Pathfinders & Settlers (The Appetite for Spiritual Progress)

"I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me and made me His own." —Phil. 3:12

Membership in the Body and moving with the Flock does not fulfill my call to personally follow Jesus.  I can’t use the acceptance & approval of the Church as a substitute for my individual calling & responsibility to Jesus.  I have a race to run, that I  can’t complete just by being active in Church.

There’s an occupational hazard to church membership that I call: Group Faith.  And some have substituted their individual pursuit & obedience to Jesus for it. Many Christians are parked in church, and not moving with GOD in their personal lives.  Without an individual moving vision, and measurable spiritual objectives, their personal life with GOD is stalled out.  The Body of Christ is not a Religious AutoTrain hauling parked souls through life.  We are called to be Pathfinders & Trailblazers, not Settlers & Occupants.  We are a cooperation of GOD-connected, internally-motivated, individual Jesus-followers, moving forward in the same purpose & direction.  

GOD Has SET Some In The Church — 1Cor. 12:28 

GOD must HAVE me BEFORE He can SET me!  So LORD, You HAD ME in Christ before You set me in the Body.  But if I stop letting you HAVE ME, then am I still Set in the Body?  Or am I just filling space in a church somewhere?  

Relationship with church doesn’t replace relationship with GOD.   But many churches have made Feeding & Satisfying their members 100% their responsibility.  The real responsibility of the church is to routinely call its individual members to Pray, Fast, Pursue & Refresh their connection to JESUS, the Head.  We are suppose to be a Body of Pathfinders, blazing trails into the world with the Light of Christ.  But churches that keep their members dependent on church, rather than pushing them to Jesus in Fasting & Prayer, will end up a Religious Settlement.  

Preaching Motivates But It Doesn’t Mobilize. The Holy Spirit Mobilizes! Messages convict, direct, and encourage believers.  But if messages turned believers into Pathfinders, then after 3.5 years of teaching, why did Jesus send His disciples to the Upper Room to wait for the Holy Spirit!!  Snacking on sermons will keep Church Settlers satisfied.  But Pathfinders?  They require the energy to launch out and FIND Paths.  And that comes directly from Jesus.

So a Church must always push its people to GOD if it wants GOD to make it part of the Body of Christ by being in its midst, and Setting members in it. The Christian who’s a forward-looking, Trail-Blazing, Jesus-Follower will Quench their hunger for natural food with the Appetite for Spiritual Progress!  Fasting & prayer isn't about losing physical pounds but gaining spiritual weight!

Let the church send its people to Jesus if it wants them to be Pathfinders and not just Settlers.  

"Follow ME and I will make you fishers of men." — Jesus

You can’t feed the “Appetite for Spiritual Progress” by re-ordering Sunday Sermon Seconds.  You need to press out from the comfort of the Church Diner into the pastureland of Prayer & Fasting with Jesus, and let Him LEAD YOU out into your fresh Pasture.   

We’re not choosing between Bad & Good, Quitting or Finishing.  We’re choosing between Good & Excellent, Finishing or Winning.  We either live as a TrailBlazers or Sit as an Occupants. 

So if you’re carrying a hunger in your soul STOP trying to fill it with things.  It’s spiritual!  Your soul is hungering for your purpose, and JESUS CHRIST is the only one who can feed you.