Friday, April 30, 2021
Futile in Their Thinking?
Psalm 19:1-2 "The heavens tell of the glory of God;
And their expanse declares the work of His hands.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge."
Romans 1:19-21 "…19 For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.…"
We are living in times when mankind is acting just as they did in the times of Noah and Lot. Everything the leaders do is irrational and "ragingly insane." Their actions and decrees make no sense in terms of improving the culture but they think it does because total freedom to do whatever "they" want is the goal.
When we come along to say that the freedoms that are being protected are harming others we are labeled radicals and demeaned as fanatics.
When a culture gets to the point of "raging insanity" it will not improve or heal. The generation that promotes all these wicked WAYS of Thinking the next generation takes the foolishness to the next level. There is also brainwashing that happens in which it is impossible for the culture as a whole to think for themselves as individuals. In order to be loved and accepted they must adopt the thinking of the crowd. It is a form of "group think" as some have named it.
"What parents do in moderation children do in excess." As one teacher put it many years ago.
Living together outside of wedlock was considered unthinkable just 70 years ago. No one within our family structures did this unless they were disreputable, running in circles in which mainstream society rejected.
Now we have shack-up couples common even attending church gatherings without chastisement, even being fully accepted. Divorce and remarriage is considered natural and normal in the gatherings of Christians today. Even many pastors in the pulpit are remarried after divorce, fully endorsing any others in the pews who are doing the same thing.
I don't mention the world because we expect the world to do these things but when they come into the churches we know that weeds have invaded the churches or these couples would be disciplined for their immorality.
1 Corinthians 5:1-2 "1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is intolerable even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been stricken with grief and have removed from your fellowship the man who did this?…"
The Corinthian Christians were proud of how tolerant of sin they were just as the Christians today are proud and tolerant of sin. They say it is love to accept any and all things. Yes, perhaps it is love, but not God's love toward the sinner and never love for God Himself. God's love is to correct people who are sinning so they can move forward in holiness. Or, if they are pretenders they would repent to become born again. Anyone who is being disciplined for sin and leaves is rejecting the discipline and must leave to protect the rest of the body.
Sin always grows when left without consequences. Those who are weak in their faith will follow the easy route to feel accepted. For the sake of the weak believers we must call sin what it is, that is an offense against God as we obey God in putting out the one who refuses to confess their sin and forsake it.
Proverbs 28:12-14 "…12 When the righteous triumph, there is great glory, but when the wicked rise, men hide themselves. 13 He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy. 14 Blessed is the man who is always reverent, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble."
Every one of us influences others to some degree. We are responsible for that influence, whether we influence for good or for evil.
The pride and tolerance of the modern church is nothing more than acceptance of sin so the people can "feel" happy and maintain their friendships. Sadly too many disobedient Christians pressure those who want to obey God. They challenge their love by saying we are not loving when we ask for obedience to God's Word.
God has made clear in His word what sin is and what is not. He has given clear instructions on what to do about sin that enters the church.
We can expect the discipline of the Lord for believers who have disobeyed the Word of God and blessings removed from our country for those who have heard the word but reject it. Most who have heard the Word in our country have rejected it boldly and with impunity. Believers are disobedient and pretenders reside in the church buildings without challenge to see if they are truly born again.
My encouragement to authentic born-again believers is to keep speaking the truth as led by the Holy Spirit never allowing others to intimidate us into silence or into accepting what everyone else is doing.
It is possible to be rejected by others for our stand for Christ and remain joyful and bold. When Christ is our standard and not the world we have all the strength we need to carry on without friends if we must to remain faithful to God's Word.
The Bible is not a book of suggestions to be used for our own purposes. The Bible is the very Word of God to be followed to the letter. Not out of legalism but out of love for Christ. He is perfect, why would we ever question His Word or neglect His counsel unless He is not our first love.
If Christ is our first love then it matters not whether anyone else loves us, we follow Him.
John 15:18-25 "18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you as well; if they followed My word, they will follow yours also.
21 But all these things they will do to you on account of My name, because they do not know the One who sent Me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 The one who hates Me hates My Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. 25 But this has happened so that the word that is written in their Law will be fulfilled: ‘They hated Me for no reason.’"
Remember too, the world is now in the church, perhaps far more pretenders than authentically born-again believers sit in the pews today. This ought to free us from the pressure of accepting sin or being accepted by the "group thinkers." When we know acceptance by those who do not obey God is not on us, its on them for not trusting in Christ and His Word.
May born-again believers become stronger as they face an out-of-control world while marching toward the end of this church age.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
When We Must Stand Alone
Ladies; when we reach the judgment we will stand before the Lord on our own. God will not justify our sin with the excuse that our husbands told us to do something.
Every woman has the responsibility to counsel her husband in the way of the Lord when he is not following Christ. If she loves him she will warn him of God's judgment and appeal to him to stop the sin.
Consider the account of Annanias and Saphira! The husband and wife were both killed because they conspired together to lie to the Holy Spirit. Perhaps things would have been different if the Saphirah had warned her husband and refused to follow him in his sin. Acts 5:1-11
I do not believe a just God would killer the wife for the sins of the husband if she refused to sin with him.
Deuteronomy 24:16
“Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin."
It is against the nature of God to punish someone for another person's sin. Only Christ did this because He was and is God.
If a wife and mother does not warn her husband and children of their sins, remaining silent to pretend to be the suffering submissive wife, she will be punished for her silence.
Ezekiel 3:17-19 "…17“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from My mouth, give them a warning from Me. 18 If I say to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ but you do not warn him or speak out to warn him from his wicked way to save his life, that wicked man will die in his iniquity, and I will hold you responsible for his blood. 19 But if you warn a wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness and his wicked way, he will die in his iniquity, but you will have saved yourself.…"
God has given the job of helper and counselor to the wife. She is responsible to help the husband through her counsel if he strays from obeying the Lord.
Read the account of Abigail to see an example of this.
1 Samuel 25
We are not responsible for anyone else's sin but we are responsible to speak the truth and refuse to sin with others.
There is a saying I used to hear years ago. "if you are in the bad crowd you are the bad crowd." If you see evil happening and do nothing then you are part of the evil. Its really that simple!!!!
It is better to take your lumps from others for obeying God than to be disciplined by God for disobeying Him.
Standing Alone Before the Lord
The Lord is detaching me more and more from this world. I do not feel led to pray that God saves America. If causing our downfall will cause some to become born again then better our downfall than our comfort.
The more we are prosperous the worse the culture becomes. What would we be saving? Perhaps saving this country would only cause deeper pride and debauchery, after all, we have had prosperity for several generations and the more we grow in it the worse the culture becomes. We need a good ole fashioned Holy Spirit spanking.
Even the "Christians" have been fighting against God's truth, they are irate and mean-spirited when told they are living in sin. They do not weep from shame, they fight with an elevated spirit of superiority.
After the rage for being corrected, they punish the person who warned them. They gossip, embellish the truth to become a lie and then they demean the one who warned them. This is more common than shame over sin.
The one who warns is told by the "Christian" they were the terrible ones for judging. They falsely use the scriptures to make it appear that we are wrong for making judgments, even when all we do is quote what God said about their sin.
When a country declares they want to be saved to continue on as they have been without repentance toward their sin, they are not deserving of God's forgiveness.
Many who are "conservatives," think they are going to heaven by being "American." There is a strange and perverse pride in those who believe their national status elevates them as having a special in with God.
Matthew 7:21-23 21 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’"
God will not ask us at the gates of heaven which nation we belonged to, we will stand there alone without a nation to give an account.
We Walk this Earth as One Body!
Romans 5:1-4
Peace with God Through Faith
5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,"
May all born-again believer draw great peace from these passages as well as their contact with other born again believers who understand this great hope.
There is no greater hope in knowing that Christ in us has a purpose in all that we endure bringing joy that cannot be explained in human terms.
This is what it means to trust Christ. There is no special strength in trusting Christ when things are easy and happy. There is a great gain in trusting Christ when we are inflicted whether by rejection or by physical pain.
James 1:2-4 "2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."
All our life experiences train us to be like Christ when we trust in Him daily. Even greater joy when we can be a support to other born-again believers. We need one another if nothing more than Spiritual and emotional support from many miles away.
I am praising the Lord today for my Facebook friends who understand our trials here and are empathetic and prayerful as we walk through this life as one body, that is in Christ.
Hallelujah!
Amen!!! The one who does no big sins but has rejected Christ is in the same place as the person who does big sins and rejected Christ. It's not the size of the sin it's the repentance that makes all the difference. Everyone, even those with small sins are going to hell if they refuse Jesus Christ.
Many people who believe they are not going to hell because they are not doing the big stuff will see the fires of hell for rejecting Christ.
Our own human goodness is like filth compared to God's perfection, He wants to clean us up but will only do it if we admit our sinfulness and trust in Him.
Turning Over to God is not Giving Up Entirely
I remember when God told Jeremiah to no longer pray for the nation because their hearts were hardened. It is possible God tells us at times to stop begging Him for something He knows will not come about. I pray as led by the Holy Spirit, sometimes I don't even know what to say so I count on Him to pray on my behalf.
Romans 8:26-27
Our Victory in Christ
26 Now in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."
This groaning we sense in our Spirit is not babblings anyone else can hear or strange sounds, they are deep within our soul that only God can hear.
The evil of the world is becoming overwhelming for the born-again believers. We must depend on the Lord more than ever before.
It has been almost 10 years......I still pray but not as often and not with that strong belief that my prayers for this would be answered.....Giving up maybe!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)