Shat terd

An Open Door

I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Revelation 3:8

When I look back over the years, I am amazed at what I see. The verse above was written to the church in Philadelphia. It was the only church in which Jesus did not say "I have something against you" It represents the true church of our day. We need to remember that the church is not mortar and stone. It is the people....anyone who has trusted the LORD for salvation. In a real sense, it does not include just our churches, but it includes the "para church ministries too. I believe it includes Shattered Men. Although I may end up posting this in SM, and on the website, I am writing this mostly to encourage the Shattered Men leadership.

The church of Philadelphia is a missionary church. Its purpose is not to entertain or make people feel good. This coming Oct. Shattered Men will be ten years old. Our purpose has never been just to make people feel better either. Many churches today want people to feel better. Most of the mega churches I believe fall into this classification. In reality, they are the apostate church of Laodicea we read about starting in Rev 3:14. They do not preach the Cross nor do they call sin...SIN. People just make mistakes and a loving GOD will forgive everyone.

"I know thy works" Jesus knows the thoughts of our hearts.

"I have set before thee an open door" This door is a door to present the Gospel of our LORD. It is the only message that will make any lasting difference. If someone were to tell me they would provide lawyers, counselors, social workers offices and everything else to assure that every loving parent would have full access to their children, that every one that came to Shattered Men would have total happiness for the next one hundred years BUT we could never talk about JESUS again, it would not take me a second to say NO! Not even a second! God has given us an open door to tell hundreds and thousands that Jesus loves them in a time when they may be more willing to listen then ever before. He has opened the door to tell men and women that no one else cares about and I will NOT let that chance slip out of our hands.

"and no man can shut it: Over the last several years, we have seen many attempt to shut this door...but it is still open. I believe it is open wider then ever before. Many have joined and told us it was "too religious" Many suggested toning it down. One person even tried to destroy Shattered Men literally. Not only did they delete the group at one time, before that, someone did delete the website yet at that time, we had perhaps a dozen pages on it. Now we have well over a thousand. We have been having around 600 a month look at the First Step and although I do not for one moment think all of these are honestly seeking, the seed is being planted and it is certainly many more then when the website had a dozen pages. Still others have come to SM as real Bible thumpers which would only drive people away....but still no one has been able to shut this door to the gospel that some will listen to because we do listen to them.

"for thou hast a little strength" This is not talking about how many muscles we have. Just as many of you attend a church with a few members and not these mega churches....I fully contend that these few are doing far more with the Gospel then several of these mega churches put together. Sometimes when I have been discouraged I have had people come to me to remind me that they believe that literally thousands are being helped through Shattered Men. The numbers are not important...what is important is that many are coming to the LORD that would never have done so without GOD's blessing on this ministry and on you!

"and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name."

The word....is to go into the world to preach the Gospel. This is why I promised the LORD that I would never speak in any public place without presenting the Gospel of our LORD in context with what is going on with that group. We can not deny our LORD. HE is the only reason Shattered Men exist. He is the only reason WE exist.

We may have few members compared to some other groups...but little is much...when GOD is in it...but then if GOD were not here...there would be no reason for SM to be here either.

I do thank God for each one of you. I do not want to be here just for the members of SM, I want to be used to help each of you to be all that God wants you to be too and I trust that the same applies to each of you that if you see me failing in some way, you will let me know