It is so vital that we remember all, not some, but all of our strengths fades as we try to wrestle on our own accord. As we fight we weary. It is only the strength of the Lord in our life that truly succeeds to renew and sustain. We try so hard to fight our battles ourselves or to fix everything that is broken in our lives and in others. The problem is that we aren’t God. We try to mimic his strength, his fortitude, and goodness but we fail at it. We have to learn to stop leaning on our own understanding and our carnal minds and ways to handle each situation. When we don’t lean on God and seek his will for our situation we fail or make things worse. Worse yet we show our pride by assuming “we” have to fix things becoming our own god instead of allowing the True God to give his will and direction. He will do what he promises. He will deliver us from our troubles in one way or another. Just hold trust in this.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26
Christ gives a very shocking but true imagery in this verse. He makes it very clear that nothing can mean more to you than God. And even today we fail to truly grasp the understanding and full weight of what that means.
God’s word Alone is solely Right! Even when His words stands against our addictions, traditions, political beliefs, social structures, ethnicity/culture actions, and yes even if it stands against our own man made denominations(which God never ordained)! If you aren’t prepared to turn from ANY direction if Gods word aligns itself counter to those directions, then you aren’t honestly following him, you are following man or the world and placing them over God.
Too many of us treat God’s word as optional. If it doesn’t make me look bad, if my family likes the direction, if it fits my schedule, if it aligns with my voters right and political party, or if it fits my churches denominations, then it’s fine. But the moment it mentions something that makes you see that your tradition beliefs, denominational beliefs, social beliefs , or any other things is wrong, you want to throw it out or seek a way to put it in a box away from you because it upsets your life’s balance.
We have to stand on his word as ONLY True source for our lives even over our addictions, culture, traditions, and habits. If you’re addicted to cigarettes, we should acknowledge our addiction and seek repentance but in the meantime, never justify it to make ourselves sleep better at night. If the word of God hypothetically, says your very name is evil, don’t justify it because it’s your personal name given by your parents, change it! Stand on God as the Only source of truth and stop making him an optional direction that must align with mankind and or the world’s concepts. God created the world… the world didn’t create God.
“The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope.”
13May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Paul the Minister to the Gentiles
14I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers,a that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. 15But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God 16to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. 17In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. 18For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, 19by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; 20and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, 21but as it is written,
“Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”
We live in a time of technology and advancements. Never before in all of history can one voice be heard around the world at one time. Never before in the past was the gospel so readily available. In hotels, in libraries, in churches on every street corner, on TV, radio, and of course social media or the internet, many people can access it. While we all share in the great burden of preaching the Good news, about Christ to others I believe we can learn a lot from Paul’s focus here in Romans. Paul makes it clear that his focus is to those who have never heard of Christ, to those who can’t access the gospel or information about the coming of our Savior. He preached in areas that were not given such news or didn’t have access to such hope as his priority. Many of our churches today have forgotten about such things and spend the majority of our time preaching and repreaching to the same group of people, to the same City, to the same State, or Country and only a small percentage of the time is spent delivering the gospel around the world to an area who have no access to the internet, news, tv, and social media like we do. This is something that should be the opposite and yet we don’t. I hate to say it but our country has plenty of information and chances to repent and they don’t want to. They continue the path away from Christ with great urgency and pride and while I’m not saying we dust off our feet and turn our backs completely, I am reminding us all of the attitude of Paul about such things and the need to reach those who otherwise would not have heard of Christ more than we focus on reteaching those who have access and reject nonetheless.
27 kDo not work for the food that perishes, but for lthe food that endures to eternal life, which mtheSon of Man will give to you. For on nhim God the Father has oset his seal.” 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing pthe works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work ofGod, qthat you believe in him whom rhe has sent.” John 6:27-29
Today’s message is a simple one and yet so important, especially at this time and age of Sin in America and the world. That message is to continue to fight! Fight for the gospel of Christ. Too many of us have taken our mind off the ball and the call of our lives. And that call is to preach the Good new of God to all of mankind. And that news and focus is Yeshua, the sent one of Yahweh. We can’t simple rely on the preachers of the Church to do so. We all have a calling to witness to others the calling of Christ available to all who would be so open to the One true God. We get so busy about gossip, news, social media and or sports that we forget to use these moments and connections to share the Gospel of Christ. I know that not everyone will listen to you or accept but at the same time if you can find just one who will, you would be highly blessed and seen by God and his Angels.
We have to remember not everyone will hear the right gospel and worse yet, have been told by false prophets to accept something that is not connected or told just to believe in a god or be good. No salvation can found through any other direction. There is just a lot of hate right now about the direction of Christ across the world that you barely have safe areas to speak to others while other religions have no such restrictions. We are disrespected by movies, music, and even tv shows and it’s only getting worst. So please take the time to witness to others about the only Savior in Christ Yeshua.
When you think of your church we should always reflect on the church Christ wanted for all. The message preached was go further and make disciples of all “nations”. For those of you who might not know this, the word Nations in that day was used in reference to different tribes and cultures. This is something most miss in the Great Commission today. We all are fine with confirming the openness of the New Covenant, selfishly though, because we know without the New Covenant …most of us aren’t Jewish and therefore would not have any hope of being saved. In that moment a needed thing pops up… inclusivity. Now at this moment we need to see us as a part of the kingdom. Thank God and Christ this is what he wanted for us too. However, fast forward to today and what do we have. Church of Christ, Christ fellowship, Catholics, Mormons, Baptist, Seventh day, Pentecostal, and many many more. Today we have gone into Tribalism in the body of Christ. We all swear that the others aren’t saved and yet claim that Only Christ determines that salvation. If that was the case then how could one church claim to be superior to another or claim that salvation is theirs and others are lost? They will paint it to act like this is not what they are saying but they are lying to people and in their hearts they know this to be true if they look plainly and honestly with themselves.
Mark 9:38-41
Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40for whoever is not against us is for us.41 Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.
“ONE OF US”
Even Christ put a end to the beginning of the tribalism that his Disciples already started to try and form in the above scripture. Why? Because it’s in our nature to find difference or create them to make ourselves feel superior to others. We either know more than others, studied harder than others, prayed longer than others, or just flat out have better church buildings than others:). And yet every single one of the different churches all claim that Christ is the Son of God and their only way to the Father. But this isn’t good enough. Now thanks to the Church of Nicaea and philosopher thinkers that weren’t even Christ followers, we have all kinds of added precepts and concepts placed on top of what the matters in Christ mind for Salvation.
“Who do you say I am?”….And Peter said, “you are the Son of the Living God”. And Christ Church was built on this very foundation ALONE. Not how many times one went to church, what type of building they had church in, not if they prayed to saints, not if they wore the wrong type of clothes, make up, or how many tongues they spoke and most definitely not the tribe they were from or color of their skin.
It is in our nature to protect that which means to the most to us. Yes, we all should protect the church from the wrong person who’s goal is to hurt the body. But we can’t let that thought create a tribalism mentality instead of a Church Body mentality. We need to find what makes us all alike and that is Christ. We all stand on one principle above all else and that is Christ being the Son of the Living God and the Only True and Last Source of our Salvation. We have to start there and rebuild because separated, we are all weak.
The prayer of Faith…It’s one of the most fundamental spiritual rules missed by so many people. Everything about God is surrounded by law and order. God is a Law God. If you don’t believe me just look at the Old testament, Revelation in the New Testament, or simply Christ own words. Everything is about Faith. It is the fuel of all blessing in your life. It is the catalyst of your prayers and miracles in your life. And without it …”it is impossible to please him (Heb 11:6). But most people don’t even pay attention to this. They claim to know it but they don’t apply it to their lives consistently. They will “Amen” it in church lessons, but as soon as the law of life hits them, all the faith talk goes out the window and they return to panic and chaos because this is what they are use to doing. So then faith becomes a convenience used for only when it’s for advice for others or something to temporarily do to pass time long enough to get back to our worrying.
We forget, Faith is a like a muscle. If you use it and grow it, it will be there and a source to overcome things in front of you. But if you never use it and apply to the small things first ..and build up to the medium…to the hardest, then the faith you have will never work to allow you to come down out of the boat to go to Christ. And this is where most of us fail. We wait until the Job has fired us to ask for a miracle, or we wait until the doctor report has come in with bad news until we apply our faith. By then it’s too late as our faith was never built up and strengthen before hand and that’s why so many of our prayers go unanswered or unfulfilled. This is God’s order and he doesn’t break his order because of our tears. Unless the things that are required are present, what we asking for in prayer will rarely see the light of day.
You have to build yourself up on your most Holy Faith( Jude 1:20) …confessing your answered prayers once you have prayed for them every day even though you don’t yet see the manifestation of them yet in your life because to God, he sees them as they were given in the Spiritual realm the moment you prayed for them and they only await your faith to bring them through to our physical plan. This is why the scripture says “believe that you have received it“( present tense)…because this spiritual prayer law requires for you to believe you have what you just prayed for before you even get it in your physical life. So remember this and start today building your faith upon small things. And once the smaller things come to past …you will receive stronger faith to move to bigger things and so forth and so on. Remember …don’t wait until the Storms are here…in most cases you will not have enough faith if it has not been exercised enough to grow into the seed it needs to be to handle the storms before you. Make Faith through prayer apart of your everyday life because “NOW” Faith is..the Substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen.
New King James Version Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more….Roman’s 5:4
I’ve seen and learned a lot in my years. I’ve been taught by a great many people, famous and common. I’ve study and searched scriptures for years and still know there is more to go. And the only thing that revealed itself to me is that ALL of us sin and even practice some kind of sin and none of us are successful no matter how much we preach, pray , fast, or study. Every single person, denomination, or Leader sooner or later falls to sin in some matter. If you are against fornication, you fall to lust, if you are against homosexuality, you fall to judgment, if you are against lies, you fall to envy in your life. Somewhere in all of our lives, you have one form of sin or another. Even the very fact that most of all honor False gods by calling the days of the week Monday, Tuesday, Wed..( most don’t even know that these days are a form of sin). These names are given by men to honor False gods, even the months of the year, and so are the names of the planets and every day you call on these names you are giving honor to these gods because Yahweh never gave those names. Or even the very shoes in your closet “Nike” which is named after a false god, even the very logo of Nike is a sin just like it would be to wear a witch logo. Then if you really want to get technical ..even by God’s own rules of the “Law of first mention”…you can’t change the symbol of the Cross into something about God because the symbol was formed long before Christ ever died and is a pagan symbol, which God has warned us never to use totems or symbols and yet today, most Christian wear the symbol as if it’s God..when it isn’t..it is and always will be just the instrument used to Kill the Son of man.
I could go on and on about million things that make every single Christ-follower a hypocrite( even myself)in one way or another and all it would do is open up yet another one. The bottom line is that the only Perfect Man already left over 2000 years ago and yet even he had to become SIN before he initially died to give us all a chance at Salvation. He did this because God saw and realized that it is impossible for man to obey a list of rules in their life and not fall short in them somewhere and at sometime because we are imperfect and born with this dysfunction and were in need of Grace more than rules. We all need to start there because any other place only makes us a liar or hypocrite in some way or another.
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