Doormat

Charles Spurgeon:

"Do not desire to be the principal man in the church. Be lowly. Be humble. The best man in the church is the man who is willing to be a doormat for all to wipe their boots on, the brother who does not mind what happens to him at all, so long as God is glorified."

A Lesson In Cuba

I have had the great privilege and honor of ministering in Cuba on multiple occasions. One time, after I had finished speaking in a wonderful church in Havana, the pastor of the church asked me if I knew the difference between Cuban Christians and American Christians.

"What is the difference?" I asked the pastor.

"Here in Cuba, we do not have the distractions that you have in America," he responded.

The Cuban pastor was absolutely correct.

Here in the USA, our high-speed lives are filled with the likes of iPhone, iPad, Xbox, Wii, texting, tweeting, Facebooking, and a million other distractions that cause us to busy ourselves more and to glorify God less.

In Cuba, the average person makes about $5-10 a month. Yes, you read that right.

In Cuba, the average person cannot afford to buy a computer, let alone have access to high-speed, or even low-speed, Internet. The same goes for the average Cuban not being able to own an iPhone, iPad, Xbox, Wii, or being able to text, tweet, or Facebook.

But in Cuba, the Christians are not as distracted as we are here in America.

Distractions are ruining the American church.

Distractions have caused us to stop gazing heavenward.

In Matthew 6:33 (NKJV), Jesus says, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness ...."

Too frequently in America today we seek pleasurable, amusing, and entertaining distractions instead of the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

It took a Cuban pastor to show me this. And he was right.

Scourging

The gospel accounts of the events leading up to the crucifixion of Christ tell us that Pontius Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged by Roman soldiers prior to crucifying Him. The scourging of Jesus would have involved stripping Him, tying Him to a post, and beating Him with an instrument which consisted of a short wooden handle to which several leather thongs were attached. Each individual leather thong would have had pieces of jagged metal or bone attached to it on the end. The purpose of the scourging was to physically weaken and to humiliate Jesus prior to His crucifixion. If you have ever seen "The Passion of the Christ", then you most certainly remember the brutal scourging scene in the film.

Jesus was scourged prior to His crucifixion, but Hebrews 12:6 (NKJV) tells us that God also scourges His true children as well:

"For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives."

Verses 7 and 8 then tell us that only God's true children receive His scourging and chastening. In fact, a person who has not been chastened and scourged by God may not be one of His true children.

Scourging is brutal, radical, and extremely painful. Generally, scourging in our lives comes in the form of testings, trials, and sufferings, all as allowed by God as part of His sovereign will and plan. God scourges in order to educate, train, discipline, and perfect His true children, even though the process is an extremely painful one. The objective of God's scourging is to yield "the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:11, NKJV)

Scourging is never easy and it is never pleasant. God allows it, however, for the perfecting of His true children, and as proof of His love for them.

God Is God

Elisabeth Elliot:

"God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to."

Evil & Good

Joseph's brothers cast him into a pit and then sold him as a slave. Joseph was then unjustly accused of rape by Potiphar's wife and spent probably 13 years in prison for a crime which he did not commit. Joseph correctly interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh's chief butler and chief baker while in prison, but then the chief butler forgot about Joseph for two years. Finally the chief butler remembered Joseph when Pharaoh was looking for someone to correctly interpret his own dreams. Joseph was presented to Pharaoh, correctly interpreted his dreams about seven years of abundance and seven years of famine in Egypt, and then Joseph was made Pharaoh's second-in-command. God used Joseph to save Egypt from the coming famine, and God used Joseph to save his brothers and their families as well, the exact same brothers who had hated him, cast him into a pit, and then sold him as a slave.

In Genesis 50:20 (NKJV), after Joseph had revealed himself to his brothers and had been reunited with his father, Jacob, prior to his death, Joseph told his brothers, "But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive."

Joseph's brothers had meant evil against him, but God had meant it for good. God showed His sovereignty over both the evil and the good in the life of Joseph.

People will hurt you. People will wound you very badly. People will mean evil against you. Those closest to you may hurt you the most, and may wound you the most, and may mean the most evil against you. You may suffer greatly, just as Joseph did. But God, in His sovereign will, may even take man's evil against you and use it for His eternal good. Only He can do that. Ask Him to do so.

To My Knees

Abraham Lincoln is revered by many as the greatest President of the United States. Lincoln served as U. S. President during the nation's bloody and divisive Civil War between 1861 and 1865. More than 600,000 soldiers died during the war.

At one point during the Civil War, as the nation appeared to be near death due to self-inflicted wounds, Lincoln confided to an associate, "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go."

President Abraham Lincoln was right.

Crises draw us closer to God.

Crises strengthen our prayer lives.

Crises drive us to our knees.

It's the best place to be.

Need & Have

Dutch Christian and World War II Holocaust survivor Corrie ten Boom:

"You may never know that Jesus is all you need, until Jesus is all you have."