Are We The 95%

Are We the 95%

10/4/2012

Take your Bibles if you would and turn to James chapter 1… starting in verse 19…

I actually did not plan it this way… but we are going to begin this message basically… where we ended the message 2 weeks ago…

James 1:19–27 (NIV84)

19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does………..

26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

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I want to tell you… that the last two weeks have been some of the best two weeks… the cottage prayer meetings… the messages… the way God is working in lives… the way God is working in MY life…

… but I also have to say… the last two weeks… have also been some of the most difficult… the way the enemy… Satan… has been attacking.

…… I am ashamed to say it… but I got a whole lot more this week in MY life… then I expected…. God has used Brother Raymon in tremendous ways… through the messages… but also through the times we spent just talking…

As Brother raymon said this week…something I have said to others… but God used it so much in my life this week…. When Brother Raymon said “the walk is more important than the work”

I have spent more time in the word just sitting at the feet of Jesus than I have in a long time…

O I spend hours every week studying… but I assure you… that’s not the same as soaking in God’s word.

I have written more in my personal prayer journal this week than I have in my 10 year tenure here at Midway Baptist Church…

… I have spent more time in personal prayer this week than I have in a while…

I don’t want to be part of the 95 percent of Christians who spend less than 30 seconds a day in prayer…. and I don’t want to be part of the 95 percent of pastors who spend less than 90 seconds a day in prayer to God…

….During my personal time with the Lord this week… he laid heavy on my heart… that 95%...

I get a lot of illustrations or ideas from other sources… like many pastors do…

But this week…. God has clearly laid this one on my heart… stemming directly from the statistics that brother Raymon gave us…

I want us to focus again on verse 22 ….

22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

DO WE WANT TO DO WHAT GOD’S WORD SAYS?

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I wonder if you remember the occupy movement… they just celebrated their one year anniversary not too long ago…

You know… occupy wall street… occupy Portland… occupy Cleveland… I guess there was an occupy almost every major city… but it started with wall street… as a group of people took over a park in New York city…

There slogan is… “we are the 99%”

I think they are ridiculous… I don’t agree with ANYTHING they have to say…

I went on their web site this week and its comical… but also sad…

Seeing interviews and reports and reading their website… you see what they are doing…

Many of them quit their jobs so they could spend more time protesting the fact that they don’t have as much money as someone else does…

They would repeat after each other… supposedly so everyone could hear…

It was funny watching it… one person would say “we are here today”… then they would pause… and wait on the entire crowd to say… “we are here today”…

But… they didn’t have a clue WHY they were there… everyone had a different idea… nobody knows what they stand for… they say they are leaderless and they like it that way…. But they are so lost…