffering is God’s way of drawing us close to Himself.

Our pain and our struggles help us to know Jesus in all His ways.

Isaiah 53:3 - He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

You really don’t know Jesus until you are familiar with the man that knew sorrow and was acquainted with grief.  – Jesus was familiar with pain. In all of its forms.

Job was a man of great faith who served God. God had a lot of very good things to say about Job. It was in all of the trials that Job faced that He really got to know God. It was through the painful times that job entered into a greater intimacy and understanding of God.

Job 42:5 - “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You.

When you realize that God really sees you is the moment that you really begin to see God for who He is.

Stephen was faithful in His stand for the faith and it was in the middle of his suffering that all of heaven began to open.

Acts 7:55 - But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,

1 Peter 4:14 - If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part, He is glorified.

God reserves a special coming and resting of His Spirit and His glory on His children who suffer for his name.

One of the purposes for suffering is that our relationship with God might become less formal and less artificial and less distant and become more personal and more real and more intimate and close and deep.

Suffering is personal, intimate, painful and powerful. The effect that it has on our lives for His glory and for our benefit is almost impossible to quantify.

In our year of Koinonia I am confident that we are going to grow deeper in our relationship and understanding of the Holy Spirit. Get ready…. It will be worth it all.

Remember that you are loved,
Pastor Marvin & Dawn

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

HCC Monthly Harvest Seed

Genesis 50:20 (AMP) - As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present outcome, that many people would be kept alive [as they are this day].

Psalm 34:19 - Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all.

No one likes pain.

If you do there is something wrong with the way that you are wired.

As you mature you learn to embrace pain, and to make pain work for you.

When I was playing football one of the things our coaches would tell us constantly during practice and in the weight-room was – “NO Pain, No Gain”.

While this is true and motivating it still doesn’t feel good.

Pain is important because it is a signal designed to alert us when something is wrong. Our response to pain is important because we can pay attention to it and get to the root of the problem, or we can ignore it or numb it and allow it to persist until the cause of the pain damages us. We live in a time when people want to be comforted and told that everything will be alright. The truth is that somethings are not going to be alright unless change is made.

Now in a world where hurt, depression, disappointment, and difficulty are in great supply we need encouragement, help and a lift up. 

When developing soldiers into Navy Seals all of them must go through “Hell Week” before they can earn the Seal Trident.

When my son was going through Ranger School it was an intensive time of training and testing that took them to the very limits of their physical, emotional and mental endurance before they could earn the privilege of being known as member of the “Special Forces” community.

Every believer will go through seasons of pain because God has a greater purpose for their life. We must also realize and deal with the fact that God has a greater purpose when He allows some pain to come into our lives. – Remember there is a purpose that is greater than the pain.

Joseph was about 17 years old when his brothers sold him into slavery, and he was 30 years old when the vision that God had given Him, that He would become a great leader, was finally fulfilled.

The years in between were filled with a lot of painful experiences: the betrayal of his brothers, being sold into slavery, being falsely accused of rape by his master’s wife, and then being thrown into prison, and seemingly forgotten. Even the people that he helped and promised to help him forgot about him as their life turned to the better.

 It was the dreams and promises that God had given Joseph as a teenager back in his father’s house, that assured Joseph that he had a divinely ordained purpose and destiny, that he never forgot.

As Joseph trusted God, and responded to his suffering in faith and humility, God used his painful circumstances to mold and shape him for his destiny. God didn’t cause his suffering, but God used his pain to prepare him for something much greater.

God works the same way in all of our lives.  Not through the same set of circumstances and pain but through our own unique trials that prepare us for a greater work of Glory.

We must refuse to allow the intensity and frequency of our pain to keep us from seeing the activity of God in our pain.

Wherever Joseph went, as a slave in Potiphar’s house, in prison, or before Pharoah, God was with him, and gave him extraordinary favor.

In spite of his pain, God’s hand was upon him, and he experienced promotion and doors of opportunity even in the midst of his painful experiences.

 The intensity of his pain did not prevent him from seeing the activity of God. – for many of us the only thing we can focus on is pain. Joseph kept his focus on God’s purpose.

Just because you are in pain does not mean that you are not in God’s will.  As a matter of fact, you are probably right in the middle of His plan.

The way we respond to our pain is more important than the weight of our pain.

Often when we experience pain it consumes us and attempts to control our response.

 We need to make the choice, like Joseph, to see our pain from the perspective of faith and humble ourselves before God and allow Him to have His way in us.

When you look at those used mightily by God what sets them apart is their response and how they deal with difficult situations.

They were not grumblers and complainers.

They did not blame God or curse Him. -Sometimes they did question Him.

Even when wronged they stayed humble and had a good attitude.

Joseph in his deepest trials continued to walk by faith and to stay humble before God.

God always lifts up those who humble themselves before God even in their times of pain.

There are times that God allows us to feel the pain and weight of our own shame and conviction as we reap what we sow.

There are times that the pain we feel is the sorrow of our own poor choices that lead us to the natural consequences of sin, pride, selfishness, and plain stubbornness.

2 Corinthians 7:10 - For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.

Repentance is not only feeling sorry for what you have done and the results that you have gotten but to a real change of heart and mind.

Pain changes both our behavior and our way of thinking. – Once you touch a hot stove you are sorry you did it and adjust your life accordingly.

Someone said that this verse could be translated – The Pain you feel in response to God dealing with you has produces a real change and deliverance.

This is what happens at the time of Salvation. We see the depth of our sin and the pain it brought to Christ making His sacrifice necessary.

In the same way God allows us to feel Godly sorrow even after we

are saved to deal with our sinful ways and the effects it has on ourselves and others.

The impact of our pain will exceed the experience of our pain, when we allow God to use it for His glory.

Philippians 3:10 (AMP) - And this, so that I may know Him [experientially, becoming more thoroughly acquainted with Him, understanding the remarkable wonders of His Person more completely] and [in that same way experience] the power of His resurrection [which overflows and is active in believers], and [that I may share] the fellowship of His sufferings, by being continually conformed [inwardly into His likeness even] to His death [dying as He did];

Paul was able to experience resurrection power because he knew what it was to die to himself. Throughout his ministry he suffered and endured the pain of many trials and tribulations sharing in the sufferings of Christ. Because of this many people came to Christ and Paul saw many incredible miracles.

There is not growth without suffering. We suffer with Christ, and we share HIS suffering and His results

Because Joseph understood that there was a purpose greater than his pain, God was able to use him to not only save Egypt from starvation but more importantly, his own family, they were the seed to the nation of Israel.

Even greater than that, it was through Joseph’s faithfulness in the pain that the Savior of the World would come just as God had promised through the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

This is why Joseph could look at his brothers and say.

Genesis 50:20 (AMP) - As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present outcome, that many people would be kept alive [as they are this day].

THE PURPOSE IS GREATER THAN YOUR PAIN!

May God bless you this month. Know that there are amazing things that God is doing in and through your life.

Thank you for joining us as we fast and pray through the month of September for our church during the remainder of the year. Also make our nation a matter of prayer as we head into another election season. Our hope is not in politicians but in Jesus. How we vote is a reflection of the moral direction of our nation.

May God’s richest blessings be on you and your family.

You are Loved.
Pastor Marvin & Dawn

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Psalm 34:19 (AMP) - Many hardships and perplexing circumstances confront the righteous, But the Lord rescues him from them all.

A while back I ran across a sermon called – The Doctrine of Suffering. I began to sense God stirring something in my spirit. The truth is that many people are going through some pretty difficult times. The hardship and suffering are deep, painful, exhausting and you are looking forward to this season ending. I believe that God wants to do a Healing work in many of us that will be lasting and impactful.

Contrary to much of what is taught today, God never promised us a life free from trials hardship and suffering.  As a matter of fact, He promised us just the opposite. John 16:33 (NIV) - “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (NLT) I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” Hardship and suffering are a normal part of life, even for Christians.

Trials, hardship, and sorrow hit all of us. They are not something strange or unusual.

1 Peter 4:12-13 - Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; 13 but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.

When we go through trials, suffering and hardship we need to realize that it is not something unusual.

~ Charles Spurgeon – The question of suffering is not a question of if we will face it, but when. Suffering is one of life’s certainties, as is the good which God produces through it.

Ecclesiastes 7:14 - In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider:
Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him.

I don’t want you to miss that – God has appointed the one as well as the other. Another translation reads - but when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. Now I realize that is going to mess with some people- good times and difficult times come from God. He allows them both.

~ Carter Conlon – Of Times Square Church – There are some people who have such an aversion to the idea of hardship that they immediately shut down at the mere mention of it. If they don’t hear a message that makes them happy and assures them that everything is going to be fine, they quickly leave in search of a place where they will only hear good news.

Listen this is all fine and good until the reality of hard times come and unspeakable things happen: now not only do you have problems you have no foundation of hope on which to stand.

At the core of hardship is the mercy and goodness of God. God is always faithful to strengthen us and to strategically prepare us for whatever we will have to face.

We need to realize that hard isn’t bad but that HARD IS HARD.

There is purpose in the pain. Someone needs to hear this – God will never allow your pain to be in vain.  Regardless of where our pain comes from or what it is – God will never waste your pain.

James 1:2-4 (NLT) - Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

The Bible says that God blesses us with the opportunity to know the joy of growth and victory. The big key is to go through these times PAITENTLY.  WE are to patiently ENDURE.  Enduring means it’s not easy it is hard. Know that God is building His character in us.  If you focus on the hurt, you will continue to suffer. If you focus on the lesson, you will continue to grow.

One of the reasons so many people are hurting is because they have decided to either ignore the pain or they just pretend that it is not really affecting their lives.  On more than one occasion Jesus asked people if they wanted to be healed or what do you want me to do for you.

One of the things that we need to get settled in our spirit is that – We need to understand that it brings God joy to heal us, restore us and to set us free.  You need to believe this. Healing in every aspect, Spiritual, Emotionally, Physically and Mentally is not just for others but is for you.  If this is settled, you will know where to go and where to look when you need help. If not, you will find yourself constantly searching for both solutions and healing.

I believe that at HCC we are in a precious season of healing. We have seen three people in the last several years, literally come back from a death sentence health wise. We have seen many other remarkable healings.  I believe we have yet to scratch the surface of what God has for our lives. In this year of OVERFLOW, I believe we are going to see not only the healing of bodies, but of depression, release from difficult situations, freedom from addiction and joy in place of tremendous sorrow.

It is the hard and difficult times. The times filled with sorrow and pain that God uses for His glory and for our benefit. Hear me – God will never waste your pain.

Thank you for your faithfulness to the Kingdom of God and to HCC.

You are precious to God and to us

Pastor Marvin & Dawn

Image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay

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