Which Treasure Do We Seek!

New Testament Christian Assemblies Around the World

Group post by Ray Dolinski

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.

1 Corinthians 2:9

One of the pictures in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is of a man bending double from his waist, sorting through trash, carefully extracting the little bits of tinsel he finds there.

Behind him stands an angel who is offering him a solid gold crown studded with precious jewels, but the man is so engrossed in the trash he never notices the angel.

When we get to heaven, will you and I be ashamed of our preoccupation with trash in this life – trash that prevented us from dying to our desire for it, turning around, leaving it all behind, and reaching out for what God wanted to give us? Why is it that we seem to cling so tightly to what we want, and in the process lose what God wants us to have? God wants us to have power and blessing and glory. But you don’t obtain it by adding Jesus to your life-He has to be your life!

Borrowed

Encouragement for Mother's Day

Ladies, I want to encourage all those women who are neglected on Mother's Day. God never commanded this day to be observed therefore we are free to ignore it.

Mother's Day originated with Anna Jarvis who had an emotional experience at her mother's death. She desired to honor her mother at her memorial service in 1907.

I believe our honor for our mothers is more than words and while they are still alive.

Even though it can be a happy time for many to honor their living mothers, it does not make sense to honor a person who has died and gone on to their eternal home whichever place it might be. Those who are dead are not present to enjoy the "honor", this honoring the dead is a paganistic ritual that makes the living feel good but does nothing else.

Honoring someone ought to be while they are alive. Honor is not about gifts or a special day, it's a mentality of valuing the person we honor, their wisdom, their insight, and their personal sacrifices during their life for the sake of their husband and children. And, it is a command of God not based on the performance of the parent.

If someone wishes to honor their parent while they are alive the best way to do that is to treat them with respect all year. Gifts or dinners on one day of the year do not necessarily translate as honoring.

Honoring a parent is a mentality based on a deep abiding love that is present all year, not merely a ritual performed one day a year.

Since the Lord never commanded one day a year to honor a parent we do not have to celebrate it the way the world does.

God commanded that we honor our parents every day as long as they are alive. This does not mean special gifts or dinners, it has to do with a deep love and respect that dwells within us demonstrated by the way we treat our parents on a consistent basis.

God gave us a principle that can be transferred to human relationships too.

Matthew 15:7-8 "…7 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you: 8 These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. 9They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’ ”…"

Hosea 6:6

"For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."

We are made in the image of God, the principles we follow to honor Him are similar to the principles we follow in honoring our parents.

Just as in marriage when our spouse dies we are free from the marriage bond, so too are we freed from the command to honor our parents after they have passed.

Our deceased spouse cannot benefit from our rituals to remember them any more than our deceased parents benefit from honoring their memory after they are gone. The ritual of memorials are based on pagan rituals of ancestor worship.

Those who say they do not worship their ancestors but speak to their dead bodies at a gravesite are practicing paganism.

I know all these things are feel-good experiences for the living person but are they commanded by God or does He appreciate them? They are not commanded but even worse they are forbidden to communicate with the dead.

If you have lost your parents to death or even a spouse, its alright to remember the good things about them but to indulge in a ritual as though they can see it or still hear you speaking is borrowed from paganism. These rituals have no place in the Christians life.

We have something far better and not so temporary. We have the knowledge and hope that we will see our born again loved ones in heaven to be with them forever with our Lord. When we are secure in this we have no need for "feel-good" ritual practices.

Perhaps there is some relief for a time after someone has followed these humanistic rituals, but it still leaves a hole in the heart because they do not know what has happened to their deceased parent, they must pretend to feel good by speaking words that come out the mouth, into the air and fall to the ground. No one heard them or was blessed by them except themselves very temporarily. When our actions are based on feelings alone they are dead and worthless.

Truth is not a big part of the rituals that occur on these man-made holidays.

If your children throw a dinner or party for you enjoy it but do not agonize if they do nothing. I would be more likely to grieve over being treated disrespectfully as a matter of lifestyle than over one day in which there is a ritual to appease the conscience of the child.

I have never been more blessed than first the day I was saved and second the day I realized I do not have to follow the rules of secular paganistic culture. I can live out my life simply without fanfare, enjoying every day as unto the Lord while looking forward to His return for me.

I guess what I wish to say is that so many mothers and fathers look forward to these holidays as though they cannot be happy unless they are acknowledged on these days the culture has designated.

My advice to children and adult children is to honor your parents every day of the year. If they will feel bad that you didn't show up on Mother's day or Father's day then do something to relieve their pain of expectancy by doing something even if only a phone call.

As for me, I love my peace and simplicity allowing me to resist the bondage of expectancy. If the children do something o.k. I will enjoy them, but if not I can be happy and joyful about that too.

Bottom line; if our joy is conditional on who remembers us then we do not have God's joy. We are full and blessed because we have Christ even if no one notices us. What a freedom this is to be full of Christ all the time without expectancy toward others.

Matthew 12:7

"And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless."

Rituals are for the dead at heart, they are not necessary for those who are full of Christ.

1 Samuel 15:22

"And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams."

Authentic love is constant, it doesn't need a special day.

They Want His Stuff but the don't Want Him

It is pretty clear that most people who say they are Christians or who don't say so but attend churches every week do not want a relationship with Christ.

These people want to feel safe, by way of a sort of magic genie in a bottle that comes out to help them when they are having troubles.

They have no interest in deeply diving into the Word of God to know Him, obey Him and please Him.

Anyone who is a parent of a wayward child understands what God feels and thinks when His creation wants only His "stuff" but does not want Him.

Obedience with joy is a sign of a heart submitted and committed to Christ. When we love Him we cannot continue each day without consulting Him throughout the day. We love to read His Words to find how He thinks and what He desires of us.

1 John 1:1-4

"1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— 2 and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was revealed to us— 3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete."

It is the Holy Spirit Who convicts

When a non-believer is in the presence of a Spirit-filled born-again believer they will be uncomfortable with us even when we say or do nothing.

Non-believers can sense the Holy Spirit, it is convicting to them. It is not us that convicts of sin it is the Holy Spirit. They think we are the problem because they do not recognize the Holy Spirit.

John 16:8 "8 And when He comes, HE will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 in regard to sin, because they do not believe in Me;…"

The Holy Spirit is restraining unbelievers in our day. When the church is taken out of the world in the rapture the restraint is lifted and the unbelievers will have free reign to act as wickedly and spitefully as is possible for a "desperately wicked" unregenerate person can act.

Mankind without Christ is at the mercy of their emotions and baser nature but even worst of all they are vulnerable to the influence of the devil as he works to foster the evil within the nature of the unregenerate untransformed person.

The devil speaks lies into the hearts causing people to hate believers. They don't know why they hate them, only that they do. I am now convinced that the devil uses "feelings" far more than ideas. The reason I believe this is because many people react badly to us when we have done nothing wrong or when we do something good. They have a bad feeling and assume we must have done something wrong.

The born-again believer is the best influence a non-believer can have. The born-again believer presents Christ to the one who is missing joy and peace. They cannot be close friends to the unbeliever until that unbeliever repents of their sin and trusts in Christ. The love of presenting Christ is greater than anything anyone can give the non-believer.

Ephesians 1:18

"Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,"

When an unbeliever trusts in Christ they become freed from their baser nature of evil to enjoy a life of joy and peace they could not have had without Christ. Even adding to this is the amazing inheritance in heaven where there is beauty and love beyond anything a human on this earth can imagine.

Why anyone would prefer their sinful lifestyle and path to hell over knowing Christ and enjoying His protection and provision is beyond my understanding.

I was miserable in my sin before I was born again. It was Christ Who freed me from all of that, my eyes were opened and I have never looked back. The sins that I used to enjoy I now hate as much as God hates them. Goding back after becoming transformed by Him is not possible, but not because I choose not to, because I have been changed, I cannot return to it.

There have been those who want to keep me stuck in my unregenerate state in their own mind in order to feel superior to me. I ignore these people they are being used of the devil to poke at me in hopes that I will give up and return to my slime. The devil and the people he uses cannot ever cause me to do that and their desire to believe I have not changed does not return me. They do not know that when Christ transformed me it was not a work of mine, it was His work and for eternity. Their ideas about me cannot have any affect on me, it only isolates me from them until they become born again, then we would be siblings in the Lord.

This ought to be the mindset of every born-again believer. If someone remains tempted continually and keeps going back then perhaps they have not been born again, they have not been transformed into a new creation. Their Christianity is cultural rather than Spiritual.

A cultural Christian is one who follows the rules, or at least some of them in our day, while still thinking, acting, and speaking as they did before they were born again. In essence, there has been no change in them, so they return to their vomit without conscience.

The church gatherings today are not helping, they are enabling and fostering rebellion in the pew people by not calling them to account for their sin. One of two things will happen when a pew person is challenged to confess their sin and be restored to Christ. They will either become enraged and leave the church or they will be ashamed and confess to be cleansed. 1 John 1:9

Those who become enraged and leave must not return until they have become born again. Those who confess to be cleansed will grow and so will the rest of the congregation for having to stand for righteousness. Relationships will be restored the right way without compromising God's Word.

Coddling the sinner who refuses to be changed by Christ only causes sin to grow in the body. Never chase after the rebellious raging sinner who refuses to be corrected.

1 Corinthians 5:6-7

"Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed."

Yeast represents growing sin. The more we tolerate sin the more it influences other weak believers in the body. The leaven, the sin must be dealt with and the rebellious person must be removed.

1 Corinthians 5:1-2 "5 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you."

This principle applies to families as well as personal relationships. If someone does not want to follow Christ, even encouraging us to abandon our Christian principles then they must be removed from our life.

When a friend or relative rages at us for standing for the truth of the Bible then is time to remove ourselves. Someone who rages will not hear the truth nor are they open to anything you say and do from that time forward. We must leave them to God while protecting ourselves from corruption.

1 Corinthians 15:33-34 " 33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.” 34 Sober up as you ought, and stop sinning; for some of you are ignorant of God. I say this to your shame.…"

Never feel guilty about leaving a relationship that would ultimately influence you to abandon God's principles. We must surround ourselves with people who love the Lord and love us enough to help us progress in our walk with Christ. We must be this kind of friend for our brothers and sisters also.

If we cannot find friends who are like this, just as in the days of Noah and Lot, then we must be content to remain alone with Christ. God does send people but in our day they are mostly on the internet because often those in our own towns are following the world and are resistant to His Word.

We must not be discouraged by a lack of friends!!!! We have some, they come and go but Chrsit never leaves us.

The Devil Sent them | Cut Them Off Now | Block Them | Avoid Them | Power...

The Devil's Goal!

Satan's biggest goal is to make us act as badly as he acts. He uses people to poke and prod at us to cause us to sin. Don't let his tricks cause you to become like him, or the people he uses.

When we are mistreated we will become stronger as Christ works in us. The trials are tests to cause growth in us.

James 1:2-8

Profiting from Trials

2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."

Used as Doormats?

Sometimes we are used as doormats by others but we do not become like them in defense of ourselves.

2 Corinthians 4:8-10

"8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body."

When we are walking in the Holy Spirit we are strong no matter what others are doing to us.