The Untragic Death of Linda Lipscomb!

After 45 years together raising two children, spoiling two grandchildren and serving God overseas in two countries, J.P. Lipscomb said goodbye to his wife, Linda, on Feb. 14.

------------------------------------------------------The following quotes can be found at the International Mission Board's web site. They have been taken from an article about a lady who recently passed due to complications that resulted from injuries sustained in a bus accident in Asia. She was 63, retired and living the life that she had dreamed of since she was 16. She didn't waste her life. She almost did. But she didn't.

Many would say that Linda's death was a tragedy. However after reading John Piper's book "Don't Waste Your Life", I have a better understanding of what tragedy looks like. Piper writes, "I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader's Digest: A couple `took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells. . . .' Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: `Look, Lord. See my shells.' That is a tragedy.

We need to be asking ourselves, are we wasting our lives? Are we proclaiming the Name of our King like Linda did? Are we desiring that His Name be known throughout the world? Are we willing to give our resources to see this goal reached? Are we praying without ceasing, desiring that the lost know who He is? Are we willing to go?

Oh, God, please make make my heart like this lady's; a reflection of You. Allow me also to die, glorifying your Name as she did. May I too die in a state of joy. May I delight in knowing that I was able to display forgiveness to an entire city, a forgiveness that reflects and points to you, as this woman of God did. LORD, thank you for Linda Lipscomb. Tell her that I can't wait to shake her hand when I get there, letting her know what an encouragement that her example of You was to me. No, tell her that I can't wait to wrap my arms around her in a grateful, thankful, God honoring, embrace, expressing my joy in You, through her. Thank You for her obedient desire to be a gatherer of souls and not of seashells. Lord, send more people like Linda Lipscomb into the harvest field!

"God created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives." -John Piper

Read the article HERE

The Lipscombs were retirement age and members of James Memorial Baptist Church in Gadsden, Ala., when they responded to a call to serve overseas.

“We would get a text message from them: ‘Another member added to the family today,’” said Julie McClendon,* a friend in their area.

Someone asked J.P. what language he and Linda spoke. His answer was “love.”

“Send us someplace nobody wants to go,” J.P. said.

READ-John Piper's book "Dont Waste Your Life". You can read it on line HERE.

Preach to the World

As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.'

“God has called me to preach His word and if I knew that all the elect had a yellow stripe painted down their backs, then I would give up preaching the gospel and go lift up shirt tails!”

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

And this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Lord Jesus come!

Brother, the Gospel is free!

I am not one to listen to hip hop. In fact the closest thing to hip hop that I am familiar with is the Fat Boys, Run DMC and the Beastie Boys; a far cry from my Wille Nelson and Jeryy Jeff Walker that are entrenched in my ipod.

I can say that I have both of Q's C.D.s and they are incredibly rich. There is nothing like listening to the Truth no matter what the worship style. Great stuff!

HERE is Christcentric.

_______________________________________________________

Student mixes hermeneutical hip-hop with seminary experience

by Keith Collier
To view a special online video feature about the interview with Quincy Jones, visit www.swbts.edu/Qjonesvideo.
FORT WORTH, Texas (SWBTS) – Staring at the cocaine in his hand while his mother prayed over him was a defining moment in Quincy Jones’ life. Only a few days prior, the 21-year-old was confronted with his need for a savior and put his faith in Jesus Christ. Now, he faced a dilemma: sell the last bit of his cocaine in order to pay his bills or flush it down the toilet and trust God to provide.
After her prayer, his mother said, “Quincy, you need to throw that away for all that the Lord has done for you and how He has protected you.” In that decisive moment, he surrendered everything to God and completely rejected his former life of dealing and using drugs. A friend began to disciple him and helped him get involved in ministering to young people in the Washington, D.C. area.
He soon discovered that his heart for ministry and passion for hip-hop music could be used in tandem to champion the God who had rescued him from his waywardness. When a young hip-hop artist started coming to his church, Jones felt impressed to pray for his salvation. A month later, he became a Christian. After another friend came to Christ several months later, the three formed the Christian hip-hop group Christcentric and began to write songs that echoed the heartbeat of the Reformers.
When Martin Luther penned the words to what many call the “Battle Hymn of the Reformation,” he sought to create music for worship with strong theological underpinnings. Departing from the religious musical form of the day, hymns like “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” became tools for strengthening Christians, correcting doctrine and sharing the Gospel with the lost.
With these same goals in mind, Jones, aka Q-D.O.G., sees Christcentric’s music as the convergence of church history, theology and hip-hop. With songs like “Mighty Fortress,” an incredible adaptation of Luther’s classic, and “Sufficiency of Scripture,” their unique blend of theological truths and driving beats into contextualized catechisms was birthed in response to the poor theology they encountered as they traveled to perform.
Jones sees history as an integral part of their music. “Within every context, all history is God’s history. My history as an African-American in the United States and how Christian faith was birthed in our people through slavery is everyone’s history. The history of the Reformation is all of our history. You can’t really do theology if you’re not talking about history.”
Seeing individuals trapped in Word of Faith theology and the prosperity gospel, Christcentric wants to call people back to Scripture and the biblical Gospel. Jones says these individuals are “moving away from the centrality of the Word of God” and seeking to be entertained.
“Their lives are now more temporal. They’re focused on things and their own happiness versus finding their satisfaction in God, which means we have to go back to the Gospel, where our hope is in Christ and His coming. Within the African-American context, many of our churches are dominated, unfortunately, by this type of [prosperity] theology, and we need to come back to biblical faith.”
“The challenge with that,” he admitted, “is that not everybody wants theology in their music. We are a very entertainment-driven society… we don’t necessarily want to think; we’re not a thinking culture.” Christcentric’s music seeks to challenge Christians with theological depth that points them to the mind of Christ.
As one can imagine, Christcentric’s brand of hip-hop has faced many misconceptions throughout the past decade: “Is hip-hop an appropriate medium for worship and the church? Isn’t the hip-hop culture one of thugs and worldly living? Why incorporate deep theology in your lyrics? Won’t that lose your audience?”
Jones responds, “The incorporation of theology starts with the idea that, as believers, we ask, ‘What should music be like in the church?’ When you become a Christian, everything about you is redeemed, even your own personal expression.” Pointing to the need for sound theological music, he says, “You can’t praise who you don’t know. You can’t give thanks for things you don’t know to be true.”
Acknowledging the egocentric nature of secular hip-hop, where artists brag on themselves and their skills, Jones notes that Christcentric, even in its name, wants to center their music on Christ and use this genre to spread the Gospel.
With a heart for preaching, Jones is now pursuing a theological education. The Silver Spring, Md. native and father of five attends the College at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, earning a bachelor’s of humanity with a concentration in the history of ideas.
“A strong foundation of philosophy and history under the theological training, which equips you for apologetics and cultural engagement, made the program very attractive,” Jones says. “As I studied the Scriptures more, I realized that studying the Word was necessary. It took me a couple of years to be convinced that I needed to be in Bible college and seminary, but the Lord kept showing me why that training was necessary.” Following undergraduate work, he plans to pursue graduate and possibly doctoral studies in preparation for future ministry.
Jones is also a member of the Fellowship of Black Seminarians, a student organization on campus committed to enriching their student experience and promoting the common union in Christ of all people. “Anyone who is concerned about the African-American community or just wants to come along for fellowship [is invited],” Jones said, adding, “We feel like it’s for everybody. We want to be a blessing for the whole Southwestern community in helping others to catch not only a vision but have a love for all peoples.” The Fellowship of Black Seminarians has co-sponsored posters that will be displayed across the campus during the next month highlighting several African-American religious leaders.
Although Jones has had to scale back his involvement with Christcentric in recent years, a future project is underway and will continue the theme of didactic music. Ultimately, whether dropping a rhyme or teaching within the church, Quincy Jones’ life reverberates with a commitment to teaching sound doctrine and spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His story is a testament to the life-changing power of the Gospel, and his ministry reflects the diverse nature with which that Gospel is presented.
To view a special online video feature about the interview with Quincy Jones, visit www.swbts.edu/Qjonesvideo.
About Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Southwestern Seminary celebrates its centennial in 2008. Since its founding, the seminary has trained and sent out over 40,000 graduates to serve in local churches and mission fields around the world. In 1908, B.H. Carroll established the seminary on the campus of Baylor University. It was moved to its current location on Seminary Hill in Fort Worth in 1910 and was placed under the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1925. Paige Patterson was elected as the eighth president of the seminary in 2003.
For more information, contact:Dr. Thomas White, Vice President for Student Services and CommunicationsSouthwestern Baptist Theological Seminary817.923.1921 ext. 7300Email: twhite@swbts.eduWeb: http://www.swbts.edu/

Wolves

Guru Oprah now has a daily feature on XM Satellite Radio called "A Course in Miracle"! This course was channeled back to Helen Schucman in 1965. Schucman said she heard and "inner voice" telling her to take note of "this course of miracles". She took dictation from a demon who said he was "Jesus"? This Course in Miracles is now the "New Age Bible". Marianne Williams is pushing it along with Guru Oprah. They call for the "Peace Alliance" or "civil rights movement for the soul".(WE ARE LIVING IN STRANGE AND DECEPTIVE TIMES)

Course statements:

1) " There is no sin "
2) " The journey to the cross should be the last "useless journey ".
3) " Do not make the pathetic error of "clinging to the old rugged cross ".
4) " The name of 'Jesus' is just symbolic of all gods to which to pray.
5) " The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself ".
6) " The atonement is the final lesson man needs to learn, for it teaches him that never having sinned, he has no need for salvation ".

GURU OPRAH said the following on her TV show when an audience member questioned her about her promoting her new age theory. The audience member asked her "what about Jesus?" GURU OPRAH said, " What do you mean? What about Jesus?" The audience member quoted John 14:6 and GURU OPRAH replied that it couldn't be because there has to be many ways to god.....Guru Oprah then said she can't degate religion and went right back promoting the new age religion.

John 14:6 says: "I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE, NO MAN COMETH TO THE FATHER BUT BY ME".

2 John 1:7- For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and antichrist.



GURU OPRAH denies Jesus Christ as Lord of Lord and King of Kings......so why would a child of God listen to her? The good she thinks she is doing is assisting the devil in his work. Because we are children of God does not mean we check our brains at the door!

Ken Becht

I Tend To Love My Theology More Than God.

Unfortunately the battle between Calvinism and Arminianism results in severe immaturity, as displayed above. Yes, with great remorse, being one who holds the Doctrines of Grace dear, I have fit the illustration above . . . to a "T". I too, have acted just as obnoxious as "Art the Arminian".

I understand the Calvinist position. I am able to see God's sovereignty painted from Genesis to Revelation. I struggle with understanding how anyone could argue against it. In doing so, in the past, I often acted in a condescending manner, mauling any reflection of our Lord and Savior, that may have been able to be seen.

Paul, who I believe preciously held the Doctrines of Grace, was able to see that filling our minds with knowledge, often results in sinful actions. Like any other form of glutony; it often becomes idolatry of the mind. We Calvinists have the tendancy to deem ourselves spiritually superiour, claiming we know and understand the Scriptures better than our Arminian brothers. And usually it is true. Often times we do know Scriprute better than their counter part. However, for many Calvinists, we certainly do not understand Scripture better.

I believe that most Arminian brothers, who are not engaged in this debate between these two theological positions, understand exactly what God's intention for His people is. They understand that His intention is for us to love one another deeply and to build one another up. I think it is safe to say that brothers who do this, are known by God.

Lord, please give me a humble heart; a heart that desires to bow before You; a heart that desires to be obedient to your will; a heart that loves my brothers and sisters. Lord give me a deep love and a desire to build up Your body. Make me a light that shines in the darkness displaying Your great Name. Keep me from detracting from the radiance of Your beauty.

Spurgeon

"These destroyers of our churches appear to be as content with their work as monkeys with their mischief. That which their fathers would have lamented they rejoice in: the alienation of the poor and simple-minded from their ministry they accept as a compliment, and the grief of the spiritually-minded they regard as an evidence of their power."

-C.H. Spurgeon

The Mercy Of Our Great God And King

TORNADO at Union University

Please pray for the students and the families of the students who attend Union University. Also pray for the people over this region who have also lost posessions but more importantly for those who have lost family and friends.

Lord please comfort those who have experienced loss. May their faces turn to you and seek you as a result of this horrible event. Father, we thank You for your mercy. We thank You for not allowing that tornado to do more damage than what it did.

It is clear to us Father that the injuries and fatalities could have been far greater. And we recognize that it is by your hand that more sorrow did not occur. Your are the All Powerful One. You are the One in control of the waves and the wind. It is by Your very command that the wind lies down and the seas instantly grow calm. Lord, we dont know know exactly why You didn't command this storm to dissipate in an instant. We do know and acknowledge that You and You alone are the King and Maker of the universe and that You and You alone are the Sovereign One, knowing that we deserve far worse than what a storm can bring. Lord may our hearts be crushed for those who gone through these storms who do not know you; people who have not hope. May our hearts cry out as one, begging for the lives who are without hope to have Hope, that Hope being You Lord.

Those of us who do have this Hope, thank You for that. We thank You that we can rest in knowing that no matter what happens You are working all things towards Your ultimate goal; that goal being Your glory; a glory that gives us happiness in You.

Lord, allow those who are now without hope, those who have lost posessions, friends and loved ones know,that as bad as things are now, things could have been much worse. May they see that it is by Your common grace that things were not worse, so that that Your saving grace may be known. Give them joy in realizing that they have been spared and that they now have time to repent.

And dear Lord, of our brothers and sisters who have gone through this, again, those who do have hope, may they also see your common grace so that they may cry out to you for strength and in thanksgiving, giving You glory and honor.

Amen

A people group has vanished

A woman and a tribe's world pass into the beyond

KURT ULLRICH

Special to the Star-Telegram

A most uncommon woman with the most common of names died recently, and her death produced a faint sound: a sound like glass breaking, a sound that reverberated through time and space. Not a crash, exactly - more like the sound you sometimes hear when sitting in a restaurant and someone in the kitchen drops a piece of glassware. Diners look at one another with a sort of smiling pity, that middle place where one side of a lip turns up and the jaw juts out slightly. It's a look that says we understand because we've all dropped something breakable, only this time it's someone else's problem.
Marie Smith Jones died Jan. 21 at the good age of 89, the last full-blooded member of Alaska's Eyak Indians. For almost everything on earth there will come a last day, a last remnant, a final goodbye, but Jones' death brought an entire culture to an end. Jones was not only the last full-blooded member of the tribe - she was also the last person who spoke its language.
The Eyak began as a prehistoric tribe, breaking off from a larger tribe as long ago as 1,500 years before the birth of Christ. Never a large group, some believe the Eyak never numbered more than a thousand. As recently as the early 1800s, they commanded quite a bit of territory around Prince William Sound, but by the time Jones was born in 1918, only five Eyak families remained, all in a small town called Cordova.

As a young girl, Jones saw the final disintegration of the Eyak culture, brought on by disease, alcoholism and educators who forbade children to speak Eyak. In other words, the modern world did them in.
One of her daughters explained that she'd never learned her mother's language because in the mid-20th century, students were expected to speak only English. A long time ago, I learned of such nonsense from my mother, born of German parents who taught her not a word of their language, to protect her at school. Some call this assimilation.
The language of the Eyak is the first of 20 languages native to Alaska to disappear. Jones' sister also spoke Eyak, but she died in the early 1990s, leaving her sister as the last of her kind, like an endangered species no longer in a position to carry on the line.
It ended with her, an old lady picking salmonberries on a nearby mountain, speaking a lost language out loud to herself, doing her best to keep the memory of it. It's the kind of thing many of us do when working out a language other than our own. We try the words out loud, pushing them past our twisted tongues into the air.
In 1993, the Smithsonian Institution returned the bones of an Eyak Indian to Cordova, bones that had been at the institution since the 1930s. Jones played an integral part in the repatriation ceremony.
On the day of the burial, she told an Anchorage Daily News reporter that the low-hanging clouds and gray sky were absolutely perfect for the ceremony, as orthodox Eyaks believed that on such days God often lowered clouds so the ancestors could return and be near the living without frightening them.
Marie Smith Jones. Try it again: Marie Smith Jones.
Nope, doesn't work. The weight of her passing doesn't feel right sitting on a name like that - Cleopatra, maybe, or Nefertari. Marie Smith Jones is a mere mortal's name, and in the end that's all she was: mortal, just like the rest of us. But in her case, the dying flesh was a vessel holding a world soon lost.
And the sound of shattering glass you heard on Jan. 21? Just the sound of an old Alaskan woman dying in her sleep, dreaming of the past, knowing the future.
I hope that on the day of her burial in Alaska, the sky was gray and the clouds low, as there were probably many on both sides of that great divide between the living and the dead who wanted to be near.
The next time I hear glass breaking in a restaurant, I'll try not to think the loss is someone else's problem.
Kurt Ullrich is a free-lance writer who lives near Maquoketa, Iowa. Jones

Oh God, make Yourself known among the other Alaskan tribes; make Yourself known quickly. Send workers to these areas so that on the day of Your return, their knees may bend in honor Your great Name.

Lord we recognize that if they do not bend their knees here on earth, their knees will be shattered when You come back, being forced into a submissive bow.

For Your great Names sake, send workers to these peoples before they vanish off the face of this Earth.

Are We Telling People To Go To Hell?

I am currently reading "the unchurched next door" by Thom S. Rainer, dean at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

At the end of chapter 2 he tells a story about a lady named Deanna who had recently accepted Christ and signed up for a Bible study in her neighborhood. When she arrived she was surprised to see people that she knew there, and began asking them if they were Christians. They all responded that they were.

Deanna became very upset with these so called Christians because they had never shared Jesus with her. She told them that they might as well have told me to go to hell, because that's what their silence said.

Are we telling people to go to hell?

I can say that I love to proclaim the name of Christ and that I do so often. However, sadly, I have to admit that it appears that I too am telling my neighbors to go to hell. I have not told a single one about Christ . . . In fact, I have only talked to our neighbors who live directly across the street.

John Piper encourages us to spend our lives working to make Christ known and to live as if He is our Treasure. He challenges us to show that Christ is our Treasure by the way we spend our time. So how do we spend our time at home? In front ot the television? In front of the computer?

If Christ is our Treasure we should live like it and share our Treasure with all.

Denny Burk, C.J. Mahaney, and Joel Osteen

Denny,

I love your blog. You normally have some really great posts. However after reading the previous post, and seeing you bask in the glory of another national championship almost cost you a reader. You see, I was afraid that you might be a heretic (Hook em' Horns!)...That is, until I just read todays post, and saw that you are a Cowboys fan. Of course that led me to the following question...

Since you only hold to half of the sports gospel, (the whole sports gospel being University of Texas and the Dallas Cowboys), does that put you in the same camp as Joel Osteen who only preaches half of the Gospel?

hmm...Now I have to decide if Mahaney is a heretic or not...

So...C.J. Que Paso?

Calvinism

See --> I HATE CALVINISM!!!!

Build Your Own Bible

Check out THIS great idea from Southern Seminary student, Todd Young.

He takes you through a step by step, illustrated process that shows how you can build your own Bible that contains blank pages for study notes.

What to do when sitting with a Calvinist

If you are not able to read the print on the image above, I have copied the 7 steps that one needs to take when exposed to a Calvinist (below).

1 Do not engage a Calvinist in a conversation, no matter how nice he or she may appear.
2 Ignore the Calvinist, and read a book or magazine.
3 If the Calvinist persists, pretend to be a Muslim and pray. Remember, Calvinists are worse than Muslims.
4 If pretending to be Muslim doesn’t work, feign SARS, or Ebola.
5 If there are multiple Calvinists on the plane, bottles of Calvinix will drop from ceiling panels above your seat.
6 Upon arrival at your final destination freely exit the plane leaving all of your personal items behind.
7 Exit the plane via the emergency shute, helping other passengers in need. Flee immediately to your nearest bookstore and read anything by Dave Hunt.

What a tragedy it is for someone to write this. It is an even greater tragedy to the face of Calvinism. The person who published this obviously has come up against, as I call them "crooked nosed" Calvinists; Calvinists who are mostly intrested in being right with little regard to the person that they are approaching. This is a tragedy. Yes, these types of Calvinists are full of Truth however, I have to wonder where the love is.

2 John states in chapter 1, "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, will be with us in truth and love." Grace, mercy and peace will follow us where ever we go because, these are reflections of the attributes that He posesses. They are not self derived attributes.

If the attributes that we display to our Arminian brothers are akin to what it appears have been displayed to the brother who wrote the above, it needs to make us, who claim the Doctrines of Grace, wonder if we reflect ourselves or if we reflect the one who graciously condescended to stoop and capture our hearts.

We need to remember that our hearts have been arrested. We are now slaves to Christ. We are His. Thus, we should look like Him. If we aren't, we need to examine ourselves more closely.

Intrestingly, I came across the following video of Ray Comfort who is a Calvinist. He is witnessing to a young lady (of all places) on an airplane. What providence!!! ;) hehehe This man displays Truth and love. He is a man who desperately loves God and desperately desires to see all men come to Christ. He exemplifies the heart of a true Calvinist.

Vida Eterna

"The sad part is that illegals often come here wanting to provide for their families back home—but the reality is that their absence often deteriorates the family more than if they’d never left.”

For some reason I was not able to link to the article "One Question" at The WeB Magazine Of the Presbyterian Church in America, so I copied and pasted it below.


One Question

ByFaith asked four pastors and missionaries, all of them with years of experience with Hispanic immigrants this question: How should the fact that illegal immigrants have knowing broken the law affect our attitudes toward them. One pastor in Florida told us: “I don’t ask the immigrants we help whether they are here legally or not. It’s incumbent upon us to love our neighbors and to help meet their needs.

But I take a different stance about those south of the border. Those who want to come here illegally shouldn’t do it. But we can’t close our doors to those who are already here. We’re still called upon to love mercy and act justly toward them.

The sad part is that illegals often come here wanting to provide for their families back home—but the reality is that their absence often deteriorates the family more than if they’d never left.”

Here are three other replies.

Question: How should the fact that immigrants knowingly broke the law affect our attitudes toward them?

In many cases, we don’t know why people are breaking the law (whether it’s for a family member in need, for example). So my attitude should be to try to understand why they’ve come to the U.S., what their needs are, and their reality here.

But I disagree with those who put water bottles in the desert for illegals crossing the border. I think it’s better to discourage that behavior.

An illegal Mexican immigrant visited the church I pastored in Houston and asked for advice on what he should do. We talked and prayed about it, and it didn’t seem to me that he had a good reason to be here. I counseled him, “For your own good and for the good of your family, I think you should go back.” And he did.

Another illegal couple had become Christians after they moved to the U.S. They were concerned about the lies they had told, and I counseled them to tell the truth to the authorities. They had the mindset that they would be at peace either way: whether they were deported back to Mexico and would help plant a church there, or whether they would stay in our church community in Houston. The authorities let them stay, and that man is a deacon in the church today. It’s a great story of Christians having a big view of God.

Alex Villasana, a Mexican national (both he and his wife have green cards, their two children are U.S. citizens) is planting a PCA church in Norcross, Ga.


Question: How should the fact that immigrants knowingly broke the law affect our attitudes toward them?

We must show hospitality to the alien among us. The state and the kingdom of God do not have the same interests, so we shouldn’t get caught up in the tenor of national politics on this issue.

Violating immigration law is not the same thing as committing murder, though some have equated the two. Our missionaries overseas violate immigration laws all the time. So the question to me is, why do we treat illegal immigrants differently than we treat congregants who speed in traffic or lie on their taxes?

We’re trying to enfold our Hispanic community members into our church. Instead of establishing another church, we’re trying to welcome them into our existing family. It’s hard, but it’s what the gospel is all about.

Travis Hutchinson is pastor of Highlands Presbyterian Church in LaFayette, Ga. The church offers blended services (English and Spanish together) in an increasingly Hispanic community.

Question: How should the fact that immigrants knowingly broke the law affect our attitudes toward them?

Christians are not thinking gospel-centered when it comes to this issue. They reveal a confusion of sword with cross, and the state with the gospel.

Jesus did not do any background checks, and He didn’t question the reason for anyone's sins or oppression, but instead ministered respectfully and gracefully to all. Therefore, the gospel of Jesus Christ embedded in our attitude is the only rule of conduct for ministering to sinners, even illegal immigrants. Are we servants of the gospel or enforcers of the state?

However, I believe that Christian illegals, if they can't get legal papers to stay, should go back to their countries out of their relationship to the lordship of Christ.

Al Guerra is a Cuban-born pastor to Hispanics in Chicago, who is getting his doctorate of ministry degree through Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.

Let the Nations be Glad!

Check out --> MISSIONS ATLAS PROJECT

It Was Truly A Miracle

I went on a mission trip to Acuna, Mexico this past week and was able to see many people pray to receive Christ as their Savior. However, few evidenced true conversion. I am not saying that those who prayed to receive Christ who did not show outward signs of conversion were not regenerated. I am saying that few evidenced being born again like the lady in this picture.

I walked up to this lady and her mother to share the Gospel with them and shortly after, her husband joined us. Because I do not speak Spanish I had to have an interpreter. From the start, I could tell that the Holy Spirit was working on this lady shortly after I began sharing with her. You could see that she was deeply disturbed. I presented the Gospel as clearly as possible but she did not at that point want to cry out to her Creator to be saved.

By God's providence, another interpreter came up who was in the Catholic Theology class that I was in. I knew that he would be able to answer her questions more clearly than what I could. I gave him the reins and asked him to present the Gospel to her in her own language.

He was able to answer her questions much more clearly than I. Because of this, their conversation was very "smooth". He asked her if she understood everything that she had just been taught and she answered yes. He then asked her if she understood her position before God and she said that she did. Last he asked her if she felt that God was calling her and she said tearfully said YES.

He then led her in prayer to receive the greatest Gift of all.

This picture was taken as she was praying to receive Christ as her LORD and Savior. You can see a tear rolling down her cheek if you look closely.

May God bless her all of the days of her life.

Praise God for being the Giver of life! To Him be the glory forever and ever!

Bridge Builder

“Our greatest challenge is to recover our passion for the gospel in evangelism and missions and to renew our determination to defend the gospel in an age of postmodern confusion. I would hope to articulate a vision that would unite Southern Baptists and energize us together.”

-Al Mohler on being nominated as SBC president

Paul Washer-John Piper-Billy Graham

LORD, thank you for men like Paul Washer, John Piper and Billy Graham!
May you use them and their ministries to bring to life cold, dead, unregenerate, God hating hearts and make them Your own.
May, for the sake of Your great Name, You show people from all nations that You and You alone are the great One; the One who created us for Your glory.
May we take great delight in radiating Your greatness to the hearts of those who do not know you, boldly proclaiming Your saving power and Your great love for those who belong to You.
May Your Name be known so that hearts may cry out to You in complete submission honoring You for the great work that You have done on behalf of those who You have given faith to believe.
Amen

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