Sat-tee night!

Everything is in place for tonight. Equipment is ready, all has been checked out. Most of the music has been selected and copied. Seth Barber will be hear to speak. Prayer is ongoing as I move through the day toward 7 p.m.
It's just another typical Saturday here at Rapha.
The guys are all busy with the morning chores trying to finish before the Alabama-Chattanooga ballgame kicks off. Once it starts, the camp will look like a deserted ghost town. I really enjoy being out here on Saturdays as it is a lazy day so to speak. I have enough to keep me busy but the pace is slowed down a lot.

We're entering into the holiday season and since November is here, time will fly by and we will find ourselves standing at the brink of the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010.
It has been a good year here. We have continued to grow as a program, following where we think God is leading us. The one thing we keep foremost in the front of our minds is that this program, this camp and everything here truly is God's. He ordained it. Like Genesis, He spoke it into existence and has maintained and sustained this program by the Word and His promises.
We are simply keepers and stewards of this program, seeking only to do His will for each day. Whether we are praying over or teaching folks, or putting toilet paper on the little "roll-y" things, we do all for His glory.

I pray that you all have a wonderful day and may you find the grace of God and His favor.
God on you......
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Continuation from Link Below

I made reference to "Conference Chasers" in the posting below and received several E-mails that asked if I were against conferences. The answer: NO! I'm not against them. What I am against is anything that causes us to be self-centered and "it's all about me" in our approach to God. Somehow we think that the next conference will give us a word that we somehow couldn't get here in town. The conference becomes more about the person and their experience than anything else.
I hope this might clear up any misunderstanding that may have occurred.
Thanks...
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"Forget Miricales Preach Holiness" by Leonard Ravenhill

I remember speaking to a group and asking how many wanted the presence of God.......much applause and "amens" scattered throughout the room. I asked who wanted to power of God...once more much applause and amens ringing out. I asked who wanted the purity of God and there was silence.
We want miracles! We want signs and wonders! But don't ask us to embrace that which changes the very nature and core of who we are and how we are viewed in this fallen world.
It's God's purity not mine but when I receive it, it changes everything.
Holiness!
Purity!
Real Disciples and not conference chasers always looking for the next best God "high". Sometimes the best God "high" comes in the darkness of the valley when you are out of answers and are alone left to simply cry out "Oh God...Oh God....Oh God.....Oh God!"
In this hour of our lives and the life of our nation it is time we re-think our view of God and the community called the church.
We need revival and we need it now.
Maranatha, Lord Jesus!
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"Zup?"

Friday today. I'm teaching class this morning which always turns out to be an adventure in and of itself. I don't know what it is about Friday classes but they seem to always be good. Not because of me, but God always seems to just pour a little more grace on the Friday class.

Had an "Acts" moment yesterday. You remember the book of Acts? Pentecost? Started with 120 in a 2nd floor apartment and by the end of the day the church had grown to over 3,000. Well, there is a behavior that happens ever so often that always amazes me and it happened yesterday. I was walking from the R.A. office back to my office when a guy chased me down. We made small talk during the walk back to my office when suddenly his eyes were full of tears. I stopped and asked him, "Are you o.k.?" (Here comes the ACTS moment!) He looked at me and said, "What do I have to do to get saved?" I had talked about salvation and the need for Jesus if ever life was going to turn around from all the destruction earlier in the morning class. Now here was this man who had had the light come on in his heart and he suddenly realized that he needed to be saved. Needless to say God is an awesome God and as I write this, the man now has relationship with Jesus. There are some who are saved and then there are others who I like to refer to as being gloriously saved. He fell under the latter category.

As I pondered on this event last night it so did not fit the mold of what we tend to thing salvation should be. It didn't happen in a church. There was no choir singing "Just As I Am" (although I do remember Kenny Meeks on the camp music system singing "We're gonna rise). There wasn't even an invitation being extended. But because of the teaching from the morning, this man had been stirred and was brought face to face with his mortality and need for Jesus. It became such an issue that he chased me down and asked what must he do to be saved. Kind of blows all our religiosity out of the water doesn't it?
God never ceases to amaze me.
You go God!

Until tomorrow.........
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Weekly Dose of Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon said:

"Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the kingdom.

"Ask, and ye shall receive" (John 16:24)

It is a rule that never will be altered in anybody's case. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the elder brother of the family, but God has not relaxed the rule even for Him. Remember this text: Jehovah says to His own Son, "Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession" (Ps. 2:8)

If the royal and divine Son of God cannot be exempted from the rule of asking that He may have, you and I cannot expect the rule to be relaxed in our favor. Why should it be?