Ben Pettit

Sitting here in the silence of now. I feel as if I am suppose to love as hard as I can, right now. Tonight.

I often need to discern the difference between intense ambition and passion with anxiousness. But alas, I still feel it, in the depth of my soul. It’s a stirring in unrest. It’s not a movement where 16 to 25 year old boys wear girl jeans, tasteless hair cuts, and listen to whiny rock. I’m not talking about a music genre or dressing classification commonly called “emo“. I’m speaking of something so much deeper. Much greater. An emotion that cannot be contained. If I hide it away in my heart it will scream out of my bones until I am weakened and surrender to it.

The most powerful word I have heard, other than scripture, was on a Monday night of a Monday through Friday summer church camp. Most pastors wait until Thursday to have “cry” night. Cry night is the night where the gospel message is driven home. When this certain pastor was asked Monday night after the service why he preached the token evangelistic salvation message on Monday, the first night of camp, he responded “Because as far as I know, today could have been our last day together”.

I’m not sure if it is our Americanized Christianity or what, but feel in America there is not an urgency to share the gospel of Christ. Sure, an influence, but not an urgency. I mean an urgency for instance where we are screaming in the phone “911, I’ve been in an accident. I am losing a lot of blood and I am turned upside down.” A need to be healed, restored, RESCUED. Don’t you know, don’t you realize? Jesus paid for you and I. For our every thing.

20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galations 2:20

On the contrary in China for instance, to be a Christian means you give up everything. In China there are no colors of the church wall to complain about. There is no power struggle of budget allocation between ministries of the church. Rather, they meet in secret. If you become a disciple in China, you lose your inheritence, your family, and probably most of your friends. Your life as you knew it, is no longer. When you become a Christian in American, what did you give up?

It’s crunch time, game time, and all the cards are on the table.

It’s hard to charge the gates of hell with your pants around your ankles. - Perry Noble

It’s time for you to take your place in the kingdom as a priest and disciple. You are to put on your armor and fight the good fight. The Lord is with you.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, Or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” - Romans 8:35

You will experience every temptation and weight.  It is time to charge forward. You may get hurt and it may get messy.

No persecution could be so painful that God’s love cannot bring comfort. - H. Blackaby

It’s time to fast and pray that the Lord might sustain you through your discomfort.

I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.     - Job 12:23

“Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.”
MATTHEW 5:4

“God wants us to experience His joy (John 15:11). Yet we cannot experience His joy until we have mourned over our sin. If we do not grieve over the weight of our sin, we have no concept of sin’s devastating power. If we treat our sin lightly, we demonstrate that we have no sense of the enormity of our offense against almighty God. Our sin caused the death of God’s Son. It causes us to fall short of what God intends (Rom. 3:23). It brings pain and sorrow to others, as well as to ourselves.

The Bible says that those who grieve over their sin will draw near to God (James 4:8-10). Those who mourn and weep over their sin are in a position to repent (Luke 4:18-19). There cannot be repentance without the realization of the gravity of sin. Regret for sin’s consequences is not the same as sorrow for sinning against holy God. Confession of sin is not necessarily an indication of repentance. Repentance comes only when we acknowledge that our transgression has come from a heart that is far from God, and we are brokenhearted over our grievous offenses against holy God.

Jesus said that those who are heartbroken over their sin will find comfort. They will experience new dimensions of God’s love and forgiveness. His infinite grace is sufficient for the most terrible sin. Do not try and skip the grieving process of repentance in order to move on to experience joy. God will not leave you to weep over your sin but will forgive you, comfort you, and fill you with His joy.”

via my devotional by blackaby.

I ask you today to let this living text breathe into your soul today. After reading each sentence stop. Just meditate on what it means. My life has been shaped this morning by reading this. Don’t rush sentence to sentence, really get a deep understanding of what it means and even more so, how you can live it out today.

1 Corithians 13 taken from biblegateway.com, amplified translation used.

 1IF I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such ^[a]as is inspired by God’s love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

    2And if I have prophetic powers (^[b]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God’s love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).

    3Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or ^[c] in order that I may glory, but have not love (God’s love in me), I gain nothing.

    4Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

    5It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].

    6It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

    7Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].

    8Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy (^[d]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].

    9For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect).

    10But when the complete and perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded).

    11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.

    12For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as ^[e]in a riddle or enigma], but then [when perfection comes] we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand ^[f]fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been ^[g]fully and clearly known and understood [^[h]by God].

    13And so faith, hope, love abide [faith--conviction and belief respecting man's relation to God and divine things; hope--joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love--true affection for God and man, growing out of God's love for and in us], these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Reading through various post today and I thought I would respond to Grant’s question about success.

I think success can be defined by your closeness to the Lord. At the end of the day nothing else truly matters. So here is my list of the TOP 5 things I consider as success.

1. Success is sitting in the shadow of the almighty. Just as in Psalm 91:1 where David is describing himself sitting in the shadow created by the translucent tent and the ark of the covenant. Because he couldn’t touch the ark he would sit as close as possible.
2. Success is saying “Here I am, Send Me” found in Isaiah 6:8. It’s laying everything down and saying Lord I will become nothing so you can become everything.
3. When the waters become deep and the waves become rough. Success is anchoring deep by saying Jesus you are my refuge and my strength (Psalm 91:2).
4. Success is, as I learned through my fast, understanding that you were never created, designed, perfectly crafted to live by bread alone. You are sustained by truth from the mouth of the father.
5. And finally, success is Hebrews 12.

• “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, [2] looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Come back tomorrow for my top 5 list of what success is not.