I awoke at two AM this morning to discover that the cable
and phone were out. We always sleep with
the TV on, a habit my husband picked up, and I have had to adapt to, as a
result of being on the road, away from home, due to his job as a salesman. I know it sounds funny, but if the TV goes
off, the silence seems to be so loud that it will cause us to wake up. The point is, because the cable was out, we
inserted one of our DVD’s to hopefully help us fall back to sleep. Well, it didn’t work. Instead, because it was one containing a
variety of Christian topics that we often record, my mind was captured and drawn
to ponder upon the things of the Lord, as opposed to the things of the world.
The DVD
ended, and I was left with a disturbing and unsettling feeling that would not leave
me alone. Thoughts were being tossed
around in my head like a conversation that had a life of its own, refusing to
be silenced. Still, I tried to lie
there, hoping that it would eventually end and let me drift off to sleep once
again. No, it wouldn’t cease, and so I
continued to listen to the banter of the conversational thoughts. I became increasingly aware of a growing sense
of anxiety stirring up feelings of a great sadness and feelings of some
impending doom.
How can
I explain and describe what I was feeling?
Perhaps, if I set a scene in our minds, we could understand it
better. You’ve been away for awhile, and
you’ve just returned home. As you are
about to enter your home, you feel a sense of happiness and peace that only
comes from being back in an atmosphere where you can kick off your shoes, take
off the clothes that seem to bind to tight around you, and just relax in the
comfort of your own home, away from the sights and sounds of the outside world. You’re looking forward to sitting in your
favorite easy chair, or snuggling in the warm and peaceful comfort of your very
own bed. However, when you open the
door, you are shocked with the sight of the devastation and destruction that
exists because someone has violated the security of your home, having destroyed
much, and stolen even more. Where is
everything? Who did this to you? How will you ever be able to replace the
things that are not replaceable because they weren’t just things, but rather
represented people and memories that you loved and cherished? Even more, their loss has left you with a
feeling of being robbed of parts of your very soul: parts that had taken so
much time and effort to build into your life; parts that had been built into
your life, not just through your own efforts, but infused within you through
the precious lives of those who cared enough about you to add a part of
themselves to enhance your very being.
It brings such a sense of loss within that you can not imagine how, or
if, you will ever be able to fill the emptiness that now invades far more than
your physical being.
I have
set the scene that we might have a basis to build upon to help us, the body of
Christ, understand the much greater and far more devastating loss that we have,
and are continuing to experience in the spiritual realm. We have traveled so
far away from our first love that we don’t even realize that we have been
robbed, or what it is that we have lost.
We don’t recognize the fact that house of our soul has been violated,
robbed, and depleted of the moral fabric that once existed to protect us from
the evil of the world. Our most precious
possessions of conscience and ability to discern right from wrong has been so
steadily eroded that we don’t seem to realize what we have lost, and that we
are continually loosing even more, like a tire with a slow leak. We have been so desensitized to the ugliness
of spiritual pollution and corruption, that we don’t even recognize the fact
that we have become comfortable in the practice of tolerating sin in our
life. We’ve forgotten what it means to
resist the devil, to give no place to him, to give no appearance of evil, to
confront evil where evil exists, and to rid our lives, with the help of the
Holy Spirit, of that which is offensive to God and contrary to His holy word. The walls of moral constraints, which used to
exist within the individual believer, and the body of Christ as a whole, have
been so battered and broken down by the onslaught of the powers of evil, that
we have become as naked and vulnerable to attack as the city of Jerusalem was
when its walls were reduced to little more than rubble. Those who have grown up in the world
of the sixties and forward, have no idea of the moral constraints that we have
lost. Since that time, it seems that we
have increasingly lost our moral compass, for the belief in God and the truth
of His word has been so marginalized in this secular world that not only is
evil more tolerated, but it is now even been redefined as good, and good is
redefined as evil. We, the very ones who
are supposed to love and worship the Lord, have become more interested in not
offending the world’s standards of morality, than we are of not offending God
and His standards of true right and wrong and morality. We have lost the knowledge that truly
demonstrating our love for the Lord means to fear Him, acknowledge Him in all
our ways, seek to be holy as He is holy, ask Him to search our hearts, expose
the evil that may be lurking therein, cast it off, and fight against it with
the same kind of diligence that we would if our body was being eaten away by a
cancer or leprosy.
What have we been robbed of; what is missing that once held
us closer to the Lord and His ways? Who
has robbed us? Who has replaced the
incorruptible with the corruptible? Who
left the door to our heart so unguarded that any evil stranger could walk in
without fear of consequences, and make himself at home to consume and destroy
anything of value that once existed there?
I don’t have all the answers, but this I do know. We have so quenched the voice of the Holy
Spirit within us that, not only do we limit His guiding power in our lives, but
we often ignore Him entirely, acting as if He doesn’t even exist. In addition, both believers and unbelievers
alike are ignoring their conscience, given by God to be a guide even for the
carnal mind. The fabric of the
conscience of the carnal mind was at least influenced at one time by the
constraints of godly principles that society held when the society at large
esteemed God and His laws and ways as valuable and worth retaining and
implementing in the living out of our lives.
The bottom line for responsibility for this theft lies
within us as individual believers, and collectively as the body of Christ. We have become so lukewarm and putridly tepid
that we have little or no influence upon society at large. We are supposed to be the salt of the earth;
salt is supposed to help preserve and prevent rot. As we see the encroachment of immorality and
secularized standards being received and incorporated within the church,
because we refuse to fight back against it, we contribute to the filth and
deceit that is rotting us from within. Not
only have we ignored the Holy Spirit, but we have also failed to stay rooted
and grounded in the word. The word has
power to shape and mold our minds that we may be equipped to think and act more
like Jesus our Savior. But we have
become lazy, and have become more like those who have no knowledge and wisdom
of God within them because of their unbelief.
We are to meditate upon and study the word that we may be a “workman
that need not be ashamed.” We have
failed to hide His word in our hearts that the Lord might write it upon the
tablets of our heart. He has promised to
“teach our hands to war and our fingers to fight.” We are supposed to teach our children, that
they may know the Lord and His ways, and bring them up in “the way that they
should go,” that they would not depart from it when they are older. His word can not have the power and influence
in our lives if we do not study, learn about Him and His ways, and depend upon
the power of the Holy Spirit to empower us to live out our lives by applying
His word. How can we become the person He
has designed and purposed us to be if we don’t even take the time to get to
know Him? How can we grow and mature in
faith if we choose to do our own thing instead of seeking Him and His will in
and for our lives? He has given us the
scriptures to be our instruction book to draw us close to Him that we might be
saved not only for our eternal lives, but also that we may be equipped to live
out our lives in the here and now. Jesus
said that He did only that which His heavenly Father told and showed Him to do. Jesus is not just some “good example” for us
to try to emulate. He is the way, the
truth, and the life and no man may come to the Father except through Him, and
only Him.
Life, as God intends it to be for us, can not be lived out
without Him. Because we live in a fallen
world, without Him we have no defense against the evil powers of this world or
even against the desires of our own flesh.
Without the full armor of God, we are continually opened to the weapons
of the enemy (Satan) who seeks to devour us. Without God, we have no
defenses. With God “nothing is
impossible,” and “greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.” He has riches stored up to infuse within us
that are far beyond our imaginations.
Yes, we have been deceived and robbed, and more often than not, it is due
to our own neglect of Him, the One who gave His all for us that we might have
abundant and eternal life.
Another source of theft from us is the ones who have taken
on the responsibility to be our pastors and other church leaders. Many are diligent to teach about God’s love
and blessings, but neglect entirely to teach of God’s judgment due to our
disobedience, and consequences for not confronting and dealing with sin in our
lives. They often enable us to feel comfortable
while we seek to practice sin, as though God’s grace meant that we are not set
free from enslavement to sin, but rather as though we are set free to sin all
the more. Even this is partially our own
fault, for we are the ones who seek out preachers that will tell us what we
want to hear, but not what we need to hear.
We want them to preach only about that which will make us feel good
about ourselves. We don’t want to hear
that “judgmental stuff about sin and our responsibility not to indulge ourselves
in it. We don’t want our little minds
bothered with such things as a need of taking responsibility for our own
actions, or our need to confess our sin before the Lord and ask His
forgiveness. No, we are too intent upon
viewing God as some genie whom we have at our personal beck and call to “get”
all that we can get. We want the kind of
god that is responsible to us, not the Living God that we are to humbly submit
our will to His will, and willing serve Him out of our love for who He is and
all that He has done and is doing for us.
Don’t dare to mention the curses that result from our own rebelliousness
against the Lord our God who desires to give so freely to us of that which is
good, and not evil. We don’t want to
hear of our responsibility to resist temptation and confess our sins before
God, or that we should “sorrow to repentance” and turn from our wicked sinful
ways. We have become so tolerant of sin
in our lives that, more often than not, we are practically void of the ability
to even discern between good and evil.
Where is the act of rebuke, reproof, and correction from our pastors who
should be informing and warning us again and again that the wages of sin is
death? For that matter, where is that
same reproof, rebuke, and correction given in love from our fellow brothers and
sisters in Christ, that if it had been given, may have given us cause to pause
before we rushed so willingly into the clutches of sin? No, we are being lulled into an apathetic
state of being by the “I’m okay, you’re okay” insipid sermons that are being
preached, which seldom, if ever, stir up the Spirit within us to shine the
light to expose the sin that is within, and light that fire that would lead and
encourage us to purge from within the poison of sin.
We have allowed ourselves to indulge in a dumbing down, or
worse yet, a numbing down type of Christianity. We involve ourselves in all the outward
activities that we “think” give proof to our faith in God, while inwardly our
hearts are arrogant and prideful, seeking more to build ourselves up in the
eyes of man, while caring little about humbling ourselves before Him. We are more intent about what we can get from
Him, than we are upon what we can give of ourselves unto Him. He doesn’t need anything from us; He already owns everything. Anything that we have is not of our own
making, but is that which we have received from Him. All He asks of us is a contrite heart and a
willing desire to serve and obey Him, not out of force, but out of a heart that
loves Him with every part of our being.
When was the last time that we voluntarily went to Him, asking Him to
search our hearts and to restore a right spirit within us? How often do we gladly go to His word that He
may renew our minds by the washing of the water of His word? What has happened to our desire to have the
mind of Christ that we may think, act, respond, and live in and according to
His image and not our own? When was the
last time we sincerely asked Him what He wanted of us? Do we go to Him with a
selfish heart asking Him to give us the desires of our heart, instead of
surrendering ourselves and seeking His desires to be fulfilled in our lives?
When did we become so arrogant and prideful that we have
begun to think that we have the authority to disagree with His word? Amazingly,
we are even creating laws through the Supreme Court of our land, which reflect
the idea that we have the right to supersede, or even veto, the true “Supreme
Court of the Lord God Almighty and His laws,” established from before the
beginning of time. At the least, we
have become leopard Christians, thinking that we have the right to choose which
“spots” of His word we do, or do not, agree with. He’s the Creator of all things; He made us a
little lower than the angels. He knows the
beginning from the end, and wants only that which is best for us. Yet, we take it upon ourselves to be editors,
or spot checkers of His word; tell me, who is appointed as the head
“spotchecker” over all the “lesser spotcheckers?” Christians can not expect unbelievers to
abide by God’s authority. However, it is
a sad, sad state when the church itself starts to incorporate and accept within
its body such beliefs and actions that are totally contrary to the word of
God. We are supposed to love and pray
for one another, and love and pray for unbelievers. We are supposed to love and have compassion
for the unbeliever, but we are not supposed to join with the
secular world view to condone or accept the practice of any sin in their lives
or ours. We cannot prevent the practice
of any sin in the lives of others, but shouldn’t we at least be diligent not to
condone and accept it in ourselves as individuals or collectively within the
church? Where in the word has it said
that the Christian has the right to decide for himself what is or is not
sin? I thought for sure that was in
God’s hands alone. He has set up
absolutes, so that His word is true to all generations, and not subject to
change. It’s man’s ways that are subject
to change and are not dependable for they seem to be blown in every direction,
subject to the as the whims and winds of
time and place.
What kind of misguided idea of love is it that seeks to
make others feel comfortable in the practice of sin? When did making ourselves or others “feel
better” about themselves, or condoning sin as good and acceptable become more
important speaking truth in love for the sake of our eternal souls? We lie to ourselves, and lie to others that we,
or they, are just fine and dandy; all the while we aid and abet the deliverance
of souls into the hands of Satan, and possibly right into the pit of Hell! Have we become such tepid lukewarm Christians
that we no longer have any sense of shame or remorse? Our hearts should be breaking within us for
the calamities that are we are contributing to in the world and in the
church. We should be falling on our face
before the Lord in total submission for that which we have brought upon
ourselves. Where is our shame and
repentance for having lost our “salt” that could serve to preserve and protect
us from having all moral constraints completely removed, the results of which
will be a state of such rampant evil that none of us has imagined could
exist? How can we ask God to help and
bless us when we are so fast running away from His protective hand and removing
His protective hedge from around us? It
seems that we are content to go about our lives, closing our eyes to evil
instead of opening our eyes and crying out to the Lord our God in repentance,
and that He would begin that renewal within our own heart.
I’m very concerned that should the Lord come for His church
in the near future that there will be so few called up in the rapture, that many
may not even notice that we are gone.
May everyone who professes to be a Christian, seek the Lord and study
His word that we might turn our hearts totally back to Jesus, not just as
Savior, but as Lord over every part of our lives. We must fight back and stem the tide against
the idea that being saved by grace means you or I have the right to willfully
practice that which God has declared to be sin, as if tolerance of evil in our
life has no effect upon our eternal salvation.
We must turn our heart back to the Lord, and go back to the word to be
transformed by it, instead of being conformed to the world. Those of us who are aiding and abetting
others, who profess to be Christians, to feel comfortable in the willful
practice of sin, must wake up and stop such efforts, if we truly love and care
about one another. There is far more at
stake here than whether or not we “feel happy or good about ourselves” for the
duration of this temporal part of life.
This temporary existence is but a speck of time in comparison to all of
eternity.
There is no neutrality or sitting on the fence with
God. If God is God, we are to serve Him
alone, and no other. If Baal is god,
then serve him. We can’t have it both
ways. As believers, we will be held
accountable for not at least trying to encourage each other to turn from
wickedness, and turn our lives back over to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over
all our life, not just bits and pieces of it.
Isn’t that supposed to be at least part of the evidence that we love
each other as brothers and sisters in Christ?
No person can “force” another to change, but we can at least approach
each other with the truth in love. All
of us have fallen short of the mark. We
all need a helping hand and a reminder that nothing is unforgivable, except the
blaspheming of the Holy Spirit which is an eternal sin. As Christians, we are to give and receive
rebuke, reproof, instruction, and correction, helping and encouraging one
another to turn from sin and seek the help of the Holy Spirit to cast down the
strongholds of evil in our lives. If we
truly love the Lord, we will consider such actions, when they are received by
us, as an act of love. Isn’t it better
to consider a reproof or correction as an opportunity to go before the Lord and
ask Him to reveal whether there is truth in the rebuke, in order that we may
learn, change, be renewed, and shaped more into the image of Christ?
We are supposed to desire to become holy as He is
holy. It is a process, and does not
occur if we do not submit our will to His.
What seems to us to be a good thing, or makes us happy, could possibly
be the very last and worse thing that we need in our lives. That which we think we can not do without,
but is not for our good, can be removed and forgiven, if we are willing to submit
to God’s will and authority over our lives.
We have to be willing to put forth true effort to obey Him, and depend
upon Him as our source of strength to overcome every evil work, that would try
to hinder our walk with the Lord. I
can’t eat a dozen doughnuts and then ask God to help me loose weight. It is my responsibility not to buy the
doughnuts in the first place, setting myself up for failure. That is more like giving place to the devil
than it is to resisting the devil.
At this point, I took a break, or thought I was finished
writing for the day, and would return to it tomorrow. As I often do, I spent a bit of time telling
my husband about what I was feeling about what I was writing. To tell you the truth, I was really
“murmuring and complaining.” I said, “Honey, I don’t understand why the Lord is
having me write about this. It seems as
though I’ve already written about this subject.
He keeps bringing me back to it time and again to explore it in a
different way, and yet the same theme is being repeated over and over.” I almost began to feel like Jeremiah must
have felt as he brought forth the word of the Lord to the people, knowing in
advance that they were not going to listen.
I can only imagine how many times he must have felt like quitting, as if
it was all a futile cause with no positive results. Yet the Lord empowered him to remain
steadfast and faithful to God, and his obedience unto God was counted as
success, regardless of the response of the people.
During my break, I listened to a teaching by Charles
Stanley, and something he said struck a chord in my heart. He said that the scriptures were written to
the people of that time for the people of all future
generations. This insight stirred me to
think further about my own study and attempts at writing in an effort to serve
and love the Lord, and give back to Him.
Obviously, I am not a professional writer. But I pray that in sharing with others, I may
be of help to stir others to start their own journey to study and draw closer
to the Lord. However, I realized that I
had overlooked another possibility for why the Lord would have me return again
and again to the same topic. Could this
be a part of what it means to meditate upon the word of the Lord? Perhaps He is intent on making sure that I
understand for myself first of all what I thought was just to be shared with
someone else. As a retired teacher, I
believe repetition and review are tools that always enhance learning. Doesn’t it make sense that, for something to
become a lasting and easily retrieved insight or bit of information, it must
become embedded first in your mind and heart, and then passed on to others? I don’t understand a lot about the mechanisms
of a computer, but it seems to me that once information is downloaded, it is
never really lost but remains in the hard drive. When God wants us to really have a grasp of
his word in a way that will have an opportunity to shape, mold, and change our
way of thinking and acting, He does it through downloading into our mind, heart
and spirit, where it won’t get lost and is readily able to be retrieved to
direct our path as we go through our journey of life. In that way, the power of the Holy Spirit so
interweaves His word and His ways into us, that it replaces the ways of our old
nature, and strengthens our new life in Christ, so that it becomes the new
normal, and our carnal life becomes less and less normal. Oh how I love the scripture that gives us the
assurance that, if we do our part to cooperate and learn from him, He will “write
His word on the tablets of our heart.”
Okay Lord, as a retired teacher, I can certainly appreciate the fact
that you use repetition and review in teaching me. Forgive me Lord for my murmuring and
complaining. I should know by now that
you always have a purpose for what you want us to do.
Sometimes I think of how I have wasted time and allowed
myself to be deceived and robbed of the great storehouse of the Lord’s wisdom
and knowledge. I can’t blame it on
anyone else but myself. I could allow my
failures to drag me down into the pit of depression, but thankfully, God lifts
me up and reminds me not to let my heart be downcast. He never gives up on me, and has unlimited
patience with me. He gladly forgives me if I am only willing to recognize and
confess my sin unto Him. He will pick me
up and put my feet back upon the solid rock of faith in Him. He will restore unto me that which the canker
worm has eaten. Like Peter, when he
walked out upon the water, as he took his eyes off of the Lord, He began to
sink, but was lifted up once again as He returned His focus upon the Lord. King David was the apple of God’s eye, not
because he was without sin, but because of God’s grace towards him when he
sincerely repented of his sins, turned away from his wicked ways, and turned
his heart back to the Lord. What He did
for King David, He will do for you and me.
I can’t explain why some people seemingly have harder
struggles against sin in life, while others don’t seem to go down the same
paths. Because one might seem to
struggle more, does not mean one person is more righteous, or a “better”
Christian than another. None of us can
go through life escaping temptation and sin, for only Christ, God in the form
of man, was tempted in all ways as we are, but never sinned. Neither can I
explain why some have to endure more hardships in life, while others appear to
sail easily through life even though they may never acknowledge the existence
of God, much less their need for Him. I
can not imagine how difficult it must be to have to battle against the horrible
strongholds of alcoholism, addictions, dark pits of practicing infidelity or
any of the numerous forms of perversions and sexual immorality, or gambling,
and on and on. Yet I know that I Corinthians
tells us that we can be set free from enslavement to any kind of sin. The word does not say that if you are saved
that you will never sin again. However,
if we are truly born again, but choose to willingly practice sin, wouldn’t it
be wise to go before the Lord and seek His will through His word to reevaluate
whether we are truly saved or not?
How can we say that we love and obey the Lord, and yet
continue to hold on to the practice of sin?
We must not assume that God’s grace allows us to hang on to this or that
sin because it “makes us happy?” God
doesn’t change His mind, or look the other way because we decide practice certain sin(s), and incorporate it
into our life as our best friend. I
think of Jesus and what He often said to those that were saved, healed or
delivered from demons. He would ask
questions like: Do you want to be saved; do you want to be healed; do you want
to be set free; what do you want? Why
does He ask such questions? Doesn’t it seem
obvious that everyone should want to be saved, healed, or delivered? Yet, we see today that, when offered the free
gift of eternal salvation, people will still do just as the rich young man did,
turn away and reject Him because we value earthly riches or satisfying the
desire of the flesh more, choosing the sin and things of the world to be our
favorite “sin or friend.” We often have
no understanding that the gifts of God are without limit, for no one can
out-give the Lord. No sin, no matter how
satisfying it may seem at the time, can ever bring the kind of blessings,
peace, and lasting joy that God is more than willing to pour into our lives, if
we are only willing to humble ourselves before Him and willingly obey Him.
So, where are: reproof, rebuke, and encouragement to confront
sin; repentance, and turning away from all that is contrary to the word of God?
Once again, I’m speaking here to us,
those who profess to believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior? Do we seek Jesus as our Savior, but think we
can serve Him without being obedient unto Him?
Do you and I want to be saved, healed, delivered, and set free from
enslavement to “some sins,” but not from other particular sin(s) that we look
upon as a neccessary part of the essence of life, as if we would not be
complete without it? Do we really want
Him to have authority and Lordship over every part of our life? Or are there parts that we want to retain
authority over so that we can continue in doing our own thing, or as the song
says – “I did it my way”?
With all that is being redefined as good and not evil; with
all the twisting and editing of God’s word that is being done; with all the
one-sided preaching of the love of God, without an equal focus on our
responsibility to obey our Lord, and the consequences derived from failing to
do so; it is no wonder that Christians today are, more often than not, sickly
and ineffective. We are so intent on
making each other “feel good” about ourselves, in the here and now, while we
seem to care less and less about the horrific present and eternal consequences of
not
focusing on doing and being that which is pleasing unto the Lord. If our focus is upon what pleases me,
instead of what pleases Him, how can we possibly consider
ourselves saved by the blood of Jesus, when we deem our sin as a greater
treasure to possess, but do not value, first and foremost, His precious blood
that was shed for you and me? Let us
wake up from our apathetic and lukewarm form of Christianity. Be not deceived or robbed, but anchored in
Jesus and the word of the Lord. Love the
Lord our God first and foremost, letting nothing and no one take precedence
over Him and His will. He has loved us
first; love the Lord thy God with all your mind, heart, and soul. Let His Holy Spirit reign in and over every
part of your being and He will give you unimaginable joy to be your
strength. “Rejoice in the Lord always,
and again I say, Rejoice!”
Romans 1: 28 - 32
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God
gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity;
whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors
of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers,
without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of
God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the
same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”
I
Corinthians has made it plain that all have fallen short of the mark, for all
have sinned and none can deem themselves as righteous before God, without faith
in the blood of Jesus, and His resurrection from the dead. Take special note of the word were (vs.
11) in the following scriptures, signifying that all have sinned, but also that
all who will confess their sin, repent, and believe on Jesus will be saved and
forgiven by the grace of God, not that they may continue in sin, but rather to
be set free from enslavement to sin.
There is a difference between the continual practice of that which God
has deemed as wickedness (sin), and when we fall into sin that all are going to
experience simply because of our struggle against our fallen nature which still
exists within us, even when we are born again.
I Cor.
6: 9 – 11
”Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God kingdom of God
0 comments:
Post a Comment