Pain of the Gospel

My heart has been stirred as of late through the reading of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea and Micah.  I have also listened to the passionate pleas of AW Tozer, EM Bounds and Leonard Ravenhill.  I am convicted of how much noise is in my life and the subtle lies that the world tempts me as a believer to conform to.  I struggle to think of the last time I have shared the transforming power of the gospel with another person one on one.

This past week I shared my personal inventory with my closest earthly friend. I say that because he knows me deeper than any other and only by God’s grace can he love me and walk with me.  After sharing the deep and darkest secrets of past sins and exposing the lies that the enemy wants me to believe in, he made a precise cut to my soul.  I will paraphrase his words of wisdom, the pain you feel is the tearing out of roots you have in this world and the grip it has had on you.  This past Sunday was another refreshing time with another brother in Christ.  I heard his heart about prayer and sharing others burden’s.  We talked about being unified in the Spirit and how that is only possible when we cry out, “Have your way in us and as it is in heaven let it be on earth.”

When is the last time it truly hurt to have the grip of this world pried from the hand?  Warren Wiersbe notes in his study of Lot and Abraham that God tested Abraham but Lot was so spiritually low that God need not test him.  All Lot’s tests and temptations came from the world and his own heart.  That hits me to the core.  I look back at most of my wounding and scars that are either self-inflicted or from the worldly desires.  AW Tozer preaches that modern believers are comfortable and no longer wish for the pain of God’s Word to plow the fields of the heart.

It is a true blessing to have the fellowship with several men who serve Christ with a limp and who love the Lord enough to speak some uncomfortable truths into my life.  Ravenhill would ask how much you really love someone if all you tell a person is what they want to hear.  How deeply am I convicted by what I hear on Sunday and in my daily time alone with the Lord or what I sing that I am compelled to action and intercession both for the world and for my local body of believers?

It is very difficult most days and a struggle to ask God to continue the painful process He is doing in my heart but I shake within my soul to think of standing before Holy God and realizing all the riches I had in Christ and the embarrassment and mourning that will overtake me while what I did with it is judged.  I cannot even finish typing this without praying for you.

Is there too much noise in life?  Are the desires and temptations of this world your greatest source of pain?  What has God spoke to your heart today?  Are you driven to repentance and time quietly before Him listening and begging for revival?

I am.  My life has not testified to the power of Christ.  I have fashioned some false teaching that somehow what I want or plan affects or shapes his desire and plans.  I hate you world.  I hate what you stand for.  I hate the lies you tell.  I hate the values you portray.  You are a whore who is exposed in broad daylight with nothing hidden from God.

God forgive me today for the feeble faith of my life’s testimony.  I have made a mockery of your name.  I have profaned you.  My heart has offered unacceptable praise that bounces off the basement of heaven.  I long for you to intercept my plans today.  I want you to be glorified in me.  I want to die for the cause of Christ.

Being crushed

Isaiah 53:10 It was the Lord’s will to crush him.

I don’t think that I stop and truly ponder and treasure this verse.  Easter is coming up next week.  I see crosses placed outside churches along the road.  Not one looks rugged or has blood on it.  The crosses are all neat, very decorative, and placed just so.  That is not how Jesus suffered and died.

I love to watch college football and this time of year, college basketball.  My interest is always peaked when the score is close and a victor is made in the last drive or the last drawn up play.  It makes for great highlights.  People leave the stadium or venue hoarse from all the screaming and emotions.  In the end, it is just a game but somehow it resonates within  us.

Imagine with me, a preacher standing before his church on Sunday and bringing up a lamb to illustrate what happens next week.  People politely nod in acknowledgment of the symbol and some even give that holy grunt of affirmation.  The pastor then begins to kick the lamb with focus and intent.  The senses and the emotions of the people are now fully awake.  Any daydreams of what was for lunch, did I turn my phone off, or what time do the colts play has scurried out of their mind and they are trying to rationalize what they are seeing.  The pastor then brings out a large stick and hits the lamb.  People gasp.  The Lamb never makes a sound.  Blood has begun to run off the stage.  Mothers hide their children’s eyes in horror.  Men are paralyzed with what to do.  There is blood on the pastor’s shirt now.  This goes on for the entire sermon.  Almost forty-five minutes of agony and sorrow played out before their very eyes.  The lamb looks like road kill and is completely mutilated and red.   This would make the news.  PETA would sue the church and boycotts would be planned immediately. All this over a lamb (NOTE:  I in no way condone cruelty to animals but am trying to shock your senses and stir your heart.)

The soldiers strip Jesus and surround Him; It was the Lord’s will to crush Him.    They placed a hood over his head and struck him wanting Him to prophecy who hit him, It was the Lord’s will to crush Him.  Soldiers spit in His face; it was the Lord’s will to crush Him.  Soldiers took a staff and struck him on the head while the company jeered lusting for His blood, it was the Lord’s will to crush Him.  His flesh is torn from his ribs and back by metal and bone, it was the Lord’s will to crush Him.  He hung unrecognizable between two thieves; it was the Lord’s will to crush Him.  He cried out “My God, My God why have you forsaken me,” it was the Lord’s will to crush Him.  Sinless and without blemish, It was the Lord’s will to crush Him.

I begin to glimpse what my sin caused my Savior.  My heart is overwhelmed that he was crushed for my sin and the punishment that brought us peace was placed on Him.  Don’t sanitize the gospel and saving power of Jesus Christ.  The cross was grotesque.  The jeering and insatiable appetite of the soldiers was fierce.  The wood was soaked with the guilt offering blood of Jesus.  You will have to fight the images you see to bear the sorrow within your soul of that moment in time.  It’s not pretty.  His grace and love are beautiful.  Thank you Jesus that you alone paid the price for my broken and busted life so I could be brought into a right relationship with Almighty God.