See No Evil, Hear No Evil...Pretend Normal

I just returned from a shocking and disappointing hour. Less than a mile from Northwest Fellowship, the church I pastor, is an abortion clinic run by a man who has, to his own proud claim, killed over 12,000 children through abortion. I am a part of an Austin area 40 Days for Life campaign where we join with believers to stand hour by hour in front of these death chambers that legally exist and pray that women (and usually the men who bring them) will change their mind and not kill their baby.

The good news...over the past 3 years over 100 babies have been saved!

The bad news...thousands have been killed in the silent holocaust called legalized abortion.

The even crazier thing is that there is so much anger attached to a cut and dry subject-- "Thou shall not kill." The Bible never gives anyone the right to kill, even if you think it's your body.

Today, my heart was broken because 2 women (and their men who drove them) came into the clinic. From where I stand to pray you can barely see those coming into the death clinic--they are about 40 yards away from me and are blocked by large bushes. But they could of heard me...and I said nothing. I so regret that I said not one word to dissuade them from killing their precious little baby boy or girl. I prayed, but I said nothing. I've been trained to speak. But I said nothing.

Am I not a part of the silent majority who want to SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL AND PRETEND NORMAL?

Jesus forgive me...Jesus forgive us.

Wake us up...give us a voice. Help us see the evil and lovingly confront the evil.

Amen

Best of Recent Tweets

The soul must be cultivated like a garden and the will must be sanctified and become Christian through and through. Heavenly treasures must be sought, and we must seek those things that are above and mortify the things that are below. – AW TOZER


Happy is the soul which never stops saying a hundred times a day, "Lord, what would You have me do?" - Fenelon


Saying "Mother Nature" is an unbelieving way to speak of Creator God's power over nature & all things. Simply speak the truth--God rules all


Jesus rules over every molecule in the universe. Wind , rain & storms (or the lack there of) are God's doing. Deism & atheism say otherwise


Jesus said, "Where is your faith?" & they were afraid, &marveled, "Who is this, that he commands even winds & water, &they obey him?" Lk8:25


A meeting is not big because a lot of people are present. A meeting is big because a number of people see a big God in the meeting. - Tozer


God's supreme purpose is to make us like His Son, Jesus Christ. If we understand this it will solve a great deal of anxiety in us. - Tozer


A delightfully growing prayer life is fueled by an ever expanding experiential knowledge of the nature & character of God


How we understand the person and character of God the Father affects every aspect of our lives. - RC Sproul


Two folks from our church went downtown today to Occupy Austin to pray that the Holy Spirit would "Occupy Austin"! People asked for prayer!!


“‘Come unto me,’ Jesus says, ‘and I will give you'... ‘I will give you‘ — that is the gospel in four words. - Spurgeon


When rewards are given in heaven,the most shocked will be "elder brothers" who were so sure they were right. Rick Warren (See Lk15:28)

Which Cross by A.W. Tozer

The Church: The Old Cross and the New Cross

But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. --Galatians 6:14

The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it. The old cross brought tears and blood; the new cross brings laughter. The flesh, smiling and confident, preaches and sings about the cross; before that cross it bows and toward that cross it points with carefully staged histrionics--but upon that cross it will not die, and the reproach of that cross it stubbornly refuses to bear.

I well know how many smooth arguments can be marshalled in support of the new cross. Does not the new cross win converts and make many followers and so carry the advantage of numerical success? Should we not adjust ourselves to the changing times? Have we not heard the slogan, "New days, new ways"? And who but someone very old and very conservative would insist upon death as the appointed way to life? And who today is interested in a gloomy mysticism that would sentence its flesh to a cross and recommend self-effacing humility as a virtue actually to be practiced by modern Christians? These are the arguments, along with many more flippant still, which are brought forward to give an appearance of wisdom to the hollow and meaningless cross of popular Christianity. The Pursuit of Man, 53,54.

"Lord, it's not popular today to be 'old-fashioned.' But I commit myself today to the old cross. Help me today to deny myself, to take up my cross, and to follow You. Amen."
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Sanctification is Jesus becoming more and more to you in more and more areas of your life in a more and more deep way more and more of the time.

“Then the church shall be brought to the full enjoyment of her bridegroom, having all tears wiped away from her eyes, and there shall be no more distance or absence. She shall then be brought to the entertainments of an eternal wedding feast, and to dwell forever with her bridegroom, yea, to dwell eternally in his embraces. Then Christ will give her his loves, and she shall drink her fill, yea, she shall swim in the ocean of his love.”


Jonathan Edwards, “The Church’s Marriage to her Sons and to her God,” in Works (Edinburgh, 1979), II:22.

A Crazy But True Formula

Are you struggling?

Rejoice...the trials are only a testing of your faith

in order to cause you to

Persevere...

in order to

MAKE YOU LIKE JESUS!


The unlikely formula is

Trials + Perservance = Becoming more like Jesus

Sometimes God’s best answers to prayer are “no” because, if indeed we received everything that we prayed for, all our wants and wishes and heart’s desires, I just don’t think it would be God’s best for our life. Let me share with you a quick story. I remember when I was in the hospital many, many years ago. I used to imagine myself in the Gospel of John, Chapter 5, lying at the Pool of Bethesda where all the other disabled, sick and lame were asking Jesus to heal them. I used to picture myself there pleading with the Lord not to forget me. “Don’t pass me by, Lord. Here I am. Heal me.”

As many times as I prayed when I was in the hospital, and read John Chapter 5, my hands and my feet never got the message. I never got healed. Well, many years later, my husband, Ken, and I had a chance to visit Israel and we spent a whole day touring Jerusalem. It was late in the afternoon when we arrived at the Pool of Bethesda and as soon as I saw those old ruins, I turned to Ken and went, “Ken, you won’t believe it. I remember decades ago when I was hospital, I used to picture myself here and I used to imaging myself asking God to heal me and He never did."

But you know what? I’m so glad God didn’t because the “no” answer to a prayer for healing has meant a more urgent leaning upon Him every day, a more vibrant hope of heaven, a deeper sense of prayer, a more energetic love for His Word. It's fostered my friendships, and deepened my concern and compassion for others who hurt. It’s helped me start this ministry, Joni & Friends, to other people with disabilities.

I could go on and on recounting all the glorious good things that have happened in my life and in the life of others all because God said “no” to an answer to prayer. It wasn’t until I was sitting there, leaning on the guardrail and looking at the ruins of the Pool of Bethesda a few years ago, that I realized how wonderful it is that God sometimes says “no.”

By Joni Erickson Tada