Author Archives: Tim Hanley

The Deepening Gospel

I often pray our Lord Jesus would overwhelm me with the breadth, length, height, and depth of His love (Ephesians 3:18-19). After recently reading Lane Ortlund’s book, Deeper, I more intensely asked the Spirit to take the Gospel and the love of Jesus deeper into my life. I did not realize how painful that process would be.

After allowing my anger and frustration to vent as I preached the Gospel at an open air event last month, the Lord really humbled me when I had to apologize to several people I deeply love. I blew it big time, but truly “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more” (Rom 5:20).

The Lord took me back to my childhood to expose some life-long sinful motives. At 19 years old, my Dad parachuted into Normandy on D-Day. Knowing he experienced the Battle of Bulge, Korea, and Vietnam, as a Christ follower, I longed to be on the front-lines to advance Christ’s Kingdom.

Anything less was failure.

So, for the last 43 years, I have been driven to be the pacesetter and the front-line guy in ministry. I had the sinful motive to gain the approval and applause of the committed Christian community. It was part of the reason I moved to Chapel Hill to join the Navigator ministry, went on staff with the Navs in Columbia, became a pastor, and went into open-air preaching. I had to prove myself as that front-line guy who would do what few would do. Just like my Dad.

To be clear, none of those things are wrong or sinful in themselves, but for me, so much of it was to prove myself worthy to the Lord and to other believers. In spite of me, the Lord used me and grew me through it all.

Sin always takes us deeper than we could ever imagine, but the Gospel and the love of Jesus is so much deeper and greater. The Cross has become so much more encompassing and Christ’s resurrection much more powerful. I praise our Lord for the tender discipline and mercy He has shown me through this past month.

How are you doing in terms of the Lord exposing your sinful motives and taking the Gospel deeper into your soul? The way of Calvary in our lives is difficult, but so very worth it as the Lord takes the Gospel and His love deeper into our hearts.

NO Brokenness, NO Revival

Leave a reply

Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the sons of Israel assembled with fasting, in sackcloth and with dirt upon them. The descendants of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. –Nehemiah 9:1-2

Many “prophets” of the western Church are “prophesying” that revival is coming and a billion souls will be saved. Some even say revival is here. Yet, the first sign of every true revival is sadly missing. What is that sign? Brokenness over personal and corporate sin.

Nehemiah 9 contains the longest recorded prayer in Scripture. The wall had been rebuilt around Jerusalem in 444 BC. On the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles there was a holy assembly where the Law of God was read for a fourth of the day (Neh 9:3). Upon hearing the Law of God the previous seven days, the people were broken over their sin of intermarrying with the Gentiles around them. They separated from those wives and came weeping in brokenness and repentance before the LORD God for HOURS! According to Nehemiah 9:4 the leaders, “cried with a loud voice to the LORD their God before the entire assembly. No one was looking at their sundial.

This is true revival–when God’s leaders and God’s people come corporately weeping, broken, and crying out for forgiveness before the Holy LORD God for the shipwreck they have made of their lives.

I saw this recently in Juba, South Sudan. Several students began weeping uncontrollably and cried out to the LORD for cleansing and forgiveness for their sins. Some of the men went to their brothers in tears begging for forgiveness. That is a true sign of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Do you see that in your church? When was the last time you wept over your own sins, broken before the Lord? Most churches no longer have a regular corporate prayer meetings because they devolved into “organ recitals.” Many churches no longer have a time of repentance in their worship services because “we don’t have time for that.”

Since repentance and brokenness over sin is a gift of the Holy Spirit (2 Tim 2:25), what are we to do? Leonard Ravenhill stated, “the only reason we don’t have revival is because we are willing to live without it.” In other words, the status quo is quite acceptable. I have settled for that status quo. So let’s ask the LORD to make us weary of the status quo. Ask Him to give us an intolerable burden for Him and the gift of brokenness.

Ask our Father to search your own heart for hidden sins and beg Him for the gift of brokenness and repentance. Pray through Nehemiah 9 and and ask the One who brought revival in Nehemiah’s time to do it again in the church leaders and congregation where you worship. He delights to answer that prayer.

“Oh LORD God, please do it again!” And begin with me.

A Disciple-making Movement

Leave a reply

We read in Acts 9:31, “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.”

The Acts of the Holy Spirit is the history of a disciple-making movement that multiplied all over the Roman world in ONE generation. What made this movement so unstoppable?

The early church had its sails set so the Holy Spirit of God could mightily blow into those sails to bring about a movement of disciple-making and church planting. The early Church had its sails set with “peace, being built up,” and multiplying because of a healthy fear of the Lord and the presence and comfort of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit used a rag-tag bunch of nobodies to transform the known world through the Gospel of the Lord Jesus with a disciple-making movement.

Why can’t we get there? What are the obstacle stopping us? We could blame the culture for being so hardened to the Gospel. We could blame the church for being so program-centered. We could blame the Holy Spirit for not blowing His mighty wind into our sails. Those are easy cards to play, but that keeps us in the victim role.

Who is to blame? I am the biggest obstacle. I need to repent, run back to the Cross, and cry out to the Lord for blaming everyone and everything else except ME for a lack of disciple-making movement.

I believe we are on the verge of the greatest persecution against the church in America in our short history. The “obstacle” of persecution led to an explosion of the early church in Acts 8:1.

How will we respond? Members of the early church got on their knees fervently and corporately praying for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and for boldness (Acts 1:14, 2:42, 4:24-31, 6:4). We must do the same.

Let’s not fret and worry about what is happening to our culture. Let’s join together in fervent, corporate prayer crying out to our Lord for a mighty blowing of the Holy Spirit into our set sails and prepare for a great harvest of souls and a disciple-making movement all for our Lord Jesus’ glory and praise.

You can join us on a ZOOM call each Wednesday, 8:30-9:45am, for fervent, corporate prayer.

Our Lord’s Heart: A Restored Royal Priesthood

Leave a reply

What is on our Lord’s heart in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, economic upheaval, and global fears? The Lord Jesus reveals the passion of His heart early in His Passion week.

And they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to cast out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?’ But you have made it a robbers’ den.”
Mark 11:15-17

This IS His passionate heart today. Our Lord’s heart has always been for His people to be His royal priests in His Presence interceding for His glory in all the nations.

Our Lord is presently cleaning out all the personal kingdom building, self-promotion, factions, divisions, rock-throwing, Gospel-less, powerless, flesh-driven, man-centered idolatry in His Bride and restoring the royal priesthood to seek His face for His glory and Presence. He is doing that in my life, and in His Bride in our neighborhood, state, nation, and world. That has always been the passion of His heart.

In our LORD’s Eagles’ Wings speech in Exodus 19:5-6 He says to His people, “Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” He makes ALL of His people royal and holy priests fit to intercede for His glory wherever they are.

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 our LORD promises, “[If] My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” God’s will is to do a mighty work in His people as they stand as His priests seeking His face and crying out to Him in humble, fervent prayer.

In Ezekiel 22:30, the LORD passionately searched for just one person who would intercede for His people. The calling of all priests is always to intercede: “And I searched for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found no one.” Our Father’s heart is always to spare His people, but He found NOT ONE royal priest who would be a wall-builder and gap-filler.

What an amazing promise and reality about the Holy Spirit making us praying priests is given in Zechariah 12:10, And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication. The Holy Spirit is poured into His people to experience the extravagant grace of God for the purpose of prayer to advance the Kingdom.

The Lord Jesus promises in His Upper Room teaching in John 14:13-15, “…whatever you ask in My name that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Jesus promises His Presence in the Holy Spirit of grace and supplication for anyone who asks for Him.

The Spirit reminds us who we are in Christ in 1 Peter 2:9: “…but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Royal priests intercede for and proclaim the glories of our Lord Jesus, everywhere for everybody.

Our Lord Jesus is revealed in Revelation 1:5-6 as “the faithful Witness, the First-born of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth.” Then He tells us who we are in Christ, “to Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood, and He has made us to be a kingdom of priests to His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Answer His cry for us to be His Royal Priesthood for such a time as this! In these critical times He is calling you and me to repent of our prayerless, passionless, painless lives and run back to His Cross for cleansing and forgiveness. How?

First, get on your face before Him and cry out to Him to forgive you for missing your calling as His Royal Priest(ess).
Second, run to His bloodied Cross, and confess and repent of your passionless, painless life of prayer, and ask Him to pour out His Spirit of grace and prayer upon you. That is the Gospel. Thank Him and praise Him for His cleansing and pouring into you His Spirit of grace and prayer.
Third, find a group of people to corporately pray with and for during these troubled times. Ask the Holy Spirit when He is calling you and the group to fast and pray for spiritual breakthroughs, revival, and spiritual awakening among the lost.
Finally, pray with them.

If you are looking for such a group, RIGHT NOW, this week (March 15-21, 2020), at 7 am and/or 7 pm, call 605-475-4000. access code 624991#. (Sponsored by The Columbia Call To Prayer)

Restore your own call to our Lord’s Royal Priesthood so His house may be a house of prayer for all the nations. You will be amazed at what the Lord does in and through you to revive His people and bring spiritual awakening to our land.

Prayer alone will NOT get it done!

Leave a reply

Standing at the abortion mill in Augusta as I did last week and just praying will NOT get it done. Praying to end the genocide of over a million image-bearers each year in America will NOT get it done. Begging God for revival of His Church in our monthly Columbia Call to Prayer will NOT get it done. Going to church weekly and sending up prayers for a nation that has already gone over the cliff spiritually, morally, ethically, financially, educationally, and culturally will NOT get it done.

God’s Word is very clear that prayer is critical to the advancement of the Kingdom. When troops go into battle, communication with headquarters is vital. Headquarters knows what is happening on the ground and can send reinforcements, firepower, and resources to direct and empower the troops. But communication alone will not get it done. There must be warriors on the ground taking enemy territory. The same is true in this cosmic spiritual battle.

Prayer alone with not get it done! It is time for the Church to NOT just pray, but to SPEAK! Yes, our Lord has commanded us to pray, but He has also commanded us to SPEAK. And it the Gospel that we must SPEAK.

Just look at a few of our Lord’s commands and the example and words of the apostles:

What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. (Mt 10:27)
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. (Mk 16:15)
And He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations. beginning from Jerusalem. (Lk 24:46-47)
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
How I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:20-21)
For we are not like many peddling the Word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the Presence of God. (2 Corinthians 2:17)
But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed, therefore I spoke,” we also believe, there we also speak. (2 Corinthians 3:13)

Did you catch the last one? The Apostle Paul said, we believe, therefore we speak. If we believe the Gospel, you and I are commanded to SPEAK the Gospel.

One of the great lies foisted on the Church over the last thousands years is the one by St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” Church, we are commanded by our Lord and His Apostles to speak the Gospel and live the Gospel. It is NOT enough just to pray. It is NOT enough just to live out the Gospel in your personal life. You must SPEAK the Gospel to the lost.

Not all of us are called to be open-air preachers, However, all of us are commanded to SPEAK the Gospel. If you are not SPEAKING the Gospel, repent and run into the arms of Jesus. Ask the Holy Spirit for boldness in SPEAKING the Gospel with your family, friends, and school/work associates.

Our culture is largely in the mess it is in because the Church lives in fear of people and their rejection. Paul’s two greatest motivations for SPEAKING the Gospel was the “fear of the Lord” and the “love of Christ” (2 Cor 5:11.14).

Church, our Lord Jesus commands us to SPEAK the Gospel using words. Yes, it is time for the Church of the Lord Jesus to “fervently agonize in prayer” (Col 4:12) crying out for the glory of the Lord to spread to more and more people. But it is also time for the Church to boldly go and SPEAK the Gospel in the face of a world that grows increasingly hostile to the Gospel. We must SPEAK the Gospel no matter the consequences.

If you are interested in getting help in this, please contact me. I would love to help you SPEAK THE GOSPEL.

Praying in the Spirit: Resting or Wrestling?

2 Replies

Several years ago I was making hospital visits with a friend of mine. We were to visit three elderly ladies who were located on the 4th, 5th, and 6th floors of the same hospital. One lady’s husband had recently died. We walked into her room on the 4th floor, and she was not available. We then went up one flight and into the next lady’s room. In a moment of confusion, I greeted her with, “I am so sorry your husband died.” She sat up in bed and cried out, “WHAT?! I just saw my husband earlier this morning!” My friend, standing beside me, was frantically, but quietly, trying to tell me, “Tim, this is the wrong lady!” I was confused and embarrassed, and, fortunately, the hospitalized, non-widow did not have a heart attack.

I have the same reaction as that lady to some of the commands in Scripture? WHAT?! I mean, “love your wife as Christ loves the Church.” WHAT?! “Love the LORD with all your heart, soul, and mind?” WHAT?! “Forgive your brother from the heart.” WHAT?! I do not know how to even come close to any of these. Then there is the kicker that I have struggled with for years in Ephesians 6:18 and Jude 20, “pray at all times in the Spirit.” WHAT?! Great command, but what does it mean, and how do you do it?

I have heard some teach that it means praying in tongues. Others have said it means praying Scripture promises. Still others have taught you listen for that “still small voice and pray as He directs.”

Colossians 4:12 may give us some insight. In this verse you can see the biblical tension of resting in prayer and wrestling in prayer as you follow the Spirit’s lead. The Apostle Paul describes Epaphras as a bond-slave of Jesus Christ who is “always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers . . . ” The Greek word for “laboring earnestly” means “to fervently agonize, battle, wage war.” It is a picture of intense wrestling. The Greek word for “prayer” used here is the most common word for prayer in the New Testament. The word suggests the idea of a small child crawling up into his father’s lap to make a request. It is a picture of resting. So was Epaphras always resting or wrestling in prayer?

I believe he did both. At times he wrestled with all his might as Jacob wrestled all night with the Angel of the Lord in Genesis 32:24-30. At other times he rested as David describes in Psalm 131:2, “my soul is like a weaned child within me.” There is no formula for prayer. There is no equation for prayer. There is no “right” way to pray except with three basic requirements: pray in Jesus’s name (Jn16:24), pray for His glory (Jn 14:13), and follow the lead of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:16). The result: you will be “praying in the Spirit.”

Prayer is about an intimate relationship with your Abba Father, through His beautiful Son, in the power and leading of the Spirit. At times, He will lead you to battle in prayer. At times, He will cause you to worship in overflowing praise and, at other times, with great thanksgiving to God. At still others, you will experience the dark night of the soul in anguishing prayer. But all prayer must lead to surrender and rest. That is what our Lord did at Gethsemene (Lk 22:39-46). He wrestled in prayer. He was in anguish in prayer. He surrendered to His Father in prayer. He was set free to do His Father’s most unfathomable will: go to the Cross at Calvary.

So what? Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you to pray and lead you in prayer. He will. Remember you are free to follow Him and pour out your heart to your Abba Father knowing the Holy Spirit will conform your prayers to the Father’s will. And, as you wrestle and rest and everything-in-between in prayer, know your Heavenly Father delights in the prayers of His saints just like a new Daddy loves to hear the cooing of his newborn baby. And He never gets confused because your name is written on the palms of His hands (Is 49:16).

A Divine Desperation

Leave a reply

Why is there no revival? Why does our nation continue its downward spiral? I believe there are more followers of Jesus praying for revival than ever before, yet revival tarries. Besides the sovereign plan of God (which is key), I believe revival tarries from the human side because God’s people do not have a divine desperation. For what? For Him! For His Presence!

To paraphrase my friend, Al Baker, a divine desperation is an intolerable burden to experience a dramatic change from the status quo. “Status quo Christianity” is how most believers live. Yet, this divine desperation for the presence of God is placed within every believer by the Holy Spirit (Ps 16:11; 42:1; James 4:5). It is why our Lord Jesus stood just east of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in John 7:37-38 and cried out with a loud voice, “if anyone is thirsty, let him keep coming to Me and keep drinking of Me, and he who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'”

The Old and New Testaments are filled with men and women who had this divine desperation for the Presence of the LORD.

David had this divine desperation for the presence of the LORD when he cried out in Psalm 27:4, “one thing I have asked from the LORD that I shall seek, that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to mediate in His temple.” The future King of Israel thirsted “as a deer pants for the water brooks” (Ps 42:1) for the presence of the LORD. It was his deepest desire.

KIng Solomon hungered for the presence of the LORD as he fulfilled his father’s will by building the Temple and inviting the presence of the LORD into that Temple (2 Chron 6:10-11). Ezekiel wept bitterly when he saw the Presence of the LORD depart from the Temple (Ezek 9-11). Ezra was desperate for the Presence of the LORD as he cried out in deep repentance on behalf of Judah’s idolatry (Ez 9:5-15). Nehemiah had that divine desperation for the Presence of the Lord when he fasted for four months seeking the face of God and restoration of the wall of Jerusalem (Neh 1:1; 2:1). Immediately after the Ascension of the Lord Jesus, the disciples went into the upper room and “were continually devoting themselves to prayer” (Acts 1:13-14) seeking the Presence of the Lord promised by the Father.

You, too, must have this divine desperation for the presence of the LORD. How do you get it? How do you get it back if you lost it?

First, you must repent. The Lord Jesus said to the Church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:4-5, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent.” You must cry out to the Lord in deep, grieving repentance that you have lost your first love for Him, that you run to the world for what only He can truly give.

Second, you must run to the Cross. Cast all your idols, your compromising with the world, your passionate love for comfort, your going-through-the-motions worship and fellowship, and your lukewarm obedience onto your Suffering Savior. Cast them all on Him and believe He forgives you and cleanses you.

Third, as a marathoner runner disciples himself, so discipline yourself in the means of grace. Fast and pray weekly. Schedule a day alone with the Lord. Set your alarm an hour earlier each day and spend that hour in the Presence of the LORD. No longer settle for going-through-the-motions worship or fellowship. Worship Him for all He is worth each day. Do not settle for lukewarm obedience. Daily run to Him and cry out to Him that you long to obey Him in response to His infinite and unconditional love for you. Not out of duty, but delight.

Finally, cry out daily to the LORD for a divine desperation for His Presence.

I get so wrapped up in ministry and life that I lose a passion for His Presence. It is an ongoing battle with my flesh. I ask the Lord daily for a divine desperation of His Presence. He answers that prayer because it brings Him glory and because it is the place of greatest joy and pleasure for us (Ps 16:11).

Back to SQUARE ONE

Leave a reply

On December 26, 2004 a 9.1 earthquake occurred off northern Sumatra. The waters around the beaches of the Indian Ocean were sucked out toward the ocean. This was an invitation for thousands of curious beach-goers to venture out onto previously water covered sands. Little did they know that tsunami waves of 50-100 feet would kill them minutes later. Over 430,000 people died that day around the Indian Ocean.

We are living in a nation where a spiritual earthquake has occurred, but much of the Church is playing on the beach looking for new and interesting shells, unaware that a tsunami of God’s wrath is coming on our nation. We seem as oblivious as the beach-goers on Boxing Day, 2004.

What spiritual earthquake has occurred in our nation?

We have murdered over 60 million babies since 1973, with some surveys reporting that one in five women who had abortions self-identify as born-again, evangelical, charismatic, or fundamentalist. Sex trafficking runs rampant in our culture while pornography and sexual abuse is ruining the Church. Homosexuality and the LBGTQ+ agenda is now widely viewed as normal, with sexual perversion and homosexual marriage accepted by 47% of evangelical Millennials. We live in a post-Christian nation, where the evangelical church looks like the world, yet believes it will escape the wrath of God. That wrath is coming (Heb 12:29).

What must we do as individuals and churches? We must go back to SQUARE ONE. What is SQUARE ONE?

Our Lord Jesus began His ministry saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.” (Mark 1:15 ) His last word to His disciples was, “…that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:47) His last words to five of seven churches in Revelation 2-3 are “repent and believe.”

Colossians 2:6 says, “As you received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him.” How did you receive Christ Jesus as Lord? Repent and believe. (Square One) How are you to walk in Him? The same way you received Him: repent and believe. There is nowhere else to run in order to experience resurrection power (Rom 1:16). There is no graduation to a deeper spiritual level. Just square one.

So to what does our “compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness” (Ex 34:6), but “will by no means leave the guilty unpunished” (Ex 34:7) LORD call you? SQUARE ONE. But what does that look like in the daily grind?

Cry out to Him daily to “search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” (Ps 139:23-24) Use the two Great Commandments: Have you loved Him with all your heart, soul, and mind and have you loved others as you love yourself? (Mt 22:37-39) Ask the Spirit to deeply search your life and your relationships. Have you loved others as Jesus has loved you? (John 15:12,17) Ask Him to show you the deep idols of your heart and the deeply-entrenched strongholds in your life that grieve or quench the Holy Spirit. Ask Him to lead you to deep repentance.

Then run to Jesus and lay all these sins on the Cross. The Cross is the “everlasting way” to cleansing. Believe that the Cross of our Lord Jesus cleanses you. You are washed. You are clean before Him. Believe that in the Cross “as far as the east is from the west; so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (Ps 103:12)

Join others in prayer. Gather with other believers in your church or home and cry out to Him in repentance and faith. That is SQUARE ONE faith.

Perhaps our LORD God will stay His hand of wrath upon this country as we cry out to Him, believing Isaiah 30:15 for ourselves and our nation: “In repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.”

The Greater Columbia Call to Prayer meets the second Saturday of each month (9:30am – 11:30am; 819 Main Street, Columbia). We would love to have you join us as we repent and believe!

A Cross before a Crown

Leave a reply

I want the crown NOW! I want the glory NOW! I want to be the hero NOW. I want people to notice MY ministry NOW! Later is too late. I want to be made much of NOW!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated in The Cost of Discipleship, “when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Our Lord said in Matthew 7, the door is small and narrow and so is the path to following our Lord Jesus. The door is the Cross and the path to following Jesus is the Calvary Road. That means dying daily to MY crown here, MY glory here, MY being the hero here. There is only ONE whom we are called to follow. There is only ONE glory that counts. There is only ONE hero. It is Jesus. We are called to die daily on a cross so we may receive a crown in glory. It is all about HIM.

Later our Lord says in Matthew 7:21-23 (the scariest verses in all Scripture) to those who have great ministries in HIS name, done great miracles in HIS name, have great churches in HIS name, and done big things in HIS Name, but did it all for themselves, “I never knew you, depart from ME, you who practice lawlessness.” Oh my!

True confession: I have spent most of the last 40 years using Jesus’ Name to build my own kingdom, my own glory, my own name.

Oh, Lord Jesus, please forgive me. I have committed blasphemy and wickedness in using YOU for my glory story. I repent, Lord Jesus. Show me how to die daily to my glory, my kingdom. It is all about YOU. My soul longs to be able to say with the Apostle Paul in Romans 15:18, “For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed.” I ache for You. I long for Your glory. Show me how to get out of Your way. Show me how I may bear the cross daily by dying to me so I may receive the crown in glory. Today the cross and death. In glory, a crown.

“In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.” -2 Timothy 4:8

So what has to die in your life today so you will receive that crown in the future? It is only in dying that the life of Jesus is revealed. John 12:24 is the daily call from our Master. Dying daily bears much fruit!

Check out the 2×8 in your own eye

Leave a reply

I am so quick to condemn New York, Vermont, and Virginia for such wicked legislation they passed into law or sought to pass into state law so child sacrifice could be practiced in their respective states up through nine months of pregnancy. The reality is we live in a culture of death where many believe they can murder their own children for convenience or for any other reason because they believe they are their own god. I am so quick to judge those politicians and the voters who put them in place, but as Jesus stated, “why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3).

The word for “log” in the passage is the idea of a 2×8 plank. We are called to examine the plank in our own eye before we seek to take the tiny splinter out of someone else’s. Perhaps we should look at the pre-born holocaust occurring in our fair state before we begin throwing bricks at other states.

Here are the latest statistics on child sacrifice in our state of South Carolina since Roe v Wade was passed by the Supreme Court in 1973:

That is right. Almost a half million babies have been murdered in this state since 1973. And the reality is, it is still legal in this state through the first two trimesters of pregnancy and even in the third trimester in some circumstances. You may be wondering what the statistics are for the Midlands. Almost 30 babies are brutally murdered in Columbia each week at the Planned Parenthood clinic. The reality is the Church is largely silent at this atrocity in our own state.

I wonder how the Church would respond if we knew that 30 three-year olds were to be executed at a nearby pre-school next week. In God’s eyes, what is the difference between these precious pre-born neighbors being poisoned, shredded, or crushed and these precious 3-year olds? If we say we love God, but do not love our neighbors the Lord calls us liars (1 John 4:20).

God very clearly commands us in Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder.” Murder is taking the life of an image-bearer of God, and He says it is sin. Abortion is a sin, and God calls it murder.

We can look with contempt and disgust at our northern state neighbors. The reality is we have blood on our own hands since this holocaust has been going on for the past 46 years in our own state. We better take the log out of our own eye before we begin judging other states.

I repent before You, my Lord, for my lack of courage, love, and healthy fear of You as I am responsible for the carnage in my own state known as abortion. Forgive me, Lord, for blaming legislators and politicians, when I have done so little to protect these precious pre-born neighbors. Father, I cry out to You, to forgive us for not calling for the immediate abolition of abortion in our state and nation. Enough is enough. Oh, God, have mercy on us in the midst of your wrath. We deserve Your full wrath, but please, oh God, have mercy on us. We are a wicked people. Awaken us to Your warning in Proverbs 24:11-12, “Deliver those who are being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to slaughter, oh hold them back. If you say, ‘See we did not know this.’ Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work?”