Tuesday, 7/7/20 – Pressing on…

Honest!

Okay, let’s be honest…

Hey – wait a minute, get back here! I know how scary that premise can be to a few folk… well, some…. Okay… honest – right! Being honest is scary to most of the masses. And the first thing we get dishonest about is saying that being honest doesn’t really scare us at all.

Christians know all the right answers to yesterday’s challenge. We like to say how truly burdened we are for lost souls. But we must face the truth: we really have very little burden for the lost at all. At least, just not now. Tomorrow I will certainly have a burden for the lost.

Except, you won’t. There will be all the same very good reasons and distractions tomorrow as those you are claiming today. The devil will see to it.

So (stay honest now)… what shall one do about this? Nothing? That’s very easy to do now, but then there is that day of accounting… that chilling statement, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” (Matt. 25:45). And boom: dark Eternity!

Here is what we must do: We must stay honest before our God and admit this great hypocrisy. Pray this: “O Lord, I do not have the passion I should… the desire to pray for these lost souls. O Lord forgive me, and work in me the passionate heart of Christ… that heart which compelled Him to the cross… that heart which was in the apostles, and in the martyrs of men such as John Hooper. Oh Lord, help me give up my heart of stone… give me the heart of Christ!”

I know you do not want to pray this. You are too afraid God just might answer it! It is too much right in the heart of His Will. It is the very prayer He is most likely to answer, and then you might just have to give up something, begin doing something unappealing to you now.

But understand now, you are asking Christ to change your mind about this — and to do it by changing your heart. You must give yourself to this… to His working within you. Do not try to manufacture it yourself. That is faithlessness. But, as His Spirit speaks to you, listen. See that man on the street as Christ does, that store clerk, that pin-up model, that beggar on the corner, that film star. When you do, you will weep.

Pray this prayer today… Now.

And when He does change your heart, believe me, all these things: to give up something, to begin doing something, to weep… all these things will be your chief-most joy!

More tomorrow…

To hear Pastor Andrew’s Sunday message, go to the Facebook page of Lincoln Baptist Church, or link to the livestream from the church website.