Thursday, May 19, 2005

Things

A.W. Tozer wrote the following on possessing "things":

Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply "thing". They were made for man's uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him.
But no sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul.
Out woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and "things" were allowed to enter. Within the human heart "things" have taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but here in the moral dusk, stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne.
This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets "things" with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns "my" and "mine" look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution...
There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one recognized for the evil that it is; but its outworkings are tragic...
...The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by viloence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart.


That spoke to me, saying, "That's you Kathryn". I know it is. Sadness.

But a prayer is offerred:

Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come.
Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there.
In Jesus' name, Amen.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Faith in our God/their gods

I know, Kathryn what is your title about? I'll explain.

Last night I was watching the Discovery Channel about tribes in West Papua. Very interesting. They were telling about the rituals of the tribes, the biggest one being canabalism. Which, by the way, the missionaries in that area helped them to see was wrong! The tribes people even said that! Towards the end of the segment the tribespeople were reinacting a ritual they do when someone is injured or sick.

There was a man who was injured in his shoulder. EVERY man in the tribe gathered around this injured man and began chanting to their gods for healing and peace. EVERY man there did that. They all stopped what they were doing because they knew the importance of that one life, but not only that they knew the importance of what they could do to help. They believed in the power of their healing god. I say all of this fully knowing that our God is the ONLY God and the one true God. But the point is that they believe their gods to be the true ones. Another point I wanted to make was that they not only believed so much in that person and what they could do it help, but they believed and had faith with every ounce of their being that when they prayed to their gods they would answer and heal.

I tell you, Christians are not like this. We are not. It's sad, but true. How many times have we (myself included) knew of someone who was hurting, either physical main or spiritual or emotional pain, and did nothing to help. We were too busy or not close enough or didn't really understand what was going on. Excuses, we're full of them. And the Bible tells us that the spiritual family is closer than the physical and yet we don't act like that. Another thing that really struck me was the fact they believed so much in their gods to pray and ask for healing until it came. We, Christians, do not believe that our God could/would heal. If we really did believe that we would be on our knees asking for healing, asking for prayers answered. But we don't . Sure, we pray to God, but not to the extent and with the conviction that these tribespeople do to a god that isn't even real! Hello!!!!!

I just find all of this completely dumbfounding. I'm very convicted. It's amazing how a documentary about some tribespeople around the world worshipping another god can be used by God to bring me to my knees. Thanks!

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

The Blessing of Broken Glass

Norm, one of the men on staff at KBM with me is an amazing man with a heart for the lost like nothing I've ever seen before. He's been building relationships with Muslim families and Hispanic families and just anyone who doesn't know Jesus.

Well...while Natalie and I were chatting at lunch he came in and asked us to pray for a girl named Claire who had broken her thigh bone and a boy named Junior who fell onto broken glass and cut his head and sholder really bad. Becky, Norm's wife, was rushing him to the hospital and called to ask us to pray for him. Natalie and I stopped what we were doing and prayed for Junior and Claire.

After talking to Norm about 30 min. later I found out that there was a girl named Shannon with Becky right at that moment. Shannon is somehow related to Junior. Shannon did not know Christ but was telling Becky that she no longer wanted to sin any longer. She wanted to know about Jesus and Becky was telling her. Norm asked me to pray for Becky and for Shannon that she would know Jesus. I did.

The beauty of things unseen. We looked at broken glass as a bad thing, but God turned it into good and used it to draw someone closer to Himself. We asked Him to do that and He did. Faithfulness, it's good. You never know what God's going to do!