Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Larry Osborne, (2009-04-04) from his book, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith (Kindle Location 890). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) A lot of people are very critical of people who choose a church based on what it can do for them. Larry says, “To my thinking, these consumer Christians are the modern-day equivalent of the crowds that followed Jesus. They’re fickle. They flock to the latest and greatest. Many of them don’t get it. Many will abandon ship at the first sign of hardship. While these are hardly admirable traits, they are remarkably similar to the traits found in the people Jesus had compassion for and doggedly pursued for the full three years of his public ministry.” That’s true.   He goes on, “The sinners that Jesus so famously liked to hang around were not hard-core pagans who had never been exposed to God’s Word. The prostitutes, tax

A thought by Larry Osborne, (2009-04-04) from his book, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith (Kindle Locations 958-959). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book) Larry goes on, “He didn’t come to weed out the losers. He came to turn losers, laggards, and enemies into full-on sons and daughters of God.” That is so good to hear.   That is really good news. He then says, “He will judge, and it won’t be pretty when he does. But he prefers to pursue and to forgive. That’s why he cried out on the cross, ‘Father, forgive them, they do not know what they do.’ That’s why he warned the Laodiceans one last time. That’s why he still hasn’t come back in fiery judgment. Jesus is not slow in keeping his promise to return and judge. He’s patient. He doesn’t want any to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.   And that includes the hard-core sinner, the lukewarm, and even so-called co

A thought by Larry Osborne, (2009-04-04) from his book, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith (Kindle Location 841). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book) He knew why God had sent him to the earth.   Larry says, “He didn’t write them off, even though he knew their hearts and the inevitable endgame. He continued to give them undeserved chance after undeserved chance. Certainly, he thinned the herd a time or two, once to the point that so few were left that he asked the twelve disciples if they were going to leave too. But that was not his normal pattern. It was a onetime sermon.” He goes on, “While Jesus wasn’t afraid to say hard things and draw lines in the sand, he didn’t hide out in the wilderness. He went toward the people. He made it easy for them to hear him. He did things designed to draw huge crowds. He even healed people before they made a commitment to follow h