Joshua Ritchie's "Feed My Sheep"

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Because Christ has reconciled us to God, we have now become ambassadors for Christ. We ARE ambassadors. We represent the Lord and His glorious gospel. We speak His message and bear His name wherever we go. It's what we have been called to.

I thought about this truth heavily the other night when I was treated rudely by a person who walked onto our car lot. This lady and her husband militantly walked onto our lot. I approached them and greeted them courteously. "Hi folks. Welcome. My name is Josh and you are?" My greeting was met with nothing but silence. I didn't even get a look in my direction. They continued militantly walking through our lot...at a fast pace, too. So I hurried alongside them and said, "Hello folks, is there something I can help you with?" This time I got a glance, but no verbal communication. The body language said, "Leave me alone!" But it's kind of hard to do that. That's like somebody walking around on your front lawn at home...it's only right to say, "Can I help you?" I asked her another question, "Can I point you to a certain vehicle?" And finally I got some response! She said, "Where are your PT Cruisers?" The conversation had started. Whew! I was beginning to think they completely hated salespeople. But their reluctant conversations meant they mostly hated salespeople. Lucky me. I smiled and said, "Oh, they're over this way. Let me show you to them." Boy, do I hate sales sometimes.

So anyway, she was walking so fast that I was unable to pass her up and lead her to some cars. I almost had to do the Olympic speed walk that somewhat resembles the Ace Ventura stroll. Know what I mean? But my hips can't move that fast so I followed behind, somewhat prancing along to keep up. But in trailing behind her I noticed that her windbreaker said on the back, "Harbor Welcome Team!" It took about .5 nanoseconds to register in my head that she was probably the member of the greeting team at her church. The joy of irony! Ouch! I just got dirted by what seemed to be a Christian greeter. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was a pastor, so I mischievously asked her what her jacket meant...cause I'm like that. She retorted, "That's my church," and she kept going.

Anyway, I have to say that this was probably one of the rudest guests I've had in a long time. I'm so glad that she didn't run into an unbeliever that night. What a bad ambassador that would have been! How credible does the gospel appear to be from kingdom representatives like that. Yet, I must stop and look at my own life and say, "Is there anything that misrepresents my Lord and Savior?" And the answer is "yes." I, too, fall short of Christ's glory and that is why I need His salvation. And though I sin greatly, my Savior is greater and I am therefore compelled to be a better ambassador for Him. The greater I understand my sin to be, the greater my Savior appears to me, the better ambassador I will be for Him.

Christ has reconciled us to God, not counting our sin against us. Now be an ambassador to the world and ask the Lord for the ability to represent and speak for Him well. Help bring people to the one who can save them. And for the sake of God's glory, be nice to unbelievers...even if they are in car sales.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING A FATHER

This post was written about 9 years ago when Macy was just 6 years old. I found it in my archives and thought I'd share it with you. What a blessing it is to see God's faithfulness almost a decade later.

Today I again had the privilege of reading my daughter the Scriptures. We read the story of the Samaritan woman who met Jesus as Jacob's well. In examining the Scriptures I asked her, "Why do we drink water?" Her six-year-old reply was, "Because if we don't drink water then after a certain time we will die. We need it to live."

I said, "Wow, you're right." I explained the Scripture in which Jesus said that there was a such thing as living water which will cause us to live eternally. So I asked some questions to help her figure out what Jesus was saying.

I asked, "What is it that makes us live forever with God?" She replied, "Believing in Jesus...that Jesus died for our sin and rose again to life."

"So Jesus makes us to live eternally," I replied. My next question was, "What then do you think it means to drink living water and live forever?" She said, "Believing in Jesus."

"Yes!" I said. "But not just believing in Jesus, but believing the truth about Jesus." I went on to explain the rest of the story to her and how it is God who gives us spiritual life so that we can worship Him in spirit and it truth. She was in shock when I told her that there were people who didn't love God and didn't believe the truth about Jesus. She said, "That's crazy that God made this place and they don't believe in Him." I said, "Yeah, they even hate God." It was a blast see her connect with God and His truth.

When we were done, it was time for her to hit the sack. So she hopped up in her bunk bed and it was time to pray. She always asks me to help her pray so I gave her a ton of things that she could pray for and I told her that I'd pray for anything she forgot. Her words were more precious to me than anything I've heard in a long time.

"Jesus, help us to believe the truth about you. Please protect those who get hurt for believing the truth about you."

I don't want to forget moments like these. My memory stinks. So this post is to remind me of the grace of God at work in my child's life.

Lord, save my little girl! Regenerate her litte heart if you have not already done so. Make her an outspoken and unashamed mouthpiece of the gospel. Let her live for Your glory. And when the time comes, let her die in a way that glorifies You. Thank You, Father, for the privilege of raising her. Though I fall radically short of being the perfect dad, work out Your good will in her life and let her always find her highest joy in knowing You. I may fail at a number of things, but let me not fail in leading her to know You. As Your child, Father, I ask these things for my child, for the sake of Your glory!

Monday, July 11, 2016

HOT TOPIC: THE EXTINGUISHING OF RACISM

Sometime God is weaving a wonderful tapestry before our eyes and it's important to take notice of it. The church where I serve has four pastors/elders. By God's providence He has brought together four men from different ethnicities. One of our pastors is of Jewish descent, another is of Lebanese descent, still yet another is of Mexican descent and the other is of European descent.

Four races, one body. Four careers, one Spirit. Four men, one Lord. Four ethnicities, one faith. Four backgrounds, one baptism. Four individuals, one Father. This is not a byproduct of political correctness because none of us sought this out. This is a natural outworking of God's providential work in our church.

When you look at our church you'll see all sorts of walks of life represented, all sorts of races and all sorts of differences. There are some you might consider wealthy or poor. There are most likely democratics, republicans and other parties people are affiliated with. But in Christ we are all united through His loving death, burial and resurrection that brings peace between us and God.

This love shown to us is then shown to others within our church and it is then taken out into the community, or at least it should be that way. Scripture constantly calls us to correct our sinful self-centeredness in order to move forward in Christ's likeness.

In light of recent tragic events in our country our hearts grieved. So we prayed and tried to do our tiny part to make a difference in our community. Last Friday several people from our church fed the Sheriff's department of Victorville to let them know we love them and are praying for them. Sunday, after church, several men went walking around a park handing out free pizzas to families, in the name of Jesus.

To each group we explained that our outward diversity is united in inward transformation due to the loving and saving work of Jesus Christ. And even though we want people to know Christ the way that we do, we know that not everyone will believe in Christ the way that we do. Nevertheless, we still have to live together in this community.

Protests can be helpful. Handing out free food to people who are different than you can be helpful. But only the cross and empty tomb of Christ truly unifies for all eternity.

The reason all human life matters in all stages is because God made us in His likeness. Sin wrecked that image. And Jesus' mission consists of forgiving that sin through the cross and resurrection and THEN giving us His Spirit to live in us to slowly rid us of sinful desires and actions and THEN finally restoring that broken image completely at His 2nd return so that sin will be extinguished in the new creation forevermore.

You see, salvation is more than just rescue from hell--rescue from God's judgment. It's also rescue from ruin, rescue from sin, rescue from Satan.

Those are pretty big things to be rescued from. And those in the church have all that in common and we can look at each other as former 'death row inmates' and say, "Wow, we are all blessed to be redeemed. We have such immeasurable riches in common. Let's work TOGETHER to pass this great news on to others as we love our Savior TOGETHER."

From leadership in our church to those being led, a wonderful tapestry is being knit together around the God-man, Jesus Christ.