My Trust is In the Lord

One thing the devil likes to do is destroy our joy. Jesus said the devil seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. He seeks to steal our peace, kill our joy, and destroy our faith. One way he does this is try to convince us that we have lost our salvation (or he tries to convince us that we were not saved to begin with).  However, the Bible tells us differently.             When the devil tried to test my faith, the Lord comforted me. He reminded me about Ephesians 2:8-10. We are saved by grace through faith and not of works nor of ourselves. It is the gift of God. What that means to me is that since I didn’t do anything to save myself; I can’t do anything to lose my salvation.
            When Jesus died, He indeed paid it all. He lived for me the life I could not live and died for me the death I could not die. When I put my trust in Him, God accredited to me the life that Christ live and placed upon Him my sins. When God sees me, He doesn’t see me but Christ. He sees the life Christ lived not the life I live. That doesn’t mean that God is ignorant of what I do. It means that He doesn’t hold what I do against me because Jesus already paid the penalty. Yet, fellowship with God is broken because of our sin; however, when we repent and ask God for forgiveness, fellowship can be restored.
            God then reminded me of Romans 8:1-2 which tells us that there is now no condemnation (judgment) to those who are in Christ Jesus, who live not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. The law of the Spirit of life has set us free from the spirit of the law. We are not under the law; we are under grace. Therefore, the law no longer applies to us. Jesus fulfilled the law on our behalf. Jesus did not come to do away with the Law but to fulfill the Law, which He did for us.
            The Bible says all we need to do is call upon the Lord and He will save us. That means all we have to do is ask Him to help us, to save us, to forgive us, and He will do so. Peter said that it is not God’s desire that any should perish (die eternally) but all to come to repentance. Jesus said that God gave His Son because He loved us and that if we believe in (have faith in) His Son we will not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus did not come into the world to judge the world but to save the world. He will save anyone who believes in Him. “To all that received Him, He gave the power to be called the children of God, even to those who just believed on His name.”
            Romans goes on to say in chapter 10, that if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. We believe with the heart and our confession leads to salvation. When we confess that Jesus is the Christ, we are agreeing with God that Jesus is His Son and that Jesus is the Savior. It is like when a criminal confesses to a crime. When he confesses, he is merely getting in agreement with what the police already know. When our hearts are in agreement with our mouths, something powerful happens. It’s not just a mouth thing. People can say anything but when they say it because they believe it, a change takes place.
            So, my trust is in the Lord. I know that I cannot save myself. It is He who loved me. It is He who set out to restore the breach in our relationship. It is He who made a way for me to be saved.  It is He who pursued me. It is He called me. It is He who saved me. It is He who will keep me saved. Paul said it like this, “I know in Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him until that Day.” Therefore, if I was counting on myself to keep myself saved then my faith would be in me and not in Him. Instead, my faith is in Christ and what He did on my behalf.
          Sola gratia…grace alone. Solus Christus...Christ alone.

America's Lost Legacy (Part 2)

The Lost Generation

I read an article the other day from CNN.com, called “More Teens Becoming ‘Fake’ Christians.” The article spoke on the subject of teens being false Christians in the church mainly because of false teachers teaching ‘easy believism’ and ‘cheap grace.’ They have become subscribers to the Joel Osteen and Robert Schuller philosophies of “I’m ok, you’re ok.” The article said that these youth believed that God wanted them to “feel good and do good.”

How did these young people go so far astray? It is because of us—the adults. First, they were taught false doctrine by followers of false doctrine. They latched onto these doctrines of demons because it tickled their ears and gave them something they could believe and make them feel good.

I believe there is also another reason for this shift. It is because the people of God have lost their passion for God. God’s people don’t have the zeal for Him they once had. They have succumbed to the cares and pressures of the world. Look at Sundays. Ballparks should shut down because of church. Ballparks should close during the times of worship due to lack of demand. Instead, churches are cancelling services for ball games. We have lost our passion for God; therefore, we no longer teach our children the truths of God.

The Bible supports this conclusion. The Book of Joshua describes how God led the children of Israel up to and into the Promised Land. Before crossing over the Jordan River, God had the Israelites place memorial stones in the Jordan River to serve as a reminder to all generations of His faithfulness and His providence. It was to remind the present and future generations that God brought them across the Jordan and into the Promised Land. Then, the change came.

The Book of Joshua concludes with the conquest of the land of Canaan and the dividing of the land among the twelve tribes. The Book of Judges begins where the Book of Joshua leaves off. It not only shows the dividing of the land, it shows the people of God losing their zeal for Him. God told them to go in and utterly (completely) destroy all the inhabitants of the land. He told them that if they did not do this, the Canaanite gods would become a snare for them and lead them away from Him. However, when the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they disobeyed the Lord and did not kill all the inhabitants, but kept some alive to serve as slaves. The Book of Judges begins with God chastising the Israelites for their disobedience. He told them that because they did not do as He commanded them, He would not drive them out of the land but would let them remain and they would become a thorn in their sides. He also told them that their gods would be a snare to them. Instead of obeying God, they did what they wanted to do, what was right in their own eyes.

Their loss of zeal for God not only led to disobedience in ridding the land of its inhabitants, it also led to idolatry. As God said, the gods of the inhabitants became a snare, a temptation, to them. This led to disobedience in the area of discipling their children. Idolatry caused the Israelites to forget the Lord their God. This is proven in Judges 2:10 which says, “When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the LORD nor the work which He had done for Israel.”

Like the Israelites of old, when we lose our zeal toward God, when we grow cold toward Him, we will fail to teach our children about Him. We will fail to tell them about Him and about what He has done for us. Because we have cooled in our passion for Him, we no longer see Him as relevant, as a necessity. God knew this would happen. This is why He told the Israelites, “Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. 20For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant (Deut. 31:19-20).”

Parents do not want to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord anymore. They say that they are too busy or it’s not their job. They justify their actions by saying, “I don’t want to impose my religious belief upon my children. I want them to make their own decision.” That is a lie straight from the devil. I know it is a lie from the devil because, first of all, the devil has no problem imposing his values upon our children. Through a secular-humanist education system, an anti-God media, and demon-influenced entertainment, he indoctrinates our children into ungodliness. In education, he teaches them that they evolved from nothing and may or may not evolve into nothing. Therefore, life is meaningless. Through the media, he tells them that those who worship God are fanatics who kill women and children to carry out their religious agenda. He shows them persecuting homosexuals, who only want to be treated as equals, and attacking the dignity women because they exercise their God-given right to abort their children. He uses entertainment to demean women, promote promiscuity, and introduce generations to the occult. Satan is systematically imposing his agenda upon our children. He leads them to believe that there is no God, and if there is, He doesn’t care about what they do.

This is what they learn in school, through entertainment venues, and sometimes, in the church. Then we wonder why people kill, steal, rape, embezzle, molest, and blaspheme without any fear of reprisal or consequence. They’ve been taught their whole lives that they don’t have to account to anyone. They’ve been taught this in the home, in the schools, and in the courts. At most, what they get is a slap on the wrist. There are no severe or eternal consequences for their actions. The live like the Rich Fool of Luke 12 who said, “eat, drink, and be merry,” because when life is over, it’s over.

Secondly, God expects you to impose your will upon your children. Your children were entrusted to you by God. They are His but you are their stewards, their caretakers. God just loaned them to you for season. God expects you to share your passion for Him with them. They will, in the end, make their own decisions but you should stack the deck in God’s favor. After Jesus finished speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, she went out and found everyone she could and told them that she had found the Messiah and invited them to come and see. When they arrived, the Bible says, “And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did” (John 4:39).” But after Jesus remained with them for two days teaching them, they told the woman, ““Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).”