If your church gathering is encouraging Pokemon by being a place for the monsters to dwell for those who play;
If your church is showing the C.S. Lewis movie, "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" as an evangelical outreach;
If your church is defending the use of books like "The Shack";
Then get out of those places, they are not walking in the Holy Spirit, they are promoting evil within their own congregations to bring in the unsaved using the worlds evil to do it, and chances are good they will not listen to correction on these matters.
These things are very big clues that leadership does not understand what it is to seek the Holy Spirit and obey Him.
Deuteronomy 12:3-5
"…3 "You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place. 4 "You shall not act like this toward the LORD your God. 5 "But you shall seek the LORD at the place which the LORD your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come.…"
Preachers would be more interested in hiding behind Christ than they are in receiving accolades from others, if they walked deeply with Christ. There are far too many preachers looking for popularity and results than there are seeking Christ to glorify Him.
As for the churches that are using themselves and their buildings to accommodate the "Pokemon" craze, this is what God has to say about it.
Deuteronomy 12:4 "…3 "You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place. 4 "You shall not act like this toward the LORD your God. 5 "But you shall seek the LORD at the place which the LORD your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come.…"
Those who have difficulty building Christian relationships in a Biblical manner, very likely do not have a relationship with Christ.
Many people today are relying on an appearance of cultural Christianity as a religion when they should be focusing on Christ!
These people are satisfied with merely following a pattern of rules, but angered when called to trust Christ in a very real life experience of obedience to the Holy Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 5:19-22
"19 Do not quench the Spirit; 20 do not despise prophetic utterances. 21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; 22 abstain from every form of evil."
"Rejoice in the Lord Always!"
God has been dealing with me in the area of idols in my life. Idols that walk, talk and move among us.
Agonizing over the loss of someone who refuses to obey God, is the same as placing that person above God.
Yes, pray for them, grieve occasionally, but we must refrain from keeping them continually on our mind. We have those with us that need our attention, to waste time on continual thoughts of those who have rejected God's ways, is nothing less than idolatry.
When we focus on those who walk with Him, those who need our encouragement and companionship, they will have our attention, we will praise God together while seeking Him for His work in our lives.
Never count it a waste to share when someone would not listen. Our obedience to Christ is not in the "results" but rather in the obedience itself.
Romans 6:16
"Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?"
All results are God's business, obedience to Him is our business.
Joshua 1:8
"This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success."
No where in the Word of God do we find instructions in getting results!
Romans 5:1-21
"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 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. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. ..."
1 Corinthians 3:6-8
"6 I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one in purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor."
All the stress and worry is removed when we are not responsible for the results, only for the obedience to the promptings and principles of the Holy Spirit. God knows far better than we what each person needs and where He wants us to be.
When we elevate people as though they are gods, we are reflecting an attitude of wanting to be elevated ourselves.
When we know we are not special, only Christ is, then we are free to love others even with what we might think are flaws and warts.
Love is not deserved, God died for us while we were yet sinners. He loved us when we were unlovable, should we not love others this way!
This does not mean that we allow everyone into our lives no matter how wicked they are, it simply means that we choose to love God's way, which may mean discipline or removing ourselves from someone so that God can do His work without our interference.
So often we think we need to help God, but those we want to reach will not hear us, but perhaps they will hear God, because He knows exactly what they need. We can only guess as to need, but God will do the perfect things and only He knows when the person is unreachable.
So, the moral of the story is this, love God's way, stay or leave based on what the Holy Spirit is telling us. Never do anything in the flesh based on emotion and we will be able to walk in peace and joy knowing God is going to do what is right.
God said that no man has an excuse. When God said; "a fool says there is no God", the true rendering of that verse is "a fool says no to God."
Atheists know there is a God, they are deliberately denying Him out of rebellion.
When you sense the rejection of your extended family and your children, you are experiencing what God must feel like when the culture as a whole has rejected Him.
Let's turn our life experiences into lessons, everything that has been done to us, our culture as a whole, and we, have done to God.
Rather than agonizing continually as we do, it is good to put things back into perspective to regain our peace and joy through prayer and study of God's Word. When we experience the trials and rejection of life, we know that God is allowing us new insight into the culture and ourselves, while showing us His heart!
