night light

My light burns longer than everyone else in my family and tonight I needed to share two things.
One is that I have recently begun praying this psalm for the youth in Rochester:

12May our sons in their youth
be like plants full grown,
our daughters like corner pillars
cut for the structure of a palace;

Oh, that God would raise up the young men and women in my youth groups and use them to spark a great revival of hearts and minds in Rochester. I pray that the baby-boomers would see the great love of Christ dwelling richly in the youth and that their hearts would be quickened to that same joy and love.

The second is related to the first...it has to do with evangelism (which must occur to see our sons and daughters grow). Below is a quote found in The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever (which is a great easy read. no theological jargon. no hard to read statements...just down to earth writing in about 115 pages). The quote is by John Stott:

The invisibility of God is a great problem. It was already a problem to God's people in Old Testament days. Their pagan neighbors would taunt them, saying, "Where is now your God?" Their gods were visible and tangible, but Israel's God was neither. Today in our scientific culture young people are taught not to believe in anything which is not open to empirical investigation. How then has God solved the problem of his own invisibility? The first answer is of course "in Christ." Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. John 1:18: "no one has ever seen God, but Bod the only Son has made him known." "that's wonderful," people say, "but it was 2,000 years ago. Is there no way by which the invisible God makes himself visible today?" There is. We return to 1 John 4:12: "No one has ever seen God." It is precisely the same introductory statement. But instead of continuing with reference to the Son of God, it continues: "If we loves one another, God dwells in us." IN other words, the invisible God, who once made himself visible in Christ, now makes himself visible in Christians, if we love one another. It is a breathtaking claim. The local church cannot evangelize, proclaiming the gospel of love, if it is not itself a community of love.

So, let us take up the charge of evangelizing our youth by being a community of love so that God, the invisible, is displayed. And then, then...we will see the fulfillment of our prayer that God would make our sons and daughters like pillars and full-grown trees.

-joe