[This is the second part of sister Debora L’s sharing from her topmost enjoyment in the recent young people’s conference in Lipowiec, Poland. Read the first part here – the creation as a picture of our need for growth in life (sharing from the yp conference in Poland)]
What made a great impression on me were the verses like James 4:4 “Adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever determines to be a friend of the world is constituted an enemy of God”. Also, see 1 John 2:15, 2 Cor 6:14-18, 1 Cor 15:33, and Psa. 1:1-2.
We cannot be neutral – we either are on God’s side or we are on the world’s side. By choosing what is apparently good we could loose God. I think that what the brothers shared with us in this conference has made us sensitive to the matter of friendships in the world.
We are not strong enough to pull our friends out of the fall; it’s more likely that they will pull us down. We need to realise what we are fighting for today! We’re not fighting for friendships but we are fighting for their lives! The only way to save our friends is to preach the gospel to them.
But we need to do everything in order for them to receive the Lord. Saints, we need to be burdened and do everything we can to bring our friends to salvation. “You knew that I am going to end like this … why didn’t you tell me?” – they can tell us… Is this what we want? Let us speak to them! This is so easy!
There are so many ways of preaching the gospel! They may mock us or ignore us – but let us just speak to them – we are doing this for the Lord, and it is the Lord who will hold us accountable for this. Prayer, prayer, and prayer! 🙂
We also need to remember that, when God created man, He desired man to simply love Him! We were pondering upon the question: “Do you think that God is attractive? Why?” Out of our conversations about this we came to the conclusion that God is attractive to us because He loves us in a special way. Nobody in the world can love us in the way God loves us! Only the love of our Lord is unchanging.
A serving sister asked us, if we have tasted the Lord in such a way, why don’t we open to the Lord and talk to Him? Dear saints, when we are filled with anger, when we are sad or when we need advice – who do we go to? Do we run to our best friend, or do we go to the Lord?
I know one thing – by going to the Lord, by opening our heart to Him, by pouring everything out before Him, even by shouting at Him when being at odds with Him, we can gain Him more! Let’s do it! Let’s try at least once not to seek the help of a man but the help of God! He will not reject us!
That’s why He gave us the emotions. He wants to hear us and He wants us to speak to Him! He wants us to cry out to Him and reveal all our grievances before Him. He will hear us, then give us a cuddle and a kiss, then He will rock us. The only thing we will hear from Him is that He loves us! Isn’t that wonderful? Will we go to anyone else to pour out our heart after this kind of conversations with the Lord? Surely not! The Lord is someone greater that just a friend!
I also enjoyed the vision that we should be like “someone who walks with crutches”. Before we do anything, be it answering the phone, or getting to our desk to do something, the first thing we need to do is to “take the crutches to avoid falling” and then take our first steps. Before we make any decision we need to turn to the Lord! Amen! Before doing anything we need to cry out to the Lord: O Lord Jesus! 🙂
God wants us to love Him, to be open to Him, let Him live in us, and He wants to reveal Himself through us! For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.
We need to be desperate for the gospel!