A WALK IN AMARILLO

I read Leviticus 5 today.  Verse 17 reads,

"Now if a person sins and does any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, though he was unaware, still he is guilty and shall bear his punishment."

 This points to the Holiness of God.  Men have a great need before this Holy God.  He will not allow one stain to remain upon us if we are to actually enter into the fulness of God.  Even many who are unaware of their sins are guilty before God.  There is no way to come to God but to see this truth about our sins.  Throughout Leviticus it tells us that when a man sins and realizes he has sinned he is to confess it and bring an offering of some sort or another for the priest to offer on his behalf to atone for his guilt.  This requires a knowledge of their sins.  I thought about the people who never realized they had sinned.  Bearing any sort of guilt before God is a dangerous thing for He is Holy.

Thinking about all of this, I went for a walk in Ellwood Park in Amarillo, TX.  I was shocked at all of the people I saw there.  Many of them on drugs, homeless people pushing shopping carts, youth sitting around using all sorts of vile speech.  Irreverently scrawled on the sidewalk in spray paint was the phrase, "Jesus was a Jedi".  I felt extremely outnumbered and actually feared for my safety.  Many stared at me as I walked around the outside track around the park.  I wondered how many of them were wondering how much money I had on me.  How many would take advantage of someone like me if the timing were right?  I was sure of one thing.  All of them would stand before the Holy God I had read about hours earlier and face punishment for their sins whether or not they knew about them in advance.  Denying our sin before God will not be an option in the great day of judgment.

I felt shame in my heart as I was too afraid to approach the great numbers of lost in this one park in Amarillo.  I truly felt fear and could not approach them.  When I got back to Melissa's mothers apartment, whom we are visiting this week, I prayed that God would send more laborers into the harvest.  The fields are white; I saw them myself.  It is a frightening world we live in, full of evil men and women who hate God and despise Jesus and the message that His disciples are daily sent to speak about.  Who really wants to hear that everything they've ever done was sinful?  Who really wants to hear that they've got to give everything in this world up to Jesus, who promises a life of heartache for an eternity of bliss?  Everyone in the world wants their treasure now and not later.  Without the power of God working in their hearts I can do nothing for them.  Without God working in my heart I cannot even go to them.  I have really been humbled by this experience and wanted to share it with you all.

Perhaps it does not make much sense.  Perhaps you cannot understand why it was so hard to talk to anyone today.  Frankly, neither can I.  Those that know me know that I am very bold and outgoing on my own and do not need God for help in this area.  But maybe that is exactly the point of it all.  I would go without waiting for Him to send me.  I have before.  God is teaching me to trust Him for everything.  Especially for those things with which I am so confident with myself already.  Humility is what I need.  God is at work and I thank Him for that, even if I do not understand everything He is doing in me.  I do not want to trust in myself anymore.  I saw how quickly I could fail myself today and want nothing to do with it anymore.

FORSAKE YOUR LIFE

OUR UNION WITH CHRIST

"Nothing is more precious than hearing God say to us personally: No condemnation. Or hearing him pronounce the words over our guilty heads, Justified! If you cherish this verdict and this standing with God, then cherish your union with Christ. Make it part of what you value most in the world."

-John Piper

PLEASE PRAY

Please, pray for Youcef Nadarkhani an Iranian pastor who could be executed as early as tomorrow because of his faith in Christ.

http://aclj.org/iran/iran-upholds-christian-pastor-apostasy-conviction-execution-wednesday

 

ALL I HAVE IS CHRIST

SPIRITUAL DEPRESSION ITS CAUSES AND CURE

I am reading 'Spiritual Depression Its Causes and Cure' by Martyn Lloyd-Jones and have found a most profound passage that I thought worthy of sharing.  The book has been excellently written and is difficult to put down.  The passage I am quoting is concerning sin and whether or not you know that you are a sinner.

"Here is the test for you and me:  Are you loving God with all your being?  If you are not, you are a sinner.  That is the test.  'All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.'  God has made us and He has made us for Himself.  He made man for His own glory and He intended man to live entirely for Him.  Man was to be His representative, and was to dwell in communion with Him.  He was to be the lord of the universe, he was to glorify God.  As it is put in the Shorter Catechism: 'The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever', and if you are not doing so you are a sinner of the deepest dye, whether you know it and feel it or not....So the question is:  Do you know God?  I am not asking if you believe in God, or if you believe certain things about Him.  To be a Christian is to have eternal life, and as our Lord says in John 17:3: 'This is life eternal to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent'.  So the test we apply to ourselves is that.  Not, 'Have I done this or that?'  My test is a positive one: 'Do I know God?  Is Jesus Christ real to me?'  I am not asking whether you know things about Him but do you know God, are you enjoying God, is God the centre of your life, the soul of your being, the source of you greatest joy?  He is meant to be."

SORELY DISAPPOINTED

I am sorely disappointed this morning, both in myself and the American church.  I have been reading a book titled 'Radical' by David Platt and it has been very engaging.  I have gotten angry while reading it due to the great dilemma's he has created in my mind concerning how I have lived the last 29 years of my life and how I see the great majority of American Christians living theirs.  I must say, this book did not plant these thoughts in my mind.  I have been thinking them for quite sometime, but until reading this book I did not know how to explain the problem or describe it to others.  I will read the last chapter today before I go in to work, and truly, the main issue is a lack of one's dying to self.  I am sure all Christians, across the board, have struggled with this, but Americans have a way of not only NOT dying to self, but extravagantly living for one's self, slapping every man, woman and child in the face who has suffered severe persecution for the sake of Jesus Christ.  We live as if no one has ever suffered for the gospel's sake.  We live because they died and give little or no thought of it.  We forsake a great teaching of Christ when we decide to live our live behind our excuses, forsaking the needs of those around us.  How can the world hate us when we are just like them?  When will our families give us our promised persecution when we do nothing but think of our families?  How can we be hated in America, when we are living just like Americans do?  It isn't about what vices you've been delivered from since converting to Christianity.  It is about what you have done with the great freedom you have been given from those vices that matters.  Are you living for yourself?  I do not mean, are you still spending yourself on foolish vices, I mean are you, even though converted, living for your self?  You can be doing all sorts of Christian things, feeling as though you are not living for yourself when indeed you do nothing except that which is beneficial to yourself.  This is nothing but living for one's self!  Will you change your schedule for others in need around you, even if those closest to you will be angry with you?  Everyone can help out in their free time, even the world volunteers their free time to causes.  Are you helping when it hurts?  When no one else wants to help out and you are all alone in a situation are you willing to give up your desires, your time, your money and plans so that others can use you up like a few sheets of toilet paper that get one swipe and than thrown into the toilet?  This is death to self and it is likened to death because it hurts.  It flies directly in the face of how all Americans were raised to think and live and so you must be on guard at all times.  American self will not submit to this sort of behavior this side of eternity.  We are, as Christians, called to drown self in the pool of others needs and hold him under that blessed water until Christ returns.  He will writhe around in selfish anger and cry out for sustenance, but get violent with him!  Choke self out until he bleeds, until you sweat great drops of blood doing so.  You have been called not to glory in your American freedom, but to spend that freedom on others, even if it costs you your reputation, your family, your money and your precious, precious down time.  And so I ask, how is your freedom as an American hurting self or is it this freedom we have still a benefit to self?  The answer to this question will tell you how far off the battlefield you have wandered.