The Enemy has sown lies in the church and we have been ignorant of the darkness that has become rooted within. I have lately been reading some of the prophets in the Old Testament with my small group – absolutely love them! Are you feeling pretty good about yourself? Think you have everything figured out? All high and mighty? Take a look at Jeremiah. Open up Amos. Soak up some Micah. I can guarantee you will not walk away thinking about how great you are but how great and holy God is, reflecting on the truth the church so often forgets – we need Jesus – desperately, desperately need Jesus.
These passages of Scripture are so relevant to our world today. O church, we have fallen greatly. You look at Israel and may say, “How could you fall so short? Why did you not repent? Why did you keep messing up when God told you to turn?” You hypocrites! Don’t look at this passage and ignore the reflection of our own, wicked hearts. This is us. We are hypocrites!
Last time we discussed the importance of delighting in God and who He is by coming to know Him. As we come to know Him we find there are treasures and riches and wisdom in who He is in the name of Jesus Christ. These treasures, riches and wisdom are just waiting to be discovered; not necessarily for the “first time ever” – rather for your own personal experience, “the first tiem”. The Glory of knowing Jesus, to personally kno Him as you know your loved ones, to His ways and His precepts and His love.
Overall, we alluded to last time, our (Christian’s) goal our END RESULT is to be Holy because God is Holy. As you might have guessed this is done by practicing Spiritual Disciplines in accord with God’s soverign Grace to grow and mold us; therefore, not only is God active in our growth but we are too. We participate in our growth with God, because knowing God is the greatest pleasure ever by truly knowing Him, creates everlasting Joy.
So the question this week:
Why Do We Ignore Our Spiritual Disciplines?
Stephy and I started reading through Genesis together the other day, (it was my turn to pick the book because I picked Acts and she picked Isaiah) and we are at chapter eight right now, it’s been really cool. I like old dead people, she likes boats. It just works out. (I actually don’t know if she likes boats? Steph let me know! lol)
As we were going through the first three chapters a couple of things hit me about the fall into sin. First, in reading the narative of Adam and his wife (she wasn’t named yet) sinning in the garden I was reminded of my own heart and how so often I chose my own way above God’s way. In reading the story I saw myself, every day, turning to God and saying, “I’ve got this.” My idolatry is overwhelming to my soul. I put so much before my Lord and in my shame I would hide from him. I see my fellowship with God broken in my sin, and remember the lack of relationship before salvation.
Second, I saw the grace of God in the midst of great pain. In the curse God promises life, life that would be born of the woman. Life that would come and victory won through the offspring of these now broken sinful people. God covers their shame with clothes he has provided. God promises that they will be able to provide, it will be hard, and pain-filled. God also promises that they would die. And in reading the fifth chapter it is repeated over and over that no matter how long the offspring of Adam lived, they died. In that I again recognized the destructive nature of sin, “there is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death.” read more…
The Enemy has infiltrated the church and is spreading his lies through wolves in sheep’s clothing. Jesus warned us of false teachers, and our generation sees much of them. Rather than being cities on a hill to shine light in the darkness, we have assimilated into the darkness in the name of relevance.
The Gospel has been lessened, and the helping of the poor and loving people elevated. What good is it to gain the world and lose your soul? If all the church does is provide comfortable living without true saving faith, what good is it? I’d rather have salvation with persecution and suffering than comfortable Christianity with an apathetic heart. The church has taken the ineffective role of bandaging the wounds of our culture while failing to denounce sin and offer an antidote through Jesus Christ – the means by which to provide true healing. read more…
Let me ask you this, “What is it that you do consistently?”. Once you know that, then answer me this “Why do you do it?” Do you do anything “just because” or do you that because you enjoy it and want to get better at it? Perhaps it is golf and you are trying to fix your slice (like me) or guitar and you want to shred like Slash or Tom Morello; either way, you want to be better or perhaps the best. You know and see the END RESULT and you want to obtain that level of stature.
The hard part is, it takes work and that scares the most of us. I cannot tell you how many hours of training and buckets of balls I have hit and I still slice by driver about 85% of the time. You get frustrated and angry and at times you want to give up – but you come back because you want to get better. You approach that “thing” in your life like “OK, ‘thing’ it is me again and I am going to give you another shot” or you are just awesome and get it. Either way, you press on, you struggle you keep working at it because you want the END RESULT.
Do we only thing this way about worldly things or do we thing this way with Spiritual things; such as, drawing near to God. Do you find yourself, seeing the END RESULT and doing everything possible to learn more and grow up? Do you take the author of Hebrew’s statement seriously, which says:
“Ministers should follow their Master in his zeal, so wonderfully mixed and tempered with gentleness and condescension in his dealing with souls; preaching the gospel to the poor, and taking a gracious notice from time to time of little children. And they should imitate their Lord in his following the work of the ministry, not from mercenary views, or for the sake of worldly advantages, but for God’s glory, and men’s salvation; and in having his heart engaged in his work; it being his great delight, and his meat, to do the will of his Father, and finish his work, John 4:34, and having his heart set on the success of his great undertaking in the salvation of souls; this being the joy that was set before him, for which he run his race, endured the cross, and despised the shame; his delight in the prospect of eternal salvation of souls more than countervailing the dread he had of his extreme sufferings. Many waters could not quench his love, neither could the floods drown it, for his love was stronger than death; yea, than the mighty pains and torments of such a death.”
- Jonathan Edwards
The Enemy fills our lives with lies that He was simply a good man who lived thousands of years ago; merely a blip in the stream of human history.
Was He? Is that all He was? Religions of today claim Jesus was a prophet of God, but not a Savior. Even churches of today focus on Jesus being a good man who loved the poor and needy and embraced the marginalized, yet neglect His divinity. Skeptics deny His existence. Scoffers reject His claims. Some claim He was a liar who truly wasn’t who He said He was. Others claim He was a lunatic who was out of His mind. What lies have been sown in the hearts of men!
This is a great video made by Sincerelygideon on You Tube. I don’t know much about this guy, but if you like “heavier” music, here it is with Jesus.
Christ Died In Our Place by Mark Driscoll
All Glory to God Alone, You Are Loved
Praise the Glory of His Grace
Judson
We live in a society that the Enemy embeds with lies that EVERYONE can have equal rights, yet our diverse society does not allow equality for absolutely everyone. The Enemy fills the minds of today’s thinkers into believing tolerance is the answer, yet their statement is refuted by definition. By saying you are tolerant of everybody and nobody can be tolerant, you are intolerant to the intolerant!
O generation, the Enemy has blinded us. We give equality and rights to women and give them freedom to choose to either keep or kill their unborn baby, yet in doing so, we remove the equality and rights of BOTH men and women. How? Each baby we kill! We are killing little boys and girls with no say in their lives. Murdered in the name of equality. Silenced voices before they ever speak. We save trees – living things that cannot speak or talk or have any feelings – in the name of life, yet we kill our own. Precious gifts of life that will never laugh, giggle, cry out for mommy or daddy, dream, taste the flavors of food, feel sunlight upon their faces, experience life. And don’t believe the ridiculous statement that they are not yet “human” or living. That’s a completely absurd lie produced by the Enemy! If that were the case, why in the world do we care so much about animals or trees? We place men and women in prison for abusing animals; they’re not human.
read more…
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:4-7
*Disclaimer: I haven’t posted anything in a while so this is the result of an explosion of my thoughts on my car ride home from my investments class…
Brandon Melton
Robbie Melton
Judson
Sean Hall
Lane Lareau
