What Does God Require?

The purpose of Connecting Points is to empower people to develop a ministry by connecting with people, with similar interests, in their sphere of influence. This is accomplished by doing what they have a passion for and doing it for the Lord. Is that it? Is that all God requires? Why would God require something of people that He never equipped them to do? That is what religion does. God would never do that. Christ’s heart in this matter is revealed in Mark 14:1-9. When the woman anointed Christ at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, some were troubled. The perfume she poured over Jesus’ head was “very expensive”. They objected because of what seemed to them to be a waste. When Jesus heard their murmurings, He rebuked them and expressed His pleasure with what she had done by saying “Leave her alone … she has done what she could.”(Verse 6) What pleased God? She could not do everything, and there were some things that others could do that she could not. But what she could do, she did do. Think about this. God was pleased when she did what she had potential to do. She reached her potential and that was enough for God. It was true then, and it is true now. So relax! This is supposed to be a journey of joy. God will never require anything of you that He does not provide the means whereby it can be accomplished.

Reaching Our Full Potential

God made us with different levels of potential. This is made clear in Jesus’ story of the talents in Matthew Chapter 25. Here the Master, before going on His journey, left one with five talents, one with two talents and yet another with one. The first point is found in verse 15. He gave every man according to his “several ability” or, stated differently, according to his potential. God is the one who gives the potential and everyone has different levels. The second point is that God only requires productivity that is proportionate to the potential that He gives. The scripture declares “To whom much is given much will be required” (Luke 12:48). God did not require five from the one He gave two. The one who produced two received the same accolades as the one who produced five. It is clear that the man who was given one would have received the same if he had produced only one more. Why? They each have different levels of potential.
What does the Lord require of us? The answer is to reach our full potential by simply being what God made us to be and doing what God made us to do. Our potential is always changing. Notice the three men in Jesus’ parable. Focus on the fluctuation of their potential. The man with five worked to reach his full potential and developed another five. Now he has ten. The one with two earned two more. His potential is now at four. Their potential has grown because of their faithfulness. The man with five grew even further because the master gave him one more. What about the man with one? His potential decreased. The master took his talent and gave it to the faithful man that reached his full potential. Can you see the pattern?
The principle goes like this. If we are faithful to work hard and reach our full potential; our potential actually increases. If we just stand by and embrace status quo; we lose the potential we once had. Use it or lose it! You can see that the possibilities are endless. Imagine with me the man with five talents. He reaches his full potential and he now has eleven. What will happen if he now reaches his full potential with eleven? Now he has twenty four. He’s faithful with that…well, you do the math. The point is it really starts to get exciting when we reach our full potential.

What is God's Vision?

Most people look to the pastor for the vision of the church. We, too, feel that God will reveal the vision to the pastor and use him to lead the church in that vision, but we must be clear in one very important fact. It is the Lord’s vision. Please get that. It’s not the pastor’s vision. It’s God’s vision. When we speak of the vision of a church, we are not speaking of one man’s vision for a community. We are more interested in God’s vision for the community.
In most churches the Lord planted that church in that place for His purpose long before the current pastor ever arrived. In order to understand the vision we must come to grips with a very important question. Why? Why did God put this church in this place at this time? When a new pastor comes to a church the first question that is asked of him is “What is your vision for the church?” Most enterprising pastors have learned to keep a well-crafted vision in their suitcase should someone ever ask him about it. But how can a man who is new to that church and that community possibly know what God’s vision is for that church and community? When asked, most pastors pull out the mission of the church rather than the vision, with full confidence that no one will recognize the difference. The mission of the church was given by Christ to the church as a whole. It will be the guiding force for every vision, but it is not the vision.
The mission of the church is to “go then to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples” (Matt. 28:19). This is the same for all churches. The vision, on the other hand, will be different for every church and every community. No self-respecting pastor ever wants to be caught without a vision. This would be equivalent to being caught with your proverbial pants down. A better response when asked by the people from the church would be: “You have lived in this community and attended this church for years. What is your vision for the church?”
Actually the question should be asked collectively: “What is God’s vision for our church. The way you find this “right” vision is to look for the activity of God in that church and in that community. Once we find where God is showing up we can more clearly see what God’s vision for that church is.

Connecting Through Relationship

A few years ago we started noticing that people in the church were not connected to God, they were not connected to each other, and they certainly were not connected to the greater community for the sake of the Gospel. It was obvious to us from scripture that the desire of the Lord was for relationship, after all Jesus said the greatest commandment was to “love God and love your neighbor.” He had left us with the command to make disciples of all people. We were to make disciples in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth, teaching them what He had taught. Certainly that meant discipling Christians and pre‑Christians. It meant connecting to Him and helping others to connect with Him so that we would understand His teachings concerning abundant life. We knew that Christ had connected with us where we were, so it seemed clear we should connect with others where they were.
Wow! What a thought! We should give both believers and Pre-Christians the same courtesy that the Lord gives us. He comes to us where we are and deals with us in our present state. Jesus did this for His disciples. He began discipling them before they became connected to God.
Maybe we should be talking to people with great resistance towards the Gospel about the things that interest them, and build relationships with them. Maybe the person who has just come to faith needs a relationship with us at least as much as he needs our Bible study. Is it possible that our co-worker needs our congeniality and compassion to make way for the Holy Spirit’s conviction?
We have closed our sermons for years asking people if they wanted a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Doesn’t that mean they need a personal relationship with us in order for that to be successful in the long term? We need to connect with others so we can connect them to God.