It’s been a little while since my last post. We just returned from the funeral of my brother in law, my wife’s younger brother. He died unexpectantly at 27 years old. His father found him laying on the floor of his apartment. It was an accidental death and it has rocked our family’s world. What is even crazier about the whole situation is that one of his former roommates died just a few months earlier. It just doesn’t seem real. How could someone pass away that young from something so senseless?

It made me recall the time in my life where I realized all of the hundreds of times that God spared me from my own bad decisions. I remember waking up from a druken stupor trying to figure out how I got home and in bed and how I got everyone else home as well. I remember thinking, “I could have easily died last night.” It put a fear in my heart. Was I ready to die? But just like most people, after a few days, that feeling went away as I convinced myself that it would never happen to me. Others, but not me. Thank God that by his grace I finally was convinced that I was ‘skating on thin ice’ and that my life was not promised to me. I became convinced that I was living a senseless, purposeless life without God and without hope in the world. I can tell you that he saved me from my self, from my sin.

This situation also made me take a closer look at my relationships and my responsibility to the people God places in my life, even the passing momentary daily encounters. I felt especially convicted that we must push past people’s “force field” of rejection at times and speak what God gives us to speak. We must boldly speak the truth in love and continuously let people know that we love them, that God loves them, and that we are here for them. We must tell them the truth even if it hurts, even if it will invite rejection, because healthy relationships can only be built on the basis on honesty and transparency.

When referencing sharing our faith, alot of people quote Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel at all Times, Use Words if Necessary”. Someone else has put a different twist on that saying. I agree with it more than ever, “Preach the Gospel at All Times, Use Words They are Necessary.

JL

A Response to: What Happened to Brownsville’s Fire?  By J. Lee Grady

God is still moving through many of the people who have been affected by the Brownsville or Pensacola revival.

They are the “nameless, faceless” ones who are plowing, sowing, and reaping in harvest fields around the world.

God gave us a great gift when He visited Pensacola the way He did back then. It’s up to us what kind of legacy we leave.

If we did not move on with God, then we were bound to be hurt. We had the choice whether or not we would be offended by a whole host of things.

Secondly, Revival is not about the place…Pensacola….the building….Brownsville Assembly; it’s about the people.  Millions were were touched by God in this place.

We have moved into the places God has prepared for us, not with allegiance to a building or a place, but to the call of God on our lives.

In this sense, the revival does continue on and may continue this way until Jesus returns. It continues through many people, like me.

But in a day when everyone says that truth is relative, how do we judge between someone’s opinion or belief and something of eternal significance?

God’s Word is the called the Sword of the Spirit (Heb 4:12).

It alone has the power to separate soul (what I think, want, and feel) from spirit (what God thinks, wants, and feels), opinion from fact, truth from lies, eternal from temporal, and good from best. It alone has the power to change us.

Jesus Himself is called the Word of God made flesh (John 1:1). When Pontius Pilate asked the age old question, ‘What is truth’? It was staring him right in the face (John 18:38). He didn’t want to recognize it.

We must learn to be people who love truth.

When we find the treasure of truth, we must guard it zealously. We like the man who found a great treasure in a field must be willing to sell everything we have, so to speak, and go and buy that field because of the treasure in it (Matt 13:44).

We must be willing to lose everything for it. This is the way of the kingdom.

The scriptures clearly say that in the last days, men will not have a love of the truth.

Look at the warning that the Apostle Paul gives to his son in the faith, Timothy.

1 And so I solemnly urge you before God and before Christ Jesus–who will someday judge the living and the dead when he appears to set up his Kingdom: 2 Preach the word of God. Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching. 3 For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to right teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever they want to hear. 4 They will reject the truth and follow strange myths. 2 Tim 4:1-4 (NLT)

People will no longer have an ear for sound doctrine. They will look for teachers to tell them what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.

As faithful ministers of Jesus Christ we must feed the people of God things that are good and nutritious for them…the milk and meat of the Word, not merely what they like or what they are interested in.

Whether they reject the truth or not is not our problem. It is each person’s personal decision. Our job is to “preach the word.” It’s exactly in this “foolishness” that the power and wisdom of God is seen (see I Cor 2 & 3)

If we don’t gain a love of the truth, a taste for it, a quest for it, a stomach for it; we will leave ourselves open to deception. If all we look at is success or the fact that something works, then we are open to delusion.

Even when mighty signs and wonders come, we may be in awe, but we will not have the capacity to discern the teaching and character behind it. If we are impressed by the outward displays of power only, we will not seek to understand the underlying motivation.

9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 2 Thess 2:9-10 (NKJV)

We need to receive a love of the truth if we have not gained it already. Let’s ask God to give it to us.

Let’s commit ourselves to always humbly submitting our thinking and the thinking of others to the standard of God’s Word.

Let’s not let the success of something or the outward power displays instantly draw us in with oohs and ahhhs. Let’s commit ourselves to making a habit of evaluating every teaching in the light of God’s Word and then go about speaking the truth in love.

By doing this, we will become known as a people of God’s Word, a people who love the truth.

JL

You may have heard the scripture that speaks about us beholding the Lord and being changed into His image from one new revelation to the next, but many of us don’t realize that if we “behold” other people, many times we become like them.

Why is this important?

As believers, we can behold different aspects of the the Lord through his people. Each person in the Body of Christ has been given different giftings. And each one has different experiences that have made them who they are today.

If you can find someone who is doing what you feel called to do in God; if they have found the right balance between their calling and their family life; if they have overcome the very obstacles that now stand in your way to getting you to the place that you feel that God is calling you; then it would be wise to “behold” their way of life.

Learn from their mistakes and their victories. If you can see someone else doing what you want to do-maybe even where you would like to do it, you can see the possibilities of what God is calling you to do and become what you behold.

How much of what we think about everyday has eternal significance? There came a time in my life when I stopped all of a sudden and said, “Hey, what’s life really all about”? “Who am I, why am I here, and where am I going” are three questions that everyone should ask themselves …sooner rather than later.