Post by Jerod W. Rickert on Mar 15, 2008 8:06:58 GMT -5
Greetings,, my precious Brothers and Sisters, in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I am here before you today full of sorrow and joy, both. Recently, our precious Lord has brought into my life many wonderful borthers and sisters from around the world. As I have had the awesome privelege of speaking, praying and learning with them, I have come under God's conviction. For myself as well as the church here in the United States. I am realizing more and more teh complaceny, apathy and apostacy I am guilty of.
It has become evident to me that the "freedom" I have here is not true freedom at all, but bondage of teh most insidous and deceptive sort. The bondage of a complacent life. We know nothing in reality of what this world has been willing to suffer and give up for the sake of our Lord and precious Master. We do not understand persecution and suffering for the sake of the gospel.
I have more Bibles in my home than some entire churches in this world, yet know Him so little. I pass up the Glorious opportunity to worship God in His home some weeks because I "don't feel well" or just "don't have time", while in some countries, they never know which meeting may be their last. I spend the abundance, that God has bestowed on me, in the vain pursuit of my own happiness while my brothers and sisters in some places do not have anywhere near enough. While their churches fall to ruin for want of just a few of the dollars I throw away on garbage.
I stand before you in humble, broken repentance for who I have become. My desire is to know how to suffer and sacrifice for the Lord, to give all that I am and have. To become nothing so that He may become everything. I have forgotten that my life was purchased with a price and the life I have is no longer my own but simply a vessel for Him to live through me. I hold so tightly to my "rights and freedoms", all the while making a mockery of the true freedoem His blood purchased on Calvary's terrible tree.
We need to wake up and realize that we are NOT on the path of righteousness, but of selfishness. We do not do His work, we do our work, wrapped in a package of godliness with none of the power therein. I am the chief among the complacent and teh king of the apathetic. It is time to be reintroduced to the Man of Suffering. Who, being God, did not hold to His rights (Thank You, Jesus that You did not!!!!!), but became the least, that the world could be saved by a blood attonement we did not, and never can, deserve.
I write these things not to bring guilt or condemnation, but to stand in place of repentance before you. I desire accountability to the things I know to be true. I covet your prayers as I stand before God and try to understand what is required of my life. If you feel convicted by what I have written, know that it is the Spirit of God within you rising up to the truth.
My prayer is that I could simply decrease more and more, til He becomes everything and I fade to nothing. There is nothing in my life worthy or righteous or glorious or holy, except that which is Him in me.
We have been given the Ambassadorship of the most High God, and we do not even understand the mantle we have recieved. God help me to become humble, contrite and upright. I need to understand how to walk in Your righteousnes and to become a a lamb to the slaughter. Holding not to that which i want, but laying all down for the sake of Your glorious Gospel, which is Christ crucified. The resurection has bought me victory that I must learn to walk in, lest i trample underfoot the Blood of the Lamb.
We are in danger of becoming the God-Vomit church of Laodicea that Revelation 3 speaks to. I repent of my life of Luke-warm Flesh, wrapped in Spirit. I pray the Lord to teach me more and more how to crucify my flesh daily and to take up His cross.
I pray for each of you, my beloved brothers and sisters, that The Exceedingly Abundant Glory and Love of Christ Jesus would reign and rule in your hearts and lives. Let His powerful Spirit work His way in you. In the Name and by the Blood of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, I pray these things, Amen.
God Bless you my precious family. Know that if I have caused offense it is only of a heart that seeks to speak truth. This post was for me more than anything else, to be accountable to each of you, but more importantly, to be accountable to God. I love you all...
I am here before you today full of sorrow and joy, both. Recently, our precious Lord has brought into my life many wonderful borthers and sisters from around the world. As I have had the awesome privelege of speaking, praying and learning with them, I have come under God's conviction. For myself as well as the church here in the United States. I am realizing more and more teh complaceny, apathy and apostacy I am guilty of.
It has become evident to me that the "freedom" I have here is not true freedom at all, but bondage of teh most insidous and deceptive sort. The bondage of a complacent life. We know nothing in reality of what this world has been willing to suffer and give up for the sake of our Lord and precious Master. We do not understand persecution and suffering for the sake of the gospel.
I have more Bibles in my home than some entire churches in this world, yet know Him so little. I pass up the Glorious opportunity to worship God in His home some weeks because I "don't feel well" or just "don't have time", while in some countries, they never know which meeting may be their last. I spend the abundance, that God has bestowed on me, in the vain pursuit of my own happiness while my brothers and sisters in some places do not have anywhere near enough. While their churches fall to ruin for want of just a few of the dollars I throw away on garbage.
I stand before you in humble, broken repentance for who I have become. My desire is to know how to suffer and sacrifice for the Lord, to give all that I am and have. To become nothing so that He may become everything. I have forgotten that my life was purchased with a price and the life I have is no longer my own but simply a vessel for Him to live through me. I hold so tightly to my "rights and freedoms", all the while making a mockery of the true freedoem His blood purchased on Calvary's terrible tree.
We need to wake up and realize that we are NOT on the path of righteousness, but of selfishness. We do not do His work, we do our work, wrapped in a package of godliness with none of the power therein. I am the chief among the complacent and teh king of the apathetic. It is time to be reintroduced to the Man of Suffering. Who, being God, did not hold to His rights (Thank You, Jesus that You did not!!!!!), but became the least, that the world could be saved by a blood attonement we did not, and never can, deserve.
I write these things not to bring guilt or condemnation, but to stand in place of repentance before you. I desire accountability to the things I know to be true. I covet your prayers as I stand before God and try to understand what is required of my life. If you feel convicted by what I have written, know that it is the Spirit of God within you rising up to the truth.
My prayer is that I could simply decrease more and more, til He becomes everything and I fade to nothing. There is nothing in my life worthy or righteous or glorious or holy, except that which is Him in me.
We have been given the Ambassadorship of the most High God, and we do not even understand the mantle we have recieved. God help me to become humble, contrite and upright. I need to understand how to walk in Your righteousnes and to become a a lamb to the slaughter. Holding not to that which i want, but laying all down for the sake of Your glorious Gospel, which is Christ crucified. The resurection has bought me victory that I must learn to walk in, lest i trample underfoot the Blood of the Lamb.
We are in danger of becoming the God-Vomit church of Laodicea that Revelation 3 speaks to. I repent of my life of Luke-warm Flesh, wrapped in Spirit. I pray the Lord to teach me more and more how to crucify my flesh daily and to take up His cross.
I pray for each of you, my beloved brothers and sisters, that The Exceedingly Abundant Glory and Love of Christ Jesus would reign and rule in your hearts and lives. Let His powerful Spirit work His way in you. In the Name and by the Blood of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, I pray these things, Amen.
God Bless you my precious family. Know that if I have caused offense it is only of a heart that seeks to speak truth. This post was for me more than anything else, to be accountable to each of you, but more importantly, to be accountable to God. I love you all...