Repent! The Rally Cry of a Cowboy in the “Autumn” of His Life

Church services were different today.  I’m not sure if it was the crashing of our projector computer, or the fact that both our pastor and associate pastor were away visiting family for the holidays, or even the fact that we had two laymen preaching today’s messages, but things were…different, and that was a good thing.  Tonight’s message focused on the simple message of a cowboy who admittedly is in the “autumn” of his life.  He knows he doesn’t have much longer to go before meeting the Lord, and that’s alright by him.  The fact of the matter is, Wes Ramsey has been working on sanctification for most of his life, it’s a slow process he says, and that was refreshing to hear, since I’m just now seeing the importance of being clean before God ON A DAILY BASIS.  It made me happy that just because I don’t see as much progress as I’d like to see in my spiritual life, Wes is still working on his too.  An interesting thing he said tonight, and I’ve heard him say it before…that this nation needs to “return to Holiness.”  And in order to do that, we must do what Christ preached when he started his ministry, and John the Baptist preached as the forerunner to Christ, and prophets of old preached to their nation when it had fallen to adultery and idolatry.  We must repent!  Repent from what?  Sin obviously…duh.  But what kind of sin?  I think I can safely say, you name it, we probably need to repent of it. “That’s judgemental” you say?  Maybe…maybe not.  Consider for a moment that I’m not being judgemental, that there really is something in YOUR life that is not pleasing to God, don’t worry about MY life, and whether or not I’m judging.  Why don’t you (and I say this in love to ANYONE reading) sit down, SHUT UP, and consider that there may be sin in your life that you aren’t aware of.  I bet it’s in an area of your life you would never have imagined.  The Pharisees and Saducees of Jesus’ day weren’t ugly demon folks, they were “good” people who believed they were in the right most of the time because they followed God’s law and the traditions they made to help God’s law.  Sound familiar?  Don’t we do the same thing day after day?  Thinking we’re right because we live by the Bible and man’s traditions of church?  Sure it started out as sincerity to God, but it has turned into hypocricy and idol worship.  Repent! For once, repent of being a “Christian” and start being a person who just loves God and wants to follow HARD after Christ.  Maybe we start seeing ourselves as “lost” instead of just assumming we’re part of the fold.  Repent of being just another drone.

Complacent: To be or not to be

Today was a strange day…

I slept in.  I hate sleeping in, but I find myself, more often than not, hitting the snooze button a lot more than what’s necessary and developed a nasty habit of just going back to sleep.  Because of this, I missed my devotion time, my prayer time, and most of all, just my alone time with God.  However, I found the day to be absolutely beautiful and having very little difficulty getting ready for work as I just accepted that my normal “alone time” just wasn’t going to happen because I woke up late.  When I got out the door, with a hot cup of coffee in hand, I was 10 minutes earlier than I normally am.  I had plenty of time to get to work without having to drive like a maniac.

The rest of the day went…GREAT!  Odd as it sounds.  I know, I know…a lot of folks in this mode of thinking would say that they missed their quiet time and so the rest of the day was “off.”  Well, I’m not going to say that I didn’t have that initial conviction…it was there.  But all in all, it was a good day.

I guess because I was in the mode of looking for Christ, opportunities came up today I may not have seen before.  Ways of pointing to Jesus that wasn’t just coming from a “good ole boy” but real issues that Christ looked at and gave stern warnings for.  Things like “beware the leaven of the Pharisees” (Matthew 16).  I was also able to share the verse that made me realize what it meant to actually know Christ and make him Lord of my life (Matthew 7:21-23).  I also was able to share how God is a God of second chances, and third, and fourth and even fifth chances, not that we should tempt Him, but that we should remember He is gracious, no matter how stupid or sinful we are.  Aren’t our loved ones blessed, aren’t we blessed, that when we would normally give up on a person, God says, ” here’s another chance, oh yes, and if they screw this one up, I’ll give them another.”  Praise God for His mercy.

I reflected on how easy it was, to wake up and just go, and have a great day, and the appeal that most Christians have just to run out the door as quick as we have what we “need.”  Not often do we think that the real NEED went sufficiently ignored, in fact, probably not even thought of.  Isn’t it easy to think the next day will be just as good, and the next, and the next?  Soon we are just running out the door everyday, asking the Lord to bless the day (and fooling ourselves that this is enough).  Maybe, this is the danger of complacency.  It sneaks up on you, one day you are serving the Lord, praying for people, having quiet time, genuinely caring for folks, and the next, it’s okay to excuse one ignored area of your life for another…the next…your soul is struggling to catch up with you as you’re running out the door. 

Be diligent church, be diligent to run the race as Paul encouraged us too (1 Corinthians 9:24).  Let us stop being complacent.

Mission trip just around the corner…Pray.

It’s too late to be too deep tonight.  I sure do appreciate everybody checking out the blogs, I’m happy to say it seems to be quite popular these past couple of weeks.  I try to write and link some of the hot topics of the world to the “spritual realm” (not that I see much difference between the spiritual and physical, in my opinion they should be woven together) and it seems that people show a little more interest.

Today I realized just how close I am to leaving for India again, Lord willing.  Our mission trip is not being funded as quickly as I thought it might, so I called up Pizza Hut in Claremore to see if there’s any way I might be able to go up and do a few “mini-details” (good wash of tires and wheel wells with degreaser, body of the car, tire shine) for as much as a person has on their heart to donate.  Well, it seems I’m going to be doing that every Saturday, starting 11/17, up through 12/22 from 9am-2pm at Pizza Hut for anyone who needs a pretty clean car.  I detailed cars everyday for about a year so I’m pretty good at it, although it won’t be a full detail, I do aim to please for as much as I can get.  It struck me that this is only 7 Saturdays, 7 weeks, that’s all we have left. 

Please pray for us in this regard guys, 6 of us have a heart to serve the Lord in this capacity, and it does take a toll on the mind.  There’s always the questions of “What if I had worded my letter different?” ”Why didn’t I start saving for this a year ago?” “What if we don’t get the funds?” ”What if I don’t have enough faith to receive the funds?”  I personally do feel that last question is a load of hogwash, but still, for some folks, it’s there.  Of course, the Lord knows the answers to all these questions and doesn’t want us to dwell, but there is the disappointment and feeling of failure in this regard.  We can’t hear God say “no,” so sometimes it’s a little difficult to swallow that answer.  I personally used to see it as some kind of failure on my own part, but I’m past that I think.  But, for now, pray that we get these funds to fulfill the Lord’s will.  If the funds don’t come, we know that it was bathed in prayer, and the Lord has something better later down the road.  I love all of you and am praying for you myself.

Jeremy

“Shaken to the Core” – by what?

An emotional Oprah Winfrey said Monday she had been “shaken to the core” by sexual abuse claims at her elite girls’ school in South Africa, calling the episode one of the most devastating of her life. (AFP – Fran Blandy)

The unfortunate events at Oprah’s school surely is a tragedy. I’m sure Oprah has taken it hard within. Surely she must be thinking what else she may have been able to do. Why did she not take better precautions that these children which she so carefully and painstakingly selected to be part of this school? Surely she even feels somewhat responsible…so she does what anyone in her position and wielding her power and money would do…clean house.

Oprah stated herself she was “shaken to the core.” I got to thinking about this statement. I wondered what the Bible said about being “shaken,” especially when it came to the “core” or, to the best I can understand it, the spirit. This is one of the verses I found. Notice what shakes this prophet of God when he finds that Israel is riddled with false prophets who are NOT of God:

My heart within me is broken
Because of the prophets;
All my bones shake.
I am like a drunken man,
And like a man whom wine has overcome,
Because of the LORD,
And because of His holy words.

Jeremiah 23:9

God’s Holy words are what shakes men, they break men’s hearts. And the realization of God’s Holiness and our unholiness (if we take a look at who we truly are and our motivations, i.e. the “why” we live) are what makes us as men and women that wine has overcome. We sob like drunkards and all our bones shake when faced with God’s nature and words.

For all of Oprah’s good deeds, good nature, good money, charity and willingness to make a difference in unfortunate people’s lives, this gesture of hope in South Africa has been marred by the human condition. Sin crept in as it always does, and now, Oprah is “shaken to the core.” It makes me wonder if those words, sounding as sincere as they may be, might be somewhat misplaced.

Maybe Oprah truly selected the best of the best, those she trusted implicitly with those children and found herself as Jeremiah did seeing a Holy God being misrepresented by false prophets. Oprah’s school is suddenly misrepresented and her wrath comes down on all teachers there and she cleans house. If she could do this feeling “shaken”, what will God do who is not shaken? Even those who will not claim God’s name; but rather the power of the human spirit, know the meaning of justice. May we all be “shaken” by the right things:God Himself and His Words before we ourselves must face true justice.

Why ask “Why”?

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.

2 Corinthians 13:5

“Why ask why?”  Because it could be the most important question you ask in life.  As I’ve tried to share in my testimony, I grew up in church.  There was always so much “do and do not” I very rarely asked why I was doing and not doing.  Before too long, I got the right “dos” and I got approval.  I loved it!  Approval from parents, family and friends.  I loved being a good kid, so I continued doing the right thing.  My intentions were not to be doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but somehow, life just turned out that way.  About two years ago, I started getting convicted everytime I heard or read (later I just ended up dwelling on) the scripture Matthew 7:21-23.  By that scripture I realized that you can be in Heaven and still be rejected by the Lord and be SURPRIZED about it!  I began to wonder if I was one of those who the Lord would reject, saying He never knew me.  I imagined myself, standing there, saying, “I’ve done so much for you Lord.”  And the Lord saying, “depart from me, I never knew you.”  I had to examine myself, my heart, my motives, and I realized that none of what I had ever done (no matter who thought what I did was good) was ever for the Lord, it was for me.  I made myself the “hub” of the Christian wheel.  I realized, quite suddenly that the “why” I was doing things was so much more important than WHAT I was doing and how I was doing things.  Doing the right thing just because it was the right thing was no longer right.  I was a pharisee, a hypocrite, and I would have died and went to hell had I had an accident that night.  At that moment, driving home from work, I asked the Lord to please save me, please forgive my empty, petty, motives for “doing right” in life and to please help me from that point on, and to finally, once and for all, be my Lord.  Wherever He leads, I’ll follow.

I ask these questions because I went through them in life myself:  Did someone tell you, “all you have to do is say this prayer and you’ll go to Heaven?”  Did you get saved at a church camp maybe or at a church alter when you went to the front and said a prayer because your friends or family were around and they wanted you to “accept Jesus into your heart”?  Did you make some kind of emotional decision?  Maybe you should examine yourself too?  I did, and I have no doubts who my Lord is, and I think if more Christians would see Jesus as Lord and “examine themselves” they’d finally start seeing themselves as God wants them too.  Truthfully, honestly, in need of Him.