I went to the store the other day to get
some goodies for a little lady’s birthday.
I had a cake and some decorations the usual birthday fare. I got in line behind someone who receives
correspondence from Isaiah 58, In His Service.
After the pleasantries, he looked at me and said, “I got your letter, so
I suppose you were soliciting funds.”
Then he looked in my basket and wanted to know what I was buying. I told
him I was gonna surprise a little lady who lives alone with some birthday
treats. He nodded and turned around and said, “I guess you need money to buy
stuff like that too.”
I went to
the Mighty Women of God Conference at FBCT a couple weeks ago and listened to the featured
speaker, Peggy Nunnelly talk about a woman by the name of Veronica. Veronica had a family of 5 and she lived in a
country in which it was illegal to be a Christ follower. She and her whole
household were arrested and imprisoned because of their beliefs, trust and faith
in Jesus Christ. The guards brought Veronica’s husband into her cell. They told her that she must renounce Christ
or they would kill her husband. She refused to deny her God and so they cut off
the head of her husband. They brought in
her two sons next and told her to forsake Jesus and again, she refused to deny
her God and they used swords to kill her two sons. She and her daughter were eventually freed.
I read this
on Facebook, “A relationship with God that doesn’t change your life, isn’t really a
relationship with God.”
Another life
story Peggy shared at the conference; a
woman struggling with substance abuse most of her life, decided to kill herself
so she put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. Miraculously, she didn’t
die and she had no severe brain damage. So, Peggy went to the hospital to talk
with this lady. Peggy said the woman had
prayed “the sinner’s prayer” many times in her life, yet her life didn’t
reflect a relationship with God. So, Peggy boldly told the woman, “You don’t
know the Jesus I know because if you did, you wouldn’t be laying in a hospital
bed from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.” Peggy said the woman was incensed and
told her to get out and not come back.
However, over time God convicted the woman and she knew what Peggy said
was true, she really didn’t know Jesus at all.
So, she talked with Peggy and the next time she talked to Jesus, she
repented wholly and completely and asked God to save her.
And He did.
The woman is now staying with Peggy and her family as she matures as a Christ
follower and is learning and growing to become the woman God intended.
Change. I am NOT the deni I used to be and I pray I
am NOT the deni I’m going to be. The old
things pass away, behold all things are new.
If you drank alcohol until you puked on a regular basis, if you smoked
pot or did ecstasy on the weekends, if you gossiped about people, if you looked
at pornography, if you were a chronic liar, if you cheated regularly on your
spouse, if you watched movies filled with sex and violence or played
videogames where the goal is to kill as many people as you can, if you were living with someone you’re not
married to, if you did your job half-heartedly and stole from the company,
if you flipped the bird at people regularly on the highway, if you cursed
constantly…if these things were a routine part of your life BEFORE you claimed
to be a Christ follower and now it’s years later and you’re STILL doing these
things AFTER you say you accepted God’s salvation, then “A relationship with God that doesn’t change your life, isn’t really a relationship with God.”
If you can
look at your life today and look at your life BC (before Christ) and
essentially see the same person, then why are you claiming to be a Christian?
If you go to church on Sundays, don’t cuss, are faithful to your spouse, limit
your viewing of pornography, mow the widow’s lawn next door, pay the bills on
time, have money left over for a vacation, tithe sometimes 5% and even throw a
$20 in the offering plate once in a while, and allow your mother-in-law to
stay for 2 whole weeks in the summer…and you’ve lived like this for as long as
you can remember,“A relationship with God that doesn’t change your life, isn’t really a relationship with God.”
It’s not
about being “a good” person or a person that’s given up the bottle, or pornography or the affair. It’s about
loving Jesus so much that you have to tell people about Him! It’s about doing
whatever, I mean WHATEVER it is that He asks you to do. It means devouring His
word because you have got to learn more, it’s about believing what you
read in His word and asking Him to work through you like He did through His
disciples in the New Testament. It means thinking, “This has GOT to be God,
cause this is the most uncomfortable, crazy thing to do...and I would never
think of this on my own, so I KNOW it’s Him.” I bought a ring the other day that says, "LIVE THE WORD." I wear it every day as a reminder it's not about me, it's all about Jesus! It's a reminder that as I continue in my relationship with Jesus...I will continue to change and grow...the goal is for people to see Jesus, not deni.
Remember,
Beth Moore’s “faith story” about being in the airport and being nudged to comb
the long, straggly hair of an old man in a wheelchair? Remember the man was hard of hearing and
she’s overwhelmed and trying to convince God not to make her do this, and
trying to be discreet but he can’t hear her so she yells, “CAN I COMB YOUR HAIR?”
Then the God moment happened, the old man told her that he had open heart
surgery and his wife was ill and he hasn’t seen her in months. He was thinking
what a mess he must look like as he is about to see his bride after all this
time. Beth says, “I learned something about God that day. He knows if you’re exhausted
or hungry, you’re serving in the wrong place or it’s time to move on but you’re
too responsible to budge, He knows if you’re hurting or feel rejected. He knows
if you’re sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just
need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need! I got on my own flight,
sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like this I had
missed along the way…all because I didn’t want people to think I’m strange. God
didn’t send me to that old man. He sent the old man to me.” (From an Internet post by Beth Moore)
I didn’t send out the long letter to ask for
funds...but to ask you to ask God to show you how you can be more like HIm and do more for Him. My prayer is that folks will be convicted and not walk away like the
rich young ruler when God calls us into action. My prayer is that folks will
be convicted and do like Zacchaeus and open the door wide to Jesus and let Him in every area of our lives; no matter how crazy or scary or weird
His calling may be.
There is a
middle aged couple who are applying for disability, they have no income, no
vehicle, no money and they need a place to live…
There are
special needs kids who will most likely go into the foster care system because their
only caregiver can't take care of them anymore…
There are
women who struggle with mental illness or uncontrolled diabetes or other health
issues, estranged from their families and cannot live
alone anymore...
There are
senior adults living in nursing homes without a family and are wasting
away because they have a story to tell and there is no one there to listen…
There are teenagers
who have no male role models and their Moms are working all the time or doing
drugs or absent from their lives and these kids are wasting away in the
projects…
There are
young adults who have been sexually, physically and emotionally abused and desperately
need mentors to help them heal and become self-sufficient…
There are
single Moms who work two jobs to feed their numerous children but they continue
to make bad choices in parenting and the men they date…
There are Dads who are disabled and can't work anymore and can't pay their bills....
There are Dads who are disabled and can't work anymore and can't pay their bills....
There are
homeless men and women who sleep on sidewalks and in abandoned buildings who
are very sick and dying and need a place to die…
There are
folks looking for work but can’t get to the interviews by relying on the city
bus…
There are
families with grandparents, siblings, grandchildren and significant others who live
together and only one or two people work for a variety of reasons…they can’t
pay their bills, their rent and they don’t have enough to eat…
This is just
a drop in the bucket of the many people I see regularly who need Jesus and
support from Christ followers willing to jump off of the pews and dive into the
gutter…
There is
someone in your neighborhood, in your office, on your team, in your child’s
school, or in your church who is suffering and sinking and screaming for help
and you know it and God is tugging at your heart but you are fighting Him, “I
won’t know what to say,” “What if they take advantage of me,” “I don’t want to
make the offer to help because what if helping them takes a long time,” “But,
what if I have to give up my favorite TV shows, or cut back on my shopping, or
go without something that I want, or be inconvenienced, or feel weird,” "What if it changes the way I like to live..."
If
we’re bargaining with Jesus about being His hands and feet only, “when we have
the time,” then we don’t believe that the Gospel “costs” something…and we don’t
believe it’s worth very much and we are denying that He is worth any effort, so why are we
claiming to know Him? Are we living the way we’ve always lived? Where is the
New Creation? Because if this is how we've always felt and this is how we've always lived...then we
don’t know Him at all.
I can tell you that God has never called me to do something
– no matter how far out of my comfort zone it is – that He hasn't given me
every single thing I need to do His will. We sometimes find it very easy to
tell God that we love Him…but do we trust Him? Veronica trusted Him with the
lives of her family…
what will you trust Him with?
“A
relationship with God that doesn’t change your life, isn’t really a
relationship with God.” - Facebook
In His
service,
deni A.
fholer
Isaiah 58,
In His Service, Inc.PO Box 521063
Tulsa OK 74152
918-260-1933
I58ihs@gmail.com
www.i58ihs.blogspot.com
501©3 nonprofit ministry
We HAVE to do more. We HAVE to do better.
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within
me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore
to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.”
Psalms 51: 10-13
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