Are You Ready for the Lions?

Come back with me to the year 51 A.D. Look on, as another Christian is about to be thrown to the lions. This man has one last chance to publicly deny his faith in Jesus Christ, but he doesn't. The awaiting crowd roars with delight. Once again, the grizzly sight of blood and bone will be spread across the blood-soaked soil of the arena. These Christians rarely disappointed the bloodthirsty mob. There weren't many backsliders. Despite the entertainment, it was a continual mystery to the crowd as to why anyone would willingly allow himself to be torn apart by ferocious lions when a simple nod of the head would free him to go back to his beloved family. So, why is this man ready to be torn limb from limb by ferocious teeth?
A few years earlier, this man had been in Athens on a business trip and had heard the gospel from the lips of an apostle preaching on Mars Hill. He heard the apostle say that his hearers had sinned against Heaven, and therefore needed a Savior because God "had appointed a Day in which He would judge the world in righteousness." He listened as this faithful apostle spoke of that "righteousness of God apart from the law," and showed him that he was under God's dreadful wrath.
As he stood among the crowd, he heard that Jesus of Nazareth had said "Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery already with her in his heart." He had violated that Commandment many times. He also heard that God would send all thieves and liars to Hell -- "All liars will have their part in the lake of fire," and that He considered hatred to be murder. His conscience began to stir within him and remind him of his guilt. This Judgment Day of which the apostle preached would be a fearful thing. He began to feel a very real dread that he truly was under God's wrath, and would end up in the lake of fire. As he hung his head in a strange mixed sense of sorrow and dread, he heard the preacher explain that this same Jesus of Nazareth--the Lamb of God--had suffered and died on a Roman cross in his place. God Himself had provided a Savior. The Messiah took the sin of the world upon Himself. He paid for our sin in His life's blood by suffering and dying in our place. But death could not hold Him. He burst from the grave; and through faith in His Name eternal salvation was offered to all men.
This sinful man lifted his head in unbelief that God would love him that much. He listened closely to hear what he should then do. He was simply to "repent, and believe in the gospel" and call upon the Name of the Lord. And that's what he did. It was then that he found that Almighty God was almighty indeed. He made him a new creature. He was born again, with a new heart and new desires. God wrote His Law upon his heart and caused him to walk in His statutes. This man, who once lived for sin and drank it in like water, suddenly found that he thirsted for righteousness, and wanted, above all things, to please the God that gave him life. It was a miracle. One day he had no thoughts of God. Not for a second. The next day the love of God was shed abroad in his heart. The Holy Spirit made His abode in him. This gospel of salvation came to him with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with much assurance.
This man, whose only concern had been for himself, suddenly became possessed with an all-consuming passion to share the Gospel of salvation with a dying world. It was as though he was filled with rivers of living water. But there was more. When he prayed, he had an inner conviction that God heard his every whisper. It was as though he had been given the gift of faith. He believed without effort. The Name of Jesus was sweet to his ear, and Jesus Christ became more important to him than his own life. The cross he had been told about shone before him with the intensity of the noonday sun. He gloried in it. He found himself weeping at the thought that God in Christ would suffer in his place. Guilt no longer plagued his sinful heart. It was removed as far as the east is from the West. Secret and sinful passions fell off his flesh like unwanted and rotting clothes. Old things passed away--behold, all things became new. He bubbled with an unspeakable joy and relished a peace that passed all understanding. God had given him the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. His faith was solely in God through Christ, and His sure promise of life.
So, why is this man ready to be torn limb from limb by ferocious teeth? It is because he came to actually know the God that he once only knew about. This is why he, and multitudes more, were "faithful unto death."
One day, you and I will also be thrown to the lions. If God allows us to live to a ripe old age, our bodies will become ravaged with time, and we will face the yawning teeth of death. Not too many of us will have a pleasant demise. Most will be ripped apart by some terrible disease, until the ferocious beast of death devours what's left of our bodies.
Such thoughts are not pleasant, but they are true to life. Are you ready for that brutal attack? How deep is your faith in God? Can you say from your own conviction that the Holy Spirit has regenerated you? Does the evident fruit in your life reveal that you are born of God? Don't give a quick answer. This question is far too important for you to give a thoughtless, "I'm okay. I believe in God," or "I have given my heart to Jesus." The Bible warns in Matthew 7:21-23 that there will be many who, on the Day of Judgment, will cry out to Jesus, "Lord, Lord!" But He will say to them, "I never knew you. Depart from me, you that work iniquity." Can you imagine the horror of that happening to you? On that fearful day there will be a huge category of people who will say that they knew the Lord, but they were in truth "hypocrites." A hypocrite may deceive friends and family, but he can never deceive God. What is really happening, is that he is deceiving himself.
Maybe, like millions of others, you have made a commitment to Christ but you didn't have a Road to Damascus experience. Or perhaps you don't even know the date you decided to follow the Savior. That doesn't matter. What matters is the present. Where are you at this very moment? If your heart gave out right now, how would you respond in those few moments that your life drained from you -- in absolute trust, or total terror? Don't deceive yourself any further by saying, "That would never happen to me." Human nature tends to think that way -- that death is something that happens to other people. But every single day 150,000 people die, and no doubt each of them that are now in eternity, thought just like you -- that death "will never happen to me."
Please, think about the day death comes to you. Let your imagination work for you for a moment. A massive crowd of demons is calling for your blood. You stand helplessly in front of the vicious jaws of death. It opens wide its mouth. Can you face it with courage? Is your conversion experience that real? Are you ready?
Be wise. Examine yourself, and see if you are in the faith. If you are not, then don't be like this world and leave yourself vulnerable to the ultimate of life's terrors. Get on your knees today, right now, and let the Ten Commandments search out your secret sins. Have you put God first? Have you made a god in your own image? Have you ever blasphemed His name? Or looked with unclean sexual desires? Ask God to shine a spotlight on your heart and remind you of those things that you have thought and done that He saw. Nothing is hidden from His eyes. He even sees the darkness as pure light. Realize that if God gave you justice, you would end up in Hell for eternity. We only get one chance in this thing we call "life." Don't blow it for eternity. Confess your sins to God. Name them. Be sorry for them. Plead with Him to open your understanding to the great truth that God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Make your calling and election sure, until you can say with the apostle Paul, "For me to live is Christ. To die is gain." Then your love for God will become so real, you couldn't deny it even if you wanted to. That was the kind of unwavering faith that gave courage to stand before the lion. You need that same faith today.
Repent & believe the Gospel.

"Un's" Part 3: Unlimited Power & Unquenchable Prayer

Un #4  Unlimited Power

Before Jesus went off into the wild, blue yonder (quite literally) he promised unlimited power to his disciples. This power came to them days later when the Holy Spirit rushed into their souls. The Day of Pentecost changed everything for them and for us. No longer was Jesus on the outside trying to work his way into the hearts and minds of the disciples. He was now on the inside working his way out, in their actions, evangelistic efforts and attempts to make disciples of all nations.
Jesus guaranteed his disciples "you will receive power after the Holy Spirit comes on you" in Acts 1:8. The word power comes from the Greek Word "dunamis" which is where we get our English word "dynamite." In other words it is explosive power.
The power of God exploded in and through the disciples as soon as the Holy Spirit came into their souls and pulled the pin on the gospel grenade. The shrapnel of truth pierced over 3,000 moments after the Spirit of God filled the early disciples and Peter stood up "in power" to preach the good news.
This explosive power gave the disciples the strength to endure every torture and gave them grace in their executions to die with style.
This same divine power courses through our spiritual veins and is waiting to pump our hearts and lives with explosive change. All we must do is choose to depend on his strength and not our own and things will start to blow up spiritually.
Will you yield to his strength? Will you allow the Holy Spirit to pull the pin on the inside and explode in power through every aspect of your life?
If you want revival you can’t humanly manufacture it. It must come from God’s strength working in, on and through you!

Un #5  Unquenchable Prayer

It’s hard to pin down just one passage in Acts that showed the unquenchable nature of the early disciples’ prayer lives. When the Spirit came upon them in Acts 2 they had been praying for ten days in the upper room. They continued the prayer service for 26 more chapters. Their prayers were unquenchable and faith filled. They believed in God. This same Jesus that gave them unthinkable goals would help them reach these goals as they continued to get fueled by Him through unquenchable prayer.
I love the words of the great prayer warrior George Mueller, "I live in the spirit of prayer; I pray as I walk, when I lie down and when I rise, and the answers are always coming."
It is this kind of ancient church, unrelenting prayer that we are called to participate in. I’m not talking about a prayer service that we go to once a week. I’m talking about an ongoing prayer service that we live and breathe every second of everyday. We are called by Paul in Thessalonians to "pray without ceasing." The Greek word for "without ceasing" is the same word used to describe a hacking cough. When you have a bad cold you don’t have one cough throughout the day that never stops. You have several coughing attacks throughout the day, throughout the hours of that day. It is consistent, not constant. In the same way we are to pray throughout the day. We are to pray in faith. We are to have prayer "attacks" consistently.
You want revival? There is a price to pay on your knees.

Conclusion

We have everything we need for revival. The Holy Spirit is ready, willing and able to consume the sacrifice when we, like Elijah, act in faith. Let’s live the revival that was purchased through the cross of Christ, energized through His resurrection and delivered into our hands at the moment of salvation through the Holy Spirit.

"Un's" Part 2: Unbroken Fellowship & Uncommon Courage

Part 2 of my new series: "Un's"


Un #2: Unbroken Fellowship

The disciples weren’t lone rangers. They didn’t try to change the world by themselves. As a matter of fact they knew that the only way the world could be won to Jesus was if everyone who claimed the Name was on board. So they spent countless hours in prayer, fellowship, worship, teaching, eating, and hanging out with other believers. Their goal? To see them transformed into the image of Jesus and, therefore, transformed into a missionary force (just like Jesus).
The purpose of fellowship is not coffee and doughnuts, not warm fuzzies…the purpose of fellowship is alignment of a group of people around the person of Christ and mobilization toward a global mission. Think of it like a football game. You huddle (AKA "fellowship") so that you can go out right after and execute a play (AKA "evangelism"). Too often today in many Sunday service buildings and youth groups we huddle to huddle. But we never execute the play. We stay locked in a huddle while the Enemy of our souls executes his plays with precision and power.
What’s the solution? See the huddle for what it is, an absolutely crucial element for your team to win the game of evangelism in your community, on your campus or in your workplace.

Un #3: Uncommon Courage

As soon as the Spirit of God descended on the early disciples, uncommon courage was infused into their souls. Peter stood up and boldly proclaimed the gospel to a hostile crowd of thousands. When the religious leaders pushed back later on in Acts they found that these boys were not intimidated in the slightest. Check out Acts 4:13, "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus."
When we spend time with Jesus and yield to His Spirit within, uncommon courage should spring forth from the deepest core of our souls. We need to, like the early followers of Jesus, open our hearts to God and then open our mouths.
This brand of courage doesn’t mean that we don’t have fear in our hearts. We just choose to conquer this menacing fear by charging ahead anyway. It's like my first quarry-jumping experience. I was at a quarry with some buddies. As I was walking toward the platform that hung over the water-filled quarry (from there the 35ft drop looked like a 70 ft drop), fear began to take over. My heart rate was definitely racing. As I pushed myself to jump over the edge to the water down below, my heart was pounding so hard that it could have been the drummer for August Burns Red. I was scared. But my actions weren’t deterred by the fear pounding through my veins.
The same is true with evangelism. Courage doesn’t mean that we don’t feel fear, but that we conquer it in Jesus’ name and push ourselves over the edge. Courage means that we refuse to let our feelings dictate our actions. We do what we know we should do even though all the fear factors are working to tell us "no."
If we want to see true and lasting revival in our nation then we need to swallow our pride, push down our fears and take the plunge into a lifestyle of sharing the Gospel.
Geronimo!

The "Un" Series (Part 1): Unthinkable Goals

Lately, I've been talking about how revival has gone from a simmer to a boil in my soul. Like I've stated before, it's time for a revolution. A revolution of the soul that can only come through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What would it take to see a worldwide awakening?

Why aren’t we seeing it today?

How could we be a part of a global revival that ushered in the return of Jesus?

These questions and more have stuck in my head ever since the early days of my walk with Jesus. I think the hidden keys to a future awakening lie in the ancient book of Acts. Here you find some unsexy, unpretentious un’s that show us the path to a sweeping movement of God. In Acts, you'll find countless un's that launched the biggest revival ever.
At first I thought about putting all of these "un’s" into one post. But I soon came to the conclusion that it would be way too long. A short book rather than a blog post. With that realized, I figured that I would start off my second blog series (New to the blog? Feel free to check out my Truth or Tradition series from this past Spring). I'm calling this one the un-series. 
So let's begin. What's the first "un" that we see in the book of Acts that launched the biggest revival ever?

Un #1: Unthinkable Goals

Before Jesus ascended, he gave his disciples some unthinkable goals. "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem" (Dangerous) "Judea" (Dangerous and Hard) "Samaria" (Dangerous, Hard and did I say Dangerous?") "and the uttermost parts of the world" (huh? Did he say "uttermost"?)
Basically Jesus is commanding his disciples to go global without e-mail, without cellphones, without planes, trains, automobiles or scooters. Walk it out and shout it out. And you know what’s truly awesome? That's exactly what they did. It took quite some years, but they took the gospel all the way from Jerusalem to Rome.
I think we as believers today are taking the world wide advancement of the gospel more lightly than those believers who lived a generation ago. We seem increasingly enamored with building houses, stopping AIDs, curbing poverty and bringing justice to the world. Don't get me wrong, all of these are excellent and noble acts. But they aren't the final mandate of our Lord Jesus Christ. He told us to make disciples of all nations and be witnesses of the gospel until everyone, everywhere is in the fold. Helping the hurting is something we do along the way to global evangelization. I totally believe in feeding the poor and ministering to those in need. But I think that if we do these acts of goodness without sharing the message of good news we do a HUGE disservice to those we minister to. We are making their world a better place to go to hell from. We’ve brought them temporary comfort as they march toward a cliff toward eternal separation from God in, yes, fire and brimstone.
If we truly want to minister to the poor then let’s minister to the whole person: body, soul and spirit. Let’s be like Jesus: give them real bread for their bodies and then the best bread, the Bread of Life, for their souls. Let’s give them real water to quench their physical thirst and then the Living Water to quench the deepest longings of their spirit.
Do you want revival? It starts with unthinkable goals. Taking the gospel to everyone in our campuses, neighborhoods, cities, states, nations and world is pretty unthinkable. But it can be done. So go for it!
Why not make your unthinkable goal right now? How about this one? To share the gospel with everyone you know in God’s timing, in God’s power and with God’s love. I am doing my best to do that dare myself. And it's leading to some great, awkward and transformational conversations.

So, in light of the unthinkable goal that Jesus gave his disciples, what’s your unthinkable goal?

Forward in Faith

I'm sure that by now most of you have seen the most recent Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. In case any of you haven't: *Spoiler Alert*. Far into the film, Bruce Wayne (Batman) gets the living tar beaten out of him by Bane (the film's villain) and loses consciousness. Once his consciousness is regained, Bruce finds himself trapped in a prison that Bane himself once resided in called the Pit. Its called this because its located at the bottom of a well-type hole that allows the inmates to see the sun and even believe that they can escape, but despite numerous attempts only one person has ever escaped this terrible pit of despair.
Eventually, Bruce desperately tries to climb up and escape this prison, but he is unable to do so.  Despite training everyday and several valiant attempts, he is unable to get away from the hell of the Pit until he gives himself completely to the task and takes away the safety rope. Its when Bruce truly steps out on faith that he is able to accomplish the impossible and escape.
I believe that this is a great representation of the Christian life, except, of course, our faith is in God not ourselves. So often, like Bruce Wayne, we dedicate our lives to something, yet we still keep a safety net (or rope) to catch us just in case we happen to fall or fail. However, safety nets show a lack of faith in God. A number of us are setting up exit strategies and fall back plans just in case God doesn't show up.
I believe that so often we wait for the Lord to give us all the resources so that we can step out on faith, while in fact, God is actually waiting for us to step out on faith, so He can open the flood gates on us.
Faith is not setting up back up plans in case it will fail. Faith is not having all the resources in hand before you start. Faith is not waiting to see if it works before you invest completely in it. Anybody can step out on faith when there is absolutely no chance they will lose anything.
Faith is trusting that God will provide what He promised to provide. Faith is committing our lives, our efforts and our energy to whatever we have discerned God has called us to undertake. Faith is stepping out without a safety net trusting that God will not let us fall, but even if we do, He will be the one that catches us and stands us back on our feet. Faith is starting the task when we only have enough resources to get going, trusting God will give the rest “in due season.”  Faith is committing our lives to something that without God would be impossible.
So from what I noticed in the movie, Bruce Wayne doesn't give himself completely to escaping until he removes the safety rope and goes by faith. I believe the same applies to us who are in the faith. We can't fully give ourselves to the tasks God is calling us to and we can't truly live by faith in Him until we remove any safety nets and truly trust that God will come through for us. Without a safety net, you have no choice but to trust Him and move forward no matter what the “jump” may look like.
Also, think about it this way. Faith is how we applaud God. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that "without faith it is impossible to please God." Let's look at Jesus. He believed in His father. Even in the midst of the torture of the crucifixion he trusted in Him every step of the way. It was his faith in God that carried him through the strain and the pain. With each lash from Roman whips and mock from Jewish lips, Jesus absorbed the horrific pain because, in the words of Peter "he entrusted himself to him who judges justly", his heavenly Father. No wonder the Father would show up on the scene throughout the ministry of Jesus just to say something like, "This is my Son in whom I am well pleased." There was a love/trust relationship of unparalleled proportions that you and I can never fully understand. But we can partake in it. No matter what trial you are going through in your life, entrust yourself to Him. He will carry you through it. He will walk by your side through the valley of the shadow of death.
Whatever trial you are going through, try trusting instead of worrying. When you do, you are applauding the heavenly Father. You are jumping into the arms of God "entrusting yourself" to Him. You are squeezing His hand, looking in His eyes and saying, "Daddy I believe in you."
Whatever your trial, problem, hurt or challenge, start clapping through faith and wait for Him to come through once again.

He will.