Life

Vessel of Honor

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2 Timothy 2:20-21 “But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.”

If the way we live our lives and the things we choose to abstain from affect our usefulness in advancing the kingdom, WHY would we allow anything in our lives that hinders us from being that vessel of honor?

Time is short. Live ready to be useful to your King.

Building the kingdom

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“Building the kingdom of God must be our primary objective in life, but the underlying motivation must be love for the King. The only way a person can be truly committed to the kingdom of God is to be consumed with love for Christ. If we are driven by a philosophy or an ideology, a desire to make the world a better place or to see a new order established, then our ambition falls into the same category as communism, Marxism, socialism, and all the other “isms”. Seeking the kingdom of God is in a category all by itself because it stems from a fountain deeper than any motive in this world – divine, supernatural love for the King. This love is the foundation and the driving force behind the kingdom that will endure long after all others have crumbled to dust.” Daniel Kolenda

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.

Lives in the balance

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Now when He concluded all His sayings in the hearing of the people, He entered Capernaum. And a certain centurion’s servant, who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die. So when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to Him, pleading with Him to come and heal his servant.  Luke 7:1-3

A life was in the balance.  Someone was at the point of death, someone heard about Jesus, and there was life instead of death.  This scenario plays out over and over all across the earth every day.  Multitudes are dead in their transgressions and sin, the enemy of their souls patiently waiting for their last day to claim his prize.  But then someone comes with the message of the gospel…..the good news that instead of death, you can have life through Jesus, abundant and eternal.  And to those who receive Him, the power of death is broken!

But someone must go.  Someone must tell.  Somewhere around you today, a life is in the balance.

Choosing the Eternal

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2 Corinthians 4:18 “while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Colossians 3:2 “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”

The tendency of humans to place too much importance on the things which affect their senses and feelings has been a problem from the beginning. When Eve looked at the fruit on the tree of knowledge she considered not the command of the eternal God but “that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise…” It appealed to her senses and in that moment she valued that temporal momentary gratification more than the eternal benefits of obedience. And the whole world has suffered for it.

It can be easy for us as believers to avoid those things that are clearly sinful. However, there are many things in this world that are not evil in and of themselves, but they are merely temporal. We can give time and attention to them without it necessarily being a matter of sin…except that it takes our focus from the eternal things and dulls the spiritual senses. Daily we are faced with choices….the temporal or the eternal. This material world so often casts a shadow over our life…a veil over our mind. And so we live in a fog, unable to see those things which are truly important. Meanwhile a world perishes without Jesus. The cost of temporal living is far too high.

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.

Life unchained

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I don’t want to live this life
Within the box of social norms
Conforming to this world’s definition of success
I’m not interested in moderation or balance
But my heart leaps at the thought of charging ahead
Full speed into the purposes of God
Extreme life, unchained and unrestrained
By thoughts of reputation
Concerned only for God’s expectation
No way I’ll burn out
But I yearn to be filled up
with the fire of His presence
My heart has been captured
Set ablaze
As I set my gaze upon this Lord of glory
Nothing else matters
Pressing in until I press through
Stirred up to take hold
Pursuing the One who has pursued me
Reaching upward…to touch heaven