Archives for January 2008

I am on break during a conference I am attending at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. The conference is titled “How to Read the Bible for all its Worth”. I will share more about the conference later but right now I want to share an amazing worship experience I had this morning.

We were invited to take a few minutes out of corporate worship for personal prayer. As I began to pray I offered up prayers of confession, seeking the forgiveness of God for failing to do what I know I should do and forgiveness for doing those things which I know I should avoid. In that moment of quiet I felt a frustration, how many times have I prayed these prayers, how many times have I confessed the sin that is a part of my life and yet I continue to struggle, continue to fall. Part of my prayer was, “Lord, I am tired and weary of needing to come before you to confess sin…how weary you must be of hearing my confessions.” As I sat there in the filled chapel, alone with God the music began to play and we entered into corporate worship again…this is the first song we sang…

Newsboys, “You Are My King”
I’m forgiven because You were forsaken
I’m accepted, You were condemned
I’m alive and well, Your Spirit is within me
Because You died and rose again

Amazing love, how can it be
That You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love, I know it’s true
It’s my joy to honor You
In all I do, to honor You

I was weeping inside as I heard God’s reply to my prayer of confession…we went on to sing that great hymn by Horatio G. Spafford “It is Well with My Soul”. When we got to verse three God was once again speaking out to me…

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

“Thank you God for meeting me where I was, for lifting me up, for reminding me once again of your amazing love for your creation and of your love for me. I’m forgiven, I’m accepted, I’m alive and well, Your Spirit is within me because of your Amazing love…It’s my joy to serve and honor You In all I do.”

May God find me faithful…

I have just finished cleaning up my office at home. I took the nite to spend with my family and when they retired for the evening I started to straighten up and clean. It looks pretty good…won’t last long but looks good now. Anyway, sitting here at the computer looking over the shelves of books and resources I am reminded of something Archie Parish shared during his presentation earlier this week. I had heard it before, will hear it again and it will, unfortunately, probably continue to be true. He said, “that the average Christian in America has way more knowledge about things of faith than they will ever put into practice.” He was making the point that many of us have read more than one book on prayer, know more strategies to have a healthy prayer life and yet we fail to put much of it into practice.

Looking over the resources in my office I bet I have collected well over two to three thousand dollars of resources in this room alone. All of them good, I get rid of the weak ones quickly because shelf space is precious. A lot of information, lots of great ideas on ministry and helping people grow spiritually. Tonight I wonder how much of it has been put into practice? What do people do who don’t have access to such resources? I imagine that God is no less real to them because they have not watched the videos or read the books that line my shelves. The disciples had Jesus and each other.

Sitting here tonight I am thinking of how blessed I am. All the resources at my fingertips. Am I making the best use of them? Am I a more devoted follower of Jesus because of having access to them or am I just someone who is growing in knowledge and struggling to put things into practice?

God, I thank you for the many blessings in my life. Thank you for the rich treasure of resources at my disposal to help me grow in relationship with you. As I grow in knowledge may I grow in practice. Let it never be said that I knew more than I practiced.