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Showing posts from July, 2014

Show Me Your Face

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How would you respond if a new neighbor knocked on your door wanting to meet you but disguised himself with a mask or a hood? You would probably think that person is being weird or has something to hide. That same principle is true when connecting with people on the Internet. Occasionally I receive Facebook friend requests from individuals that don’t have photos of themselves in their profiles. Usually, I’ll accept such requests if I already know the person. Some folks are not computer savvy and may not have photos readily available to post online. But if I don’t know the person, then I’m not obligated to accept their friend request. One time I received a friend request from an evangelist I never heard of who had a lion’s face for his Facebook profile photo. I searched through his photo albums but couldn’t find a single picture of this man. Immediately, I thought of the Paul Wilbur song, “Show Me Your Face.” While that song is technically about seeking the Lord, I have come to

Our Responsibility to the Gospel

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While not every Christian is called to full-time ministry, we are all called to witness to others. Jesus told His disciples “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15)  One friend recently asked me if we have an individual responsibility of witnessing to certain people. There are commandments about warning people who are in sin... “You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.” - Leviticus 19:17b “When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.” - Ezekiel 3:18 "Let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins." - James 5:20 Mike Murdock says, “You are not called to everybody but to somebody.” God will lead us to witness to selected peop

Pursuing Panhandlers

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In recent years, I’ve gone out of my way to offer food plus gospel tracts to beggars. Last Tuesday night during an evangelism outreach in St. Paul, I got to minister to at least three such people. As the church van I was riding in got off Interstate 94 at the Snelling Avenue exit, I noticed a woman holding a sign asking for help because she was supposedly raising her grandchildren. After the van was parked a few blocks away, I walked back to the offramp this woman had been standing by. I brought with me a bottle of water I planned on giving her. Instead, a man was standing there (but without a sign) and so I offered him a tract. Seconds later, that woman drove by in a nice-looking vehicle with two adult passengers. It appeared she was part of a team of professional panhandlers. The car stopped at the corner long enough for me to hand the woman a tract.  Then I walked back across the bridge to minister to two other panhandlers in the area. The first one already knew the Lord and

A God of Their Own

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In Matthew 15:14, Jesus labelled the Pharisees “blind leaders of the blind.” Nowadays there are individuals attempting to be God’s mouthpiece but make statements contrary to His word.  A few days ago during a Sky News interview, singer Elton John claimed Jesus would approve of same-sex marriage. In another interview four years earlier, he told Parade magazine, “I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems.” In a recent letter published in two North Dakota newspapers, a homosexual blogger named Taylor Brorby wrote, “Many people will use religious Scriptures in this debate [regarding same-sex marriage], misconstruing their true meaning of love.” I googled Taylor Brorby’s name and discovered he’s written other articles quoting Bible verses. In one about the lake of fire, Brorby concluded the article by stating, “The Bible helps move us towards asking interesting and insightful questions...it helps us know our place in the family of things