“My first two years as a Christian were years full of joy and intimacy ”

Before I was saved in 2016, my life carried a distinct pattern. The pattern consisted of me venturing into a “new thing” every three to four years. Usually this “new thing” took on the form of an activity, an impressive skill, a particular goal, a lifestyle shift, an identity of my own desired constructions, a location in which to live, or sometimes a group of people to befriend. With each “new thing,” I became consumed in the work of quickly attaining success and then working to sustain that success for a few years in whatever that thing might be. As I transitioned from a teenager to an adult, I found that many of these “new things” I was consumed by had their subcultures and communities attached to them. To me this seemed like even more of a bonus. A “new thing” meant a “new start” that felt fresh, exciting, and life-giving—it was a new opportunity for success.

In 2016, I was saved and all at once my entire life was made new in Jesus Christ (1Cor 5:17). God, by his exceedingly sufficient grace, had made me brand new and had given me a brand new purpose for my life in the very moment that I placed my faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. All the “new things” I had given myself to before this moment could not compare to the joy it was to now be an entirely new creature in Christ. Knowing Christ was life-giving, whereas all of my other previous ventures had been mere placeholders waiting to be replaced by what I truly needed, which was only to be found in the person of Jesus Christ. I was now freed from having to look for the next “new thing,” because I had all I would ever need for the rest of eternity in Christ. As a newly saved Christian, who desired with all of her heart to give the whole of her life to Christ, I went “all in.”

During my first year as a Christian, I fell in love with the Lord. I grew in the milk of God’s word, I learned what it meant to walk as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and I learned what it meant to live a sanctified life. Every day and every decision seemed fresh, exciting, and life-giving. I was falling in love with God and with his mission to win souls to Jesus Christ. I was zealous to know God, to follow him, and to teach others who he was and how to follow him too. On top of all of this, God brought forth fruit through me. I spent the year seeing the power of the gospel transform peoples’ lives like God had mine, and throughout the following year, God graciously allowed me to invest in souls and lead other girls in his word while I studied it more deeply for myself. My first two years as a Christian were years full of joy and intimacy with the Lord. There was also some hardship, some suffering, some struggles to overcome strongholds and various temptations, and some rejection by the world around me. But the sweetness of knowing God intimately and walking daily with my father, the Creator of all things who loved me, trumped anything that I may have deemed “hard” in that season.

“I surrendered to that feeling instead of surrendering to the Lord”

Now, fast-forward to three and a half years after I was saved. At this point, I had had the privilege of doing a lot of different things in ministry and growing in leadership opportunities.

What I had learned during the first couple of years of being a Christian was that the Christian life was not only a life of rejoicing in my salvation and rejoicing in the salvation and growth of others but also a life of suffering and hardship. But now after almost four years, the suffering and hardship were beginning to lead me no longer into fellowship with Christ as they should have (Phil 3:8-12), but instead, into a habit of groaning, complaining, and mumbling in my heart. Being “all-in” was no longer a self-selected one-jump temporary venture as it had been before my salvation. In Christ, it was a daily and repetitive self-chosen crucifixion, which would determine my availability for being used in God’s venture to win souls for his glory; souls he had gone “all-in” himself for two thousand years ago when I was still yet without a right covering for my sin (Rom 5:8). It had now been three and a half years since I had been saved, and I was finding out that I was growing tired of being “all-in” in God’s mission. The three to four year pattern that I knew so well before being saved was beginning to surface.

Would my Christian walk just become another set of three or four years within a long-term pattern of many new ventures? Would Christ and his mission to win souls and lead others in the word of God one day at a time be enough to break my pattern? What decisions would I make now knowing my familiar old tendencies?

At this point in my walk, my “surrender to Christ” had turned into my “surrender to feelings of overwhelmedness” or a “surrender to learned helplessness” in the face of hardship. The hardships that were once new and exciting in ministry now had become hard, and I was losing endurance. Spiritual attack by the enemy and suffering in the world in response to living out God’s mission became easier to think upon than the souls that the Lord would gloriously win for the kingdom in due season (Gal 6:9). The cost of committing my life daily to the mission of

God felt heavy, daunting, and impossible, so I surrendered to that feeling instead of surrendering to the Lord. I convinced myself that I couldn’t do everything Christ wanted, and the mission was too big. In actuality, what I was choosing to do was nothing, or worse, to simply do my own things. I gave myself to “enough few good things” heartily as unto the Lord without being wholly given to all of his work he may have had for me. I hid in my “enough few good things” while watching a growing ministry of disciples around me gladly give their lives daily to God’s mission.

Over time I built a wall of excuses that led me to believe that what I was doing was a “reasonable” amount of work. When really, it was only reasonable in my own eyes, not meeting the expectation for what is defined as reasonable service in God’s eyes (Rom 12:1). Jesus had warned me early on in my walk that following him would be hard (2Tim 2:3). My walls of excuses created a temporary shelter for myself that I placed a covering of comfort over—a covering woven together by my complacency and my fear of hard labor. In addition to this makeshift shelter, I had also begun separating my relationship with God from my relationship with his mission—God’s mission, which had saved me (2Pet 3:9). Yet, I had separated myself from it. Not only was I dwelling in the wrong place but my vision was also skewed because of it.

“The pattern of the nature of my old man was re-emerging”

In this season, our college and young adults fellowship pastor, Brandon Briscoe, had taken us on a detour from studying the book of Acts, to camp out in the book of Jonah before returning to Acts. God used Brandon’s preaching in the Jonah series to begin forcing me to confront this shelter of excuses and comfort I had built and to begin revealing to me how skewed my vision had become. Yet, even as we journeyed back into Acts on Sunday mornings, I was still wrestling with all of this. I did not want to cut the cords of my “reasonable” excuses or to come out from my dwelling place of comfort. This would mean freeing myself to live a life of running hard after Jesus Christ again in sacrificial ways, a denial of self, and in ways that deemed carrying the cross of Jesus Christ as worthy of enduring hardness. Because I was still wrestling with this and because I was still unsurrendered before the Lord, Brandon’s weekly messages in Acts became like a thermometer reporting back to me the temperature of my weak spiritual state. Listening to preaching from the book of Acts once a week became a painful work in and of itself. My carnal nature was working vigorously each week to interrupt and stunt the truth of what Brandon was preaching about in Acts to deter truth from sinking into my ears and taking root again in my heart.

Confronting God’s word in the book of Acts was an inward weekly reckoning of what I was not choosing to do in my walk with the Lord. In Acts 13:13, we see the disciple of Christ, John Mark, departing from the work of the mission to return to Jerusalem. We are not told why John Mark departed, but we do know that it hindered his testimony of being available for the work of the mission in the apostle Paul’s eyes for a season. Brandon’s message expounded on John Mark’s departure from the work of the mission with Paul and suggested that due to Paul’s harsh reaction to John Mark’s departure, he most likely departed due to a faith issue, a character issue, or an issue with surrender. The latter two possible issues that John Mark may have been dealing with resonated with me and these two issues affected the other possible issue John Mark may have been dealing with, the faith he had in his walk with the Lord.

Through these messages, I was recognizing that I was reaching my typical three to four year wane. The pattern of the nature of my old man was re-emerging, but this time it was luring me to maybe find a “new thing” again. Maybe something in the disguise of ministry, maybe something outside of Christ, but regardless of what the new thing would be, it would not be situated in the mission. Yet, in my spirit, I knew better. God himself had taught me so and prepared me for this coming season long before I reached it. I knew that Christ was

the end of all things. God had already taught me that no “seemingly new” thing could replace him or his call for me to be in his mission and to do the work of his ministry.

Around this same time during the Sunday series in the book of Acts, we began exploring the idea of patterns in ministry. Looking at the lives of God’s key men in the book of Acts weekly forced me to face critical questions: Is God’s mission situated in all areas of my life? Whose desires are leading me? What is my current pattern in ministry? What is the pattern I need to establish for myself in ministry? Do I deem certain self-focused self-protecting concepts or notions greater than the worship of Jesus Christ in my life? What self-validating hesitancies have I allowed to mingle into my worship of the King? What does the lacking state of my witness with the gospel to the lost mean about my spiritual state? Where has the urgency gone in my understanding of and participation in God’s mission?

In Acts 11:23, Barnabas is sent to Antioch to exhort a new group of believers in the Lord, and when he arrives, the scripture says he exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave to the Lord. He encourages the believers to purpose their hearts to cleave to the Lord. The action, to cleave, means to be steadfastly devoted to, to remain with, to adhere to, to persevere in, to abide still, to continue with—would I continue to cleave? Would I continue to not only cleave to God but God’s mission?

The apostles’ and disciples’ pattern of ministry in the book of Acts provides an example of individuals with a shared pattern of persistence in God’s unchanging mission. The shared pattern of these individuals included preaching the gospel to the lost, winning souls to Jesus Christ, and raising young believers to walk as mature disciples of Christ. These would be those eventually sent out to preach the gospel to win souls to Jesus Christ for themselves.

“The pattern God wanted to settle me in did not involve me making dynamic or extraordinary decisions”

In examining the pattern of the men and women God uses for his glory in Acts, I could see clearly that the practical pattern of their ministry pointed to where their worship was situated and the persistence of the pattern pointed to the fact that their worship was settled. God began using this season nearing my four-year waning point in a new thing to break an old pattern and to settle my worship in him. God was ready to replace my old pattern with a pattern that looked more like the pattern of the faithful men we see in Acts.

The pattern God wanted to settle me in did not involve me making dynamic or extraordinary decisions, but rather, making small, consistent, and steady decisions. God was asking me to choose to be resolved, persistent, and determined to do his work. And, of course, God did not leave me alone in this; he provided me with vision, accountability, and a reminder of what was truly at stake. The Lord revived his Spirit in me in Psalm 40. It was here that I found the words that I could begin to learn to claim again for his glory. The verses of Psalm 40 would become the guideposts of my small steady steps, and they would become the script for the cries of my prayers when spiritual attack would begin to emerge again in response to delighting in doing God’s will.

The Lord sent me godly teachers to lead me, to build me up in Christ, and to hold me accountable in establishing a settled pattern in ministry. After a brief season of prayer, despite the resistance of my flesh, I immediately hopped into the evangelism class offered in LFBI. The framework for the class, which was very straightforward and actively practical, stretched me to do what God said by his grace, with a purposed heart, and with an intentional plan built on simple biblical principles. I could no longer hide from God’s calling on my life, and the call of Jesus Christ to the Father’s will was more powerful than the call of my flesh to its own will. God placed the body of Christ there with me to encourage me along the way in this reality even when my flesh tempted me to consider otherwise.

The Lord reminded me of what was truly at stake in the mission. He reminded me of the weight of souls that were so precious to him, which he had painfully paid a great deal for. He reminded me of the weight of leading other believers in Christ. The girls in the Bible study I was just beginning to lead needed to be led by an individual with a settled, persistent pattern in the work of God’s mission, not an individual with a shifting wandering pattern of indecision and delay in responding to God’s call on her life.

God is interested in my sanctification and in my stewardship (1Cor 4:2). God has given me very much, which means he requires much of me as well (Luke 12:48). Jesus has asked me to endure hardness and to please him as his soldier (2Tim 2:3-4). The apostles and disciples in the book of Acts stewarded the gospel well; they gave their lives wholly to it. They encouraged others to purpose their hearts, to cleave to the Lord, and to do the same. Their pattern (the outward evidence of their inward worship) of ministry was situated in Christ and settled in God’s mission. The work of the rest of my life here on earth, until I spend the rest of eternity with Christ, will be to wake up each day and crucify the lurking patterns of my flesh and put on the situated and settled pattern of ministry in Jesus Christ that God is faithfully teaching me how to participate in daily.

“God has shown me that the way out is simply in acknowledging where I am”

In experiencing this particular season, I can attest that I now know I need to turn to the Lord when I begin building walls of excuses and creating shelters of comfort. My flesh will always want to build and create these types of dwelling places, and I may find myself there again at some point. But, God has shown me that the way out is simply in acknowledging where I am, in repenting of it, and in returning to his pattern; a pattern that is a far more hopeful and fruitful place to abide. It is a place of forgetting my desires and, instead, being given to Christ and his desires, and even better yet, fellowship with Christ is there.

Regardless of where we are in our spiritual walk, we must make small, steady, and consistent daily decisions with purposed hearts to continue to keep God’s word and bring forth fruit with patience (Luke 8:15). We will see victory in Christ if we do so, and we will know that our work in the Lord is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:57-58, But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Jaclyn Senne is a leader in C&YA. She serves on the hospitality team and leads a ladies UMKC small group Bible study.

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Putting on a Settled Pattern: Applications from Acts

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