Then It's Easy...
If you don't know the Lord, then you won't bat an eye at denying His words, perverting them, or just completely disregarding them.
If you don't know the Lord, then you can laugh whole-heartedly when the things of God are mocked, as people in ignorance demean spiritual gifts or spiritual authority.
If you don't know the Lord, then you will find it amusing when men are are depicted as buffoons, are emasculated in the media, or cross-dress for fame & money.
If you don't know the Lord, then you will champion a woman's "right" to be depicted as a whore, to be sexually promiscuous, or to kill her own children.
If you don't know the Lord, then you can call sin a mistake, a "wreck", or simply a lifestyle choice.
If you don't know the Lord, then you can exert more energy in conforming others to yourself and your ideals than to Jesus Christ.
If you don't know the Lord, then you can afford to invest your all into maintaining the here & now, and worry about eternity later.
But how many truly desire to know the Lord...and be known by Him?
Are you willing to stand for Jesus, even when it is not popular? Are you willing to lose homes, cars, jobs, friends, and family for the sake of winning Christ? Are you willing to lay down your life as a sacrifice so that others - even those who may currently be your enemies - might be saved? If you know the Lord, it may not be easy, but it is worth it.
Worth it to be made whole, to be made new. Worth it to be delivered from bondage and truly set free from sin. Worth it to not be blinded & ensnared by the deceits and allures of this present, temporary world. Worth it to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, having your identity restored in Him. Worth it to be able to cry out, "Abba Father" and know that you are loved with an unfailing love. Worth it to always be with God, who desires to fill you with His glory and bless you with an eternal inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading.
"Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, IF we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth." Hosea 6:1-3
A simple call to repentance! This is an awesome post. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Jay
Very good post, truth. Am sharing it on FB.
ReplyDeleteWow, I can literally hear and feel the venom in this post.
ReplyDeleteSomebody must have really upset you.
Hello Ladies!
ReplyDeleteI hope you are each well.
Jay - Haven't talked to you in a bit and am glad you dropped by. We are looking into being in your area later in the year, and I'll let you know if that happens.
Raedene - It is always good to "see" you sister. :-)
Beauty & Health Editor - Can't really say I understand why you perceive venom in the post, but no; no one has upset me at all.
If anything, I am sick to my stomach with all of the compromising "Christianity" of people who try to pimp Jesus by claiming to live for Him, yet align themselves with that which is against Him. But even that is nothing new for me.
This post was actually inspired by the simple truth that - once you get to know Jesus for yourself, once He is personally your God and not just someone you worship from afar - many of the "issues" in the churchworld just disappear.
The problem in the church is not that there is ambiguity in God's word or differences of opinion amongst Christians. The problem in the church is that many are Christians in "name only" but have never really come to know the Lord.
As indicated in Matthew 7:22-23, there will be a rude awakening for many when they realize that God actually expects obedience from His people.
However, more importantly, I hope the post encourages those who do desire to know the Lord to follow on in being conformed to His image.
God Bless you all!
Thank you for this. For what it's worth I found this post calm, honest and to the point. It is edifying to me, so thanks again for sharing.
ReplyDeleteFYI:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/8601488/Indians-pay-surgeons-to-turn-girls-into-boys.html
Thank you for this post! We must be guarded against relativism of this age. Its subtle its hard its pervasive but we must be salt and light.
Hi Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThat is truly a sad article. The journalist calls this "social madness", and it really is.
We have a couple of college students staying with us for the summer, and one was telling me last week that her professor actually taught it was better for people to be androgynous. According to this professor, this made for happier people all around and was the best type of existence for all to promote peace and understanding.
I then told the student, "So, basically that teacher said that God is a liar. That when He said it was "good" to create man and woman, He was wrong. That like Satan deceived Eve, we must believe that God is evil, that He is not for us, but He stands in the way, holding us back from true freedom, happiness and love."
I tell you, I am having serious doubts about enrolling my children in secular colleges. There is some real evil and witchcraft going on right in the classrooms as they pervert the minds of young people.
Yet, the thing that stuck out to me most in that article you posted is the following: "The more educated and rich you are, the MORE there is killing of girls."
Most global humanitarian initiatives focus on 2 areas: expanding education and eliminating poverty.
I am NOT saying that people should be dumb and poor. Yet, the problem with man is not his lack of education or wealth. The problem with man is that - outside of God - he is a depraved, fallen, perverted creation. Our answers do not lie in worldly resources (worldly knowledge & worldly wealth). Our answers lie in a man named Jesus who is the Son of God.
If we are not born again, no amount of education or money will ever eradicate the carnal, animalistic mind with which every man is born.
You are right; relativism is rampant, even amongst those who think they are Christians. Yet, God will not be mocked, nor will He change His ways to accommodate our ways. May God give us strength to continue as His witnesses each day in this dying world.
Thank you for your reply.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that the real and proper way to bring people to God is to show people the way, especially if they don't know the way.
It's a bit like if you are teaching somebody how to do something, you don't shout on them, criticise them, or berate them, but with gentleness and calmness you can show them the right way to do it.
Besides, we have all in one way or another offended God and we ALL have our faults, nobody is perfect and that includes the people who preach the gospel.
Part 1 (its long again!)
ReplyDeleteVery true - here in London with our baby on the way my husband and I have decided to home school our children and look to be self-sufficient as a family unit.
I previously mentioned my experiences with my medical career where this type of thinking is rampant. I remember ethics classes at med school where the majority of my graduating class felt euthanasia was ok plus some even advocating paedophilia.
The question I ask myself looking back on a 6 year uni education is IS IT WORTH IT? Did I grow in faith, know God learn how to keep myself sexually and morally pure and how to express and do what it right. Absolutely NOT. I became soulish worldly, ambitious a relative-thinker and repressed from expressing the truth because it would not get me ahead. I had pre-marital sex because I was apparently the one in control of my body and was not going to be dominated. I had no investment in my ETERNAL EXISTENCE - none nil. I thank God for opening the eyes of myself and my husband and showing us the decayed rotted world we were worshipping. We were headed for destruction.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteI am currently trying to make a close friend who had finished her training as a family doctor, "looks great" and is pulling down hard cash flow as a single woman that something is wrong with continually letting men use her - protected and unprotected sex causal relationships and resentment of commitment. She, with all the education and knowledge cannot understand that she is being used and abused and she is running from the fruits of a decent life. She tells me she has 'needs' and she is in 'control'. Another friend and colleague has decided to never marry or have children and looks at my lifestyle as something strange and abhorrent. My bosses at work are all childless spinsters wearing the best clothes with nice property but heading to a cold lonely old age MADNESS they are not even operating like a debased man let alone women.
The ones that do have kids resent their pregnancies work like animals and compromise the optimum health of their unborn child (which is what I would have done if I had not obeyed my husband) go for a few weeks mat leave and farm their kids out to a baby nursery from 12 weeks (one senior doctor told us we should spend £1300 per month on this - more than our rent and bills)! They then give their children up to an evil education system (usually paid for privately to the tune of tens of thousands per yr) which destroys the sovereignty of the parent and indoctrinates the child to obey the forces of this world. I watched your Train up A Child and read our UK national curriculum. As you suggested it is the UNESCO Education For All which itself is the about reinforcing the ego (me me me OR 666) then subjugating it. My mother is a headmistress and I am trying to get her to watch your video. But you know, when you are a professional and have read the guidelines and articles its hard to break patterns of thinking. She acknowledges the the erosion of literacy, numeracy and some aspects of the emotional development of the child that would have in the past led them to becoming INDEPENDENT THINKERS and being able to discern and express RIGHT and WRONG
Mia, do you want to know why they are killing the girls/women? THERE ARE NO MEN they are being emasculated and perverted so the women are surplus to requirement. That is the product of the feminist age WE HAVE MADE OURSELVES EXTINCT.
God bless you and your family.
BTW - health and beauty editor: YEA IM REALLY UPSET THE DEVIL NEARLY STOLE MY SOUL AND ETERNAL INHERITANCE - YES IM MAD ABOUT IT - THESE ARE SERIOUS THINGS THAT CONDEMN PEOPLE TO HELL. THIS IS ABOUT OUR SPIRITUAL HEALTH AND THE 'BEAUTY WE CAN ATTAIN' IN LETTING CHRIST INHABIT US SO WE CAN DO BETTER
That article about India reminds me of the story of Bruce Reimer whose penis was burned during circumcision. The doctors convinced his parents to reconstruct his genitals into a vagina and raise him as a girl. They gave him hormone treatments so he could grow breasts and have some female traits. He was never normal. He always know something was different. They eventually told him what happened when he was older but he could never live a normal life. He tried to live as a man but I'm sure the demonic oppression was too much. He committed suicide in his thirties I believe.
ReplyDeleteThese people are CRAZY!!! We can't play God!
Hi Beauty and Health Editor,
ReplyDeletePerhaps this message has resonated with you in a way that brings conviction about something, but there is no shouting or berating anyone in this post.
As mentioned above, one of the purposes behind the post was a call to turn from religious hypocrisy to true faith in Jesus Christ.
If you examine how Jesus spoke to the religious hypocrites of His day, then you will see that He had MUCH criticism for them. In fact, some of His harshest words were for that audience. Read Matthew Chapter 23 for example (although there are many more). The very reason they could not receive Jesus' words was because they did not know the Father (John 8:19).
The best way to bring people to God is to preach the truth. The truth will not only tell you about who God is, it will also reveal yourself to you.
You cannot show people the "right way" while avoiding the truth of their current condition. How can one show the "right way" without first unequivocally showing that their current way is wrong?
One of the most powerful sermons in Scripture appears in Acts 2:14-38. Peter told these people the truth, which included a criticism of them for crucifying Jesus (verse 36). The people's response is that they were pricked in their hearts by this truth and asked how they could be saved (verse 37).
By contrast however, when Stephen preached the truth to the people - again with criticisms for them being stiffnecked, uncircumcized, betrayrers, murderers, and law breakers - they rejected these truths and stoned Stephen to death (Acts 7:1-54).
So you see, the truth NEVER varies for anyone. Neither does God ever change His truths to remove "criticisms" of the people being addressed. It is the condition of man's heart which determines whether one will submit to the truth of God and repent or be offended by His truths and reject Him.
If we determine that we will not preach the whole truth so as not to offend, then we are determining to preach a false gospel.
Yes, you are right in that no one is sinless, but does that mean we should not preach the truth? His truths remain applicable to those who preach as well as those who hear, for it is truly a two-edged sword.
The Gospel makes plain the truths of God, giving a call to man to REPENT and be saved.
"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel." Mark 1:15
"And they went out, and preached that men should repent." Mark 6:12
Hi Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThat is so true. I graduated from an all-women's college and at my baccalaureate, the college president actually told us that it was our obligation to put off marriage and children in order to give back to "society". She stated that - in order to show appreciation for what we had been given - we MUST make our mark on the world by showing ourselves to be strong, prosperous women before considering a family. Do you know where most of my alums are now? They have spent most of their adult lives trying to attain lots of money, lots of career prestige...but have wound up alone and/or childless.
I am not saying that a woman must be married in order to be fulfilled. I am saying that women must stop drinking down the feminist cyanide which says that she must be independent from men. While not a Christian video, I thought the following was a solid review of this deception: Strong Independent Black Woman = Bamboozled
Yes, we have surely done this to ourselves.
YET, there is hope. We can turn on that evil deceiver Satan who lied to us and tried to get us damned to Hell. We can preach the truth which sets the captives free. We can take responsibility for our own children and not let the devil have free reign in their lives. God willing, He will make a way for souls to be saved in spite of the evil surmisings of this world.
Hi Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI didn't know of this Bruce Reimer, so thank you for sharing that info. We absolutely cannot play God, yet that is just what man is attempting to do...since the original fall.
It is insanity.
I shared on FB. Good word. Thank you.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ksdk.com/news/article/265003/3/Rep-Todd-Akin-clarifies-liberalism-really-is-a-hatred-for-God-comments
ReplyDeleteSimply, awesome.
ReplyDeleteAmen.
You had addressed this issue before but I thought you might find this interesting.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18/boys-like-wearing-pink-_n_901511.html
Um.. I didn't sense any type of "venom" nor anger in this post. Anyway lovely post. You're either FOR Jesus Christ or you're against him. No middle grounds.
ReplyDelete