Once the people were established at Mount Sinai, they set off for Canaan. Yet during this trek, the people repeated complained against I AM and his chosen leaders of the people (e.g. Moses, Aaron). Aaron was challenged as high priest, and I AM demonstrated his choice of Aaron. Moses was challenged by Aaron and his sister. The people complained that Moses was trying to kill them and they were better off in Egypt as slaves. Moses sent spies into Canaan to survey the land. Ten of the twelve spies reported that the people could not take the land, demonstrating the same rebellion Adam and Eve only in a different expression, convincing them they were hopelessly dying in the wilderness. The people were sent wandering in the desert to allow this disbelieving generation to die off.

Then Joshua and Caleb lead Israel into Canaan. Aside from the first battle of Ai and Achan’s sin as well as the treaty by the people from Canaan who deceived Joshua for self-preservation, the invasion was a success. Joshua defeats all of the armies from the cities in Canaan. However, Israel fails to completely drive out the remnants of the Canaanite peoples and their false religions and false gods. On top of that, when Joshua dies there was no strong central leader to guide the people in their relationship with I AM. Instead the people do what is right in their own eyes, worshiping whatever god they choose. This starts a spiral into depravity that will take centuries to recover from.

When Israel does not maintain her covenant relationship with I AM, reverting to the pagan ways seen in Egypt and in Canaan, I AM allows neighboring nations to conquer the land. This in turn leads to a period of enslavement that brings out from the people a cry to I AM for deliverance. A specific individual is raised up by I AM to throw off the shackles of the conquering nation and frees Israel. A period of faithfulness ensues before they fall back into rebellion and reject I AM again. Many call this a cycle, the Deuteronomic cycle. I prefer to think of this as a spiral because every leader that is raised up, called a judge, is progressively more depraved than his or her predecessor. Upon the conclusion of this period of Judges, civil war breaks out where Benjamin commits a sin so perverse it resembles what happened to Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. Genesis 19). The priesthood too has become perverse, no longer teaching holiness and sacred from the profane and common. Eli’s sons abuse their status as priests for selfish gains while Eli fails to intervene. The people are so perverse, the Ark of the Covenant, the piece of furniture that is placed behind the veil and contains the Decalogue, manna, and Aaron’s budded staff, is taken off. One woman names her child Ichabod, “Glory has departed.”

The people then ask I AM for a king, not so that someone can help them be the people I AM made them to be and bring back shalom, but so that they can be like the nations around them. I AM sees the rebellion in their request while still granting their request. But the king that is chosen will be a godly man, a Benjaminite named Saul. However, Saul’s godliness lasted only so long. He too failed to live according to I AM’s covenant stipulations, forfeiting peace. He is rejected by I AM so that Saul’s entire family is killed.

The monarchy falls to the house of David, son of Jesse. He is a man after God’s own heart who also happens to commit adultery and then covers it up with murder. His family then falls apart one son raping a daughter. Solomon, son of the woman whom David had an affair with, takes the throne. He builds the Temple and takes the expansion his father David began and took it to its apex. Then he fell into idolatry because of the hundreds of foreign wives and concubines. His son refused to look after his people so that I AM divides the kingdom established by Saul and David from the nation established by Moses and Joshua. The northern kingdom falls into a paganism that no even Elijah and Elisha can redeem her from. The multiple monarchs that held the throne barely held it for more than two or three generations until the kingdom was wiped out in 722 BCE by Assyria.

The southern kingdom remains the most faithful because of a promise made to David by I AM to always leave a son of David on the throne. Yet these men more often than not led the Judean people into sin and idolatry, choosing the might of Egypt and Babylon over I AM. Hezekiah, one of the best kings in terms of godliness was boastful. Uzziah, a godly king who preceded Hezekiah, tried to perform the function of the priests out of his own pride. Josiah, grandson or great-grandson of Hezekiah, found a portion (if not all) of Deuteronomy and led the people in a reformation. Josiah removed the pagan alters and restored a spiritual fervor for I AM that hadn’t been seen since Samuel’s time before David’s reign. Yet he was inexplicably killed by Egypt at Meggido. His successors undid all that Josiah had done and led the country to her demise at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

The community that was established at Mount Sinai, with its laws and sacrifices, did not bring the people back to shalom. Psalm 72 records a prayer for the king to lead the people to peace, reigning in righteousness and justice and liberating the oppressed while defeating Israel’s enemies. While the historical setting of this text is not known to me, the longing for the king to bring about peace, both within the community and abroad, is there. The Psalmist knows shalom is missing to some degree.

So we are right back to where we were before the creation of Israel in Genesis 12, is humanity doomed to suffer from God’s wrath? This past week I was reminded of what happened when shalom was taken from humanity because of its rebellion. A co-worker finally succumbed to a rare form of cancer. He was diagnosed just before Thanksgiving (2008) and passed away just before his 42nd birthday (04-08-09), having been buried the day after (that is today). He was so skinny from the cancer eating him from the inside out. His oldest child wasn’t even 15 years old yet. But that isn’t the end of life without shalom. It goes on for forever. There needs to be something done to bring back I AM and the shalom that comes with him. The question is, what?

…You have heard a great many Arminian sermons, I dare say; but you never heard an Arminian prayer—for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind. An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free-will: there is no room for it. Fancy him praying, “Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists. Lord, I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not—that is the difference between me and them.” That is a prayer for the devil, for nobody else would offer such a prayer as that. Ah! when they are preaching and talking very slowly, there may be wrong doctrine; but when they come to pray, the true thing slips out; they cannot help it…

Spurgeon is right, no one would dare pray like that. It sounds too much like the Pharisee who prayed in Luke 18:11-12,

God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.

Rather all Christians who have experienced the mercy of God prays like the tax collector in Luke 18:13,

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

For when we pray like the tax collector, Jesus says this of us in Luke 18:14,

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

The first thing I want to is to define the type of prayer being spoken of. I don’t think that the objection raised is “why pray a prayer of praise to God for who he is and what he has done for me, a sinner bound for hell” or “why pray a prayer to God thanking him for all of the blessings he has given me. If I am understanding the objection, I think I am being asked “why do I ask God to save people and ask God to do certain things.” Or “why petition God for anything since he has already determined exactly what will happen?” Let me know if I am wrong and I will write another post to respond to the clarification. But I will operate under this assumption.

Now before I get into my textual response, I have to ask a question to all synergists. Synergism is the theological system where the will of God and the actions of God must work along side the actions and will of man. There are varying degrees of this. By that I mean that some people say the work load is 50-50, God does half and man does half; others say that God does 99% (God became incarnate in Christ, died on the cross and rose from the grave, and sent the Holy Spirit to woo and convict) and man does 1% (namely believe in the truth of their own autonomous and independent free will). If this is true, I must turn the question back around to the synergist. Since it is God that does not do the final and decisive act of salvation (faith in the gospel and work of God in Christ), how is it that a synergist can pray to God to save a person? God has sovereignly chosen to not interfere in the will of man, but only to attempt to persuade through the Spirit, how is it then that God can be asked to save that person? Yes God has made the salvation available, all of humanity is savable, but God does not actual put people in Christ until they come on their own free will, until they chose to receive Christ. How then can God be asked to save a person? Wouldn’t that be asking him to violate his own sovereign decree to not interfere in man’s will? Even when I was a synergist, I have never understood why do this, I just did. Now that I am Reformed, this doesn’t make any sense at all.

In Reformed soteriology, it is God who does the final and decisive act in salvation. It is by his work that one believes (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:30; Philippians 1:29; John 6:44-45, 64-65; John 10:26-27). Thus it is only right to ask God to save someone, even if God has not elected that person for salvation because I have no knowledge of who is elect, because it is his work that brings them to faith and repentance. I can pray for God to save a lost person because it is him who saves that person, that person cannot in their own will free themselves from sin’s mastery but only God can do that (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6). So if a synergist can explain this to me I would truly be honored.

Now there is something unique about the following statement of Paul in Romans 10:1, “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” This is Paul’s response to Romans 9:30-33 where the Jews have missed out on the righteousness of God because, unlike the Gentiles who found it by faith alone, they sought it through their pursuit of the law. Paul says his prayer is for the salvation of the Jews (which also fits his anguish in Romans 9:1-5). Romans 9:30 starts out with “What shall we say, then?” That word “then” is referring to in light of all that has been spoken of up to Romans 9:30. The Jews have missed out on righteousness in pursuing it by law and the Gentiles found righteousness by faith because God had mercy upon the Gentiles and hardened the Jews–in spite of all of the advantages God graced Israel with (Romans 9:1-5). I spoke of Romans 9:11 speaking of Unconditional election in Objections to Calvinism Part 2 of 5. But on the heels of this chapter in defending God’s righteousness in hardening the Jews, Paul prays for Israel to be saved. Even though Paul believes in unconditional election, Paul still prays for the salvation of his lost and rejected “kinsmen according to the flesh.” Election does not diminish the need for prayer.

Some observations from the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13,

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

The first thing Jesus taught us to pray that God’s name be sanctified, set apart, made holy. The next thing he prayed for was that God bring forth his kingdom, which comes through the calling of the elect in evangelism and the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the age. Then Jesus taught us to pray that God’s will be done, obeyed, here on earth as it is done in heaven. But we ask the Father who is in heaven. We are to petition this God to declare the holiness of his name, make his kingdom come on earth, and to obey his will. We are asking him to do this, not help us to do this. We must ask God to give us our daily needs, not help us get it. We then are to ask God to forgive us as we forgave those who wronged us. Then we ask God to lead us into temptation. The Greek verb is a for “lead us not” is a second-person plural, aorist subjunctive that has been negated. We are asking God to not make it possible to be tempted, to be lead into temptation. And we are asking God not to help us resist the evil one but to deliver us. He is to do all of this. We are banking on God’s sovereignty and omnipotence to answer our prayer. God’s absolute sovereignty is essential to our prayer life. Without it, we would have no foundation with which to ask and be confident that God will answer those petitions. God must have the ability to answer what we ask of him. But some of the things that Jesus mentions here on earth can only happen if God sovereignly and creatively acts within a person’s life.

Take for example: God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. The angels in heaven perfectly obey God’s will. It is never rebelled against by the heavenly beings. We are asking God to make that happen here on earth. If this was also contingent upon man’s autonomous free will, God would not have the full ability to make this happen. God could not answer that prayer, it would be beyond his ability because he has sovereignly chosen to relinquish control over humans so that they could have the same autonomy over themselves as God has: completely free (hence God’s reply to Moses in Exodus 33:19, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,” that Paul quotes in Romans 9:15 as his argument for God still being righteous in loving Jacob and hating Esau not because of works and before they were born). God no longer governs over man’s will and therefore cannot ensure that his will is being done on earth as it is in heaven. But if God’s grace ensures obedience, then God we can be confident in God answering this prayer. Thus apart from God’s absolute sovereignty and his effectual and persevering grace, prayer for the lost would be fruitless and no one could be confident that God could answer our prayers to meet the needs of his people.

Now the first question I want to ask is why should I pray to God for things ( namely, physical, mental, spiritual, emotional needs in my life; for the same needs in the lives of others)? I want to turn to Jesus’ words in the Gospel according to John and his final discourse in John 14-16. The first text I want to use to answer this is John 14:13, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” The term “ask” is the Greek αἰτήσητε is an aorist subjunctive verb which means “whatever you may/might ask.” What we ask for here in this text is unspecified. But whatever that is Christ said “that I will do” (τοῦτο ποιήσω). John records this as future active indicative. What is asked of Christ he will do, Christ does not leave prayer “unanswered” (this does not mean Christ will not answer the prayer the way the person thinks Christ should answer it). But the next word in Greek is an important word: ἵνα, that all too familiar Greek conjunction that means “in order that” or “so that.” There is a reason that if we ask Christ for something he will do it. Christ answers prayer so that what? “That the Father may be glorified in the Son.” By Christ’s answering our prayers, God is glorified, honored. Thus without our prayers, God could not be fully manifest his glory! So I pray, as a Calvinist, so that God can be seen as glorious, that Christ might manifest the infinite glory of his Father through answering my prayers. The very honor and glory of God is at stake in prayer, and this makes prayer of the deepest concern for me. I desire to magnify the honor of God, I desire to manifest the gloriousness of God. Thus I pray.

But, even though this is enough to settle the issue for me, there is more! Jesus also said in John 16:23-24, “In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” The phrase “in that day” refers to what was said in John 16:22, “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” On the day that the disciples see Jesus again, at his return, they will receive their joy that none can take away (I do recognize that there are present applications in this text concerning the “joy” or χαρὰ spoken of by Jesus.). “In that day” there will be no need to ask God of anything, for what will we need to ask God for when our hearts have the joy that cannot be taken away? Jesus will have returned and brought the joy that is permanently ours! But whatever, from now until that time has come, “whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.” The Greek in this phrase is almost identical to that of John 14:13. John 14:13 reads in Greek, καὶ ὅ τι ἂν αἰτήσητε ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου τοῦτο ποιήσω; and John 16:23 reads in Greek, ἄν τι αἰτήσητε τὸν πατέρα ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου δώσει ὑμῖν. The same idea is communicated, only here in John 16:23 we have the Father answering the prayer and not Christ. The message is the same: God hears and answers prayer.

Now at the end of John 16:24 we are given an imperative verb: αἰτεῖτε. “Ask.” This Greek term, same in John 14:13, means to beg, desire, call for, require, crave. We are to beg and call for whatever (τι ἂν or ἄν τι). Jesus connects to this command to ask or “pray” with this promise “and you will receive” (καὶ λήμψεσθε). The verb is again future indicative, an assertion or statement of the reality that God will grant the petition. But here again we find that Greek conjunction ἵνα so that we know the purpose of our receiving what we are commanded to ask for, “your joy may be fulfilled.” Now the verbal construction is quite interesting. It appears that “may be fulfilled” is what is known as a periphrastic construction. This a Greek construction that uses εἰμί (I am, or the verb “to be”) with a perfect participle πεπληρωμένη. The force of the construction is the emphasis on the continuous nature of the action. This particular construction is normally used to express the plural third person perfect participle in Koine Greek, an example is Acts 13:48 and “were appointed.” However, that would require eimi to be in the indicative mood. In John 16:24, εἰμί is subjunctive, so I don’t think this is periphrastic. Also, the verbs are referring to the “your joy” which is singular. Now eimi is subjunctive, which is the mood of possibility or probability. It can be used to express that something might happen, “I might go to Jimmy’s house today.” There is a possibility of me going to Jimmy’s house, but no certainty. However, the subjunctive can also express certainty of accomplishing something. “I filled up my car with gasoline so that I might go to work this morning.” Here the subjunctive is used, but it expresses not that I may or may not go to work, but that without the gasoline, I could not go to work. This latter use is how εἰμί is being used in John 16:24, unless we pray, our joy would not be fulfilled. But more than this, the fullness of the joy is in the perfect tense (as I stated above). The fullness is a complete action whose effects are felt in the present. The joy is a lasting joy, it does not end. The joy cannot be emptied out or taken away (cf. John 16:22). Prayer is not only for God’s glory, it is for our joy. It sustains our joy in our Christian walk. Apart from prayer, you could maintain your joy. Your joy would not be in the perfect tense any longer. We must pray if we are to remain joyful on this side of heaven.

I close with a paragraph from John Piper about prayer as God’s means to bring about his will,

The Lord’s Prayer shows us the astonishing nature of prayer. It puts in the position of greatest importance the prayer for God’s name to be glorified, God’s kingdom to advance and triumph, and God’s will to be accomplished on the earth the way it’s happening in heaven. This means that God intends to use human prayers to accomplish his most ultimate and universal purposes. For example, Jesus tells us to pray for the workers that will be required to spread the gospel to all the nations. “Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matt. 9:38). Yet nothing is more certain than that the kingdom of God will triumph. Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it . . . this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 16:18; 24:14). There is no uncertainty about the triumph of God. Nevertheless, in God’s providence it depends on human prayer. –Piper, John. What Jesus Demands from the World. (Crossway Books: Wheaton Illinois, 2006) 112.

God has made prayer a means to declare and display his glory. Prayer is a means to sustain our joy. Thirdly, God has made prayer a means to accomplish his will and without it, his will would not be done. Therefore let us pray!

Well, yesterday after church–a very good sermon on John 14:6 and intolerance–I came to home and had some ribs (thank you uncle Jamie!). I was really tired so I laid down and took a nap while listening to James White; it wasn’t that he was that boring, it’s that I was that tired. All of a sudden, I heard my aunt call my name. I looked at the clock on the computer and saw that it was 4:30 pm. I went down stair and she said I had some visitors. Guess who? It was three totally different missionaries wanting to share their gospel with me again. Now I was excited but I was totally out of it, incoherent. I was so zonked out that I was drooling on my shirt sleeve. As I walked down the stairs I was wiping off my mouth while rubbing my eyes. The right side of my face was all red from me sleeping on it.

Well, my Despote has seen fit to bring new missionaries into my life to share the gospel. So I lift up these men in prayer as they are going to call me next week so we can have a little talk. I ask that you pray for God’s grace to open their eyes to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. I also ask that you pray for me that I might adequately prepared to give a defense of the hope that lies within and to do so with gentleness and respect. Pray also that this will be done with respect and with intentionality. Pray also that God’s name will be honored in the exchange.

I was very shocked to see one the WWE website that he and his wife and seven-year-old son were all three found dead in their home in Georgia. I hadn’t liked his character over the last year or two, but I still respected the guy for his hard work. Today, WWE.com and Foxnews.com have reported that the investigation into the Benoit family death is a double-murder-suicide. Authorities believe that Benoit–on account of some very suspicious text messages he sent to friends on Sunday–killed his wife and son on Sunday, not showing up for the pay-per-view that night, and then killed himself yesterday.

If the investigation proves true that Benoit did murder his family and then take his own life, this serves as an extremely painful reminder of sin. We are all depraved sinners who hate the most beautiful and glorious treasure in all of the known universe: God. In our hatred, we scoff at God and belittle his beauty and glory. We reject his lordship and create our own little gods to worship instead. In doing so, we become liars, haters of our brothers, adulterers, murders, drunkards, idolaters. We have transgressed an infinite God and thus deserving an infinite punishment: eternity in hell. But it is too easy to forget that even the “best” people by our standards are still as depraved as Hitler. We forget that we are all evil people.

I will be honest, I never thought in a million years that Christ Benoit would be guilty of anything like this. Speeding, maybe. Using performance enhancers, oh I wouldn’t be surprised if every wrestler used them…I just wouldn’t be shocked. But anything close to hurting someone outside of the wrestling ring is just crazy. But the fact of the matter is, if the investigation proves this, he did it. He killed his wife, son, and then took his own life.

When I reflect upon this I see two things. First, how hideous and ugly sin is. Sin drives you to kill your wife and son. Sin drives you to think there is no hope and take your own life. Sin hurts people. Sin hurts yourself. But most of all, sin defames and blasphemes God. It spits upon the greatest treasure in the universe. Sin is ugly and horrible and wretched. And what makes it so bad is that it has totally corrupted all of humanity. From a “good” person like Benoit to a despot like Hitler or Pol Pot or Saddam Hussein. Sin is ugly because of what it is and how badly we are infected by it.

Second, I am reminded of how much I need King Jesus to rescue me from my sin. I don’t know what happened with Benoit to, if true, do this so I will not speculate any farther than it was sin. But for myself, I know that I need Jesus to atone, forgive and defeat my sin. Without his atonement and righteousness I am doomed to suffer eternity in hell. Without his Holy Spirit, I have no hope of defeating sin in my life. Without my sovereign King, I am nothing.

I offer my prayers to the family of Benoit. I pray that King Jesus will comfort them through this tremendous time of loss. I will pray that he will make himself so real to you that he will draw your aching hearts to him for comfort in this time of tragedy that I hope I will never have to know in my life. I will pray that he will strengthen you to deal with what lie ahead for you, whatever that might be. As the apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:14-19,

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

A wrestling fan,
Rev. Henry Thomas Imler

1.) That he be filled with the Holy Spirit;

2.) That he know the Holy Scriptures;

3.) That he be great in the sight of the Lord.

It is very evident looking at what he recorded during his life that he knew the Scriptures very well. Reading of the ministry of Edwards and the life that he lived, it is very evident that he was filled the Holy Spirit. By human eyes, Edwards was and is great. He was used by God in a great manner and greatly during the (First?) Great Awakening. As a fellow believer in Christ, he was great before God in that he was chosen by God before the foundations of the world for salvation in Christ Jesus and through grace he was given a heart to believe and through that faith he obtained the righteousness freely offered by Christ’s death. Thus in the eyes of God, Edwards is as great as Jesus who has so made him by virtue of His righteousness.

Moral of this snippet: God honors the prayers of praying parents. Parents pray for your children, God will hear and listen to you. You never know, your child might become the next Edwards or Calvin or Luther or Augustine or Spurgeon or Whitefield or Graham or Lewis.

A second request is on the heels of a recent conversation I had with Gideon, a coworker who I have been sharing the gospel with. Last week, he asked me about sin; namely if I was a sinner or he was a sinner. I answered yes and showed him 1 John 1:8-10, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” He was shocked by this revelation to know that everyone is a sinner. He asked me how then anyone can be saved. I had already shown him that being a sinner means you go to hell. So I took him to Ephesians 2:1-10. Pray that the love of God will save this man’s soul, through the word of God, from the wrath of God that vindicates the righteousness of God.

There is also another reason why I believe that God has called me to KC and away from Bunceton. And it is in this that I am seeking your prayers. My friend Jimmy has asked me to come on board with him at Faith Community Church in the youth group. The kids at this church are really growing at this church. They are begging Jimmy to teach them how to evangelize and share their faith. I feel that there is much I can do to contribute to this church and its youth program. Jimmy has asked me specifically to help out with the high schoolers. Recently, God has been leading me to develop people with a solidified biblical world view. To develop people who can become teachers, doctors, business execs. secretaries, janitors, theme park operators who engage the world and the culture with a Christian world view. That no matter what they do, they are driven by the Gospel. They are Christian doctors or lawyers. These people have the fortitude to step into their college scene or work environment and view it through the lens “of the Gospel of the Glory of Jesus Christ who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). This is a chance to do this. (The third reason is that it is getting too expensive to drive the five to six hours every weekend from KC to Ashland and Bunceton)

Today, Jimmy meets with the elder of preaching at Faith Community to propose his ideas for the youth group, including bringing me on to teach the high schoolers. I ask that you pray for God’s will to be done. If that means I am to come on board than I come on board, if not then I do not. But whatever happens, may the decision that they reach be one that most reflects the manifold glories of Yahweh in his son, Jesus the Messiah.

1.) One of my co-workers has been asking me about Christ and has been showing some interest in discussing it with me. So I have been seeking some time to be just one-on-one with him to find out more about what he truly believes. He says he went to church during his childhood and teen years but doesn’t any more and feels that we are okay as long as we “celebrate God.” I want to ask him more about that phrase and why he doesn’t think it is important to go to church. Hopefully this will lead to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him.

2.) My supervisor, Jimmy, was approached last week by another co-woker, Faira, and started asking about her eternal destiny if she didn’t go to church. Jimmy was very honest with her and called her out on her being a sinner. She admitted that she knew she was and even felt guilty. Jimmy simply told her that she didn’t trust and treasure God and his Son Jesus and therefore is going to hell. She appreciated the honesty. Pray that he will be able to share the Gospel of the Glory of Jesus Christ with her as well and that God will open her eyes to see the good news of his glory as revealed in Jesus Christ.

3.) Also, last Friday Jimmy asked me to partner with him as youth pastor at Faith Community Church here in KC. I have been thinking about leaving Bunceton for some time because a.) the church and I aren’t really seeing eye-to-eye on certain issues and b.) it is too expensive to be driving six hours every weekend for what they can afford to pay me. Please pray that God will direct me in the direction he wants me to go.