Through the events of 9-11, recent hurricanes and the 2004 presidential election,
Henry Blackaby said he believes God is trying to get America’s churches
to turn back toward him.
Through the events of 9-11, recent hurricanes and the 2004 presidential election,
Henry Blackaby said he believes God is trying to get America’s churches
to turn back toward him.
“So far, we’re not being the salt God intended us to be,” said
Blackaby, president of the Atlanta-based Blackaby Ministries International.
“And this election helped us to understand how divided the nation is or,
to put it another way, how little influence we’ve had on affecting the
morality of the nation.
“I believe that we cannot ignore what God is trying to say to us,”
Blackaby said during the closing address of the recent Louisiana Baptist Convention.
“But in this time I want to talk to you from a very, very significant
word from God that his grace is sufficient for us.”
Citing 2 Cor. 12:9-10, Blackaby asked LBC messengers questions that examine
why God’s grace is sufficient for them.
• Has the cross lost its power?
Blackaby noted that when he first began missions work in Canada, his family
experienced a difficult time. They had little money, his wife was expecting
their fifth child and he felt led not to work in order to remain at home with
his wife and to care for their children.
Blackaby said the cross that enabled him to get through those trials still
has not lost its power. “That’s the same cross that brings victory
over sin so that sin never again has dominion over me, whether it’s in
my own life or from the outside,” he said. “I can always experience
the power of the cross.”
• Can God’s cross and the power of the cross keep marriages together?
During his 30 years of serving as a pastor, Blackaby said only one couple divorced
in his church.
“I became absolutely convinced that the grace of God provided in the power
of the cross came keep marriages together,” he recalled. “(The couples
with marital problems) just needed me to help them to know how to appropriate
it.”
• Has the power of the resurrection in Louisiana been diminished today?
“Louisiana needs to see the evidence of the power of the resurrection
being lived out in our lives personally, in our families and in our churches,”
Blackaby explained. “That power is still incredibly present and available.
God’s grace and the resurrection is available to us.”
• When Christ ascended into heaven, what was one of his major assignments
on Christians’ behalf?
Blackaby said Christ makes intercession on behalf of all believers, and the
grace of God is sufficient in the intercession of Christ alone.
“Intercession on your behalf is a present reality,” he noted. “You
don’t have to hope it will be in the future. You don’t have to look
back and see how it was in the past.
“The intercession of the living Christ at the right hand of your father
on your behalf is in place.”
Blackaby said the intercession of Christ makes a difference in one’s family.
This was evident in that all five of his children serve in full-time ministry
roles, he said.
Blackaby also noted that the intercession of Christ is available if a person
examines his or her own circumstances.
“Every solitary circumstance has already been taken care of by the grace
of God,” he said. “His grace is sufficient for you, and you need to
appropriate what God has made available to you in your personal life and in
your pastoring.”
• Have Christians ever faced a situation where they did not have the wisdom
to know what to do?
“His grace has provided his wisdom,” Blackaby said. “He said
all you have to do is ask, and I’ll give it to you.”
When faced with a situation that is out-of-control, Blackaby said persons should
tell God that they do not have a clue of what to do and ask him for the wisdom
and scriptures to persevere.
“Pastor, let me tell you (that) you’re going to get into hundreds
of situations where you’re at your utter weakness,” Blackaby said.
“But it’s at your weakness that his power can rest on you. You need
to appropriate what God has already provided.”
• Is there any evidence in a Christian’s life, by the way God is
working in a believer’s life, that Pentecost has not lost its power?
“We need to become the evidence that the power of God is still available
to this generation,” Blackaby urged.
“You have available to you all the resources of God right now. Every promise
God has given is a present tense yes. Now, are you becoming the demonstration
of that before a watching world?”
Blackaby maintained that the reason the United States fails to respond when
Christians share the gospel is they are looking for some example in believers’
lives that Christ is real.
It was just that way when Christ declined to remove the Apostle Paul’s
problems problem so that his own grace and power and presence would be clearly
made known, Blackaby explained.
“You need to understand there is no situation under any condition that
you face that the provision of God is not already in place, available, ready
to be dispensed in your life,” he emphasized.
Blackaby closed his message with a challenge to the convention.
“May it be seen across the nation and around the world that in your utter
weakness, you have appropriated and received into your lives and into your convention
the grace of God, which is sufficient for every situation,” he urged.