Things are beginning to look up, at least a little bit, for the band program here! We had a pep rally on Tuesday and I am still getting compliments from teachers. The high school marching band is sounding a lot better at this point in the year than they did last year also. It is very encouraging to see some progress happening, slow though it may seem.
My heart breaks for the lost people in this city. I am grieved that so many of them are surrounded by churches and yet are so lost. It makes me wonder what kind of power the Church here has when you can’t practically drive down a street without passing two or three church buildings. And for all of that, there is so much drug use and alcoholism and others kinds of addictions and sins that are so very prevalent in this place. It is as if there is a complacency within the hearts of the men and women in the church here. Why is there such apathy? Christ is not a private kind of thing, He is everything.
Paul wrote, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one” (Colossians 4:6). Should not our very lives be an outward expression of our great love for Him? Should not that wonderful mercy be so explosive that it touches people even without knowing it? Should not the Holy Spirit living in us be so compelling that people want to be like us? As Keith Green wrote:
People smile at me and ask me what it is
That makes them want to be just like I am.
So I just point to You and tell them, “Yes it’s true,
I’m no special one, I’m just one man.”
It’s because of You…
I want so desperately for that to happen in my own life. I have had some kids come up to me and talk to me about this kind of stuff, and every time that happens, I am amazed at God’s grace. I want for that to happen more. I want to be able to have the opportunity to tell people about Jesus in a way they never knew before, and see their hearts transformed and their eternal destinies changed in a moment! That would be so cool. Lord, open to me the door to see lives changed and help me to seek first the Kingdom of God and Your righteousness!
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