Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
3 26 2024
Mea Culpa – HOLY WEEK – Continued
I remember a personal story of a father carrying his one-year-old son up the stairs and blacked out. He was awakened by his 3-year-old calling out his name. Daddy, Daddy…Daddy wake up! He was laying on his precious son… his son was paralyzed from the neck down. I wept so hard for that child and that Dad and family. I am writing this now and I am weeping, as I am so broken
over the pain of that father and mother. Can any one of you as a parent or grandparent
not know that kind of horrific news and not be crushed?
That baby was totally innocent. That baby did not deserve for this to happen. That father, whatever he had ever done, if God levied that kind of punishment for our wrongdoing… which he doesn’t. What justice is there in this accident? I know the cousin well who called me with the news. They have uplifted the family. Prayed and interceded for the baby’s healing and full resurrection to life again. They have said repeatedly that it was not your fault. You can’t blame yourself. But is there any consoling a father or mother in the face of such a thing? How do you not carry the guilt?
If your cares just got smaller, I understand. If your problems just got put in a proper perspective, I get it. We never have to look far to see another brother or sister in a pit, not of their own making.
But devastated nonetheless.
Can I ask? JUST HOW INNOCENT WAS JESUS
AND IS OUR HEARTS GRIEF AT THE LEVEL IT SHOULD BE?
I would ask you this week to examine some of your choices. Maybe all of them. Do any of them call for the brokenness of your heart? Relationships, regrets, anger, unforgiveness, an addiction. Anxiety, depression, or unbelief. The more time you spend praying for God to break your heart for what breaks his…the more the Holy Spirit will show you the depravity of your soul.
How about being broken over not cherishing Christ as the treasure he is to you and the world? For our blindness in not recognizing God as God or for not walking in the joy of the spirit. Not “counting all things Joy and believing that all things work together for Good for those who love the Lord and live according to His precepts” Rom 8:28 What is the answer?
D. L. Moody the 19th-century Evangelist was approached by a young man about religious things and asked what is prayer. They were in the hall of a large London house and before he could answer, a child’s voice was heard singing on the stairs. It was the voice of a little girl of nine or 10, the daughter of the host. The father called her over and said, tell this gentleman what is prayer. Jenny did not know what was going on, but she quite understood that she was now called upon to say her catechism. So, she drew herself up, and folded her hands in front of her, like a good little girl who is going to say her questions, and she said in her clear childish voice: Prayer is an offering up of our desires onto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies”.
Ah! That is catechism! Moody said, “Thank God for that catechism”.
The central definition of prayer in the Westminster Catechism is an offering up of our desires unto God. Therefore, prayer is the revealer of the heart. What a person prays for shows the spiritual condition of his heart. If we do not pray for spiritual things, like the glory of Christ, and the hallowing of God’s name, the salvation of sinners, the holiness of our heart, the advance of the gospel, and contrition for sin, in the fullness of the spirit, in the coming of the kingdom, and the joy of knowing Christ, then probably it is because we do not desire these things. What a devastating indictment of our hearts.
That is why J, I. Packer said, “I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face.”
How we pray reveals the desires of our hearts.
And the desires of our hearts reveal what our treasure is. And if our treasure is not Christ, we will perish. Whoever loves father or mother more than me, Jesus said is not worthy of me and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matthew 10:37
Lord help me to lead my family to focus on you this Holy week
and the price you paid for my freedom. PS. That little boy is healed today by the grace of God.
Please pray for someone to join you this Easter
P.S. You can forward this email to a couple of your friends. If they would like to sign up to receive these morning devotions, they can do so at this link: http://eepurl.com/gKlklD
Come Join Us this Sunday the 31st at Raymond James Stadium
for our Easter Celebration. We are bringing all our campuses together and are praying for 35k to 50k people to attend. Invite your friends and Families.
Tony Dungy, among others, will be speaking. We will be tailgating by Gate B for breakfast from 8 am to 9:30. Please come and bring your family and be sure to look for me.
Service is at 10”30 Check us out at https://gfcflorida.com/easter
HOSANNA: BREAK MY HEART FOR WHAT BREAKS YOURS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdQB9iOpBp4
Excerpts are taken from John Piper Life as a Vapor
