Conviction...
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 6:27AM 
Greetings, Dear Friends!
To those visiting for the first time, I say welcome!
I post every Wednesday and my purpose is to nourish your soul, encourage your faith, and hopefully inspire you to give God a great return on His investment in you!
I was thinking this week about the power of conviction. It's one thing to have a strong set of moral values which is as important in our day as it has ever been. We are called by God to become more and more like Christ in every way. We cannot become like Christ without spending extended amounts of time with Him. A good way to know if we are on track is to pay attention to our moral compass. Are we more compelled toward honesty and integrity now than we were last year? Moral values are the framework of a godly life. Something else happens though, when we spend much time in the presence of God. We begin to care about the things He does. Our hearts break for the things that break His heart. We cannot be long in God's presence without acquiring a conviction to make a difference in our world.
To me, morals speak of boundaries in our personal lives while convictions speak of a firm belief that we have a responsibility to do something about the needs God puts before us.
Of course we can't meet every need that comes our way, nor are we supposed to. But each of us has a capacity to use our influence in order to make an impact.
We all have varying spheres of influence - people who love us, look to us, and want to hear what we have to say.
If a news reporter approached the people in your circle and asked them, "What does he/she care about? What moves her? To what need does he sacrificially give?" What would they say?
This is not to say that we jump in to a "cause" all at once without first being led by the Lord. I think God works continually, shaping our thinking and preparing us for His purposes. He takes us by the hand and leads us gradually into the water. But soon we find ourselves swimming in the depths with Him where without His faithfulness we would surely drown!
I am there, and I've never been more alive in my faith than I am now!
In his compelling book, "Terrify No More" author and IJM President Gary Haugen writes,
"I grew up with a great love for reading history, and I used to wonder, How would I have fared in the great moral struggles of the past? Would I have been on the right side? Would I have acted with courage? Would I have made my grandchildren proud?"
He later quotes Edmund Burke who wrote this powerful statement about two hundred years ago,
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
If I could quote Gary one more time, he asks the question why good men and good women do nothing when the need in our world is so great? He answers this way:
"As I consider this question, I find three deep sources of poverty that conspire to keep me and my good neighbors on the sidelines in the great struggle against evil: a poverty of compassion, a poverty of purpose, and a poverty of hope."
Have we become inoculated from caring about the struggles that exist in our world today?
May there be a revival of compassion, of purpose, and of hope in our own hearts!
Each year one million girls are shipped across international borders in the human trafficking ring. They are violated anywhere from ten to fifty times every day - with the youngest being five years old!
Once every three minutes a brother or sister in Christ is tortured and/or executed for their faith.
One in five people live on less than a dollar a day. Millions are starving and millions are infected by HIV/AIDS.
Look again at the gospels. Jesus gravitated toward the poor, the homeless, the orphan, and those considered to be the world's throw-aways.
Jesus said that to the extent we minister to the needs of the least-of-these, is the extent that we minister to Him.
We have the privilege of ministering to Jesus in our day!
I am convinced that the Lord has deposited within us great gifts - some ready made to use - others in need of honing and crafting - but gifts nonetheless. And if you read the Scripture, you'll notice that God is intent on a great return on His investment (I recently Blogged about this subject).
We are given gifts to affect our sphere of influence. We are given influence that we might make a powerful impact.
And as you know, we cannot out-give God.
What about you?
To what cause are you called to sacrificially sow into? Is it hunger, AIDS, life, human trafficking, the widow, the prisoner, the fatherless?
We are blessed to be a blessing.
We cannot carry a portion of the burden on God's heart, without Him faithfully and lovingly carrying us.
May God richly bless you as you tend to the needs in your world!
Until next week...
Reader Comments (3)
It was a pleasure to meet you last week at the Set Apart Conference. Thank you so much for sharing your gift of encouragement through your message "Intimacy with God." Your message was a great reminder of God's deep,deep love for us. As you invited us to do the listening prayer I heard God telling me a message similar to what your posted message says...that we are blessed so that we can be a blessing to others. When we are obedient to our call, we find we receive the best God has for us. And most often obedience involves stepping out in courage and conviction to the very issues God has put in our heart to be the most passionate about.
Thank you for blessing me.
"Morality may keep you out of jail, but it takes the blood of Jesus Christ to keep you out of hell." Charles Spurgeon