Seven47 began as a venue of College Wesleyan Church and over the years has developed into a ministry that meets more than Sunday nights at 7:47 pm!  So the leadership has changed the ministry name to THE RISING, which captures the vision to raise up the next generation of leaders within the Church.

College Wesleyan Church will soon have a new website up and running, which will allow us to post our events, activities, blogs, podcasts, etc. and we are going to shut down the use of this site.

Please check out The Rising service on Sunday nights at 7:30 pm beginning on September 12th and check us out online at www.collegewes.com in the future!

Pastor Thad

http://www.religioustolerance.org/day_pray2.htm

Our part today was to take a group of people from College Wesleyan Church and community and pray for Francis Slocum Elementary School.  This school will be the home for next year’s Kids Hope mentoring program which currently has nearly 50 adults who meet each week with students at Lincoln Elementary in Marion, IN.  Pastor David Drury did a great job preparing a prayer list, Scripture, and a map of the community for us to pray around.  33 people showed up for this event and it was a great opportunity to saturate the community in prayer for children, their families, teachers and administration, local leaders, and our churches.

Each person received a small rock to hold while praying and then we left them all over the community as a reminder that the community was prayed for.

“May God transform the hearts and minds of our elementary students through the ministry of those serving in and around Francis Slocum so that this community will be transformed by the grace of God in the years to come.”

Pastor Thad

Murder.  One of the ten commandments to avoid!  Imagine every time you walked past this place, you would remember the evil that was committed and the stories of how God’s chosen people were responsible for this great sin.  Fast forward to Joshua 21.  Hundreds of years have passed and the Israelites have captured the promise land.  Land is being given to the tribes.  The very descendents of Levi, who committed the murders, are now a part of the priesthood and are given cities to live in and designated “cities of refuge”: places where someone who has committed a murder can be protected.  Here is what Joshua 21:21 reads, “In the hill country of Ephraim they were given Shechem (a city of refuge for one accused of murder).”  Wow!  A place that was once known to be a place where God’s people committed murder is now a refuge for those who do.  That’s a great example of God’s redeeming work.  Transformation.

The church in Laodicea was fallen.  But the council and the promise of God to his people is that no matter how far you have fallen, there is a way back through Christ. Revelation 3:18-20, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

No matter what you have done, God can transform you.  No matter how far you have fallen, you can find forgiveness and redemption.  One who was once known for sin, can be known for purity.  One who was once known for greed can now be known for generosity.  One who has once sown the seed of recklessness, can now be known for reconciliation.  Jesus call was to be earnest and repent.

Have you done so lately?  Where and when have you fallen?  What sins and sinful habits might others know you for and would they see the change in you after seeking God’s face.  May we be people of repentance and people of change that others might recognize.

Your spiritual entropy is a joke to God!  Get on fire for him today…

Pastor Thad

Revelation 3:17, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”

I don’t want to pretend that people at IWU and Taylor U are rich. Certainly, there are those who struggle financially. Year after year, students decide that IWU or Taylor costs too much money to continue investing in or something happens that changes their financial situation.

However, there’s a sense in which we’re more well off than we think. Bear with me while I share some disturbing facts (we’ve probably heard these before, but I repeat them in order to refresh our minds).

• At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

• According to UNICEF, 24,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

• Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

These statistics are from http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

Why do I mention all of this?

I think there are times in our lives when our fortunate circumstances cause us to underestimate our need for God. It’s almost as if… the more blessings we receive from God, the more independent we feel we’ve become and so the less grateful we are.

I read 2 Chronicles 16:12, “In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the LORD, but only from the physicians.”

I think of my own life. How many times do I look to other things other than the Lord to solve my problems?  Do I look to God when all other options have been exhausted?

Pray with me,

I am rich. I have acquired wealth. But I need you Lord.  I am wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. Without you, I am all these things and more Lord. I need your help God. I need you to teach me to rely on you, to teach me to come to you first and foremost. God, if there is anything in my life that keeps me from trusting in you… if I place my trust in my own power… I pray that you would rebuke me, that you would discipline me Lord.  I love you. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray, amen.

May we not be lukewarm in our spiritual lives!  Thanks for sharing Keith.

When I started working on this devotional in relation to this passage, I pretty much hit a brick wall and decided to stop for a minute and think about what to explain to all you guys. I have decided to stray away from continuing to explain the truth in this passage and encourage you all to respond to this in a different way.

Over a week ago when I was at my practicum I ran into the same problem I did approaching this devotional. I started to realize how often we all hear and read the truth through sermons, classes, or whatever. I understand that it is good for us to consume as much truth as we do, but how often do we practice this truth we learn? Or how often do we even try? So, this is my encouragement to you today: Take the truth you have learned and do something with it. God will provide the opportunities, just say yes and be willing to serve and sacrifice. Pray that God will open your eyes to see these open doors and that He will allow the Holy Spirit to work through you showing love to others. This is what the church is about.

Robbie

According to Jesus’ letter to the church in Philadelphia, God has opened a door for the message of the gospel.  In my message last night, I referenced the Roman Road.  This is a series of verses in the book of Romans that lays out a series of thoughts on what it means to recognize our need for a savior and how to respond by believing in Jesus as the Son of God and receiving his forgiveness in our lives.

Although salvation is so much MORE than a prayer, I want you to have some idea of HOW to walk people through these verses to help them understand YOUR journey of conversion and what they can do to begin the same spiritual journey.  Here is what I would do.  Memorize the location of Romans 3:23.  Then in the margin of your bible, write the next verse (Example: write Romans 6:23 in the margin next to Romans 3:23) so you can walk them through all the verses without feeling like you have to memorize it all.

Here is the list:

• Romans 3:23  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
• Romans 6:23a  “…The wages of sin is death…”
• Romans 6:23b  “…But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
• Romans 5:8,  “God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us!”
• Romans 10:13  “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord  will be saved!”
• Romans 10:9,10  “…If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting  in salvation.”

“I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.” With the 65 students we had last night, there were 12 countries and 14 different states listed.  May God use the open doors for us to engage people each and every day with the power of the gospel message!

Revelations 3:5

Christ says “He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.”

The last part of Christ’s statement, “But will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels” is a reflection of Matthew 10:32, “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.”

But Christ continues on in Matthew 10:33, “But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”

Sometimes it is easy to “disown” Christ. Sometimes we may lay him aside in order to do things which are not compatible with Christianity.

I was applying for a job working in Yellowstone this summer and I was hesitant to reveal much of my religious involvement. I’m a Christian ministries major, I’m seeking ordination, I’m a Hall Chaplain and when I was filling out “previous work experience” I wasn’t sure whether or not to include the ministries that I’ve been previously involved in.

I think my fear was being labeled “one of those religious guys.” I wanted to be able to minister to my future boss and coworkers without them having preconceived notions of me. But that wasn’t the whole story; I also feared that I might not get hired simply because I was so involved in my religion. I wanted a job and wasn’t sure if my faith would prevent that from happening.

I did apply for the job and I did talk about my faith and my ministry experiences, my major, and my current employment as a Hall Chaplain. But it just goes to show, that sometimes it’s easier to disown Christ than we think. Of course I wasn’t going to deny him; I was simply going to keep that part of my life undisclosed.

It doesn’t always have to look like this. Sometimes we simply disown Christ by participating in things that one who was faithfully following Christ would never participate in. Sometimes we find ourselves setting down our Christian convictions and suppressing them in order to justify living in a way that we want to live even if it is counter to Christianity.

Of course I don’t think that when Christ said “disown me”, he meant sinning or even hiding your faith, after all even Peter denied Christ. So Christ is probably referring to continual rejection. But it is still worth thinking about. If we acknowledge God, God acknowledges us and if we deny Him, He denies us. Our earthly actions have heavenly ramifications.

Have you denied the Lordship of Christ in your life recently? In ways big or small? Is there an opportunity for you today to acknowledge God before men? Dress yourselves in white, staying pure and faithful, so Christ will acknowledge you before His Father and the angels.

I remember helping with a mission team in a village in the Philippines.  I was the designated pharmacist.  My job?  I was to give each adult and child, over the age of five, a pill to take after being examined by a physician.  The pill I gave was a de-worming pill.  That’s right.  De-worming.  The pill killed the parasites, which the body then took care of during the normal routine of daily bathroom use.  You get the idea.

After I gave them the pill one of the Filipino students would start sharing the gospel with them.  I don’t speak Tagolag, so I asked someone to translate for me what they were saying.  The message was simple.  The people were told that their bodies were filled with parasites that they were not aware of but were harming the body.  Because of the pill, these parasites would leave the body and they would then see what was inside.  But there was something else in their lives called sin that was destroying their lives and keeping them from a right relationship with God.  If they would pray and received Jesus, he would rid them of their sin and give them eternal life.

Bet you never heard the gospel presented that way!  Listen again to Jesus’ words in Revelation 3:1-2, “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.  Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die.”  The church in Sardis had been lulled to sleep by allowing sin to take a normal hold in their routine.  Jesus knew that there were parasites that were slowly destroying the faith and future of the church.  Wake up!  Know what is ruining your relationship with God and with others.

If we were to be examined by God, what would he find in us?  If we could know what God knows about our hearts, what would we see?  What are you doing to allow God to purify your hearts and set yourself apart for his glory?  What parasites are eating away at you?  Wake up!  May we be alert to what is truly going on in our hearts and may God find a pure heart and right spirit in us.

Building on His love,

Pastor Thad

So… staying in tension is hard.  Anybody agree?

I was thinking about how often times in songs there will be a tension that builds and if that tension isn’t released it can make the song really hard to listen to.  I found this website called greatsongwriting.com with an article about tension and release in music.  The writer gives the following advice to potential songwriters:

“The creation of tension and release in music can make or break a song. There is a critical balance that must be reached. For instance, tension created through dissonance can create excitement for the listener, but provide too much without relief and the listener becomes uncomfortable and wants a change.  They may not know why but they will feel it.  Release of that tension in the music helps the listener feel at home in a safe and comfortable place.  The trick is to build tension and then provide release and do it over and over again in your song in predictable ways.  Predictability provides stability. It’s good to provide musical surprises in your songs but remember there is no place like home for your listener. You have to take them home continually in your song, unless you want them to feel constant tension and feel unstable.”

Whether it is in music or in life, staying in tension is uncomfortable.  We find ourselves desperately just wanting to resolve the tension.  But, as we talked about on Sunday night, sometimes our desperate attempts to avoid tension and to find places that are comfortable can be seriously detrimental to our faith and to our Christian walk.

I think that Jesus understands what a difficult thing it is that he is asking of us when he calls us to live in tension.  I think this is why he says in Rev. 2:24-25:

“I will not impose any other burden on you: Only hold on to what you have until I come.”

It isn’t easy.  But there is a promise to those who overcome and hold on to tension?

Rev. 2:26-28 “To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations…just as I have received authority from my Father.  I will also give him the morning star.”

What is being promised?  Later in the book of Revelation, Jesus refers to himself as the “bright Morning Star” (c. 22 v. 16).  And in Matthew 28:18 he says, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.” So basically, Jesus promises himself and he promises a share in his inheritance and his power.

So hold on to tension, even though it is uncomfortable because it is leading the way to us being able to hold on to Christ and to share in his inheritance.

The church at Thyatira received (as Pastor Angie pointed out) great praises from God. She said that we might even look at the church in Thyratira (if it were down the street) and think to ourselves that it would be a great church to be a member at.  It would appear to have itself together from the outside.

Rev. 2:19 says, “I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.”

Commentator Robert Mounce points out that the first two (faith and love) identify the motive forces of Christian activity, and the other two, the results that follow. While the love of the Ephesian church had decreased (2:4), the practical expression of love at Thyatira had grown (“you are now doing more than you did at first.” 2:20)

Even though they were doing more than they did at first… it is all overshadowed by their tolerance for sin. This is why verse 21 starts out by saying “Nevertheless I have this against you.”

This is something that we all tend to do as Christians (or at least I have experienced it in my life and seen it at play in the lives of others). Sometimes we will focus on doing all of the right things. Go to church on Sunday morning, go to Sevene47 on Sunday night, read our bibles everyday, pray everyday, write devotionals, attend chapel and meet with an accountability partner.

But sometimes since we are doing all of these great things, we feel comfortable with our spirituality and we forget to check ourselves. Sometimes we focus on doing all of the right things and forget to analyze whether there are things in our lives that shouldn’t be there. It isn’t enough to simply do all of the Christian things. We must also pursue holiness.

What good is it to read our bibles and pray and meet with an accountability partner if we return to the sin that God has freed us from (or is trying to free us from)?

Don’t be content with doing all of the right things. Even if you are doing these things in faith and love. The Church of Thyatira was growing in faith and love and all the while they were allowing sin to run rampant. Spend a sometime in silence today. Ask God to reveal sin in your life. Here is a prayer based on the scripture found in the letter to the church of Thyatira.

Son of God, whose eyes are like flames of fire, whose feet are like polished bronze: You know all of the things I do. I know that You are the One who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person. Help me to hold tightly to what you have given me until you come. Help me to be victorious, to obey you to the very end. Lord give me ears to hear, so that I can listen to the Spirit and understand. Search me, what complaint do you have against me this day?