Prayer thanks for September 12,13, 2008
I just wanted to send a quick note to thank you for praying about the last weekend in Maxwell, Nebraska.
I am always asked the question, “So how did it go?” to which I normally respond, “I don’t really know. I think it went well.” I cannot help but answer that way because my ability to see, like yours, is not so good. I cannot see well into the hearts of people, though I think I am developing the ability to see pain and brokenness better than before. I am encouraged though by Paul’s words when he writes, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.”
I had the privilege of giving two talks, the first one on the supremacy of Christ over all things (including sex) and the second one on strategies for fighting for sexual purity. I recorded them both and would be happy to send you a copy if you’d like.
If you could, please continue to pray for the men who came. I cannot help but think that whatever movement up the mountainside of God’s glory was experienced will be and is being challenged in the life of every guy who attended. If the glory of Christ is shining just a little more brightly in the hearts and minds of these men, illuminating the valleys of sexual darkness in their more “odious colors,” that is sure to be resisted and is being resisted. The flesh, the world and the devil wants us in the valleys where moss grows well in the absence of light. Christ will not have it so, and as His little brothers and sisters, we should not want it so. Pray that the fresh mountain air of Christ’s presence would so continue to put guy’s taste buds’ out of joint for the inferior pleasures of sexual adultery, whatever form and degree it takes.
Through this process I have come to think that so much of the freedom to really live comes from the continual fight against the entitlement mentality we all have and the general lack of a theology of suffering we Americans live with. In combination these two are deadly.
Finally, thank you to everyone who also contributed financially. We were blessed to have Desiring God www.desiringGOD.org come forward and give us two tremendous resources at a greatly reduced cost, and it was good to buy 5O books and 30 CDs and see them gone!
IN HIS GRIP,
Marty
Hello prayer partner,
Just a short note asking you to pray for an upcoming venture;
When Paul sent me the draft of the fifth chapter of his book, entitled Pity Party, I was extremely impressed.
On Friday February 29, 2008 my friend Paul Lanier died, finally succumbing to Lou Gehrig’s disease, after a nine year battle.
Hello fellow pilgrim,
Just a short note to ask you to pray for two opportunities this week;
Wednesday night (tomorrow) at 8pm I will be speaking to a group of 30-40 high school aged people in Dwight, NE. I will be addressing the issue of sexual purity. Please pray for clarity as I continue to develop what it is that the Lord has me to deliver. Please pray for the preparation of the soil that will meet the Living and Active Word, and pray for radical transformation. Pray that the Holy Spirit will come like rain on what I expect will be a lot of parched earth.
This Saturday, March 1 at 12 noon central time, FCA’s national radio program, Sharing The Victory will air a show on FM 88.5 that will counter the pervasive pornographized vision of sexuality so dominant in our culture. Back in December Ron Brown and I had a conversation about the issue, and portions of that interview will be featured, along with words of exhortation from others in the sporting world. There is obviously rampant licentiousness all over the place, and nowhere more so than in the entertainment industry of which athletics is a big part.
Please pray that the Lord would come with power on everything that is said, and that the hope for freedom from enslavement to sexual bondage would shine like a bright, irresistible and incinerating laser through everything that is said, and that those fighting the good fight would fight all the more vigorously and encouragingly, understanding more about what is at stake.
Thanks.
Marty
Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who was praying for last Sunday, both for Sunday morning itself and also for the days leading up to it.
It is hard writing a Year-In-Review letter without being offensive on the one hand by cutting a lot of good stuff out, or by including all those elements that meant much to us and having a small book as a result. With that in mind I proceed.
May the rocks and mountains of Your word cause waves from the vast ocean of Your grace to wash up so far onto the shores of our thinking and our deepest heart affections, destroying, drowning and carrying away all the deadwood in its path, leaving only the sweet sand of Your Holy Spirit’s presence. So ravish us tonight Almighty Christ.
Would like to ask you to pray for clarity regarding an upcoming preaching opportunity at Trinity Baptist Church in Lincoln, NE at 9:30am, November 11th. Have not yet decided on the text(s) nor the subject, but am leaning most heavily towards, “The Christian and Suffering; ‘Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trial of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness…” James 1
Please pray for clarity in the coming days, and for power on the 11th.
Thank you.
Marty