You Go First

Tony Hauck
Church on the Rock - Melbourne


I’ve always loved Psalm 110:3, “Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power.” Now truthfully, it’s not difficult to get people to volunteer for God when His power is present, and that’s probably how most of us would interpret this verse. But what if we have it backwards?

I think our tendency as a church is to be passive, waiting on a Sovereign God to initiate so we can respond. But what if that verse is really saying when my people volunteer freely it will usher in the day of my power? What if He’s waiting for us to initiate something?

Could it be that God is sitting up there looking around, just waiting to back with His power some people who whole heartedly fast and pray and seek Him? Hanani thought so. That’s the seer in 2 Chronicles 16:9 who said, “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”

Look at it this way. When His power does come to the church, it wrecks our schedules anyway. Why not act like we expect His power and go ahead and build our schedules around Him now?

A Bad Day for Jesus

Pastor Tony Hauck, COTRM

June 7, 2010

What would you think if I began by telling you that three people we prayed for this Sunday got miraculously healed? Would you consider that a good service? Well, no one got healed this Sunday that I know of, probably like most Sundays in most churches. And that leads to my point. I was reading in Mark and two verses stood out to me.

Mark 6:5-6 "Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching."

I thought, we’d be ecstatic if a few sick people got healed. Do you know what that means? It means a bad day for Jesus is still more than most of our expectations. Does Jesus marvel at our unbelief?

So then Jesus went about the villages teaching. I guess that’s all He could do, since He could do no mighty works. I wonder if that’s why the church is so full of teaching and so lacking in power. Maybe that’s all we have faith for.

Well I don’t want to settle for just good teachings. I’m determined to stir myself up, raise my expectations, press in, and connect with the Jesus I read about in the New Testament.

Who’s with me?

At Wits End

Pastor Gary Stebbins, COTR- Melbourne, March 30, 2010

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We have all heard people say that “God is a crutch to those who are weak.” For many Christians when they hear this, the hair on the back of their neck bristles and they immediately want to defend their belief in God. “After all, just because I believe in God, that does not mean that I am a weak!” However, in one way, the statement is quite true. For those who recognize that their own strength, wisdom, and resolve are not enough turn to God. They come to the end of themselves and recognize their need for God.

To take it a step further, it is often desperation in the human heart that causes someone to cry out to God in prayer. Oswald Chambers says it like this, “It is not cowardly to pray when we are at our wits’ end; it is the only way to get in touch with reality. As long as we are self-sufficient and complacent, we don’t need to ask God for anything; we don’t want Him. It is only when we know we are powerless that we are prepared to listen to Jesus Christ and to do what He says.”

Are you experiencing difficulties in your life; does what is happening in the world today scare you? These are great reasons to turn to God in prayer.

Remember, prayer is not so much about getting something from God, as much as it is getting to know God. Prayer is the food that nourishes the life of God that is within us. We must pray if we want our relationship with God to flourish.

Again, in the words of Oswald Chambers, Christians “need to concentrate more on how prayer changes us and less on how it changes things. Prayer is getting ourselves attuned to God, not getting God attuned to us. It is developing the life of God in us, not self-development.”

As God said to Paul the Apostle, “my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Paul’s response to God’s Word, “therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

I am not ashamed to say, “I am weak and therefore I need God.” In my weakness I pray and seek the face of my God. Prayer is a vehicle through which I get to know God and the power of His life that lives within me. Prayer brings me into alignment with God’s will and releases the provision of heaven for my life.

When I am weak, I PRAY, and He proves Himself strong. What about you?