Thursday, December 19, 2024
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Trust Only in Christ
Most Christians today have placed their trust in institutions and men who run them than they have in Christ. "Come out from among them", is the command of Christ.
The guilt and peer pressure of attending a building on a specified day with the same people week after week is intense, causing people to remain in a system that does not honor God nor does it foster the gifts in every believer has caused atrophy, a stiffness and stubbornness that can only be remedied through repentance.
Following a system or a man or both is not following Christ.
Matthew 16:24
"Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
Nothing here about attending a building with an educated pastor who considers himself the authority over others.
Matthew 4:19
"And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Matthew 19:21
"Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
Matthew 10:38
"And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me."
John 10:27
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."
Luke 9:23
"And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."
God never told us to follow any man or any system. He told us to follow Him.
Only speak the truth to those who want to hear it.
Matthew 7:6: "Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces"
There is a very damaging idea floating around for the past 50 years, that we must remain with rebellious people just in case they will one day listen to truth and want Jesus. This is lack of faith in Christ because it is His Holy Spirit Who reaches hearts, we are just the messengers, if they will not listen to us they will not listen to Him.
Luke 9:5
"If anyone does not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that town, as a testimony against them.”
Christ never ran after or remained in company with those who rejected Him or His truth. He moved on and left them to themselves.
To remain with unbelievers who have rejected truth is to think we have the power to change people. We do not have any power to change anyone's heart. We speak truth and leave it to the Holy Spirit to use whatever is necessary to reach those with a stubborn heart.
Proverbs 9:7-8
"He who corrects a mocker brings shame on himself; he who rebukes a wicked man taints himself. / Do not rebuke a mocker, or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you."
Mockers and rebellious people will fight bitterly to dominate over those who speak the truth. They think they are right and will not listen no matter how many times we tell them. God must be the One to reach these people His way in His timing.
Proverbs 23:9
"Do not speak to a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words."
In order to obey this scripture we must be able to discern who is a fool.
If you have ever tried to reason with someone who is self-righteous and convinced they know everything you realize what a foolish endeavor it is to attempt to convince them of truth. They only fight to win over others, they do not care about truth.
Acts 13:45-46
"But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, and they blasphemously contradicted what Paul was saying. / Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “It was necessary to speak the word of God to you first. But since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles."
Acts 18:5-6
"And when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself fully to the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. / But when they opposed and insulted him, he shook out his garments and told them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
Acts 28:25-28
"They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: “The Holy Spirit was right when He spoke to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet: / ‘Go to this people and say, “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.” / For this people’s heart has grown callous; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.’"
Jesus Christ and the apostles never remained with those who reject the Word of God or spurned and rejected them. We cannot be an influence on people who refuse to listen to the Holy Spirit.
We can pray for those who have a stubborn heart, but they cannot be our close friends. They bring with them anger and disrespect with an attitude of causing trouble in the hearts of those who love God.
1 Corinthians 2:14
"The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."
When we see that someone refuses to believe the Word of God we know they cannot understand what God says so to continue to speak it to them is an exercise in folly, a waste of our time and even damaging to our own souls.
"1 Corinthians 15:33 "Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.”"
Proverbs 13:20
"He who walks with the wise will become wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed."
Proverbs 22:24-25
"Do not make friends with an angry man, and do not associate with a hot-tempered man, / or you may learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare."
Psalm 1:1
"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers."
Proverbs 4:14-15
"Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers. / Avoid it; do not travel on it. Turn from it and pass on by."
In order to obey these scriptures we must be able to discern the heart of someone as the Holy Spirit guides us.
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Divorce and Remarriage the Great Divides
Our culture does not realize the far-reaching impact of divorce and remarriage on it. All they see is their justifications allowing them to be free from guilt for disobeying God through their excuses and self exaltation.
Some people say it is better to divorce than to be fighting all the time. This is total nonsense, it is better to have two parents in the same house than to have one even if there is fighting. Divorce removes what is familiar to the child, it is not different from a fighting household to a rejecting household in which one person was thrown away to bring in another one who does not know the child. They are equal, divorce and fighting in a marriage are the same. The child is damaged in both cases, one is not better than the other.
When I was asked what was better to remain in a fighting marriage or to divorce without the fighting. My answer was; "there is another option, one of you stop fighting." If only one stops fighting the fighting will at least minimize and often goes away.
We have school shootings often now almost a normal course for our country. If you look into them you will see the bullying in the schools, the anger in the students, the arrogance of classmates and the angst that leads to attitudes of revenge carried out in the shootings. All of this is a result of the selfishness of rejecting God's way to remain in the marriage working things out.
Sadly the greatest opposition to me has been within the organized church because of my stand against divorce and remarriage. Even though God is very clear that is it a sin those who love their unsaved families and their disobedient Christian friends will defend the actions of their friends and family when those actions come against Christ. So the question has to be "Who do they serve, their friends and family or Christ?" They cannot come against sin if they align themselves with family above Christ.
Those who defend divorce and remarriage are part of the problem. They are as guilty as the one who commits the act.
Mankind has been justifying sin since the beginning of the world. Satan convinced Eve that God didn't really say what He said and that Eve could be her own god, making her own rules and choices without interference from God.
2 Timothy 4:3
"3 For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires,"
Those who care more about pleasure and the acceptance of others will defend sin and pummel those who speak against it. They do not think about the ramifications of the sin on themselves or the culture.
We have more poverty in this country than ever before because of divorce. We have angry children who have turned against authority, we have parents who are more lenient on children because they want to win the heart of their children because of their abandonment of the other parent. And, worse yet we have an increase in child molestation on the part of the non-bio children by second spouses.
Parents who are divorced and remarried experience intense rebellion of their children who resent the divorce and worse the remarriage. The new spouse in remarriage has no authority over the children and the children know it.
Children feel insecure, angry, sad even depresseded, lacking in confidence, and much more because of a split family.
Suicide in teens has risen since the 1970's.
An average of 3,703 suicide attempts are made by teenagers (grades 9-12) daily, with additional attempts in grades 7 and 8. Over 4 out of 5 individuals considering suicide give signs of their intentions. Jason Foundation
I am in my 70's now, never ever in my school years did we hear of a suicide in our schools, either in high school or elementary schools. It was non-existent. Suicide among teens has risen 40% since the 70's, and the divorce rate has doubled.
When families are fragmented the children feel unloved, the students in the schools become more hardened in heart and there is no one they can trust to bring them through their sadness.
I was raised in a family that had no love or kindness on a daily basis, I know how unhappy and dejected one can get when they don't feel love. My saving grace was to believe that one day it would all end when I could get away and have my own life. It helped to get through it but the battle was intense to maintain some fleeting happiness. However, I always had at least one friend I could talk to and relieve the pain of rejection momentarily.
When I married my husband I later found Christ and He healed my wounds and gave me permission to remove those from my life who brought continual negativity and demeaning. It was Christ Who healed me and began to direct me as I moved from a life of strife to a life of full joy.
Sadly those same attitudes I experienced in childhood among family members remain to this day and have not diminished but have increased through gossip against me to maintain the family attitude toward me and down to the next generation.
Exodus 34:7, which states that God will "visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.".
God does not punish children for the sins of their fathers, but the fathers have such influence over their children that the children do what the father did thinking it was good.
There is a saying; "more is caught than taught." Even if the father does not openly teach something he is always teaching by his own actions and attitudes.
Satan will see to it that the extended family remains in rebellion through lies against God as those he influences remain dedicated to family members above God. The father may be a wicked man but because he is the father he can do no wrong in the eyes of the children. I have seen wicked fathers upheld as special merely for being the father even when they were evil.
Anyone who steps out of the family structure to follow Christ will be targeted as someone who is deserving of hatred. The ungodly family structure will determine what they wish to believe about the outlier who walks away, and the family passes the sin on to the next generation.
It is amazing how many people will choose to believe something about a family member that is not true because they must discredit them for coming against sin and pressing into Christ.
Luke 21:15-17 "…15For I will give you speech and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you will be put to death. 17And you will be hated by everyone because of My name.…"
Matthew 10:21
"Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death."
It is rare to see children physically putting their parents to death but we do see them rejecting their parents as if they were dead to them.
If you doubt any of this ask God, when He opens the eyes of the blind they can never be closed again.
The longer we are away from wicked family systems the wider our eyes become. There is no going back to the doubt or questioning if we saw something correctly. The more we press into Christ the wider our eyes become and the less likely we are to miss anything from the past that kept us in bondage to sadness.
All sadness is gone and replaced by joy, all doubt is completely removed and replaced with the pure Word of God. When we rely entirely on Christ every day our emotions about family diminish greatly. That is not to say we don't hope that one day they will become saved, but it does mean that until that happens we must keep them at arms length. We must love them from afar as we wait on Christ.
Here are some Scriptures that will help us remain strong in our resolve to surround ourselves with those who love Christ. If we have to walk alone it will be full of joy and peace at the absence of hateful attitudes.
1 Corinthians 15:33 "
"Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”
The more time we spend with those who reject the Word of God the more likely we are to become like them. They will attempt to provoke us into sinful response and lie against us using what they think they know about us.
Proverbs 13:20
"He who walks with the wise will become wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed."
Proverbs 22:24-25
"Do not make friends with an angry man, and do not associate with a hot-tempered man, / or you may learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare."
Psalm 1:1
"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers."
Proverbs 4:14-15
"Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers. / Avoid it; do not travel on it. Turn from it and pass on by."
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