Tag Archives: Religion

Recognize These Birth Pains?

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drag-queen-1280x720

Drag Queen Story Hour NYPL – in many other states as well

This above scenario troubles me in several ways. Firstly, while people have the right to live as they choose (within the law) there is grief in seeing a man happily dressed as a woman. Secondly, what could be more disturbing than celebrating this in a public venue of children? The answer – that parents, guardians of the children, are offering up their children to a value system, validating the very morals that offend God, and robbing them of the innocence that could be theirs.

There is no ‘freedom of choice’ when children are prevented from considering the choice to know God and His ways. Parents will undoubtedly shield them from the heart changing stories of Noah, Abraham, King David, the Apostles and our Savior Jesus Himself.  Most children today do not hear of God’s love, so costly and powerful but emotionally feed on stories like Worm Loves Worm, a story depicting same sex marriage.

drag queen III

Like child sacrifice to Moloch, here spiritual lives are freely given up….

Finally, the logical challenge goes forth, like a warped altar call….

 

drag queen calling

With enthusiastic invite he asks, “Who wants to be a drag queen when they grow up?”

What could be worse than children being indoctrinated with such sexual values? Worse than the parents bringing them to such an ‘altar’?

A silent – or complicit – or unloving church.

“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.” (Matt 24:12)

When Jesus describes the “birth pains” in the end times before His return, there seems to be a causal relationship between ‘lawlessness’ and the believers’ waning love. Betrayals, persecutions, and apostasy –an increase in wickedness – turns the love of many cold.

Here is the saddest part of the Drag Queen library presentations: most of the church has lost her grief and love for the souls that have no hope without God.

Much of the western church ‘avoids’ persecution or betrayal by ‘hiding in the world’, camouflaged by the same values. Others resist controversy and conflict by avoiding the bold truths that would convict man’s heart toward repentance.  For followers of Christ, the ‘cost’ of proclaiming the truth rises exponentially with wickedness.

There is usually no love found in ‘protesting sin’. It’s hard to find a precedent for it in scripture. But loving that ‘woman at the well’ doesn’t mean ignoring her sin or colluding with her sin. It means having a grieving love for her soul – a love that can’t resist telling her the truth so she might repent.

The ‘silent church’ does not represent the Jesus Christ. The ‘protesting church’ does not represent Jesus either. Worse is the ‘compromising church’ which Jesus warns He will vomit out of His mouth.

These ‘birth pains’ are coming faster and more painful. The devil laughs as men dress as women, men marry men and children are led into sexual and gender confusion. He may even laugh when we protest, boycott or petition these cultural changes. But Satan never laughs at the burdened heart crying out to God for the lost, deceived and confused. The devil isn’t laughing at the pleas and petitions to almighty God to deliver man from captivating sins.

I don’t want to join these ‘story hours’ but neither do I want to ignore them or protest them. I am grieved at the drag queen, the attentive children at his feet, and the deceived parents who usher their children into this arena. But if we focus our eyes on eternity, our view of all this changes.

All may suffer from these ‘birth pains’ described in Matthew 24, the tribulations that precede Christ’s return,  but only those reconciled with God, who ‘endure until the end’ will have the joy of His return. For the unsaved, ‘birth pains’ will not lead to joy of Christ’s arrival but the dread of meeting Him as Judge.

‘Today’ is always the right time to adjust our hearts and minds increasingly to the heart of our Lord. I pray for a heartfelt burden to plead for all those at ‘story time’. I pray that God reminds me frequently to pray for every ‘story teller’, every child in that audience, and every parent that applauds the ways that offend God.

Lord, I pray that you enlarge my heart toward the things that grieve Yours.  Please share Your burden for souls and lead me in prayer.  Let my prayers be aligned with Your will and be fruitful.  I pray for that ‘story teller’, bring him to a place of conviction, raise up a controversy in his heart.  Save him that he may tell Your stories.  Take away the false peace of those parents and pull back the curtain of deception.  Shake the hearts of families with the truth that, without You, there is no peace, there is no order, there is no hope. 

“But he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:13

Who is God Looking For Now?

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“Too bad you missed that prayer meeting – it was so exciting!

I always get a puzzled look from others when I share about the Times Square Church Worldwide prayer meeting.  Prayer meeting? Exciting? The large gathering of multicultural believers, the online fellowships around the world and most importantly, the presence of God make this prayer meeting so exciting.

So encouraging and stirring in fact, I am presenting my notes from Pastor Carter’s message preached during Tuesday’s prayer meeting, 6/20/17:

Thoughts on Faith and Prayer – Who is God Looking For Now?

We are living in a time of immense pain, perhaps unrivaled since the civil war…What type of people is God looking for now?  The kind of people who can push back this pain…In Biblical history when the enemy came in to destroy, God sought for a person or people who would stand in the public place and declare who He is.

Matthew 5:14-16, “You are the light of the world…”

In the time of Judges…people rose up but then fell to laziness, complacency, fell into darkness…God raised up a voice – Gideon.  He didn’t believe or see that he was a ‘mighty man of resources’ because he looked to himself, not the power of God that could  be his…we are like that – not knowing the strength we have in God…when God sends you to do something, His word is all you need to get it done – whatever He’s spoken to your heart…

You don’t need a diploma, resume, credentials…just belief in what God will do!

God sent Gideon to be a light on a hill – and God will give us His torch, smash the jars and cause our light to shine.  All we are to do is declare the victory that is in God, not us!  They made a public declaration of who God is and how our victory is in Him…God brought confusion upon the enemies and they turned on themselves…He used a people whose hearts wanted to honor Him…

What does God need from people today?  What kind of people is He looking for??

Gideon mustered a large army…~ 32,000…God said “reduce it”…first, tell all the fearful to GO HOME.  Twenty thousand men went home while 10,000 remained.  Fear says, “God is not able.”  God said, ‘those who are afraid to go public – send them home.  They are not a light on a hill’.  

The worst thing that God can ever tell us:  “I have a battle to win – go home!”

That doesn’t mean we don’t struggle with fear…we are not called to an absence of fear but to overcome fear.

God continued to decrease Gideon’s army…took them by the water…water always represents the Holy Spirit.  Then sent them to a hill – He wanted a people who would venture out, willing to go public.  And He looks today for a people to speak on His behalf to the addicted, the afflicted, the marginalized, radicalized, the broken…This is where the victory is…The devil has done all he can to silence the church.  By God’s grace we’re going to say what God gives us to say…

We are the light that God has set upon this present hill…we must proclaim, ‘It is the power of God that you need in your life – the power of God will heal your home…the power of God to break your addictions…to give you a sound mind…it is the power of God that brings clarity, a future for your children…It is the power of God alone alone that brings healing to a nation…brings unity to every race, every culture, every people…

The church will rise and be counted…like Gideon’s tiny army against a huge army…we must stand and declare to a lost generation that there IS salvation, there IS a Savior, there is a heaven and a hell…and a bridge called ‘the cross’ between the two… 

The church is going to rediscover her identity in these last days, by the grace of Almighty God!

I am willing to stand and be counted among the ‘foolish’…oh, to the Midianites it must have looked like an insane battle plan…300 people against 135,000…what a site! You had to know God was in that!…

And I know that God is with us when we choose to openly declare His name and talk about His victory…with the compassion of God in the center of our being, we call the lost from every place to His wonderful plan of free salvation and the promise of power to live a new life….

Who wants to go?  Who wants to go to the top of the hill?

Whether you are afflicted, addicted, filled with sorrow, whatever your circumstance – you too are invited to come to that hill called Calvary, invited to receive the strength of God, have your sins forgiven, receive divine purpose in your life…you too are called to hold up your torch and say, ‘follow me as I follow Christ! I know where victory is!  I know where love is, where healing is…it’s all at the cross of Christ!’

My prayer is, Pastor Carter declared,

“Wherever You call me to go, whatever You call me to do…may I have the privilge of being an ambassador of Your power…Let me not boast of myself but boast of You, Your cross Your victory…let me be a light in this dark generation…”  

 

Oh Lord, let that be the cry of my heart too!

What about you?

 

http://www.tscnyc.org/webcasts/tuesday-7pm/

or find the message later in sermon queue for Worldwide prayer, http://www.tscnyc.org

Better, join us in Times Square or online, Tuesdays 7pm….

 

Restricting God – Let Me Count the Ways…

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Many of us are frequently stirred and humbled by the testimonies of missionaries and servants of God. From Biblical times to present day, men and women proclaim the power of God as He leads them to hidden places of suffering. Surrendered vessels who seem totally insignificant become agents of Most High God, affecting lives for eternity.

And we want that too! Who wouldn’t want their temporary life here to matter in God’s Kingdom? Who, knowing the Lord, wouldn’t want all His purposes and intentions come to fruition? And so we too cry out, perhaps at an altar, perhaps in our private prayer….

“Lord, use me, send me! I want my life to matter, to count…”

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THEN our flesh speaks ‘sense’ into our cry,

“BUT Lord…”
….don’t send me any place hot, you know how I hate the heat. I would be miserable
….you know I couldn’t go very far, you know my limits, I have responsibilities…
….don’t send me to blah-blah, I could never eat that food, and the bugs are ginormous. Agh, Lord send someone else there
….send me to truly needy people, not to those blah-blah; they’re always trying to rip off the system
….I would serve in a hospital ministry but the germs… and who really knows if those comatose people can even hear the Gospel?
….prisons are, well, dangerous. I’m too old….I’m too young
….please don’t call me to serve in my own neighborhood,  that’s too boring!
….if I go there, if I do that – wouldn’t I lose everything?

By the time we’re finished we’re no longer stirred…we’re discouraged!

Underneath is unbelief  which doesn’t really restrict God but restricts us from grasping His best for our lives.

American Christianity may have a foundational flaw embedded from our culture of ‘rugged individualism’ and ‘opportunity’ and ‘freedom’. We defend the rights to excel, possess, invest and express.  True Christianity smashes that self-reliant lifestyle. No one naturally wants to die to ‘self’ but when we resist complete surrender, resist the cross of Christ, we risk missing His perfect call upon our lives.

“Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”  Jonah 2:8

I for one am not at the place of total surrender. I want to be though, especially in these last days where prophecy points to the soon return of our Lord. I hope for a deeper burden for the lost, not stoked by fleeting and temporal emotions, but one birthed by the Holy Spirit which defies my emotions and intellect.

Would anyone join me in prayer?

“Lord, thank you for saving me and abiding within me. I believe that, no matter what failures mark my life, no matter how ordinary or limited I perceive my life, You are not limited and You can never fail. I pray for a calling, a heavenly burden that will overshadow and nullify every fear and obstacle. Help me to trust You, Lord. Don’t let me imagine remote and ‘fantastic’ things while missing the ‘woman at the well’. Loosen my grip on the things of this world and help me to walk with a view of eternity. In Jesus name, Amen.”

“God promises not just to save us but to give us a full and meaningful life.”  

“We are called to be a testimony to the world that God is alive.”

(Pastor Carter Conlon, Times Square Church)

 

 

Diving Back Into Life Giving Waters

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hot springs in armenia

Hot Springs in Armenia – medicinal but not life giving!

When I was five my mother taught me the 23rd Psalm. She told me to repeat it in bed whenever I had bad dreams. Perhaps ongoing repetitions lulled me back to sleep; I doubt I knew about “shepherds” or how they “maketh me lie down in green pastures”.
Now, many years later, I am finding ongoing treasures in this Psalm, different in life seasons. This week, during a time of emotional heaviness, I read, as if for the first time, the 3rd verse,

“He restores my soul”

Other versions read:

“He refreshes my soul”
“He renews my strength”
“He revives my life”
“He brings back my soul”

I began praying for the Lord to restore and heal my soul and believe in His promise to do it.

Intellectual memorizing and reciting scripture is often the death blow to the life giving power of God’s words. This foundational practice of formal religions effectively squelches the Holy Spirit. The “Lord’s Prayer”, often spoken and sung as one long sentence, grants a feeling of piety but hardly ‘connects’ with the Lord. How many people ‘pray’ that prayer and really expect an answer?

Evangelicals also limit the freedom of the Holy Spirit by endlessly using one verse, John 3:16, as if that alone is all that need be said. But we serve a personal God that reaches every person differently. Jesus never repeated the same words verbatim to everyone He met yet His words were healing, provoking, convicting and powerful – delivered differently, depending on who He was addressing and what was needed to be said!

Any verse can become a ‘mantra’. I’m asking today for a newness in scripture reading, where I’m not predicting the next verse from memory but prayerfully opening my heart to a newness from the Holy Spirit. I want His word to actually be for me…

“…living and active. Sharper than any two edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit….”

“Lord, shake our hearts in these last days. Let every ‘formula’ in our prayer to and sharing of You fall to the ground. Today as we open Your word, let us see it as “living and active” and personal. Inspire us and refresh us with a personal word for others that they may hunger to know You as well.  Lead us, Lord, to joyously dig beyond the surface….”

“For the Lamb on the throne will be their Shepherd. He will lead them to springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.” (Rev 7:17)

“Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For the Lord God is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.  Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation.”   (Isaiah 12:2-3)

 

(Springs: “a place where water wells up from an underground, unseen source”)

The Importance of Failure in Our Walk With God

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That Sunday morning started out good and got even better during church. The Lord allowed another ‘chance encounter’ with someone who needed prayer and counsel. This time a single mother was outside the sanctuary, weeping and distraught. I was so grateful for the words to minister and was elated later when I saw her come inside and join the service.

I was feeling so ‘good’ in fact I prayed, “Oh Lord, don’t let me think I’m anyone special or that it is in me to restore or uplift anybody. Humble me Lord.” The last part of the prayer made me a bit nervous….

That afternoon, at a ministry meeting, the director spoke about engaging troubled and rebellious people, a frequent occurrence in a large urban church. He discussed techniques to verbally disarm and defuse hostile people and lead them effectively to comply. Ah, didn’t I know all this? Hadn’t I practiced these interventions?

Later that same afternoon, in walks a woman with children wanting assistance from church ministry. While she and the kids were treated to a meal at a nearby diner, she returned wanting further assistance. She did not need shelter but apparently money. Someone gave her the impression that she might get such help after the service.

She waited in the lobby as the service went on and, not interested in ‘church’ she grew impatient, disregarding the promptings of ushers and others not to sit on the floor, to supervise her kids, etc. Our ministry was asked to intervene, I took the lead. When I approached and assessed her angry face, all the ‘disarming techniques’ fell to the ground. I explained that she must comply. She refused and dismissed me. I responded with a statement that, not only got her off the floor but unleashed the rest of her pent up fury. While the pastor was preaching in the sanctuary, she yelled out obscenities and curses upon me in the lobby. Apologies were futile as my pointed words somehow broke a floodgate of anger. My husband berated me and the woman stormed out of the lobby, continuing her ranting out on the sidewalk.

Just when I thought I couldn’t feel lower, she yelled out from the sidewalk, “You don’t know what I’ve been through!!” No, I surely didn’t know and would probably never know. Her statement so indicted me, and in front of everyone! I felt like such a loser and to think just that morning….

I was feeling so ‘good’ in fact I prayed, “Oh Lord, don’t let me think I’m anyone special or that it is in me to restore or uplift anybody. Humble me Lord.”

Agh! I was humbled in front of the brethren whose esteem I value. I did not at all feel like ‘anyone special’ but rather especially terrible.

The Lord graciously exposed the pride in my heart, enough pride to feel sufficient in my own capabilities. I had assessed a situation with my own reasoning, without the spiritual discernment or compassion to reach beyond a person’s presenting hostility. James chapter 3 points to the power of our words, so apropos is verse 5, “Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark”. Yet, lest the devil tempt us with self-condemnation James assures us that, “We all stumble in many ways.”

Importantly, I truly sensed that while the Lord was exposing and humbling, His promise and purpose for my life did not diminish. In fact, with correction and surrender, I am confident to continue, knowing that in Christ my failures don’t define me but can truly refine me.

I am thankful for a heavenly Father who (painfully) chastises, not at all to condemn, but to refine and mature so that we may move forward and better represent Him. Ultimately however, it is God’s will that we be “conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29) towards which He will reveal, chastise and humble our un-Christ-like ways.

Has this ever happened to you?

“Heavenly Father, I pray for all of us who have failed in any way, made a wrong choice, or fell into a temptation.  I pray that we all receive your correction in love, resist every temptation of self-condemnation, and rest assured of your fellowship and promise . For those who don’t know You and Your loving fellowship, I pray that they enter into relationship, repenting of every wrongdoing and receiving full pardon and new life by trusting in Jesus Christ who died for our sins and rose, conquering death.  May we all know freedom from condemnation and abundant life through Jesus Christ. Amen.”

“Christians On The Brink of Losing Religious Freedom”…Is That A Bad Thing?

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Embedded within ‘Christian politics’ and campaigns is the ongoing rally by Christian leaders, pastors, TV celebrities, authors and watchdogs to preserve our religious freedoms. This is especially prevalent during this pre-election season. (Here see here for example) The ‘danger’ and ‘risk’ of losing religious freedom and constitutional rights even provokes leaders and ‘shepherds’ to influence their churches and communities toward various candidates based on extra-Biblical criteria.

I am a Christian and an American, but wonder if we so cherish ‘religious freedom’ more than God’s call to holiness and separation.  Do our values and priorities resemble those established by the apostles and Body of Christ in the New Testament – under the New Covenant? There are no Bible verses or precedents to undergird our rallies for government favor and support.  Jesus Himself certainly had the power, popularity and influence to effect change and establish ‘religious freedoms’ and the people wanted Him King to do so!  But neither the Lord nor the apostles ever used their following or influence to implement governmental change, even though believers were oppressed, persecuted and tortured.

I understand that the opposite of ‘religious freedom’ can lead to great suffering. Millions have perished and lives destroyed at the hands of persecutors.  The Armenian Genocide perpetuated by the Ottoman Turks as well as the holocaust of WWII are only two examples. Horrific and wicked acts continue today through radical Islam and other groups. I am grateful to live in a ‘free’ and ‘safe’ country and pray that those suffering can find such refuge. So how could all this clamor to secure ‘religious freedom’ be a bad thing?

1. Our Christian forefathers, moved by the call of God, relied on the power of  the Holy Spirit to establish the Gospel in the world. They never depended upon the ‘rights’ bestowed by any government.  They expounded ‘separation from the world’ as a mandate, hardly aligning with secular governments. Alignment with the world never brings the world nearer to the Lord but compromises us, conforming us more to the image of the world.

2. The American Church as a whole is addicted to worldly freedom, enjoyment and prosperity. We extol our ‘freedom to worship’ but isn’t worship birthed in our heart, most genuine in the privacy of our prayer closet? No one can interfere with those who worship as Jesus defines, “in spirit and in truth”. Moreover, no one can stop us from our greatest call, “to be conformed to the image of Christ”.  Is our alarm stirred by impending threat upon the business of Christianity in our country? Does our enjoyment, even pride, come from our prosperous megachurches and ‘gains’ we claim in changing social values?

“When the church was persecuted, it was powerful.  When the devil saw that persecution wasn’t killing the church, he made them prosperous.”  Zac Poonen

3.  How will Americans stand in these last days?  Rather than girding ourselves in the Lord     and the power of His word, many of us choose to bask in ‘religious freedoms’.  “When” not if trouble or persecution comes, many of us will fall away.

“What was sown on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.” (Matt 13:20-21)

4. Is God grieving about our possible loss of ‘religious freedom’ or is He grieving at our lack of holiness? How different would we be if we tossed our moral and political compasses away and joined together in seeking holiness before God?

5. The quest to secure ‘religious freedoms’ necessitates inclusive collaborative actions. Supporters are finding ‘common ground’ amongst many types of faith.  This innate drive of self preservation is a snare that will prepare many to accept the growing body of ‘ecumenical Christianity’.  Loss of discernment is worse than loss of ‘religious freedom’ – one day a net will cast wide for a one world religion and most will be ready to join.

Of course losing rights and freedom is a ‘bad thing’.  I don’t want to be persecuted, attacked, rejected or killed. I don’t even want a sneer or harsh word toward me. But the closer we draw to the heart of Christ, the further we should stand from the world’s arena. Our devotion to the Lord is necessarily tested through loss, harm, persecution and suffering (I Peter 1:7).   Our strength to endure and to honor God is directly related to our separation unto Him.

True strength flows from our dependence and confidence in Him.  The quest for political influence and preservation of rights increasingly promotes a wrong vein of dependency for Christians. When trials of faith come upon us, we will not be like the tree planted by the water, our roots will be shallow – planted in a temporal and condemned world.

God is for His people. He wants to indwell us, move through us and enable us to be “the light of the world” and “the salt of the earth”. But that doesn’t come from securing our rights, it comes from dying to them….  ‘Pick up your cross and follow Me’.  

A person carrying the cross of Christ has no rights.  They are dead to the world around them.  They are totally dependent on the life of Christ to empower them, to give them life, and lead them to victory.

some-trust-in-chariots

Revival In America? What Do You Believe?

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Everyday there is a new celebrity push to GATHER TOGETHER or MARCH AS ONE or somehow STORM THE CAPITAL FOR JESUS. Whatever the launch, the driving force is the same: ‘Bring America into Revival!’ ‘Bring America Back to God!’ Many of the involved Christian leaders are well respected pastors, authors, and servants of God. Of course, to gather, march, or otherwise make an impact there must be a concerted ecumenical effort.

As a plea to other believers I humbly suggest to please stop and consider the Biblical basis for these popular movements. There are no such events organized in the New Testament. No such campaigns are found in the Old Testament, where godly prophets risked their lives to admonish and warn, preaching repentance to the nation. They stood alone unlike leaders today who strategize national repentance.

When Christians – or any people – strategize, they are in the flesh, utilizing human capabilities of cleverness, intellect, creativity, social and political connections, and media blitzes. How could this possibly align with the teachings of the apostles that we are admonished to follow?  “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings that we passed on to you…” (II Thessalonians 2:15)

John 6:63 records the words of Jesus,

“The Spirit gives life but the flesh counts for nothing.”

Similarly, collaborative ecumenical efforts toward the goal of national repentance have no grounding in the New Testament. The most powerful, Spirit filled men, launched by God into the world, did not rely on money, media, strategies, collaborative committees, or social/political connections. They were separated from the world system, they did not try to employ it to ‘help’ God.

WHEN was America a ‘Christian Nation’? When were your neighbors truly your ‘brethren’? Yes, historically the United States has been prosperous and upright in many ways, but godly? Only selective memory can lead to that conclusion. Our country’s long standing and deepening love affair with sensuality, sexuality, greed and violence has opened doors of sin in other nations. When we study the scriptures we must conclude that there is no ‘Christian nation’, every country is included in the ‘world system’ and every country is under the domain of the prince of this world – Satan. Every country will willingly and without exception join into the one world government. Christian nation? The United States may be the driving force plunging us into these dark last days.

Outside of our borders, no one thinks we are really a Christian nation, in fact, most of the ‘heathen’ countries are being inwardly destroyed by our exportation of gross immorality.

815606        Neither one of these represent Jesus Christ…. Which                                             american-homosexual-flag                           one represents America?

 

 

 

 

So, what’s wrong with all these grand revival plans anyway? Aren’t these rallies better than just watching the country implode like a slow train crash? Sadly, no….

Intertwining ‘nation’ and ‘God’ does not revive true faith but truly revives NATIONAL PRIDE. Pride skews our thinking and separates us from God. Creating a ‘vision’ and ‘formulating a plan’ blinds us to God’s ways and view. How does the Lord see the United States of America?

“Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales….” Isaiah 40:15

Strategized events with emotional and ‘spiritual’ fervor, formulated and launched by man, can never amount to anything of eternal value. If we’re doing something that God has not ordained then we are missing what He had planned for us to do. It will count FOR NOTHING (Matt 7:21). ‘Servants’ don’t busy themselves with self-assigned projects and missions, they wait upon their Master. More powerful than us in every way, would the angels of God ever think to devise their own plans to serve God? Never! The “good works which God prepared in advance for us to do” may not be grandiose, emotionally tantalizing, or popular amongst the masses but those ‘good works’ will never fail to yield God’s intended eternal fruits.

God’s way of salvation calls for the old man to die. Many of those gathering with revivalists do not subscribe to foundational tenets of salvation. “Godly sorrow brings  repentance that leads to salvation.”  (II Corin 7:10) God does not lead men into godly sorrow through prosperity but through severe chastisement, sometimes devastation. While many are calling for ‘national repentance’ there is hardly a cry for godly sorrow. And who would rally around such a cry?

The Old Testament prophets carried the burden of the Lord with much grief and sorrow – knowing that destruction and judgement were in store for backslidden Israel. Separated from the world with words from God, they were unpopular and persecuted. Nobody rallied around them. They did not work up a cheering crowd or organize media blitzes, financial backing, or celebrity participants. They were compelled by God alone.

I pray that we do not rob God of what He truly wants to do through us in these last days. May we be watching for His return, praying, and “making disciples of all the nations” – perhaps as far as our next door neighbors…engaging in those “good works prepared for us” noted in Ephesians 2:10.

A drop in the bucket

Here we are as a nation…a drop indistinguishable from any other.

We as believers are called out of the world by God who “rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son He loves” (Colossians 1:13) It’s time for us as true believers to give up ‘national pride’ and dreams of ‘past traditional values’, and get deeper into the Word of God.  God has placed us in His Body exactly where He wants us, (I Corinthians 12:18) with ‘good works’ prepared for us, rooted in the heart of Christ that He may welcome us on that soon coming day,

“Well done My good and faithful servant!”

“…God Sends Them a Powerful Delusion..”

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“They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” (II Thessalonians 2:10b and 11)

No matter how you turn these verses, the core meaning is fearful – God is taking action that will seal the doom of those who refuse to love the truth. Note, the verse does not point to those who don’t know the truth, but those who refuse to love the truth. This chapter speaks of both apostasy – “the rebellion”- and the antichrist, “man of lawlessness”. Many people, believers and unbelievers alike, lend an ongoing and lively curiosity to the arrival of the antichrist, sizing up various politicians, religious leaders, and world leaders. Many take great care to somehow ‘discover’ who this diabolical leader will be. However, few Christians are lamenting over the “great falling away” spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24.

Pastor David Wilkerson spoke of this ‘powerful delusion’ and the’ lie’ which the fallen will believe: “…the ‘lie’ is the same one Eve believed, ‘you can sin and get away with it. God will not punish you.’” I believe that the seeds of this lie grow and bear fruit as they are watered by love of self and a fearless propensity to contort the word of God. A demonic empowerment, grossly mistaken for anointing, emboldens church leadership to wrap Scripture around human logic and reasoning…“You can get away with sin, God will not punish you, He’s a God of mercy…wait a minute, is this really a sin? ‘This’ is love…love can’t be sin so this cannot be a sin, therefore God would not punish this and, moreover, God agrees with this. This is a good thing! Yes, that’s right, we should celebrate!”

“’Delusion’ is stronger than deception. Deception means that a person can be fooled about something. Delusion is a way of life in which one is perpetually deceived. People under delusion harden their heart permanently.” Dr. Grant Richison, Verse by Verse Commentary website

A tremendous amount of money, public relations, political backing and cultural grooming has been invested into transforming homosexuality from unnatural and ungodly to innate and celebrated. Is it ungodly? Even a spandex Bible could not stretch the truth far enough. Is it unnatural? Can anyone really insist, “it is natural for a man to put…” no, it isn’t.

The power of this agenda further creates a cultural divide as it asserts a wrong accusation:  if you’re not aligned with us, you are haters.  What?  Any loving parent – any loving person in fact- knows that love can withstand and exist within disagreement and differences.

As a parole officer I once supervised a middle aged masculine lesbian who lived with her ‘wife’. She was hostile to law enforcement which was greatly heightened toward me when I violated her parole. After spending time in jail, she was released to my caseload again, much to my dismay. I was amazed however when she came back into my office….her whole countenance had changed, she had a true peace. She shared with me, “I came to know the Lord in jail” and described her baptism and Bible study. She left the ‘gay’ lifestyle. I was in awe of the Lord’s transforming power as every week she presented as more and more feminine until she was wearing dresses.  She often shared about the life changes God brought about in her, lamenting one day, “How could I have done such disgusting things?”

Today’s apostate church would have celebrated her fallen state, validated her sin and obscured the life transforming power of Christ’s salvation and deliverance.  

The sinful seed in the demonic challenge, “did God really say” – is brought to utter fruition by the delusion sent by God. While the Lord invites the sinner and mercifully chastises the carnal Christian, there is little hope for those who rush forth to misrepresent and slander the word of the Sovereign and Holy God. Who can deliver you if God Himself sends a powerful delusion upon you, a precursor to condemnation?

There is a dark net launched and hovering over the world in preparation of the antichrist. The corruption of entire denominations facilitates the ‘coming together’ of many into one faith, with compromise as its cornerstone. True believers in the west will be tested as the Lord calls upon us to “stand”, “watch” and “pray”. “Let us not give up meeting together” but commit to encouraging, admonishing and ‘loving one another deeply’ in the Lord. As is the Body of Christ elsewhere in the world, we will be hated and ostracized by unbelievers and worse – by those who have fallen away. Those who have known the faith have the greater vantage point to oppose and betray. But the Lord is our Defender, our Advocate, and our High Priest.

May we stand faithful in the shadow of God’s Son, together under the authority of His sovereign Word and be that ‘one’…

“This is the one I esteem; he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at My word.” (Isaiah 66:2)

The Most Devastating Sign of The End Times

Posted on by Standard 8

Bible believers, followers of the Lord, are increasingly engaged with scriptural studies of the end times, eschatology. This is a good and vital part of our faith as believers of both the Old and New Testaments were called to watch for the fulfillment of prophecies. The prophets of the Old Testament had their spiritual eyes set upon the coming Messiah and today believers are called to focus on His glorious return. While so many are busy with timetable charts and configurations, few are expounding on the most devastating indicator of these end times. It is prevailing, overwhelming, and prolific enough to undergird every sin and pave the way for other end time events…even ushering in and celebrating the rise of the Antichrist.

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days, people will be lovers of themselves…” II Timothy 3:1-5

eselflove

If religion is “a system of faith and worship” then self-love would be today’s prevailing faith.

The cost and consequence of this love of self is rarely truthfully exposed. Self-love corrodes marital foundations as spouses increasingly seek to ‘fulfill themselves’ with selfish pleasures. Youths are encouraged to explore every venue of sexuality without restraint or consequence. Lovers of themselves put themselves before their unborn child, their spouse, their neighbor, and their Maker. From this root of‘love’ springs forth the “lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power…”  (II Timothy 3)

Why should this self-love concern ‘believers’?

“Lovers of self” is foundational to end time apostasy, ‘the great apostasy’, the great falling away. How so?

Through our worship. “Do not love the world” declared the elderly Apostle John but if he were to enter into much of our worship he would see both a love and imitation of the world. The spirit of this world appeals to our flesh and leads us to gratify ourselves in every way. Godly wordage aside, much of the ‘worship’ thronged after in American churches tantalizes our flesh and elates our emotions. This euphoric experience utilizes the same dynamics as a rock concert – invigorating music, strobing lights, even fog machines. Nothing is missing in these massive gatherings except the Holy Spirit.

Through our compromise. If there be lacking in the ‘whole counsel of God’ there is no counsel of God therein. In our ‘love for the world’ we have become like the world, excusing and redefining sin, omitting the preaching of hell, and neglecting the Lord’s admonishment to watch for His return as Judge and King. Not wanting to miss what this world has to offer, many throng to megachurches where the leadership enjoys kingdom living in this world – private jets, elaborate compounds, and extravagant incomes. Worship and church together are formidable and lucrative businesses today and sadly, we are content with euphoric worship and prosperity. Sanctification, a pursuit of holiness which is the crux of our Christian walk, is the most unpopular doctrine of the day.

Through our ecumenicalism. We are surely called to embrace our brethren from every tribe, every nation, and every tongue. We are to love the Body of Christ as we love the Lord Himself. But we are not called to – and strongly cautioned against – embracing every church doctrine, belief, and practice. “Small is the gate, narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” declared Jesus. However many believe that this gate can surely be widened for the sake of love, to include lifestyles, beliefs, and practices forbidden by the Word of God.

Who are we appeasing in this great movement of ‘togetherness’? Our carnal nature is that which wants to belong, wants to be loved, wants to be affirmed. Churches no longer esteem humility and fear of God but empowerment, success, and celebrity status.

The most devastating sign of the end times is not the sinful state of the world, it’s the worldly state of the church!

The Apostle Paul warned “there will be terrible times” and our only refuge as believers is to trust in the Word of God, His whole counsel and to do so we must know the Word of God. Orderly worship, the singing of hymns, presenting a word of instruction, “devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” describes church life of the early believers, those who had closest proximity to Jesus and the Apostles. There would be nothing to inflame the flesh, no lofty goals to fill giant stadiums, nor slogans to ‘change the world’ for Jesus.

There are perilous days ahead and a grooming underway for a one world church. Christendom will come to a great divide. Do we recognize the Jesus of the Bible where we worship?  He is found on one narrow road…

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”      Luke 9:23

A church with such followers – even if just two or three are gathered – have the greatest worth as useful vessels for the Kingdom of God if  Christ be in their midst.

God’s Candidate Will Win

Posted on by Standard 2

elephant and donkey

We, as a people and nation, are in a different place than we were eight years ago. Without delineating the prevailing issues, it is enough to say that the church has become increasingly irrelevant except where it is seen as a voting bloc. Data bases of megachurches reveal clusters of thousands in the US and an unknown vast number of smaller community churches. When has so many people had such little impact at such a critical time?

Even worse, the churches ‘call to action’ amounts to courting political candidates whose views may be somehow contorted into a moral or religious framework. Christian colleges, ministries, media programs, and countless churches rally around a prospective president as if he or she could be a mini-savior, representing Christian viewpoints to our country. As citizens it is our right to vote. However, wooing worldly men to represent godly views is fruitless. The Lord saves us and calls us to represent Him ourselves – to abdicate this holy call to anyone else, to a politician, disqualifies us in the race.

Why coddle candidates or strategize campaigns? Be assured, God Himself has chosen a candidate and no one will thwart His plans.

“No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt a man. But it is God who judges: He brings one down, He exalts another.” Psalm 75:6-7

Sovereign God raises up prophets, kings, pharaohs and presidents. He uses the godly and wicked to serve His divine purposes: one to proclaim God’s truths that will ultimately reconcile man to God, the other to display His glory, His power and as His rods to chastise and refine, also to reconcile man to God. God declared to Pharaoh, the enemy and enslaver of His people, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you My power and that My Name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” (Exodus 9:16)

Rather than ‘picking up our cross’, American Christianity espouses a worldly mixture of faith:

  • Jesus came that we might have a good life
  • God is ‘for’ America and the ‘American Way’
  • God does not judge sin

Not only do these tenets bear bad fruit in our lives but worse, we export them to other countries through various prosperity ministries. If God loves us, if He is calling us and drawing us to Himself, He may raise leaders and circumstances that will set fire to our lukewarm floundering faith. After years of godly warnings, God raised up Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, to invade and desolate Jerusalem as a painful rod of chastisement to crush the unbelief and unfaithfulness of His people. His heart was to restore them as faithful to Him, separated from this world.  While as good citizens we may defend and protect our fellow citizens, prideful allegiance to any country, any world system or ‘way of life’ is adultery toward God. Except for the prophetic promises for Israel, God is not ‘for’ any country. Sad to state, God is not ‘for’ America.

“Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales…Before Him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by Him as worthless and less than nothing.” Isaiah 40:15, 17

And, sad to state, America is not ‘for’ God. As all the world, it will voluntarily come under the domain of the Antichrist. What is of great and eternal worth to God? God’s people, true believers, are His treasured possession – He will defend us, protect us, and endow us with His presence wherever we are.

Who is God’s presidential candidate?

It is not the one who passes the ‘Christian Value Litmus Test’. We cannot try to elect a president to ‘sanitize’ or ‘Christianize’ the United States. Believers are not called in any way to pump life into this condemned world, to make America great, bolster the stock market, or champion civil liberties. Jesus said, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” Do we believe Him?

God’s candidate may unknowingly hold a powerful unspoken promise, “Vote for me.  I will bring about the chastisement and discipline of God. Under my leadership, you will be brought to your knees, crying out to Him!” God may ordain the leadership and circumstances that shake us and bring us prostrate before Him: calamity, economic downfall, the uprising of enemies, natural disaster.  The Lord’s only campaign is for men to turn to Him and find eternal life and forgiveness through the cross of Christ.

Beloved, the alternative to God’s painful discipline is not prosperity, it is abandonment.

The Lord has already chosen His candidate and no amount of campaigning will change that. He Himself erects authorities in the world and they will suit His eternal purpose and fulfill the expressed prophecies of His unchanging word. I pray that we are not in the least swayed by political promises or put our hope in any man.  Pray that the Lord’s ordained candidate and circumstances miraculously and mercifully lead our nation into repentance. The fearful alternative is that God ushers in a president that sustains our implosion of sin and fortifies the lie we have been living, that we can sin and get away with it and by the way, there is no such thing as sin. A prelude to coming Judgment.

It’s time for us, GOD’S ELECT, the Body of Christ, to rise up and take up our office in Christ, shut in with Him and come forth with a fresh and living word to restore and renew our lost nation.

“No one is like You, O Lord; You are great, and Your name is mighty in power. Who should not revere You, O King of the nations?” Jeremiah 10:6-7