Author: rickroehm
Posted Aug 25 2010 04:21:18am
|
|
No... the world is not our home but we live here until we die or Christ returns in the Rapture. While we're here we're to be lights, examples, and witnesses for the Christ who changed us morally and showed us we are not to be a part of the world but a represenative for Him. People in the world need built up by people who are morally changed by the Grace of God. A life in Christ is not part of the world system because Christians don't love the world or the things of the world. Christians are transformed from the world. They can be renewed to a place where they are not conformed to worldly ways but the ways of God completely. It's called the holy life which is a better life... on the outside of the world looking in rather than the inside of the world looking out. Christians. Let us not forget what we used to be. Where we came from and how bad others need the guiding light as God uses us to be examples of His holiness. The following verse shows the attitude of Christian that reviews the old life and the world that he came from as he thanks God for the life of holiness and clean living. A sorrowful rememberance of the world but not part of it. Ashamed of worldly ways with gratitude that Christ made you the man that you're supposed to be. Glory! He's alive.
Rom 6:21-22...What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. |
|
Author: arisensleeper
Posted Aug 25 2010 07:35:25pm
|
|
Dear brother, I too would love to live a life where conflict does not exist. Nevertheless, the reality if far more complicated than it seems. I recall a young Christian man who went to the Sudan to serve God among child soldiers and children caught in the slave trade. I remember him crying as he told us how he held a rifle in his hands guarding a group a children from marauding slavers. How he had never held a rifle in his life and never wanted to and being faced with the terrible decision to have to stand and protect. I visited a street missions in the Bronx where the director, a Godly man, kept a colt 45 in his drawer and a baseball bat behind the door because standing up to gangs and dealers to safeguard those the Lord called him to save was more important than our self-described North American Christian sensibilities. I remember how he kneels and prays each morning and night asking God to spare him from having to use that firearm or that baseball bat. I recall the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer whose Christian values were challenged in light of the evil of Hitler's regime and felt the Spirit's prompting that he had to preach against those pastors who had begun to preach a Nazi gospel till he was banned from preaching and how he had to flee the country because he would be drafted into the German army. I remember how he was convicted to return to Germany from the safety of the United States because he could not call himself a Christian in the comfort and safety of the well appointed apartment and a teaching position in the States to face a certain death - to challenge an evil cancer in his homeland. How he ended up confronting the price of his faith and what it meant when he joined the resistance, becoming first a double agent, than a part of a plot to assassinate Hitler. There are numerous other testimonies such as these where Christians are faced with situations that cannot be wrapped up in neat little Christian parcels in which what we believe and stand for is not tested. Here in the comfort of North America, we are lulled by political correctness and an illusion that the battle does not exist. In our false sense of peace, we stand by when the God is profaned, heresies taught, and the Word is distorted excusing ourselves proclaiming loudly that we must not judge and we must preserve peace, preferring to live our lives in neat little bubbles. Jude 1:3-4 tells us that we must contend for the faith given once for all, but how many of us have really asked ourselves what that means? How many of us sit by willing to see the lost and the desperate led astray. How many of us are willing to sit by and see young impressionable Christians deceived? All in the name of what? I am certain it is not God or Christ. If we cannot contend for the faith in an era of "peace" how will we contend for the faith in times of trouble? Where is our love for the lost sheep and the little children?
I offer this not as a rebuke to anyone but as a reminder that Church is not confined in neat little buildings with steeples and nice music and that we will all have to get serious about what it really means to be a Christ follower. Mind you, I am not advocating taking up arms or vigilantism, I have fought a war and never want to have to again. Nor am I advocating that we become raving apologists for Christ. What I am asking is what we do when we are confronted with evil and false teaching. What I am asking is for us to consider what it means when Jude says that we must contend for the faith in light of "ravenous wolves in sheep clothing" (Matthew 7:15), "ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ." (Jude 1:4)
Humbly,
Arisen |
|
Author: billyb
Posted Aug 26 2010 05:44:45am
|
|
Arisen, Thanks for the comment, we do have to stand up to false teaching. I do that. This is a subject, concerning how far to go, individually, that we all struggle with, I know I sure do. Good to have those very few and rare ones who hold us accountable. There are many false teachings, and they will be getting worse, as the end draws near. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. For me personally, when anger and bitterness starts creeping in, that is time to withdraw, and let others take up the fight. It breaks my heart to see what our society is becoming. I was discussing this very thing last week with a Brother about the issue in New York. We come back to choice again. It is sad that many have turned away from the Christ, of Christianity. The blood atonement, repentance, holiness, all that requires giving ourselves totally to Him.
There are many doing exactly as you said, and the scripture foretold such. We also are warned not to let our love grow cold, because iniquity abounds. I believe both of us have stood up to that lie, concerning God giving man choice. Yet, it was not us, but the word of God itself. "Whosoever will", God is not willing that "any should perish, but that all should come to repentance". No man, or power, is going to destroy Gods word on this.
You are right, we have to live our faith, not talk about it. Deep subject. Rome was certainly an oppressive government. This seems to be when God moves His strongest. It is ironic, speaking of "Jacob have I loved", seeing all that this people have been through. God said "I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein." Amos 6:8. Of Ephraim, (Israel) God said, "All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters." Hos. 9:15. Yet God promised to still have mercy toward them, when repentance had done its work, and yet will. Amos 9:8-15, Hosea Chapter 14.
It is very easy to see what and who God hates, a people given over to evil, too prideful to submit to Him, or His word, and who show no true repentance, only lip service, and reject His Son Jesus Christ, and His coming on mankinds behalf, to atone for sins. Some of these will name Jesus Christ, but serve flesh, like brute beast. (Jude). Pardon the extra input here. You are a good soldier in the Kingdom, Brother. I am thankful you are. We definitely need to stay together in our calling. But Gods word will cut into those deep places we can not. God will defeat all evil, and powers that stand against Him. It is an honor to count you as a friend and Brother in Jesus Christ. Till He comes, Billy |
|
Author: arisensleeper
Posted Aug 30 2010 06:36:40pm
|
|
Dear brother, I know your heart and have "heard" in your blogs and comments. I thank God for you. My blogs and comments are meant to wake us up, hence my nickname "Arisensleeper". Our greatest weapon and defense is the Word of God. When we blunt it and dent it by preaching and teaching falsely and distorting Scriptures, we serve only the evil one.
Blessings
Arisen |
|
|
View Profile 
My Blogs 
My Blog Series 
My Comments 
My Wall 
My Friends 
My RSS Feed
Creative Commons: Public Domain
