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CBN.com – Recently I spoke at the CBN staff chapel on "What's Your Spiritual Temperature?". That message turned into a newsletter that became an article on CBN.com. I must have hit a hot button because since it was posted, I’ve been getting all kinds of “gutsy” responses. I thought I'd share a few.
From M.V.: The need of the hour really strikes a chord in me! My immediate future looks hazy to me, and I desperately need vision. At the moment I am asking the Lord for 'just enough light for the next step' -- that He opens the right doors and closes the wrong ones, and that He opens my eyes so I don't miss any of the opportunities He's sending my way. I long to fulfill the purposes of God for my life in this generation. I have only one life, and it must count for God and the advancement of His kingdom! Yes, He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it. Praise God!
From M.C.: ... Your insisting, questioning, open, candid words always contribute to the joy in my life. You are a true learner and that passion is contagious. In my heathen opinion, you give Christianity a good name. Keep taking your temperature and I will continue to take mine.
From D.L.: What bothers me the most is when I see people and churches dress up the people of faith in the Word in loud, lavish clown costumes who ride little bikes on the high wire while carrying an umbrella. Sometimes it feels like quicksand to me as I cry out to the Lord to pull me out of the mire. I am getting spiritual indigestion living the way of mediocrity which is accepted as super spiritual in the loosy goosy body of Christ today. Lord help us.
From J.M.: My own walk is about the same as yours. I struggle with the thought at yelling/lashing out at people who sit in the pews and don’t practice what God is wanting them to do. I do, however, realize two things in this matter: 1) I got my own issues to deal with and 2) God will give me the words at the time He wants me to share it with others. Like the watchman on the wall, the blood is no longer on your head if you see the warning signs and sound the trumpet.
From J.N.: Okay.......what do we do now?
From A.B.: I hear ya loud and clear. It’s interesting that you didn’t put Jim Caviezel’s quote in here from your Passion interview. He stated something similar to the following quote: 'The people of an era must either carry the burden assigned to their time or die under its weight in the wilderness' (Harold Rosenburg). Jim stated, 'We all have a cross to carry. I have to carry my own cross. If we don't carry our crosses, we are going to be crushed under the weight of it.' BUT, what that doesn’t answer is what you stated, what is our cross? We know the obvious of saving more for Jesus. What else do we do personally and corporately?
From T.H.: Your devotion hits the nail on the head. Pressing in is tough stuff. I died yesterday, thank you, I don’t want to do it again today! The brokenness stuff continues to be related to that choice between falling on the Rock, or it's falling on me. I find myself praying more and more but not hearing a whole lot except in a few situations where there is a real need to speak the Lord’s heart for others. I find that I am somewhat dispassionately observing the Lord at work, but am too often more observer than participant. I do not want the vision inside of me to die. I do not want to become cynical. How does this become more than individuals and move ahead with people knit together with a desperation of faith instead of unbelief?
From B.B.: Scott, you are not alone in what you feel.You are alone in being one of the few in leadership to admit it. Christianity today has become confused in being a business, a mixed message, a quick fix to health and properity. What happened to sell all you own and come follow me? I haven't heard that preached in a while. And if all the talkers walked more than they talked more might be accomplished.
From S.A.: I often feel the same way. Where's the fire? The world gets so caught up in the right/wrong, good/bad blah blah that we forget the most important teaching of Jesus 'love one another.' Such a simple concept yet often forgotten by the 'righteous' of the world. Thanks for making me think about things. By sorting out my own temperature and realizing what is important to me and my family, I'm feeling some of the glow again. I don't think it is ever gone but sometimes I let life get in the way! I realize that to some I don't qualify as a 'Christian' but I feel that to the most important guy (my husband) I do. I think the rest of the scripture goes something like 'by this shall men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love, one to another.' I'm trying!
From T.C.: One answer to the dilemna is that people need more credible voices telling them what to do. As a matter of fact, if you agree with Dostoyevski and the Brothers Karamotzov, which I do, people do not want to think. They want to be told and to follow. How can we expect to make a credible difference in our world with voices like the Crouches permeating the airwaves? Are these voices a shining example of our Christianity?
From P.W.: In an abbey in Florence last year, the Abbot said these words to me: 'America needs living prophets. Many people in America speak the word but few live the word. Anyone can build a big organization, but the way of Jesus -- the way of humility, simplicity and obedience -- is the way of power.' Then he just turned away from me, the bell rang and the monks went to work. But it burned a hole in my heart, as prophetic fire does. And so I am asking 'Where are the living prophets?'
From P.J.: I find no personal sense of any spiritual satisfaction in any of the goings on. It's more of a 'been there, done that' feeling. Yet in my spirit I have the sense of being utterly awed and humbled and drawn to the awesome and incomprehensible God to whom we belong. I cling to the faith that the name of Jesus Christ is the official stamp on my spiritual passport, and that as infinitisimal as my little self may be in relation to it all, and for heavenly reasons far too mystifying for me to comprehend, there is always the evidence of the Great Spirit of God interacting with my tiny life and often in the smallest of details.
I can't comprehend and wrap my mind around what a billion is, no less such things as infinity or eternity or even this vast humongous physical universe we are journeying through -- which may be only one of zillions created by an infinitly almighty Creator. And though I take enormous comfort in the sense that I am fully known by our Creator, I adhere to the simplest faith -- God is and I belong to Him and have access to him through Christ. I know very little and trust a whole lot.
Scott Ross welcomes your feedback.
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