Monday, July 24, 2023

We Fight Against the Devil

The modern church relies way too much on what people say rather than how they live their lives.
Our actions do speak louder than words. And, words are easy and cheap, actions reveal ourselves while words can be cover-ups for hypocritical lives.
There is an old saying; "your actions speak so loud I can't hear a word you are saying", I can relate to this more and more as we navigate through this world in these end days.
Matthew 12:36
"I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,"
Every words that is not supported by actions are lies. Every time someone uses words without any actions to prove the words they are revealing their hypocrisy.
The only Words that have power are the words of God in the Bible. The words of human beings are not powerful and often speak lies when they declare they are a Christian but have no more regard for the Word of God than they do any novel on the shelf of a bookstore.
It is common to feel and speak things without a lifestyle to prove it is true.
1 Corinthians 1:18
"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
Those who say they love others but gossip and lie against God speaking the opposite of what God says are not born again, but pretenders who "say" they are Christians but have no interest in seeking Christ for His wisdom, searching the Bible for His truth.
Those who are of this ilk often accuse believers of judging others when they speak the truth of God to remain faithful to the Word of Christ.
The "don't judge" mantra is a tool on the pretender's belt to intimidate into silence those who love the truth.
Another mantra that is common among pretenders is "you are legalistic." This is an attempt to shame believers into silence. These pretenders do not understand that following God's commands is not legalism. Following man's rules that God never made is legalism.
As soon as we see these two phrases used we can be sure we are encountering a pretender. Those who know the Word of God do not take these phrases out of context to discourage a believer. Those who are pretenders use the Bible out of context against the truth.
Anger is another tool on the pretender's belt. Anger emerges quickly when the pretender doesn't want to hear the truth. Rather than receiving truth humbly to discover their error and change their own heart, they fight bitterly to defend what is not true.
1 Corinthians 1:18
"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
Those who love Jesus Christ and authentically walk in His shoes want to know that God thinks and enjoys learning something from God's Word that they had not yet discovered.
Because of the glut of pretenders in the churches today God is allowing them to infiltrate a dead church while spreading their false gospel and every other false teaching.
Amos 8:9-13. "I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord."
We don't have to be a part of all this apostasy, we can carry on deeply in the Word, seeking wisdom from Christ in us, and be unaffected by the pretenders who come against us.
We can remain calm without taking any of it personally, returning kindness for rudeness and rejecting any attempts to cause frustration and anger in us. The devil wants us to become weak in our walk and witness. DON'T LET HIM TO IT.
1 John 4:4
"4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world."
Remember too that all those people who are pretenders are not doing their own thinking, it is the devil whom we fight against.

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