January 26, 2010

KP Yohannan — Christ’s Call To Follow In His Footsteps

The call of Christ is not just to be informed, but to do something about it. You are bombarded with information. You get enough spiritual information in one week that all of China and India people don’t get in five years! … Because you got people coming here, large numbers, … nice building … let’s not fool ourselves – that don’t mean we are impacting the world. Go into the world and touch the poor, the needy … the dying, the hurting… and rescue them! That is the call of Christ! The call of Christ is to die, not to live. … I know those are strong words. Unless you are sensitive to the Lord, you can easily misunderstand. … We misunderstand obedience for legalism and bondage. … Our priority, number one, must be… Lord I love you and out of that, I give all to touch the lost world.

1 Peter 2.21 – To this you were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps.

David Wilkerson — A Call to Anguish

I look at the whole religious scene today and all I see are the inventions and ministries of man and flesh. It’s mostly powerless. It has no impact on the world. And I see more of the world coming into the church and impacting the church, rather than the church impacting the world. … An obsession with entertainment in God’s house. A hatred of correction and a hatred of reproof. Nobody wants to hear it any more. Whatever happened to anguish in the house of God? …

Anguish means extreme pain and distress. The emotions so stirred that it becomes painful. Acute deeply felt inner pain because of conditions about you, in you, or around you. Anguish. Deep pain. Deep sorrow. The agony of God’s heart. …

We’ve held on to our religious rhetoric and our revival talk but we’ve become so passive. All true passion is born out of anguish. … You search the scripture and you’ll find that when God determined to recover a ruined situation… He would share His own anguish for what God saw happening to His church and to His people. And He would find a praying man and take that man and literally baptize him in anguish. You find it in the book of Nehemiah. Jerusalem is in ruins. How is God going to deal with this? How is God going to restore the ruin? Now folks, look at me… Nehemiah was not a preacher, he was a career man. But this was a praying man.

And God found a man who would not just have a flash of emotion. Not just some great sudden burst of concern and then let it die. He said: “No. I broke down and I wept and I mourned and I fasted. And then I began to pray night and day. Why didn’t these other men… why didn’t they have an answer? Why didn’t God use them in restoration? Why didn’t they have a word? Because there was no sign of anguish. No weeping. Not a word of prayer. It’s all ruin.

Does it matter to you today? Does it matter to you at all that God’s spiritual Jerusalem, the church, is now married to the world? That there is such a coldness sweeping the land? Closer than that… does it matter about the Jerusalem that is in our own hearts? The sign of ruin that’s slowly draining spiritual power and passion. Blind to lukewarmness, blind to the mixture that’s creeping in. That’s all the devil wants to do is to get the fight out of you and kill it. So you won’t labor in prayers anymore, you won’t weep before God anymore. You can sit and watch television and your family go to hell.

Let me ask you… is what I just said convicting to you at all? There is a great difference between anguish and concern. Concern is something that begins to interest you. You take an interest in a project or a cause or a concern or a need. And I want to tell you something. I’ve learned over all my years… of 50 years of preaching. If it is not born in anguish, if it had not been born of the Holy Spirit. Where what you saw and heard of the ruin that drove you to your knees, took you down into a baptism of anguish where you began to pray and seek God. I know now. Oh my God do I know it. Until I am in agony. Until I have been anguished over it… And all our projects, all our ministries, everything we do… Where are the Sunday school teachers that weep over kids they know are not hearing and are going to hell?

You see, a true prayer life begins at the place of anguish. You see, if you set your heart to pray, God’s going to come and start sharing His heart with you. Your heart begins to cry out: “Oh God, Your name is being blasphemed. The Holy Spirit is being mocked. The enemy is out trying to destroy the testimony of the Lord’s faithfulness and something has to be done.”

There is going to be no renewal, no revival, no awakening, until we are willing to let Him once again break us. Folks, it’s getting late, and it’s getting serious. Please don’t tell me… don’t tell me you’re concerned when you’re spending hours in front of internet or television. Come on. Lord, there are some that need to get to this altar and confess: “I am not what I was, I am not where I am supposed to be. God I don’t have Your heart or Your burden. I wanted it easy. I just wanted to be happy. But Lord, true joy comes out of anguish.” There’s nothing of the flesh that will give you joy. I don’t care how much money, I don’t care what kind of new house, there is absolutely nothing physical that can give you joy. It’s only what is accomplished by the Holy Spirit when you obey and take on His heart.

Carter Conlon — Run For Your Life

Listen to me like you’ve never listened to me ever in your life.

We have got to lay our lives down for the purposes of God. This is not a Sunday School picnic, the church of Jesus Christ. This is not an invitation to have continuous good time. This is a war for the souls of men.

Come out from among them. Run for your life. Because this is about your life. This is not just about an opposing theology or conflicting viewpoint on Jesus, this is about your life.

My mind is forever branded with the stories that I heard of police officers from the city of New York. As people were fleeing from a crumbling building there were police officers and firemen and others that were running towards the buildings saying “Run for your life,” at their own peril. And in some cases I believe they knew they were going to die but there was a sense of duty. I was crying out to God, I said “God, Oh Jesus, don’t let my sense of duty be less for Your Kingdom than these beloved firemen and policemen were for those who were perishing in a fallen tower. We are living in a generation when truth is falling into the streets. I want to be among those that are not running away from the conflict but running into the conflict saying, “Run for your life.”

Run from gospels that focus only on success and prosperity. Run!

Run from those who use the name of Christ only for personal gain. Run from those who are picking your pocket in the name of Jesus. Run!

Run from gospels that only focus on self-improvement. Run!

Run from churches where men and not Christ are glorified. Run!

Run Body of Christ, Run! Get out! Don’t touch the unclean thing.

Run from churches in America and Canada where there is no Bible. There is no cross in the theology. There is no soul-searching word. There is no repentance from sin. There is no mention of the blood of Jesus. Run! It’s unclean. Run!

Run from churches where you are comfortable in your sins. If you come into the house of God and you got sin in your life and your not convicted of it, you are at a table of devils.

Run from pulpits that are filled with political men, who are using the pulpit of God for a personal political agenda. Run!

Run from those who preach division between races and cultures. Run!

Run! Get out! Turn it off! Get away from it!

They know nothing of God.

Run from ungodly spasmodic movements and aimless empty prophesying. Beloved Church, run for your life!

Run from preachers that stand and tell stories and jokes. Run like you’ve never run before!