We are to be wise in our efforts when reaching out to those who need Jesus. While I believe it is possible for anyone to be saved, there is a spectrum of people we encounter every day who's capacity to hear is unequal. One size does not fit all when talking to the unsaved.
In the American populations this is what the unsaved Spectrum looks like:
1. The Impossibles: Those who are anti the Gospel. Some are avowed proud atheists. Some have been hurt. Some are members of religions who have been taught that the Word of God is not Jesus. Your approach to them must come IF the Holy Spirit instructs you to do so. Like the Saul (Pre Paul) Jesus may appear to them in a dream or in a confrontation. When we try to reach them without this calling of the Spirit, we are not doing good evangelism. Let's figure out what God is doing and follow Him in HIS venture. Sometimes in can result in reaching these impossibles.
2. The Lost Sheep: These are those who may have been brought up in the church. May at one time gone to Sunday School. But for various reasons, sin, loss, anger, frustration, bad teaching, declining health or relationship problems no longer have anything left. Many turn to drugs, promiscuity, bad relationships, violence, crime and some even end up in prison. Some end up homeless. Some end up in poverty. While reaching them in their pain seems to be easy, if the root causes that drew them into this state is not dealt with, your evangelism to these lost ones is going to be a revolving door. It's why working with prison populations is so frustrating. The root must be dealt with FIRST. Our evangelism must begin with healing the pain.
3. The Distracted Apathetic: This group is most difficult to reach. They really don't care. They fill their lives with distractions. Music. Sports. Entertainment. They keep busy at nothing and then they die. Life is stuff and busy. They can be reached in moments of crisis, health, marriage, financial trouble. The problem in converting these is they have no idea what you are talking about. Think the jaywalkers from the Leno show. The people who are cool but profoundly ignorant. The education system and pop culture is their religion. They work but without meaning. Life is aimless. Some even do well financially, but they have no concept that or if there is an Eternal God. The one true way to reach these is find them in crisis and show them that GOD is the way out of their mess.. Unfortunately sometimes in our effort to be relevant and a friend we manage to reinforce their distractions. Our monster truck enthusiasm we feign masks our passion for Jesus which should be contagious.
4. The Lukewarm Semi-Annual Church Attender: These are sometimes Jokingly called Annual members by church leadership. You see them Christmas and New Years. They are marginally more spiritually sensitive than the distracted apathetic. They believe they are going to heaven. Have very strange theologies which include reincarnation, works salvation (I'm a good person) and thousands of new age ideas that warp their minds. Yet twice a year family kicks in. They think they need to go to church, hold a candle and get a warm feeling. These people have no hunger for God. Yet, if the spit hits the fan they will be prepared to pray. They will want some holy man or woman to come see them. They will want to come back. To minister to them and bring them into the fold will take brute truth. They are prepared to hear because deep down they have a respect without commitment. They need to be told the truth, not just about heaven and hell..but about all their family. They are willing to hear... but you will need to be insistent and clear. Lukewarmness is a disease cured only by full on apostasy or the fire of God. The middle ground is death.
5. The Seeker in Church: This is a person who is seeking after something. The Holy Spirit has called them. An empty hole is present in their life. They know it. They will float from church to church. Tune into a Christian TV or Radio program. Will buy and read a book like "Heaven is for Real". Will go to the movie. This is NOT low hanging fruit or easy. They will have a lot of questions. A manifested move of God will cause them to take notice. In truth they are still unbelievers. These are the ones who answer your altar calls. The first four categories aren't going to. The problem for evangelism is what happens after the altar call is answered. Follow up. Discipleship. Integration. Assimilation (resistance MUST become futile). Unless we help the seeker find a real relationship with Jesus and help them come to reality... The Holy Spirit has called these and we are responsible to steward them well.
Unfortunately we spend too much time on the four most difficult, arguing, debating, persuading and in the end as Paul in Athens discovered.. with little affect.
Let's do what we can with those the Spirit of God is Calling and placing in our path.. and allow him to do his work... being available to step in when crisis hits.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Thursday, May 15, 2014
SANTA TIP
I
have not read his children's book series.. but from what I have heard
they are exceptional. I think I know what will be in the grandkids
Christmas stockings. Well done sir...
27,000
Of
these, 36,000 released, 27,000 were serious criminals, 193 homicide
convictions, 426 sexual assault convictions, 303 kidnapping convictions,
1,075 aggravated assault convictions, 1,160 stolen vehicle convictions,
9,187 dangerous drug convictions, 16,070 drunk or drugged driving
convictions, 303 flight escape convictions.
A story from the Garden of Eden I heard the other day:
Eve was wandering around, talking to God. "I love the garden, the animals, the birds, the beautiful flowers, but sometimes I get lonely." God says, "I could make you a man, but I need to warn you, he'll be self centered, clumsy, smell bad sometimes and can be a real pain. But he will be able to open a pickle jar if you need him to." Eve thinks about it and says, "I think that will be OK". God gets busy forming some mud and says, "Oh by the way, he is going to need to think I created him first".
Stupid
Just
so you are prepared, right after the election in November HUGE, I mean
HUGE increases in Obamacare premiums are being scheduled and MUCH higher
deductibles are slated. It's already in. It is amazing that people
thought that free healthcare wouldn't cost anything. It is going to
cost you much more than you ever thought.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101664437
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101664437
Pig Sing
You
can't train a pig to sing. When you try, you waste time for the
trainer and annoy the pig. Such it is with some people who are
constantly in training to do something for which they are never going to
be willing to pay the price to accomplish. This is what happens when
people try to train others to become entrepreneurs. It is much more a
temperament and mindset thing than information and knowledge. In a
thousand people there may be less than 50 who are willing and able to
succeed in an entrepreneurial marketplace. Train the trainable.
Funky Talk
I was
having coffee with a friend in business. He needs to hire people to
take care of customers by phone. Those people will be giving their
credit card numbers. Fairly large amounts. One qualification is the
ability to instil trust and confidence on the phone to remove reluctance
to do the deal.
Here's the rub, he has a big heart. He would love to hire someone from the community to do this job. The problem is language. A strong Spanish accent will not work. A Slavic accent is going to be problematic. An urban sounding person will not make it. That means that unless the person can speak in high english without any discernible dialect at all they are not going to make it. Yet I know many who could never do this.
If Morgan Freeman, Dennis Haysbert and James Earl Jones can speak high english and get paid really well for doing so... I think it might be time for others to unlearn some really bad speaking habits and begin to move up in the world. It might sound cool to you to talk all funky and all.. but you will starve to death being funky.
Learn to properly conjugate verbs. For instance the conjugation of to BE is not BE (I be, he be, she be, they be). I know how easy it is to fall into this. I am around it so much I do this sometimes. It's death in business.
This sounds like criticism, its not, this is a public service announcement is for those who want to make real money in business. It is also for those I care about. I care enough to point this out and encourage diligence. We can do better.
Here's the rub, he has a big heart. He would love to hire someone from the community to do this job. The problem is language. A strong Spanish accent will not work. A Slavic accent is going to be problematic. An urban sounding person will not make it. That means that unless the person can speak in high english without any discernible dialect at all they are not going to make it. Yet I know many who could never do this.
If Morgan Freeman, Dennis Haysbert and James Earl Jones can speak high english and get paid really well for doing so... I think it might be time for others to unlearn some really bad speaking habits and begin to move up in the world. It might sound cool to you to talk all funky and all.. but you will starve to death being funky.
Learn to properly conjugate verbs. For instance the conjugation of to BE is not BE (I be, he be, she be, they be). I know how easy it is to fall into this. I am around it so much I do this sometimes. It's death in business.
This sounds like criticism, its not, this is a public service announcement is for those who want to make real money in business. It is also for those I care about. I care enough to point this out and encourage diligence. We can do better.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Mothers day tribute
This
is the woman, My aunt who took the role as Mother 55 years ago when our
parents were killed in vehicular accident. We were able to stay
together, My brother, Sister and I due to the selfless effort. She is
now 96 years old. Her mother died at
104 so she may be with us for a while if history is any instruction.
She deserves and I give tribute on Mothers day to this good woman, and
her late Husband Earl. Blessings on Mothers Day to Ruth R Redlin.
Liars in Science and the Glaciers
Sometimes
the truth is more difficult to receive than the fiction some of the
liars in the global warming cabal. I remember that we talked of glacial
retreat. Some of that is true... but less than you imagine. Now this
historical record of ice in the north
arctic makes me wonder where they get this stuff. More interesting is
the Antarctic region has never been colder or more frozen than it is
now. Something is fishy here... Smells like rotten Gore. Nice to see
you are back from FLA. The lake missed you. Bet it's a bit cooler than
you thought it would be too. Still 30% ice cover on Lake Superior.
Most ever.
Nothing, it appears, is black and white...
http://nsidc.org/.../why-is-there-so-much-antarctic-sea-ice/
http://nsidc.org/.../why-is-there-so-much-antarctic-sea-ice/
nsidc.org
he seas are NOT rapidly rising anywhere. 6" in the last century... http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/.../sltrends_station...
| Contact Us Even during the Antarctic summer, heavy sea ice conditions are not uncommon. But why was there so much sea ice around Antarctica to begin with, and why was it so thick?
There
is no question that sea ice is greater than a long time in Antarctica.
Not the same as glaciers... but cold none the less. http://wattsupwiththat.com/.../antarctic-sea-ice-at.../
wattsupwiththat.comFrom The Australian, 12 May 2014 Graham Lloyd Antarctic sea ice has expanded to record levels for April, increasing by more than 110,000sq km a day last month to nine million square kilometres. The...
wattsupwiththat.comFrom The Australian, 12 May 2014 Graham Lloyd Antarctic sea ice has expanded to record levels for April, increasing by more than 110,000sq km a day last month to nine million square kilometres. The...he seas are NOT rapidly rising anywhere. 6" in the last century... http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/.../sltrends_station...
tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov
The rate of sea level rise or fall has been determined for long-term U.S. water level stations. Monthly sea level data were used to obtain linear trends, seasonal cycles, and interannual variations.
Glacial retreat seems to have a few flaws in the data -- not so much: http://wattsupwiththat.com/.../melting-by-2035-hardly.../
wattsupwiththat.comWUWT readers may recall that the IPCC famously claimed (using fake data) that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. That date later turned out to be a blunder of epic proportions, requiring a retr..
wattsupwiththat.comWUWT readers may recall that the IPCC famously claimed (using fake data) that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. That date later turned out to be a blunder of epic proportions, requiring a retr..
From
the study that generated the hysteria about Antarctic Glacial Melt. "
If the whole glacier system melts, Joughin says, it would raise
global sea levels about 24 inches (60 centimeters), he adds. The process
will take a while, roughly 200 to 900
years, Joughin and colleagues estimate, depending on how fast
temperatures rise and how much snow falls in the area". That's a
quarter to a whole millennium. A thousand years. HMMMM... 24" A
thousand year timeframe. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/.../140512-thwaites.../
news.nationalgeographic.com
Scientists warn that the Thwaites glacier is sliding into the ocean and adding to sea level rise.
Death of Enterprise
Of
course gun running, drug dealing, theft rings and government employment
(including all government payouts) doesn't count. Only tax paying
enterprises are dying. But who cares.. right?
Sterling might be right
I
heard part of the interview Sterling gave to CNN's Cooper. Here's a
couple of thoughts. Sterling is jealous of Magic Johnson. The girl.
His "racism" is more envy. BUT he asked a question. "What has Magic
Johnson ever done? Famous for being HIV
positive and playing ball. But what has he done for the community". I
decided to do some research to support Magic. I know how to read a
financial statement. Looked at the financials for his foundation. He
is worth five hundred million dollars. His foundation net net net gave
under a hundred grand and that was dubious. Mostly it's an investment
vehicle. I am hoping someone in the community can speak well of what
Magic has ever done. I'm not finding it. Is that old curmudgeon,
Donald Sterling right? http://magicjohnson.org/about-us/overview/
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