I will keep this blog for a bit, but down the road this will transition into my website, ETVFC.org.
The website has a place to put a blog and I just posted a new article there. There is a lot of potential for the website, so I ask any loyal readers to keep it in prayer. A major vision for it is a place where people can convert any tract idea into one they can pull up and add their church info and print their own tracts.
Eventually these posts here will be moved over. I can also categorize my posts on the website and this will allow me to easier publish books, tracts, etc.
Thanks for viewing here. For now you can bounce between both!
Blessings,
Mike
Friday, May 24, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Faith to move Mountains vs. Faith to try Mountain Dew
We all have faith.
Some of us have more faith than others. Most of us don't realize it. And most folks don't realize you have more faith than me.
I simply have the Bible which has truths that have been tested and have changed people's lives for thousands of years. My faith may be small but it is in a very large object. Contrast that with someone who voted for Obama. For the second time. They believed Obama was the answer to America's problems. It does not matter what reality holds. Jobs are down, except for bankruptcy firms and pawn shops and cardiologists. America is losing it's influence and reputation. America is not getting out of debt. America is being hit with storm after storm that the silly scientists who believe we came from a monkey believe have to do with global warming. Or that this is just Mother Nature. Yes, they have all the faith in the world, no matter how bad things get, that Obama is the man for the job. That is strong faith but the object is weak.
The key to faith is having it in the right spot. And then just acting on it. It is often rejected because it seems to simple. What must I DO to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved says the Bible. Yes repentance is in there too but ultimately it is putting your trust in the real Jesus of the Bible.
Believe the author and he will come to dwell in you forever. You will know that you know that you know. If yow are truly in you will know. If you believe and obey the gospel, coming with a child like heart and child like hunger. Jesus said Come unto me. The Bible says Call unto me. The Bible says Look unto me. Seek and ye shall find. Catch? There is none, but you won't find your life until you are ready to lose it.
A Medal of Honor recipient preached at our church on Sunday. Good good stuff, and you can find it on OldTimeBaptist.com's website on previous sermons. He quoted from a sign he had seen in Vietnam, "To really live you must almost die." That happens with salvation. You die of your dreams and plans and let Jesus move in and put his desires inside you and live through you. I don't always have that victory but it is exciting to find God's will and do it. Before I was saved I just tried to make it through life. Then I found eternal life.
After I put the little faith I had in the true and living God. HE is able. HE is wonderful. He is worth dying for.
And he already died for us.
I could have all the faith in the world that I can save money on gas by using Mountain Dew in my gas tank. That won't save my car. I just need the small faith of a child but I have a BIG heavenly Father and Jesus is the entire power of God downsized to a human being. The object of my faith is what changed my life. HE did the work of salvation, and he did the work of drawing me, revealing himself, putting people in my path and more.
It was an easy leap of faith once I got to know him.
And that I think is the key. Salvation is a person, not a prayer or performance. Get to know him and spend time in the gospels, Matthew Mark Luke and John, and be hungry to meet him. Pray and ask God to reveal himself in the pages and to make real Jesus Christ.
Faith will then be easy. Once you get to know him you can trust him with your life.
And once you see how wonderful and awesome Jesus really is, you don't have that high a leap. And you will know he will catch you once you take the plunge.
Christianity is easy. Jesus paid it all. We just receive it. All we need is to admit we are lost when we in our own understanding try to find out how to get to heaven. That opens the door for God to start showing us the way.
The way of saving faith is much easier than the way of damning religion. It takes a lot of faith to believe Jesus is in the wafer because it looks the same after. That is a lie of the devil. It takes a lot of faith to believe Jesus is in most Christians because they act the same after. But I know in whom I believe and he changed my life in every way I can imagine.
And it all began when I started to want to get to know him.
Jesus is God. IS he your God? Just turn off the computer and get on the FaithBook.
Some of us have more faith than others. Most of us don't realize it. And most folks don't realize you have more faith than me.
I simply have the Bible which has truths that have been tested and have changed people's lives for thousands of years. My faith may be small but it is in a very large object. Contrast that with someone who voted for Obama. For the second time. They believed Obama was the answer to America's problems. It does not matter what reality holds. Jobs are down, except for bankruptcy firms and pawn shops and cardiologists. America is losing it's influence and reputation. America is not getting out of debt. America is being hit with storm after storm that the silly scientists who believe we came from a monkey believe have to do with global warming. Or that this is just Mother Nature. Yes, they have all the faith in the world, no matter how bad things get, that Obama is the man for the job. That is strong faith but the object is weak.
The key to faith is having it in the right spot. And then just acting on it. It is often rejected because it seems to simple. What must I DO to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved says the Bible. Yes repentance is in there too but ultimately it is putting your trust in the real Jesus of the Bible.
Believe the author and he will come to dwell in you forever. You will know that you know that you know. If yow are truly in you will know. If you believe and obey the gospel, coming with a child like heart and child like hunger. Jesus said Come unto me. The Bible says Call unto me. The Bible says Look unto me. Seek and ye shall find. Catch? There is none, but you won't find your life until you are ready to lose it.
A Medal of Honor recipient preached at our church on Sunday. Good good stuff, and you can find it on OldTimeBaptist.com's website on previous sermons. He quoted from a sign he had seen in Vietnam, "To really live you must almost die." That happens with salvation. You die of your dreams and plans and let Jesus move in and put his desires inside you and live through you. I don't always have that victory but it is exciting to find God's will and do it. Before I was saved I just tried to make it through life. Then I found eternal life.
After I put the little faith I had in the true and living God. HE is able. HE is wonderful. He is worth dying for.
And he already died for us.
I could have all the faith in the world that I can save money on gas by using Mountain Dew in my gas tank. That won't save my car. I just need the small faith of a child but I have a BIG heavenly Father and Jesus is the entire power of God downsized to a human being. The object of my faith is what changed my life. HE did the work of salvation, and he did the work of drawing me, revealing himself, putting people in my path and more.
It was an easy leap of faith once I got to know him.
And that I think is the key. Salvation is a person, not a prayer or performance. Get to know him and spend time in the gospels, Matthew Mark Luke and John, and be hungry to meet him. Pray and ask God to reveal himself in the pages and to make real Jesus Christ.
Faith will then be easy. Once you get to know him you can trust him with your life.
And once you see how wonderful and awesome Jesus really is, you don't have that high a leap. And you will know he will catch you once you take the plunge.
Christianity is easy. Jesus paid it all. We just receive it. All we need is to admit we are lost when we in our own understanding try to find out how to get to heaven. That opens the door for God to start showing us the way.
The way of saving faith is much easier than the way of damning religion. It takes a lot of faith to believe Jesus is in the wafer because it looks the same after. That is a lie of the devil. It takes a lot of faith to believe Jesus is in most Christians because they act the same after. But I know in whom I believe and he changed my life in every way I can imagine.
And it all began when I started to want to get to know him.
Jesus is God. IS he your God? Just turn off the computer and get on the FaithBook.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
The Jody Trial and other tragedies
For those of you who have been within a 5,000 mile radius of either a newspaper or CNN, you likely have heard bits and pieces of the Jody Arias trial. I am thinking the publicity of the case was causing jealousy and that is why OJ Simpson was back in the news this week. Well, Jody's glove did fit, and Jody Arias was convicted of murdering her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander and she could now face the death penalty. I wrote an article about this a while back, Jody Arias, lessons from a killer girlfriend.
I don't have a lot more to ad but there are some things that from God's perspective really will make you think. First, Travis suffered horribly for 2 minutes. 120 seconds. That can feel like an eternity in those conditions. He seemed like an innocent victim in the wrong place at the wrong time. He grew up in very sad conditions as his family were amphetamine addicts. He shared stories of growing up with no food and only finding some moldy bread to eat when he was a young child. His life was turned around when he went to live with family in Arizona who were devoted Mormons and he credits that for giving him something to live for. He met Jody at a work conference and they followed their hearts and did what felt good and seemed like it was harming no one, and he introduced her to the Mormon religion and she was baptized.
From the world's perspective things seemed fine. What find upstanding religious citizens! What a great turn around from a life of hopelessness! What a happy couple just following their heart! They are in love! What potential! What a future!
And the world is in shock because of how evil someone like Jody was and how innocent Travis was.
Jody really wants to die instead of life imprisonment. She stated that once she is dead she will be free. That is a lie of the devil and if she never gets saved she will end up in hell. Dying lost catapults you into the lake of fire where you experience the second death. But the bible says your torment lasts forever.
But if you want to really see how the justice of God defies the common sense of man here it is. Travis is in hell right now. The suffering he felt when murdered in comparison to hellfire is closer to remembering a small paper cut or a hang nail. He trusted a false religion and a false Christ and he trusted a gospel of good works instead of the Bible. He ignored God's warnings Paul gives in Galatians that even if an angel from heaven were to preach another gospel, he was to be accursed. The Bible is the soul authority and it is blasphemy to share it's authority with anything else. The Mormon religion puts it on par or below the book of Mormons. The catholic church puts the Bible below church tradition and church teaching. The Jehovah Witnesses put the Bible below the Watchtower. They might give the Bible lip service but by their works they deny it. Further Travis ignored God's warnings about fornication. And to beware of the adulterous woman. The book of Proverbs says that "Her house is the way to hell". That is where Travis is tonight. It is where Travis will be a billion years from now. Travis is burning in hell. That is far worse than the 2 minutes he suffered on his way out of here. Hell is forever. Travis is never getting out.
God's thoughts are not our thoughts and God's ways are not our ways. Jody was a wicked cruel jealous girlfriend but God says He does not delight in the death of the wicked. God says he is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. God's desire is still that Jody Arias would turn from her sin and turn to Jesus Christ.
Jody Arias could still get saved on her way to death row. The murderer could end up in heaven while the one murdered is burning in hell. It seems unfair if we are honest. Let's say a bunch of Christians start praying for her salvation instead of her damnation. God would start drawing her and convicting her of her guilt. She could soon end up attending a Bible study at the prison. If she starts seeing the truth compared with the lies she was taught in the Mormon faith, and starts seeing Jesus loves her when all she felt was rejection her whole life, she might embrace the Jesus of the Bible. She could get humbled and become afraid of death and would now see her need for the true and living God. Like the thief on the cross, she could look to Jesus in saving faith and be born again.
Regardless of what she did before that point.
And because of what she did, her need for salvation would seem larger in her eyes.
And that would produce a greater love for JESUS ONCE SHE WAS SAVED THAT "minimal sinners" would rarely comprehend. He that is forgiven much loveth much.
That is why America really does not understand the Bible.
That is a strong possibility. Especially if someone mails this to Jody in prison. Wouldn't that be the kicker? Every self righteous American Christian waiting for a Death Penalty Verdict would get something they didn't expect. Justice. Only the Justice found at the cross. This is why the cross is so offensive. Surely, Jesus would not have died for her. Ok, you must be a Calvinist. The Bible says Whosover. The Bible is full of the outcasts of society and those committing all kinds of horrible crimes in both the eyes of men and of God repenting and getting saved. God is not a respecter of persons.
This though shows 1. the grace of God and 2. the hopelessness of man apart from Jesus Christ. The world is shocked at how evil someone like Jody is. I just heard about this couple from Canada selling their pick up truck. Another couple went to check it out and asked to test drive it. The prospective buyers and the owner went for a drive. His wife was confused because he never came home. The buyers murdered him, dumped his body, and took off with the truck. In Ohio a man was just caught who had chained up and raped 3 women over a 10 year period. This world is messed up. Human beings can commit horrible crimes that Hollywood can't even think up.
What humanity doesn't want to examine is that Jody Arias might be just like anyone of us. None of us can say that if we grew up the same way she did, and had the same morals instilled in her and the same abuses we could never fall to that level. Apart from the grace of God, any one of us is capable of anything. I can prove it. Imagine if you were born in the jungles of Papau New Guinea and from a young child were taught that after you kill your enemy you cook him up and eat him to capture his powers. Cannibalism would be a normal way of life and if your whole family had someone over for dinner, and literally had someone over for dinner, you would be the odd ball if you announced you became a vegetarian. I am by no means removing personal responsibility, but I am merely saying that the Bible is true when it says there is none righteous no not one.
And Jesus is a lot harder on the religious than the murderer, adulterer and publican (who cheated men). Why?
I think there are several reasons. First is that sins against God are worse than sins against men. The Pharisees produced a false religion and boasted how they knew God and were full of pride. They could not be helped because they thought they were good. Someone that falls into horrible sin and is suddenly hit with the bill are often humbled and remorseful and begging for mercy. They often think they are too bad to be forgiven, but if someone who is truly humbled and truly broken hears the good news that God saves sinners and God died in their place, they just may look to Jesus Christ for salvation. The self righteous Pharisee looks at "those kind of people" and says, "They don't deserve nothing" and they refuse to extend the hand of grace out. Not that they have any grace to give.
Jody Arias did something wicked and deserving of Hell. But so do we. The Bible says hatred is murder. Yet we don't believe that because we think we are something. We don't see the true enormity of our sinful and deceitful hearts and how wicked we really are. And we see a sinner like Jody Arias and cry, "kill her! she is wicked! she murdered!". Yet we murdered 8 people in our minds on our way to work on a daily basis. And lust is adultery and we committed adultery a half dozen times in the checkout line at the grocery store ogling at the models on the magazine covers.
Part of America's problem is we have more in common with the Pharisees than real Christianity. We who profess to know God think we must be doing pretty good because we are going to church. Yet Jesus ran to sinners. We seem to turn our noses on them. If there is any doubt, how do we act when we run into a queer? Yes sodomy is an abomination according to the bible, but most sodomites were raped or abused by older men and basically picked up a demonic hitchhiker that will only leave if they get saved. Would Jesus minister to them and want them saved? Or would he call down fire from heaven? Are you secure in your own sexuality to reach out to a sodomite with compassion yet believe the Bible enough to know that unless there is repentance of the lifestyle, there is no salvation?
Today's Christianity is truly messed up. The latest Rick Warren issue involves homosexuality. He gave a wishy washy modern explanation for gays that "profess Christ." He claims they will go to heaven if they are still gay but believed on Jesus. That is today's Christianity. It is so powerless and so blind that it doesn't understand the supernatural work of God. When you get saved you get new desires and new direction and God really moves in. We are insecure in that fact because our results are so compromised so we water down our doctrine to fit our results. If you are teaching false salvations you will not see homosexuals delivered. So you will reinvent the Bible to match your experience. Yet no one thinks to question their results by the bible. So you have one Christianity camp that sees no repentance but says everyone is saved, so the natural deduction is homosexuals who stay homosexuals after believing in Jesus must be saved. The next conclusion for them is then homosexuality can't be a sin.
The other camp is so insecure in their results that they don't want to touch homosexuality with a 10 foot poll. Except to say how much they hate it. God hates sin. The cross is proof. Yet we offer no hope to a group that is taking over the world Not everyone wants to embrace this curse. Yet they feel that is their only option. I believe it is the devil's counterfeit to someone who is born again. They hear the "plan of sodomy" and get recruited to try it or it is forced on them. Then it seems some evil spirit then hounds them and won't let up. Then they give in completely and they get turned into a sodomite. They talk the same, they are united in their beliefs, they have a new way of living and there seems to be a moment when they embrace this and accept it and they care more about embracing it then what people might think. Yet God I think would be extending mercy and offering hope to those in bondage. You can get victory over this lifestyle. When you get saved that demon leaves and the desires for normal sexuality start to return. But it is not to become straight, it is to become saved they must turn. True freedom from homosexuality is in falling in love with the right man-- the Lord Jesus Christ.
Are we secure enough in our salvation to truly bring a message of deliverance to the lost? The lesbian? The lust filled ladies? The losers in society? The left out to dry? Or are we so comfortable creating false converts that we just avoid those who we just wouldn't want sitting next to us in case this was the week they backslide?
Church, Jesus is supposed to set the captives free. The murderer becomes a magnificent mom. The homosexual becomes a happy husband. The drunkard becomes a dedicated deacon. The crack addict becomes a caring counselor. And so on.
The true gospel delivers. The problem is the church is better today at producing conforming cookie cutter Pharisees than truly compassion converts. So we see a sodomite or a Jody Arias and thank God we are not as they are.
In God's eyes, we just might be worse.
It is time church to repent, and truly say, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
I don't have a lot more to ad but there are some things that from God's perspective really will make you think. First, Travis suffered horribly for 2 minutes. 120 seconds. That can feel like an eternity in those conditions. He seemed like an innocent victim in the wrong place at the wrong time. He grew up in very sad conditions as his family were amphetamine addicts. He shared stories of growing up with no food and only finding some moldy bread to eat when he was a young child. His life was turned around when he went to live with family in Arizona who were devoted Mormons and he credits that for giving him something to live for. He met Jody at a work conference and they followed their hearts and did what felt good and seemed like it was harming no one, and he introduced her to the Mormon religion and she was baptized.
From the world's perspective things seemed fine. What find upstanding religious citizens! What a great turn around from a life of hopelessness! What a happy couple just following their heart! They are in love! What potential! What a future!
And the world is in shock because of how evil someone like Jody was and how innocent Travis was.
Jody really wants to die instead of life imprisonment. She stated that once she is dead she will be free. That is a lie of the devil and if she never gets saved she will end up in hell. Dying lost catapults you into the lake of fire where you experience the second death. But the bible says your torment lasts forever.
But if you want to really see how the justice of God defies the common sense of man here it is. Travis is in hell right now. The suffering he felt when murdered in comparison to hellfire is closer to remembering a small paper cut or a hang nail. He trusted a false religion and a false Christ and he trusted a gospel of good works instead of the Bible. He ignored God's warnings Paul gives in Galatians that even if an angel from heaven were to preach another gospel, he was to be accursed. The Bible is the soul authority and it is blasphemy to share it's authority with anything else. The Mormon religion puts it on par or below the book of Mormons. The catholic church puts the Bible below church tradition and church teaching. The Jehovah Witnesses put the Bible below the Watchtower. They might give the Bible lip service but by their works they deny it. Further Travis ignored God's warnings about fornication. And to beware of the adulterous woman. The book of Proverbs says that "Her house is the way to hell". That is where Travis is tonight. It is where Travis will be a billion years from now. Travis is burning in hell. That is far worse than the 2 minutes he suffered on his way out of here. Hell is forever. Travis is never getting out.
God's thoughts are not our thoughts and God's ways are not our ways. Jody was a wicked cruel jealous girlfriend but God says He does not delight in the death of the wicked. God says he is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. God's desire is still that Jody Arias would turn from her sin and turn to Jesus Christ.
Jody Arias could still get saved on her way to death row. The murderer could end up in heaven while the one murdered is burning in hell. It seems unfair if we are honest. Let's say a bunch of Christians start praying for her salvation instead of her damnation. God would start drawing her and convicting her of her guilt. She could soon end up attending a Bible study at the prison. If she starts seeing the truth compared with the lies she was taught in the Mormon faith, and starts seeing Jesus loves her when all she felt was rejection her whole life, she might embrace the Jesus of the Bible. She could get humbled and become afraid of death and would now see her need for the true and living God. Like the thief on the cross, she could look to Jesus in saving faith and be born again.
Regardless of what she did before that point.
And because of what she did, her need for salvation would seem larger in her eyes.
And that would produce a greater love for JESUS ONCE SHE WAS SAVED THAT "minimal sinners" would rarely comprehend. He that is forgiven much loveth much.
That is why America really does not understand the Bible.
That is a strong possibility. Especially if someone mails this to Jody in prison. Wouldn't that be the kicker? Every self righteous American Christian waiting for a Death Penalty Verdict would get something they didn't expect. Justice. Only the Justice found at the cross. This is why the cross is so offensive. Surely, Jesus would not have died for her. Ok, you must be a Calvinist. The Bible says Whosover. The Bible is full of the outcasts of society and those committing all kinds of horrible crimes in both the eyes of men and of God repenting and getting saved. God is not a respecter of persons.
This though shows 1. the grace of God and 2. the hopelessness of man apart from Jesus Christ. The world is shocked at how evil someone like Jody is. I just heard about this couple from Canada selling their pick up truck. Another couple went to check it out and asked to test drive it. The prospective buyers and the owner went for a drive. His wife was confused because he never came home. The buyers murdered him, dumped his body, and took off with the truck. In Ohio a man was just caught who had chained up and raped 3 women over a 10 year period. This world is messed up. Human beings can commit horrible crimes that Hollywood can't even think up.
What humanity doesn't want to examine is that Jody Arias might be just like anyone of us. None of us can say that if we grew up the same way she did, and had the same morals instilled in her and the same abuses we could never fall to that level. Apart from the grace of God, any one of us is capable of anything. I can prove it. Imagine if you were born in the jungles of Papau New Guinea and from a young child were taught that after you kill your enemy you cook him up and eat him to capture his powers. Cannibalism would be a normal way of life and if your whole family had someone over for dinner, and literally had someone over for dinner, you would be the odd ball if you announced you became a vegetarian. I am by no means removing personal responsibility, but I am merely saying that the Bible is true when it says there is none righteous no not one.
And Jesus is a lot harder on the religious than the murderer, adulterer and publican (who cheated men). Why?
I think there are several reasons. First is that sins against God are worse than sins against men. The Pharisees produced a false religion and boasted how they knew God and were full of pride. They could not be helped because they thought they were good. Someone that falls into horrible sin and is suddenly hit with the bill are often humbled and remorseful and begging for mercy. They often think they are too bad to be forgiven, but if someone who is truly humbled and truly broken hears the good news that God saves sinners and God died in their place, they just may look to Jesus Christ for salvation. The self righteous Pharisee looks at "those kind of people" and says, "They don't deserve nothing" and they refuse to extend the hand of grace out. Not that they have any grace to give.
Jody Arias did something wicked and deserving of Hell. But so do we. The Bible says hatred is murder. Yet we don't believe that because we think we are something. We don't see the true enormity of our sinful and deceitful hearts and how wicked we really are. And we see a sinner like Jody Arias and cry, "kill her! she is wicked! she murdered!". Yet we murdered 8 people in our minds on our way to work on a daily basis. And lust is adultery and we committed adultery a half dozen times in the checkout line at the grocery store ogling at the models on the magazine covers.
Part of America's problem is we have more in common with the Pharisees than real Christianity. We who profess to know God think we must be doing pretty good because we are going to church. Yet Jesus ran to sinners. We seem to turn our noses on them. If there is any doubt, how do we act when we run into a queer? Yes sodomy is an abomination according to the bible, but most sodomites were raped or abused by older men and basically picked up a demonic hitchhiker that will only leave if they get saved. Would Jesus minister to them and want them saved? Or would he call down fire from heaven? Are you secure in your own sexuality to reach out to a sodomite with compassion yet believe the Bible enough to know that unless there is repentance of the lifestyle, there is no salvation?
Today's Christianity is truly messed up. The latest Rick Warren issue involves homosexuality. He gave a wishy washy modern explanation for gays that "profess Christ." He claims they will go to heaven if they are still gay but believed on Jesus. That is today's Christianity. It is so powerless and so blind that it doesn't understand the supernatural work of God. When you get saved you get new desires and new direction and God really moves in. We are insecure in that fact because our results are so compromised so we water down our doctrine to fit our results. If you are teaching false salvations you will not see homosexuals delivered. So you will reinvent the Bible to match your experience. Yet no one thinks to question their results by the bible. So you have one Christianity camp that sees no repentance but says everyone is saved, so the natural deduction is homosexuals who stay homosexuals after believing in Jesus must be saved. The next conclusion for them is then homosexuality can't be a sin.
The other camp is so insecure in their results that they don't want to touch homosexuality with a 10 foot poll. Except to say how much they hate it. God hates sin. The cross is proof. Yet we offer no hope to a group that is taking over the world Not everyone wants to embrace this curse. Yet they feel that is their only option. I believe it is the devil's counterfeit to someone who is born again. They hear the "plan of sodomy" and get recruited to try it or it is forced on them. Then it seems some evil spirit then hounds them and won't let up. Then they give in completely and they get turned into a sodomite. They talk the same, they are united in their beliefs, they have a new way of living and there seems to be a moment when they embrace this and accept it and they care more about embracing it then what people might think. Yet God I think would be extending mercy and offering hope to those in bondage. You can get victory over this lifestyle. When you get saved that demon leaves and the desires for normal sexuality start to return. But it is not to become straight, it is to become saved they must turn. True freedom from homosexuality is in falling in love with the right man-- the Lord Jesus Christ.
Are we secure enough in our salvation to truly bring a message of deliverance to the lost? The lesbian? The lust filled ladies? The losers in society? The left out to dry? Or are we so comfortable creating false converts that we just avoid those who we just wouldn't want sitting next to us in case this was the week they backslide?
Church, Jesus is supposed to set the captives free. The murderer becomes a magnificent mom. The homosexual becomes a happy husband. The drunkard becomes a dedicated deacon. The crack addict becomes a caring counselor. And so on.
The true gospel delivers. The problem is the church is better today at producing conforming cookie cutter Pharisees than truly compassion converts. So we see a sodomite or a Jody Arias and thank God we are not as they are.
In God's eyes, we just might be worse.
It is time church to repent, and truly say, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
Saturday, May 11, 2013
In the Slough of Despond
My previous post reminded me of an article I posted a while back on my first blog, ETVFC.blogspot.com. I ended up creating this new blog as for some reason every article I wrote posted as one gigantic run-on paragraph. And the spell checker wouldn't work. Readers must have assumed my blog was written by a spiritual seven year old. (Not sure if I am ahead being a semi-spiritual 37 year old. And I was really humbled as one of our high school homeschoolers at our church published her first book already! God really can use any of us and it is more availability than ability. I am the writer at my church! I have over 100 posts written! I have been published! I have 4 blogs! I have 10 book ideas in my head! Yet here is a girl who just published her first book! Availability is the greatest ability.)
------------------------
How shall you escape from the wrath to come?
If you have ever read Pilgrim's Progress, it reads, " Christian because of the burden on his back, began to sink into the mire." Hence he was in the Slough of Despond for a time.
I admit I am in the slough of Lake Laodicean. It is a lukewarm lake, a very rich lake. It has high salt content, which causes people to easily lose their vision in no time. The sands are very appealing, but often trap those that swim there and suck them down forever in it's grip. It is a very worldly and seductive lake, a lake that seems to welcome everyone but frees no one from it's clutches. It is very strange too, it seems all drains today flow into it's currents.
I was swimming against the current in the deep Camp Meeting Creek but after a week I was so tired that I just thought I would float a bit. Next thing I knew I was back in that dreaded Lake. Later, I was fasting and witnessing boldly out in the pond of purity, but I got afraid and took my eyes off the horizon and slowly floated back in.
At one time, I was walking on the path of Holiness and started wandering off a bit and the thorns around the outskirts full of the affairs of this life and the cares and riches started to choke me and as I pulled desperately to get out I fell in again.
How shall we escape? Is there a way out? Sometimes I feel there is but it seems like only an illusion. It seems if we are content to be ostriches and be blind to the lack of true repentance around, we are good. If we just stop fighting the current and stop making a big deal of Lake Laodicea, we can enjoy the waters with all the others all aboard the FellowShip.
Lukewarm is very comfortable and the salt keeps you afloat with no or little effort. Lot pitched his boat toward that lake and found it well watered there. I don't know honestly the answer today. I think the church today likes to live in Lake Laodicea, but they know it as De Nile. Denying there is a problem.
We get decisions so things must be good.
Kingdom bound gets decisions in a pot-polluted stadium with pumped up heavy metal playing. Decisions don't mean anything. I decided after a great sales pitch to let my wife buy a $2,000 Rainbow vacuum. I still would return it today if I could. That is not the same as a conversion.
In the great awakening people were awakened to their sin! To their rebellion against God! Who really is being awakened today? We get flash in the pan professors....back then they had saved from the fire possessors.
Yet the church wants to swim and not be pointed out there is something wrong. (Whitney) Houston, there is a problem! I NEVER KNEW YOU! Yet her Baptist church raved about how talented she was. Our circles are just as clueless it seems. We have professors who don't witness, love pro sports, don't hate sin, yet they are "saved."
We must wake up! You can't say you love God yet not hate sin and hate evil. Yet church today says you are too radical. They label you a nut. Critical. A divider. Hey, if everyone unites around the Bible and conforms to the book there will be true unity.
We mistake today pacifism and cowardliness for unity. We expect real Christians to be warm and fuzzy and not make waves because everyone is trying to sleep on their pleasure rafts in Lake Laodicea.
Judgment must begin at the house of God. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Until the church today wants to wake up and examine ourselves and get out of the slough ourselves we have no ability to rescue the perishing.
Nor do we have any business to.
------------------------
How shall you escape from the wrath to come?
If you have ever read Pilgrim's Progress, it reads, " Christian because of the burden on his back, began to sink into the mire." Hence he was in the Slough of Despond for a time.
I admit I am in the slough of Lake Laodicean. It is a lukewarm lake, a very rich lake. It has high salt content, which causes people to easily lose their vision in no time. The sands are very appealing, but often trap those that swim there and suck them down forever in it's grip. It is a very worldly and seductive lake, a lake that seems to welcome everyone but frees no one from it's clutches. It is very strange too, it seems all drains today flow into it's currents.
I was swimming against the current in the deep Camp Meeting Creek but after a week I was so tired that I just thought I would float a bit. Next thing I knew I was back in that dreaded Lake. Later, I was fasting and witnessing boldly out in the pond of purity, but I got afraid and took my eyes off the horizon and slowly floated back in.
At one time, I was walking on the path of Holiness and started wandering off a bit and the thorns around the outskirts full of the affairs of this life and the cares and riches started to choke me and as I pulled desperately to get out I fell in again.
How shall we escape? Is there a way out? Sometimes I feel there is but it seems like only an illusion. It seems if we are content to be ostriches and be blind to the lack of true repentance around, we are good. If we just stop fighting the current and stop making a big deal of Lake Laodicea, we can enjoy the waters with all the others all aboard the FellowShip.
Lukewarm is very comfortable and the salt keeps you afloat with no or little effort. Lot pitched his boat toward that lake and found it well watered there. I don't know honestly the answer today. I think the church today likes to live in Lake Laodicea, but they know it as De Nile. Denying there is a problem.
We get decisions so things must be good.
Kingdom bound gets decisions in a pot-polluted stadium with pumped up heavy metal playing. Decisions don't mean anything. I decided after a great sales pitch to let my wife buy a $2,000 Rainbow vacuum. I still would return it today if I could. That is not the same as a conversion.
In the great awakening people were awakened to their sin! To their rebellion against God! Who really is being awakened today? We get flash in the pan professors....back then they had saved from the fire possessors.
Yet the church wants to swim and not be pointed out there is something wrong. (Whitney) Houston, there is a problem! I NEVER KNEW YOU! Yet her Baptist church raved about how talented she was. Our circles are just as clueless it seems. We have professors who don't witness, love pro sports, don't hate sin, yet they are "saved."
We must wake up! You can't say you love God yet not hate sin and hate evil. Yet church today says you are too radical. They label you a nut. Critical. A divider. Hey, if everyone unites around the Bible and conforms to the book there will be true unity.
We mistake today pacifism and cowardliness for unity. We expect real Christians to be warm and fuzzy and not make waves because everyone is trying to sleep on their pleasure rafts in Lake Laodicea.
Judgment must begin at the house of God. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Until the church today wants to wake up and examine ourselves and get out of the slough ourselves we have no ability to rescue the perishing.
Nor do we have any business to.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
That swinging pendulum
The Christian is the true schizophrenic. We have 2 natures and they will never get along. They will never reconcile their differences. They will never learn to put their agendas aside and take one for the team.
The Christian has 3 enemies, the World, the Flesh, and the devil. They are closely intertwined, and often hard to tell what is the root cause of the trouble I am in.
The devil is the accuser of the brethren. Sometimes what he accuses us of, we actually are guilty of. At times I am lazy, angry, moody, carnal, worldly, full of wrath, bitterness, pride, lust, greed, envy. My flesh wants me to live there. My spirit says put that junk aside, man! You are saved! You are bought with a price! Your flesh may like it but God doesn't! Get your heart right! Get right with God!
I joke that I bounce between revival and suicidal. In one day. Several times a day at times. The world has their diagnoses for chronic christian conditions. When we give into the flesh, the battle is on, and we act like schizophrenics. We don't need medication, we need mediation! On the Word of God!!! The bible says a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. When we don't act in faith and get stuck looking at the overwhelming events in our lives we get depressed. When we look inward we get depressed, when we get stuck on ourselves we get discouraged by what we find. We don't need a psychiatrist, we need the Great Physician. And the Bible says Jesus is a wonderful counselor as well.
Then we get an unexpected check in the mail and get on a high. Then the unexpected bill falls out of the grocery ad circular. And we are on a low. And we are fasting and going through withdrawal of our soda addiction, and then we talk ourselves into an all liquid fast, and down a Coke, and have a high again. Then the sugar goes out of our bloodstream and we crash and are depressed again. So we go get a bowl of ice cream. And since we just crashed our fast, we might as well now eat. And then we make a sandwich. Of the kind a can of Coke sure would go good with it.
I am a mess at times. They don't last long, but I go from really seeing God do wondrous things and I am so thankful for everything I have in one breath and want everyone saved to experience what I have. And then the next day I am irritable for no reason and hate the world and could care less if they go to hell.
Am I the only one up and down?
Elijah calls down fire from heaven in one verse. A chapter later Jezebel wants to kill him and he is whining beside a juniper tree wishing he was dead. Peter says I will die for you, Jesus. Next chapter he is denying him 3 times. That encourages me because I think that is normal Christianity. Prone to wander Lord I feel it. This stupid flesh comes back when we least expect it and it is capable of anything. Except helping our Christianity. We need to see this is a war and not let a defeat kill you.
Is it any wonder God can use any of us? The world and the world's religions think that God will save everyone. If you truly get to know God, you will start to see how wicked and selfish and deceitful and hell deserving you really are. And you will wonder why he would save any of us!!! But that doesn't get me to quit. It makes me in awe of how good he is and it makes me desperate to conform to his image and stop being the useless cement I was before I was saved. And now be clay in the potter's hand.
I still can get suicidal, but it doesn't last. Praise the Lord. I recognize it and see the lie that it is. I used to wallow in defeat for weeks when I would get down and out. Now as I walk along on my Christian walk, and I accidentally fall in the slough of despond, I won't want to wallow in it. I get out, I grab a bible, and I run to God instead of my sinful comforts that only caused more problems.
The up and down spiritually syndrome.
Is it from Satan?
Is it from sugar?
From stress?
From SIN?
Just an "out of SEASON"??
too focused on STUFF?
That we are not soulwinning?
To much SELF centeredness?
Not being SINGLE minded?
Or is it simply not SEEING Jesus in our Situation?
(originally I was going to say not seeing Jesus in our SIRcumstances.)
What I see is I can over analyze the WHY IS THIS GOING ON? and GOD WHAT DID I DO WRONG? to the point of paralysis by analysis.
Or I just not justify it, confess it, and run to God no matter the reason I am experiencing it.
No matter the reason for it, only he can fix it.
And his grace is sufficient for thee. I cannot handle it, but the Bible says when I am weak, then am I strong.
His strength is made perfect in my weakness.
Oh, how I hate to see how weak I really am.
I am just a weakling but I am connected to all the strength I could ever need.
That dependency is how he wants it.
Oh, but how much our flesh wants to do it ourselves.
The arm of flesh will fail you, but I am thankful God not only puts up with our antics, and our frantics, but he loves us. In spite of us!
Our God really is an awesome God.
The Christian has 3 enemies, the World, the Flesh, and the devil. They are closely intertwined, and often hard to tell what is the root cause of the trouble I am in.
The devil is the accuser of the brethren. Sometimes what he accuses us of, we actually are guilty of. At times I am lazy, angry, moody, carnal, worldly, full of wrath, bitterness, pride, lust, greed, envy. My flesh wants me to live there. My spirit says put that junk aside, man! You are saved! You are bought with a price! Your flesh may like it but God doesn't! Get your heart right! Get right with God!
I joke that I bounce between revival and suicidal. In one day. Several times a day at times. The world has their diagnoses for chronic christian conditions. When we give into the flesh, the battle is on, and we act like schizophrenics. We don't need medication, we need mediation! On the Word of God!!! The bible says a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. When we don't act in faith and get stuck looking at the overwhelming events in our lives we get depressed. When we look inward we get depressed, when we get stuck on ourselves we get discouraged by what we find. We don't need a psychiatrist, we need the Great Physician. And the Bible says Jesus is a wonderful counselor as well.
Then we get an unexpected check in the mail and get on a high. Then the unexpected bill falls out of the grocery ad circular. And we are on a low. And we are fasting and going through withdrawal of our soda addiction, and then we talk ourselves into an all liquid fast, and down a Coke, and have a high again. Then the sugar goes out of our bloodstream and we crash and are depressed again. So we go get a bowl of ice cream. And since we just crashed our fast, we might as well now eat. And then we make a sandwich. Of the kind a can of Coke sure would go good with it.
I am a mess at times. They don't last long, but I go from really seeing God do wondrous things and I am so thankful for everything I have in one breath and want everyone saved to experience what I have. And then the next day I am irritable for no reason and hate the world and could care less if they go to hell.
Am I the only one up and down?
Elijah calls down fire from heaven in one verse. A chapter later Jezebel wants to kill him and he is whining beside a juniper tree wishing he was dead. Peter says I will die for you, Jesus. Next chapter he is denying him 3 times. That encourages me because I think that is normal Christianity. Prone to wander Lord I feel it. This stupid flesh comes back when we least expect it and it is capable of anything. Except helping our Christianity. We need to see this is a war and not let a defeat kill you.
Is it any wonder God can use any of us? The world and the world's religions think that God will save everyone. If you truly get to know God, you will start to see how wicked and selfish and deceitful and hell deserving you really are. And you will wonder why he would save any of us!!! But that doesn't get me to quit. It makes me in awe of how good he is and it makes me desperate to conform to his image and stop being the useless cement I was before I was saved. And now be clay in the potter's hand.
I still can get suicidal, but it doesn't last. Praise the Lord. I recognize it and see the lie that it is. I used to wallow in defeat for weeks when I would get down and out. Now as I walk along on my Christian walk, and I accidentally fall in the slough of despond, I won't want to wallow in it. I get out, I grab a bible, and I run to God instead of my sinful comforts that only caused more problems.
The up and down spiritually syndrome.
Is it from Satan?
Is it from sugar?
From stress?
From SIN?
Just an "out of SEASON"??
too focused on STUFF?
That we are not soulwinning?
To much SELF centeredness?
Not being SINGLE minded?
Or is it simply not SEEING Jesus in our Situation?
(originally I was going to say not seeing Jesus in our SIRcumstances.)
What I see is I can over analyze the WHY IS THIS GOING ON? and GOD WHAT DID I DO WRONG? to the point of paralysis by analysis.
Or I just not justify it, confess it, and run to God no matter the reason I am experiencing it.
No matter the reason for it, only he can fix it.
And his grace is sufficient for thee. I cannot handle it, but the Bible says when I am weak, then am I strong.
His strength is made perfect in my weakness.
Oh, how I hate to see how weak I really am.
I am just a weakling but I am connected to all the strength I could ever need.
That dependency is how he wants it.
Oh, but how much our flesh wants to do it ourselves.
The arm of flesh will fail you, but I am thankful God not only puts up with our antics, and our frantics, but he loves us. In spite of us!
Our God really is an awesome God.
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