Thus Saith the Lord!

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   Ever wonder why professing Christians are not very much different than the rest of our culture?  Jesus said “I am the truth!”  What does that mean to us as born-again believers? Every word that Jesus spoke was truth. Every teaching He taught was truth. There was no compromise in Jesus’ teaching. Every word He spoke was the same as if God Almighty had spoken it. 

   We live in a world ever since the beginning of time, where the devil has said, “did God really say that?”  Jesus Himself said the devil has lied since the beginning and is the father of lies. We read our Bibles and still we doubt what God has said. If you listen to what comes out of peoples’  hearts and minds, you need go no further than that to see that we do not take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Why aren’t true born-again believers able to discern everything from politics to how to manage their money, to sharing their faith in Jesus, etc.? 

   It’s because they do not know what God and Jesus says in His Word. Somehow, we are believing the lie of the devil. Jesus said eternal life is knowing Jesus and knowing God. What is knowing Jesus all about? It is reading His teachings, and putting into practice what He tells us daily.

   Let’s take an example of this.  God said in the Old Testament to give 10% of your money to God. How many Christians do that?  Jesus ups the stakes and tells us to give to the Kingdom of God, and in 1 Thessalonians, “God loves a cheerful giver.”  They gave what they didn’t even have because they believed God’s Word.

   People watch the news and can’t figure out that God loves righteousness and law and order. God established law and order for every country in this world. Yet when it comes to voting and supporting those people who want to restore law and order, we think they are foolish, and instead we think the ideas of men will work better, things like “social justice.” 

   We go to church every Sunday, but by the time we walk out the doors and we start talking to all our friends about our children, and things going on in our lives, we have forgotten what we heard. If you don’t think this is true, next time you leave your church service, ask someone to explain what they just heard.  

   Our meager lives are more important than God’s Word to most of us. That’s idolatry. Now this may seem harsh, but we wonder why we have no Holy Spirit power in our lives to overcome the things we struggle with every day. Why is this? Is God not faithful? 

   We hear, if we listen to Christian radio, the stories of people in other countries suffering, and they cry out to us to pray for them, that they will be strong in Christ, (Ephesians 6), but we value comfort more than Christ.

   Christians now think, if the church’s air conditioning system isn’t working or there are no treats after church they haven’t experienced God.  If they haven’t had good “fellowship” or the feel like someone “snubbed” them, that God hasn’t spoken to them.

   What ever happened to us that God’s Word isn’t first in our lives?  Paul says we are to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Jesus loves us with such passion that He said man does not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD that comes from Him.  We long for revival, we pray that God would send His Spirit to change men’s hearts and minds. That there would be great conviction of sin, (John 16), and yet we, His people, don’t listen. 

   Again, I say that is what idolatry is. Read the catechism and see what it says about God’s first command. If we have any thought, idea, wrong picture of God or Jesus in our minds, we are idolaters. God says “My thoughts are not your thoughts.”  Praise the LORD for that! My feeble brain needs to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. My greatest need,  other than salvation itself,  is to think like Christ, so I can live by the Spirit.

   Romans 8: 8-17...  “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  And so He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

   “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.  The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.  Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

   “You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.  And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

   “Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation — but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it.  For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

   “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.  The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba Father.’  The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.  Now if we are children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.”

   I thank God that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but every day I need desperately the Spirit and the Word to have joy and peace, and know what Jesus must say about the matters of my life.

   Do we, as American believers, value the Word of God and Jesus more than anything else?  At one time in my life I did, but it is so easy to love the things of this world. 

   1 John 2: 15-17, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.  For everything in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.  

   Let us repent of our lack of valuing God’s Word and make it a priority again, and maybe God will bring revival to our land again.

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