The Mountaintop Huddle

And six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; Mark 9:2

Football season is again upon us! The first games of the 2006 season begin this week. Football fans are an intrepid lot; they love to cheer for their team from the opening of the season to the last day the team plays. The only ones who love football more than the fans are the players and coaches. Not only are they excited about the season, their minds and hearts are fully on the field!

There are some great spiritual lessons to be gained from playing in the game rather than just watching the game! If you want to “play reality” on the team with our Lord Jesus, there are four essential steps that cannot be neglected:

• Join the team – yield to Christ as your personal Savior and Coach.


• Get in the huddle – get the current word from the Coach on what to do next.


• Accept your assignment – find your place in a local church team and take responsibility.


• Run the play – do something significant that will help win the game!

God’s people must get in the Master’s huddle to know what’s going on. They must know their position in the line up and play it in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Savior wants bold people playing on His team … The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, But the righteous are bold as a lion. (Proverbs 28:1) He desires that each of us – at our own level and wherever we are placed – to be a difference maker, an impact player, to make a “big” play!

From this great experience on the mountain and following (Mark 9:1-29), we see that Coach Jesus wants His players and followers to be bold in a least six ways.

1. BOLD DECIDING, And Elijah appeared to them along with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. (Mark 9:4) You don’t decide your own play when you’re in the huddle. You trust the one called by the “Authority”.


2. BOLD LISTENING, Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, "This is My beloved Son, listen to Him!" (Mark 9:7) The huddle is not the most critical thing but it is essential to accomplish the most critical thing.


3. BOLD ACTING, And as they were coming down from the mountain, He gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man should rise from the dead. (Mark 9:9) You don’t change your position after the huddle … you play it!


4. BOLD BELIEVING, And He answered them and said, "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!" (Mark 9:19) Out of the huddle your greatest asset is the determination to give 100% of your life to the play. The old saint, John Cheyne, once asked life’s most pivotal question… “What have I ever done in my years of service for God that was really bold?”


5. BOLD CONFESSING, Immediately the boy's father cried out and began saying, "I do believe; help my unbelief." (Mark 9:24) Some never really leave the huddle to run the play! They may move their bodies but they fail to move their hearts and minds. The coach never knows if he can count on them being “mentally in the game!”


6. BOLD PRAYING, And He said to them, "This kind (demon) cannot come out by anything but prayer." (Mark 9:29) You’re not in the game if you’re not in the huddle. Otherwise you will never understand your part in the team strategy and you can bust the play! Every morning our Lord asks you to huddle with Him to call the day’s play! What a shame if one doesn’t show up to learn what’s going on from the Head Coach!

The Bullet of Obedience: Revelation

Fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing. Psalm 34:9

In essence, the Christ Life is nothing more or less than living continuously in the presence of God and receiving personal revelations of His will about one’s decisions, responses, and goals for life. The promise of the Father is that this is a daily, hourly, and ongoing praise relationship.

God has promised to do some of His part unconditionally. The fullness of the Christ Life, however, is conditioned by each believer doing his or her part by responding to God’s revelation of Himself.

The most practical thing we can do in life is to hear God’s Son and obey Him.

“I Hate Religion”

As a young Christian I can still remember one of my leaders shocking me with the words, “I hate religion.” Since he was a marvelous example of Christ-likeness, I couldn’t understand his statement. In my ignorance I though of Christianity as a religion. In the passing of the years I have learned that there is an enormous gap between them. So broad, in fact, that I find myself saying the same thing, “I hate religion.”

Religion is one of our worst words as commonly used and understood. The dictionary sums up religion as “any system of faith and worship.” Christianity is not a religion by that definition because it is a Person before it is a system. To seek of and be involved in church, the Bible, religious, denominations, theology, etc., before one has discovered God is an experiment in futility.

Religion reduces God to man’s own level. All of us in our spiritual pride seek to “domesticate Deity” for our own convenience and conscience. We develop our own religion apart from God’s truth. Faith, no matter how sincere, without Truth is an illusion.

Christ the Son, Jesus the Man, is the only One to ever tell us of God beyond our labels, creeds, and religions. Happy are those who see Him and follow Him!

Bullet of Forgiveness: Forgetfulness

Those who say they’ll forgive but won’t forget are blowing in the wind! Real love forgives and forgets!

Note God’s promises along these lines from Scripture.

I will wipe out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will remember your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25)

As far as east is from west, so far hast Thou removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:12)

For Thou has cast all my sins behind Thy back. (Isaiah 38:17)

Who is a God like Thee who pardons evil … for Thou will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” (Micah 7:18-19)

Why not admit your own need for forgiveness. Tell God you really want your ways, thoughts, and actions to conform to His! He will listen and forgive if you mean it. Then the power of his forgiveness in your life will enable you to have power to forgive all others, to let go of the past, to remember their sins no more even as God has forgotten your past … just as He promised! What a release!

The Bullet of Forgiveness: Sure Victory

If you were to ask me to name the most unbelievable truth of Christianity my answer would be easy! Simply put it’s this … that God does love me like I am and will forgive me for my failures, attitudes, selfishness, and messes. I need only to be honest with God, admit my need and ask His forgiveness!

Talk about feeling clean and being able to start fresh! There is nothing like it!! In fact, the most joyous and satisfied human beings on earth are those who know God’s forgiveness and who forgive other people.

It’s obvious I have offended God far more than any other human has offended me. Real life is always found in following Christ’s example. He was walked on and treated unjustly, yet He forgave. We should do likewise when we are walked on and treated unjustly.

Those who forgive always win in the end!

The Bullet of Faithfulness: Witness

How do you measure the effective witness for Christ? Do you measure it by the number who hear the message? Do you measure it by those who respond?

The Bible makes it clear that an effective witness may result in a rejection of the message as well as its acceptance (II Corinthians 2:14-17)

Acceptance or rejection, many believing or few coming to faith, a large church or a small one none of these are the issue. Following the commands of Scripture is.

The ultimate test of a person’s life is what God thinks! The only way to please God is faithfulness. Doing what the Father says … from the big things to the little … covers it all! What a responsibility! What a relief!

Of Boxes and Adventures
Guest Blogger: R.A. Stites, Ventures Saff

Sometimes we feel like we have discovered all there is worth knowing. We are comfortable with our status quo. We accept our limitations as normal. Life is familiar and we are comfortable. We like our box.

The trouble with boxes is that they tend to get opened. Sometimes adverse circumstances tear them apart. Sometimes unexpected events poke holes in them. Sometimes the tape just wears out and they pop open of their own accord. Life, the nature of the world, the vagaries of existence all act to move us out of our comfort zones.

When that happens, we have two choices: reseal the box or climb out. The weight of Scripture suggests that God is pleased when we get out and start exploring our limits. Take the Apostle Paul for example. He was quite happy with his Pharisee box as he set of to hunt down Christians. A bolt from heaven punctured his box on the Damascus road and the history of the church changed forever as he began to explore the world outside his box.

Are you comfortable with the box you have fashioned for your life? What things are trying to open your box? Instead of trying to repair it, maybe it is time to step out and see what adventure God has waiting beyond your comfortable box.

The State of the World – Fallen

Our lives are continuously messed up by “the Fall” and every single person is a victim of that mess. To grasp more and more of Christ’s attitude in response to this mess is to make every experience of life a “win” event regardless of the pain or loss! We learn how to be alive to God’s perfections in a dangerously imperfect world. Living the “Christ Life” means to accept the agonies and ecstasies of each day as inevitable experiences of “the Fall.”


This short passage is but a taste of what is waiting for you in the new issue of Mandate for the Christ Life, set for publication this August. Make sure you are on the mailing list – contact the Ventures office by e-mail or call 479-443-9474.