Compliments of Bro. Tim Lewis

The last 24 hours have been both humbling and challenging. In the past 24 hours I have rediscovered a few things. I have realized how small I am and how big God is. I have realized how hard following Jesus really is. I have realized how often I think I can do things without Jesus. I have realized how much I do need Him, not just for salvation, but for every last breath.

After a song we sang last night at church, preaching from Luke 9:23, some news I got today, a book I have been reading, a thread on Facebook, and this great article written by an amazing man of God (Bro. Tim Lewis), I am broken. I don't mean that in a bad way either. Its in the way I ought to be constantly......broken laying at the feet of Jesus, my Lord.

I could not help but repost what is below. I feel like I either just looked into a mirror or maybe Bro Tim saw into the depths of my soul.

Near the beginning of James' letter in the New Testament we're told that a "double-minded" man is unstable in everything that he does. I sometimes feel like that double-minded man. I want to be fully submitted to God. I really do. I want to do what God wants me to do with my life. I want my passion to be about God's kingdom. I want my actions and words to be honoring to Jesus 100% of the time. I want to trust Jesus completely in any and every circumstance of my life. I want to have faith that can move mountains. I want to trust Jesus enough to attempt difficult things. I want others to see Jesus in me. I want to be a godly Father to my children, a loving Christlike husband to my wife, and a godly example of leadership to my church. But I'm double-minded. I want to serve Jesus as long as His plan mirrors mine. I want to give Jesus my all as long as it doesn't involve too much sacrifice. I want to attempt big things for God as long as it is easy. I want my life to be Kingdom centered as long as it doesn't hurt my reputation or pride in any way. I want to be a godly Father, husband, and pastor as long as it isn't painful or doesn't cost me too much in the way of effort. I want to have God's approval and the world's at the same time. I want "me" time and get frustrated when Jesus' call to be disciple interferes with what I want to do. If I am completely honest, what bothers me the most is that I sometimes like my double-mindedness. I want to be a follower of Jesus and enjoy the grace he has given me, but I also like being able to do my own thing when I want. It bothers me that this doesn't bother me. I want to have my cake and eat too. I want to enjoy everything Jesus has to offer without ever having to make a sacrifice for His sake and for His Kingdom. James said, Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:7-8 God has given us the answer to our double-mindedness. I'm just not sure that I like it. Submit... Resist... Come near... Wash... Grieve... Mourn... Wail... Humble... I'll be honest. None of those things sound like very much fun. I want to know God's presence, I just don't want to submit in order to do so. I want to experience victory over sin, but I want it to be easy. Resisting kind of sounds like it might be difficult. I want God to be near me when I need Him, but I'd kind of like to keep Him at arms length the rest of time. Grieving, mourning, and wailing kind of sounds like there might be tears and heartache involved. Being humble sounds like a great idea as long I still get to be in charge. There is a biblical word for all of this that is largely missing in our modern Christian vocabulary:REPENTANCE. How is it that we manage to live day after day giving Jesus lip service while our hearts are far from him? I realize that Jesus gives grace for all our brokenness and sin, but why doesn't that same sin even bother us? Why do we gripe and grumble about any and every sacrifice Jesus asks us to make? How is it that we keep going to church on Sunday only to be unchanged on Monday? Why do we avoid even minor inconveniences for the name and cause of Christ? Why do seek the world's approval more than the Savior's? Could it be that we have forgotten how to repent? Is it possible that we go through life with a sense that something is missing because something actually is? If the Holy Spirit were to remove His presence from our church, our families, our hearts--would we even notice that He had left? Do we even know what it means to grieve over our sin? To truly submit to God? I realize this may all sound a little heavy-handed. That's okay. I don't think repentance is meant to be fun. That's the reason we don't hear much about it anymore. That's why I tend to avoid it. On the flip side, we can't afford to miss the awesome promises accompanying our repentance. When we resist, the devil will flee. But we will have to resist. Take my word for it, it will be a battle. Spend some serious time on your knees getting right with God, and I can guarantee you the devil won't like it. You will be attacked. There will be battles. It won't be easy. But Jesus never said it would be. We've forgotten that ultimately we aren't called to be Baptist or Methodist or Non-denominational. We aren't called to be religious. Neither are we called to be superficial perfectionists who spend all our time trying to impress others with our religiosity. Ultimately, we are called to be disciples. Followers. But we can't follow without submission to the Master. We can't be disciples who do our own thing. By definition a disciple must humble himself before his Leader. And when we do that there are awesome promises to claim. Yes, repentance is painful, but don't miss the good part. Come near to God and He will come near you to.... Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up... Our error is in thinking that we can play both ends against the middle and still somehow be happy. We delude ourselves into thinking that we can live for God and for ourselves at the same time and somehow make it all work. At best our double-mindedness leads to a shallow, empty faith in which we are saved but never experience God in His fulness. At worst is leads to a false faith in which God is given nothing more than lip service. Our double-mindedness is not something that we need to learn to live with. It is a sin from which we must break free. It calls for and demands our repentance. If, like me, you have sensed this duplicity in your own life, I encourage you to take some time this week to get on your knees before God and truly repent. If necessary, ask God to convict you for your lack of conviction. Pray for brokenness over the callousness and sin that has so easily crept into your heart. Ask for a true sense of revival in your heart. Humble and submit yourself before the grace and goodness of a God "who gives us more grace" (James 4:6) to match even our worst failures. Pray for a heart that longs to be obedient. St. Augustine famously wrote, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." May that be our prayer as we seek to find our satisfaction in the only place it can truly be found. "Lord, make us restless. Cause us to be uneasy. Stir us. Trouble us. Convict us. Help us see our sin for what it is--rebellion. Give us a sense of grief over our lack of grief. Break our rebellious hearts and humble our proud spirits. As we kneel give us a vision of Your holiness that despises our sin and Your grace that forgives the very double-mindedness through which we bring dishonor to Your Name."

Does Uncle Sam have on a Blindfold?

Maybe I am alone in this, but I seriously cannot figure out how this kind of stuff actually happens. Read this article and see what you think (click the yellow word "article" to read it and if that doesn't work, copy and paste the web address at the bottom of the post into your url).

It seems like there should be some sort of application process or a system that checks to see if people are actually telling the truth. Maybe there is and it stinks. Maybe there is and the person letting this stuff slip by gets a cut. Maybe there is but there are loopholes. I don't know. All I know is this is absolutely ridiculous!

There is so much wrong with this story. Allow me to point out my two biggest problems.

1) Why is someone on food stamps playing the lottery? I have heard that people that receive food stamps today don't really receive "food stamps," they actually receive a debit card where they can walk into any store and buy whatever they want with it. If this is true she could have bought this winning lottery ticket with your money. HA! That's messed up if you ask me!

2) Why was she not kicked off of food stamps? I thought they were for low income families, not millionaires. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it would have been quite easy for this woman to lie and/or cover up until the next tax time, but still you would think there would be a red flag come up somewhere in the system. This just goes to show how disconnected different parts of our government really are with each other. I'm not a politician or economist but shouldn't the income dept (the ones tracking our income to make sure we pay our taxes, IRS) have some communication with the outgoing dept (the ones who pass out government assistance, housing, welfare, food stamps, unemployment, disability, etc)? Isn't the lottery ran by the government?

There are surely more issues here but thinking about this any longer will probably make me vomit. If I was in any kind of position that deals with these things I would be embarrassed......and should be. What do you think? Am I overreacting? Am I crazy?

 

http://consumerist.com/2012/03/michigan-woman-who-won-1-million-in-lottery-stays-on-food-stamps.html