Micah 7:18 Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy..

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Clinging to the feet of Jesus

What a week of tragedies, many times these tragedies can be means that crack the stone heart, other times people use tragedies to reinforce the wall and add another layer of height or the depth of the wall.
Though we look at life choices as many, but the truth of the matter there are generally two choices to any situation. One we can rebel, turn and haw at God claiming that He is not a God of love or justice. When we do this we set ourselves up in judgment of God, imagine, the created judging the Creator. I suspect that some who will read this will not agree and will go on their merry way, for those very people I ask one favor, please read on.
There are a few facts that we need to get clear, when Adam sinned, death and tragedy were introduced into this world.
God had given man a wonderful place to live and dwell and meaningful work to do, more importantly, He gave man a relationship with Him, He loved him enough that He walked in the garden where he dwelled. He loved man so much that He knew it was not good for him to be alone so He made him (Adam) a suitable partner/helper (Eve). Being that God is Holy and Loving and Just, He had given them one rule do not eat form the tree in the center of the garden. The day that Eve ate form the fruit and gave to her husband who was there, began a downslide that continues to this day. Tragedy and death entered this day into the world this very day. In talking about death, it was not physical but rather spiritual.
The eviction from the garden came with some harsh realities, the earth would no longer just produce, it would be by intense labor and on that note, and the woman would feel increased pain, in giving birth.
Over the history of man, we seem to come repeatedly finding ourselves staring at our own rebellion to the God who gave us life and loved us enough to give us a perfect place to live and a relationship with Him. Through all this, man continued to rebel and God continued to love. Being a Holy and Just God there were times when God had to hold us accountable, which is proper. If we are honest, we have to agree that God has always been just in His dealing with us. Actually He has been far more just than we would have been if we were able to sit on His throne.
Through it all God was willing and determined to provide for us something we were not able to and in some instances no longer interested in, a relationship with Him.
That brings us to the very means by which God would ultimately give to us as a means of relationship with Him, His very Son Jesus. It is through Jesus, through our belief in Him and by confessing Him, and following all that He commanded. Jesus taught many wonderful and inspiring truths, but one of the best for our condition and the pain that comes into our lives as a result of the nature of a fallen world is found in Matthew 11:29. It is here that Jesus instructs us “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Clinging to the feet of Jesus? When tragedy comes into our lives we will choose one of two Reponses, and as discussed earlier, we will either turn our hearts from the one who truly loves us or we will turn and cling. I do not mean to minimize anyone’s lose or the magnitude of any tragedy on ones life. My prayer is that if you are not the one who clings to the feet of Jesus, that you will.
Many people wrongly blame God for every wrong that happens in their lives, parents who lose a child, a child who loses a parent. As a parent, I cannot imagine the pain that must accompany losing of a child; I can however understand the pain of losing a parent, I lost my father at age 14. Life has taught me many things, very few were all that great, for in the eyes of the world we must rely on our own selves to get our comfort in our times of tragedy. Drugs and alcohol were then and are still the worlds antidote to suffering. This led me down a horrible and even more tragic existence, than that of a fourteen year old boy who would have just grown up without a father.
I am forty-one now, and came to truth late in life, but it is so very important, for me to convey the power of these truths. Where I came to find the most comfort and relief for my pain, the pain of a child, who turned to drugs and alcohol and who had to lived the hardest part of a child’s life without a dad, I came to this relief at the feet of Jesus.
My friends we cannot change the days passed by, we can only live today and change tomorrow. If you are at a place in life where you are dealing with the tragedy of a loss, please know that the one true God of the universe feels your pain and He shares your hurt and sense of loss. See, if you do not know the story, God knows the story of loss and of tragedy. He created this place, created two people, asked only two things, that we get to know Him, and asked us to obey only one rule. The result of that as we seen from above, the two failed and this broke His heart, several thousand years later, God sent Jesus, so He would die for us, so we could once again be able to dwell with Him. God loves you and I so much, that He sent His only Son to die for us, that is love in the highest degree. I know many do not understand or cannot equate this to love, but think about this would you send your only son to be brutalized and to die for people who do not even care? The fortunate part for us is that He did and we have a chance while we are still here to learn and apply that knowledge to our life.
If you have lost someone, especially a little one, a parent, or maybe a sibling, know this truth, you can know that God loves that child, and He is taking such wonderful care of that child. The child will experience no pain, no scrapes or boo-boo’s, never a tear to be shed. However, one does still grieve and shed tears, that one is God, He loves us so much and He does not want us to miss an opportunity to be with Him, and experience a hope in this life and in the life to come, a hope that is liberating from the may pains of this world.
We all live in this world, the same world that Jesus left Heaven to come to, so we could have the ability to come to Him in faith and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Without Jesus, there is no hope, for us or for those little ones.
Therefore, if you know Jesus, do not let the devil get a foothold in your times of tragedy, Cling to the feet of Jesus. If you do not know Jesus, I urge you, know this, we are not guaranteed one day on this planet, do not let another breath proceeded from your lungs, please turn today and ask God to forgive you of your sins, ask Him to save your soul, go and be baptized. Get into a bible believing and preaching church and get to know Jesus, and you can know the peace, He so wants you to have in Him, and you can be confident that He is not alone in wanting to see you in Heaven. Turn my friend and cling to the feet of Jesus.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

The Church of Cultural Relevance or The First Church of Idolatry

It is said today that we in the church must conform to this world, or at the very least make the world comfortable in our midst. How sad of a day when the 10 Commandments are removed from our society because they offend a minority of people. How much worse when the Church of the very God who gave those commands removes them because they may offend someone?

The truly offensive here are the ones who remove Gods Word because someone may become offended. That is the worldliest bunch of garbage I have ever been confronted with. Where are the bold men of God who proclaim His Holy and Mighty Word without fear of anything or anyone? Where is this man of God today? He is not in too many pulpits today.

In our culture right now we have men in charge of the largest churches in America, and they stammer around the issues afraid to say that sin is sin. You have these wimpiest of men afraid to say that Christ is the ONLY way to be SAVED, that He alone is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE! We have men who will associate themselves with ungodly, unbelieving men who represent a cause, just because an ungodly world sees them as popular. It is akin to having Satan preaching in the pulpit. I am being general for a reason, I know who these men are and more than likely you do too. I am being so general because it is the right thing to do. My purpose is that if you are in the congregation of one of these harlots, that you yourself confront them, according to the biblical standard. Go to your brother, and confront him is he repents, you have won your brother, if he does not, go to him with two or more witnesses, and confront him again, if he refuses to repent remove the evil from your presence.

I am not in favor of churches splintering or splitting, at the same time, there are procedures for discipline in the church and they must be followed to remove those who are distorting the truth of God’s Holy Word.

Recently I listened to a sermon based on the message of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians 9:19-27, I was completely appalled! The message of Paul was ripped out of its Historical context, and became a message that we should embrace this world and that we need to immerse ourselves in the culture, read what the culture reads, listen and watch what the culture listens to and watches, the only good in the message was he did say that we are not to sin, when we do this. According to this preacher, that is what Paul did. The only problem with that is the fact that the Apostle Paul, also know as Paul of Tarsus, who was a Jew, but was a Hellenized Jew, he grew up in a culture that was predominantly Greek/Roman. This pastor said that Paul went so far as to learn the poets and philosophers of the day, this is contextually wrong, he knew some of these things because he grew up in that culture. Let it also be known that He (Paul) considered himself a Jew of Jews. He took what he knew and used it to confront people about there unknown god, to show them that this God was not unknown to him and did not have to be unknown to them. A couple of things that this pastor forgot were, that we are not to do things which could cause another brother to stumble, and we are to be Holy for the Lord our God is Holy.

This particular pastor went as far as to say, “we are in sin if we do not contextualize” the Holy Word of God, which is to take the scriptures out of their natural context and make them apply however, the situation warrants. I am here to warn us against such pagan principles.

Situational ethics are not scriptural and they are wrong, just as this too is wrong! One the first part of this pastors statement, he is dead wrong, and man cannot pronounce what is sin, only God can tell us what sin is! As for the way we present scripture, we do need to make application that applies to our present life and time, but we cannot rip them out of their context so we can apply some cockamamie and half-baked truth. The biggest danger with these pastors is their inherent desire for us to mold to the culture to win people to Christ.

Friends we cannot win one person to Jesus, scripture is clear, faith comes by hearing. We are to be faithful in our preaching of the word of life. We are to come out of the world, we are not to be defiled by the world. In James 4:4, we see the message is clear, “You adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
Do you and we really want to become once again at odds or become enemies of the God who saved us from sin and death?

Brothers and sisters, remain faithful, remain strong in the faith and challenge these ungodly methods, these worldly ways that have been introduced either by men who are blinded by the enemy or are willing participants in evil. We are called to be a Holy and Blameless people of God. James the brother of our Lord Jesus tell us in “James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

I desire to make clear they way we are to be toward this heresy that has entered into our midst, we are not to love the world or the things in it. 1 John 2:15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

We need to go forth and preach the Gospel as we are commanded but we are not to compromise with the world or the enemy or anyone in that task. NO COMPRIMISE! When we compromise our faith and God’s Word we step out of the obedience that we are called to. I want everyone who hears me preach come to know God’s mercies, His love, and the Joy that waits for His children, but I cannot compromise His Holy word to get the job done. When any man puts himself in the position that he compromises the Word of God, he just tried place himself above the Thorne of God, and that is exactly what Satan tired to do and that is the reason he was cast down form Heaven.

Friends it only makes since that Satan would continue to try to exalt himself above the Throne of God as he did before, and it makes even more sense that if he can get a man who is preaching the Word of God to stray he will get him to try to place himself above God’s Throne as well.

If we set out to make ourselves the apple of the world’s eye, if we desire their love we will find ourselves in an awful way. We have been called out of the world for a reason, and the reason is so very simple to share our joy with those we come in contact with, to share the love of Christ, to Preach His Word, to those around us, not to compromise with them. We are not going to have the love and the friendship of the world because of Christ. Jesus told us this in, “John 15:19 "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”


Lastly, I plea with you to fight the good fight, to race the race with a desire to win, we must confront the evil in our midst. We need to be steadfast on our resolve that we never compromise the Word of God or our relationship to Him, for any reason. Diligently seek Him and His Wisdom, for it is not the wisdom of this world. Paul tells us in Romans “12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

If you find yourself in one of these worldly churches, confront your pastor or your leadership with your concerns; confront them with love and with scripture. We have no business compromising the Word of God for when we do we set ourselves up as a supreme authority, over and against God. We are the created not the creator and should respect our place, Jesus said “if you love me then you will obey me” and we are not to add or remove from His word, and we are to do all that He commanded and teach other to do the same.

May the Lord grant us the strength we need for the battles that lie ahead!