Sunday, April 25, 2010

What's on my heart...

There are a lot of things that have been on my heart lately and I'll talk about them. I've been having some cross struggles with my family and with friends in my life and I'm blogging this to say what has been on my heart. These things are family situations, the modern church, grace, being separate, and being condemned for living righteously.


My family situations are really interesting. First off my Dad and stepmom are lukewarm. They love the idea of witnessing and being a light, but I don't see them pointing out sin in the places they should. My mother and her boyfriend are heathens. They live after the flesh and love the lusts of the flesh. Gambling, drunkardness, lying, fornication. They love it and yet they are completely shut out to the things of Christ. Not because they don't hear but because they choose not to listen. They choose not to turn from their wickedness and turn to Christ. They strive to please the flesh and themselves. Their eternal salvation is saddening to me but there is nothing I can do about it, only Christ and His Spirt can work. My mothers boyfriend has a homosexual relative I believe aswell. I wear a church that says Warning to all: church gossips, drunkards, abortionists, thieves, sex addicts, druggies, liars, atheists and homosexuals... Judgement coming!! and the back says TRUST JESUS. I get told he is embarrassed by the shirt and that I won't be living at my house any longer if I keep wearing it and speaking the truth. He gets mad about the homosexual thing the most but I guess it's offensive. IF YOU WERN'T LIVING IN SUCH SIN THEN IT WOULDN'T BE OFFENSIVE TO YOU!


Being condemned for living righteously is what happens now. I get told that I think I'm better then everyone and that I have no friends because of the ministry I work at. I'm sorry I'm living for Christ now and not living in the same sins as you. You have no one else to justify yourself with who claims to be a Christian so now that I've learned who I am in Christ and what I'm called to do your upset because it offends you.


Now on with being separate. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 6:17 "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." Were told to come out from among them and be separate. Were not told to live in sin still and surround ourselves with self professing christians who serve hell rather then heaven. Were told to come out and be separate from the heathen. Could Christ tell us apart from the world if He came back tomorrow?


Now on to grace and the modern church. The Bible clearly tells us in Titus 2:11-12 what grace is. In modern churches, grace is no more then a cover up for sins. Oops I sinned, but I have grace. I had sex and I know it's wrong but I have grace. I'm drunk right now but I have grace. I just lied but I'm forgiven and I have grace. Grace is used as a cover up to keep sinning in modern churches and that's not what grace is. True grace helps us, builds us, teachers us, and brings us salvation. According to grace, through faith, to the obedience of God. Modern churches don't preach sin or law or judgement. They teach us were forgiven for everything so do whatever you want. In my mind the Church is supposed to go like this... Pastor preaches to the congregation and then his congregation goes out and preaches to the lost. To be labors unto the harvest, to seek and save that which was lost. Churches now get a word from the pastor and instead of evangelizing and preaching it to the multitudes it stays within the confines of the church walls and thats where modern Christianity is dead.


Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. But shall we stay within our comfort zone and let helpless and perishing souls slip away into an eternal hell without first hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ!?




“Lastly–are not the Church in their present state, a standing, public, perpetual denial of the gospel? Do they not stand out before the world, as a living, unanswerable contradiction of the gospel; and do more to harden sinners and lead them into a spirit of caviling and infidelity, than all the efforts of professed infidels from the beginning of the world to the present day?” -Charles Finney

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Righteous Living

Police officers died to protect us and our laws. Veterans died to protect us and our constitution. Christ died to protect us and God's Law. Why should we let His atoning death go to waste? Christ came to free us from our sins, not in our sins. 1 Peter 1:16 "Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." Were are called to be holy and righteous, not corruptible and sinful. To the woman caught in adultery Christ told her to "go, and sin no more." - John 8:11

Also, in James 4:4 it states "whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." Why is it that in Titus 2:11-12 tell us "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;" Scripture clearly tells us we have grace to resist things of this world and that we are called to live righteously and godly, yet we say we can't because it's too hard when it clearly says we can... The bible tells us how to live upright, yet we choose not to....


We are called to live in righteousness, to be a friend of Christ and to have our unwavering faith in Christ. To be a friend of the world, to love sin, to be an enemy of God is something I want for nobody. His wrath is great but His grace is greater. Turn to Christ for all things, in happiness and sadness, in joy and in pain, turn from breaking His laws and put your faith in Christ.

We can all be a friend of the world and an enemy of God but who has it in them to be a friend of God and an enemy of the world... Christ died a brutal and savage death and rose on the 3rd day so that we might die to sin and flesh and live and be risen in spirit with Him.

Deny your flesh and your desires and live for Christ and Him. He died for us so why should we live to please ourselves?

Live to please the One who reigns in us, not the one who reigns in the world.