CULTURES

In the 1960's I became aware of Governor George Wallace. I was in my late teens. I could not stand the man; I was horrified that he thought segregation was acceptable. My attitude toward him was not Christian as I wasn't at the time. When he got shot my attitude was, "serves him right". The black community sure didn't like him because of his racism. And today I see no difference between him and Jeremiah Wright. Well I don't think Wallace called down curses on American, but I think his actions brought curses.

Since becoming a Christian I have been amazed at how many people do not believe God's Word who say they are Christians. Picking and choosing what to believe and live by is NOT an option. Blessing instead of cursing (1 Peter 3:8,9), hate instead of love (John 13:33), treat people differently because of race, money, power (James 2:2-4)...

Men (human beings) were made in God's image. Christ died ONCE FOR ALL! How dare any of us judge someone else:

Matt 7:1"Do not judge so that you will not be judged.

2"For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

3"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

I am so grieved that people who claim to stand for Christ are so devoid of knowing who He is, what He stands for, what He taught. They do not seem to grasp the heart of His message--love. The entire Bible is based on it.

I had a teacher who said once, "All behavior makes sense if you know the reason for it. It doesn't make the behavior right (serial killers for instance) but it gives you a point to start from".

Where racism is concerned I am not just talking about one race against another. I've known racists of all colors.

There is a book that is out of print called "Black and White Styles in Conflict". It does have horrible language because the author took the words from rap songs. But it shows how their culture differs from the white culture. Where it came from, etc. It made me realize that certain things about cultures are not understood by other cultures and if we would be able to be open and honest, instead of judgmental and critical, a lot of misunderstandings and judgments would go away.

Different part of the country are the same way. I grew up in Southern California. It's a fast paced life out there with lots to do and more acceptance of people where they are. I moved to the slow very traditional south. It was culture shock. They have been shocked by me too :-). In CA where we went to church for a bit was a block from Seal Beach's beach. Kids came to church in shorts, tank tops, leaned their surfboards against the wall. If someone did that in your church or area what would happen? Women here dress to the 9's for church because they are bringing their best, but teaching has wrong and hearts have been left unreached by the worry about appearance.

May the eyes of our understanding be illumined. May our love be so strong for Jesus that it never grows cold toward human beings or lukewarm toward Him.

WELL SAID

The following is from The Elijah List. I'm copying and pasting a paragraph here and then posting the entire article. The part that I'm starting with expresses better than I did my thoughts on disciple making.

True discipleship seeks simply to be like the Master. Converting others is not our primary goal. However, we will positively influence others with the salvation message of the Kingdom when we surrender our lives in honor to God. It is not the vastness of our revelatory knowledge or the clarity of our theology that will capture those whom Jesus has ransomed by His Blood; it is the evidence of our being ravished by holy love and wasted on the wonder of being His which will cause the lost and the prodigals to discover their Redeemer King. What might that evidence look like? It is simply holy, forgiving love that has no earthly agenda.
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"We are called as apostolic ambassadors to carry His heart of love to the nations so that the nations may experience the love of His heart."

"I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! For they are ripe for harvest." John 4:35b
In a recent vision I received, some people approached the Lord and reached out to touch the hem of Jesus, in much the same way as the sick woman who had bled for twelve years (Mark 5:25). It struck me how these dear ones were so heavily burdened and how much the Lord wanted to heal them with just one look of love from His eyes. Have you ever been in that place of being bent over and reaching out in desperation to the Lord for help? It is so important to know He is always willing and always able to lift up our heads and flood our beings with His healing power. As if in affirmation, the Lord spoke in the vision, "See My hands, see My face."

As more people approached the Lord, they held onto His hands, but nonetheless, they seemed unable to look into His loving face. So often, we read how Jesus took others by the hand and healed them. His look of love shattered chains of sickness, bondage and oppression from sin and compelled even the dead to respond with resurrection life. As I pondered how our hands are used for works, the Lord said, "All fruitfulness flows from holy intimacy with Me."

We are healed for harvest, and each one of God's children has a testimony to the Risen Christ that will bless others as it is shared. The Lord Jesus desires for us to have a worship mindset that embraces holy works. From this place of relational security, the Holy Spirit will produce His witness to Christ through us. If we try to approach the harvest from any other perspective than His love, we are in danger of running on empty. Intimacy with God is everything, and without this, we have nothing of any worth to offer to the world.

We cannot hope to be Jesus' hands if we have never seen His face, and yet we cannot see His face unless we receive His pierced hands. In this, we find the paradox of grace. Seeing the Cross is about first believing, and in believing, we perceive and see Him more clearly. In gazing upon the loveliness of Christ, we are blessed to receive the Father. Jesus said, "Anyone who has seen Me, has seen the Father" (John 14:9b).

FACE TO FACE
In the midst of this revelatory experience, I had another beautiful vision of a good friend of mine who has been used by the Lord to usher in revival in a number of nations, including Mozambique. Jesus held my friend face-to-face, and as He held her, rivers of live giving waters poured out from Jesus' belly through her. As He held her in His love-gaze, I watched the flow of His love cause nation after nation to be born again. This picture is not just for one, but for all of those who will answer the Master's call to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom and make disciples of all nations. It occurs to me that the most profound experiences we have, take place in the inner sanctum of our hearts, where the Lord creates moments of holy communion with us in which we are forever changed.

Jesus longs to hold each one of us in a personal face-to-face encounter. When we behold His face, we are enabled and motivated to become His hands reaching out to a hurting world. The birthing of multitudes is born out of the secret place. The secret place of Christ, the Bridegroom King, is where His inner gaze captivates our hearts and makes us lovesick, causing us to overflow from His love. Face-to-face is a place where we are enabled to trust God fully and to rely completely on His love.

Time alone with Christ enables us to surrender in adoration to God's will. Seeking the heart of God is a precursor to seeing His power manifest in our lives and through our lives, into the nations of the earth. God is asking us to restore the altar of devotion as an inward response to His glory. The outward manifestation of such devotion will be fruit that will last for all eternity.

The inner gaze of Christ is a multifaceted experience--a secret moment, a holy tryst and a private place of pilgrimage where Christ becomes our all-in-all and when all our defenses and distractions melt away in the silence of communion with our Savior. The inner gaze of Christ may be described as a place of divine encounter and surrender, when our hearts acknowledge the Lord in absolute obedience and adoration to His will. The inner gaze speaks of a time, a place or a season when our souls become saturated in God's presence, and from this, we often receive a fresh commissioning to walk and work with our Redeemer.

Each one of us is brought to a fresh realization of our need to be filled to overflowing with heavenly manna--the sustenance that can only be found in the rest of the Lord. The writer of Song of Songs tells us that the Bridegroom King has been captivated, "with one glance of your eyes." God longs to remove the veil from our eyes, so that we might know Him more. In such holy moments, the Lord reminds us that He is all-powerful, all-knowing, eternally present, and overflowing in unconditional love. The Lord is captivated by His beautiful Bride, but perhaps we do not always fully comprehend how deeply we are adored by our King of Kings.

FACE TO FACE IS ABOUT HAVING HIS HEARTBEAT
Recently as I waited with Jesus, He reminded me that I need to remember to rest in His love and not always be concerned about "the next assignment." As I pondered my deepest desire to be one with my Savior, I realized that I needed to stop and just breathe deeply of His presence and allow myself to receive His love. God began to speak to me about how those in the battlefields must find rest in the company of the Commander of the armies of Heaven. God spoke of His great longing for lonely leaders to come and find fellowship with Him and allow Him to fill up the empty places. He spoke to me of His grace to dismantle every place of defense in our hearts and allow His love to complete us.

When God meets us in such encounters, it is a uniquely individual experience. To the sinner or the saint who seeks the Savior, "they will look on the One they have pierced" and in return will receive the magnificent grace of Christ. One of my most favorite and lovely verses in the Bible is when Jesus looks at the rich, young man, "Jesus looked at him and loved him" (Mark 10:21). Jesus probably knew before He spoke that the young man couldn't do the one thing that was needed: to give his all for Christ--but not even this rejection could prevent Jesus from loving him.

Time spent in God's presence ploughs the furrows of our hearts, planting the seeds of His will and His word deep into our beings to bring forth fruit at the appointed time. When we are alone with God, He is able to both prune and nurture us and bring our minds, will, and emotions into alignment with His perfect plan for our lives. Jesus softens the hard places in us and refreshes the dry places when we make time to worship Him. He readjusts our spiritual eyesight in the places where we are blind to His compassion, so that we are enabled to view things from His perspective and not our own. His eyes of fire are irresistible and draw us to Himself, compelling our consciences to bow down in humility and reverent awe. Jesus wants us to know that lowly is lovely!

THE THREE ALTARS: DILIGENCE, DUTY AND DEVOTION
In a vision, I was shown three altars in Heaven. One was called the "altar of diligence," one was named the "altar of duty," and the third was the "altar of devotion." Each heavenly altar was truly exquisite, and each burned with a different size of flame, yet, devotion burned the brightest. These altars represent witness (diligence), works (duty), and worship (devotion). The altar of diligence is where the standard of His love is outworked in our actions. The altar of duty is an altar of grace where faith and action meet to do good works, and humility enables us to emulate the obedience of Christ.

On the altar of devotion, I saw beautiful jewels in the flames. This is an altar of love and worship, and the one on which our lives can be spent, bringing much joy to Jesus. On this altar, the fire of the Rock of Ages descends to refine the precious jewel of our faith, producing Christ-likeness in us. Devotion to Christ releases the atmosphere of Heaven into the heart of a worshipper.

Jesus taught, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" (Matthew 5). When the altar of devotion burns brightly, our hearts are purified because of the time spent in His holy presence. The eternal purity of Jesus' love reveals His heart in us, and we see Him as He truly is. This "seeing" is not so much about physical vision; rather, it is about being anchored in a covenant relationship of knowing Him and being known by Him. Loving Him creates a desperate longing in us for more of Him, and this earnest longing becomes a catalyst for Godly transformation in our lives. When we are in love, we will reflect His radiance.

True discipleship seeks simply to be like the Master. Converting others is not our primary goal. However, we will positively influence others with the salvation message of the Kingdom when we surrender our lives in honor to God. It is not the vastness of our revelatory knowledge or the clarity of our theology that will capture those whom Jesus has ransomed by His Blood; it is the evidence of our being ravished by holy love and wasted on the wonder of being His which will cause the lost and the prodigals to discover their Redeemer King. What might that evidence look like? It is simply holy, forgiving love that has no earthly agenda.

We run into God's heartbeat for a myriad of reasons, and the Lord longs for us to run out of this encounter with His passion for the multitudes and His Bride. We are called as apostolic ambassadors to carry His heart of love to the nations so that the nations may experience the love of His heart. The Holy Spirit sets our hearts in alignment with the Father's heart. We are anointed and appointed and commanded to love, to teach, to preach, to witness of the Risen Christ, and to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey the Lord. My prayer for each of us is that our onward journeys of faith flow from face-to-face encounters with the Lord.

God bless you as you discover (or rediscover) His love for you today.

Catherine Brown Gatekeepers Global Ministries Email: admin@gatekeepers.org.uk

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RETRY

Matt. 28:18And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

19"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,

20teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Making a disciple takes time, effort and relationship.

Before I received Christ inside I was like the light brown saying, "don't come near me, you don't mean good for me". I so badly wanted Jesus, not religion, not a formula but the real Person. People would approach me and tell me how to get to heaven by accepting Jesus and my stock answer was, "I've done that". Our salvation is so precious, so awesome and so much more than a scripted prayer which makes us think we have fire insurance. It is a committment to the one who paid the price for all our sin and suffering. He paid with the ultimate sacrifice of His life. He suffered for every sin since Adam to the last man/woman who is ever born. His love encompassed all of us.

He has sent His Holy Spirit to continue having relationship with us, to lead us, to guide us. We are to make disciples not get a notch in our spiritual belts that says "I've led so many people to Christ". I believe in leading people to Christ but there are times I have seen manipulation, badgering, guilt trips, anger, and on it goes, used to get people to say the sinners prayer. I've seen people do it to get someone to just shut up. They didn't mean the prayer because they didn't see the Love of Christ coming from the person. There was a cold impersonalness to the way Jesus was shared. They didn't see or experience salt and light. Intellectualism produces pharisees who produce more pharisees. Truly knowing God makes the Word come alive.

I like the way The Message puts the verses that began this writing:

18-20Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age."

Becoming a Christian is more than a prayer. It is a true changing of direction and learning and being trained in a brand new life.