The Silent Christian

Return Oh Israel to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him: Forgive all our sins and recieve us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assria cannot save us; we will not mount warhorses. We will never again say ' Oh Gods' to what our own hands have made, for in You the fatherless find compassion. Hosea 14: 1-3

Have you ever been with another Christian and not one word was mentioned about Christ? Not one thought trickled down from their mind to there mouth? Like a hot coal at a summer camp the fire had faded out.

While we often time spend much of our thoughts concerned with our outside appearance we fail to focus on the inside condition. Our internal combustion for Christ begins with our thoughts and reaches to our heart.

Our desire for Christ in our life begins on the inside and works it's way out. If we make our desires, our wants and our thoughts about Christ on the inside then Christ will flow out of our heart and onto our lips.

But if we spend our time and fill our hearts with selfish desires and self centered ambitions then Christ becomes a name that quickly fades. Like the cousin you meet at a family reunion twenty years later you will find you have nothing in common.

It still amazes me when I think of a Paul or David. Both were isolated and imprisoned. One in a cave and one in shackels. Yet their insatuable hunger, inspite of their circumstances, busted down prison walls and transcended caves.

So walk with me backwards and think of that very moment your heart was on fire for Christ.
Illuminate your mind to the very moment you accepted and believed. God can create a new voice in an old body. He can create a deeper desire and a stronger commitment because we know first hand how we have failed Him.

Larry Crabb in his book Change From The Inside Out describes repentance as " radiacally shifting our motivation and direction from self preservation to trust on the basis of belief that Christ has given and is preserving our life. The fruit of repentance is a changed style of relating that repalcaes self protective maneuvering with loving involvement. The key to all change is returning to God. ... Every effort to change must involve at it's core a shift of direction away from dependence on one's own resourses for life to dependance on God."

Change does not happen until you cry out to Jesus. Change will not occur until you take your aching empty soul and bring it to the cross. When we lay crumpled in a heep at the cross then and only then can God do a good work in you. That broken pile can then be raised up and used again for Christ, by Christ and because of Christ.

As I close these statements tears gently slide down my cheek and drop to my chest. For I was the silent Christian .

Oh to have such desire
like a David or a Paul.
Their hunger for Christ
transcended caves
and knocked down
prison walls.

May we come to the realization
that repentence is our choice.
So come to the cross
and hold my hand
together we will sing with one voice.