Friday, March 14, 2008

What's Important to Us

The young woman couldn't make a singing career so she relied on high-priced prostitution to make a living. Guess what...now she's famous!

Her singing career is taking off. A pornography magazine is pursuing her. Pop culture has a superstar and all it took was prostitution to get success rolling for her.

Makes me wonder, "What's important to us?"

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Immorality, Politics & Us

Another politician is embarrassed and in trouble because of sexual immorality.  The New York governor is not the only person in this dilemma, just the most recent to have his picture on every news website and his name as the punch line of late night jokes.  I see three problems in the previous sentence.

One is the late night jokes.  More people laugh about this than mourn over it.  Another person’s problems are funny to the public rather than a point of concern.  Our culture has stopped caring about other people and their problems from the standpoint of helping and fixing.  We now feed on the fallen as a way to humor ourselves…maybe to justify our own fallenness.  Pray for the culture.

Another problem is the news coverage.  Agreed, this is news-worthy but the talking heads miss the point, just like the comedians and their audiences.  One person said that this is a uniquely American problem – not the adultery but the fact that it is viewed as a moral wrong – and that in Europe it wouldn’t even make the back page of the papers.  I’ve come to the point that I don’t want American culture to be the harbinger of truth, much less European culture!  Politicians are in the news talking about this, too.  Most of them think it’s a tragedy.  Democrats think losing this man from public life is a tragedy.  Republicans think keeping this man in public life for even 48 more hours is a tragedy.  The real tragedy is that a family is attacked by Satan and Satan seems to have won.  Pray for the family: husband, wife, children.

The third problem is that the governor is not the only one in a dilemma such as this.  Hardly anyone is shocked by these headlines anymore.  This is a common happening in Hollywood, New York, even Little Rock.  Maybe even in your family.  Commonplace does not equal moral rightness.  If we let the majority determine what is right we then remove God from the discussion.  God needs no person to agree with him to validate his truth.  God would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah if even ten moral people had been found there.  Those choosing immorality totaled nearly 100%.  In America the issue would be settled: immorality is OK.  But God is not swayed by public opinion.  Pray for the country.

And I don’t think God sits by inattentively as the world takes a downward spiral morally.  I don’t know what God will do in response or when he will do it but I’m sure there will be a reckoning.  There always has been.  Pray for mercy.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Ekaterinburg, Russia

I spent fifteen days on a mission trip to Russia in February.  What a great experience!  There were four pastors that traveled to Ekaterinburg and surrounding cities to conduct Bible conferences.  During the four conferences we spoke to well over 300 believers.  What is so amazing is that there are only 840 believers in the entire state of Sverdlovskaya.  Can you imagine the effort it would take to speak to one-third of the believers in Arkansas?  What a privilege to speak with them and encourage them in their faith…which is a hard life in Russia.  Only one person out of two hundred is a believer in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

 

After I returned home I went to Lifeway Christian Stores and was talking about the trip with the sales person.  She asked, “Did it change your life forever?”

 

It did.  I’m ready to pack up and move my family over there but I still believe God has called me to preach right where I am.  What I will do is mobilize my church to partner with believers in Russia through prayer and financial support so that more and more people come to know Christ.  I hope to take some of my friends at Cross Road to Russia in the years to come.

Waxing Eloquent

So I’m writing the weekly devotion for the church’s website.  It’s about asking God for wisdom like Solomon did.  I start out by saying, “Imagine you found an Arabian lamp in your basement.”

 

No.  What I said was, “Imagine you find and Arabian lamb in your basement.”  Then I go on to say that you rub it just to see if a genie pops out!

 

What a dummy!