Transition

To say that the last few months in our lives have been a time of transition is an understatement. I've followed God long enough to know that he MOVES in those transitions. What's He up to?
We've been away from our home church for almost a month now. (Makes me teary eyed just to type that. Oh how I miss them.) With Christmas and New Year's and having no car to transport us all, we have been out of church for a month. But....He's still be doing lots of speaking to me.

In this crazy time of upheaval and transition I've been confronted with some sin. Mostly, I'm appalled at my tongue. I'm ashamed at the way I have spoken to the ones I love. I'm supposed to be the example. There has been no patience and very little grace. Seems I forget these little people are CHILDREN...not small adults. They are learning and I need to be a better teacher. My scripture reading today brought that into even sharper focus.

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.[a] 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deut. 6:4-9

This verse is on my list to memorize this month. It also made me think about what I am "impressing" on my children. I have picked a book back up that I put down a few months ago. This book is challenging, to say the least. Every American believer should read this book. And I'm only a little over 1/2 way thru. I have to take it in small bites. Anyway, Its called Radical by David Platt. Many of you have read it or are reading it. You know what I'm talking about. Again, I digress. I picked the book up and reread a part that struck me before. Let me share a bit with you. (This is long, but I love this example)

In this particular passage he is sharing how he was in a church with a pastor and deacons that had been supporting him. It was a Saturday evening and he was going to preach the next day at their church. They asked how things were going with his Ministry in New Orleans in housing projects that were ridden with poverty and gang violence. He'd been able to minister to homeless men and women struggling with addictions. Then he shared about opportunities God had provided around the world. That people were being receptive to the gospel in places that had been traditionally hostile. Whether in the inner city or overseas, God was drawing people to himself in some of the toughest areas of the world. This is what happened next.

" Expecting them to share in my excitement, I paused to listen for their response. After an awkward silence, one of the deacons leaned forward in his chair, looked at me, and said, ""David, I think its great you are going to those places. But if you ask me, I would just as soon God annihilate all those people and send them to hell.""

....After a moment of silence, the rest of the room resumed conversation as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

It got worse.

Th next morning we arrived at the church building and worship service began. The pastor rose to welcome everyone and during his introductory remarks he began talking about how thankful he was to living in the United States. I am not sure what sparked the rousing patriotic address that followed, but for the next few minutes he told the church that there was no chance he would ever live anywhere else in the world. Amens were firing left and right from the crowd. Engulfed in nationalistic zeal, I was just waiting for Lee Greenwood to burst into song in the background.

Minutes later I got up to preach on going to all nations with the gospel. When I finished, I walked down to the front while the pastor got up to close the service. These were his words: ""Brother David, are so excited about all that God is doing in New Orleans and in all nations, and we are excited that you are serving there."" He continued, ""And brother, we promise that we will continue to send you a check so we don't have to go there ourselves.""

He wasn't finished.

""I remember a time at my last congregation when a missionary from Japan came to speak,"" he said. ""I told that church that if they didn't give financial support to this missionary, I was going to pray that God would send their kids to Japan to serve with that missionary.""

Wow.

Did the pastor just threaten his congregation with the punishment of going to the world?

He continued, ""And my church gave that man a laptop and a whole lot of money.""

Apparently the threat worked.

....Could it be that this deacon and this pastor expressed what most professing Christians in America today believe but are not bold enough to say? This may sound a bit harsh, but consider the reality.

How many of us are embracing the comforts of suburban America while we turn a deaf ear to the inner cities in need of the gospel? How many of us are so settled in the United States that we have never once given serious thought to the possibility that God may call us to live in another country? How often are we willing to give a check to someone else as long as we don't have to go to the tough places in the world ourselves? How many of us parents are praying that God will raise up our children to leave our homes and go overseas, even if that means they many never come back? How many of us are devoting our lives to taking the gospel to people in hostile regions around the world where Christians are not welcomed? Certainly few of us would be so bold as to say we "would just as soon God annihilate all those people and send them to hell," but if we do not take the gospel to them, isn't that where they will go?

Meanwhile, Jesus commands us to go. He has created each of us to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, and I propose that anything less than radical devotion to this purpose is unbiblical Christianity. "


Yikes! The whole book is like that. So...I shared all of that to say....Am I showing...Impressing on them what biblical Christianity looks like? I hope that as God continues to show me, a little each day, how I can follow him more closely that I can be the example that my children need. My prayer for them has always been that they grow in favor with God and with men, that they choose to follow Jesus early and that they seek HIS will for their lives.


Ok...on a lighter note. Tomorrow...Or later this week. I'll have some pictures of some recent projects ;)