It occurred to me this morning in the wee hours as I pondered what is going on around me that so many people are trusting in things that bring them no joy or peace.
Our culture is trusting in their feelings, physical appearance, and physical health. politics, religious theologies, family, entertainment, media of all kinds, their pleasures to make themselves feel better, they are trusting in power over others, their manipulation to make things work out as they please, but the one person they are not trusting in is Jesus Christ.
As we listen to what people speak about I notice the Christian culture is speaking of everything but Jesus Christ.
Many people are proclaiming their rights to demand things from God thinking this is spiritual. They are declaring to God what He must give them merely because they tell Him to give it. They are demanding blessings for a country after He has already given them blessings that they are not grateful to Him for.
The more blessing the Lord gives a country the more they demand it. Our country nor any other country has a right to expect more blessings from God when they are not loving and honoring Him every day.
The blessings have given rise to arrogance and entitlement as so many people believe they have a right to the kind of government they want and the material possessions they have acquired. They think they have a right to be proud and elevated in themselves and by others. Humility is not a desire of their hearts and they do not pray for wisdom according to God but rather seek out the wisdom of man to message their own ego and feelings.
Psalm 146:3-5
"3 Do not trust in noblemen,
In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 His spirit departs, he returns to the earth;
On that very day his plans perish.
5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
Whose hope is in the Lord his God,"
Proverbs 11:28 "He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall flourish as a branch."
1 Corinthians 3:18-20
"If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their own craftiness"; and again, "The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile."
Many people think they are wise in their trust in everyone and everything but Christ, but their wisdom and their desires lead them deeper into foolishness as they follow all these things but do not follow Christ.
You might ask; "why do you say the culture does not follow Christ?" We know what the culture follows and trust in by what they speak about continually and how they live their lives.
In this mess of the end times we can find hope only in Jesus Christ. When we see all this trust in the culture for everything but Jesus Christ we can be strong as we trust ONLY in HIm.
God said to the believers who are trusting in Him alone the following:
Isaiah 41:10
"10 Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not be afraid, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, I will also help you,
I will also uphold you with My righteous right hand.’
Because we love the Lord with all our heart and are trusting in Him when the culture is trusting in everything but Him, we can expect for the culture to hate us when we do not trust in the things they want us to trust in.
John 15:18-25
Disciples’ Relation to the World
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.’"
Sadly much of this hatred is coming from "Church gatherings" that proclaim to be Christian. This is because many people who make the declaration that they are Christians have never been born again. There are many false Christians within the ranks of the believers gatherings.
Matthew 13:24-30
The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares
"24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field;
25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.
26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.
27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’
28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’
29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.
30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
The devil has sewn the tares among the wheat. Fooling many people that they can be a Christian without loving Christ and without a desire to be changed by Him. This wicked one has managed to deceive people that salvation is merely saying words without any desire to follow Christ and without repentance, that is brokenness over their sinfulness.
Psalm 51:17
"17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite (crushed) heart, God, You will not despise."
If there is no crushed heart over one's sinfulness there will be no salvation experience.
Calling oneself a "Christian" or attending a gathering of Christians is not evidence that one is born again.
Matthew 7:21-23 "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 does not say to us that we have lost our salvation because He did not accept us, He says to those who say they are Christians but had no desire to obey Him, "I NEVER knew you." These people only thought they would chose to become a member of the Christian club but were never changed by Christ into a new creation. These are the tares in the church. And, sadly there are more tares in the church today than there are authentically born again believers who have been changed by Christ.
May everyone reading this evaluate whether or not they were authentically saved. This will include those in the pews and those in the pulpit.
2 Corinthians 13:5
"5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!"
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