Only those who challenge themselves are able to effectively challenge others.

gam·ut n.
1. A complete range or extent: a face that expressed a gamut of emotions, from rage to peaceful contentment.
2. Music. The entire series of recognized notes. [Middle English, the musical scale, from Medieval Latin gamma ut, low G : gamma, lowest note of the medieval scale (from Greek, gamma. See gamma) + ut, first note of the lowest hexachord (after ut, first word in a Latin hymn to Saint John the Baptist, the initial syllables of successive lines of which were sung to the notes of an ascending scale CDEFGA: Ut queant laxis resonare fibris Mira gestorum famuli tuorum, Solve polluti labii reatum, Sancte Iohannes).]

des·cant n.
1. An ornamental melody or counterpoint sung or played above a theme.
2. The highest part sung in part music.

Those who have run the gamut of spiritual experiences know how to sing the low notes.  If all you can sing is the high notes, you may just be ornamental.

Descants are pretty, but they are worthless without the low notes.  Can you apply this to your Christian walk?

Matthew 19:29
And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

Did you hold anything back in your offering to the Lord?

I would warn those who say they are willing to die for the Lord to carefully reconsider their hasty boldness.

John 16:1-4
16:1 I have told you all these things so that you will not fall away.
16:2 They will put you out of the synagogue, yet a time is coming when the one who kills you will think he is offering service to God.
16:3 They will do these things because they have not known the Father or me.
16:4 But I have told you these things so that when their time comes, you will remember that I told you
about them.

The stoning of Stephen and the slaying of James the brother of John by Herod Agrippa I are notable examples of this passage of scripture.  However, it doesn’t stop there, does it?

Those that kill you will think they are doing Elohiym a service.
They are doing their god, their elohiym, a service, but not Elohiym.  Not G-d.

There are those today who kill others in the name of their elohiym.  They will kill you because you are a Christian and not a muslim.  Are you ready for that?  I doubt it.  I doubt it seriously.

On September 21, 2004 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, standing alongside four other masked militants clad in black, personally cut off Eugene Armstrong’s head.  He was not a muslim.  You are not a muslim.  What are you?  You say you are ready to die for the Lord, but I somehow don’t think so.

These people are punks. They are hoodlums who think they are tough. They go around killing people in the name of a god who doesn’t exist.  They have declared war on the Holy Lord G-d Almighty. They have destined themselves to hell.  Are you ready to let them kill you like this because you are a Christian?  Radical muslims seem to be fond of beheading their foes.  Someday, someone will turn the tables.

Click the next page link only if you think you are a strong Christian.

Your pastor may not want to offend you.  Did you ever think about that?

Someday, ask him what he really thinks.  If it is different than what you hear from the pulpit, find a new church.

You may not want to be around when G-d slaps him down.