Praise the LORD for that at least.
SO today my youngest turned 1 year old, and I got to thinking (I know - surprise it was not a movie related thing for a change) about how fast time goes by.
I recently talked touched upon evangelism is a rather broad and sweeping way, and I guess thats on the forefront of my mind again as I type this blog tonight.
This past weekend I was leading worship at an outreach event in Cearau for a good friend of mine, and as per usual when asked to lead worship I have been battling with a flu type virus. The event over all was good, if not massively attended, but these things are about planting seeds and making first steps.
Evangelism then, I am saying its a marathon and not a sprint? well I guess in some ways yeah it is. Albeit a marathon with a limited time frame.
As I said in my last blog matthew 24-36 tells us that no one knows when the return will be, and so we need to make the most of the time we have.
In my old church back in london there was a poster on the wall of a Calin and Hobbes and a quote from its creator that used to make me laugh but has stuck with me through the years
'God put me on earth to do certain things, right now I am so far behind I will never die' Bill WattersonAnother oft seen quote is
Now I am not the overly religious tye, and find these things funny, but there are elements of truth to all sarcasm, and this is a truth that we as Christians need to grasp.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance .
The scary fact is that God has chosen in His infinite and unparalleled wisdon to use YOU and ME as the tools for this very thing. Its doesnt matter which side of the predestination coin your view lies, the bible gives Jesus' command to each of us.
The Great Commission as we find in Matthew 28 gives clear instruction -
Go then and make disciples of all nations
what does this really mean - well whats a disciple?
simply a follower of a teaching
But how can someone be a follower of a teaching that they neer hear, and they never hear because you are too afraid to tell them???
Thats just not going to cut it.
ANd I am talking to myself as I write this blog, I am no evangelist, I am not winning souls to the kingdom everyday, in fact to my knowledge I have not singlehandedly lead even one to the Lord through my words.
But we need something in this country. Our ground is hard and the roots of our past spiritul revivals have dried up. Our wells have been blocked, and we need to have something happen to change that.
Its starts with the power of the word. We need to stop looking back on the past and telling ourselves it will never be like that again. This nation was labelled Godless recently, that it was hard to win souls to God as people here think they have it all sussed, we need to change that mind in the church, and then get the church into the world.
You can not make a disciple by sitting inside your four walls each sunday morning and tuesday night, you got to be getting out there telling people about the great and wonderful gift that you have recieved through Christ on the cross.
People are going to hell, and I believe I have said this before, but you sit around doing nothing, living in your shell is just buying the people around you a one way ticket to damnation.
You, me, and the next brother in Christ have to pull our finger out, get out to the world and tell the world what Jesus did.
Jesus is coming, you dont need to look busy, you need to get busy, get busy praying as if it all depends on God, and live like it all depends on you!!!!
what follows is the words of a peom that were written o the wall of a 24/7 prayer room, they are the words of a man named Peter Grieg
'The words of 'The Vision' were written late one night on the wall of the first ever 24-7 Prayer Room. It wasn't a big deal, says Pete Greig, ... just a very personal thing - trying to work out the call on my life and why I was awake at 0300 praying when sane people are all tucked up in bed! But somehow the words of The Vision escaped that Prayer Room! They must have been copied off the wall by someone and sent as an email to a friend. Pete recalls: I didn't realise any of this until someone in Canada emailed my own poem to me saying they had come across it and thought I might like it!
The Vision
So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this… The vision?The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn't even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won. They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport..
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying. What is the vision ? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games. This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers
choose to lose that they might one day win the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground The whisper of history in the making Foundations shaking Revolutionaries dreaming once again Mystery is scheming in whispers Conspiracy is breathing… This is the sound of the underground
And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?
And the generation prays
like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter! Waiting.
Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive
inside.
On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide. Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.) Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centres. Don't you hear them coming? Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
this poem has been taken from the 24-7 prayer website here and has no ownership by myself.
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