Faith

Unashamed Worship

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Matthew 26:7 “a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table.”

Right up in the middle of everybody

They didn’t like it
It wasn’t proper
She didn’t care
He was worth it

Those who waited for the “proper” time had no opportunity to anoint Him, for He was already risen. (Luke 24:1-3)

She may not have understood the significance of what she did. But she was one who sat at His feet, learning Him, loving Him….and so when her heart was moved within her, she was unashamed to worship Him.

May we learn a lesson from her.

Compelling them to come

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Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, “Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ And the servant said, “Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.” Luke 14:15-24

This is no ordinary supper. This is a parable about eternal life. At the cross everything was completed….all has been made ready. So now the invitation is given —– come to the banquet the Father has prepared. And yet, many…..so very many, refuse to come. What a sad reality this is, that there are many who reject the offer of eternal life. But heaven is not hindered by man’s rejection. God is a pursuer. He started by sending His servants with an invitation. Then He sends His servants to bring them in. And finally, the servants are instructed to compel them to come. As the hour becomes later, the call to come into the kingdom becomes more urgent and intense.

Do you feel the urgency of heaven? God is not willing that any should perish. We shouldn’t be willing that they perish either. I think we are well beyond the days of invitations, and even of bringing them in. It is time to compel them to come. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, let’s be about the Father’s business that His house may be filled. It’s not a day to be fearful and timid. Eternity is at stake. Souls are in the balance.

It shouldn’t end that way

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Yesterday I had jury duty. After they had given us all our instructions, we just had to sit there and wait a few hours for them to choose who would stay and who would be sent home. So while we waited, they played a movie on the 2 large screens in the room. It was called “Taking Chance.” Normally I would have gone into the quiet room to read, but for whatever reason I just stayed in my seat as the movie began. The basic storyline was as follows: The main character was a Lt. Colonel in the Marine Corps who worked an office job, but he seemed to feel some stirrings of guilt because was not a part of the very conflict that he had been trained for. He volunteered to escort the remains of a Marine who was killed in combat to the family for burial. It seemed as though on the whole trip he was having an awakening as he considered the young man who was killed in battle as he was sitting safely in a cubicle.

Any my heart was almost exploding because it was like watching a parable of the church….many safe and comfortable on the sidelines while others are risking everything on the battlefield. But there are these moments of clarity when we see…..eternal realities…..God’s purposes….and ourselves somewhere on the outside. It is a moment of truth. A valley of decision. A choice must be made.

I anticipated the ending. He would leave everything and enlist for a tour of duty in Iraq. That was the only reasonable ending. But it wasn’t the ending. He arrived home to his nice house, hugged his wife and kids and shut the door. And the movie was over.

And everything in me screamed “NO…it’s not supposed to end like that!!”

People of God…..please….don’t let that be our ending. We have been trained and equipped for battle and everyone is needed for the fight. It is a moment of truth. A valley of decision. A choice must be made.

Not my will

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“….not my will, but Yours, be done.” Luke 22:42

Jesus prayed it. Jesus lived it. Many times in Scripture He talked about how important what the Father wanted was to Him:

  •  “I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” John 5:30
  • “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”  John 6:38
  • “Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” John 5:19
  • “For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.” John 12:49

This same thing is what He taught us to pray: “ So He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Luke 11:2

It was important to Jesus. We would all, as Christians, say that it is important to us as well.   Because God wills some pretty amazing stuff – salvation, healing, deliverance, and more. And we say, “Your will be done Lord! Amen!” But there’s that other part of Luke 22:42 that maybe we don’t find so exciting – NOT MY WILL.

We are very happy to fit the will of God in between our will, of course as long as it doesn’t squeeze us too tight. But to exclude our will entirely? Deny our own rights and desires and wishes and wants and pleasures and comforts and conveniences and entertainments? Surely that isn’t what it means.

That is exactly what it means.

It isn’t – my will + His will

It isn’t – His will most of the time

It is- His will regardless of my will

“….not my will, but Yours, be done.” What glory there must be in the life surrendered to this.

 

Third Street Outreach – Friday October 10th

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I had been on Third Street for about thirty minutes when I noticed a young man walking unsteadily down the sidewalk with the police following behind him, watching him. He passed by me and overturned one of the metal garbage cans into the street. (The garbage cans are very heavy and it took two men to set it back upright). As he continued to walk down the street he was screaming and cursing at the police officers until he disappeared from sight. I silently prayed that God would touch his heart and bring him back so I could talk to him. Less than an hour later he was back and instead of passing by me, he walked right up to me and stood there looking at me. So, assuming that he wanted to hear the gospel, I spent the next twenty minutes telling him about our wonderful Jesus and how desperately he needed Him. He listened so very attentively and when our conversation was over he walked away meek as a little lamb, thanking me for talking to him. Please pray for this young man.

A solemn warning from Judges 19

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In Judges 19 I have heard an urgent warning for our day….

“As they were enjoying themselves, suddenly certain men of the city, perverted men, surrounded the house and beat on the door. They spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, “Bring out the man who came to your house, that we may know him.” Judges 19:22

(A little bit of background) Earlier in the chapter we are introduced to a Levite who has traveled to Bethlehem to retrieve his concubine who had run away. Getting a late start on the trip home, they found themselves near the city of Gibeah (of the tribe of Benjamin) as night was beginning to fall. Finding nobody willing to take them in for the night (verse 15) they made their way to the open square of the city. About that time the old man mentioned in our verse above came in from his work in the field and invited them into his home for the night. The perverted men of the city (enough of them to surround a house) came to the old man’s house with wicked intentions. The Levite puts his concubine outside the door and she is violated by these men to such an extent that she dies. When this becomes known in Israel, forces gather for war against Benjamin and not only Gibeah, but nearly the whole tribe of Benjamin is wiped out.

Usually I pass through this chapter pretty quickly because, to be honest, I don’t want to spend any more time than necessary thinking on what has happened. But when reading this last weekend I couldn’t pass over it. In it I saw a picture of the day we live in.

Consider this – the man of the house was familiar with the city. It was his home. He knew the kind of people who lived there and the wickedness that was prevalent. His insistence that the visitors not spend the night in the open square indicated that he knew it wouldn’t be safe for them. Yet once they are all safely inside his house, there seems to be no concern about what may be happening outside as they are “enjoying themselves”, or “making merry”. In that little cocoon of safety they enjoyed a carefree meal, eating and drinking…yet evil was gaining ground and about to pounce. And the old man knew the danger, yet did nothing. Possibly he thought that getting them into the house would be enough to protect them. It was not.

In a culture that placed a high value on hospitality, it is extremely odd that they were refused a resting place for the night at anyone else’s home. Except when you consider that the rest of the inhabitants of the city also knew what manner of men dwelt there. And even though they knew these travelers would be in danger, they just weren’t willing to be inconvenienced or put themselves at risk to help.

We cannot afford to ignore the intensity and urgency of the days we live in just because it hasn’t (yet) affected us personally. We are in the safe little house of America, but even here the enemy is working to surround us. While we are busy enjoying ourselves, eating and drinking, and having church, the forces of darkness are advancing at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, our brothers and sisters in other nations are experiencing horrible persecution and our eyes are dry. It isn’t a day to play it safe or worry about how to not have our comfort infringed upon.

The inhabitants of Gibeah who were living in denial of the evil all around and refusing to get involved….they all ended up being swept away in the destruction that resulted from the evil acts commited there.

It is time to seek the face of God like our lives depended upon it. Because it may very well be that they do.

Third Street – Friday Night, August 8, 2014

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I was walking across Third Street tonight to get to my normal spot when my path crossed that of a young man named Brian who was walking down the sidewalk. I gave him a gospel tract; he looked at it for a minute, and then apologized to me for his drunken state. As I talked to him about Jesus, I learned that he was raised by a Pentecostal grandmother. At fourteen years old he’d had a very real experience with the Lord, but he soon yielded to peer pressure and walked away from the Lord. He felt that it was no coincidence that I walked up to talk to him. I agreed with him that it absolutely was not, because I had prayed before I went out to Third Street that night that God would put people in my path who had wandered away from Him. His heart was very tender as he talked about his belief that he had a calling on his life from the Lord. I told Brian that I believed that this same Jesus he had walked away from at fourteen was now inviting him to come back. “He still loves you Brian. He hasn’t changed His mind about that.” There were tears in his eyes as he thanked me repeatedly for talking to him. Please pray for this young man. Even now, he is in the valley of decision.

Tell me the story again

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Today I spent some time with a client that I see several times a year.  Each time I meet with her we catch up on what’s been going on in life.  She told me a story today of something that happened in her family a few weeks ago:

Her daughter, son-in-law and their 2 year old son were at a barbeque on Memorial day weekend.  One of the guests at the barbeque brought her 90 pound Doberman with her.  The man and his son had just gotten out of the pool and the little boy was eating a piece of candy, when the dog spotted him.  The dog bared his teeth and growled as he charged towards the helpless child.  The daddy, seeing the impending danger, called out to his wife and pushed the boy towards her and then stood between his family and the approaching dog.  It took several men to pull the dog off of him, but not before it had severely mauled his face and head.  By the time the ambulance got him to the hospital he had almost bled to death.

He will require multiple surgeries over the next few years to repair the damage that was done that day.  The doctors expect that they will be able to correct the damage so completely that eventually there won’t be any visible scars.  But for several more years his face will bear the marks of love for his son.  I can almost imagine this little boy climbing up into his daddy’s lap, touching the scars on his face, and saying “Daddy, tell me again about how you saved me from the dog”.  The story will never get old to that boy…because it was his rescue from death.

I can’t stop thinking about this…..it so reminds me of the gospel.   When death and hell were running towards me and I was powerless to escape, Jesus stood between me and death.  He took the full force of it for me and rescued me.  I could not have overcome it, but He could not be overcome by it.  Now He bears the scars of His love for me.  I want to remember this over and over. ….coming to the secret place of prayer with this request…….“Tell me again Jesus, about how you rescued me from death”.

Wrapped in grace

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Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16

It is upon a throne of grace that we will find our Savior. Never winking at our sin, always at work to deliver us from every remaining vestige of it’s outworking in our lives, yet He sympathizes with our weaknesses because He understands what it is to be one of us. He knows how temptation buffets us from every direction. And to this throne He has invited us to confidently come, for it is from here that He dispenses mercy and grace for His children who so desperately need His help.

He offers “grace to help.” An interesting word here – “help”. It means “a rope or chain for frapping a vessel.” Frapping a vessel is what happened in Acts 27:17 when they “used cables to undergird the ship”. The cables were wrapped around the ship and were intended to keep it from being broken apart during the violence of the storm. This is what grace is in our lives.

Grace is defined as the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life. It is God’s divine influence surrounding us, wrapping tightly around us just as those cables are wrapped around the ship, that holds us together in the midst of even the most life-shaking storms.

Through the blood of Christ, access has been granted to this throne of grace any day, any time, for any need. Come boldly. Come often. And be amazed at all that is made freely available to us through such a great High Priest.

Stories from the streets – May 16-17, 2014

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Live after Five – May 16, 2014

After handing out tracts for a while, I sat down for a few minutes to pray and rest. A man passing by made a comment about the loud music and I saw this as an excellent opportunity to tell him that I wasn’t there for the music, but to tell people about Jesus. At first his face twisted in anger and he began to walk off. But I called out after him and asked him to tell me why that made him so angry. And surprisingly, he did. He had been in church for 30 years. When his marriage ended, he felt judged and rejected by the church. So 10 years ago he walked away….from church, from salvation, from Jesus. There was a hardness to his face as he said “I know what the book says and I’m not gonna do it and I’m not gonna be a hypocrite about it.” Throughout our conversation he was polite but there seemed to be a boiling anger just beneath the surface. I asked him if he understood what his decision to walk away from Jesus meant in terms of eternal consequences. He said he knew he was going to hell but he wasn’t worried about that right now. But I know there will be a day when it will matter to him more than anything. He wouldn’t give me his name but God knows who he is. Please pray that he would come to repentance and faith in Christ and that his heart would be healed from the wounds of the past.

 

Third Street Outreach – May 16, 2014

Last night on Third Street I talked to a man named Lee. He introduced himself as a Christian wanna-be. He said that he wanted to be a Christian but just could not do what Jesus required. I asked what things he was talking about and he responded that he couldn’t sell everything he had and give it away to follow Jesus. Somehow in his mind, he was convinced that the only way to be a Christian was to own nothing. I shared verse after verse from the Bible with him , but he refused to accept what was plainly stated in the word of God. When I finished talking to Lee I leaned up against a building and took a few minutes to pray for him. Looking up at the patches of beautiful night sky that I could see between the downtown buildings, my heart filled with great joy as I thanked The Lord for grace. Wonderful grace! What peace it brings to know that it is all of grace. Please pray that Lee would realize that his own works will never be enough and that only the work of Jesus on the cross is sufficient to save.

 

Bus Station – May 17, 2014

Today at the bus station I met Justin. He has traveled all over the country working as a contractor, but when he got to Baton Rouge last week he found out that he couldn’t work without a TWIC card. Now he finds himself without a place to stay and was forced to pawn the few belongings he brought with him in order to pay for a bed in the local homeless shelter. He has been brought for a moment to a place in life he never thought he would be and it has humbled him. Earlier in his life he had made a profession of faith in Christ but admitted that he had strayed away from that. As we talked he seemed to understand that there was nothing random in the seeming randomness of somebody coming up to him to talk about Jesus at this particular point in his life. Please pray that Justin would respond to God’s call to come to a place of full commitment of his life to Christ.

As I was driving home from the bus station, I passed an Islamic mosque and a Buddhist temple. And it was yet another reminder, on this beautiful sunshiny day, of how much darkness, confusion and deception there is in our city. They will live and die in that darkness unless we bring them the light of the gospel. It is their only hope.