Good morning and happy Saturday. It’s time to get out of bed and start planning when you are going to thaw the turkey. Can you believe next Thursday is Thanksgiving? As we enter into this season, I do hope you will take some time and reflect upon the goodness of God and the incredible love He demonstrated to us, “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” May that reality never diminish in moving your heart toward praising God. Give God the glory, great things He hath done! BTW, we had an incredible of evening of worship last night. The Spirit was moving and it was quite a blessing. We had a great mix of people last night. Our friends from Amanuel Ethiopian Church sang, a few from the South Sudanese church, the youth from our Sunday night Spanish service, people from other churches, all joining together to exalt Jesus. It was a glimpse of heaven. Truly, it was one of the highlights of the entire year. Thank you Omar for bringing it all together.
As you know, I have been doing ministry a long time. Over the years I have seen and heard a lot. Typically, nothing surprises me much anymore. I truly am disheartened by a lot of things that are going on in our world today, but I am not surprised. Unless there is a revival in the land, sin will abound, people’s hearts will grow cold, and rebellion will increase. I wish that was only truly of those on the outside of the church, but it is not. Looking across the landscape of Christendom in the world and you wonder how far the drift will continue from God’s Word and the passionate pursuit of Christ. I praise God when I hear reports from places like South Sudan and India where there are incredible movements of God going on. I ask you to join me in praying that God would ignite a movement of people in this country that would have a desire to become fully devoted followers of the Lord Jesus Christ and, in doing so, would live their lives for His glory and honor.
The other day I was at the church when a guy that bounces in and out of our area stopped by. It was not a surprise when he hit me up for a handout. Rarely have I seen him when he wasn’t asking for cash, a ride or something. Over the last few years, I have heard a lot of stories from this guy. He has been in and out of jail. Most recently for assault with a deadly weapon. He claims to be a former gang member and has stories to tell about that. For whatever reason, he likes to roll up his sleeves and show me his gang tats. I try not to chuckle when he does it but one of them is kinda funny. I am not sure why they chose it to represent them, but the one looks like a bad drawing of Ronald McDonald. Anyway, I have heard about gang life, drug dealing, crime, etc. He says that he doesn’t do that stuff anymore, but he sure seems to get into a lot of trouble still. By his own admission, he does still drink and use drugs. Nevertheless, whenever any of us seek to share the Gospel with him, he will quickly cut in and say that he believes all that. That he has been a Christian since he was a youth. I hope that one day he comes to realize more about what it means to be a follower of Christ.
So, that brings me to the other day. When he came by the church, he was ranting and raving and quite animated. When I talked with him, I quickly found out what the problem was. He had just found out from the principal that his two high schoolers have been skipping school a lot and smoking pot. He was incredulous. He was wondering out loud where kids learn this type of behavior. He told me several times that they had raised their kids better than that. They had taught them right from wrong. For once, I was speechless. I think it is pretty obvious where they learned about those type of things. It didn’t matter though because he wasn’t really in the mood to listen to the truth. Fortunately for me, he got a phone call and off he went, wandering around the parking lot yelling into the phone and making quite a scene.
I tell you all of this because I want you to do two things. Here are the two takeaways from this:
One, please pray for this man and his family. They need a real encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Two, do not become oblivious to the influence that you have on your family and friends. They are watching you and may even begin to do the very things you do. The questions is whether you want to influence them toward Christ or the world.
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)
From our neighborhoods to the nations,
Pastor Larry
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