Blessed To Be A Blessing? Do We Really Believe We Are?

The audacity of arrogance screams from the bleachers of the PRESENT.  Time has never avenged audacity's blood lust and eternity has not reached its fill of arrogance's atrocities! Civilization after civilization, people after people, century after century - regardless of origin or ethnicity - people in every age have been afflicted by the perils of pride.

America is no different.  We've been blessed far beyond other nations of the world. While our nation squabbles over offenses and inequalities, over differences vs. preferences; other nations are struggling with starvation and abject poverty.  Most people admit the NEEDS are real, but many of those same people are waiting on the "rich" person to act to alleviate the pain and suffering.

* Rick Brown wrote an interesting article on this subject, and he offered some startling statistics that should shock the average American.

Rick took the median household income in America for 2013 which was $51,939.00 and plugged in two adults and one child for an average household size of 2.58 people and determined that by world standards, the average American would be in the top 5.9 percentile of the world's wealthiest people. An income of $51,939.00 is 17.2 times the global average.

The Apostle James, in James 5, reminds us that our blessings should not be considered our luxuries, but blessings intended to bring God glory and benefit others. It's not about us, it's about others.  Our blessings are all about the God we serve. It's all about Him. It's all about Him getting the glory out of our benevolent story.  When we love our neighbor as our self, we will feel the responsibility to do something about:

1. the 21,000 people dying every day due to hunger or hunger-related causes. That's one person every four seconds.
2. 750,000,000 (that's 750 million) people - about 1 in 9 - who lack safe drinking water. And more than twice that many, 2.5 billion people - about 1 in 3 - don't have access to improved sanitation.
3. 17,000 children under the age of five who are dying every day.

And we complain about what?

Oh God, help us. Help us to curb our groaning's and throttle our tongues. Help us to realize our many blessings, and offer our feelings of entitlement to a rugged altar of consecration.  May our likes and our dislikes please You, O' God.  May our petty  complaints cease and may our motives serve to inspire others in the mission of Jesus. May we bind together to save nations with righteous works of justice and clarion calls of Gospel salvation.  May the Church rise up and answer the bell!

It's now "past time."  It's not half-time.

Not only must we make a difference, we must BE the difference.

Blessings,

Pastor Hutchins

* Rick Brown is a featured columnist for the Champions Mirror.  

CHANGE!

The process of change is the art-form of leadership! The process of change requires timing, discernment, proper perspective, and intuitiveness.

The people who are highly effective in leadership are those people who have learned how to create positive change. Leaders recognize that change is inevitable because change is continual.

Growth = Change.  An organization can change without growing, but it cannot grow without changing.  Change is the vehicle of growth. As leaders, we should never change for change sake, but we change because our previous actions worked and produced growth.

Leaders are excited about their future because they've lived through the trials of transformation!  Remember leaders, if you lived through it, you'll get to it! So, every crisis you face cries out for change and if you refuse to handle the crisis, it'll will be default, create unmanaged change.

So, take the bull by the horns and start crafting your future by your faith-filled confession that, "now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end."  Ephesians 3:20-21

― Pastor Hutchins

THE END OF THE SABBATICAL YEAR 5775

This year, 5775 in the Jewish calendar, is a Shemitah year. The Shemitah year 5775 ends on September 13th. Shemitah was commanded to Israel at Mount Sinai and after 40 years wandering in the desert wilderness of unbelief, the Jews  entered the land of promise, the land of Israel. After 14 more years of conquering the land, the Israelite's began counting the seven year cycle. The first Shemitah year was the 21st year after the Jewish nation had entered the land.

An interesting fact about the Jubilee year is that it is not observed today because of Leviticus 25. According to Scripture, the Nation of Israel can only observe the Jubilee year when all the Nation of Israel is in the land of Israel. Since all Jews who were exiled in Babylon did not return to Israel, but remained in the Diaspora, the Jubilee was not observed and for that same reason, is not observed today in modern Israel.

This is incredibly significant because Amos 9:11 tells of God raising up the fallen Sukkah of David. The Talmud says, "As it is written, in that day I will raise up the Tabernacle of David that is fallen. Our Rabbis taught: in the seven year cycle at the end of which the Son of David will come - in the first year, this verse will be fulfilled."

So, Israel is now pregnant with expectation. Today, many in Israel believe that the Messiah will return in the first year after the Shemitah year 5775. This is why all of the leading Rabbi's are pleading with all Jewish peoples to return at once to Israel.  Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky has issued a call for all Jews to move to Israel without delay.

Ladies & Gentlemen, keep your eyes open. We live in a momentous time. We live in a moment in time where we no doubt will be the generation who sees Israel's Messiah....our Jesus! Look up, our redemption draws nigh!

― Wendell Hutchins II

The Only Hope For America!

This week, my calendar and schedule required me to travel to the East Coast. The once pristine cityscapes have given way to a dirge of hopelessness unlike anything I’ve ever seen. By most standards, I am considered well-traveled. What I witnessed this week is an urban condition not too strangely different from a third world country. I looked into the faces of people who are precious victims of Progressivisms social engineering experiments; experimentation's that have gone terribly wrong.

The collapse, evident. Anarchy, stewing. Loss of order, absolute. Absence of God, startling. The eyes of men and women who stared back at me were hollow. The fire had gone long ago. Hope, nothing more than a long-ago dream never realized. In fact, I’ve met prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections who seemed to possess far more hope than these prisoners of trains, gangs, concrete and shame; prisoner's bound in the chains of a godless culture. People of No Hope. It sounds like a distant land, but it's not; it's people in America's inner cities begging to make it one more day.

What do they live for? They don’t know.

And yet, my faith is on fire. I know that this is the perfect background for an illustration of Truth. The True Light shines brightest against this backdrop of utter darkness. You see, the focus on the Gospel is tied up with the collapse of a Bible believing America. Russell Moore said it this way, “As American culture secularizes, the most basic Christian tenets seem ever more detached from mainstream American culture. There is, for those who came and will come of age in recent years, no social utility in embracing them. Those who identify with Christianity, and who gather with the people of God, have already decided to walk out of step with the culture.” The great news is that these people who are desperate for a new birth, have already committed to embracing “being different from culture” by embracing the strangeness that comes by spending Sunday morning at church rather than at brunch.

American Church is in full shift. The American worshiper who has been satisfied with a nominal Christianity will continue to assemble for an hour of entertainment and then, be quickly vanquished from their lukewarm pews by the fast-running tide of our godless culture. Those who want an almost-gospel have found that they don’t need it to thrive in American culture today. Who then is left behind? It will be those defined not by a Christian America but by a Christ-centered Gospel.

The Gospel of Jesus demands radical obedience. It demands a level of submission that nominal Christianity finds  outrageously distasteful. The Gospel of Jesus demands allegiance first. As the tectonic plates of American culture shifts, the scandal of being a “Christian” will push the Church to the fore, where it was in Acts 2. In America, the Gospel is once again getting down to the simplicities of obedience, loyalty, submission, and life. Christianity is no longer about wearing a label, it’s about living out the design of Jesus Christ for our lives.

Today, my prayer is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ will shake American Culture as much as the 120 praying disciples shook Jerusalem on Pentecost morning!

― Wendell Hutchins

Philadelphia Legacy Group Launches Urban Missions Initiative!

The stories are riveting. Each story representing much more than the intrigue of a literary genius. No, the magnificent appeal of these stories are the people who are the central characters in each of them. It is the people's story that lends credence to the reality of the Author of each story. Each of these characters reinforce the ideal that the Author's pen is dipped into the inkwell of grace long before one stroke is made on the papyrus of time and reality.

Before heroine needles and concrete beds; before stolen innocence and lost hope...grace made sure to have the final say. From Kensington to Washington Square, from the E line to Penn Station, from Old City to Reading Terminal, from Independence Hall to Liberty Bell, all of these landmarks make up a symphony of beauty and tell well America's glorious story, but these historical monuments and famous places are but backdrops to a much greater story, the Church of Philadelphia.

The Greater Church of Philadelphia is ground zero to a new kind of revolution. It's a revolution of dependence and a revival of purpose.  With a Haggai Commission and an Ezra anointing, the Church's rise from the ruins is a testament of its future glory.  Today, I watched hope light the eyes of men and women who had lost it.  I watched grown men dream again. I heard laughter replace sorrow as grief took flight. Today is just the beginning.  Tomorrow we write a new story in which we will declare, no more American home missionaries will die alone in their fields...under-resourced with no where to go.  Pastor Joel Barnaby and Save America's Churches have teamed together to see God's grace rewrite the narrative on urban evangelism and city renewal. Stay tuned...

Wendell Hutchins II

The New American Frontier - Missional Christianity

Since the discovery of our nation in 1492, our natural frontier has appealed to explorers, pioneers, and settlers. Today, while our natural borders have been settled, our cultural borders have been decimated and a new land has emerged.

Explorers who arrive in this unknown region, the region that lies just beyond the edge of all that has been known, have found it to be mysteriously different than all they knew of America before. The new land is a frontier that is a transition zone where speculation and opportunity beckon the hearts of explorers to leverage their optimism into the opportunity and their faith against the restraints of fear.

Today, while our native boundaries haven’t changed so much and their names remain the same, there is a new territory that is calling for the explorers of God’s Kingdom and the pioneers of Truth…to engage. This frontier has a new spiritual landscape. In this new place, true North is not certain among its inhabitants, because they are sons and daughters of hedonism, paganism, & pluralism and their doctrine of Political Correctness has given them permission to live without “absolutes.” I believe this new frontier and its inhabitants presents God’s people with a fabulous opportunity for evangelizing lost people. We have before us an incredible opportunity to establish “missional” colonies (ecclesia) of outreach and evangelism. The vigorous work of planting new churches in this frontier of our culture is matched only by the joy we receive in making new disciples for Christ. To engage the lost and bring them Jesus through evangelism is to be the hands and feet of God’s love. It’s our expression of love when we serve and engage in the work of winning, building and making disciples; to see them flourish into a viable, worshiping, missional community of believers.

To build a “missional” church means that we don’t assume we can do what we’ve always done, because where we are is not where we’ve been. The change in climate, landscape, and culture demand that we integrate into this new frontier (reality) enough to engage the non-believer who inhabits this culture. To be “missional” is to be more than Christians using “Christian jargon” and “Christian trappings” to convey a different worldview, with different values and lifestyle.

To be “missional” means that we get it – we are in a new time, new place, new territory, with new people, many of whom have no clue about Christ and His redemptive work. In fact, most people in this new frontier are babies of a materialistic culture, serving a pantheon of gods. So, everything we do is toward the “mission” of being a Christian Gospel missionary who serves a culture of people who are not Christianized and who have foreign sensibilities.

We are missional when we love the city and the people of the city enough to leverage our lives, fortunes, and future for their souls. Let’s be on mission for the salvation of our America, her people are worth our struggles and trials.

Will you join me and live on the cutting edge of this new exploration, to live on “mission?”

― Wendell Hutchins II

SAVE AMERICA'S CHURCHES SAVES ANOTHER CHURCH FROM FORECLOSURE!

I am so thankful for the opportunity we have to engage in working with churches and missions throughout the United States. The Church of North America has the opportunity, unlike any time in our nations history, to shine against the brilliant darkness that cascades over our land. Today, more than ever before, "how" we plant churches is becoming as important of a question as "why" do we plant churches?  "How" we plant churches can often determine just how compelling they become to their community.  At Save America's Churches, we believe this is the hour when men and women who are followers of Jesus must commit their time, talent, treasure and testimony to building of God's church so that it once again serves as a lighthouse to lost and wandering souls as well as the permanent influence for righteousness in its community! [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT7pe7X_D8g[/embed]

THESE ARE THEY….THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK!

The grand indictment against Christians is that our Judeo-Christian morality is problematic in today's culture. As an American Christian who takes the Bible literally, we are accused of violating the “rights” of others simply because we trust in God’s Word. People of the Book believe the Word when it declared, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” When we hear God’s Word, our spirits are quickened and our souls are made alive by God, our Creator.

Love is kindled by the Words of God. Divine Majesty is revealed in the Word of God. Inspiring Truth is revealed in the Word of God by the infallible pen of revelation.

Therefore, the Book teaches…and what the Book teaches matters. Both its exhortation as well as its correction are needed in each of our lives. The Books doctrine creates for us holy environs of worship, its letters give us directives we need to live overcoming, God-pleasing lives. The Books laws, statutes, precepts, and acts all grant us the authority necessary to embolden us on our holy assignment and missionary call. The Book commands us. The Book commissions us. The Book reveals to us our relationship to creation and the Creator… for in the Book we discover that in Him “we live and move and have our being.”

The Book encourages us, instructs us, equips us, qualifies us, authorizes us, commissions us, covenants with us, provides for us, feeds us, water’s us, nourishes us, lifts us, resurrects us, covers us, hides us, keeps us, clefts us, burdens us, bears us, and reveals us. The Word teaches us that “evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” and counsels us to make sure that we understand it’s better to be persecuted for godliness than to have fun times while being duped by the devil.

So no, Christians do not believe we are arbiters enthroned in judgment over others, nor do we believe that we have been afforded the right to treat others inferior. We are all brothers and sisters, joined together through the family of man.  And yet, because we know the Book, we understand that "all men are born in sin, and shaped in iniquity."

Because we are disciples of Jesus and students of His Book, we love everyone and because we love, we warn with tears every man who is living in his first estate, sin. God in His love promises us that if we will repent, calling on the Name of the Lord, we can be born again. (See John 3:3-5)

So, while we dare not condone what it took Jesus in His death to satisfy…the penalty of sin, we offer with bold confidence and gracious praise the Hope of all mankind, Jesus!  Because He lives...we can too!

― Wendell Hutchins II

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The Allure of Salvation City!

Days like today have made the Daysman exceptionally weary; ever the Arbiter of right and Advocate of holy, His battle weary fingers cleave to the Sword of justice loosely. Legion upon legion have marched this day against the bulwarks of His Truth and Mercy, but Daysman did not leave His bloody post but fought ever so gallantly, to win one more soul with His grace. Evil exploited the weakness of fallen men and their sin sublime, but Agape Love soldiered as a steady Sentinel of Grace on public prime. Never One to be discouraged, Daysman persisted in righting the wrong of Satan's midnight soiree and establish the brilliant splendor of the King's unending Day!

First Born, Second Adam, First Up, Last Sabbath. He's been called many different names, most revering His attributes and others praising His fame. And yet, the splendor of His glory is assigned to only One, the Name above all other names, the Name to which all Heaven and Earth will bow. Everyone from Morning Dew to Midnight's Aurora Borealis dance to the rhythm of His Name, it's majesty, splendor and fame. Tides turn, Mountains quake, Nations run at the praise of His sweet Name!

Soon, very soon, Earth's children...all who've been born and took Earth's ride.... will bend their knee and humbly sigh...JESUS is His Name!

So let the Sea roar and the isles muse....Earth is about to be invaded with six-wing seraphs shouting "Alleluia"...Holy, Holy, Holy is God-of-the-Angel-Armies, His bright glory fills all the earth!"  Get ready children, you're about to take your final flight! You'll love Salvation City with crystal rivers and healing hands, no doubt you'll walk with clouds of witnesses and hold court with Patriarchs and Prophets, but the One you've long to see most of all will be the One to say "Well Done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord."    Matt. 25:23

― Wendell Hutchins II

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SOWING TO THE WIND, WE'RE REAPING THE WHIRLWIND!

I'm nauseated. My heart aches. I have no more tears. My sorrow and anguish have overtaken me, my soul is roiling from the tempest without.  The eerie clouds on our near horizon betray the coming storm. My prayer is that every Christian in America feels similar feelings, disturbed and distressed by today's Supreme Court ruling. As a nation, we've been plunged into uncharted waters. Our nation has officially set its seal of "We've Turned From God" and codified our rebellion into the law of the land. And yet, I know that some "Christians" will not only NOT be disturbed by today's ruling, they will celebrate it. In fact, you should be prepared because I believe in the coming weeks there will be some very high-profile "Christian" leaders who will come to the fore and use today's ruling as a platform to encourage churches to be progressive and inclusive, accepting homosexuality as a new norm.

Our Supreme Court's arrogant defiance of God's law is nothing short of stunning. Today, five Justices from the highest court in our land completely abandoned the will of the people and engaged in the most egregious form of judicial activism in our lifetime. They ruled as an unelected legislature, ignoring the Constitution as well as contravening States rights. This is a tragic day for our Constitution. This is a tragic day for our nation. This is a tragic day for our children. I grieve for our children because, as custodial stewards of America, we're going to give them a nation that will be vastly different from the one we were given. But most importantly, this is a tragic day for truth, right, and righteousness!

What we must be reminded of is this fact, Jesus died for heterosexuals and homosexuals just as He died for the gossiper, the slanderer, the insolent, the haughty, the boastful, the unbelieving, the drunkard, the ruthless, the liar, the cheater...the sinner. All sin is sin. But today, we've seen a nation embrace sin and give it approval. Paul, writing to the Romans said, "they not only do them [sin] but give approval to those who practice them."  And, when writing to the Philippians, he said, "I tell you even with tears, that many glory in their shame."  This is what happened today - knowing these deeds are wrong, "yet approving those who practice them."

Homosexuality is not a new behavior. Homosexuality has been around for a millennia. What's new is the normalization and institutionalization of it. Sin carries in it it's own judgment and after it reaps its own destruction, eventually, the final wrath of God. The epistle to the Colossians declares, "sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming."

John Piper said "'As Christians, we are heartbroken because we realize what is coming. We've tasted the sorrowful fruit of our own sins. We know that there is no escaping the truth that "we reap what we sow."  The difference for Christians is this: we weep over our sins. We don't celebrate them. We don't institutionalize them. We turn to Jesus for forgiveness and help. We cry to Jesus, "who delivers us from the wrath to come.'"

My prayer is that every Christian will raise their voice until the heavens suffer the violence of our fervent praying, until creation wonders at the tumult of our intercessory travail, and until hell fears the assault of a million righteous pleas!  May we cry out to the Lord over all the abominations of our land and pray that He will keep us in the hour of His judgment. We pray for an army of prayer warriors to bombard the heavens with 2 Chronicles 7:14: "If My people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 

To each of you, I pray your strength and steadfastness in the love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that you remember....Finally.  "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might!"  Ephesians 6:10

―  Wendell Hutchins

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