How's your day shaping up? Lots of stuff to do? Another busy one? Maybe not. Maybe it is just the opposite for you. Maybe you have nothing to do. Or maybe you do have something to do but you are avoiding it by reading this? Most likely the third one, right? Life is busy. We have lots of things to organize, plan and do. On top of that, as a Christian, you need to fit in all the God-stuff. Hmmmm, have you ever stopped to think we have it backwards?
What were we created for? What did Jesus die on the cross for? Was it not for fellowship, friendship with Yahweh? So you would think that we would want to fill our day, not the cracks, with him. If that is our purpose, fellowship with Yahweh, should we not be trying to fit everything else in around him? There's a thought for you to chew for a bit.
Jesus has a way of turning everything on its head for us. He takes things from the surface and goes to the depth of understanding with it. So it shouldn't surprise us to know that this is what Jesus taught about life:
Don’t spend all of your time thinking about eating or drinking or worrying about life. If you do, the final day will suddenly catch you like a trap. That day will surprise everyone on earth. (Luke 21:34-35)
It feels like that sometimes, doesn't it, like you are caught in a trap? It is an activity trap, time crunch, schedule controlled life. It is horrible because we have not been designed or wired this way. We have been created and saved to be filled with Yahweh. We are surrounded by him. Scripture says that Christ is in us, and we are in him. He is in and all around us all the time so that we can have the pleasure of rich fellowship with him.
Jesus also taught us not to be worried over the basics of life but instead to put Kingdom things first. He said when we do this Father will provide all the other stuff. Put Yahweh first and everything else will come into place. He told us this for a reason; we get distracted very easily. It is like the whole human race has ADD. We get distracted from Jesus with the least little thing. Jesus warned us that it is a serious matter. He said if we get distracted by these lesser things, the final day will be on us without us noticing. He told us to pay attention:
Watch out and keep praying that you can escape all that is going to happen and that the Son of Man will be pleased with you. (v. 36)
Watch and pray, not be distracted and play. Life has become a thing of working so we can afford to play. It has become entertainment. It has become self pleasure. It is anything the enemy can use to distract us from our purpose and mission. If he can't use pleasure he will use worry or fear. There will always be something to distract us. But if we can turn it upside down and see the day belonging to the Lord for the purpose of fellowship then we will ask him for the wisdom to get everything else done.
It is a matter of choice. Relationship must always come before works. Jesus wants and deserves our time and attention. He says it is also for our good, so we can be sensitive to the spiritual realm and see what's coming. Considering how many times he warned us about this, I take it to mean it is a bad thing for us not to be paying attention. Sort of like someone living in Louisiana not listening to the radio, not watching the news, not talking to a neighbour, not having a clue of an approaching hurricane. Everyone else is putting away the things from their yard, boarding up windows, taking shelter while but that one person is blissfully living out their life unaware and unprepared.
The storm is approaching. Are you paying attention?
Showing posts with label pleasure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pleasure. Show all posts
Monday, June 9, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Lovers Of Pleasure Rather Than Lovers Of God
Why shouldn't I enjoy whatever I want in this world? Hasn't Jesus given me freedom?
Yes, Jesus gave us freedom that we could seek the Father and be free from our sin nature to make a clear decision. But too many of us are turning off our brains and just sucking up whatever the world is dishing out, without a thought of how it is effecting us and our family.
Most of us watch ten times the amount of television than what we spend in Holy Scriptures and prayer. Worse than the amount of time, we are not being wise in our choice of entertaibnment. We are feeding lust, cruelty, hatred, profanity in our mind and hearts. What does the Word say about the last days:
But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
Have you considered Psalm 1 lately?
Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful. (Psalm 1:1)
What do you think we are doing when we sit down and watch the entertainment of this world, listen to its music and seek after the same pleasures as our unsaved neighbour? We are walking in the counsel of the ungodly. We are standing in the path of sinners. We are sitting in the seat of the scornful. We are far from being blessed. Yet we have been told that there is a way that pleases Yahweh:
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night. (v. 2)
Our delight is not in sin-filled entertainment but in our Lord Jesus, in his Word, in fellowship and worship. For those who turn and decide for Jesus; turn and look full in his face; turn and immerse themselves in the love and joy of the Lord and not the world; he is described as this:
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper. (v. 3)
I don't know about you but that is what I want and it is what Yahweh has promised from the very beginning: walk in obedience with me and I will pour out my blessings on you. Do you desire, as I do, to have a rich fellowship that we would never want to jeopardize over a sin-filled 30 minute comedy? A show that could never come close to the preciousness of our relationship with Jesus? How could we ever desire to pollute our minds and hearts and threaten our eternity perspective? Well, that's what most of the Church is doing, even tonight. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. There are decisions to be made.
Yes, Jesus gave us freedom that we could seek the Father and be free from our sin nature to make a clear decision. But too many of us are turning off our brains and just sucking up whatever the world is dishing out, without a thought of how it is effecting us and our family.
Most of us watch ten times the amount of television than what we spend in Holy Scriptures and prayer. Worse than the amount of time, we are not being wise in our choice of entertaibnment. We are feeding lust, cruelty, hatred, profanity in our mind and hearts. What does the Word say about the last days:
But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
Have you considered Psalm 1 lately?
Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful. (Psalm 1:1)
What do you think we are doing when we sit down and watch the entertainment of this world, listen to its music and seek after the same pleasures as our unsaved neighbour? We are walking in the counsel of the ungodly. We are standing in the path of sinners. We are sitting in the seat of the scornful. We are far from being blessed. Yet we have been told that there is a way that pleases Yahweh:
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night. (v. 2)
Our delight is not in sin-filled entertainment but in our Lord Jesus, in his Word, in fellowship and worship. For those who turn and decide for Jesus; turn and look full in his face; turn and immerse themselves in the love and joy of the Lord and not the world; he is described as this:
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper. (v. 3)
I don't know about you but that is what I want and it is what Yahweh has promised from the very beginning: walk in obedience with me and I will pour out my blessings on you. Do you desire, as I do, to have a rich fellowship that we would never want to jeopardize over a sin-filled 30 minute comedy? A show that could never come close to the preciousness of our relationship with Jesus? How could we ever desire to pollute our minds and hearts and threaten our eternity perspective? Well, that's what most of the Church is doing, even tonight. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. There are decisions to be made.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Are We Still Falling For The Lie?
Many of us in the Church are victims of the enemy's lies without even knowing it. In fact, he has done such a good job that we defend his lies as being good for us. We have gone so far off of God's path for us that God's ways have become something foreign to us. The thing is, the enemy is still using the same old trick and we keep falling for it.
From the very first day God desired to have a rich relationship with us. Many of us consider the walks Adam had with God something precious and for which to long. It wasn't complicated with God in the beginning; there was only one simple rule. But that one simple rule was enough for our enemy to use to separate us from God. Do not eat from this tree, was all God stated, and then all the enemy had to do was plant a seed of thought.
Eve did a good job in correcting the enemy when he tried to twist God's words. Eve told him that it wasn't what God said and then repeated back to the enemy what God had said. She did better than many of us do today. She did exactly what Jesus did when he was tempted by the enemy. But then the enemy planted a thought that Eve found hard to resist; he promised her knowledge. We bear witness to the progression of thought as Eve faced this temptation and in it we see the logic of our own thinking.
First Eve actually took the time to look at the tree, which was her big mistake. The enemy actually got her to consider what he was saying, even though he was accusing God of lying. She looked at the tree and considered that it was good for food. We reason away our disobedience. God didn't say it wouldn't be good for food but it was never about the benefits of the tree and always about obedience to God. But she looked and her intelligence told her it was good for food.
In looking she discovered that the tree was a delight to look upon. It was a thing of beauty. Surely something that brought so much pleasure to her senses could not be bad. Even as the thought settled in she was subconsciously saying God was indeed a liar. It stopped being about obedience to God and became a thing that made her feel good.
In accepting the pleasure it brought, her logic then took her to the great benefit it would bring. It was a tree that would give her wisdom, making her better than she was. After all, isn't wisdom a great thing to have? She placed her desires above the thing of singular importance in her relationship with God; obedience.
I am sure you can see how this applies to this continuing lie of the enemy. We place obedience to God as secondary importance to many other things in our life. Human logic prevails. Anything that doesn't seem to make sense in God's commands and desire for us we simply dismiss and replace it with rational thinking. Anyone who does not have a relationship with God would find my words foreign and silly. Of course rational thinking is what we should be seeking. Knowledge is what we seek. Even if it takes us to places God told us not to go. Or, at least that is where our thought process takes us; our human wisdom.
No one would deny our focus on pleasure these days. We once worked for fulfillment but now we work so we can afford our pleasures and it is the pleasures that give us fulfillment. Everything is focused on what makes us feel good. It doesn't matter that any of these things go against God's morality and will; all that matters is that it makes us feel good, so it must be good.
Logical thinking sees a pastor and congregation support homosexual marriage and keeps us silent on everything else. But homosexuality is not the big sin we make it out to be because it is the denial of Jesus for which we will be judged. Many of us, if not all, deny Jesus in many ways as we disobey God in our hearts as we seek after the lies of the enemy. We can confess him with our lips but deny him in our disobedience to his will. It doesn't matter what we consider to be good. The only judge on that matter is God and it is why we cannot obey without trusting that he is good.
We should be very thankful for this age of grace because all of us would be lost without it. However, falling for the lies while relying on grace is not going to see our relationship with God increase. We are not going to discover the wonders of spiritual maturity. We are not going to progress in what matters most. No, in order to enjoy the rich fellowship of our God we need to foster the desire to be obedient to him. Not obedience in a cold religious way but in a deep fellowship of love, where our every desire is to live the will of the Father, just like Jesus.
To progress in maturity we need to discover the spiritual strength of denying the enemy by denying ourselves. Our pleasure is not found in the things of man's thinking and imagination; it isn't found in rational thinking; it is only found in the rich relationship that fosters obedience. At least ask the Father to open your eyes to your true spiritual condition under the influence of the enemy.
From the very first day God desired to have a rich relationship with us. Many of us consider the walks Adam had with God something precious and for which to long. It wasn't complicated with God in the beginning; there was only one simple rule. But that one simple rule was enough for our enemy to use to separate us from God. Do not eat from this tree, was all God stated, and then all the enemy had to do was plant a seed of thought.
Eve did a good job in correcting the enemy when he tried to twist God's words. Eve told him that it wasn't what God said and then repeated back to the enemy what God had said. She did better than many of us do today. She did exactly what Jesus did when he was tempted by the enemy. But then the enemy planted a thought that Eve found hard to resist; he promised her knowledge. We bear witness to the progression of thought as Eve faced this temptation and in it we see the logic of our own thinking.
First Eve actually took the time to look at the tree, which was her big mistake. The enemy actually got her to consider what he was saying, even though he was accusing God of lying. She looked at the tree and considered that it was good for food. We reason away our disobedience. God didn't say it wouldn't be good for food but it was never about the benefits of the tree and always about obedience to God. But she looked and her intelligence told her it was good for food.
In looking she discovered that the tree was a delight to look upon. It was a thing of beauty. Surely something that brought so much pleasure to her senses could not be bad. Even as the thought settled in she was subconsciously saying God was indeed a liar. It stopped being about obedience to God and became a thing that made her feel good.
In accepting the pleasure it brought, her logic then took her to the great benefit it would bring. It was a tree that would give her wisdom, making her better than she was. After all, isn't wisdom a great thing to have? She placed her desires above the thing of singular importance in her relationship with God; obedience.
I am sure you can see how this applies to this continuing lie of the enemy. We place obedience to God as secondary importance to many other things in our life. Human logic prevails. Anything that doesn't seem to make sense in God's commands and desire for us we simply dismiss and replace it with rational thinking. Anyone who does not have a relationship with God would find my words foreign and silly. Of course rational thinking is what we should be seeking. Knowledge is what we seek. Even if it takes us to places God told us not to go. Or, at least that is where our thought process takes us; our human wisdom.
No one would deny our focus on pleasure these days. We once worked for fulfillment but now we work so we can afford our pleasures and it is the pleasures that give us fulfillment. Everything is focused on what makes us feel good. It doesn't matter that any of these things go against God's morality and will; all that matters is that it makes us feel good, so it must be good.
Logical thinking sees a pastor and congregation support homosexual marriage and keeps us silent on everything else. But homosexuality is not the big sin we make it out to be because it is the denial of Jesus for which we will be judged. Many of us, if not all, deny Jesus in many ways as we disobey God in our hearts as we seek after the lies of the enemy. We can confess him with our lips but deny him in our disobedience to his will. It doesn't matter what we consider to be good. The only judge on that matter is God and it is why we cannot obey without trusting that he is good.
We should be very thankful for this age of grace because all of us would be lost without it. However, falling for the lies while relying on grace is not going to see our relationship with God increase. We are not going to discover the wonders of spiritual maturity. We are not going to progress in what matters most. No, in order to enjoy the rich fellowship of our God we need to foster the desire to be obedient to him. Not obedience in a cold religious way but in a deep fellowship of love, where our every desire is to live the will of the Father, just like Jesus.
To progress in maturity we need to discover the spiritual strength of denying the enemy by denying ourselves. Our pleasure is not found in the things of man's thinking and imagination; it isn't found in rational thinking; it is only found in the rich relationship that fosters obedience. At least ask the Father to open your eyes to your true spiritual condition under the influence of the enemy.
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