Truly

What we seem to be moving toward in the world today, not just in the U.S., but in the world, is a state of verifiability- which isn't a state of faith, at all.  Last year a missionary from America to Czechoslovakia told me that here in the U.S. you have people who claim that the soil is hard to plant seed in (speaking of witnessing) but he said in Czechoslovakia the ground isn't hard, it's cement!  He said people will literally cuss you out in the grossest of terms if you mention God- they are outright in their atheism and want nothing to do with God whatsoever- he said they are a people who have been taught to fear the state, under Communism, and that there is no God, under that same state system, whereas now, there is no Communism, they are a people totally void of caring. He said they need our prayers as the situation there is mirrored all across the continent where Communism once was.  Ever feel empty after a bout with sin- where the force of Satan moves into your life, and then, leaves?  He leaves an empty void if he can, and he leaves it in such a way that God must get your attention to call you back unto faithfulness.  It happens in our lives, as it has happened in their lives in Czechoslovakia; and yet, we want to act as if though such is not the case- but the question is obvious- are we not becoming more and more distant from each other - Christian's now, aren't we less and less intricate in our lives with one another?  How then, are we to pray for what really needs praying for?  If I am afraid to admit my need for prayer from temptations and what those temptations are in my life, to you, then how in the world are we to suppose the power which comes from such love- what love is there if we cannot be open and honest with each other in Christ from whom nothing is hidden?  So that when years from now Jesus reminds us how this time was, will we be guilty of having had "no faith," no vision, no heart and no soul to hear the master asking us to get real?  See and touch and smell have become what we believe in, large numbers of people attending worship how proves to us that such is valid- we are losing the faith in God that God established- and we are turning it over to a systematic denial of faith in the name of reality- where in the land of God is that deemed acceptable?  Where in the land of faith- in God, in His Son, is that the way we are told to act?  You can't see faith- but it is known by what you are, and that is called - love- God is...love.  Can you verify that?  Not and have it be love- love isn't something you ever need to verify- at least, let me say this, Jesus on the cross died that my sins and our sins might be forgiven, in the model prayer Jesus never mentions himself or your, He uses the very specific term we and our, because, loving God won't happen without loving others...and that, you can, in fact, verify.