Ever Lose Something?
In the movie “Medicine Man,” Richard Campbell, played by Sean Connery, after living for six years in the Amazon jungle, has possibly discovered a cure for cancer. However, they cannot reproduce the results, so Dr. Rae Crane, played by Lorraine Bracco, is sent by the pharmaceutical company they both work for to investigate the matter. Upon arrival, she contends with Campbell’s reluctance to work with a woman. Then the story progresses, and he says he has something that could help the whole world. She asked him, “What is it you think you got?” his reply was, “I don’t think I know.” It was the cure for cancer, and then he says that he lost it, and she questions how he lost it, and his reply is, “Have you ever lost anything, your purse, your car keys, well it’s rather like that, now you have something and now you don’t.”
Some years ago, a few of us Sunday School teachers at my home Church decided to meet and have a time of prayer before the services of the day were to start. We had to be at the Church by 9:00 am to get at least 30 minutes of prayer time in. The choir would practice at around 9:30, and Sunday School would start at 10:00.
We did this for quite a few months, as we met week after week, we would share personal spiritual battles we each were facing, the three of us that met were new at preaching, and I was the only one who had been teaching for more than a year and not yet surrendered to the call to preach. We grew close in those prayer times and even grew closer to God as we shared each other’s burdens.
But, as time went on, and doing the same thing week after week, it sort of just became routine, to me anyway. As I watched my brothers in the faith come in Sunday after Sunday, excited to face the day, and to bring their lessons. I felt as if I was just going through the motions.
One Sunday, as we met, I said I felt as if I had left my first Love somewhere along the way, as the Apostle John was told to write to the Church of Ephesus in Revelation.
Revelation 2:4 “Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works…– unless you repent.” NKJV
To me, my Christian honeymoon, if you will, was over. It was not the same as it was when I first accepted Christ, and in no way was I happy about the situation. I was seeing people happy about their walk with the Lord, and getting excited about serving Him, and I was getting to the point of not feeling anything, and I was not happy about my situation, even a little.
I had gone through a divorce, I had to give up a job that I loved, My pay was cut by thousands, I had seen a young girl that I adored in our Church pass away and had to help with her funeral, I had seen problem after problem and still kept the faith, I lost my happiness, not my Joy in Christ, but my happiness in serving Him was gone. So, have you ever lost anything, your purse, your car keys, well, it’s rather like that, now you have something and now you don’t?
Please don’t get me wrong, it was not the “fake it till I make it” sort of thing. I truly believed everything that I was teaching, and even at that time, I was filling the pulpit regularly. I didn’t lose my belief in Christ, or even believing in His ability to answer prayers. What I seem to have misplaced is my thrill to do these things like I once had.
And as the song by U2 says, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”:
I have climbed the highest mountains; I have run through the fields
Only to be with you. Only to be with you
I have run, I have crawled; I have scaled these city walls
These city walls. Only to be with you,
But I still haven’t found. What I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found. What I’m looking for
He will lift you. Higher and higher
He will pick you up when you fall. He’ll be the shelter from the storm
I believe that he will come. Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one. But yes, I’m still running
You broke the bonds. Loosened the chains
Carried the cross. Of my shame
Of my shame. You know, I believed it.
But I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, where could it be?
Then on February 13-16, 1996. As I sat in the Georgia Dome attending the “Promise Keepers Pastor Conference” with my dear friend, Pastor, and mentor Snyder Turner as we heard from such pastors as Tony Evans, Jack Hayford, Wellington Boone, John Maxwell, Chuck Swindoll, and one of my all-time favorite authors Max Lucado and was closed out by the late E. V. Hill.
The title of the meetings was “Fan into Flames,” and each speaker from one to the next talked about reigniting the fire that is within us. It was just what I needed at the time, and as the services progressed to the next day, Valentine’s Day 1996, I sat with some other 39,000 men who were all pastors and preachers from literally all over the world. And at the time, I was just a “speaker”. I got that title from Snyder because he used it for years before surrendering the call to preach, and I figured if it worked for him, why not me?
And then Pastor Chuck Swindoll took the podium and began to preach, and he preached exactly what I needed at the time. The title of his sermon was “Brokenness: The Fruit of Repentance.” Do you remember our verse in Revelation?
Revelation 2:4 “Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works…– unless you repent.” NKJV
I didn’t lose my first love, I LEFT it. But where and how? And I thought at the time I was a pretty good man. I was working in the Church Choir as their sound man, I was speaking in whatever pulpit I was asked to fill, I ran a Thursday night prayer time for all to attend, I had just finished a three-year run, running Sweet Spirit Bands sound and meeting with them weekly praying and practicing and going all over the state of Georgia to the Youth Detention Centers and seeing hundreds of young people accepting Christ as their Savior.
How, oh how could I have left or even lost my love for Christ? I was doing everything I could to serve him. What else did He want? I was nearly given out from serving Him.
Then, as Chuck Swindoll finished his sermon on repentance, I asked God what I needed to repent of. And then he told me. The song the praise band started singing was “I Surrender All”.
I Surrender All by Judson W. Van DeVenter
All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.
Refrain: I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.
All to Jesus I surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow;
Worldly pleasures all forsaken, take me, Jesus, take me now.
All to Jesus I surrender, make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit, truly know that Thou art mine.
All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power, Let Thy blessing fall on me.
All to Jesus I surrender, Now I feel the sacred flame;
Oh, the joy of full salvation! Glory, glory, to His Name!
Did you get that tag at the end? All to Jesus I surrender, Now I feel the sacred flame;
“Fan into Flame” is the name of the conference. I wanted to feel that sacred flame. I then held my hands up singing All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to Thee; Fill me with Thy love and power, Let Thy blessing fall on me. I surrender all, I surrender all; All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. And the palm of my hands was facing heaven as I was surrendering, and then just like that, my hands turned as if to receive something, and receive I did. Just like that, God said you give Me your time, and you give me your ability, and you give me Praise, and even at times you truly Worship Me, (back to my love for conjunctions) but, I WANT YOU.
Me, what else can I do, in my heart right then God said you must surrender to the call to Preach. Why? I think this speaking thing has been working, or has it? So, during that song, I turned to Snyder and asked why I had to announce a call to preach. Why do I have to tell people? Why can’t I keep going like I have been? And he responded, you know in your heart, but everyone else doesn’t. He said I had to let them know so everyone would know.
E.V. Hill closed the meetings on February 16, 1996, with a sermon titled “The Cross of Christ and the Call,” and I knew, I just knew on that Valentine’s Day that I did surrender all and a call to preach.
A few weeks later, on Wednesday, February 28, 1996, in the Wednesday night service, we were preparing for a revival the next week with the preacher, pastor Reverend Charles Mustion, and on that night, we had well over a hundred people at the service. God really blessed that night, so much so that during the altar call, everyone who was able went down front to pray for God to bless the approaching revival.
And as I stayed at my post in the sound room, making sure everything went smoothly, I felt such a draw of the Holy Spirit to go down front and tell everyone of Valentine’s Day surrender to the call to preach. But I just sat in the sound room, and then I was standing, and then I was pacing, and I prayed to Father God if I should go down, then have them sing one more verse, and much to my surprise, they did. And I didn’t move, then I said Father God, if I should go down, then have them sing just one more verse.
Pastor Snyder then said someone needs to do something, and I can’t get the freedom to close until they do it. And they did, and I went down, and I was standing in the back of the crowd next to my prayer partner Chuck Sprayberry, and he turned and said What are you doing down here? He knew I never left my post unless asked to come down. I said I couldn’t hear, and he said You are the sound man, turn the sound up, as he was laughing.
As I was standing their Pastor Snyder said I am sorry I just can’t close the service because I feel the Spirit saying someone needs to do something, so as they were about to sing another verse of a song, he was looking over the crowd and his eyes locked in on mine, and he just dropped his head and looked at me like, well?
And then he said Well, as he was looking at me, and people started turning to see what he was looking at, and he just held his hands out as to invite me up to the pulpit, and I said Snyder how do you announce a call to preach and I heard my dear friend Margie Sprayberry say it’s about time. And then Snyder said Son, I think you just did. He said that was what we were waiting for.
“I surrender all, I surrender all; All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”
And at that moment, I found what I was looking for. I found what I left, I found what I lost.
I surrendered all of myself to the Lord that day. I had all the Holy Spirit I could get when I accepted Christ as my Savior, but he did not have all of me.
“Have you ever lost anything, your purse, your car keys, well it’s rather like that, now you have something and now you don’t”.
Well, have you? Have you ever lost that happiness in serving the Lord? Ever got so caught up serving Him that you forgot to search for Him in prayer and for his will? Ever got so caught working for Him that you just left Him behind? I hold to what my friend and Pastor Eddie T Rogers used to tell us in prayer meetings for the Sweet Spirit Band:
You have to Search for Him before you can serve Him.
You have to Worship Him before you can work for Him.
From my next book, “More To Ponder”
