Do Your Best

By Jonathan David Faulkner

It was a bright and sunny Sunday morning as we pulled out of the front parking lot in front of Evan’s hall. I sat in the back with Angel and Alexandria while David and his girlfriend Sarah got Fireflight pumping from the front seat. We proceeded to make the fifteen or twenty minute drive down to Salem Community Church of the Brethren for my first ever Sunday Morning service. Before we’d left Campbell I’d asked David to pray over me, when we arrived at the church I asked Angel to pray over the morning.

I could feel the nerves rising in my stomach as we set out, sure Fireflight helped to calm me a bit, but as with any other preaching or speaking engagement I could feel the nerves coming. I knew that in less than an hour I would be on stage in front of a congregation of mostly strangers, preaching the Word of God. My mind was set at ease again upon arrival as we got to meet the congregation, but again, sitting in the front pew I could feel the weight of responsibility.

The Weight of Responsibility; The Responsibility of the Word

Preaching the Word of God is not small manner, in 2 Timothy 2:16 Paul tells the young pastor; “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (ESV). Now, in this particular passage in 2 Timothy Paul is talking about avoiding quarrels and encouraging unity within the body of believers, but the responsibility is still there.

Remember also that Timothy was a young pastor in Ephesus, a town that my advisor here at Sterling College once called “The New York City of biblical times.” Because there was a great deal of sin and pagan activities that went on in this Asian city, and these things, as well as false doctrines (see 2:17-18) that were causing quarrels in the church, which prompts Paul to encourage and even Exhort Timothy to seek the word of God, to not stray from it, and to handle it rightly.

As we pulled up to Salem that morning, and as I walked up to Christ’s Body that warm July night I preached there, I felt this weight. I’d felt that weight the entire week before as I’d been praying and preparing. God was entrusting me with the words from His mouth, entrusting me with a congregation of His sheep and so I had a responsibility then to handle rightly the word of God.

When We Don’t Do Our Best: Ignoring the Responsibility

When we fail to rightly divide the word of God bad things can happen. What do I mean by this? Consider the example Paul gives of two people in 2:16-17, they were in fact dividing the body by preaching that the resurrection of the saints had already taken place. They did not take the whole of scripture into account, if they had even looked at a scroll at all.

Instead they preached what they thought the word said, this is called Eisegesis, a type of biblical interpretation that takes our own meanings and inserts them into the text when they are not there. This is very dangerous; it has created a large number of extremely abusive spiritual leaders and deceivers. Scripture was never meant to be used for our own devices but to be a way for us to know the will and the ways of God. Therefore it is as heretical as the Pharisees (who also had their own interpretations of the laws resulting in strict legalism) to add anything to scripture, especially our own beliefs.

Proverbs 30:5-6 says “Every word of God is pure, he is a shield to those who take refuge in Him, do not add or take away from it, Lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar” (ESV). I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to do is come into the thrown room and be called a liar by the Most High God.

Do Your Best: Trusting God

I was talking to my mentor one day it was right before our first Love Sterling meeting where I was serving as Chaplain. I remember wanting to make an impact on the people who I was going to be addressing, people who, for the most part had heard me speak somewhere before. I didn’t want to necessarily be the center of attention but I did want to challenge and encourage them. The advice I got was to just let go of that desire and remember that it is not us who do the impacting, but the Holy Spirit.

This was good advice, something I needed to remember. Sometimes the desire to make a huge impact, a felt need to say something that will wow the audience or be new or fresh takes over and becomes the focus of our preaching. But if we understand and know the word of God then we know that we are simply the vessels for honorable use (Rom. 9, 2 Tim 2:20). So the goal isn’t to say the next greatest thing, or to have the best new idea, but to preach the simple and true word of God.

For this to happen we must lay down what we want to see out of preaching. These desires to see lives radically changed for the gospel are good, but they can cause us to slip into heresy if we are not responding to the weight of the responsibility that comes with preaching Scripture. If we are not rightly dividing or handling the word of God then we are ignoring God’s word when we are told to do our best. We need to trust that God knows what His people need to hear and will give us exactly what needs to be said.

-         -    -

As we drove away from Salem Community that morning blasting and singing along to Lecrea, I knew that God had spoken through me, that the message He wanted me to impart to the people there had been delivered. It wasn’t about the compliments or the critiques from Alex, Angel, David and Sarah, it was that the holy spirit showed up and showed off and the words I spoke were His. I didn’t take the responsibility lightly and God was able to do what He needed to do through me.

So we must do our best to discover the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to show ourselves to God as approved workman who are not ashamed of the gospel and who handle rightly the word of truth. This will help us to bring unity to the body of Christ as we learn to lead congregations in the way of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I hope that through prayer and meditation you will seek God as you seek to lead bible studies or even preach on Sunday Mornings, or even in your own quiet time so that you can be ready to give a testimony to what you believe and why you believe the truth that you have been so graciously shown.

“The responsibility we have in sharing and giving the Gospel, means we must be rightly dividing the Word of God.”

All scriptures taken from ESV Study Bible  

Also Available from Jonathan David Faulkner

The Word That Speaks

Why Love the Word?

God's Heart for Those; Good Discipline - Journaling (Personal Blog) 

Also Available from 10:31 Life Ministries

A Chosen Generation (1 Peter 2:9): Mediocre Christianity By Angel Edwards 

College Commitment: Those Puzzled Athenians-and Us By David Faulkner

The Fire & the Storm Series By David Tank

To contact or support 10:31 Life Ministries email us at: hi1031.ministries@yahoo.com

To contact Jon email him at: Jonathan@altrocklive.com

The Word that Speaks

By Jonathan Faulkner

On our way to Texas over Spring Break my good friend and brother Josh made me aware of a subject that has gained much popularity and become somewhat of a mainstay in the theology of the church. The idea is that the God speaks only through scripture, that there is no speaking done by God outside of the word of God. As I think back upon my time in the Baptist Tradition I can see this teaching coming down, the written word, the bible was the source of answers.

To me this seems like a convenient way to ignore some of the spiritual disciplines, the one that specifically comes to mind is silence. If God only speaks through the bible then all we have to do is read through it and meditate on it and we'll get everything we're supposed to get. Yes we teach about meditation, but if the scripture is the only thing that speaks in that time, then what do we do with the other voice, the still small voice.

Two Types;


If you believe that God only speaks through scriptures I want you to stop, take a second and consider, in your quiet time have you really encountered God. Sure God meets us in scripture, it is our tool to know Him, or better yet to know what He's done, the special Revelation of God. But consider the Word of God, consider Moses encounter with God in the burning bush found in Exodus 3. Here Moses isn't reading from a book, instead he is actually getting a glimpse of God and he actually hears from God. "And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God" (Exodus 3:6 ESV).

Here are the two types, we have the written word of God, the bible and we have the Word of God. This is God's actual presence, His actual voice, or to be more specific the Holy Spirit which intercedes for us (Romans 8:25) and speaks to us, giving us discernment. John 1 gives an identity to that word, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (1-4 ESV).

We call John the Theological Gospel, this is because it explains why Jesus did the things that he did. Here in the opening we get a picture of a "Word" that isn't written down. John is equating this word to Jesus, saying that Christ is the word incarnate, that the word that was, is now among us. But that is not evidence in and of itself that the second type of the word of God still speaks. In fact Jesus has been off the Earth for years, at least as the incarnation of the word of God that John describes in the opening of his Gospel.

Living and Active; 


In Evangelical Christianity we talk a lot about asking Jesus into our hearts, this is great, but it shouldn't be the end of our role in a persons spiritual growth. I can ask someone to accept me into their life as a friend, but if I don't put time into that persons life, if I don't seek to grow the friendship then the invitation means nothing. Yet this is what has happened, we have told young people to accept Jesus into their lives as Lord and savior and then left them on their own. The result is that we have a lot of Christians walking around who were never disciples and are extremely undisciplined.

This was my problem, I became a Christian at the age of 13 and then had no one take me under their wing on a one on one basis. So it wasn't until my summer in Denver, when someone cared enough to take me aside and work with me, that I really discovered the value in these things. Yes I spent time in scripture, but not to an extent where it spoke to me, and hearing from God, well I didn't know what that meant.

But when we apply disciplines, when we learn to discover that God is still speaking to us, when we drown out the noise and really focus on God we find something incredible, that the writer of Hebrews was right. What do I mean? Check out Hebrews 4:11-12; "Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (ESV).

Here the writer has been talking about the disobedience of Israel, and the rest of God. He is saying that entering that rest, that disciplining ourselves will keep us from disobedience, because "the word of GOD is living and ACTIVE." and it is sharper than a double edged sword, pierces and divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow and discerns the thoughts of our hearts. It is the voice of this word we need to learn to hear, alongside scripture.

The Work of the spirit;


Once I understood this I was free, suddenly the scriptures were opened up to me. This is the work of the spirit in our study time, remember again the story of the Eunuch and Phillip found in Acts 8:26-40. It wasn't until the Eunuch prayed to receive the spirit that he understood what he was reading from the scroll of Isaiah. As soon as he received the spirit however, he understood and believed. The spirit is how God speaks to us and how we speak to God, as well as through our relationship with Christ, who also intercedes for us (Romans 8:34).

So I encourage you to study the scripture silently, to learn to quiet your spirits and learn to hear the voice of God speaking to you. This is an act of faith, but God can speak directly to us, he can give us directly the discernment and understanding we are seeking. But first we must surrender our own understandings, to give up our ideas of scripture and discover the grace found in scriptures and in the voice of God.

May God bless you and you study and read His word and discover it's permeation into your soul. May you learn to love both the Word of God and the word of God, that you may hide them in your heart. May you enter His rest so that you might not be disobedient to His will, and may you discover His perfect will for your life through fervent prayer and meditation on God's presence.


Jonathan Faulkner is the Director and Founder of 10:31 Life Ministries 


Also Available from Jonathan Faulkner
Why Love the Word?
The Problem with Going Deep
God's Heart for Those: Good Disciplines - Prayer

Also Available from 10:31 Life Ministries
A Chosen Generation (1 Peter 2:9): Called Beyond... By Angel Edwards

College Commitment: The Toughest Test By Rev. David Faulkner
Confessions of a College Freshmen: On Buying Groceries...by Amy Faulkner
The Fire & The Storm  By David Tank


Check out 10:31 Life Ministries on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/1031ministries
To Contact or Support, email us at: hi1031.ministries@yahoo.com

Why Love the Word?

By Jonathan David Faulkner
Director of 10:31 Life Ministries

I was talking to a friend of mine recently who is going through the Old Testament, one of the things she is continually noticing was the peoples devotion to the word of God, she also pointed out that life needed to revolve around God. This observation is true, the Temple mount was the center of the Israelite society, even back to the time of Moses, when the Tabernacle was built God gave specific instructions as to where each tribe was to camp around it. (See the book of Numbers)

Later in the story of God's chosen people we constantly see them fall away (don't believe me read the book of Judges) and return. In 1 Samuel we see this as King Josiah cleanses the temple and the nation repented and  gave sacrifices to God, they turned back to Him. During the intertestamental period the Pharisee's demanded such strict adherence to the law that they had begun to add things based on their traditions. The same traditions that Jesus is constantly cutting down (See Matthew 15 for example).

When Jesus was on the Earth he was often the center of attention; every time he enters a town or is staying in a house he was swamped by people. In fact at one point Jesus eventually stopped being able to go into towns and had to stay outside. Remember the Paralytic who's friends lowered him through the roof of the house in Mark 2:1-12, it literally says that people were pressing in on all sides.

This God focus throughout the Old Testament and the Gospels continues into the Epistles as Paul continually brings the focus back to Christ as he encourages and exhorts the churches to live rightly. It is from Paul that we get the theme verse for 10:31 Life Ministries, 1 Corinthians 10:31 "Whether you eat, drink or whatsoever you do, do it all for the glory of Christ."

So Why Love The Word? 


If everything in Scripture is pointing to Christ, if the law and the old Testaments point to God, if Jesus and his teachings were the center of attention as he tried to put the focus on the kingdom. If Paul worked to point everyone to Christ as he taught the early church through writing then why shouldn't we?

But there's something more that goes on through scripture, what I've proposed is something we do because everyone else is doing it, a way of "Conformity" to scripture and the people of scripture, but as we've discussed scripture has an effect on us, it permeates our being, it moves us.

Last week I had a horrible week, it started out great but for some reason I began to slip from where I'd been after Denver. I began to let all the cares of all those around me drown me and I started to panic and out of panic came depression. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, what had happened, what caused the bottom to fall out of everything, this morning I realized what happened.

After Denver I have spent so much time reflecting on scripture, I finally acknowledged how much I needed it and so in it I reveled. Each day waking up to the fact that I got to spend the day with my savior, through prayer and reflection on the word of God. Call me a mystic but this was where I wanted to be, it wasn't that it was a safe place, on the contrary, scripture is dangerous, we should tremble before God's authority through it.

Loving the Word and Going Deep

I've mentioned this idea of going deep several times in the last two months, and some of you are probably wondering why I put such an emphasis on it. The reason is because when we start to fall in love with scripture we start to discover the God of scripture and when we go deep into the word of God the God of scripture comes alive in our lives and starts to transform us through those words.

Remember the passage from Hebrews 4:12?  "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." (ESV). This was the trouble with going deep was it not? That scripture would start to permeate and change out thinking. That as we read about the life of Jesus we start to see that our busy lifestyles and unhealthy spiritual habits aren't how Jesus wants us to live.

But why should we love scripture? If it is going to change out thinking and make us uncomfortable and be used to transform our lives in the work of sanctification, then why should we love it! The answer to this is simpler than one might think, the answer has been handed down through the scriptures themselves, the answer is because we Love God!

Think about it, scripture is God given, we have been raised to new life through Christ and we are called to act because of our love for Christ and more importantly Christ's love for us. It goes back to the idea of because we live act on this, because we live get into the Word, because we live go deep.

The psalmist had no problem expressing his love for God through scripture, take a look at the longest chapter in the entire bible, Psalms 119. The psalmist here seems to understand what it means to love God and through  that love, loving the words of scripture. He also understands the benefits of loving the word of God. Don't believe me read it for yourself, don't have time then just read the examples.

Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD! (119:1), How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.(119:9), Behold, I long for your precepts;, in your righteousness give me life! Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise; (119:40-41), I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes.(119:48), and the list goes on and on and on.

The psalmist understands the purpose of God's word, he understands that this is where we find God's commandments and promises, this is where we have fellowship with God. He sees that through the word of God, through the precepts and statuses set forth by our creator that we will benefit by a closer walk with the one who set forth those commandments and precepts.

So again I say to you, go deep, move further into the heart of God by discovering Him through the words that He gave us as His special Revelation. Stand before the almighty and let's learn together how to love His words and rest in His sovereignty.

Let us be a Generation that leads from the heart of the Gospel!

All Quotations taken from ESV Study Bible 

Also Available from Jonathan Faulkner: 

God's Heart for Those: The Surprise of Grace

God's Heart for Those: Outta Control and Outta the Lifeboat!

The Truth: The Trouble With Going Deep

Also Available from 10:31 Life Ministries 

College Commitment: Playing with a Thunderstorm By David Faulkner

A Chosen Generation: Devoured, Withered, Chocked and...Alive? By Angel Edwards 

Confessions of a College Freshmen: That One A.M Feeling By Amy Faulkner 

Check out 10:31 Life Ministries on Facebook at: facebook.com/1031ministries

Or Email 10:31 Life Ministries at: hi1031.ministries@yahoo.com

The Problem with Going Deep

By Jonathan David Faulkner

Before I arrived at college I had a problem, I was a legalist, and if you’ve read this past God’s Heart For Those then you read I had some very Liberal views such as hatred of Religion and hatred of being called religious. These things formed a barrier if you will in my relationship with God because if you don’t believe in religion you read the bible as a list of rules and therefore you either don’t read the bible or don’t read it for all its worth.

            During that time I also included C.S Lewis and other Christian Authors into my quiet time so the challenge became how fast could I read through Scripture to get to the extra biblical test. This of course was right after I had left the church that abused and eventually ran me out, the church that made me a legalist. Sure Lewis taught me a lot about grace, about the idea of grace, but my mind found a way to twist it to its legalistic will. It wasn’t till that night of Illumination that God actually started being able to work that grace into my life, I didn’t allow it, only certain people deserved it and it wasn’t anyone I knew. This attitude created a barrier in my spiritual walk, a wall that only God was going to be able to tear down, a wall that infected everything, especially my study of the gospel.

            But then that night happened and I started to actually think about these ideals that I had clung to, created an identity out of and made my own for so long. As I sat there, revealed for what I was by a friend who later admitted that the only reason she stopped me was because she was stressed and I sounded really stupid, thoughts started to move. God had used this stressed out friend to break the walls of my attitudes toward his word, to show love, though tough, to crack the shell I used as a protective cover. Slowly I started to read Scripture, I fell in at a church that preached the gospel in a way that I could think about and understand, God started to show up in my bible studies, slowly I began to apply scripture. Hermenuetics became important and Exegesis (pulling the original meaning from the text) took priority, yes the Gospel was changing my life.

How Scripture Changed My Life

            I said the change was gradual, and at first it really was, it took me about a year to really work through the pain and hurt that the abuse had caused and to get over my legalist tendencies. Then over the summer I had another moment of illumination. I had really been struggling with the community I was living in and so, like someone good at discernment, my advisor told me take myself out of the equation. To literally be silent the entire week and to study scripture and observe the community without me imputing something into everything conversation, dear friends it was the hardest week of my life. However during that time we walked a Labyrinth and I really got to listen to God and hear His voice, in the stillness of that week I quieted my soul and really heard God.

            Psalms 131 says “O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;

                        my eyes are not raised too high;

            I do not occupy myself with things

                        too great and too marvelous for me.

            But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

                        like a weaned child with its mother;

                        like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

(Psalm 131:1-2 ESV)

Before that week of quiet I was just the opposite of this psalm, my eyes were lifted up, my soul was far from calm and quiet and I had a hard time waiting on the Lord (psalm 130). Now I will say this scripture is one that I came across later in my time in Denver after my good friend JKP pointed it out to me, but it applied none the less.

So I began to read the Epistles, really read the epistles and I began to realize there was a lot I missed. Paul exhorts us to walk by faith and live rightly, Peter encourages us to be holy while John spurs on to love and good works, all the epistles do these and so much more. Then I began to think, how could these people have known what to write if they didn’t listen! So I bagn to really listen to God’s words, to quiet my soul and allow God to speak through scripture, I finally stopped inserting my own meanings and interpretations and really listened. Suddenly the wall was gone, God was speaking loud and clear.

The Problem with Going Deep.

            So here’s the problem, we live in a culture that preaches a skin deep Christianity. Billy Graham once said “Christianity is twenty miles wide and an inch deep.” There isn’t the depth or focus on spiritual formation that there was in the time of the great Evangelists, guys who would argue for the gospel and by the time they were done you were converted. Culture has taught us that it is better to stand here with our toes in the water, to hold to an initial experience rather than dive in and drink in God’s word and love. We’ve been given a Jesus that looks so different from the Jesus we find in the bible that I don’t think He would know who He was if He came back today, we certainly wouldn’t recognize Him. You might say “that’s harsh” but next time you hear a sermon of Jesus listen to how He is portrayed.

            When we really begin to study Scripture though we find that Hebrews 4:12 is correct, it says “  For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (ESV) Going deep starts to shake our foundations and in a world that preaches comfort, nobody likes to have their foundations shook. Like me, nobody wants to think through these things, they let others do it for them and that can be very dangerous. We forget that the experience of God goes beyond the initial change and deep into the study of Scripture where he draws us close and does the work or sanctification.

A Whole New World

            So what does Scripture open to us when we approach it with quiet spirits and different attitudes? It opens a whole new world of understanding in theology, community and life. The bible taken as a whole is very dangerous, even certain areas of the bible when broken down and approached with humility and seeking can impact us.

            For example: I recently started doing a weekly bible study with my friend and brother David here at the school, the book was Romans. We just reached chapter five which is where Paul switches from talking about Righteousness by Faith (1:17-4:25) to Hope as a result of Righteousness by Faith.(5:1-8:39). After reading and gaining a limited understanding of what God had done so that we might be saved I commented to my older sister “After reading this far into Romans I don’t see how I was ever a legalist.”

            Because of this time, as well as my quiet time the Lord has opened up Scripture to me in a way I never thought possible. I praise God daily for its involvement in my daily life. Like my teacher and friend Pastor Joel Wood said one day “You need to be in it everyday, it’s like Manna, you could only go out and get it for one day and what was left spoiled.”

The Point:

            It’s time to get back to Scripture, enough skin deep, twenty mile wide Christianity, let’s get back to the Bible on a regular basis. Let’s study it daily, both by ourselves in our quiet time and with friends and really start to discover scripture and what God is saying to us. We may find that we are all wrong, that God’s word isn’t what we thought it was. We need to let it build relationship between us and God and one another.

            We need to do this, so future generations can have scripture and know how to rightly divide it.

Related Posts from 10:31 Life Ministries
Hawthorne VS Christianity by Rev. David Faulkner
Devoured, Withered, Choked and...Alive? by Angel Edwards
That One A.M Feeling by Amy Faulkner

Also Available from Jonathan Faulkner
The Bible 
Why I Used to Hate Religion but Still Love Jesus 
A Disquieting Invitation 

Email 10:31 Life ministries at hi1031.ministries@yahoo.com