God wants nothing but the best for each person, and that includes you.
- God made you for His purposes, and His purpose is always good.
...God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 (NIV)
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good...Genesis 1:31 (NIV)
But Adam and Eve messed up God's plan by listening to lies and choosing the wrong way.
You and I followed the wrong way and messed up a lot of God's plans but that did not change God's heart towards us because...
... if a person isn't loving and kind, it shows that he doesn't know God—for GOD IS LOVE. 1 John 4:8 (TLB)
When we are not loving and kind, it does not change the character of God or the heart of God towards us.
- God is love and he made you because He loved you.
- He loved you before the creation of the world.
- He loved you when you were conceived and when you were born,
But what if you were conceived in the back seat of a car after your parents had too much to drink?
- That does not change the love of God for you.
What if your parents brought you up in witchcraft, and you were demon possessed as a small child?
- That doesn't change God's love for you. He doesn't blame you for what was done to you.
One of the most amazing characters in the Bible was a man with a terrible past.
- We don't know his name but when he first met Jesus, he was running around naked and cutting himself with stones. He was possessed by hundreds of devils, but he still had a human soul.
When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him.
He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me!" Mark 5:6-7 (NIV)
He was so confused, that he could not distinguish his own thoughts from the thoughts of the demons who controlled him, but he responded to Jesus with faith when the demons left him.
For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!"
Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many." Mark 5:8-9 (NIV)
After Jesus drove out the demons with a word of power, the man was restored to sanity and begged to be allowed to stay with Jesus.
As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Mark 5:18 (NIV)
But Jesus did an astonishing thing.
Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." Mark 5:19 (NIV)
But the man did far more than tell his family.
So the man started off to visit the Ten Towns of that region and began to proclaim the great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed at what he told them. Mark 5:20 (NLT)
After Jesus healed a totally insane and demon possessed man, He immediately commissioned him to go and tell his story to a whole region.
- He became the evangelist for ten towns.
Before this man began to preach, the people asked Jesus to leave them.
- When Jesus returned later, great crowds followed Him and many people came to faith in the Son of God.
It may be that you have also been rejected and bullied. You may have been tormented by illness, depression or even demonised by involvement in witchcraft, drugs or sexual abuse.
Whatever your story might be, you are important in God’s eyes. He wants to give you a future and a hope.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV)
Daniel was thrown into the lions' den but God shut the mouth of the lions.
- We must trust God in difficult times but passive faith is no good at all. It is useless to say: "God is in charge," because God expects us to take a stand.
But we must not love our causes more than we love people.
“But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. Luke 6:27-28 (NLT)
Jesus warned that in the dark days before His return, THE LOVE OF MANY WILL GROW COLD.
- One of the reasons is bitterness and unforgiveness, even between Christians and Christians.
- Another reason is a wrong focus, concentrating on building ministries and organisations rather than loving and knowing Jesus and hungering for more of His Spirit, more of His love, more of His presence and more of His supernatural power in our lives.
- Yet another reason is emphasising submission to church leaders rather than each believer knowing, loving and obeying Jesus for himself.
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. John 10:27-28 (NKJV)
- Yet another reason is lukewarmness.
I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Revelation 3:15-16 (NKJV)
However, there are many Christians who are not at all lukewarm but very zealous.
BUT, they love truth more than they love God.
- They love biblical correctness more than they love Christians who disagree with them.
- They love causes more than they love God or people.
- They may love Israel but if they know Jews, the Jews may not feel warm human love.
- They may hate racism but they may not make their black neighbours feel loved.
- They hate abortion but they also hate abortionists.
- Maybe you are zealous to heal the sick but do sick people feel loved when you minister to them, even if they are not healed?
GOD IS LOVE.
Their love is cold because it is not personal.
We do not live in normal times.
The American Government has partly shut down. Two weeks from now, the US government will not be able to pay its bills if the current deadlock between Democrats and Republicans is not broken quickly.
In normal times the USA was a Christian country where Republican Party and the Democratic Party both stood for democratic freedom, Christianity, human rights, the rule of law and free market capitalism.
- Fifty or sixty years ago, American politicians agreed more than they disagreed. They knew how to settle differences by negotiations.
Then came the Vietnam War, the Hippie movement, the extreme youth culture, the Black Power movement, the Gay Rights movement, abortion on demand and the prohibition of prayer in schools and government institutions.
They say that what is right is wrong and what is wrong is right; that black is white and white is black; bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. Isaiah 5:20 (TLB)
In ancient Persia, enemies of the Jewish Prophet Daniel made a law forbidding prayer.
But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God. Daniel 6:10 (NLT)
Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den but God shut the mouth of the lions.
We must trust God in difficult times but passive faith is no good at all. It is useless to say: “God is in charge,” because God expects us to take a stand.
PLEASE UNDERSTAND. This is a NOT a political tract for the Tea Party.
Not all of the social revolution was bad.
- Many white Christian conservatives today honour Martin Luther King. Even in Alabama, many white veterans of the Vietnam War have a healthy respect for their black American countrymen, partly because of the success of the Black Civil Rights movement and partly because of their experience of comradeship with African Americans in battle.
Then Peter began to speak: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favouritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. Acts 10:34-35 (NIV)
The feminist revolution has also had its positive as well as its negative aspects.
- The cultural revolutions of the last fifty years were absolutely necessary to restore women and racial minorities to their proper place, not only in society but in Christian churches.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 (NIV)
Multiculturalism has also has its good and bad sides. Racism was like a cancer in North America, Europe and in the countries of the former British Empire.
- However, when the dark spirits lurking behind Islam and other religions are given a place of honour next to or above Jesus and the God of Israel, then we know the hour of the Anti-Christ is not far away.
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. John 14:6 (NKJV)
Some say the Anti-Christ will enforce militant Islam and others say he will invent his own religion to seduce believers from all faiths.
- But he will reject the Good News of Jesus who died to give you and me the free gift of God’s forgiveness and eternal life.
- He will persecute all who stand for Jesus the Jewish Messiah and the only Son of God.
The spirit of Anti-Christ is already very strong and active in the world.
- There is a false tolerance which welcomes all faiths except the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
- There is also a dark alliance between political correctness, which claims to be tolerant, and militant Islam, which makes no attempt to respect the rights of women or of other religions.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- which is really no gospel at all.
Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. Galatians 1:6-7 (NIV)
There is no middle way between the Way of Jesus and the popular beliefs of this world, either the secular beliefs or the so called World Religions.
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! Galatians 1:8 (NIV)
Why do militant Muslims kill themselves in suicide bomb attacks?
Because they have no hope in life except for the paradise promised by their religion for martyrs.
If they live a normal religious life, they live in fear that they will not be good enough to escape hell fire.
- Their only assurance of paradise is to die a martyr's death.
But they do not die only for themselves.
- They believe that when they die a violent death, their martyr's blood will also ransom their loved ones and kinsmen from hell.
They also lay down their lives for the future of the world.
- By dying for the cause of Islam, they are contributing to the conquest of the world for Allah.
They die in hope for the day when every human being will live in Dar-es-Salaam, the House of Peace, a time when every person will be at peace because everyone will be Muslim.
- Islamic martyrs die like this because they have no other faith and no other hope.
Muslims also respect Jesus.
They revere him as a great prophet of Islam, a forerunner of Mohammed, the messenger of Allah.
- Jesus appears in the Qur’an as the “son of Miriam” (Mary). The Qur’an speaks of Jesus (or Isa) as a worker of miracles and healings.
Nevertheless, the miracle working Isa is not the Jesus of the Bible.
- In the Qur’an, Isa did not die on the cross. He was not even an Islamic martyr.
He was a holy prophet who was taken up into heaven and another man took his place and died on the cross.
- The Islamic Jesus did not die to ransom us from hell. The only blood that can ransom Muslims from hell is the blood of Islamic martyrs who die a violent death in holy warfare against unbelievers.
When we read the Bible, we see an entirely different Jesus.
- Jesus was not only the son of Mary but also the Son of God. Luke’s Gospel tells us how the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary.
But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.
- He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. Luke 1:30-32 (NIV)
Mary was astonished. She could not understand what it meant that Jesus would be the Son of God, a baby without a human father.
The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
- So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Luke 1:35 (NIV)
In the mind of Muslims, this is blasphemy. Allah, the God of the Qur’an, is not a father and has no sons.
- To the Muslim mind, Christians must believe Mary had sex with God but this is not what the Bible says.
In the Bible, as in the Qur’an, Jesus was taken up into heaven.
- However, there is an enormous difference.
Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he died on the cross, not as a violent warrior but as a man of peace, the perfect Son of God, offering His blood to God to ransom us from hell.
The Muslim martyrs shed their blood to pay a ransom to Allah for their own sins and the sins of their families.
But Jesus had no sins of His own. He shed His blood so that even His enemies could be forgiven by God and receive the free gift of eternal life.
There is another vital difference between Jesus and Muslim martyrs.
- Muslims believe their martyrs go straight to heaven but the suicide bombers never return to their families to confirm this.
Three days after Jesus died, he returned from the grave and spent forty days with his disciples and friends. Only then was He taken into heaven.
All but one disciple was murdered for his faith in the resurrection.
- Men do not die bravely for a lie.
Jesus said ... "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
- Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26 (NIV)
"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." Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)
If you have been a church goer, you will be familiar with these words of Jesus.
You have probably heard a minister, a pastor or priest preaching from this text. It is often used as an appeal for people to put their faith in Jesus and commit their lives to God.
The tragic reality is that it is often the preacher who is most in need of this text himself.
Do a Google search for “pastors burnout rate” and you will find the horrible facts.
- Why are huge numbers of pastors underpaid, neglected, mistreated and abused by professing Christian church members?
- Why do some pastors overreact by becoming religious dictators and spiritual control freaks?
- Why are so many pastors leaving the ministry?
- Why do so many preachers’ children give up Christian faith?
- Why do we so often hear of Catholic priests who abuse children?
The sad reality is that for close to 1700 years, Christians have fallen into a very damaging form of idolatry.
Priests and preachers have been elevated to a position which rightfully belongs only to Jesus.
Does this mean we should no longer have any full time preachers or church leaders?
I am not suggesting that. There were some full time preachers in the New Testament and God blessed them.
However, the enormous superhuman expectations we place on full time preachers are quite wrong.
In New Testament times, the apostles and some other preachers led the church but much of the work of ministry was done by the so called ordinary believers.
- So many Catholic priests are destroyed by the false expectations of celibacy and unlimited duty of service.
- So many sincere Christians are crushed by the unbiblical expectation that they should unconditionally obey human church leaders.
- So many pastors are destroyed by being expected to know everything, do everything and control everybody and everything.
I am not suggesting that we completely walk away from every known form of church organisation. Christian groups which do that often become exclusive religious cults which destroy people even more effectively than unhealthy traditional churches.
It is time for Christians everywhere to rise up and be what the Bible says we are, a brotherhood of priests and spiritual kings, respecting genuine full time preachers and working with them to extend the Kingdom of God.
"'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Acts 2:17 (NIV)
Inspired spiritual ministry is the calling of all believers.We must not unconditionally submit to any man on earth.
"But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Matthew 23:8-9 (NIV)
On the other hand, we have no right to treat a pastor as an easy target to be exploited or bullied.
The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 1 Timothy 5:17 (NIV)
The context shows that double honour does not mean unconditional obedience and submission to a separate and superior class of priests.
The true meaning is that we owe respect, appreciation and generous financial support to genuine and gifted preachers who serve well.
Elders who do their work well should be respected and paid well, especially those who work hard at both preaching and teaching. 1 Timothy 5:17 (NLT)
So what is the answer? We are all like sheep who need a shepherd.
Are you frustrated with routine prayer and bible study?
Have you ever gone for a quiet walk in the park and expected God to speak to your heart? Why not start today?
There are deep longings inside you. There must be something more to life. Something in you says:
“Is that all there is?”
Here and there some light bursts through the clouds of routine life and daily frustrations. Music lifts you up; a friend cheers you up; you enjoy some breakthrough or achievement; you fall in love or you have a baby.
But then the daily wear and tear returns and in some quiet moment the voice inside whispers again:
Where does this question come from?
- Where did you get the idea that there could be something far better than what you experience and what you see around you?
Every day you see unbearable tragedy. It is on the TV news every evening. You watch it but you only feel a little of the agony.
We are numb. Death is always there but we push it away. It is somewhere else. It is someone else.
From time to time we go to a funeral.
Somehow we feel there must be another world. That loved one must be somewhere up there looking down. It is so hard to believe in a final end.
“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes..” and that little voice asks again,
“Is that all there is?”
Some people try very hard to believe there is actually nothing more.
They make up a new religion called “ATHEISM.” That means NO-GOD-ism.
- It is so hard to believe in nothing but atoms and things, so hard that those people cannot find words to define their belief without using that word GOD, the God who loves them, the God they don’t want to believe in.
There was a young Jewish man in Romania. He was an atheist.
The faith of his forefathers made no sense to him. But he had an empty place in his soul. He had a spiritual hunger inside. One day he saw some traditional Christians in a church service and something inside him was drawn like a magnet. He joined the praying believers out of curiosity, or so it seemed to him.
Then he prayed, if you could call it prayer.
- “Oh God. I don’t believe you exist but if you do exist, it is not my duty to believe in you but your duty to make yourself known to me. If you exist, please show yourself to me.”
He went his way, with his lonely heart still unsatisfied. That question was at the back of his mind.
“There must be more than this. Is this life all there is?”
He didn’t hear the voice but somewhere in his unconscious mind he felt it.
One day he was on a journey in the country. He stopped in a village and looked for a place to sleep. He asked an old man who invited him to stay with him.
This old man deeply loved Jesus and for years he had cried out to God. He had prayed over and over for the blessing of leading a Jewish man to faith in the Jewish Messiah.
- When he discovered his young guest was Jewish, he burned with excitement. He treated his guest with the respect and kindness due to a king or to his own son. Then he gave the young man a Bible to read.
When the young man read the Bible, he felt such a love and such a spiritual power that he could not stop weeping. Jesus appeared in the stories as the most wonderful person he ever knew or could ever know.
If you have some doubts about God, why not challenge God Himself to make Himself known.
- If you are sincerely hungry for reality, he will hear you.
Are you willing to let the reality of God change your life? That is the question.
Jesus said:
"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26 (NIV)
When Martin Luther translated the Word of God into the language of his day, he was inspired by a Bible text which we still hold dear. THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.
Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." Galatians 3:11 (NIV)
If you could keep the commandments of God perfectly, you would be like Jesus Himself, the only eternal Son of God who came down from heaven.
- Jesus is the only human being in history who determined the time of His own birth. He was the eternal companion of the Heavenly Father who chose to become one of us, so He could save us from our mess.
Jesus lived in perfect love, perfect faith, perfect goodness and obedience to God. No other human being has ever done that.
- We cannot please God by our good works.
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. Isaiah 64:6 (NIV)
- We can only please God by humbly recognising our need for His mercy.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8-9 (NKJV)
God is just, so evil must be punished but God sent His son to suffer the punishment we deserved.
When Jesus died on the cross, He suffered the torment and death that God’s justice requires for our sins.
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 (NKJV)
IT IS FINISHED
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NASB)
This message sounds old fashioned to many in sophisticated post-Christian Western society but in China, Africa, Indonesia and even in the Middle East it is quite different.
- Hundreds of millions of people are embracing this truth of God.
- People are discovering Jesus is God’s only answer to our problems.
In the philosophical movement we call The Enlightenment, French, German and some British intellectuals taught us to believe in reason, to believe in human goodness, to believe in science, to believe in progress.
What was the immediate result of this movement? The savage butchery of the French Revolution.
Modern humanism has led us down a blind alley to post-modern chaos. Post-modern thinkers no longer believe we can know ultimate truth. They teach that all human beliefs in truth are subjective and incomplete at best. My truth is a good as your truth.
- The word TRUTH itself has become as devalued as our inflated currencies.
- Words like FAMILY, JUSTICE, MARRIAGE or GOD can mean almost anything you want them to mean.
Most people respect Jesus as a man and as a teacher, even if most people have not seriously read and considered what He actually did and said.
Matthew 7:24-27 (ESV) “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
- And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
- And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6 (ESV)
