The Old Man in the Back of the Sanctuary

Through the centuries Satan has tried to infiltrate Christian churches with false doctrines and phony preachers. Paul warned Timothy about leaders who would teach what people want to hear and not the scripture and gospel they need to hear. I have witnessed several false movements just in my lifetime so far. If we just train our minds to think positively, with or without a relationship with God through Christ is one. The prosperity “gospel” is another. But I believe two of the most recent ones I have encountered are the most dangerous and destructive to followers.

The first is that when we accept Jesus Christ we are not only forgiven for past and present sins, we are also forgiven for FUTURE sins. If that were true, God would be giving us permission to continue in sin without guilt or consequences. Jesus didn’t tell the woman caught in adultery that her sins are forgiven, just don’t get caught next time. He said, “Go and sin no more.” To receive the gift of salvation, we must repent. Repentance is not just feeling sorry for what we have done, repentance is turning away from sin and turning toward God.

The second dangerous doctrine today is self love. This is what one sister in Christ calls “cotton candy Christianity”. It only teaches scripture that makes you feel good about yourself. There is much joy in living the Christian life, but there are times when a certain passage of scripture or the promptings of God’s Holy Spirit have made me very uncomfortable. In every case, I was turned away from temptation to sin and turned back toward God’s will in my life.  We don’t get to choose only those verses we agree with. Jesus is the Word personified. We can’t accept Jesus without accepting the entire Bible as the inspired Word of God.

How many times have you heard someone say that the Bible says that money is the root of all evil? What 1 Timothy 6:10 NLT actually says is this, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. People desiring wealth have drifted away from true faith and have pierced themselves with many sorrows.” My church could not do good in our community or missions overseas without money. Any object is only good or evil based on how we use it. Loving things, including money, is idolatry. Living our Christian life, we must worship God, love people and use things for good.

When I was a young boy, I seemed to go from one childhood disease to another. I remember one of my aunts saying that the Bible says, “Suffer little children.” Those three words do appear in Matthew 19 of the KJV, the only English translation we had back then. But if you read the entire chapter, it is clear in 1611 England suffer meant allow and had nothing to do with disease or pain. I use the NLT for this blog to avoid that kind of misunderstanding.

Satan loves to take God’s words out of context just as he did three times when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Even in the Garden of Eden, long before there were scriptures, he asked Eve, “Is that really what God said?”

Lord, help us to keep every word of scripture in context so that your truth will light the path you have for each of us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This blog was established nearly 8 years ago not only to mentor new Christians about what to expect in their walk with the Lord, but as a reminder to mature Christians about how far they have come and encourage them to draw even closer to the Lord. I watched a video today that did that for me. It was taped live in front of a large Spirit filled congregation. Joseph Larson and his sister Grace Larson Bromley sing, “I Thank God”. It is another great description of being “born again.” The song has a lot of repetition for emphasis, but this is the message.

“Hell lost another one, I am free! He picked me up, turned me around and planted my feet on solid ground. He healed my heart and changed my name. Forever free. I am not the same. I thank the Master; I thank the Savior; I thank God!”

If you are reading this and  have not made the decision yet to put your faith in Jesus Christ, look up that video and watch it all the way to the end. After the song, the pastor skips the sermon; but recites the sinner’s prayer with the congregation. Pray that prayer sincerely and you will experience the new life, the Christian life as a child of God, that is described in the song and in each of my blog posts. Hell will have lost another one and you will be set free.

If you saw a scary warning from your search engine and came onto this site anyway, I want to assure you that all of the spam that prompted the warning has been removed and you can safely read any of my blog posts again. The warning should be removed the next time the site is indexed. It bothers me that the enemy is still trying to keep my regular readers away from my blog, but I pray that the Holy Spirit will give others, like you, the courage to come on anyway or at least try again later when the warning has been removed.

I have written before about the storms we go through in our Christian life and the mountains we encounter sometimes to hinder our service for our Lord. This ordeal has been a huge mountain for me, but my 70 year relationship with God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit within me confirms the truth of these words from one of my favorite songs, “I have not seen a mountain God can not move.” With the prayers of many and the skilled hands of my brother in Christ, Josh, the mountain is now just a mole hill of a warning that should soon disappear as well. Praise God!

Earlier this week I discovered over 11,000 gambling casino ads from around the world posted on my website. When my friend , who designed my website, checked into it he also found that more than 1,000 people have signed in as users on my site. He compared it to an invasion of cockroaches; something I know a lot about. It is an invasion alright, but the one behind it is our spiritual enemy.

The more readers I have in the U.S. and around the world, the harder he has come after me technically and physically. I am convinced he is the one who tried to trap me in that horrible nursing home to put an end to the blog and to me. Thanks to the countless prayers that went up on my behalf God set me free and guided my doctors to get me well and back home sharing God’s message with you. There is much for which I thank God. Most importantly, it appears that none of my more than 700 posts have been affected and I will continue to post new ones while the website is being cleaned up.

Please continue to keep me in  your prayers, because I’m sure the enemy will continue his attacks just as sure as I will continue to stay strong against him with your supporting prayers and God’s help. This is what Christian life and service is sometimes like, but there is joy, peace and even excitement in the storms.

 

There is a video I saw recently of Gloria Gather first describing her feelings as she watched her daughter give birth. Then she described how she felt holding the hand of her mother as she took her final breath.  She summed it all up this way. “It isn’t until we encounter birth and death that we get real about life.”

I have written before about the miracle of birth and my pro life position that is based on scientific fact and spiritual truth. But what do I mean when I claim that I have been “Born Again”? Jesus explains it to Nicodemus and us in the third chapter of the Gospel of John.  I experienced it this way. Before I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, I was a human being with occasional spiritual experiences. After putting my faith in Him, I became an eternal spiritual being having human experiences.

I have gotten real about life because the average life expectancy in my country is 77 and I am already four years into the overtime period of my life. Every minute, hour and day is precious. None of us is guaranteed tomorrow, so get real about life today.

It has always seemed ironic to me that those who accuse Christians of hating sinners are so quick to attack Christians or anyone else who disagrees with them with the most hateful words they know. How should we respond as a son or daughter of God through Christ?

Our Lord gave us a clear example for us to follow when he said from the cross, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Nothing is more hateful than being stripped naked and nailed to a cross to  die before a crowd of people that included his mother.

As a Christian teenager in the 1950’s, I witnessed another example of facing hate. I watched closely as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders faced unimaginable hatred. Dr. King told his followers not to fight hate with hate. because only love can and will defeat hate. I watched his “I have a dream” speech live on TV and although hate took his life, most of his dream has become a reality and Christians, including me, are still at work on it.

Our world is ablaze with spiritual warfare. There is only one escape route to safety. Is it an act of hate to warn others they are running toward the fire and try to lead them to safety? No! It is an act of love no matter what it is labeled by those heading toward the flames.

 

In Joshua 24:15, Joshua challenged his people to choose whom they will serve.  He gave them some choices if they found serving the Lord undesirable, then he told them, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

There is a story I heard in my youth that has stuck with me all of these years. It is about a man sitting on top of a high fence. Jesus was on one side and Satan on the other side.  Jesus asked him, “Are you ready to follow me?” The man replied, “I’m quite comfortable right where I am.” Satan began to laugh hysterically. The man asked him what was so funny and Satan told him, “I own that fence you are sitting on. Any soul that isn’t with Jesus is mine.” The man leaped off that fence like his pants were on fire and knelt at Jesus’ feet vowing to serve him. The moral of that little parable is that avoiding a decision is in itself a decision that has consequences.

We must avoid the illusion that we do no harm when we do nothing and refuse to even form an opinion. All it takes for evil people to successfully propagate their evil is for good people to watch silently without objection or opposition. God help us to choose wisely and decisively, then serve our Lord diligently.

 

It’s strange how my 81 year old brain has information stored away that pops up occasionally, seemingly out of the blue. As I was reading the FaceBook posts of people who I know attend church every Sunday, I began to sing this line from the theme song of a 1962 movie. “One day of praying and six nights of fun. The odds against going to heaven – six to one.” The movie was, “Walk on the Wild Side” and it was released while I was a 19 year old airman stationed on Okinawa. I thought I had completely forgotten about that movie and song.

There are three  points I got from that experience and I want to share them with you. First, that song lyric is catchy, but it is not correct.  If you continue to live in sin while using weekly prayer and worship like a fire insurance policy against hell, your odds against going to heaven are 100%. Jesus describes such people in Matthew 7:23 at the final judgment when they will hear Him tell them plainly that He never knew them.

The second point is that we must be careful what we take in with our senses and ponder in our mind and our heart, because it could be stored only to pop up later. We need to pray with the Psalmist (Psalms 119:11 NLT). “Your word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

The final point is this. When we become a son or daughter of God through faith in Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Father wants full custody of us, not just weekly visitation.

The first two things my parents taught me as a young child are, “There is a God and you aren’t Him”. They then taught me all of the polite words to use like: sir or ma’am, please, pardon or excuse me, etc. But when it came to “thank you” my parents explained to me that those weren’t just polite words, they should always be used to express genuine appreciation and that I should appreciate everything someone gives me or does for me.

I thank my caregivers for every little thing they do for me. When I have a new caregiver, I explain to them that those aren’t just polite words that come out automatically, but are an expression of my true appreciation of what they do for me.  I want every caregiver to leave my home feeling appreciated and worthy of it.

God longs for the love and appreciation of His sons and daughters. I don’t just thank Him in prayer and worship, I say “Thank you, Lord” countless times each day as I feel His help. When I used to be at work or another situation where it might be inappropriate to speak those words out loud, I would let my heart express my gratitude to God and I know He always got my message. I can tell you from experience that when you appreciate what you have been given, God will give you even more.