Peace and Good Will

Peace on earth, Good will toward men! The angels announced God’s heart and intentions to the down-trodden citizens of earth. He had not forgotten His promise. At last, in the fullness of time, the desired deliverer had arrived.

He wants that same Peace for us, two thousand years later. In the midst of a world full of turmoil and war and financial uncertainty and injustice and lack, in the midst of our pain and regret, where anxiety follows us and fear watches our every move, Christ brings us His peace and protection.

With His peace comes rest  – freedom from fear and it’s “yoke of bondage”. Our peace comes from knowing we are loved. Few understand the suffering and sacrifices of real love. For most, love is most often marketed in movies and media displays as lust and infatuation and first kisses.

Real love is compassion. It is kind and longs for reconciliation. It works for the restoration of “peace and good will” between two people. Real love forgives, mends, and does not keep a record of wrongs. It is not easily offended, does not try to get even and is humble. Real love dies so another can live. Real love is not jealous, hateful or insecure.

Real love does not need to boast of its greatness. Real love is not pretentious. It does not put on airs to impress or demand things of others. It is not conditional. It does not use guilt to prove a point or provoke to control another.

Real love does not seek its own, but rejoices in the good things that happen to others. It weeps with those who are sad and hurting. It laughs with those who are merry. It waits for the fulfillment of what it desires. It does not provoke another, or wish them evil. It does not meditate on evil.

Real love comes from God. It cannot fail. It will never loose heart or falter before the desired end for which it has endured all things. God’s love is real love.

My prayer for you this Christmas is that your love will not fail; that you will love your children whether they come home for Christmas or not. That you will have strength to forgive the one you are or were married to that has walked out on you and left you alone. And if life has left you alone, and you have no one, that you will reach out and find someone to love with God’s love this year.

Do not waste these brief and precious moments on the grief of what is not or what has been lost or what could have been. Look up for our redemption and reward draws near. Find someone to love, to pray for, to walk along side of, to help, to comfort, to be with. Invite someone into your world and be their friend.

 

Can a Christian Lose Their Salvation?

I recently received this email and realized that many of you may have a similar question. Feel free to read the letter and consider the following passages from the bible given to us for our instruction and comfort. My prayer for all of you is that you will know the depth of the riches of the goodness of God and embrace the finished work of Jesus Christ. That work includes abiding in a place of rest knowing we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, unto good works, (Eph. 2:8-10).  Resting in that finished work brings truth and freedom from condemnation and offers us the only way to know the will of God. As we follow Him the fruits of righteousness, peace and joy become the best evidences of our faith.

For simplicity sake I will break down each statement in my response.

Dear Marjorie,
I believe as a born again believer in Christ we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, but if a born again person willfully sins continually can they ultimately grieve the Holy Spirit & God at some point could remove the Holy Spirit from them because their heart gets hardened from sin and they can no longer repent? I have thought that we must walk in the Spirit & not walk in the flesh for if we walk in the flesh we will die – so it seems even born again Christians, if they go back & remain in a state of sin, can lose their salvation, but if they repent & walk in the spirit they shall live. My thought being that we are eternally secure as we walk in the spirit. It’s hard to explain, hope you understand what I am asking. Thanks!

 

Trick or Treat, What’s really in your bag?

Jessie Penn Lewis was an author that wrote a book over 200 years ago called “War on the Saints”. She observed that “those most likely to be deceived in the last days would be those who were the most hungry for God”.  How better to deceive and destroy the saints of God than to bait them with the things they want the most.

Love, justice, happiness, being good, getting rid of my sin and the presence of God are all near the top of the list of things desired by believers. (Even unsaved people want these things. Go figure? Maybe we were not created as depraved as we were taught to believe, after all!) These are the same things that top the Devil’s list of most useful and effective tricks in deceiving the people of God into believing the lie. He baits the hook with a counterfeit and gets us to bit into the lie, using the hook of destruction to bring us into bondage.

 

The Evolution of the Gospel

I realize you may be as skeptical as you are sick to death of the gimmicks, the  self helps and quick-fix promises made by churches and individuals claiming to represent Jesus Christ. You are as “turned-off” by the pony-ride, inflatable gospel as He is!! So, what are we going to DO about it?

The first order of business is to REPENT. We must admit we have used, abused and misused the testimony of Jesus Christ and His Gospel to sell everything from investment opportunities to cemetery plots. We have turned the body of Christ into a business corporation. We have submitted the cause of Christ to voting bodies and church boards and subjugated the Kingdom of God and the will of God to the well-intentioned promotion of too many of our own good ideas.

 

Well Done

I will not rehearse the stories of misery and gore that so many of us have become hardened to by watching too much of the 5 and 6 and 9 and 10 o’clock news; and the 7 – 8 o’clock prime-time filth, that now we can eat right through massacres and bombings and parents killing their children and children killing each other without getting the slightest indigestion or shedding the tiniest tear.

Our utter desensitization to the pain and bloodshed ought to be the most SHOCKING thing of all! Our hearts have become hardened. Our minds have chosen to ignore the critical needs all around us, as evidenced by our indifference to do anything about it. But before I blame you, I would invite you to blame me, because we, like many “called to the Kingdom for such a time as this”, have not provided you with the leadership and direction you have needed to get involved.

 

We are in a time of war, not peace.

Because of the apostasy in the church, it is as hard to find the real Jesus in the church as it is finding real food in the grocery store. Many are disillusioned and wandering from teaching to teacher, trying to please a God they neither know nor like. Most have concluded that they will “do the best they can under the circumstances and take their chances”. What a freaky absurd approach to determining their eternal destiny and the daily care of their souls.

Some are talking about the annihilation of the earth while others are still touting belief in a return to the old American dream; the pursuit of (personal) happiness and success. Which will it be, survival or success?  And are either of these really what life is all about?

 

Kingdom of God

Living in these uncertain days has made us certain of one thing, Jesus Christ must come back. There seems to be no human solution to the complex problems and personal pain we are in. Our Government is broken as well as broke. The bottom line is not raising the debt ceiling or taxes or lowering spending or any magical combination of the two.

The bottom line is sincere and absolute repentance. We need the Revelation of Jesus Christ to understand the urgency of that Repentance, noting that the first public sermon Jesus Christ made when He walked among us and surveyed the damage and human carnage left by sin was “ Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand”, (Matt. 4:17).

 

Help, I’ve been left behind – What do I do now?

For some yesterday, May 21, 2011 was just an ordinary day, a day we either served the Lord Jesus Christ, or a day we frittered away on the things of this world. For others, this was supposed to be the Big Day. Homecoming didn’t happen. But that does not mean it won’t.

Actually, Jesus said He was coming in a day when we did not think He would. It will be an ordinary day. So, let us not worry about when it is. If you are ready, (suitcases will not fly), there is no way you can miss the bus. So get busy doing the Lord’s business till He comes back.

 

Sound the Alarm

All of us have heard some version of the story of the little boy sent out to watch his father’s sheep who called “wolf, wolf”, when there was no wolf.  But just because there was no wolf, – at least not that day – the threat of there being any wolf at all soon faded from mind and the alarm lost its power to bring warning or help.

How many times have we heard the alarms of the Bible sounded without there being any apparent danger? Life in our part of the pasture was fine, or at least manageable. We were busy getting ready for something or trying to recover from it or rewarding ourselves for being so good or clever or successful or pulling ourselves out of some bad mood or relationship dysfunction.  

 

Today, the Rapture?

Another scare about the date the world will end has been issued by those who may think they have heard from God, but do not know their Bibles. It says expressly that we do not know the day, May 21, 2011, or the hour, (Matt. 24:36). We, those of us who have ears to hear, will know the time and the season.

“Times” in the Bible often speak of years and “seasons”, would denote the time in the year. We all have our opinions about where we are at on the timeline of Judgment and none of them are sacred or necessarily right.