I’m serious. Do you know what you look like?
God is not much into image management. He sees us for who we are and wants us to see ourselves for who we are. We may “love the Word” and see ourselves as good Christians and loyal followers of Jesus.
But don’t you want to know? Know as God knows. Know for sure. Know in view of the reality of God and forever. I mean, fooling ourselves and maybe a few, or even lots of people, around us is very possible. But what kind of blessing is that? I look good in the eyes of my peers? I have made quite an impression on everyone around me.
But don’t you want to see what God sees? Hear his perspective?
The blessing is in the hearing and then the doing …
Use it or lose it. Live the words of God, or that “blessing” you received in Bible study becomes but a faded memory.
And now a practical word from our sponsor …
And now, how interesting it is the following verse.
A practical way to gauge your spirituality …
Do you control your tongue? So let’s run the diagnostics and ask – Do I control my tongue? If not, Scripture says that two things are going on.
So back to my first question. Do you know what you look like or are you fooling yourself?
Not apologizing for my God …
You’ve got a problem with hell. Then choose not to go there.
No apologies will be found here as to what is written in God’s holy book, the Bible. My God, the Creator and Redeemer of this planet is love and is light. No begging and pleading for the benefit of an accusing world. No politically correct explanations of the why’s and whereabout’s of the Sovereign King of glory.
Won’t find it here. Don’t bother to click on the search box.
God loved this world with the ultimate sacrifice of a Father.
A choice …
God provided a choice through Jesus Christ. God offered the life of his Son so we would have a choice of heaven or hell.
Too often we apologize for God’s actions, spend too much time trying to explain how bad things can happen to good people, etc.
Too often we apologize for hell, as in “How can a loving God even have a hell, let alone send someone there?”
Not innocent bystanders in a cosmic conflict …
We know …
We know because God has made it plain. Around us and in us, everything speaks of God. Deep down we know that our accusations toward God are not inquiry but arrows shot in battle. Questioning God’s goodness is not typically a fact finding mission but part and parcel of the rebellion of the human heart. No, we don’t understand everything about God. We can’t. But we can know God … deeply.
But many choose not to. So know this as you as you choose hell instead of heaven. In judging God’s goodness you have rejected his goodness. You chose hell instead of heaven because you decided that a God who would change your life is not a good God. You decided you did not want God involved and pursued life elsewhere.
The God I know needs no apology. He offers his goodness, and we accept or reject his goodness, his salvation through Jesus Christ. One day, one way or another, you will know this.
The following is an excerpt from my book – Living by the Words of God (Monthly payment religion / PART ONE / pp. 49-50).
I am beginning the process of revising this book. If anyone wants to be an “editor” on the project I would gladly welcome the help. My thought is that I have good content in the book, but I need to really trim it down and highlight the more meaningful, attention grabbing sections, such as the one below. I am also going to put the book in ebook format so it will be available very inexpensively on various readers, such as iBook and Kindle.
Let me know if you want to help.
I remember several years ago my brother telling me how car salesmen that he worked with bragged about selling cars to people who did not even know how much they actually paid for the car.
They did not know the ultimate cost because they only cared whether or not they could make the monthly payment. It seems that sometimes we are like that with the bigger issues of life also. Going along, buying what happiness we can, making our monthly payment, neither knowing nor caring about the ultimate cost.
But we need to stop and think. Don’t I want to know the ultimate price I will end up paying for my current lifestyle? Am I paying glory to God looking to ultimate happiness? Or am I making monthly payments on a religion that is just enough to let me get by?
Look at the price Israel paid for not giving God the glory and living by his words. The irony of this text should astonish us. They abandoned God’s words and the promise of true life for their own words that came with their “monthly-payment” religion. And God finally said “Okay, have it your way.”
“… the only message you speak is your own words. You have changed the words of our God, the living God, the LORD All-Powerful.”
After years of changing the words of God instead of living them, they were left with their own message, their own words, not God’s. Is this what we are doing? Are we, as they did, changing the words for something that better fits our lives?
In the grand scheme of things there is only one voice that answers from heaven. Only one light in the universe. Only one Person who pays attention to the joys and struggles of life on Planet Earth.
The prophets of Baal found this out centuries ago on a hillside in Israel. Their very lives depended on their god answering them from heaven and coming to their rescue.
Elijah had challenged the prophets of Baal to a “bring the fire down from heaven” contest. The 450 prophets on the opposing team were having no effect; no response from heaven; the only sound that could be heard was their wails and screams as they cut themselves and tried to rouse a dead god.
Here is the great sadness. We all begin apart from Jesus Christ.
Not so good … separated, alienated, strangers, no hope, without God in the world.
All alone. Even in a crowd. All alone in the universe. That is why we are lonely and do not hear the things we so desperately want and need to hear.
No voice, no one answering, no one paying attention …
That is where you are apart from Christ. Yes you communicate with family and friends, but in the big picture, as you yearn for answers that come from deep inside your being, nothing. And deep down, no matter how much we deny God and the truth of his word, we know this is a God problem. We know we are separated but in our blindness and darkness we still grapple for meaning and truth apart from God.
Just like the prophets of Baal. How frustrated, angry and disillusioned they must have been. They were being their religious best – for nothing.
The great hope in Jesus Christ: The voice of God speaks salvation!
But here is the opposite end of the spectrum that you will find through belief in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
In the “package” of eternal life you receive, one of the major benefits is that God is always there, always on call, always listening, always paying attention and working your life toward his ultimate perfection and glory.
Members of the family of God …
What is a “good Christian” anyway?
Could it be a bad thing?
Could trying to be a “good Christian” be misguided, ladder against the wrong wall type of thing?
Short answer – Yes!
Usually when we have such a thought in mind, we have already decided what it means to be a good Christian. We are no longer listening to God through the teaching of his word, no longer in pursuit of his glory on the path of Jesus. Or maybe never were.
An example … “good board members” but weak Christian men …
Several years ago in a church in which I was the pastor, a man came on our church board, newly elected and excited to serve. At his first board meeting he expressed his appreciation for being able to take part in the leadership of the church and made a statement something like this: “I just want to be the best board member that I can.”
Probably everyone sitting there thought that was a good thing, except me. You see, our “board members” were good board members, were pretty good “church members,” pretty much good people. But they were immature Christians and they were weak spiritually, weak as men, weak as spiritual leaders, lacking in spiritual courage and insight.
His sights were set on human example instead of Scriptural instruction. He had his ladder against the wrong wall, this “wall” being one built on the acceptance, opinions and experience of the other men in that group.
Let’s look at a prototype for putting your ladder against the wrong wall, or in this case choosing the wrong gate for your life direction and “Christian” service.
Verses 21 and 22 could be summarized as: “But we were good Christians. We called you Lord, we prophesied in your name, we opposed demons in your name and did mighty works in your name!”
Don’t miss the emphasis in these verses. They had been very intent and purposeful about being “good Christians.” They wanted to go to heaven.
But they had a problem … they missed the gate.
Unwilling to relinquish control of their lives to God, they went with the majority. And how could they go wrong? Choosing the wide gate gave them an easier way with more options. Here they could even define their terms as to what it meant to follow God, aka “be a good Christian.”
Make no mistake. Hear what God says in his Bible. God does allow us to define the terms, but we then must live (or die) with the end results. They were convinced right up until the end that they were “good Christians” on their way to heaven. But here is how the exchange went as it was removed from the court of popular opinion to the throne room of God.
They said: “But we were such good Christians.”
Jesus said: “I never knew you. Go away.”
We really do need to ask – Who is defining the terms?
Do you realize that a person – and there are thousands in our churches around the country, especially liberal churches – can be a “good Christian” and not even know Christ? But don’t consider this a “liberal only” problem. It is not a denominational problem or an institutional problem. It is a “me” problem, a “you” problem. Where am I before God?
A Christian who has settled for less …
We are sometimes pretty good at measuring and comparing ourselves to ourselves. We have begun to listen more to each other than to listen to God.
We lose our understanding on the horizontal plane of human opinion …
Sometimes we begin by allowing God to define the terms, but then become “wise in our own eyes” and settle for human opinion. We are Christians, we began the quest in a biblical manner, but we have taken our eyes off Jesus Christ. We didn’t lose our salvation; we just stepped off the path of bringing pleasure to God.
And we have settled for less – our version of God’s ideal.
Trust in our own terms – Get what we choose!
Trust God – Get what God chooses for us!
