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Come out
Here is the worry – walking with God is good and we know that He walks with us – yet sometimes we walk in arenas where we lose sight of God.
Sometimes we walk into places where we let down our guard thinking we are with other followers and somehow find ourselves talking about how to make a lot of money. Other times we are told to not be so legalistic and enjoy the pleasures of life, since God created them anyway.
In the midst of those moments, you miss a beat, stop holding God’s hands, His holiness is too much for you to stay with Him and you take liberties with your commitment to only follow Him – God calls you to come out, come away, separate yourself from anything – especially from those who encourage you to no longer be committed to following God. Step away because you will become like them. If you think they need you to see Jesus – think again – they are taking you down. Someone else needs to step up and tell them.
Remember, it is the Holy Spirit that draws people to Jesus, step away and rekindle your walk with God. Nothing else matters.
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- Wide Awake (womenofbslc.wordpress.com)
Three loud voices
I am still fascinated by the simple things – one of my favourite Christmas movies to watch each year is the original, black and white, Scrooge with the visits of the three spirits.
Today, thinking about how to walk with God, I read of three angels who gave instructions on how to do that, even as the time grows short before Christ‘s return.
The first angel was concerned and tasked with proclaiming the eternal gospel to those who live on earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people. Many feel that there is little left to do and many have given up on this call. May we look for God to give us opportunities to tell. The basics – fear God, give Him glory, understand that the hour of judgement is coming and make time to worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water.
The second angel called out all those who took the road of drink, lust and passions of the flesh – they are fallen and destroyed because compared to the holiness of those who walk with God, they are impure.
Lastly, the declaration to those who worshiped any other god other than the one and only God. So much in love with their god that they were marked by it. They would experience the wrath of God, His anger and they will experience torment by fire and sulphur and they have no rest day or night.
Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Walking with Jesus is accepting the call.
Related articles
- The Book of Revelation – Part 58 – Vision of Three Angels (edraby.wordpress.com)
- The Three – Worship (culturalatheist.wordpress.com)
Silence in heaven
There is so much noise in heaven with all the praise and worship and declarations of God‘s majesty and glory that when silence does happen – it gets recorded.
In this particular case we have an author of one of the books of the Bible who is given a glimpse into such an occasion just before the seventh seal is broken as recorded in the book of Revelation.
I wonder how many other occasions would there have been silence in heaven?
Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, various times watching how Job handled his life, and maybe the flood along with the destruction of every living thing that God created except for what was spared in the ark.
I wonder what was happening when Jesus died on the cross?
You can tell that silence in heaven is not normal.
Even if we decide not to praise God, the rocks and the trees will – that is how appropriate making a joyful noise is in heaven.
So, best get on to talking, praising, worshiping and talking about Jesus – the more noise we make the better everything in the world will be.
A different kind of war – but its war nonetheless
Here we are, followers of Christ who have now become strangers in the land we were born in and refugees without a place to call our real home. We have one task and only one task to ensure our safety and our honour – abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against our soul.
Incredible, but we do not see it as war – we see it as choice and we see it as something personal.
However, when the non-followers of Jesus speak against us in one way or another we have only one saving grace – they will see our good deeds and our good character, principled as they are, and hopefully recognize God in us.
For instance, how we interact with our boss, even when they are not around. Are we submissive with respect regardless if they are kind and gentle or obnoxious and rude? How we talk about our governments – city, provincial, federal – regardless of whether we think they are good or bad. What about our in-laws, do we describe them as outlaws? From personal experience – how do we treat our own brothers and sisters or parents – oh how I have heard excuses of why it is appropriate to follow the passions of our flesh instead of our soul.
You see, we can actually live as one who is free, it is not for freedom sake that we use it as an excuse to do what we know we should not be doing. Yet we somehow believe it.
Can we honour all people, can we love those in the Church, can we hold God in awe, can we respect those in authority? If not, then the war is on and our walk with Jesus becomes a little bit more chaotic until we come to a place where what we want does not matter as much as what Jesus wants. What He wants is to give us life and to give it to us abundantly – why do we not want that?
Related articles
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- Misfits (ccalachua.wordpress.com)
- I Declare War. (alwaysfaithfulneverending.wordpress.com)
Be quick
I have learned that I need to be very quick when it comes to reacting to things around me and that quickness has to be in relation to my walk with God – that walk has to be part of my DNA.
For example, I have learned to be quick when it comes to hearing. I have learned to repeat what I think I have heard. I have learned to be quick in not speaking, but rather stay focused on listening. Most of all, because my father was an angry man, I have learned to be quick in being self-aware as to why and what is causing me to react. If there is one character that does not work in representing the righteousness of God – its anger.
How did I learn to do these things? Well first of all I will tell you why I did. I remember, as a youth pastor, must have been 23 years old, I was carrying a couch into a home and at the other end was an elder of the church. As the couch was slipping from my hands, I was quick in saying the “s” word and was stunned, as was my elder.
I realized that something was up if that was the first thing out of my mouth.
Then I heard a sermon that declared that we need to learn to speak God and it needs to be a natural response. The pastor stated that when an airplane is going down, the black box records the last few minutes of the cockpit conversation. The research he found indicated that 85% of the time, the pilots went down cursing God – a learned response.
So I began to put away all my casual talk and changed my thinking to react by calling upon the name of Jesus. I also realized the power of God’s Word and spoke it often, with meekness, to others as part of my conversation.
One day I knew I had learned it when we were driving home after a fresh snow fall of about 10″ and having not known of the impending weather, I took the old car out with tires not quite up to the task. Not being able to see the shoulder of the road because of the fresh snow, I found myself going over too far when another car was approaching from the other direction. That caused some pulling and loss of traction. At one point I was going over a bridge and a car was approaching from the other side. I pulled over too far and this time lost control of the car and was being projected to go over the bridge railings. I yelled out Jesus name as a call for Him to intervene and take control – woke up my family in the car – but that car was picked up and put back on the road in the direction we were going and I never left the road again.
I believe we need to be quick about being people who “do” the Word, and not just sit there and be “listeners” only. We think we are followers of Christ but in the end, when it comes to crunch time with what comes out of our mouths, we find that we have deceived ourselves. Such a person looks at themselves in a mirror, sees what they see, walks away and forgets what they were like.
It looking at the law, the law that states I am free in Christ, and deciding I am going to “do” that initiates a blessing in that same doing.
If any one thinks they are religious, and does not bridle their tongue will deceive their heart – this person’s religion is vain.
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- The Widow and The Orphan (threestrawberries.wordpress.com)
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Emmanuel 