Devotional
Pierced for me
During Old Testament times it was a common custom that when someone was unable to pay their debts, they might sell their liberty and become a bondservant of their debtors, and thus work off their debt. In order to protect the bondservant, laws were given to prevent unfair treatment or excessively long periods of service. Exodus 21:1-6 provides for the release of a bondservant in the 7th year of service. This passage also details the process to be followed in the event that the servant decides to stay with his master after his term of service has expired:
Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them:If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years; and in the seventh he shall go out free and pay nothing.If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.But if the servant plainly says, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.
It seems so unusual that anyone would voluntarily choose to remain under a master when they could choose their independence instead. Who would make such a choice? The answer appears obvious – no one. And truly there are none among this sinful race who possess within themselves the desire to make such a choice, even when that Master is the Lord of glory.
We did not love Him. We did not want to stay with Him and serve Him. We would not be pierced for Him, so He was pierced for us.
In His piercing He plainly declared His love for us
In His piercing He promised to stay with us
In His piercing He declared that He would serve as our High Priest forever.
The servant would not be pierced for the Master, so the Master was pierced for the servant…..so that we could love Him, so that we could serve Him, so that we could stay with Him forever.
Amazing grace.
Why Preach the Gospel?
WHY PREACH THE GOSPEL??? God desires it.
God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” 1 Timothy 2:4-6
WHY PREACH THE GOSPEL??? Men are saved through it.
“It is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.” Romans 1:16
WHY PREACH THE GOSPEL??? God takes pleasure in the salvation of souls.
“Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” Ezekiel 18:23
WHY PREACH THE GOSPEL??? God expects it.
“Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Surely we did not know this,” does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?” Proverbs 24:11-12
WHY PREACH THE GOSPEL???
How can we not preach the gospel?
A wasted life
There is a man in my church who has been recently diagnosed and is currently undergoing treatment for leukemia. Even with treatment, the doctors give him just over a year to live. I saw him yesterday after church and stopped to inquire about his health. After he updated me on the status of various tests and procedures, I asked him this question: “With eternity looming before you as a near reality, what has become the most important thing in life?” Here is his response:
“I was saved when I was eight years old; that was 55 years ago. 20 years ago I moved to this city to go to Bible college. And then I just settled in to life. I pretty much lived the American dream. I have a nice house, a couple of nice cars and a savings account. And none of that means anything to me now. I have wasted my life. The only thing that matters is what I can do for the Lord Jesus with the time I have left.”
It makes me mindful that life is just a vapor for all of us and we will stand before the Lord Jesus and look into that glorious face. So much of what we currently think of as important will not matter at all on that day.
I pray that the Lord would help us all, His people, to wake up to what really matters……eternal things…..those things that bring the Lord Jesus glory in this earth and make Him known. The American dream is a tranquilizer that has numbed us to the fact that we are strangers and pilgrims on this earth. We are citizens of another country….a heavenly one. And unless we awake to this fact, we may all find that we have lived wasted lives.
“I don’t want to go to hell”
His name was Dalvis. It was difficult to tell his age. His face was weathered by the sun and ravaged by the effects of a life of drunkenness. Most men his age were retired and enjoying their grandchildren. But Dalvis was homeless and wandering on Bourbon Street. It was a noisy, crowded night as St. Patrick’s Day parades rolled through the street. But when Dalvis saw me from the other side of the street, he walked over and asked me if I was a Christian. When I told him that I was he said, “I don’t want to go to hell.” He had grown up with an alcoholic mother who had beaten him daily until one day she had an encounter with Jesus Christ. Everything changed from that point forward and Dalvis told me of hearing his mother pray for his soul and of the conversations they had about the Lord Jesus. He talked about his life on the streets….how many times he had been shot and stabbed and about the two people he had killed. His life had been devastated by sin. What hope is there for someone like Dalvis (or for any of us) other than Jesus Christ? I shared the gospel with him and encouraged him to trust Christ. And as he was preparing to walk away I asked if I could pray for him. We held hands on the side of the street and as I began to pray he went down onto his knees. I knelt beside him in the middle of the filth and noise and debauchery of Bourbon Street and this man wept as I prayed for him to know this Christ that loved him enough to die for him and was strong enough to rescue him.
A New Year’s Eve like no other – Part 2
(Continued from previous post)
The team of about 16 people arrived on Bourbon Street at 11:00. After we prayed together, I found a spot to stand in the street and lifted up a prayer to the Lord that I might be useful to Him that night.
It was much more crowded than it had been the first time I went. The noise of music was louder and the smells were much stronger. Once again there were many mockers angrily cursing Jesus as they walked by us. But in the midst of it all, person after person stopped to talk to us. Some were angry and unbelieving and wanted to tell me. Some were backsliders who were convicted of their sin and angry. One such lady stood nose to nose with me, screaming at me with obscenities at the top of her voice. At one point she grabbed the back of my neck and I braced myself for what might be about to follow. I continued to respond to her with the Word of God and watched as right before my eyes she began to break and weep. She removed her hand from my neck and her friends pulled her away back into the crowd. I talked to many people that night who professed to be Christians and yet were partying it up on Bourbon Street. I encouraged them to forsake their friendship with the world and to walk in holiness for the glory of Jesus. Once again this week I saw people fall under conviction as they walked by the cross.
I have had people ask me (and I have asked myself) if this type of ministry is effective and profitable. I didn’t have an answer for that question until December, 2011. And now I can answer yes. I have seen God at work on Bourbon Street through the preaching of the gospel. I never would have thought I would be doing something like this. But over the last year the Lord has renewed my passion for the proclamation of the gospel and how I thank Him for the joy of being part of what He’s doing.
May we all, in whatever way the Lord provides, be faithful ambassadors of our Lord Jesus Christ, unashamedly making Him known in the earth.
A New Year’s Eve like no other – Part 1
For New Year’s Eve I had made plans to return to Bourbon Street with the people of Raven Street Church. All week long there had been a battle in me over whether or not I was going to return. My time there the previous week had been very difficult and I struggled all week with feeling inadequate for such a work. My natural temperament is reserved and quiet, so such a hostile environment left me feeling quite out of my element and unable to minister to anyone. The experience was humbling, as I very clearly saw my own weakness. It was a crushing (and necessary) blow to pride. One that kept me down for most of the week. I could hardly bear to think of returning to experience such a paralyzing ineffectiveness again. And yet……..at the same time I felt so strongly compelled to go. Thus the battle.
Friday afternoon I sat at my table feeling desperate to hear something from God regarding all of this. I opened my Bible to the place I had left off reading – 2 Corinthians 3 and almost immediately the Lord brought peace to my heart through His Word….
And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away,how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels.For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech–
The last portion caught my attention because it addressed my need – “Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech–” I looked up the word hope and found it to mean a confident expectation based on solid certainty. I searched the previous verses to find out what this solid certainty is that created a confidence that led to great boldness – “the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory”. Something clicked, and a truth that I had already known became much more solidly established in my heart – the message that we bring is a glorious message. Because of our wonderful Christ and His wonderful gospel, we can be very bold because of our confidence that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation…regardless of the weakness of the messenger.
I felt as though 10,000 pounds had been lifted from my heart. With great thankfulness to the Lord I rejoiced in the peace that washed over me concerning the trip to Bourbon Street the next night.
To be continued…..
The eve of Christmas eve on Bourbon Street – New Orleans
I never thought that I would ever spend any part of the holiday season, or any other season for that matter, on Bourbon Street. For those of you who know anything about Bourbon Street (and it does have quite a reputation) I don’t need to add anything to that. Even before I was a Christian, it wasn’t a place that I ever wanted to go. It is a place of drunkenness, strip clubs and all manner of sin.
But recently I made contact with some people who are part of a ministry called Raven Street Ministry and they go to Bourbon Street every Friday and Saturday night for open air street church right in the middle of Bourbon Street. On Friday, December 23rd, I made the trip with a few other people from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. At 11:00 PM we met up in a parking lot with the rest of the people, and a total of about 15 of us began the walk to Bourbon Street. The men carried the sound equipment and a large red cross about 10 feet tall. We got to the 500 block of Bourbon Street and began to setup the cross and the equipment. Although it was almost Christmas and the activity on Bourbon Street was less than a normal night, there were still many people out that night.
Five or six people took turns preaching and the rest of us stood either in the street or along side the street, talking to and praying with people who stopped. I have been a part of street ministry before and have been active in evangelism in my hometown of Baton Rouge, but I was in no way prepared for what I saw this night. The one verse that kinda sums it all up is this – “there is no fear of God before their eyes”. I have never in my life witnessed such blatant and hateful mockery of Christ and His gospel. I have seen street preachers before who preached such a distorted and hate-filled message that the mockery might be justified, but the gospel that was preached this night was wonderfully pure and complete – sin, righteousness, judgment, the love of God and Christ as the only Saviour. And many people despised it. One intoxicated middle aged woman actually came up and physically attacked our group and when she was finally separated away from us, she stood at a distance pointing her finger at us and screaming: “You are all white trash”, “Liars”, “Jesus would be so ashamed of you”.
Never in my life have I observed such hatred for Christ as I saw that night. My heart broke for those people who were cursing the God who was giving them the very breath that they used to curse Him. It seemed that if Jesus Himself had been there, they would have been shouting “Crucify Him!” And still as Jesus was looking down upon them that night, He loved them and desired them to repent.
I felt as thought I was witnessing the battle between light and darkness. And the darkness was very dark. But still the light was shining. The gospel was preached, Jesus was lifted up, and it was beautiful.
A disciple unto death
Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go that we may die with Him.” John 11:16
Jesus had recently been in Jerusalem and His words had caused such a stir that the Jews sought to stone Him (John 10:31,39) Now He was speaking to His disciples of going back to Bethany which was very near Jerusalem. His disciples were concerned because of the danger of going back there. The fear that filled them even caused them to ignore the need of one dear to their group – Lazarus, who was very sick. But Jesus had heard from the Father and knew there was a work to be done in Bethany. As the disciples continued to argue with Him, He told them plainly that Lazarus was dead and then added, “let us go to him.”
Thomas, who is always known primarily as the doubter, has lost credibility with most of us and his words in verse 16, “let us also go that we may die with Him”, have been labeled as pessimism. But not only has Jesus recently been in danger at the hands of violent men, he has also just said that they are going to Lazarus – a man that is in the grave. What other conclusion could Thomas, or any of them, have come to. They must have all felt that their very lives were in danger if they continued on with Jesus. And it is Thomas that encouraged the group to look the consequences square in the eye and to move forward with Jesus anyway. This is the level of commitment that a disciple is called to – to follow Jesus wherever He leads. Even if it is to death. And it is Thomas who reminded them of this.
Can we remind ourselves of this today? Here in comfortable American Christianity, can we remind ourselves that Jesus still expects disciples unto death? The death of martyrdom seems unlikely here, for the moment anyway, but does He not require of us a death to all the allurements and distractions of this world? Does He not expect from us a detachment from the amusements and entertainments that the lost chase after? If we were called upon to lay our lives down as martyrs, how could we ever do it if we have not first learned to lay down the remote control in favor of the prayer closet?
He is my Delight 