Thursday, June 5, 2008

"Amplify"-- Intentional Amplification Insight

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"Intentional Amplification"

These are the first two words that came to my mind after reading Brent's "Amplify" Lesson Learned article. It seems like in today's world, and especially in today's church, people usually have the "amps" facing in or they are facing out, but too often we don't see the skilled Christian being able to do both very well.

"Amps Always Facing In Person/Church" is very good at ministering to the faithful saints. They have a lifestyle or a ministry program that is geared towards building up a believer, but are very weak in going out beyond the church walls. Their mission field is the person in the mirror or the proverbial choir. A good mental image of this are those hard bodies that seem to live at the gym every free moment, and their only purpose of being there is to get stronger. Their body image is everything to them, and their is no deeper purpose in the strength they gain. Wasted exercise! They spend so much time on themselves that they never have time to use their incredible strength.

"The other extreme is a "Amps Always Facing Out Person." They have all of the motivation to do incredible things in the name of God, but they don't know how to do it. Two verses pop out in my mind. "It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way" (Proverbs 19:2); and "It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always and not just when I am with you" (Galatians 4:18). Can you imagine yourself trying to play professional football without spending years in the gym first? In my best fantasies I would love to play football for a living. Even if they let me play. I would get crushed or killed the first time I was tackled.

Over and over again we see this in the Bible and even in the modern church. Does "Seven Sons of Sceva" ring a bell. Here was a priest and a bunch of guys who tried to mimic what Paul was doing by driving out demons, and they all were beaten up by the demon possessed man. What the evil spirit said was most profound. "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" 16Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding" (Acts 19:15-16). Then in 1 Corinthians 13, if we do not have the purpose of love, then everything we do sounds like nonsense to the outside world. " If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."

These zealous people always have the amps facing out that they never know how they sound to the rest of the world. Having the amps facing in is the time we spend learning who Christ is, how we can become like Him in Character, and then learning how to act like Him. After this, then we can turn our amps around and actual do what Christ did. You CANNOT do one or the other. There are times in life when you have to intentional keep the amps facing in (discipleship), and then there are times when we have to take what we know and face it out (ministry and missions). "Faith without works is dead"!

Where are your amps facing?
Which way should they be facing right now?
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