Passion to follow Jesus
Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 08:00 AM
When Heather Mercer and Dana Curry went to Afghanistan, the Taliban arrested them. They spent 128 days in a Taliban prison. They were about to be executed when the American marines came and rescued them from that prison. And just before they went there as relief workers all of their relatives discouraged them from going. Some of them thought they were crazy. All of them were concerned. The people they loved most said don't go. Don't go to that deprived, desert land, to those poor people. Don't risk your life; don't go that place where that cruel regime reigns, where you are not going to be safe. If you want to help people, go somewhere else, but don't go there.
But those two Baptist girls chose to go there because that is where God called them. And they had a passion for Jesus and that is where Jesus led them. Their passion for Jesus had to be greater than their passion for their loved ones. Their loved ones said don't go but Jesus gave them a higher calling and they had to obey Jesus rather than those who loved them on this earth.
You see there is a superior passion required. And some people cannot be His disciple because they fear that superior passion.
Do you have that kind of passion to follow Jesus?
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( 0 / 0 )You must forsake all, You must take up the cross
Monday, July 12, 2010, 08:47 AM
On March 15, 2004, five missionaries representing the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention were on a mission of mercy. Traveling by car to conduct relief efforts in Masul, Iraq when their vehicle was suddenly attacked by automatic weapon fire and rocket propelled grenades. The car was blasted apart as gunmen unleashed the barrage. Three of the missionaries were killed at the scene. David McDonald despite being mortally wounded helped his wife Nikki, who was shot at least 20 times; get to a hospital where she was rushed in to surgery. When she awakened some weeks later, she learned that her husband had not survived the attack.
Christians around the world launched a prayer vigil for her that she might live. Nikki, who is often identified as Carrie in the press because there is no equivalent for her name in the Iraqi language, did survive. In addition to her 28-year-old husband David, Larry Elliott, 60, and his wife Jean, 58, of Carrie, North Carolina and Karen Watson, 38, of Bakersfield, CA were also dead.
David her husband died while being transported by helicopter to a United States Military Hospital in Baghdad.
Nikki did survive and she stood and gave her testimony not long ago and said this, "My Jesus also wore scars upon His body from the violence He endured. How can I stand back and say it is too hard to serve Him." Miraculously an AK49 bullet that tore through her jaw did not damage her teeth or any nerves in her face. She does not center on her scars or her injuries.
Instead she focuses today on the need in Iraq for missionaries to take the gospel to the troubled nations.
She says I can't help but think that if we truly focused on Christ and pursue Him and delight in Him, if we burn in our hearts for Christ and focus on who He is, truly we will hear His call to go to people like the Iraqis and take the gospel to them. The Lord of the Harvest will have a field full of missionaries filled with the love of Christ to make His glory known among these people.
She said I pray that we will recklessly abandon our lives of ease and receive Christ and think about those who need Him, that our hearts would so be penetrated and our lives would be so full of Him that the world would see Christ and be glorified among the nations in our lives.
This is the kind of commitment that Jesus was talking about when He said that you must forsake all, you must take up the cross, you must deny your self and if you do not do this, you cannot be my disciples.
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( 0 / 0 )Dream
Friday, July 9, 2010, 08:00 AM
Einstein said, imagination is more important than knowledge. Imagination rules the world said the poet. There is tremendous power in your ability to imagine and to stretch your faith, to stretch your imagination. To have a dream of what God can do in your life. It is psychologically and emotionally healthy to have a dream and it is spiritually necessary to have a dream.
Because without a dream for your life, you are not living you just exist. And you don't know where you are going and you have no goal and no real purpose.
So God wants an individual to have a dream, a family to have a dream, a church to have a dream, a vision of what God could do if only we would allow Him to do it in our life.
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( 2.9 / 7 )Optimism
Thursday, July 8, 2010, 09:00 AM
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance[1] of things hoped[2] for, the conviction[3] of things not seen.Every person approaches life with one of two basic attitudes: either optimism or pessimism. The basic difference is this: the optimist looks for the best in every situation; but the pessimist always looks for the worst. Let me illustrate the difference.
A preacher and friend went hunting together on a regular basis. But this year, the preacher had a surprise for his friend. The preacher had bought this incredible dog that could walk on water. So, when the two hunters shot their ducks, the preacher turned to his dog and said, “Fetch.” The dog took out after the ducks, walking on top of the water! And then after he grabbed the ducks, the dog came back to the hunters, walking on top of the water, and dropped the ducks in front of them. The preacher turned to his friend and said, “What do you think about that?” The friend, totally unimpressed, said, “Some dog. Can’t even swim, can it?”
The difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not in the facts but in the way they look at the facts. The optimist looks at a dog walking on water and says, “That is one amazing dog!” The pessimist looks at that same dog and says, “Some dog. Can’t even swim.” The optimist always looks for the best. The pessimist always looks for the worst. As Christians, we should have an attitude like the optimist…think about it.
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( 3 / 6 )Tired and weary?
Wednesday, July 7, 2010, 08:00 AM
Sometimes we are just too tired to have a dream. We are too tired to be creative. That happened to Elijah who wanted to kill himself. He crawled under the juniper bush even after being a highly successful prophet of God and he said, Lord, I am the only one you have left in all of Israel. And I am ready to throw in the towel. Take my life; I am fighting the battle all by myself. Take my life, it is enough, I can't live any longer. The Lord didn't take his life, the Lord put him to sleep and then the Lord sent provision, miraculously for him to eat. And the Lord awakened him through an angel of God and said, Elijah, rise up and eat. After he ate, he went back to sleep. The Lord sent more provision and said rise up and eat and he did. Then he went back to sleep. The answer to fatigue was to eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. Two of my favorite things in the order of priority, eat and then sleep! So fatigue can be a dream buster.
Some of you cannot have a dream because you are so tired and weary and under the burden and you are living under such stress that you can't be creative. You can't think ten days down the road much less ten years down the road about where you want to be because you are so weary and tired. And I want to tell you something about that, if you are tired and if you are weary, number one, never make a major decision when you are depressed. Never make a major decision when you are tired, when you are weary, when you are discouraged because you will make a decision based on emotion, and you will make a decision that you will probably later regret. And so never make a decision when you are fatigued.
And number two; never decide to quit when you are tired because we are always tempted when our energy is spent. And we are always tempted to want to find some easy way out and get out from under the pressure, but listen to me, wait until you have rested and refreshed. Then if God leads you to do something else, then do something else. But don't give up when you are weary and tired.
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