GOD'S PURPOSE IN A BELIVER'S LIFE

I do not write to the world, but I write to those who are called unto God. The world cannot receive what I have to share. God created EVERYTHING for His glory. Period. There was no obligation. He simply did what He wanted to do. Each believer is brought to Christ, by God, through faith, ONLY of grace so that we will be sanctified into the image of Christ that God might be glorified in us. This is truth. This is why we are here.

Knowing this, and believing it, changes how we perceive things. Marriage is God's greatest gift to us, because it is thee most tangible illustration of the relationship between Jesus and the Church. Marriage is also God's greatest tool to sanctify a believer. Think about it.

Some of the characteristics of Jesus that will be evident in us as we become like Him are grace, mercy, unconditional love, forgiveness, truth, openness, meekness, humility, and unwavering commitment. How do you suppose God will bring such characteristics about in your life if you do not go through situations that refine and demand these qualities? It is only under the fire of testing that we can be molded into the likeness of the God we serve.

Let Him have His perfect work in you. God can change your marriage in a heart beat, but would that rob you of the refining of your character? Nothing is impossible for our God. NOTHING. See God's hand and providence in your life, in your marriage, and let God finish what He has started. God joined you to your spouse for a reason. Your character has to be able to bare the weight of your destiny, so don't you dare lose faith when God is preforming His Word. Praise Him, and know that He is doing a great thing!

Soul Sale: A Rude Awakening

I greatly appreciate the brutal honesty in this book. I am a fundamental Christian, and have come to a deeper understanding of what God says is real. When God entered into His own creation as the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth He cast out demons, healed the sick, and raised the dead. Over the years, as we have become wiser in our own eyes, we have set aside the reality of the spiritual and instead clung to medical terms and diagnosis of psychological conditions in order for us to rationalize things without accepting the spiritual realities. What is even more disturbing is that professing Christians are just as easily duped into this lie, ultimately making the recorded documents of Christ ministry false. If Jesus cast out demons then, would it not make sense that there are still demons today? God does say this about the spiritual armies and reality…

 

Look among the nations and watch—
Be utterly astounded!
For I will work a work in your days
Which you would not believe, though it were told you.

Habakkuk 1:5

 

These next verses God tells us about the demonic force He has raised to punish the sons of disobedience.

 

For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans,
A bitter and hasty nation
Which marches through the breadth of the earth,
To possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
They are terrible and dreadful;
Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
Their horses also are swifter than leopards,
And more fierce than evening wolves.
Their chargers charge ahead;
Their cavalry comes from afar;
They fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.

“They all come for violence;
Their faces are set like the east wind.
They gather captives like sand.
They scoff at kings,
And princes are scorned by them.
They deride every stronghold,
For they heap up earthen mounds and seize it.

Habakkuk 1:6-10

I applaud my friend for sharing her experience in “Soul Sale: A Rude Awakening”. Most people will just blow it off, but that is only as God prophesized it would be. The spiritual realm is more real than what we can see my friends. Her eyes were opened to what is, and the world wants to say that she had issues. Well… We are the one with the reality issues, not her. If we only knew what really is… The battle that rages in our mind is so easily dismissed amongst us as normal, but it isn’t. It is a raging war taking place, and we are in a fight for our life and most of us don’t even know it.

What “Amy” went through was indeed real. I am very proud of her for sharing what so many will think is just crazy talk. Whether you believe, or not, it does not change the truth. There is an entire realm that is much more powerful than we are, and just as real. Because we can’t see them, most of the time, does not mean they aren’t there.

Therefore he sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city. And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?”

So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, and said, “Strike this people, I pray, with blindness.” And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

2 Kings 6:14-18

ADDICTIONS!? BETTER KNOW THE TRUTH.

The ideas of the world have thoroughly distorted the truth. God is the ONLY One who can change hearts. "Addiction" is the world's babbling for idolatry. The success rate of people being freed from "addictions" is so low, because there is ONLY ONE name under which we can be set free. The world does not teach THEE answer, but rather some disillusioned idea that we can "free our selves". Heresy. We place an idol in our heart, and God gives us over to it to be destroyed by it. There are spiritual laws in place which cannot be broken. God MUST change a person's heart, and that is done ONLY through the power of the Holy Spirit through Jesus of Nazareth. If we teach ANYTHING other than the truth, we cannot bring anyone to freedom. We may simply change the idol to which they are bound.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you.
-Ezekiel 36:26-29

WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?

This verse keeps coming to mind, over and over. There are believers out there who do not speak boldly what God has given them for they fear to offend others. Listen!!

“The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream;

And he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully.
What is the chaff to the wheat?” says the Lord.
“Is not My word like a fire?” says the Lord,
“And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?"
-Jeremiah 23:28-29

God is blatantly saying “Who cares what the world thinks of the Word of God”. The reference to the chaff and the wheat is that those who are being saved is the wheat, and those who are not are the chaff that is to be bound together at the end and burned. What is the chaff to the wheat!? The end of those who reject Christ is certain. Do not let your fear of them inhibit you from speaking the Word of God.

Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

-Matthew 13:24-30

The angels will gather together the chaff and tares of the world, and bind them together to be burned. We are sent out to find those who will believe, speak the Word of God into their life so that they may live, and they too will be saved. We are to find the King’s lost children, something we cannot do with a closed mouth.

Are We Saved By Our Works?

I know many who believe we must add "works" in order to secure our salvation. This is a lie. Of course our works are an outward showing of what is in our hearts, so they are the proof of a repentant heart, but they add NOTHING to what Jesus did on the cross. When He died He said it was finished. The accounting term literally means "all accounts paid in full". I caution you if you believe your actions add anything to the FINISHED work of Christ.

You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
- Galations 5:4

So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.
- John 19:30

Grace

You call yourself a "Christian", and you live a life where your faith costs you nothing? You have been led astray my friend, and you do not have what you think you have. Apparently someone unfamiliar with Jesus has duped you into believing a lie. True grace does have a cost. Read the four gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, and then let us reason together. If your being a "Christian" has cost you nothing, I would challenge you to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Food for thought.

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Make a Decision, and Push All In.

So he departed from there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth. Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah, and said, “Please let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.”

And he said to him, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?”

So Elisha turned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh, using the oxen’s equipment, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elijah, and became his servant.
- 1 Kings 19:19-21

In these verses Elijah gives Elisha the offer to become his disciple by throwing his mantle on him. When Elisha asks about returning to his family, Elijah's response is that the choice is up to him. Elisha had no intent on ever returning to the life he had once lived. So much so that he killed his entire yoke of oxen, destroyed his farm equipment by using it to cook the oxen, and gave the meat to the people. He then willingly became the servant of Elijah because he wanted what Elijah had to teach him.

Elisha was all in. This same scenario was reiterated by Jesus many years later.

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it— lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’? Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple."
- Luke 14:26-33

Jesus' words do not need interpretation, obviously. If we are able to read plain English, and have at least an average cognitive processing capability, we are able to discern that Jesus is saying we must be "all in" if we are to be His followers. If we are not His followers, then we do not have salvation. Pretty simple.

Let us make our call and election sure! Leave the old life, the old man, entirely. We cannot take our life and do "patch work" with Jesus. We must start fresh, new, and let go of EVERYTHING that was. We must examine our self. Are we all in? Are we willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING for what we have in Christ? If we aren't, maybe we should read Jesus' words again. There is NO FENCE. There is NO PART TIME POSITION. There is NO ALMOST. The world is saturated with false doctrine. Say this "sinners" prayer, and you will be saved. NO!! Follow Jesus and obey His words, then you will be saved!! Move all in, or know that you are all out!! This is truth. Make a decision!