The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Four years ago I started praying to be closer to God.  I began to long for Him to reveal Himself to me, to grow in knowledge and understanding of Him. I prayed, I waited, I kept an always watchful eye for my burning bush, I kept an always open ear for His thundering voice from heaven.  For weeks my prayers were only answered by silence.  Finally, one day while grumbling and whining to God about how hard I was trying, and how could He expect me to stay faithful when all I got from Him was silence, and why did He make it so hard for us to follow Him, blah, blah, blah, a thought gently, but authoritatively invaded my mind and said, "Start by reading what I've already revealed to you." 

I was floored. 

It was so simple and so obvious, yet so completely outside the realm of what I had been expecting.  His answer was there all along, I had simply drowned out His voice by my own expectations, none of which included for me to simply pick up my Bible and start reading.  You know,.... the whole thing. 

As I read the Bible, one thing began to become obviously apparent.  The god I had always envisioned in my own mind, was not the God of the Bible.  Make no mistake, I was saved as a teenager, I had been baptized and had considered myself a Christian my whole life.  However, all that time I had a very lopsided view of God.  He was the God of grace, the God of infinite love, the God that forgave my sins, the God that understood my weaknesses.  He was the God that fit neatly into my own personal reality. 

 

Sometimes God is more of a concept to us, rather than someone we get on our knees and interact with for a set-apart amount of time on a daily basis.  Almost everything I knew about God was what I had learned from others because I had never made an effort to read the whole Bible.  I was comfortable in my Christianity, so I had never actually gotten around to seeking Him with my whole heart. I was still living my life the way I wanted to live it, spending my time the way I wanted to spend it, making no real sacrifices for my faith.  The blunt reality was, all those years I had simply been a lukewarm Christian who never made the effort to read or study the revelation given to me by the God I claimed to worship and follow--the Bible.  You don't have to read the Bible to be saved, but you do have to read the Bible if you want to truly know and understand God and maintain any sort of spiritual growth.  The blunt reality was, I claimed to worship Someone I really didn't know or understand.  And if I tell the whole truth of the matter, I claimed to "worship" God, yet unbeknownst to me, I really had no idea what real worship was.

When I read the whole Bible, I was forced to reconcile the god I had always imagined versus the real, actual God that I claimed to worship and follow.  I had been a Christian all my life, but yet I found myself at 37 years-old asking myself, "Can I worship this God?" 

--Can I worship this God Who instructed Saul, "Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." (1 Sam 15:3).
--Can I worship this God Who instructed Israel, "You are not to leave even one person alive in the cities of these nations that the Lord your God is about to give you as an inheritance." (Deut 20:16).
--Can I worship a God Who would allow wayward Israel to reap what they had sown through their rebellion and sinfulness, even when it meant eating their own children, "You will eat your children, the flesh of your sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you... the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities." (Deut 28:53-57).

So many of us think we know God, but in reality we only know the version of Him we've made up in our own mind.  The god in our mind feels so real, so familiar, but it is really only our own self delusion.  You will know that you are worshiping the god of your own mind when he neatly fits within the paradigms of your own understanding.  When nothing about him contradicts the way you choose to live your life.  When he requires you to make no changes within yourself or your lifestyle.  When he could actually be a she, because it doesn't really matter whether God expresses Himself as male or female, right?  For so many who claim to be God's people, God is whatever they want Him to be.  Which means that when we control our own understanding of God and how He expresses Himself, He is no longer God because we have replaced His authority with our own.

I had earnestly asked God to reveal Himself to me, and His answer brought me to a place of decision, a fork in the road of my faith-- "Can I worship God as He truly is....the God of infinite grace, terrifying judgment and eternal consequences?  Can I worship a God that requires me to forsake the world and die to myself?"  I had to ask myself this because when I became a Christian, I accepted Jesus as my Savior but never really understood what it meant for Him to also be Lord of my life.  I had to ask myself this because I grew up in a nation that worships their own version of God.  I grew up in a nation that romanticizes relationships-- we want all the lovely parts but are quick to bail out when we get to the ugly ones.  We want all ups and no downs.  We want to stay in the honeymoon phase. 

 

The problem is, that the honeymoon phase won't carry us through trials, challenges, tribulation and suffering.  Only a real relationship with a solid commitment, not based on fleeting emotions or flawed assumptions, can withstand the brutal storms of this life.  And when you are in a real relationship with someone, you know that person intimately and you love them wholly and completely, the lovely and the ugly.  You love them at their best and you love them still, at their worst.  When you are in a real relationship with a solid commitment, you are in it for the long haul, you have made up your mind, you have set your face like flint, and nothing stands a chance of coming in between you and the one you love.  You have counted the cost, and still consider it a worthy investment. 

 

"Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame." (Isaiah 50:7)

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and count the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?  For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, 'This person began to build and wasn't able to finish'...In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples." (Luke 14:28-33)

"You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart." (Jer 29:13)

"And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve Him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever." (1 Chron 28:9)

 

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought that field.  Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it." (Matt 13:44-46)

The 0.01%

As I continue my study of the Book of Jeremiah, my endearment for the prophet grows.  I long to travel back in time and sit across from him, holding his hands in mine, looking into his sorrowful and fretful eyes and tell him, "I understand you."  I want to tell him, "I get it."  You see, Jeremiah was the last prophet God sent to the nation of Israel before He brought judgment against them.  He was the last voice crying out to his countrymen for repentance, before God utterly destroyed them for their rebellion. 

At that time, the people of Israel defined their relationship with God by their lukewarm religious effort, rather than any consistent personal pursuit of His presence.  They were more-so Jews in concept, rather than Jews in actual practice.  They had adopted many of the customs of their pagan neighbors, to the point that you couldn't tell apart most Jews in that day from their pagan neighbors.  Their worship of God consisted of a watered-down, perverted version of the actual precepts God had given them to live by.  Similar to today, the way most Christians live their lives, you can't really tell apart believers from unbelievers.  Similar to many Christians today, the Israelites reasoned that they were part of the nation that God called His own, they were descendants of Abraham, they were God's people, He would never bring judgment upon them, no matter how they lived their lives.  But one of the problems with spiritual nakedness is that a person thinks they belong to God simply by association, rather than by personal relationship.  And any personal relationship they might have with God consists mostly of outward religious acknowledgment, rather than any inward spiritual change.

2500 years later, Christianity has come full circle, right back to where our spiritual predecessors found themselves before their nation was utterly destroyed by God's judgment upon them.  Scripture tells us that Israel is to be an example to us, "Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did... Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.  Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." (1 Cor 10:5-12).

Jeremiah is called "The Weeping Prophet" because he not only knew of God's impending judgment, but also because no matter how hard he tried, the people would not listen.  Israel had become so used to being around sin, so used to compromise, that most of them couldn't see any reason for them to repent.  They lived busy, bustling lives that focused more on themselves than on God--which is idolatry in its most base form.  They stopped putting God first and replaced Him with an image they had made up of Him in their own mind.  A god that would not make them feel guilty or convict them of sin.  They worshiped the image of God they had made up in their own mind, rather than Who God actually is-- this is another form of idolatry. 

At that time, the Israelites lived lives that were almost completely devoid of any real sense of God's fearsome wrath toward rebellion and sin.  And as history records, God finally gave them over to their idolatry and spiritual nakedness and by the time Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah in 586 B.C., the Israelites had resorted to cannibalism--eating their own children to stay alive--during the two-year long siege against Jerusalem.  The last king of Jerusalem was forced to watch his own sons executed, before having his eyes gouged out so the last thing he would ever see was the death of his own sons.

I get Jeremiah because he was given the task of delivering an unpopular and convicting message that caused him mental and emotional anguish.  Not only because of its dooming and negative quality, but also because his message made him despised by his own people.  Jeremiah prophesied during a time that everyone did what they thought was right in their own eyes and his constant warning of judgment annoyed them.  I get Jeremiah because he prophesied during a time in which his countrymen, those who were supposed to be his brothers and sisters in the Lord, saw him as their enemy simply because he spoke truth. 

No one wanted to hear anything Jeremiah had to say because they had no desire to examine themselves or the way they were living their lives because their spiritual nakedness gave them a false sense of security.  99.9% of the people in Jeremiah's day made excuses for why they allowed spiritual compromise into their life, rather than humbling themselves in obedience to God's holy standard.  It takes great humility and strength of character to pray, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me...  point out anything in me that offends You, and lead me along the path of everlasting life." (Psalm 139:23,24).  Only about 0.01% have the humility and strength to pray such a prayer and submit to God's answer.  Be the 0.01%.

"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matt 7:14)

"You will be hated by everyone on account of My name, but the one who endures to the end will be saved." (Matt 10:22)

"At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved." (Matt 24:10-13)

"But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.  For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:34-36)

"For it is time for judgment to begin with the house of God, and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?  And if it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?" (1 Peter 4:17,18)

Funyuns And Skittles

Imagine someone that eats only once a week.  They are starving throughout the whole week and the only day they can eat, they eat a bag of Funyuns and a handful of Skittles.  It may be enjoyable to eat and taste good going down, but there is almost zero nutritional value and it isn't going to keep you full for very long.  This is the sort of empty-calorie fulfillment that is offered in many churches today.  Churches that are more about "program" than they are about worship.  And contrary to popular belief, "worship" is not singing along with the church band for the obligatory 3 or 4 songs before the next activity on the usual one-hour Sunday program.  Songs can be a form of praise, but only if done with the right heart, motives and intentions.

I recently read a quote that said, "A church can have all the programs in the world, but if the people aren't changing, all you have is religion....a show on Sunday."  All you have are Funyuns and Skittles.  Which means, no matter how well intended or implemented, all the church programs in the world will never fulfill the deep longing of the human soul for spiritual intimacy with their Creator through personal worship.  Yet, that is what so many people in the church clamor for nowadays.  They want a church that has a lot of good programs, good entertainment, and all sorts of fun and interesting activities for families and children.  Christians are spiritually starving and they are trying to fill themselves with the spiritual equivalent of Funyuns and Skittles.  That is, if they even bother to go to church at all.

In Milton's poem "Lycidas", he says, "The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed."  To this, A.W. Tozer said, "It is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the kingdom, to see God's children starving while actually seated at the Father's table....To great sections of the Church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the 'program.'  This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us....For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in [daily] personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth."

The Apostle Paul said we should hunger for spiritual meat, but most people in the church are too distracted by the world and thus, content with their spiritual milk.  Spiritual milk doesn't force us to contemplate how we are living our lives, neither does it compel us to examine our faith, this is because spiritual milk is easy to digest, no chewing involved, just a little sip here and a little sip there.  It's as easy on our conscience as it is on our digestion, because in either case, not much effort is expended or involved.  Spiritual milk is a better fit for our busy, bustling lives because we can close it up in a container and carry it around with us as we go about our business.  Some of us don't even bother to put it in a nice glass, 'cuz we're way too busy for that, just pour it in a to-go cup with a lid and a straw and we're good for the week.  You can survive on spiritual milk, but you can't spiritually mature on it. 

The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that he couldn't even speak to them about the deeper spiritual things because they were still babies, only able to sip milk, unable to bear solid spiritual food because they were still too worldly.  Spiritual meat is harder to digest and you have to chew on it a while before you can swallow it.  If you take too big of a bite at one time, you could even choke.  Spiritual meat is not a convenient, pre-packaged grab-and-go meal.  Spiritual meat requires an  investment of your time, your effort and your attention.  The American version of Christianity requires just a once-a-week investment of your time and virtually no investment of your effort and attention because we are too busy with our own lives to bother with God's kingdom.  We are too busy stuffing our face with Funyuns and Skittles.

"Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly--mere infants in Christ.  I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready.  You are still worldly." (1 Cor 3:1-3)

"About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.  In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again, and you have become those having need of milk and not strong meat!  For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.  But strong meat is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." (Heb 5:11-14)

"Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity," (Heb 6:1)

Concept Christianity

All my life I imagined heaven as a blissful place, where there would be no hardship, no tears and no pain.  A place where I could live out the rest of eternity in complete personal satisfaction, doing only things that were interesting and fun and made me happy.  All my own happy things, in all my personal happiness.  Then I ruined that blissful image I had made up in my own mind when I read the Bible.  Because it was then that I learned that the heaven described in the Bible is not the heaven I had always anticipated. 

I've said this before and I will say it again, when you read the Bible in Its entirety, you are forced to reconcile all the misconceptions about God and Jesus that permeate the church today because people aren't reading their Bibles.  You don't have to read the Bible to be saved in Jesus Christ, but it should be considered required reading for all Christians that desire to love and follow God with all their heart, their soul, their mind and their strength (Luke 10:27) and to properly interact and function within the Body of Christ (2 Tim 3:16,17).  If the Holy Spirit is truly in you, and you read the Bible in genuine submission to It, then the very act of reading it will serve to refine you as a believer. 

One of the first things you learn about heaven when you read what God has to tell us about it, is that we will be praising and worshiping Him for all eternity.  We tend to make heaven all about us, but in all actuality, heaven is all about God.  I remember the first time I read, "..they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple." (Rev 7:14,15).  When I read this I was like, "Whaaa...?  Day and night?  Serving God?  Seriously?  For.. All.. Eter..nity....?"  For real?

I gotta be totally honest, at the time I read that, I was kinda bummed.  That didn't sound fun and interesting to me at all because in my version of heaven, I was the one being served.  In my version of heaven, I did whatever I wanted, day and night, for all eternity.  I liked the part that said, "Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst....and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Rev 7:16,17).  I liked the part that said, "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city." (Rev 22:14).  But I wasn't so crazy about, "The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him." (Rev 22:3).  I wanted to be in this glorious city, but I wanted to be in it on my own terms, doing my own thing.  But there it was in black and white:  If I was going to be in heaven, I wouldn't be there to do my own thing, I would be there to serve and worship God.  For all eternity.

Facing this truth forced me to ask myself many things, one of which being, "Am I following God because of religion, or am I following Him for a relationship?"  Was I really even following God at all?  Or was He more of an idea to me, than an actual person Who I was supposed to be interacting with on a daily basis?  I also had to consider the fact that if praising and serving God for all eternity sounded boring and tedious and no fun at all, then it made my lack of a genuine, personal relationship with Him glaringly obvious.  Another thing I was forced to ask myself was, "Is the love I thought I had for God, actually just my love for all the other things that are supposed to come along with Him-- not only here on earth, but also in heaven?"  I had to ask myself, "If I am not living a life that eagerly praises and worships God here, then why would I think I would want to do it in heaven?" 

Truly, God desires to give us good things, but first and foremost God's deepest desire for us is to pursue and have an intimate relationship with Him.  This is the very reason for which we were made.  The whole purpose of the creation of human beings was because God desired to have children He could have an eternal relationship with.  Children that would love and obey Him by their own free will, because they choose to love and obey Him.  And because we were designed and created for this singular and sole purpose, nothing else could ever be heaven for us, nothing else could ever truly fill us with eternal joy and bliss, except to love Him, to praise Him, and to serve Him.

Scripture says that heaven is inconceivably wonderful, we are told that "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him." (1 Cor 2:9).  However, if  the thought of praising God and serving Him for all eternity while we are there doesn't fill us with joyful anticipation, then it should serve as a litmus test for where we're at in our walk of faith.  For me, it was the wake-up call I needed to once-and-for-all get serious about my own faith-- to be a Christian in practice, rather than just a Christian in concept. 

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.' " (Rev 21:1-4).

Christ In You

I'm sorry that my blog seems so bleak at times.  I really am, but I cannot, and will never, peddle the word of God for profit like so many of those in ministry today.  I will never be one of those popular ministers that claims "victory over you in the name of Jesus!" or tells you how financially prosperous God surely wants you to be.  There are too many in the church today that clamor for such messages that soothe their ears, while the world falls into anarchy and destruction all around them.

Messages of God's abundant grace and spiritual inspiration to even the most lukewarm believer can be found today through no great effort, but messages about God's fearsome wrath toward sin are far and few between.  The reason we find ourselves in today's wanton and licentious culture is because the church, as a whole, has utterly lost its reverential fear and awe of the holy God it claims to serve.  We have sex outside of marriage, we have multiple divorces, we gossip and slander, we lust after money, we lust after our own image, we lust after comfort, we lust after entertainment, we praise God on Sunday and fall into indifference, distraction and self-pursuit the rest of the week.  And when I say "we" I'm not talking about the world, I'm talking about the church.  And then we cry out to God about men being able to use women's restrooms, like we don't have any idea how we reached this point of insanity. 

Things are going to get worse, I wish I didn't have to say that, but I do because that truth is like a fire in my bones.  Judgment is coming to this nation and our phones, Facebook, favorite music interests, favorite TV shows, makeup, fashionable clothes, favorite movies and movie stars, and all the numerous other frivolous and wasteful ways we spend our time, energy and attention, are not going to save us and neither will they matter when the gavel hits the bench.  Neither will our religious methodology or degrees or endless programs or denominational busy-work.  

When Jesus was asked, "Teacher, which commandment is the greatest in the Law?"  He responded, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment." (Matt 22:36-38).  When we love God with all our heart, soul and mind, there is no room for anything else.  However, such correctly-directed love enables us to correctly distribute it to everything else in our life.  Now is the time to fall on our face before the holy and awesome God we claim to worship, to humble ourselves and repent of all the things that we have allowed to take His rightful place in our lives.  Now is the time to stop following Christ with a divided heart-- one half devoted to personal pursuits, the other half reaching out towards God.  Now is the time to empty our hands and minds which are full of the things of the world.  We are drowning in idolatry, blind to our own spiritual nakedness-- that is my message and I'm sorry no one wants to hear it, but it must be said.  We are in the time of the wise and foolish virgins and I plead with everyone to fill your lamps. 

Right now, the burden upon my spirit is to speak repentance and to encourage all those who claim Christ to come out of the world (Rev 18:3-5).  The only words of hope I can give are to those that desire to turn away from their sin and put their faith in Jesus Christ.  And those words of hope are the glorious spiritual riches of "Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Col 1:27).  I proclaim Christ, and I admonish, counsel, teach and warn everyone in all wisdom, to present every person complete in Christ, "For this purpose I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me." (Col 1:28,29).  Let us all live lives worthy of our calling and stop living lives that take the precious blood of Christ for granted.

"Christ is enough.  To have Him and nothing else is to be rich beyond conceiving." A.W. Tozer

"...that is the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.  We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.  For this purpose I also labor, striving according to His power which mightily works within me." (Col 1:26-29)

"To the angel of the Church in Laodicea write:  'These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation.
I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish you were either one or the other!  So because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor old-- 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.
Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline.  So be earnest and repent.  Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with Me.'" (Rev 3:14-20)

"'For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries.  The kings of the earth have committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.'  Then I heard another voice from heaven say:  'Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.'" (Rev 18:3-5)

Not For The Faint Of Heart

I never want to convince someone that they need Christ.  If I lead someone to Christ, I want it to be because I presented the Gospel to them and the Holy Spirit convinced them that they needed salvation.  That is the only way a person can come to true repentance, "For no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them to Me, and at the last day I will raise them up." (John 6:44).  No matter how convincing my words may be, they will never pierce someone's soul.  Convincing someone of my beliefs will not serve as the daily spiritual food that they need.  Only Christ can be the spiritual food we need, because only Christ can take up residence in a person's heart and make the changes in their understanding and perceptions that are necessary to transform a person, "Then Jesus declared, 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty." (John 6:35).  Christ must take precedence over all things, including the way we present the Gospel.

When you read the Gospels, you become aware that Jesus never persuaded anyone to believe in Him.  Jesus didn't woo, entice or lure people to follow Him.  He presented the truth, sometimes in all its naked glory and sometimes He made it relatable in the form of a parable, but either way, He simply presented truth and allowed the person to become fully convinced in their own mind.  One thing that becomes starkly apparent when you read the Gospels is that Jesus never chased anyone, but on the contrary, many times He made it seem difficult, at times even impossible, to be His disciple and follow Him:

-"On hearing this, Jesus told him, 'You still lack one thing: Sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.'" (Luke 18:22)

-"Then He said to them all: 'Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me.'" (Luke 9:23)

-"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)

-"In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be My disciples." (Luke 14:33)

-"Indeed, it is easier for a camel to pass through an eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Luke 18:25)

-"You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you will be put to death. And you will be hated by everyone because of My name." (Luke 21:16,17)

-"Then will they hand you over to be persecuted and killed, and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name." (Matt 24:9)

You see, Jesus wasn't looking for half-hearted, lukewarm commitment. Scripture says, "The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him." (2 Chron 16:9).  Jesus was looking for those who were hungry for righteousness and thirsty for truth. Jesus sought those whose hearts would be fully committed to Him, who were willing to leave everything, just to be in His presence and learn from Him.  He made it clear that following Him wasn't just a one-day-a-week commitment.  He made it clear that those who wanted to follow Him must be willing to forsake this world and everything in it.  Jesus didn't cheapen the message of salvation by making it seem appealing to those who didn't want to come out of the world. 

The Gospel of salvation has eternal implications, saving those who receive it from eternal spiritual death.  The Gospel is serious business and Jesus took it very seriously.  This is something the church today, as a whole, seems to have lost.  Many churches today try to appeal to the culture by mimicking it.  They think they need to attract the world by using the things of the world.  They attempt to use a bait-and-switch tactic by dumbing-down the Gospel and try to present It in a way that seems non-threatening, when the whole premise of the Gospel message is indeed threatening-- death to self, admitting you are a sinner, carrying your cross, coming out of the world, perpetual repentance and turning away from sinful desires.  We shy away from telling the culture we are trying to reach that they must forsake sin and that they must repent.  Without forsaking sin and without genuine, daily repentance, there can be no transformation by the Holy Spirit.

The Gospel is not for the faint of heart.  It is not for those who want Jesus to meet them halfway.  Truly, a person can choose salvation no matter what depths of depravity and sinfulness they may be at in their life, but they cannot stay there. The moment the Holy Spirit takes up residence in the soul of a human being, they are propelled forward, out of the slimy pit and the mud and the mire, God graciously setting their feet upon the rock of salvation, Christ Jesus.  Yes, the Gospel is a threatening message to sinners, but it is a message of hope and redemption to those who choose salvation through it. 

"I waited patiently for the LORD; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the LORD and put their trust in Him." (Psalm 40:1-3)

Lift your head weary sinner, the river's just ahead
Down the path of forgiveness, salvation's waiting there
You built a mighty fortress 10,000 burdens high
Love is here to lift you up, here to lift you high

If you're lost and wandering
Come stumbling in like a prodigal child
See the walls start crumbling
Let the gates of glory open wide

All who've strayed and walked away, unspeakable things you've done
Fix your eyes on the mountain, let the past be dead and gone
Come all saints and sinners, you can't outrun God
Whatever you've done can't overcome the power of the blood

The Shield Of Obedience

What you sow in disobedience, you will reap in spiritual warfare.  When we live lives of disobedience to God and His word, we make ourselves more vulnerable to the schemes of the enemy.  We expose areas of our lives that he would not have been given access to, under normal circumstances.  God says, "Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you." (Jer 7:23).  Which means when we walk in disobedience, it will not go well with us because we step out from underneath the spiritual covering God gives to those who are obedient and make ourselves vulnerable to the enemy.  Scripture says, "For it is You who blesses the righteous man, O Lord, You surround him with favor as with a shield." (Psalm 5:12).  To step out in disobedience, is to step out from behind God's protective shield.

Often times, it our own choices that bring us into the trenches of spiritual warfare.  Often times, it is our own choices of disobedience that pull us further away from God and make our ears deaf to His voice.  Then, when the bottom starts to fall out in our circumstances and chaos and sorrow ensues in our lives, we cry out, "Why is this happening to me?  God, why did you let this happen?"  Unbeknownst to us, it is our own disobedient choices that have allowed an entire host of demonic activity to enter into our circumstances and wreak havoc in our lives.  God told Cain, "if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it." (Gen 4:7).  They crouch in the dark corners of rebellion, stubbornness and disobedience, waiting for us to give them a foothold into our lives.

What you sow in obedience, you will reap in peace and truth.  The more you pray and study God's word, the more obedient you will become.  And the more obedient you are to the Holy Spirit, the more understanding you will have of God's word.  The more clearly you will hear God's voice and the more sensitive you will become to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Scripture says, "Yet if you devote your heart to Him and stretch out your hands to Him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then, free of fault, you will lift up your face; you will stand firm and without fear. (Job 11:14,15).  For the most part, those who consistently hold on to their peace in the midst of fiery trials, are those who have established an intimate relationship with God through prayer and consistent study of His word. 

Spiritual warfare is real and it is happening all around us, all the time, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Eph 6:12).  Our enemy uses people and circumstances in an unceasing effort to get us off-track of our spiritual maturity and development, and to generally make our lives more complicated and disorderly.  And when we walk in disobedience, we foster an environment that allows the enemy to invade our lives.

"Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold." (Eph 4:26,27)

"Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8)

"Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?" (Rom 6:16)

"The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles." (Psalm 34:17)

"The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.  He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him; He hears their cry and saves them.  The LORD watches over all who love Him, but all the wicked he will destroy." (Psalm 145:18-20)