Would you be so kind as to share your opinion with me in a short survey?

This afternoon I completed what I call an exegetical devotional on the Gospels. I divided the gospels into 300 subsections and wrote an exegetical devotional focusing on discipleship based on each of those 300 sections. I find too many devotionals will take a single verse of Scripture out of context and distort what it means and develop, at times, rather strange applications.   The focus of this devotional is intentionally focused on living as a disciple based on the text of the Gospels. While the devotionals are not technical from time to time they do dabble in Greek text and vocabulary.  Using this format a person will have 25 short studies per month and we'll cover the four Gospels in one year.

This devotional book is a long way from being ready. There's a lot of proofing and editing that has to be done before I would consider it a rough draft. However, I do want your opinion about what is the best presentation for a devotional. Below you will find a short survey, which will help me during the editing process to determine the best format for sharing this material. If you would be so kind, please take a few moments and fill out the survey in the link below.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y8DKBSY

Thank you for your help.

In the Cause of Christ

Charlie

When we ignore Jesus.

If you disagree with this first premise the rest of this essay will be pointless.  As a culture and nation we are more hostile, fragmented, and divided since anytime in our post Civil War history.  In short, we are coming apart. Some have been advocating a new civil war.  We do not see one group of radicals on one side opposing thoughtful, courteous and reasonable individuals on the other.  Rather, we see the gulf between the two sides growing wider and the edges wilder.

What has happened to our “one nation under God”?  Proverbs 29:18 is often quoted, using a poor translation, “Where there is no vision the people perish…” This used to rally people to pursue a good cause in the name of a vision for a better future.  But that is hardly what this proverb is about.  A more literal translation is, “Where there is no revelation the people throw off restraint.”  In other words, if the Word of God is not shaping the people and the culture as a whole that culture will spiral down into chaos.  Sound familiar?

I am not going to argue that the 1940’s, 50’s, or early 60’s was a Christian utopia in the U.S.     However, as a culture we were closer to the Judeo-Christian roots of western civilization.  So what happened?  I hold the church responsible for the decline.  If Jesus knew what He was talking about-and that is a very safe assumption- when meat rots or is tasteless you don’t blame the meat you blame the absence or the ineffectiveness of the salt.  When a people as a whole move further and further from their historic faith and heritage you don’t blame the world, the flesh, or the devil, these have all been defeated, you blame the church.

I am not advocating that we need to return to Jesus in order to make America great again.  Jesus must NEVER EVER be a means to accomplish our ends.  Rather, the whole universe exists to bring glory to the Father.  I am hoping to explain why this nation is choking to death on forbidden fruit.  Don’t be surprised if the collapse continues and accelerates.  Without the faithful witness of the Word of God every part of their individual and collective, fallen, human nature will pull the subculture of our nation or any nation into darkness.

Which brings me to our ignoring Jesus.  What was Jesus’ one prayer request?  Odds are you will not find it on any church prayer list.  Our church prayer lists are dominated with prayer requests that Christians (or at least church members) will not go to Heaven.  Jesus never directs us to pray for all the sick to get well.  I have seen more prayers for political victory than Jesus’ prayer request.  I have heard prayer requests for people so vaguely related as to be laughable.  But never have I heard these same people who, in their lollypop spirituality are concerned about everyone, repeat the prayer request of Jesus.  We pray or at least put on our prayer list (which is not the same thing) firemen, law enforcement, nurses, doctors, farmers, rain, hurricanes, snowstorms, astronauts and even pets.  But only once did Jesus ask us to pray for something.  In Matthew 9, we find Jesus’ only prayer request:
“Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

This week I want to challenge you that in addition to or instead of all the less stuff we pray about, we pray for the Lord of the harvest to send workers out into the harvest.  In fact, perhaps we ought to move this request to the top of our prayer list.  And if you really want to challenge the people in your congregation delete all the other requests, hand out the bulletin or prayer list sheet with only one request:

Almighty and ever living God our harvest is great and there are so few workers.  Please, Lord, send laborers out to a lost and dying world.  I am so sure this is Your will if You want send me!

In the name of Christ
Amen

Help getting a fresh perspective

Sometimes a fresh perspective can help us significantly.  We see or think about an issue so long and so often that it begins to lose impact on our thinking.  If we have a new metaphor, a new way of bringing old information to bear it might help us regain some energy of thought.  The following tools might be helpful in developing a fresh perspective.

Tool #1-Imagine a stack of 500,000 dollars.  That would be 50 bundles of $100 dollar bills.  That is a lot of money.  If you gave $1 to each village in the Indian sub-continent that did not have a Christian church or missionary and kept all the rest of the money for yourself you would have nothing.

Tool #2-Take off your shoes and socks and count all your fingers and toes.  That is the number of villages that are asking a mission organization in northern India for someone to come and tell them about Jesus for whom there is no one to send.  Not 20 people, not one person with twenty fingers and toes, but 20 villages asking to learn about Jesus without the manpower to fill the request.

Tool #3-Extend your right middle and index finger together and place it on the inside of your left wrist just below the thumb.  You should be able to feel an occasional thump or beat.  That pulse goes on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.  We almost never notice it, never the less, it continues on.  Each time you feel that pulse is about how often someone in the Indian sub-continent dies without knowing Christ.   Take your pulse for a moment, your spiritual pulse.  Does that loss mean anything to you?  Do you care?  Do you care enough to do something about it? 

Recently, I met separately with two ministers that were pretty discouraged in their work.  It was not that they were bothered by the lost constantly begging them to “Please tell us about Jesus.”  They were not frustrated because they were sore from standing in a cold river and baptizing 80 plus believers, and would be doing so again the next day with another 120 believers.  (That is the frustration of one Indian minister.)  They were frustrated because they had members squabbling over scraps and preeminence and power and getting their way in the petty politics of a local congregation.  As long as we believe that the little group of people meeting in our little buildings is what the Kingdom of God is about we will forever be as effective as a the mammary gland on a boar hog. (Forgive my crudity; my frustration is nearing its limits) 

Let me offer what may be a solution.  Let’s imagine that the wealth and the resources of the American church and American Christians is not really ours, and that we have been given so much so that we can bank roll world mission and evangelism.  Let’s even pretend that God is more interested in our giving to support world missions than spending money on our own pleasure and satisfaction.  I’m not asking for us to all go to India (or Africa, or southeast Asia, or South America or anywhere else for that matter).  I am asking that we send our money there to support local evangelists. 

Even the giving we do is often selfish.  After all, which is more important whole villages hearing about the gospel or the stuff we buy for ourselves?  If we give to reach the lost among the unreached people in the world, we will not benefit from that giving at all, at least not until we go to Heaven.   Then we will enjoy it for all eternity.   We need a radical repentance about our love of mammon and our selling Christ for the American dream.

To this end I am challenging you in two ways.  First, there is a mission organization that supplies motorcycles for local evangelists.  Often time’s, local evangelists will have no transportation to cover extensive distance except to walk.  It is my goal to buy 10 motorcycles this year for these missionaries.  I love Jesus and evangelists and motorcycles.  Will you help me?  My first goal is $10,000.  If you are interested let me know and I will help you connect with the mission organization.

Second, I want to challenge your church to have a mission-specific, stewardship campaign that will focus on unreached people groups around the world. The design of this campaign is to provide giving above and beyond your regular offerings that you can direct to reach those who do not know Jesus.  Call me about a Campaign that will not only change the world but can change your congregation as well.

Charlie Crowe

352-548-4837