HAVE YOU WEPT?
Jn.11:35 – Jesus wept.
So often we assess a person’s
spiritual life through the prism of doctrine or church attendance. Do you read
the Bible? Do you pray? And of course those things have a substantive place in
the life of a believer. But are you broken before Him? I mean is your heart
actually open and broken before Jesus? How can we know?
I ask you this question: Have
you ever cried alone when you are praying or reading God’s Word?
I do not suggest that tears
are the proof of one’s depth of discipleship, however I do contend that they
should be a part. How can we go on with dry eyes when all around us is death?
And how can we understand the immense sacrifice given for us and yet it never
elicits tears of joy and worship?
I guess what I am saying is
has your heart ever been so invaded by the love of God and the person of Jesus
Christ that you lose control of your emotions, even if you are alone? Many of
us have wept in a service when the Spirit is moving among His people and a
collective voice of praise is going forth before the Throne of God. But when
was the last time you were so moved just by being alone in His presence? Does
your heart have some fallow ground? Has all the religious and political
rhetoric hardened parts of your hear so you only see the cross doctrinally but it
no longer impacts you spiritually and emotionally?
We live in a culture that
desensitizes us from almost anything. And we seem to only be moved through
theatrics or a carefully constructed atmosphere of visual effects and impacting
music. And although there is nothing wrong with some of that, can we be moved
by the sheer weight of what Jesus has done for us? Who can stand before Him
emotionless? Who can bow before the cross with a distracted heart? Who can
understand the power of His resurrection without being overwhelmed?
So go ahead and live in the
arid landscape which presents a dry-eyed doctrinal creed as proof of its
devotion to Christ. I have been there and have found it wanting. I prefer to
live and breathe in blood stained pastures where the Great Shepherd is more
than a written doctrine. And as He grants His sheep embraces of love in the
spirit, those who know Him are once again reduced to humble and broken servants
consumed in worship. Who can explain it? What words can convey what transpires
in our hearts when we cannot hold back the emotion and the tears? Yes, we have
heard about the cross, and yes, we have known this Jesus, but somehow, someway
the Spirit rains upon us seasons of refreshing even when we meet Him once
again.
So please do think us strange
when we weep in His presence. Those times reveal the hidden ministry of the
Spirit which reduces the strongest among us to tears. Before Him we are undone.
Before Him we see who we once were and who He has made us now. Before Him our
best deeds run for cover lest they suggest anything of us. Before Him we are
transported beyond what our human eyes can see, and beyond what our human minds
can understand.
There is nothing like bowing before Him and being
transfigured from glory to glory. The tears you may see are tears of wonder and
amazement and unspeakable gratefulness. Brokenness is a gift of grace which
cleanses the soul and glorifies God. When was the last time you were utterly
broken before Him? And that spiritual breaking allowed you to do some deep repentance
about things you had been ignorant. In this fast paced, drive-thru culture we
have rejected the sacred time with Him that is much more than a perfunctory
devotional time. If we spent 1/100 of the time with Him that we do watching
television, or listening to music, or taking with others we might be
transfigured into an image that is startling to others.
When was the last time you wept in His presence? Do
you ever weep over the plight of sinners? Over your children’s souls? Over the
backsliding of the church? Over your own sin and complacency? It is past time
we fell on our faces and wept before our Christ. Jesus wept over Jerusalem, but
must we have dry eyes over the situation as it now stands upon the earth? Can
we hold back the tears when we think about what He has done for us?
In this present evil world sometimes we cannot help
but weep while we mouth the words, “Even so, come Lord Jesus…”.
Posts
6 comments:
I am amazed at how the true believers think alike. It can only be because of God's Holy Spirit living in our hearts. I was in church one sunday and while the prayer was ging on, i was overwhelmed by The Holy spirit and started to weep and cry as i prayed. One of our church member (a women) walked up to me, patted me on the back and asked me if i was okay. She could only asked that questions if she has nevered by moved by God's spirit. Brother Rick it happens to be often ie while i am driving, reading my bible etc. The bible says: "Likewise the Spirit also helps our weakness: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered". May we continue to weep as the Holy Spirit enables us.
Yes.
Broken in longing to see His face, to just touch the hem of His garment. The pain of hearing people reject Him knowing what they will face, believing what they will face. Wishing to tear off the flesh and be what he wants me to be. Wanting to go home used to be reserved for older folks, now it is for those who deeply desire to see Jesus.
Pastor, how true your words are.
I read The Creeping Darkness Has Me Counting The Days Until Glory says so much of how I feel sometimes. My family thinks I am nuts. They think my tears of joy are sadness. They don't see the tears of brokenness.
As few excerpts that speak to this post by Pastor. I encourage you to go and read it sometime.
"It is three days since the Mid-America Prophecy Conference in Tulsa, and I am alone this evening and thinking about Charles Spurgeon, taking comfort in the fact that he battled depression from time to time.
I really think he hated this world.
And I mean that in a good way.
My wife is working at the hospital tonight, and our kids are now all out on their own.
I am feeling blue this evening.
The older I get, the more I realize that we shouldn't hold things in, since as humans, we are all shivering in the cold void, as it were. How in the world do people survive day-to-day without the God of the Bible as the core of their existence?
I really don't know.
My life has been and is blessed, to the point that I am embarrassed. God is very good to me.
Yet there is a creeping darkness in this world that causes me to count the days. People like us are nut-jobs in the culture, marginalized not only by cruel media types, but mostly by those in the professing church. Some are working overtime to perfect the Church so it can be handed off to Jesus like a dive-play from the one-yard line on the last play of the Super Bowl.
One invites ridicule and derision by saying that the American Church is a bloated sturgeon, very dead and rotting on the sands of time. I am astonished with each passing week at the heresy and apostasy that passes for orthodoxy. Mega-leaders-elevated to pope-like status-using social media to cruelly and viciously mock discernment ministries. And they get away with it.
Why?
Because there is only a remnant left now. Millions and millions follow the absurd and unscriptural teachings of men who have crept into the Church. Itching ears. Forms of godliness.
Cherie c.
I had to post all of it because it strikes such a cord. Thank you Pastor for allowing it.
" Denying the power.
Then there is just the rank evil. I'm so sick to death of hearing about murders and rapes and abuse of all kinds. Just bone-weary. The grotesque evil practiced in the government, from the very top down. Unhinged decadence on TV and film.
Lawlessness.
Grotesque, slouching, crouching, monstrous, chilling evil.
And people watch reality shows.
Hey, this whole thing is a reality show.
A dear, long-time friend now thinks I'm not only a nut for my beliefs, but views me-I think-as a jabbering, whispering shadow-person, furtively glancing this way and that.
Clear truth is so foreign to our culture that we might as well speak a language we just made up.
In Matthew 24:13, Jesus said: "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."
We are going to glory, and I believe it is sooner rather than later. We simply must endure. Thank goodness Jesus left us His Word and the Holy Spirit for comfort.
I once heard John Shelby Spong, in person, shamelessly mock the idea of a literal Second Coming.
Last summer, I stood with my wonderful, soon-to-be 20-year-old son, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. We were standing just behind the famed Golden Gate, looking at the Mount of Olives, where we are promised that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, will one day return to rescue a disintegrating world.
I put my hand on my son's shoulder-he is tall and strong and handsome-and prayed. I prayed for him, for our family and friends, and for the strength to endure what is coming. We looked again at the Mount of Olives and I pointed and said, "He is going to physically return there." A Palestinian security guard looked at us menacingly and I felt chagrin for this sick world.
In Acts 1:10-11, we read:
And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
I cannot comprehend-I cannot wrap my mind around-the blasphemy of John Spong.
The promise of Christ's return, to a real place in real time, is sure.
When Jonathan and I stood there for those few moments, I longed to see Him return right there and then.
I am a deranged person for that, in today's world.
We left the Mount, finished our trip, returned home to our lives, and I here I sit. I am waiting.
Constantly now, I hear fellow believers almost groan for God to take them home. I do not think our minds were made to absorb the horrors we see now.
I do not mean to be depressing tonight, though I am depressed. The sun will shine tomorrow.
Many readers of "Israel Watch" tell me A) we will meet one day in heaven, or B) they are so tired and so want to go home. Their jobs are a millstone around their necks; family squabbles are blowing-up relationships; bizarre changes in previously routine lives are leaving people reeling; friends now look at us like we are wearing clown costumes.
Last Part
" It's too much for some. When a 35-year-old verbalizes that he or she longs to go home-the same language that used to be reserved for an 85-year-old confined to a fading body-friends, the return of the Lord must be close.
Something very strange entered our world only a few years ago, I believe that. One could almost feel a cold wind suddenly sweep through. Everyone recognizes it.
My favorite preacher has been dead for 15 years. Isn't that something? Last night on our Radio show, "Tonight Matters," I asked John McTernan if there are any nationally known Bible teachers/pastors that he "follows."
He said no.
I want to weep.
They are all writing narcissistic bestselling clap-trap.
My favorite pastor came from Iowa with his new bride just before World War II and they established a country church on a rocky hillside and there they ministered for 50 years. He simply preached the Word from behind a simple pulpit to a few families. His wife played the organ and taught VBS and Sunday school. They ate food from their garden and observed the Sabbath and lived very simply. When my mother brought them their supper one night, she left and said, "I'll see you tomorrow."
He said, "I hope not."
He passed first and his wife spent a few years in a retirement home and at 95, almost totally blind and deaf, she memorized the entire book of Revelation.
They never built a mega-church or even heard of the concept. They wore simple clothes and didn't own a TV. He never wrote a book that got him on big-time Christian television.
America's most famous pastors today would think him a loser.
What a sick, vile, repulsive world we live in.
I will stop for now. I appreciate the fellowship with readers who come. We will see each other soon.
In the 2000 film, The Patriot, a reluctant colonial warrior played by Mel Gibson gave his two young sons quick instructions as they prepared to ambush a blood-thirsty British patrol in a forest. He knelt down and looked at one son who appeared to be wavering and said, "Steady."
Then he was off.
In this moment that the Lord has privileged us to live in and see with our own eyes-the Day longed-for by many previous generations-we must remember to be steady. Our Champion, our Warrior is in charge, in control.
Love to you all.
Jim@prophecymatters.com
I wept when he said he longed to see Jesus step down on the Mount of Olives because I too long for Him to come quickly. If this doesn't tear at your heart....
Pastor, you too have made me weep this day, reawakened a longing that has been quiet for a while. Thank you Lord for the tears and the longing.
Cherie c.
Please note I do not endorse any particular discernment ministries or people. This stuck a cord that I wanted to share because it so ties into what Pastor wrote.
May God Bless us all with a steadiness to endure to the end.
your sister in Christ Jesus
Cherie c.
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