Church Update

I know that it has been a long, long time since my last update and I apologize for that. Things have been extremely busy here at Mayfair but extremely good at the same time.

We are three weeks into our “Developing the Mind of Christ” series and to this point God has blessed us with seven new church members over those three weeks.

Last Sunday we had 103 in our worship attendance which marks our third Sunday in a row with over 100 in worship.

On Friday myself and a handful of our church members will head out to New Orleans for a mission trip. This will be the second mission trip this year for our church (We sent a group to Panama in March).

We have also launched a church website - www.mayfairbaptist.org – check it out and let me know what you think. It’s very interactive with message boards, opinion polls and a blog. If you would like to keep up with what’s going on in New Orleans I’ll be updating the blog each night.

Developing the Mind of Christ

Jimmy Moore was a dying man. There just wasn’t any future for him. Then he got his chance at life again in the form of a heart transplant at Vanderbilt University. Two years later, he completed the grueling Music City (Nashville, TN), Triathlon which consisted of a 1k swim, 40k bike ride (24.8 miles) and 10k (6.2 mile) run.

The man who had a heart transplant 18 months earlier crossed the finish line with tears in his eyes and these words across the front of his T-shirt, “I’VE HAD A CHANGE OF HEART.”

There are many Christians in the world today who need to have a change of heart. People come to know Christ and recognize him as Lord but they never realize what they are supposed to do next. Becoming a Christian means becoming a new person. That involves changing your heart, the things you desire, and mind, the things you think about.

The Bible tells us in Colossians 3:2 that we should, “Set our minds on things above, not on earthly things.” One of life’s biggest frustrations is when we know we are supposed to do something but we don’t know how we are supposed to do it.

According to T.W. Hunt and Claud King’s book “The Mind of Christ” developing the Mind of Christ Occurs in Three Stages

Beginning Stage
In this stage a Christian must learn to put his/her mind on things above. Philippians 4:8 - Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

You have an amazing machine inside your head we call the brain. You may not have a high IQ, maybe only average or even below average intelligence. But your brain is still something amazing. Did you know that inside the skull of your head is more information stored than in all 17 million volumes in the library of congress? That is pretty amazing for a little machine that only weighs about 3 pounds.

Psychologists tell us that each person has about ten thousand thoughts per day. That means you have at least a one in ten thousand chance of having a good thought every day.

Much of the whole thought process remains a mystery to scientists and psychologists. But one thing is not a mystery about the mind. How you think is going to affect your Christian life. How you think will make a profound difference in how you represent Jesus Christ. A person must decide, choose, or determine the focus of their mind.


Growing Stage
The Christian lives in a constant state of renewal. Romans 12:2 - Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Why do you suppose that there are close to 100 million church members in America yet they are not making more of a moral and spiritual impact? Why is that on Sunday morning thousands of churches have more empty pews than full? Why is it that the average Sunday School in America has less than 66 in attendance and that the average worship service has 84? Why is it that only 50% of a church membership can be expected to attend on any given Sunday? It’s because people make a decision about Jesus but never a commitment to Him.

Without a commitment to Christ your relationship will suffer and so will your mind. It’s that commitment to Him that allows us to transform our minds to focus on Godly things rather than selfish things that hinder our relationship to Him.

Qualified Stage
A Christian’s mind must be prepared for action. 1 Peter 1:13
Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

It was the late 1920’s when a woman and her new husband moved into the man’s old family home. It was a clapboard house with a hall down the middle. It wasn’t much of a home, but it was all they had. Ten years later, however, the two had managed to save just enough money to tear down the old house and build another next to it which was to be their home for the rest of their lives. To cut back on the expense of the new place the husband, without informing his wife, decided to reuse many of the materials from the old house in the construction. He used old facings and doors, and many other pieces of the finishing lumber. When it was completed, the woman was finally permitted to inspect her "new home." As her husband walked her through it tears streamed down her cheeks. Unfortunately they were not tears of joy, however, but sadness. For as she looked around she saw the same old doors that wouldn’t shut properly; the same crown molding that was split and riddled with nail holes, the same unfinished window trimming. There wasn’t much in fact that was really very "new" about it. So on what should have been one of the better days of her life; she eventually sat down and had herself a good cry. Her husband was confused at her response. "But I’ve built you a new home," he objected. "No, you didn’t," his wife responded. "You just rearranged the old one."

Why do so many people get spiritually frustrated? It’s because their minds are not prepared for action. We allow our minds to focus on a “me first” attitude and it removes God prom the equation. Without a “God first” focus we cannot experience a growing relationship with Him. That means we often feel as if He is not hearing our prayers and we don’t feel a sense of value or purpose.

There you have it. Three easy steps to having a change of heart, all you have to do now is set your mind to it.

Ask the Pastor

This week’s question is not only a great question but it’s something that all of us have asked at least once in our lives.

Why do we pray if God already has a plan for us and everything will happen according to His will? My husband has been sick for years, and we constantly pray for him to no avail, so my daughter feels there is no point in praying.

We know that God does have a plan for our lives based on what we read in Jeremiah 29:11, but what happens when our plans and God’s plans are not the same?

In Genesis Chapter 18 God is ready to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of the wickedness of those two cities. Abraham steps before the Lord in verses 16-33 and ask God if he would change his mind if he finds 50 righteous people in the cities. God does say that he will withhold his judgment for the sake of 50 righteous. Then Abraham begins to bargain with God talking Him down from 50 righteous people to 10.

So we know from this example that we call on God and petition Him with our own desires and He will listen to us. This is reinforced in the New Testament when Jesus told us to ask and it will be given to us (Matthew 7:7).

So why do people get sick and things happen that we don’t like? I have always taught that God answers prayer in one of three ways; yes, no, and grow.

Yes is the answer that we all like to receive from God because it means that He has heard our request and out of His love for us grants that request just the way we asked.

The other two are a little tougher to swallow because it’s not really the answer we were hoping for. We have to remember that God is a just God and His purposes are greater than ours. That is why it requires faith to grow in a relationship with Him. He tells us no because it is not according to His purpose and plan that is designed to ultimately benefit us even though we may not see it at the time of our request and His response.

Sometimes God tells us no because we have put the object of our request ahead of Him in our lives. Remember God is just and he desires our true devotion. Basically we are asking Him to give us something that is more important than He is.

God will also delay His answer sometimes because we need to grow in our faith and relationship with Him. Perhaps we don’t see what circumstances the granting or our request would bring up in our life and He knows there is a spiritual danger ahead and we need to grow a little in order to overcome what comes next.

Send your question to Ask the Pastor