a view to His majesty in Yungar, Peru


Having the privilege of spending much of the summer in the mountains of Peru is significant to me. I would prefer to be in the mountains over any other venue. Many love the beach...I love los montanas.

The intense beauty of His creation found me in awe of my God. I could not walk around these mountain villages without giving Him praise. Simultaneously, His Word washed through my mind. To paraphrase, if we do not give Him praise the rocks will cry out.

These rocks seemed close to doing so. The lostness of these people who live in His beauty and yet know Him not, is astounding. Many times the students wept and asked, how can these people say "no" to Christ when they dwell in a place where His creation is on such display?

They are right.

The truth is, we do so here as well. We live in a culture where many say they know Him, yet seem to care far less about His Lordship and desire above all, to be comfortable. Comfort equates to selfishness. Most all of us choose the comforts we can attain in our society over some element of suffering for Him.

When I returned from Peru this summer, I became aware of a half dozen young couples who are pursuing divorce. My heart breaks for each and every one. All of them are believers.

The things of this world and having our needs met in ways that are unique to us become more important that keeping Him the focus of our lives. All of us would do many things in a much different way if He were truly our Lord.

The way we spend our money and our time would reflect His glory instead of self indulgence. I see so many who refuse to ever involve themselves in any form of missions here or overseas, yet go on extravagant vacations, believing they are owed such things.

I have nothing against vacations. My concern is that we have become blind to the things God calls us to do and ignore the lost an dying of this world while maintaining higher and higher levels of personal comfort.

It comes down to priorities. There is far more fulfillment in seeking and serving our Creator than there will ever be in spending more money or time on things we find necessary that contribute nothing to the Salvation of he lost.

We exist for His glory! We live like our glory was at stake and that we may die tomorrow, so we've gotta squeeze all we can materially out of life.

We deserve nothing but death for who we are and what we have done. Yet by His grace we live. Our salvation is a gift from Him. He died that we might have life.

Our response is to spit in His face, caring less about his sacrifice while sacrificing to spend more on things that will be consumed in His fire upon that Day.

When will we open our eyes to what our focus needs to be? When will we walk out our obedience to the King of Kings? We will have to give account for these things in our lives. We need to begin to live like that day is coming. We need to begin to love.

We cannot buy our way into His presence.

Those observing Christianity in the US from the outside would believe that a relationship with God is about spending extravagant sums of money on beautiful buildings that we call church, coming there to meet together in superficial emptiness, having no impact on the community around us, and scarcely meeting the needs of anyone along the way.

Then we wonder why others don't want what we have?

Many of us walk around in anger or bitterness, forgetting that the Word compels us not to allow such a seed to take root. We have learned that our own needs supersede any other happening around us. We will meet the need of another after we have gotten what we deserve. Since none of us ever seem to get what we deserve (from our own point of view) we do nothing to meet the needs of others.

The enemy has gained such a great victory while we relish our comfort and selfishness or the pursuit of the same.

Who cares?

Most of us are too busy to.

What are we busy doing? Little about meeting the needs of others, in love.

When do we awake from this sleep of lethargy and hypocrisy?

Time is running out.

It's time to put Him first!

dad