Pagan ideas
can come attractively packaged and may sound good, but they do nothing to
enhance worship to God or know God. Whether you drink tea or coffee, wear pink on Saturday,
drive a Lexus or Volkswagen means nothing really. Your personality may dictate
a hat worn every day where another may refrain from wearing hats at all. One
person may like a cactus garden in their yard, and another wants his garden to
be likened to the gardens in England or Wales! Some people fancy iced tea and
others require an iced coffee daily, but these are only examples of the variety in personal
expressions.
But what about
taking that forward walk in our lives that is lived out completely where their personal
cost is noticed? It appeared in Jesus' life. And He mentions those who follow Him, will have to have
that personal denial of themselves!
Matthew 10:38 NKJV 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
The cross of Christ can mean two different things: It can be
a symbol of what the crucifixion produced (forgiveness, etc.), or it can represent
Christ's own example of self-denial and losing His life for a greater purpose—a
symbol of great personal cost.
Have we paid a personal cost to following Jesus? Many people
have lost lives due to serving Christ with their whole hearts. I was thinking
of the life of Corrie Ten Boom this morning when I got out of a warm bed. I
thought of that woman and family being taken by Germans to concentration camps
to be held as “the insignificant” . They as the family helped God's special people! If you have ever read of her
life and her survival through the holocaust, she gave some descriptive evidences of what man
will avoid to be around, and God will use to hold off the enemy like using lice and
fleas as such things. When she and her sister prayed with others, they prayed
for something to be used to keep the soldiers away from them and there appeared
in their living quarters that which Germans reviled because if those lice or
fleas got in the Nazis woolen uniforms, it was hell to pay!
It was the Apostle Paul who wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:18: “For
the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us
who are being saved it is the power of God.”
The “cross” divides human race! It is a division line: those
who are perishing ( to whom the cross is foolishness or stupid folly) and to
those who are being saved ( the cross that is wisdom and power of God).
1 Corinthians 1:19-25 NKJV For it is written: “I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the
prudent.” 20 Where is the wide? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of
this age? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not
know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to
save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after
wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to
the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Chris the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God
is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
When people rely totally on God, what may affect the world
may come near, but God will keep him who has chosen the Lord over the world.
For Corrie and her family, helping others to escape the grips of the Nazis to other nations was their reward.
They would hide people, sometimes complete families so they could escape to
freedom. And as the hideous hate against those certain people grew, it began to
invade other countries to incite violence against many who would hide the
Jewish people from hate!
The seeds that this family sowed for life in Jesus proved a
good thing in the eyes of God. And when she and her family were taken on a death
train they held their cry out to Jesus. For this woman and sister they prayed
for the sick, hoped the eyes of the Germans would be opened to truth and how
they forgave the brutality.
For those who have been saved, that message and example of
total surrender—as seen in Jesus, of the One carrying the Cross to hold Him on
Calvary,who took sin for mankind, yes—is the power of God. Now consider the
power unleashed when Jesus surrendered completely: The Most High God not only
raised Him back to life, but He has put all things under Him. There is no
greater power.
An example of that personal expression yet with whole heart
for God is revealed. It is the example of the Creator being willing to die for
mankind that others could be free in a new life. The Apostle Paul, wrote of following
that example of self-sacrifice so that others could have allowed the
Corinthians to be reconciled to each other.
And in the life of Corrie Ten Boom and those who have like
faith in Christ, who had surrendered whole-heartedly, yet, for the carnal mind, those who know not
Christ, consider any surrender to help another, any thought of helping say the
vulnerable or the possibility of loss is wrong to them. And those of "the carnal mind" will see that surrender as a death to their own life and abilities. But when we
truly turn to Him, we turn to the reality of God and how He is overseeing the outcome
of what is occurring in real time to us!
For you and I, that message of the cross is not merely about
forgiveness of sins. It is also about our response to God after we have been
forgiven. If we are to be worthy of the Creator who humbled Himself to die a
shameful death, our response must likewise be one of self-denial, complete
surrender, and reckoning ourselves as already dead to this present, evil age so
that we might live for Him.
We might boast about our gardens whether they are like the
beautiful English gardens or one like those that scare you when you enter. One might make boast of
their many hats: one for the road for a sunny afternoon drive, one for the work in the yard, one for dress-up and one just for fun when playing golf. One might enjoy that personal
expression when making a "special" dessert for family or for a birthday or even a friend that always brings a wonderful surprise and smile. You might enjoy
sharing some photos of that new grand-child, but what about sharing the Cross?
Many people in many nations are trying to live out their lives without God in
it. And those who have “a god” have one that relates to the human experience
and not to God Himself who created heaven and earth! You can see that within this nation today!
Paul tells us in Roman 12:9…let love be without hypocrisy. “Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.”
Love, that God kind, is that which is the principle thing in relationships. It is not only for believers, but we are to have that with
enemies as well. And being hospitable is showing an interest in others. It is a
giving of ourselves to loving and supporting others.
So to understand good
and evil, we can cling to that because we desire them. We can reject evil and
we can reject good, it solely lies on what is in our heart. And what is it that
takes first place in that heart?
For the Apostle Paul, we presented here the object: to love,
abhor evil and to cling to that which is good. This is God’s word. It is purpose for life. We must bring our emotions and our will into
conformity to what is objectively there. When you face the objective evil: hate
it. And when you face the objective good, embrace it.
The Apostle also tells us in Romans 12: 2 …do not be conformed
to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may
prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. God has a will for our lives. It is for life
and to discern that life is found in His word and prayer. And we know good in
the light of Jesus Christ!
It is in this culture of where I live that many have removed
Jesus. They have removed Scripture from schools, from government, from city
meetings, and stepped up that priority to remove prayer from establishments within
government of country and of state. If
there were no God—if there were no Christ—then the good would be subjective,
not objective. Good would be in the eye of the beholder, especially the strong
beholder. Have anyone in mind who reminds you that they hold strongly to their
view of what they behold: like in politics, or like in church, faith and
ministry? People have gone so far to remove God and Christ, who then will answer them?
I saw this video made back a few years of a Christian song I really like. The person who wrote and sang it passed about twenty two years ago in an accident. But his song is used in the secular to lift up the worlds' heroes like Ironman, Spiderman, Ant-man, Superman, the Hulk and how many others? I do not want any spiderman to be at my side in a crisis. No thank-you, I am holding onto to Jesus. God Almighty is alive. He lives and we can see it in the
works of the Cross.
It is that good, the
true and the right which are found beautifully defined in that have objective
foundation in God! Jesus provided that the Holy Spirit would be in us in John
14:17 . And what Jesus spoke was this: the Spirit of truth, whom the world
cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him,
for He dwells with you and will be in you.
So we have the continual revelation of Jesus Christ when we
meditate Scripture and pray as the Holy Spirit leads us. We each have our own
personal expression, that southern accent, that tan which never fads in winter,
that smile that exposes a beautiful face, that laugh that sounds like no other
we have heard, but when we give the straight forward word of God, those
teachings of the Bible, and what they contain beyond us that gives way to God
Almighty, then like Paul, a Christian prisoner in Rome can speak for God and
His truth without fear. A slave in Georgia or Jews that were held by Germans, one
held for work as slave in plantations or even of a Caesar, we are not to fear,
but speak “NO!” "Wrong is Wrong!"
For any power man would hold against another to bring them
into bondage is certainly wrong. And those who operate in that are far from God
and the reality of the valuable wisdom of knowing right from wrong has left
their thinking entirely. This world has seen those who tried to wield their own
human wisdom and strength like Hitler, Stalin, or a Mussolini. There will be
others who try. But the excellence is that of the Nature of God and the Lord
Jesus: 1 John 5:10-13 NKJV He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in
himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not
believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. 11 And this is the
testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have
life. 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son
of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue
to believe in the name of the Son of God.
Those who have come
also went the way of death. They left no heritage of life. But that the testimony that points to life in Jesus,
the Son of God, points to a quality of life that comes only to those who have
faith in Jesus. In this life, right now we have an assurance that is confident
in the Son of God: John 15:7
New teaching at: Voice of Prayer
Divine Blessing Undiluted in Christ
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New teaching at: Life Giving Wells
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