Serve the Lord your God and abandon all else

There are a lot of pastors out there who like to say Jesus would use hyperbole in his lessons to his followers to get his point across.

In Mark 9: 42-48, we see this example.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in me — to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where ‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’”

There may be a little hyperbole in Jesus’ statement, I’ve heard preachers say such, but Jesus isn’t exaggerating in these verses.

In our daily life, a believer should seek to never stand between a person and salvation. How important is this? Important enough that Jesus said it would be better for a millstone to be hung around our neck and thrown into a large body of water than for us to keep a person from coming to Jesus.

Charles Spurgeon once noted that everything that offends God should offend us. Much of what is acceptable, and in fact upright, in society today is offensive to God. These compromised morals have found their way into churches and now what is acceptable in society is acceptable in church.

“Where two hearts are bound together in the bonds of love, they are quite sure to endeavor to remove everything out of the way that would cause pain to either,” Spurgeon noted in one of his sermons. “You cannot love me if you favor my enemies. You can have no affection for me if you delight to thrust before me that which vexes my spirit and grieves my heart. True love feels a sympathy with the person loved and learns to put away that which is obnoxious. Now say, Heart, do you put away from yourself that which God hates? Do you hate it because he hates it — not so much because your fellow Christians dislike it, or because the public judgment would go against it — but do you hate evil because it is detestable in the sight of God?”

For centuries empires ruled through divide and conquer. An outside force would move into an area and divide the people against themselves, once a society begins to devour itself, then it was easy for the invader to come in and take charge.

Folks, that is happening in our churches today. The enemy, in this case is Satan, and he is dividing our churches and our land.

At this point in my life I can confidently say I really don’t care about my country, my only goal is to do what is right in the sight of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and trust me, his views run contrary with that of our government and the direction of this land.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 6:17, “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you.’”

Some have taken this command to the extreme, we call Amish and folks like them extreme, but they have refused to compromise with the world. What have we done? We have wallowed in the pigsty and the stench of our filth covers us. As Jesus concluded in Mark 9:49-50 we are salt, “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

When we have wallowed with the pigs, how can we tell others to clean up their act?

We have failed to separate ourselves from society. We condone sexual perversion; we aid in the breakup of the family; we complain at the slaughter of innocents known as abortion, but we do little to stop it. We have utterly failed in our missionary work in this world, but what if we followed Spurgeon’s advice?

What if, we opened God’s word and opened up a line of communication with our Savior. He will speak to us through his holy word, and then our hearts will begin to align with that of our Savior.

The Pharisees were looked up to by the people in Jesus’ day, we would say they lived commendable lives, but Jesus held them in little regard and he called them the biggest hypocrites and sinners of all.

Many of Jesus’ indictments against them can be directed toward Jesus’ followers of today.

I would hate to count the times when I have caused someone to stumble, or to commit a sin against God. That is something for which I will have to answer for when Christ judges my life. While my salvation may not be in doubt, what I have done for Jesus is. I have offended many and for that I pray for Christ’s mercy.

As an individual believer, as a group of believers, as the corporate of believer known as the church, we should seek to let go of that which causes offense to God, as it would be better for us to go limping into heaven than send a single soul to hell because of the ineffectiveness of our witness to the world.

Do we want to be the church of Laodicea?

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold or hot. I wish you were one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see,” — Revelations 3:15-18

Will we be this church, or will we be the church of Philadelphia that will keep the word of God and not deny the name of Jesus?

Align our hearts with God. For those who are searching for truth, they should see us and say, “I want what they have?” For the world, we should be an offense, and take that as a badge of honor.

Serve the Lord your God and abandon all else, for nothing else can survive his refining fire.

Just as you are, nothing more needed

As the hour turns late, darkness envelopes a sleepless night as chili-cheese nachos topped with jalapenos do their work on the digestive system.

I was encouraged by a sister in Christ, the one who fed me those nachos, to use that time for Him. The only thoughts that filled my conscience during that time was that I was not worthy to speak the name of Christ, let alone write about his abundant riches. Inside, the still, small voice called out, “Come to me just as you are,” recalling the words of the great hymn by Charlotte Elliott.

The simple and haunting words of the hymn reminded me of my own lowliness and the war raging inside all of us who claim the name of Christ, as noted by the apostle Paul in Romans 7:14-20, 24-25 “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it…

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

This battle Paul spoke of rages interminably inside the confines of our minds and our spirits. While even if our heart belongs to Jesus, Satan wages an all-consuming battle against us and at times it may seem we are fighting a war that cannot be won. We look at our tree and see it is fruitless and we deem ourselves disappointments and failures, to Christ and our Heavenly Father and to those around us looking to us to see that glimmer of the Blessed Hope that gave us life.

As the tears of failure and disappointment flow down our faces, Jesus stares at us from the cross and beckons us to him; it is not a command, but an invitation. It is an invitation to pour all the doubts and fears upon the foot of the cross and allow him to take control of the battle raging inside us — a battle he has already won.

For those of us who have been washed in Christ’s blood, that is how salvation came to us; but too often we forget Christ and the cross and we walk away from Calvary thinking everything will be fine from then on, but our accepting what Jesus did for us on the cross is only the opening refrain on our journey to our eternal existence in the presence of God and Jesus.

In this broken state, we must remain with Jesus, not going off on our own with prideful zeal as the Pharisees did, proclaiming their superiority; but within this broken, and helpless state, God creates in us a humble heart capable of not just telling, but showing a lost world the riches of God’s love.

There are no great works required of us, we don’t have to teach Sunday School or go on foreign missions, but we must decide to go to and abide with Jesus.

“All that the father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” — John 6:36

Let’s call this the “great requirement.” The great requirement is that we come to Christ, and we have this assurance from our Lord that if we come to him in faith he will not brush us aside, but welcome us with his healing hands. As he touches us with his nail-scarred hands he imparts life into us, a life that will never be separated from us.

For many of us, that is the extent of our coming to Christ, as we said, we soon go on our way, but if we would just remain with Jesus this crumbled and listless life would have a meaning and purpose beyond our understanding, if only we would come to him.

In Ms. Elliott’s hymn, “Just as I am,” we see the picture of a person with nothing to offer, seemingly broken beyond repair, but what we don’t realize is that is the only way to come to Jesus.

The story behind the song is as heart wrenching as the song. Ms. Elliott’ father and brother were both notable pastors in their corner of England in the early 1800s, yet, at the time the young Charlotte didn’t share their same dedication to Christ, nevertheless, the Elliott home was a meeting place for many a traveling clergyman and quite often Ms. Elliott would engage them in conversation. One such man was Dr. Cesar Malan, of Geneva. Presumably over a meal, Dr. Malan began talking about his faith and he pointed a question to Ms. Elliott.

Ms. Elliott suffered constantly with poor health and was often in severe pain, which made her irritable at times, which may have been the case this time. In any event, she took offense to Dr. Malan’s question about her own faith. Dr. Malan offered to go no further on the subject, and told the young woman he would pray for her to give her heart to Christ and then use the talents given to her by God to enter a life of service to him.

A couple of weeks later, once again miserable, but for different reasons, Ms. Elliott came back to Dr. Milan and posed a question she had to so many pastors about how to come closer to Christ. They gave her the answer to pray more, do more good works, live a more pious life, all of which never seemed right to young Charlotte.

Dr. Malan cut through all of that when Ms. Elliott told him, “I am miserable. I want to be saved. I want to come to Jesus; but I don’t know how.”

He responded to her by saying, “You have only to come to him just as you are.”

The words penetrated the veil covering her heart and she gave her heart to Jesus on that night, but life and the world has a way of trying to tug us a way from our devotion to Christ. As noted, Ms. Elliott was practically an invalid and felt useless in her service to her savior. She often had doubts that ripped at her soul. Such was happening in her life in 1834 as those around her readied for a church bazaar, and the beautiful story is retold in Knapp’s “Who wrote our Hymns.”

"Ill health still beset her. Besides its general trying influence on the spirit, it often caused her the peculiar pain of a seeming uselessness in her life, while the circle round her was full of unresting serviceableness for God. Such a time of trial marked the year 1834, when she was 45 years old and was living in Westfield Lodge, Brighton,” the book noted.

The night before the bazaar Ms. Elliott was unable to sleep or rest. The book notes a sense that everything before her was an illusion, nothing but myths to be dispelled. Instead of giving into her thoughts and fears, with the help of the Holy Spirit, she determined to conquer the doubts. What Ms. Elliott did was write down the formula for her faith in verse form, the gospel of pardon and peace and how that “even now” she was accepted in the Beloved kingdom of her savior.

What sprang from her pen and onto the paper was the hymn “Just as I am.”

Through her sense of uselessness, the light of Christ sprang forth from her, reaching untold millions with her simple verses of testimony.

Some years later Ms. Elliott’s brother, the Rev. H.V. Elliott, noted, “In the course of a long ministry I hope I have been permitted to see some fruit of my labours; but I feel far more has been done by the single hymn of my sister’s.”

In this famous hymn, too often we only hear the first couple of verses during the invitational part of the service, as no one responds to the pastor’s invitation to come before the altar and offer a life to Christ, the song does not go on to reveal its beautiful prose to us. In the fifth stanza of the song it tells us the simplicity of the gospel of Christ.

“Just as I am — Thou wilt receive

Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;

Because thy promise I believe,

— O Lamb of God, I come!”

We too are accepted into the Beloved kingdom of our Savior if we believe on the promise fulfilled at the cross. Even though the world rejects us and spits us out, Jesus never will if we come to him — just come to him, now and for always.

A jon boat full of faith

If only Jesus disciples knew when they were with Jesus what we know now.

That statement has cropped up in my mind many times as there were so many questions I would have asked Jesus that they, as far as we know from scripture didn’t.

Today, we can read the Bible and we see Jesus, at least I hope everybody does, as the Son of God, part of the triune Godhead. The disciples, due to their narrow time with Jesus, mostly saw Jesus as a remarkable man who could do miraculous things. It is evident from scripture until Jesus walked out of the tomb and appeared to them.

There were questions, though, throughout their time with Jesus. They would see him do things and they would marvel.

“One day Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side of the lake.’ So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great dangers.

“The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Master, Master, we’re going to drown!’

“He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. ‘Where is your faith?’ he asked his disciples.

“In fear and amazement they asked one another, ‘Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.’” — Luke 8:22-25

According to Luke, the disciples had already seen Jesus raise a widow’s son from the dead, they saw him heal people with sometimes deadly infirmities, restore sight to the blind, they heard him teach; yet they still had a hard time understanding who Jesus really was. They couldn’t quite get it.

To be sure, they were scared of Jesus. Sure, Jesus was a loving and gentle man, but they saw Jesus rebuke evil spirits. They saw how scared those evil spirits were when Jesus came in their presence. They knew for a fact that Jesus wasn’t any ordinary man, but what they didn’t know was if this man was going to destroy the world — or save it.

Let’s get a little perspective here; the boats the disciples were using most likely were fishing boats. Ocean cruise lines they definitely were not. A boat from that time period would be about 27 feet long and about 7 to 8-feet wide and had a flat bottom. In modern parlance it was just a big jon boat.

Knowing this, it was understandable the disciples would be afraid out on the Sea of Galilee in such a small vessel, but they had forgotten something — Jesus was on board.

To be accurate, they hadn’t forgotten about Jesus because they did call on him to do something — he was their line of last defense.

Even though they called on Jesus, and Jesus calmed the storm, Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith, but why?

It’s not that hard to understand, if we look at the entirety of their time with Jesus up to that point. As noted before, the disciples saw Jesus do things no other prophet, not even Moses, had done before. They heard Jesus’ teachings. No doubt they had one-on-one conversations with Jesus, yet they still didn’t realize that they were safe as long as he was with them. Or, let’s put it like this, they didn’t fully believe they were safe in the presence of God, as Jesus is God the Son.

That’s why Jesus scolded them. In essence Jesus was telling them, “Don’t you know who I am? I am.”

The same can be said of our lives. There will be storms, there will be times of trouble, but if we believe Jesus to be who he says he is, then there is a security for us. The raging storms and the troubles cannot drag us down to the depth of this world, for we have placed our lives, the very essence of our existence into the hands of Jesus Christ. A good example of this is Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. A devout Christian, Gen. Jackson never did anything without prayer, whether it was entering battle or going for an afternoon walk, he believed in staying in communion with God. The name “Stonewall” came from his unflinching resolve in battle. He was fearless to an extent, but it was a deep abiding faith that kept him from being paralyzed with fear.

Jackson was quoted as saying “he was as safe in bed as on the battlefield.” In other words, Gen. Jackson so believed in his abiding purpose in Jesus Christ that he was immortal until God called him home.

That was the point Jesus had with his disciples. As long as he was with them, nothing in the world could harm them — if that was His will.

So many times when we pray we ask for God’s will in our life, but I believe strongly that God’s will is God’s will, and we should seek for our lives to be lived within his perfect will. It’s an argument in semantics, but if we seek to work for God, then he will help us accomplish our goals, and there was no way Jesus’ goal for his disciples was to drown in the Sea of Galilee.

To my fellow Christians out there concerning our mortal life, God does not promise a long life, a life filled with riches or a life free from pain and sorrow, but what he promises us is life in abundance — of the eternal kind.

What does it take to get that life — faith in Jesus Christ? For those who have accepted that fact, then Jesus has a job for you to do, and cowering meekly in the corner of the boat is not it. He is telling us to, “Have faith, I’ll take care of the storms, you just keep rowing the boat.”

Keep rowing the boat my fellow workers in Christ, our time is short and there are many who still need to hear the gospel of our precious Lord, bend to the oar and push for the goal, then maybe all of us will get to go home soon.

Oh...Those legalists

Oh those legalists — if it wasn’t for the books of John, Paul and Peter and then much of the Old Testament prophets — they could impose their religious Utopia where everybody had a certain way to live, much like Geneva under the generalship of John Calvin.

In the gospel of John, the sixth chapter, something I’ve written on before, Jesus had just finished performing some great miracles, the feeding of the 5,000 and his walking on water over the Sea of Galilee.

To be sure, his followers saw these miracles and were astonished, but they still didn’t know what all Jesus was telling them.

At the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in the book of Matthew, Jesus tells everybody he was there to fulfill the Law, every jot and tittle. He told them they were to be held to a higher standard of the Law, where every thought is judged — it was a standard beyond even what the Pharisees held.

So it was natural for some of Jesus’ followers to ask in John 6:28, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

Ask this in many churches and the people will tell you to keep all the commandments given by God. That’s a simple answer and it would be correct, but that doesn’t save us. Even if we were sinless from now on, it doesn’t cover over the sins of the past, it doesn’t square our account with God. Then, even if it did, if a believer sins again what then will be the penalty for that sin.

Nope, Jesus gave the answer to his inquisitors that day. Jesus answered in John 6:29, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

That’s it, that’s the answer? Surely the batteries on John’s tape recorder went out that day, or maybe his stenographer took the day off — surely that can’t be it.

The thing is — it is.

When Jesus died on the cross it was an account settling sacrifice. For the people to be able to take part in this miracle, then they must first, believe in what Jesus did for them and then turn away from their life of sin. Our works gain us nothing, it is only through faith that we come to the Father through Jesus Christ.

Step back and look at this for a moment. Imagine spending all of your time worrying about it if you are living right or Hell might be waiting. You would become like the Pharisees who worked diligently day in and day out to make sure they did everything just so, even straining their soup to make sure they didn’t accidentally swallow and unclean gnat. The Pharisees falsely believed if they followed a strict formula then they could earn their salvation.

Jesus freed us from that burden — and sin is a burden, and it seems there are many who try to keep saddling us with that burden.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.” — Matthew 23:13-15

God wants us free from those burdens of sin. He wants us to worship him out of love, so, he created a way in which we could do that.
“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” — John 6:40

That’s reassuring, that’s a freeing of the spirit. Jesus, if we repent, takes that sin nature from us; he paid the penalty for those sins on the cross. Yes, we will commit sins even after our salvation, but if we confess them to our loving Savior they will be removed from us as far as the east is from the west.

There are many who will hold you to a standard no one can uphold. Out of the love of Christ and through the strengthening of the Holy Spirit we strive to live sinless lives, but we are still under the curse of the flesh and that is why we have a mediator between us and God the Father — our Savior Jesus Christ.

So yes, flee from sin, but don’t let the thought and fear of sin keep us from the work set before us, which is to proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord above all and it is to him, and him only we owe our allegiance, not a flag, not a country — nothing but our Lord Jesus.

So, take from the words of Paul and flee from the legalism that binds you to this corrupted flesh, “The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, ‘The person who does these things will live by them.’ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’ He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” — Galatians 3:12-14

Live as free people, no longer under the heavy yoke of sin. As we enter another election cycle many will talk about freedom, and setting you free, but know this — there is no freedom under man as we all are under the burden of tyranny. No man, no matter how smoothly he speaks can offer us freedom — freedom only comes through Jesus Christ.

Read and let the words of the Savior pierce your heart, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

On this day, resolve to let Jesus take up your heavy load, nothing you can do will lift the burden, only the nail-scarred hands of Jesus.

Stains that won't come clean

In Shakespeare’s MacBeth, lady MacBeth walks the halls at night in her sleep constantly washing and rubbing her hands.

Her conscience sears her peace and it will not allow her to forget she helped kill King Duncan. Though her hands are clean, her conscience still sees the blood on her hands as she goes about saying, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!”

Sometimes even the most thorough washing is unable to make us clean. Jesus knew this, even if others didn’t.

“When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But for now as for what is inside you — be generous to the poor and everything will be clean for you.’” — Luke 11:37-40

Let’s not take away from this verse that Jesus didn’t wash before he ate, or that the Pharisees were ultra-clean people. Let’s step back in time a couple thousand years and look at some of these rituals in which the Pharisees put their faith.

The Pharisees sprang up from the first Diaspora. With no temple Jewish worship began to be centered around the synagogue, and the Pharisees became what we know today as the rabbis.

They believed, somewhat rightly, that the sins of Israel led to their exile, so the Pharisees began focusing on the minutia of the Law and the tradition of the elders. Some of the rituals the Pharisees followed were not a part of the Law of Moses, yet they still religiously followed them as a passed-down tradition.

This ceremonial washing was a part of that tradition. The washing wasn’t done to clean; it was done to cleanse their hands from spiritual defilement in order to keep said defilement from coming into the body by way of the food their hands would touch.

So, to achieve this cleansing, the Pharisees would dribble a small amount of water onto their hands. The amount of water usually amounted to approximately the volume of a chicken egg, and the hands had to be washed in such a way where the water had to drip off the hands and not down the arms in order to keep the defilement from spreading. If they messed up somewhere along the way in the washing procedure they would have to start over again.

It was a relatively complex ritual and it’s probably safe to say the Pharisee was aghast that Jesus didn’t take part in it. The Pharisee, at that moment, probably lost all respect for Jesus and immediately assumed he was a great sinner, but Jesus, unwashed hands and all, sets the record straight.

Jesus tells the Pharisees they worry so much about the outside of the cup and dish they forget to clean the inside, the portion of the cup and dish actually touching the food and drink.

In a parallel passage in Matthew 23:26 Jesus said, “Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.”

Just like Lady MacBeth, they fuss and moan over the outside, but what’s inside them can’t be scrubbed clean and they can’t figure out how to accomplish this internal housekeeping chore.

The writer of Hebrews, long before “Hints from Heloise” ever existed, told us how to properly clean our bodily homes.

“This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings — external regulations applying until the time of the new order.

“… How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” — Hebrews 9:9-10, 14

Unfortunately many of our modern churches have fallen under the spell of ritual. They look to acts to give them, or enhance, their salvation.

Try as we might we just can’t do it on our own. We want to. We wish coming to God was like a doctor’s prescription to, “Take two of these and call me in the morning.” Thankfully, it doesn’t work that way.

Even given the simplest ritual, God in his infinite knowledge, knew we would never be able to follow it. Sin has too much of a hold on us. Sin tears at us and looks to cleave our hearts in eternal separation from God.

Sin seeks to keep us mired in an eternal cesspool of filth, but Jesus offers the cleanser to remove the stain of sin — his own blood.

So while the blood of King Duncan could not be removed from Lady MacBeth’s conscience, the blood of Christ can wipe away those sins. The blood of Christ will cleanse our conscience and enable us to stand before a righteous God sinless, just as Christ does.

That is the promise of the gospel. The cross, that terrible cross, was a loving act of mercy that cleared us from all wrong. That mercy that promise is still there for us. It is there for us if we call upon the name of Jesus and ask him to come in and scrub our hearts clean.

Forget the dalliances in ritual; don’t put your faith in what you can accomplish for God, instead look to what God did for you in Jesus Christ.

Then, and only then, will we get the spots sin has put in our lives out.

If you don’t have this stain removing power in your life, pray this prayer, “Heavenly Father, no matter how hard I try I can’t seem to get it right. Even though I think I’m good, sin rules my every move. Lord Jesus, I ask you to enter my life and my heart right now and cleanse me from my sins and restore me in a right relationship with God. Thank you for going to the cross for me and rescuing me from an eternity in hell away from you. Amen.”

———

If you prayed that prayer, then follow up. Don’t let it end there, go before the Lord daily in prayer, become immersed in his holy word and never give in to the world and patiently await the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

If you prayed that prayer a long time ago, and who have stayed close to God, turn a helping hand to the young in Christ. Give of yourself more than putting money in a collection plate. Love those around you by giving that which will never perish, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Are you a citizen, or just a pilgrim

Is it appropriate to tell people to turn back to God on this anniversary of 9-11?

Is it unpatriotic to think your nation has no answers? Does it blaspheme the American spirit to believe our allegiance is to God, and only to God, not a man-made country and government?

Do these questions make you angry? Do they?

What about the word of God? Does it give you pause? Do His words make you angry?

“Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” — Isaiah 46:3-4

Do you read those words and find hope for a nation? Do you quote 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land,” and believe a new golden age will dawn upon America? Do you really believe that?

What if I told you those words from 2 Chronicles were written for the state of Israel? What if I told you your zeal for America clouds your relationship with Jesus Christ? Would those words sting on this solemn day of remembrance? Would those words make you angry? Would they?

Instead of taking oaths, looking to worldly leaders and systems of men to save us, how about a change of heart. Here’s a novel thought, look to the God who knows the end from the beginning, the God who freely gave his life for ours on the cross. Reliance upon God is the key; not self-reliance, not reliance upon others, not Oprah, not the latest book on spirituality, but a complete turning over of one’s self to God. That is our key.

At the crossing of the Red Sea, God alone defeated the Egyptian army. Not a weapon of Israel was wielded, God did it all. Surely He would have driven out the Canaanites in similar fashion, but the people lost faith, even after seeing the hand of God work mighty miracles before them.

Instead, they were afraid.

“We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are,” and they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, ‘The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim.) We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes and we looked the same to them.’” — Numbers 13:31-33

For their lack of faith God made them wander through the desert for 40 years, until all of that generation was gone.

If only they would have believed, what glorious thing God would have done for them, and they wouldn’t have had to lift a hand.

Our salvation comes the same way. God can do glorious things for us, and we do not have to raise a hand, because Christ did it all at the cross. He paid the penalty for our sin and if we repent and look solely to Christ then we are imparted with citizenship into the Kingdom of God.

We are not granted dual citizenship; we must choose Christ or the world. We can’t be good Christians and good Americans. We have to make a choice, Jesus Christ, or a world of death. Sure, we can be good, law abiding neighbors who pay our taxes and don’t take from others, but we must always remember we are only temporary residents in the land. Our permanent home is with Jesus Christ.

Do these words make your angry? Do these words convict your spirit?

What did Jesus have to say? When he stood before Pilate and was asked about his kingdom, what did Jesus say?

“My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” — John 18:36

Jesus was not concerned about Roman politics, he wasn’t concerned with the constant Jewish plotting to get out from under Roman rule. Jesus came to fulfill the Law and to redeem mankind from its sin. On the cross he became the atoning sacrifice required to gain us entry into the kingdom of God.

Do you accept that? Do you?

If not, then what holds you? The word of God is clear. Jesus said man cannot serve two masters. We cannot serve Christ and be a part of this world. If we choose Christ, then we must put to death our sin nature and come out from the world.

As Paul said, we are in the world, but not of the world. We must be living examples of the love Christ gave to us through the cross. If hardship, ridicule and death be our path, then so be it, because our Savior suffered worse for our sake.

As Paul told us in Romans 12:14-21, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another (fellow believers.) Do not be proud, but willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

If we walk through the world with the gospel on our lips and we are hated for it, then we are blessed in the kingdom of God. If you bend under the tyranny the world offers, then stand free at the cross of Christ.

Do these words offer hope? Do they?

Don’t expect national redemption. Don’t expect God to overlook the sins of a nation that turns its back on his gospel.

Instead, be a part of the kingdom that knows no end. Be a patriot of the Kingdom of God and defend it with your life. The world has nothing to offer.

Does what I say make you long for Christ, or does it just make you angry?