Repentance and the weight felt beyond ourselves.

Sin is a befuddling thing, it is inherent from birth, it is passed from father to son, we have a predisposition to run head long into it, we fail to confess it enough, and we need to confess it regularly to God as well as others. It is one of the greatest mysteries. We can commit it as an act and yet the final judge who sees all, can and will look on us as if we have never sinned if we are sealed with the blood of his son. Sin is a befuddling thing.
One of the most befuddling things about sin that has taken my thoughts by storm and has left me reeling, crying and aching internally is this. How much time in prayer has been wasted in necessary confession of sin, due to willful actions of sin that are in direct opposition to God, instead of using that time to pray for the lost souls of others? Now before you mark me as a heretic let me clear this up.
Confession of sin is a mandate from God, we must confess our sin to Him, to one another and to the one to whom we have committed the sin against. This is a must for any kind of real repentance and reconciliation to actually take place. We must also wake in the morning with the intent in our heart to nail up and crucify our sin nature, knowing that if we leave it to reign free; it will wreak havoc in our life within moments of waking. Now consider how momentous; in all the wrong ways, our willful disobedient sin is, it takes away precious minutes and moments in the midst of prayer. Confession of sin is needed and we must confess it and it can take a bit of time to really work that out in the midst of prayer. In my busy crazy life how many hours have been used to confess sin that I knew was direct disobedience. Instead of saying no to that sin from the beginning and using that time in my prayer time to pray for the lost souls of others, to go before our creator and plead for the souls of man, to cry out for works to go out into the harvest.
Lord teach me to continue to confess, but more importantly help me to realize that the weight of sin goes way beyond my immediate sphere of influence, it impacts the far reaching edges of the world, it effects others I may never see. Give me the wherewithal to say no to a sin and then take the time that would have been used in the confession of that sin to pray for the freedom from sin of others.

a pastor who prayers is a true shepherd of the souls of his flock

I was recently asked by a college student to comment on my thoughts about a discussion she was having in class, the question was. What should be more important in a pastors work; prayer/study or administration/ministry.
I figured this would be a great topic to blog about and share my thoughts, not with just this student but also others who may find this discussion interesting. I found it very intriguing that this was just asked of me, considering I have been spending several months really focusing in on my prayer life and at the same time developing my relatively new ministry at my church. So this discussion really peeked my interest. So in a nutshell my quick answer is this. You cannot be successful in administration and ministry if you do not have a strong and solid prayer and study life. Let me break this down though. People have been given skills that cover the whole gambit. You can have a gift in leadership, administration, organization, prayer, preaching teaching etc. you can be extremely gifted in these areas and be wonderful in what you do, but the success of using that gift for the intended purpose that the Lord has given it to you, is all dependent upon your hearts focus and passion. You could be a great teacher and not glorify God in anything you teach. But to be a teacher who glorifies God more abundantly in your teaching you must be in tune with the Lord. I am going to quote a few excerpts from a book that has recently changed my prayer life as a pastor. It’s called power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds. He challenges and I would echo that a Pastors ministry is dependent upon his focus on the Lord and that the focus on the Lord is zeroed in upon when we pray, and this is in all areas of ministry from preaching to visiting the sick and elderly.
“It takes 20 years to make a sermon because it takes 20 years to make a man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows.” “Dead men give out dead sermons and dead sermons kill” “the preachers sharpest and strongest preaching should be to himself. His most difficult, delicate, laborious, and thorough work must be with himself.” Bounds take a lot of time to really nail down the fact that a minister cannot be a successful and God glorifying ministry if he does not take the time to pray, read, grow, challenge etc. himself before he does it to anyone else. He even goes a step further and says that a minister who does the acts of ministry without being in tune with the Lord doesn’t just bring about stagnant ponds but himself is the cause for death brought into churches. “Preaching that kills is prayerless preaching, without prayer, the preacher creates death and not life. The preacher who is feeble in prayer is feeble in life-giving forces.”
He makes another point that I find very true, I do not mean to simply vomit back something I read but this book in all seriousness is paramount to any other I have read on this subject, this book right now next to the bible has been the most stirring in my life. So to answer the other side of the question “what about the ministry part, isn’t that important as well you can’t spend your life in study and prayer alone? True!!! “Too often Christian Leaders who shut themselves in their studies become students, bookworms, bible workers, sermon makers, noted in literature, thought and sermons; but the people and God, Where are they?” the point is this, you can’t just focus on prayer and study and say the ministry will follow. The ministry starts with and is centered in on the pastor’s life being one that is rooted in prayer and study in all that he does, and when that is there the heart and life will fall in line with the heart of God, and the heart of God is all about saving souls, the greatest expression of love. I will leave you with 2 quotes from Bounds that summarize some great thoughts. “No learning can make up for the failure to pray. No earnestness no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply lack.” “Talking to men for God is a great thing(preaching/ministry), but talking to God for men(praying for others) is greater still. He who has not learned well how to talk to God for men will never talk well and with real success to men for God. More than this, prayerless words in the pulpit and out of it are deadening words.”

Moral Neutrality ???

The discussion of mans natural state, Dead, Alive, or something else.

Please read this first. It will help you gain insight into what I am talking about.

Pelagianism was a 5th-century heresy taught by Pelagius and his followers which stressed that humans have the ability to fulfill the commands of God apart from Sovereign grace, and which denies original sin. Pelagius' teachings were opposed by the Church and it's leading figure (Augustine) in particular.
Simi Pelagianism: Later, John Cassian's doctrine in a compromise between the Pelagius view and the Augustine view surfaced. This doctrine taught man was not dead in tresspass and sin, just sick. That man was only weakened by the fall and that man had the ability to save himself by accepting or rejecting of his own will, Christ's offer.
Pelagius himself was excommunicated, and his theology condemned by a series of church councils, though the issues of the doctrine of free will have remained a sore point for the Church even to our day. The Church looks on the three positions as, St. Augustine regarding natural man as dead, Pelagius regarding him as alive and well, and Cassian regarding him as being merely sick. Augustine's position being the only one that leans entirely on the Sovereign mercies of God. (http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/faq/glossary.html)


I have become more and more concerned with the approach that Christians are taking towards the presumption and presentation of mans inherent state, namely the debate over whether or not man is inherently Good, Evil or something else. When I speak of man’s inherent state I mean the position in which he is brought into this world, his existence on this earth from conception, the inherited traits of his life from his father and fathers father all the way back to Adam. Now the debate that has arisen in earlier Christianity is where is man when it comes to that inheritance? What did man inherit from his father concerning his sinful state, did he inherit a state of moral evil; born into a place of sin, fully lost from day one, corrupted by sin. Moral good; born into a state of not yet corrupted by the sins of this world and in fact in a position of being good from day one until sin starts to tempt and take over and then that child falls prey to sin and becomes morally corrupted after birth. Both have had their hay day in the debate arenas. And both sides have strong leaders to back and support and debate there sides. I for one am a strong believer in mans inherited moral EVIL state. It’s Scriptural Romans 5:12 – just as one man’s sin entered the world and sin spread to all men because all have sinned. I don’t need to teach my children to disobey, even in a way my children from day one start exhibiting selfishness. Feed me now, change my diaper now. Granted that is our duty as parents and we do it out of delight but that is selfish behavior from day one that no one had to teach them, although we look past it and obviously don’t hold it against them but it is still selfishness being exhibited. And some would say even look at the selfishness of achild in the uterus. Now the side that man is inherently morally good. It’s just not right, I don’t see from scripture where this belief can have any merit or bases and yet the scary thing is, is that this belief, usually held by many people of the world, has become a common belief in some Christian circles. But as bad as that is, I believe there is an even more dangerous belief that has started to quietly and possibly unbeknownst to many creep into teachings, songs, twitter updates, facebook statuses, readings, writings, beliefs, and preaching. And that is the belief and presumption that man is inherently morally neutral. It is a danger to believe that man is born into a somewhat morally lukewarm state somewhere between good and evil. The danger in this belief as I hear things is this. It’s not man’s inherited state that many are viewing, it’s the belief that the inherited state of mans moral neutrality is something that stays with him until he makes a choice to either choose heaven or choose hell. Excuse the language but it literally fits here, who in hell would choose hell. And if we are inherently evil we are dead and residing in a soul hell. To be a Christian who is witnessing to a lost soul, if we are viewing that person’s life and soul as neutral we will be prone to not take such a strong stance on the truth of the gospel. If that person is neutral what’s the rush, if that person hasn’t made the choice for either heaven or hell what’s with the hurry. Man IS inherently evil and because of that state of being we must view people who or lost with that image, a person who is lying lifeless and dead due to their sin, not there acted out sin but there inherited sin. And we must with all earnestness start preaching to that lost dead evil person in hopes that the message of the cross will become to them Christ crucified the only hope of glory.

The Generation that forgot itself

Why does it seem that my generation has lost itself? What I mean is; why does it seem that fellow Christians of my generation have just lost themselves, lost themselves in video games, Facebook, Clothes, movies, cars, woman, men, arts, social issues, money, pride, fame etc. they have lost themselves and so in a manner of speaking forgot themselves. They forgot who they were. They forgot what they were told they forgot the call on their life. Now I am not calling out everyone of my generation but I mean seriously come on now, my generation was the generation that was running to every pizza party at church, and every game night at church, and every summer camp and conference (Maybe that was the problem). My generation was the one that was told in mass at every football stadium and conference center across this country that you should not let anyone look down on you because of your youth. The problem came that we were told this, and not as readily told how to have people look up to you, or better yet, how to have people look up because we, had ourselves, looked up to Christ and realized that he was the only hope. My generation is falling away fast from God, Christ, Church, ministry and that higher calling that was placed on them at such a young age. What we need is those who have not forgot themselves, those who have not lost themselves to remember. Remember all those friends who stood by you and declared with you that they would run hard after God, but at some point just stopped. We the ones who are of my generation that obeyed the higher calling placed on our life we need to remember our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are not living in a daily devotion to Christ our King. We need to remind our friends and former friends that it takes more than a youth group mass prayer, and writing a date in the back of your bible that changes you. Remember generation, remember friends, remember fellow followers of Christ. This is our time, we are the leaders of tomorrow and guess what tomorrows dawn is quickly approaching. Step up, take the lead and do not forget that we are just like every other generation. We are but a vapor and have but 1 blip on the radar screen to make much of God. May my Generation wake up, Step up, and remember what it feels like to follow unashamed the creator of the universe. We can let others look up to us for the fact that our hope is in Christ, and therefore they look to Christ as the only hope. Or we can continue to forget ourselves and forget our way and allow our generation pace a way without obeying the call.

Rending your heart for the glory of God

Joel 2:12-13 – “ Yet Event Now” declares the LORD. “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD you GOD, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.
The passage is quoted from time to time. It tends to be a verse that is quoted by Christians when they are talking to or about other Christians in a place where they have been in sin for a while and are desiring yet again what seems like the 1,000th time for a forgiveness of some sin or vice or stumbling point where they have turned their back on God in a small way or a big way. And I agree, I agree simply from the context of this whole book. This is God telling the children of Israel that they have ran so hard and fast away from Him, they have as he says in another prophet, Whored after other gods. God was calling his chosen children unfaithful and committing soul adultery with other false gods. And then in the beginning of the book of Joel he talks about how he is going to send a whole bunch of disasters and hardship to them for their disobedience. Then after all of this he Say YET EVEN NOW RETURN TO ME. What incredible LOVE. What mercy, what patients, what an eternally loving God we serve that even when we sin and whore after other gods. Even when he sends a punishment. Even when we are in that place where we feel that we have run after other gods. He says I hate what you have done I hate your sin, I hate your whoring, I HATE SIN. He says YET EVEN NOW RETURN TO ME. A full returning, a true weeping for our sin, a mourning for what we have done to our eternal lover, a weeping and wailing for the sin we have committed. And then the Lord says “rend your hearts and not your garments.” The rending of garments was something that traditionally was done in the Middle East, even today it is still done as a sign of disgrace, sorrow, pity. It is done as a sign of sorrow. But God says essentially “ok you ripped your clothes in half…ok, your clothes are nothing, what about your heart, your heart is where the issue is, are you so sorry, for your whoring after false gods, no matter what they are, that you will weep and wail and rend your heart.” Seeking the Lord after we have sinned seems painful, think about that, RENDING YOUR HEART. Ouch, that has got to hurt. Imagine the pain, but imagine the freedom. Imagine the God glorifying wonder of rending our hearts. When we come to a full realization of the sin we have committed. When we come to a place of total realization of the pain we have cost God. When we come to the realization of immense misery and genuine sorrow God must feel when we totally disgrace him by whoring after other gods. When we get there, and then realize that God says “yet even now return to me” we can’t help but rend our heart. For we realize that we are so unworthy of all the forgiveness, all the mercy, all the love, we don’t deserve any of it and it brings about a pain, a good pain, but a pain none the less. A pain of sorrow that our heart hurts for the spiting in the face of God we have done, AND YET HE LOVES US STILL. And when we return and we take hold of that mercy and that grace, God is glorified by him magnifying his eternal qualities that surpass that of any human being. He is so eternally merciful and gracious that when we take hold yet again of that mercy and realize yet again how big his grace is, that even after we run after other god’s, he forgives and loves us. GLORY BE TO GOD.

does this life have gain?

If this life has anything to gain at all, I count it loss. Philippians 3
Does this life have gain? I believe the answer to this question is a resounding YES!!!. This life has much to gain, but let me talk about that for a minute. So this life has two things in my opinion to be gained. The first thing is the items of this world that are given to us that are pure and simple, the things of this world, what we would count as worldly things. The second thing that this life has to gain is the things from above that are not of this world. The rest of this verse says I count it loss because of the surpassing power of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. It is through Christ and for Christ and everything but Christ that we count as loss so we may know Christ. If we put anything in front of Christ, whether it be things of the world; money, power, health, prosperity, position etc. And even the things from above; spiritual gifts, blessings, gifting, etc. if we put any of these things in front of Christ we fail. We have our focus set in the wrong direction. Our gaze must be fixed on Christ, Christ is where we look, we look to him and his suffering, we look at everything that this life has to gain and we count it as loss. BECAUSE of Christ, It is because of Christ that we look at anything that we get, from this earth or from above, as loss in comparison to Christ. We live for Christ and never live for a pursuit of what he offers to us whether it be a gain of this world through his hand or even a gift of spiritual blessings. Even the things of eternity we will lay down as a gift at the feet of our savior for the death that he died for us.

Trust

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding…
Trust, a full reliance upon something or someone. FULLY RELYING. I find myself lacking in the trust needed to fully trust. Make sense? I hope so because I believe I am not the only one. The Lord is the only being in whom we can fully rely but I find that my own human lacking’s get in the way. I need the Lord to teach me to trust, but I must trust in order to learn trust. I feel I over think a lot of this, I need to step back and allow him to do what he can and will do. Increase my faith by teaching me how to trust. What I love about the verse above is the statement of “lean not on your own understanding”, because that explains the number one thing that gets in the way of trusting in the Lord…MY UNDERSTANDING. If God was limited by my understanding he would be really small. Praise be to God that He is not limited by my understanding, that the trust I can have and should have in Him is greater than anything my human understanding will ever be able to achieve.