Today at NACS I got to visit with Stephen Baldwin for all of 30 seconds. Mr. Baldwin was working in the Hit Me Shots booth which featured celebrity poker for most of the day. The Hit Me Shots booth is right in the middle of a number of products that feature highly sexually suggestive marketing. I heard one person comment that the area was more like Sodom and Gomorrah.
After listening to Baldwin pitch Hit Me Shots, I tried to figure out what I was going to say. I asked Stephen about his thoughts on being in an environment like this in light of his work with I am Second. I was hoping to talk to him more about his faith in Christ, but Baldwin quickly replied that it is “all about being in, not of” (1 John 2:15-17). He then proceeded to tell me to buy his book The Unusual Suspect on Amazon and read his testimony.
He then was gracious enough to pose for the picture with me. That said, the brief conversation left me with a weird vibe. I am not trying to question Baldwin’s salvation. It’s just that I came away with a product pitch and not the Good News of the Gospel of Christ.
The brief encounter leaves me thinking that I really need to take head to Peter’s admonition to “always be prepared.” How about you, are you ready to share the Good News that Christ saves sinners like you and me?
Missions keeps coming up again and again this summer for me. Is God telling me something?
After hearing John Piper speak on Let the Nations Be Glad (part 1 | part 2) at Advance09, I set out to read Piper’s book of the same title Let the Nations Be Glad!. I am currently reading the 3rd chapter.
Chase Oaks Church has an active Ethiopian Project. Additionally, this past weekend I learned that a couple in our LifeGroup is looking at missions work in India.
The Big Picture of lost Muslims celebrating Ramadan saddens me. These Muslims need the Gospel more than we need to fear jihad. Their population is growing faster than most of the world and they will dominate Europe before I reach retirement age. Who will bring the message to them?
I am not a pastor and I am not at Desiring God’s 2009 Pastors Conference, but that doesn’t mean I can’t follow along. After watching the Stars defeat the Flames last night, I listened to the first two messages by Mark Dever and Matt Chandler.
Having just finished Dever’s The Gospel and Personal Evangelism and now these messages. Wow. All I can say is that I am convicted. Convicted at how little I am doing to share the Gospel with those around me. I pray God’s Spirit will move me to be more bold in sharing the Good News.
Look, can you think of any reason why we would want God’s judgment to seem less terrible to sinners? …do you want to make sinners…feel better about their rebellion?
Friends, I find words fail me in trying to describe how bad hell must be….
As preachers of the Gospel, we have no business trying to make God seem just or fare or more humane to unbelievers who are in rebellion against Him.
Jesus did not preach a “don’t worry” Christianity. He preached a be worried—you need a savior! When you are in God’s universe, the most important thing is to know how God feels about you.
The Puritan minister Daniel Burgess said, “My father in all his letters used to write to me, ‘O, child, better never born than not new born.’”
Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life was the spark that led me to rename this blog “The Unwasted Life“. My life, unwasted? Not yet, but I press on for the “already perfected” life that awaits. However, I know that one day I will meet my Savior and then the “not yet” will be gone.
