Man, This Hurts

"And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." -- Hebrews 10:24-25

Man, this is hard, and it hurts. To look out the window, in the 11:00 hour, on Sunday, and see the church parking lot empty, and me sitting in the house.

Missing church, not being with the people, not fellowshipping together, not for a moment sharing the common life of being a child of God when we come together in His house to focus our attention upon Him. It hurts.

I have enjoyed sharing a time of worship with my wife and children. It is a tremendous blessing to hear your children read Scripture, to hear them pray, to join in our living room and sing God's praises, to be able with these precious gifts from God break the bread of life, to serve as the priest in our home. I am so thankful.

But I miss being with God's people, in God's house, on the Lord's day. In some ways I am thankful for this time away as it makes me (I pray) more grateful for the time we can and do spend together. To appreciate more this foretaste of heaven when all of God's children - from every tribe, tongue and nation - will be gathered around His throne to worship and praise Him forevermore. Until that time, may we not neglect meeting together.

Perishing & Renewal

2 Corinthians 4:16 -- "Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day."

This past weekend, as we have done for the past 10 years, the wife and I, along with the children, met up with dear friends for a Christmas shopping trip in Concord, NC.

Four adults and four small children spent all day Friday traipsing around Concord Mills. When i say all day, I mean all day.

At about 8:00 PM we were "cooked", "done", "bushed" "had had it" "beat", "worn out", "tired".

We ate, we went to our room, crashed on our beds, and slept.

Saturday morning, Rachael and I decided to go to the Billy Graham Library, just down the road. I had heard about this place, but had never been.

We pulled up, were greeted by a warm smile at the gate. We went towards the building itself, and saw that the entire front was designed like a cross. The grounds were decorated for Christmas. There was a sign pointing to a prayer garden. I was already feeling better.

Inside this vast building was warmth. One could feel something different -- I had not felt it at Concord Mills the previous day.

On the beams above us were written verses of Scripture -- "For God so loved the world . . ." "Come unto Me . . ."

We took a little tour and we heard over and over about the love of God. We heard over and over how God had sent His only Son into the world to save sinners. We heard how God had used one man and his family to impact the world with that simple message. God can do anything.
At the end, we (and everybody else that passes through those doors) were confronted with the Good News, and what we would do with it.

I left that place Saturday afternoon with the inward man renewed.
By Billy Graham? Oh no.
But by the Holy Spirit of God.

Thank You, Father.

Missional Church

Today I had the real privilege of going to Madison, NC to view the "Talking Murals" at Mt Tabor United Methodist Church.

Now I know that many, many church leaders/pastors/denominational heads/church-growth gurus, etc, etc, pay big dollars to go to conference after conference to hear the latest in "missional" churching. This idea of really reaching out to the world, out-of-yourself style of living, promoting Jesus.
Most of these conferences, books, websites, all seem to look the same and are bought by people who look the same. Goatees or soul-patches, and black clothes; using the latest in technology and using all the cool buzz words.

Then I go to Mt Tabor UMC in Madison, NC. Here is a teeny-tiny church, established in the 1800s, right off of HWY 220 in little ol' Rockingham County, North Carolina. I doubt that Mt Tabor and the Talking Murals have ever been written up in Christianity Today magazine, ever been featured or noticed by missional, urban church planter-type websites or blogs.

But here, since 2005, nearly 20,000 people have come through the doors and rested in the quiet little sanctuary -- it truly is a sanctuary (not a "worship center") -- and been nourished with the old, old story of Jesus and His love. You are invited off of the busy highway of the world, to come sit quietly (you walk into the sanctuary under the words from Psalm 46 "Be still and know") and hear about the Lord Jesus Christ - what He has done and what He invites you to do - receive His gift of salvation and love into your heart.

You are encouraged to leave your prayer requests in a box at the back, and the church looks at each one every Sunday morning and prays over them at the altar. No money is charged, but Gospel tracts are offered for the taking.

I am thankful for the Mt Tabor United Methodist Church and pray that the Lord will use this ministry in a tremendous way. They are not trying to be like the world to win the world, they simply want to declare Christ Jesus to the world.

May all churches, church leaders, and Christian men and women do the same.

www.thetalkingmurals.com

What Do You Think?

Proverbs 23:7 -- "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he."

"Our thoughts are the builders, which rear the temple of our character.

If we think of unclean things - our lives will become unclean.

If we think of earthly things - we will grow earthly.

If we think of Christ, if thoughts of Him are in our mind and heart continually, we will be changed, moment by moment, into His beauty."

-- J. R. Miller

What Is Repentance?

"From that time Jesus began to preach , and to say, 'Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" -- Matthew 4:17


Repentance means that you realize that you are a guilty, vile sinner in the presence of God, that you deserve the wrath and punishment of God, that you are hell-bound. It means that you begin to realize that this thing called sin is in you, that you long to get rid of it, and that you turn your back on it in every shape and form. You renounce the world whatever the cost, the world in its mind and outlook as well as its practice, and you deny yourself, and take up the cross and go after Christ. Your nearest and dearest, and the whole world, may call you a fool, or say that you have religious mania. You may have to suffer financially, but it makes no difference. That is repentance. --- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Hip or Holy?

The Apostle Paul loved lost people and gave his life to preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus -- going to the Gentile world as far as he could, as fast as he could. His zeal to see men saved has served as an inspiration for centuries. Paul, who went up on Mars Hill in Athens and preached to the philosophers of the day, who went to the marketplace, and house to house, who planted and pastored churches and made disciples -- yes, that Paul -- wrote these words:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people."
"Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you."
"I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
(2 Corinthians 6:14-18)

How do we reconcile this teaching with the thinking that we see so prevalent in the evangelical world today? We are encouraged to be like the world -- to talk like the world, to dress like the world, to engage in the world's amusements (and idolatry), to look like the world, to mimic the culture in our churches (from the architecture, to the interior design, to the music, to the graphics) and lives -- all in the name of "trying to win some." We must be "missional".

Do we win the world by being like the world? By catering to the world? To feeding our flesh and theirs? Do we dumb-down the message just to make it easy to swallow for lost people?

Or do we follow the teaching of God's Word -- "come out from them and be ye separate."? Should we not preach the whole counsel of God -- His holiness and wrath on sin as well as His mercy and grace? It seems the message of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was for His followers to be different.

Are we guilty of the charge that Jesus made to Peter -- are we more mindful of the things of man than we are the things of God? Who is the focus of our worship, our lives, our churches? Seekers or God? Are we man-centered or God-centered? Is our concern to be hip or holy? To be relevant at all cost or to be righteous?

Trust In His Holy Name

"Our soul waiteth for the Lord: He is our help and our shield.
For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name.
Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in Thee."

-- Psalm 33:20-22