Daily Archives: April 3, 2012

Just a Thought

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If you stopped going to church for a couple weeks, would you notice a serious difference in your life and habits?  Other than missing some of your friends, and their subsequent phone calls.  Would there be a measurable difference?

I ask this because most people confuse “going to church” with a relationship with the Living God.  I can say the following with great confidence:  “If you would miss only your friends and the traditions of the church, then you have nothing.  If, on the other hand, you would experience a silence from God and miss it you likely have something worth holding tight to.”

The nearness of God is such a natural state of affairs for the soul that people often don’t know what they have until it is disrupted.  Just something to ponder folks.

Førde Church, a typical Protestant church in N...

Førde Church, a typical Protestant church in Norway (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just Wait

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A typical Deutsche Bahn railway station clock

A typical Deutsche Bahn railway station clock (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What do you do if you’ve been caught up in a sin?  Confess to God and wait for Him.  It is not your eternity that can be manipulated by your own will.  It is the will of God you’re seeking.

Don’t lose faith in your waiting.  Remain solidly trusting.  Just wait.  The Lord will not reject His people forever.  We are set to the task of learning how to live under the rule of the Most High God.  Restoration after a sin is not something we can conjure up from our own words.  God is looking for a renewed interest in His ways within us.

And what if the sin we have done is one of those that have repeated far too often?  What then?  Again, sit and wait on the Lord after you have confessed it to Him.  Let Him be Lord, even of your restoration.  He has promised that He does not give as the world gives.  This requires a great deal of patience from us.  He knows what He is looking for.  And after a time He will restore you.  Do not forget that the unforgivable sin is that of complete denial of His intervention.  He cannot forgive an unrepentant heart.  That heart will not accept His gift.  But that is not the heart you have now.  Look how you yearn to be restored to Him.  Just wait and be silent.  Like a little child who has been punished, accept your spanking and be patient.  His love for you is not that of man.

Too Much to Expect?

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Where are the teachers of the Lord?  In this whirl wind of lies, deception, redefinition of words, abominations, immorality, idolatry, and chaos, where is the word of those who have lived within the will of God all their adult lives?  I’m looking for the wise among man who can lead others away from the brink of destruction.

Are we, as a nation, sealed now in the corruption of sin?  Is there no voice from the righteous people of God against these things?  Where is the concerted attack against media from the Christian community?  Where is the righteous word against lies?  Why does the Christian community, as a whole whisper like this?  While sin is consuming our nation, is there no one who will stand up like a pillar of fire and spout the truth?  Or have we become so comfortable in our little lives that we won’t step forward?

I know, and so do you, that anyone who raises his voice against the folly of this nation will be set on like a baby among hungry wolves.  What a precious opportunity to shine for the Lord.  I am a fool redeemed.  Where is the righteous man of Christ?

Conspiracy

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Coast to Coast AM

Coast to Coast AM (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I drive at night.  And just to stay awake I often listen to the am radio talk shows.  I’ve found I can’t listen long anymore.  The things they talk about are so amazingly incomplete.

There is a show that comes on quite late called “Coast to Coast”.  The format is anything having to do with paranormal.  One time the host was asked for calls from people who had stories of paranormal activity.  He took a call from a Christian woman who talked about the relationship between Jesus and His people.  The host said that he was looking for “paranormal” stories and that Jesus was not paranormal.  I laughed and shut him off.  What he was looking for was demon activity.  He had no interest in God.

But last night I turned it on for a while to get something to think about.  There was a man talking about a movie about mars.  I confess I didn’t care about what he was talking about so much as to get something to rant about as I drove through the night.  He was spouting something about conspiracy.  And something occurred to me that he would not really appreciate.

Let’s say he discovered a conspiracy of weapons or energy that was being used against mankind.  What then?  Let’s say he chased his discovery to the end and had those arrested who were plotting against us all.  What then?  40,000 others would move into the vacuum left by those arrested.  So he is wasting his entire life chasing after something futile.  He might claim that he saved mankind from some terrible problem.  But he hasn’t done a single thing to curb the onslaught of wickedness.

And this is what I came away with last night.  If such men, as those who search after weird little thoughts, would concern themselves with a certain conspiracy they would go a lot farther in helping man.   There is a conspiracy that does warrant attention.  And this conspiracy gets horribly little attention.  There is a conspiracy of rebellion in the world.  It is first a rebellion against the God who made us all.  We naturally hate His rule among us.  And for the second point,  this rebellion is destroying the entire world.   Billions have already received their eternal sentence of separation from the Living God.  And the tide of death is not stemmed yet.   Now, if he spent his entire life chasing and exposing that rebellion, he would really be doing something worth while.

 

Rights or Obligation?

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Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven, as in the r...

Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven, as in the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 33, after Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, illustration from a Bible card published by the Providence Lithograph Company (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A “right” can be established if the proper means has been gained.  An obligation really doesn’t care whether you want to meet it or not, it remains against you until the contract between you and the obligation expires.  A “right” never dispels as long as the giver of that right remains.

Sometimes people who have lived a relatively “righteous” life will look down on a drunk (or worse) who has gotten a handle on life’s prerequisites.  And when the sinner begins to live a “righteous” life and speaks about it openly the “righteous” folk will come to detest him.  You would think they would embrace the sinner gone “good”.  But that is rarely the case.  The sinner is embraced by the perceived righteous if he has some quality that they themselves admire.  But if he has worn out his bodily welcome he is shunned and laughed at as a fool.

I can see why the “righteous” think they alone have the corner on speaking about what is right.  After all, they have worked hard to guard against the kind of behavior that the sinner allowed to swamp his boat.  But there comes a place where their perceived right becomes judgment against others.  To them, their “rights” are being usurped by an illegal citizen of their ranks.

But the obligation to speak belongs to the sinner more.  He has been lifted from certain death to a place of understanding.  He knows the ground he has covered.  He knows better what it is to be filled with wickedness.  So he has an obligation to warn others.  Not to mention that he is likely far more thankful for being set loose from his former life.  So the very fact of his thankful heart compels him to meet his obligation to speak about what is “righteous”.

“But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” (from Luke 7:36-50)