Tag Archives: Holiness

The Demands of Man Exposed

by

0


The message of Man to God:  “We will dictate to you our desire and you will succumb.  We will play in our filthy way until we have had enough, and sleep.  And you will receive us because you are love!

Your people walk among us and demand too much.  They accuse us of wanton behavior.  We are sick of their meddling words!   We only do what is natural, and you unjustly accuse us.

We have attained freedom from your so called holy ways.  Now we revel in the filthy streets as pleases us to do.  We will not come in and be properly dressed!  Send your people out that they may revel with us in this filthy place.

You have commanded us, and we have had enough.  And now as you can see, we put our feet firmly in the filth and command you!  Now be the love you say you are, and send them out to play with us!”

So you have said in all your unholy and ungodly way.  You do the things that are filthy.  And with your unholy mouth you command the Sovereign God.

It will not go well with you when the Lord rises.  He will surely rise and all you rebellious youth will be destroyed from his Holy House.  He will rise up and expose your filthy ways. 

As you are defiant now, so you will be on that day of His Rising.  The Holy One has spoken, “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”.

Who are the wise among you?  Who will perceive that these words are true?  Who will approach the porch of the Holy house of God and beg entrance and cleanliness?  For he has also spoken, that those who do so with earnest heart, will be cleansed and well fed.  Forgiveness demands repentance.

See how it remains before you; the choice between life and death.  Respond now and live.  Remain in your rebellious filth and you will surely die.

By His Grace

Two Funnels

by

0


The man said he wanted holiness.  He tried with all his might but to no avail.  Then someone told him, “You cannot have holiness except that it comes from God as a gift”.  So as soon as he could, the man went to prayer.

The gist of his prayer was, “Oh God make me holy (for all the right reasons)”.

The man believed and got up and walked away.  Three hours later he found himself embroiled in ungodly things.  The man was dejected.

Later he found the one who had told him that holiness is a gift from God.  “What you say can’t be true.” the man told him.  “I asked and received, then lost it again.  How could this be?  For I have heard and believed that God’s gifts and his calling are irrevocable.”

The man he was talking to was the pastor of a church whose membership was nearly 200.  The pastor told him that he would give him his answer on Sunday morning.

Come Sunday morning, the man walked into the church.  Placed up front was what looked like a polling booth. Jokingly the man ask the pastor if that were his answer.  The pastor answered, “It soon will be”.

The sermon had to do with honesty and integrity.  And throughout the sermon the preacher rose to creshendo.  All the people were visibly stirred.  Each one was ready to tell the truth unto death.

Then the preacher spoke of the men’s difficulty, without mentioning his name.  He pointed to the little booth and explained what was inside. 

“On the table inside the booth, you will find two upside down funnels.  One is marked man the other is marked God.

Before you leave today, I want everyone of you to walk into that polling booth.  Push a single tiny object into your choice of a funnel.  You will be answering a simple question.  If a man has asked God for holiness, who is at fault when ungodliness arrives, God or man.

By His Grace

War Up! ( the Law of Christ)

by

0


Okay.  I’m going to do a little war hoopin here.  But you likely haven’t heard this for a while, so you might think I’m being kind of mean.  But on the other side of “takin it right” is all the peace and stability you can handle.

From the day of God’s blessing to Abraham until today, Israel has been in a state of war.  Whatever tiny moments of peace they found in that time, were short lived.  And the ensuing battles became worse and worse.  (I’m including the Holocaust in this.)

In the meantime God sent his only Son, and the battle did nothing more than get really personal.

Today’s church knows virtually nothing about this as a whole.  And this ignorance has given rise to a great influx of Tares. 

Well if you’re willing to listen, there’s a fix for this.  If not, may the will of the Living God be done in the advent of the end.

Look at what Jesus said here.  He came to take away the “National” concept (not that it was ever God’s intention).  But he distinctly replaced it with a personal burden. 

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10) 

I have found this to be blazingly true!  If you love the Lord you will be hated.  And this to the extent that I will push the envelope a little farther:  if you are not hated you might want to do a little pocket check to see if you love the Lord.

See how the war was intended to come home.  But he hasn’t left any one as an orphan.  Not only has he sent the Holy Spirit to help and to guide every individual,  but the law of Moses remains among us as strong as it ever was.  What was spoken in Moses’s day is not removed from anyone. 

Not that we should be legalistic in our approach to God, but the fire of his words ought to live in every one of his people as a great raging holy fire.

One small portion of that entire law is one of the greatest encouragements to man ever to be spoken.  It may ring out rather often from the pulpit.  But it is rarely taken home.  If it was obeyed, we would see an entirely different church.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6)

Since the war has become a personal issue, by a straightforward challenge from the Living God’s Holy Son, each individual has become his own house. 

Binding God’s laws on your hands does not necessarily mean a bracelet, but that everything our hands find to do should have the marks of our God on it.  Obedience leaves a distinct holy mark.

And if we have the words of the Living God in us, our entire perception will be as if we wore a little case between our eyes which is filled with holy and good words.

As many as we can rally to understand these things, to that extent the church is transformed. 

And I will add this:  If you start to speak with every member of your church as if these things were alive and true, with all expectation that they agreed with you, the tares would not think it a gentle place to live any longer.  The Christian social club would have to disband.  And O the war would come home!

By His Grace

Ownership

by

0


From the bravado of a foolish man who thinks he can endure hell, to the pompous nature of the self righteous, who thinks he is something when he is not.  The folly of man’s pride reaches deep.

We did not invent sin.  Sin was in heaven long before we were even created.  And so was righteousness in all its purity.  Righteousness and rebellion go back a long way my friend.  You are nothing new.

Cain was only the first to murder among men.  He was not the first to murder.  So where does that place any other man whose hands are filthy?  And Abel was the first righteous man among men.  He was not the first one who was righteous.  So how can the self-righteous think so highly of themselves with any means to quantify?

By every account man is nothing.  He does not have a patent on wickedness.  And he can have no claim to righteousness.  By every account man is nothing unless it is given to him from above.  Or unless he is inspired, by those who came before, to the rebellion against the Living God.

Where then does pride among men stand?  My friend, you are simply not that important.  At best you can only be used by those who came before, whether for bad or good.

By His Grace

Clarification

by

0


I have written, and rightly so, that God is able to make us holy.  But we should not assume that it is a one time accomplishment.  Rather the holy I intend, is a continual cleansing.

The truth of God approaches a man.  It catches him where he stands.  And the holiness, of which I speak, is the humility to receive correction.  He teaches us to humble ourselves before His Great Majesty.

Because I am still locked in the flesh, you may catch me at an inopportune moment.  If such is the case, correct me.  It is not seemly that a man of God should refuse correction.

But is it is neither, that any man should refuse the truth simply because it come dressed in a fellow man.  God has given the gospel to men.  Perceive this and we should all prosper in his holy way.

By His Grace

Flaky Fluff

by

1


Your inner child.  No, thats your sinful nature.  It’s not innocent or childlike.

Confess Jesus as your Savior.  Yes, but now go lead a life of repentance.  “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.  (Matthew 5:48)

Faith alone will save you.  Now what was that the apostle paul said?  ” 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5)

Urging people over and over and over to read their Bible.  “12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5)  And let us not forget that the people perish for lack of vision.

Jesus is love.  He also abhors every form of wickedness.  He will vomit the lukewarm out of his mouth!  He holds the keys to life AND death in his hands.  He will vehemently protect eternity.  He will never swap his Holy Father’s commands for willful disobedience.  And he has the ability to write as well as erase from the book of life.

By His Grace