Religion without love is a dangerous thing

 

Here's a thought: Let God be your defender

 

How about having GOD as your Defender?

Be careful not to get the approach backward

Will Standing Up For God's Truth Be Costly?

About five or six years ago a minister told me he thought he would probably go to prison one day because the teachings of the Bible would become so politically incorrect that they would actually be illegal. I remember thinking, “Wow, I hope this fellow’s concern is a crazy, extreme exaggeration.” But the guy did not seem like a kook. I did not know him well but he was smart, educated and eloquent. He seemed like a reasonable, credible, sane person.

Last week I was at an event and during a conversation with a pastor who is a friend of mine he told me, “I think there’s a possibility I will go to prison before I retire from ministry.” He basically invoked the same reasons the other minister mentioned. This man is in his early 60s.

I thought, “Hmm that’s two guys, now, who have shared this concern with me.”

Yesterday I was talking with yet another pastor who is a good friend and I mentioned these previous conversations. My friend said, “Yeah, I think that’s a possibility.”

That sound you just heard was me gulping.

I went into pastoral ministry in my mid-thirties. Entering the ministry as a vocation involved a significant change for my family and myself. So I had to think and pray about the matter a lot. It took me a couple of years to come to a sense of certainty that the call to ministry was, in fact, a genuine calling from God.

When I was thinking, praying and talking with people I trusted about this matter—I hate to admit it—but the idea of having to stand up for God facing truly difficult circumstances like, say, the possibility of prison never really entered my mind in any significant way. (The worst case scenario I imagined was putting several people asleep in the same service.)

I don’t know if these men are way off base—and if their concerns are just plain silly—or if what they are saying has some likelihood of happening. But what they have said makes me think about myself and my commitment to Christ.

To be very frank, I have never seen myself as a courageous warrior for the faith. This is not false modesty it’s just an honest, somewhat embarrassing, admission. But when my friend and I finished our meeting yesterday we prayed—as we normally do—and I prayed that he and I would always be willing to lovingly, graciously speak God’s truth no matter what the cost.

I realize this is a somewhat personal post. I am sharing it with you because I find the comments of my colleagues to be interesting and I thought you might find them interesting, as well. Also, I am sharing this because I want to be on record saying, “It is my desire to stand for God’s truth with love, gentleness, respect and grace and to trust in God as my protector.” I pray the Holy Spirit will empower me to do this.

P.S. I came across this quote from the respected Christian writer and thinker, A.W. Tozer, several years ago. I know I’ve shared it before but I continue to share it because it is very meaningful to me...

“Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other. But let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God himself.” A..W. Tozer

Are We Aware of God's Presence?

Are we genuinely aware of God’s presence?  Do we know this presence as an authentic truth of the experience of our lives?  “The instant cure for most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and God is in us.” – A.W. Tozer.

God's Holiness Is Unlike Anything Else We Know

“God’s holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely better. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable.” A.W. Tozer.  It’s amazing that this incredible person, this being beyond our imagination, actually reaches out a hand of friendship to us.  Almighty God wants to relate with you and me!  Wow. Cool!

Courageous Surrender

Real Christian faith requires that we yield completely and totally to the will of God.  It is an act of surrender, but not a cowardly act of surrender, rather, a courageous act of surrender.  It comes from recognizing that God’s ways are better and higher than our ways.  “We must surrender and God must have his way.  His glory and our eternal welfare require that it be so.” A.W. Tozer

God As Our Defender . . . Instead Of Ourselves

I’m trying to learn not to try to defend myself all the time. I have this constant need to make sure everyone knows that I’m right or I’m smart or that I have good reasons for all the things that I do. AW Tozer says, “Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense and he will have no other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself.”