Lost Boy

“I looked on my right hand…no man cared for my soul” (Psalm 142:4).

When it comes to witnessing for the Lord Jesus Christ, I remember while I was in college that no one every spoke to me about my soul.  As a matter of real knowledge, I do not ever recall anyone speaking to me directly about my eternal destination.  It was all so vague to me.  As a young man, a teen of maybe fifteen, I remember shutting my Bible during a worship service and saying to myself, “One day I will understand but for now I choose to wait it out.”

I did not shut my Bible in rebellion but in mild frustration.  I said “Maybe one day I will understand.”  I just didn’t get it.  I wasn’t trying to harm or hurt anyone; I, with all of the changes going on in my body, mind, and soul of a teen, just gave up and I just shut down.

There are a lot of youth walking around the same way today.  They don’t know what the Bible, Jesus, the Church, and prayer, etc., is all about.  They are lost and headed toward a dream world that does not exist.  And there are hardly any out there who care enough to pray and prepare their own lives to tell the good news to them.

Do you remember in the first paragraph that I remarked that no one spoke up for my soul?  Well there was one.  I was in my second year of college and I traveled to the State Fair in Raleigh, NC.  While there, minding my own business, I was walking with a girl and out of nowhere God appeared.  You say, “What?” Yep!  In just a moment in time this girl stopped out in front of us and asked ME “If I were a Christian?”  I said, “Yes,” for I was taken by surprise.  The next step, I took after giving her my answer, the Holy Spirit of God stopped me dead in my soul and in such a real way said to my lost soul, “You are lying.”  And He was right.  Never before had I been confronted in that manner.

God used that girl to speak to me.  He was awakening my soul out of the lap of the evil one.  Later I understood the gospel!  He opened my eyes.  I have never gotten over it.  Someone cared for my soul.  She doesn’t know what she did for me.  I laughed inside when I saw her in front of me with her “Howdy Doody smile“.  But now it is me who has the smile.  I can’t wait to see her.  I don’t know exactly how it will happen, but one day I will thank her for her bravery, courage and her love for a lost college boy headed toward Hell who didn’t understand.  And one day I will thank the Lord God Almighty for using this young college girl in my life who stood up for Him!

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  • Revival and Integrity

    “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:6)

    Authenticity is a product of integrity. Integrity is defined as “wholeness, completeness, soundness.” A person with integrity is not divided (that’s duplicity) or devious (that’s deception) or merely pretending (that’s hypocrisy). People with integrity have nothing to hide nor anything to fear. Their lives are transparent. Though, and it is very unfortunate, they are also somewhat rare.

    There is a shortage and a crisis of integrity today. The church has blemished itself with integrity issues. The church is more like a defeated army, naked before our enemies, and unable to fight back because they have made a frightening discovery: the church is lacking in integrity.

    Warren Wiersbe said, “For nineteen centuries, the church has been telling the world to admit its sins, repent, and believe the gospel. Today, in the twilight of the twentieth century, the world is telling the church to face up to her sins, repent, and start being the true church of that gospel.”  Wiersbe said this back in the early 1990s.

    We boast that we are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, but perhaps the gospel of Christ is ashamed of us. It seems as if ministry and life does not match our message and lips. The salt has lost is potency. It has become good for nothing. The world has influenced and contaminated the message of the messenger. And now the world walks upon the church.

    The integrity crisis has infiltrated the church and it involves the whole church. In the body of Christ, we belong with one another, we affect one another, and we can’t escape one another. When one member suffers, all the other members suffer with them (I Cor. 12:26). What the church needs today is not a quick fix that touches only the surface, which is only cosmetic; what we truly need is a surgeon who cuts deep and removes the cancer.

    Remember this: God is wanting to make integers and Satan is wanting to make fractions. God’s purpose is to “gather together in one all things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). God does not accept neutrality. Let us look up, look around us, and look within.  The Christian whom God wants to bless and use must have the courage to be different and the conviction to keep going in the right direction, come what may.

     

     

  • Terrorism: What do we do?

    “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing?”  (Luke 23:34).

     

    May God continue to be especially nigh to those who are being persecuted. May He use our prayers and our concerns and our monies to help the persecuted church. We know that the primary mission of the church is not to protect itself from the world, but to protect others from the world to come
    In the economy of God’s time today, what do we do for those who are being hurt by others who have no regard for God and the church?
    1. We mourn the loss of the victims. The Lord Jesus wept many times in His life on earth. Yet, God is afflicted with our afflictions even now.
    2. Pray for the Terrorist’s Salvation. Ours is to persist in loving, even if men persist in enmity. We are to bless when they curse, pray while they persecute. We are to “do good to them, and pray for them.”
    3. Keep Calm and Preach On. We are to continue to preach the gospel. It is the Master’s mandate, and it is the Master’s power.
    4. Forgive the Evil. The Christian man is not allowed to hate anyone.
    5. Live Each Day in Light of Eternity. If God had willed it we might have entered into heaven at the moment of our conversion, but He has not. Why are God’s ships still at sea? One breath of His wind might waft them to the haven of rest. We are not here in vain. We are here to glorify God, and that we may see others come to know his love.

  • Victory Over Vindication

    “And it came even to pass on the third day that, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul with his clothes torn, and earth upon his head; and so it was, when he came to David, that he fell to the earth, and did obeisance” (2 Samuel 1:2).

    This man that came to Ziklag thought David would enjoy the news that Saul was dead. He knew of the trouble between Saul and David. But the surprise was that David did not have a quarrel with Saul. Because of David’s human nature the Amalekite thought he could invoke a position with David and he lied to the future king.

    It took three days, approximately eighty miles, for the Amalekite to arrive from the battle scene of the Philistines against the Israelites to the camp of David. So when he stepped in front of David he was confident. There was no question the Amalekite was at the battle scene for there he took Saul’s armband and crown or gold chalet from his helmet and presented them to David. But look what took place–as David stood in that burnt city of Ziklag David’s own heart was not burned or charred.

    Friend make sure that you do not have a quarrel with anyone. Cleanse your heart from all grudges and bitterness. If you will do just that then you can lead people with the integrity of your heart. David had a heart that was undivided with God. “So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands” (Psalm 78:72).

  • Identification and Participation in His Death

    “And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons who were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave” (Numbers 19:19).

    You and I live around death, decay, and indifference. As long as we are living for ourselves and the cross of Christ remains a distant thought from an even more distant past, you and I will not fully maximize the life we were to live.

     

    We are dead in Christ. We are not to bring our self-centered thinking, fears, actions, anxieties, and desires into the new relationship. They have been crucified, the old self-life. We are all one in Christ. He is perfect, sinless Deity. A separation happens when we try to live apart from Him. We transfer our allegiance and identity to Christ.

     

    As long as we live by rules and intellectualism and not by an ongoing participation in the death of Christ we will not see victory. It happens only through love that both honors and trusts in Jesus’ belief in Himself and what He has done for us on the cross.

    Why is it that so few seem to have intimacy and fellowship with God? Many know about God but few really know God. We know His acts but very few of us know His ways. He’s in the vicinity, somewhere over there, but not intimately working here.

     

    God is not free to flow His power through you and me unless we are identified with the death we experienced in Christ when we were born again. Until we realize and make the decision that we will die to ourself daily, and live to Him, we will continue to simply exist rather than maximize God’s good plan for us. We can not bring our old life into union with His life whereas we were made one.

     

    God has given us the power of His resurrection through a brand-new reference point. How we view our self, others, our circumstances, and life must be all in Him. His life in me–my thinking, my acting, and believing must be His or there will be conflict and severance from His life. To be crucified with Jesus Christ establishes a brand-new reference for life–His life! This is the power of the third day, His resurrection life living in us and through us.

  • A Jewish Lady and a Bible

     “He that cometh from above is above all; he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaks of the earth; he that cometh from heaven is above all” (John 3:31).

    My copy of God’s Word is back with me again. It was in the Christmas year of 1981 that dad and mom bought me a Scofield reference Bible, and I received it as a Christmas gift on the twenty-fifth of December. I have had it rebound once back then, plus other minor work done to the pages over the years. But yesterday I picked up my copy of God’s Word from Susan that had my personal Bible, and once more had an overhaul and completed. She really did a remarkable job.

    My heart was burdened as I spoke with Susan face to face. I told her that I love what the Jewish people have done for the world and for what they have given to us. I spoke of Jesus who is the Messiah and what He did and is doing. I spoke with pathos as I called her attention to the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. I tenderly but hurriedly spoke of how our hearts are wicked and deceitful and how God took My hard heart and gave me a heart of flesh. It is tendered to the touch of the finger of God. It responds to Him.

    She really did not seem to be too impressed but we talked and I went as far as I could in my witness and love for Christ. She said to me that she hoped to see me again, and I said the same. I will continue to pray for Susan.

    When I step up to the pulpit to preach or introduce Christ in private speaking to others, I have asked the Lord to lay the world’s burdens upon my heart that I may care and have compassion. Today there will be around 150,000 people who will die and many will die in their sins. I don’t want people to live without God and to die without God. Will you join me this Christmas season and pray, seek, and “Love One More”?

  • We Have a Message to Tell

    “And I looked and, lo, a Lamb stood on Mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads” (Revelation 14:1).

    In the previous verse the Bible speaks of a beast and his number is 666 — man pretending to be God.  Unless the people of that day (and I believe it to be soon) repent, they will take the seal of the beast which will enable them to settle down in the world to buy and to sale.  Therefore they will accept the seal of the beast which will be their doom.

    Though the man of sin will stand out in that future day he will not stand too long.  John sees the Lord Jesus Christ standing at the Temple Mount in the city of Jerusalem at a time in the future.  And alongside of the Lord Jesus and His return will stand those who have the mark of the Lord in their foreheads.  The Lord is saying, “These are Mine. Hands off!” These are My 144,000.”  Throughout these years of tribulation, they will be witnessing and testifying boldly about the Lord Jesus in the integrity of the Lord.

    You and I are not to take up the lifestyle of today.  These that are sealed are saved, sealed, and spotless men and women, those to whom lived for Christ in their generation.  These are those who will have an impact on their times.  You and I are to live with impact.  During these days of lies, deception, immorality, and violence we are to be truth-filled disciples; during our short days on earth we are to live the same.  If our mouths are filled with lies, if our lives are lacking in morality and integrity, then no one will listen to what we have to say about the gospel or the Lord Jesus.

    “Father, thank you for the seriousness of this chapter.  You have mapped out a plan that will ultimately bring glory to Your name, and we realize we must fit in Your plan.  May we bear the message and the fruits of repentance and godliness.  We commit our lives to You, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.“