Are You Cowardly?

I was reading the book of Revelation today, and as I was coming to the end I found a verse that shocked me. Revelation 21:7-8 says "He who overcomes shall iherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son." 

Verse 8 "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in teh lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." 

I added the bold, italics to cowardly up there as I'm sure you know. However this shocked me so much because cowardly, is right next to murders, sexually immoral, and so on! Imagine that, God sees cowardice as just as bad a sin and those things! 

Most Christians never share their faith because of fear. Every day they walk down the street and pass several, maybe hundreds, maybe even thousands of people who are going to the lake of fire and they don't even hand out a few tracts! This is a horrible sin, and those who do that need to repent. We can see here in Revelation that it is not something to be taken lightly. 

Let's look at another example, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:16 "For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!" Paul himself said "woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel." We need to take these things to heart and understand that it is sin to live in fear, and to keep the gospel of our Lord Jesus bottled up inside of us. Cowards will have their place in the lake of fire, we don't want that. We have no been given a spirit of fear, but of courage. So let's put off that old fear, and take up courage, and preach the gospel with fearlessness.  We know that the goal is to hear the words "Well done, good and faithful servant." There is nothing more important than that. 

Amen.

Christians in Crisis

I have always had a broken heart for our brothers and sisters in chains all over the world. They need our prayers. Here are some stats that I took from christiansincrisis.net. I highly recommend going there and reading, praying, or even donating to their ministry. 

Were you aware that ...

Since the death of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago, 43,000,000 Christians have become martyrs.   Over 50% of these were in the last century alone. More than 200 million Christians face persecution each day 60% are children.   Every day over 300 are killed for their faith in Jesus Christ.

These things are happening every day, look at this new report from yesterday.

Date:          October 8, 2008

The Persecution & Prayer Alert

Three Christians were killed in Mosul, Iraq over the past week. On October 4, an armed group of suspected Islamist militants assassinated a man named Hazim Thomaso Youssif (40) in front of his clothing shop and Ivan Nuwya (15) was shot to death in front of his home, located near a mosque in the Christian-majority neighbourhood of Tahrir. On October 6, a disabled 25-year-old shopkeeper was shot and killed in the neighbourhood of Karama. Some Christians believe that Islamists are targeting shopkeepers in an effort to wipe out the Christian community's economic activity and drive out believers from the area.

Pray for those who mourn these lost lives. Ask God to continue to embolden the Christian community in Mosul to proclaim the Gospel even while suffering. (2 Timothy 4:16-18).

To learn more about Christian's suffering for righteousness' sake in Iraq, 

visit www.persecution.net/iraq.htm.

Look at this report from India.

TAMIL NADU, INDIA (ANS) -- Gospel for Asia missionary Vinay Ganpati is still facing threats months after an anti-Christian mob attacked his church in Tamil Nadu, India. The attack happened after a local woman, believed to be a goddess, blamed two deaths on the Christian community.

After the attack on the church building and congregation, one of the anti-Christians died in an accident. This caused people to further blame the Christians, and there were threats of more violence.

On September 26, a group approached pastor Vinay and told him to vacate the church and stop all activities by October 10. Vinay tried his best to reason with the group, explaining the land was lawfully owned by the church and that he couldn't leave so suddenly.

"The extremists were not ready to listen to him and again warned him to vacate by the deadline or face dire consequences," GFA's correspondent wrote. "Vinay seems very worried."

Vinay and his leaders plan to file a complaint with the police station in an effort to protect their land. This is not their first choice, as it could further hinder relationships with the people of the village.

Vinay earnestly requests prayer that God would remove fear from the Christians' hearts and make them strong to face these trials. Pray that the Lord will bring a peaceful solution, and that those opposing the Gospel will realize God's love for them.

So often we forget that 2Timothy 3:12 says "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." 

There is a great war going on in the world today, and we need to take part. There are too many benchwarmers out there. We are all soldiers of Jesus Christ and we must take up our shields and swords and fight the good fight. The older I get the faster time seems to pass, and the more I realize how little I have done with the time I have been given. I refuse to regret the way I have lived my life, and you should too. There are billions of souls that need Jesus, let's do everything we can to give them the Kingdom, with every breath we take. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

 

Stages of the Christian Road Pt. 3

Part 3: Spiritual Fathers

"I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning."

The word Father here means Parent in the greek. So again, this is for male or female.

Here we have arrived at the stage we must all aspire for. As you can see, John only said ONE thing about the spiritual fathers; those who are mature. "You have known Him who is from the beginning." You see, spiritual parents have moved on from knowing God simply as a forgiving Father, and Warrior King. They still know Him in those ways of course.  However they have come to understand deeper, eternal aspects of Him. For certain, even spiritual parents have MUCH to learn and will spend eternity learning about God. Despite that, they have at this point reached a maturity where they can understand the great secret of this saying, "I AM". They know God like Moses, Elijah, Paul, and John. They speak to God as a friend, their relationship with Him is so deep, they drink from His love and power profoundly. They are like the great oaks planted by the river of life. They are the ones who should disciple the children and youth.  Unfortunately there really aren't very many of these spiritual parents around. We all know how much we need them, and we all know the great desire for more discipleship. However with this there is a great responsability, when someone is a spiritual father or mother, they are the ones that people flock to for help, they very often don't have privacy, they don't get much rest because of the constant flow of people who need.  These are the people who when you see them, you see the eyes of Jesus looking back at you.

These fathers and mothers are the ones that people see and they can feel the presence of Jesus, when you see one of these elders, you know they have been with Jesus. Most people don't make it here because this is the narrow path, this is the group of people who truly have been crucified with Christ, they have made great sacrifices and found the great treasures of heaven that most of us long for. We need these great men and women of God, and sadly they are so hard to find. 

To conclude I want to make one clear point, these different stages of the Christian road are based on spiritual levels. They have nothing to do with age, Timothy was young, and Paul told him to be an example, and not to let anyone look down on him because of that youth. I have met pastors who have led churches for thirty years, and yet are still immature in the faith. I have also met teenagers who truly have intimacy with the King.

What will you become?