Going To The Romans As The World . . .

 "But in the prophets of Yerushalayim I have seen a horrible thing — they commit adultery, live in lies, so encouraging evildoers that none returns from his sin. For me they have all become like S’dom, its inhabitants like ‘Amora.” (Jeremiah 23:14, CJB)
 Adonai-Tzva’ot says: “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are making you act foolishly, telling you visions from their own minds and not from the mouth of Adonai. They keep reassuring those who despise me, ‘Adonai says you will be safe and secure,’ and saying to all living by their own stubborn hearts, ‘Nothing bad will happen to you.’" (vs. 16-17)

 Adonai’s anger will not abate till he fully accomplishes the purpose in his heart. In the acharit-hayamim (latter days), you will understand everything. (vs. 20)
 When [someone from] this people, a prophet or a cohen (priest) asks you, ‘What is the burden of Adonai?’ you are to answer them, ‘What burden? I am throwing you off,’ says Adonai. (vs. 33)
 I will lift you up, burden that you are, and throw you off, away from my presence — you and the city I gave you and your ancestors. (vs. 39)
 There's more, but i encourage each person that reads this to read the chapter (or, better yet, the book) for themselves.

 There are many modern ways of evangelizing. And, lately, many have become caught up in "going to the Romans as a Roman." They mistake this for "going to the sinners as a sinner" or replace the word "sinner" with "world." This may be of the best intentions, but it is no less dangerous than a false doctrine.
 At the church i visited this past weekend, it was said that, "salvation is not by our works, so there are no works we can do to lose it." Another interesting quote was, "It's impossible to disappoint God. He knows your past, He knows your future, and so you can't surprise Him. If you can't surprise Him, you can't disappoint Him."

 Even with this kind of warning as given through Jeremiah, we still have so many social clubs operating as churches. People, preachers, saying, "God told me..." and following it up with some sort of infectious doctrine that would not encourage God's people to become too unlike the world for sake of looking "too holy," or "holier-than-thou," (and we dare not consider it a race, or should we refresh ourselves on 1 Corinthians 9:23-25?) and by doing so dissuading others from Christianity. But i tell you in the words of my Savior, "If you belonged to the world, the world would have loved its own. But because you do not belong to the world — on the contrary, I have picked you out of the world — therefore the world hates you."
 If the world loves you, there may be a problem. If the worldly look at you and aren't confused, perplexed, hateful, or angry, it wouldn't be a gamble to say that Christ hasn't picked you out of it just yet.

 Anyone who says you can be in Christ and not only live with your sin but be comfortable with it (even worse, that any facsimile or measure of worldliness as a good thing . . .); they're nullifying the sacrifice of the Messiah, the God-sent Holy Man, Immanuel Himself, Jesus the Christ, beaten and tortured and killed. If what they say was true, why did Jesus even hang, naked and bloody, on the cross? The answer is simply void. By His wounds, yes, by His stripes, by His resurrection we can be called children of God. If there was no way by our works to fall from salvation, how, then, did David cry out, "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation" after he had committed murder for the sake of having adultery? David felt God's salvation abandon him, and with it God's peace, joy, and Holy Spirit.

 A friend of mine shared this on Facebook. It's a snippet from Eric and Leslie Ludy;
 As Christ-followers, why should we think that friendship with the world is something to be proud of? When Hollywood and the secular music industry feels comfortable with us (and we feel comfortable with them), it means that something is wrong with our Christianity. Many of us have come to believe that we must participate in the things of the world in order to reach it for Christ, and that the more attractive we are to the culture, the better witnesses we will be.
 But Jesus said something quite different. “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-29). And, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you for so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26). Let us remember that true Christianity will influence the world - but it will never be applauded by the world.

 And this is true.
 Some may say, "But we have to attract the world!"
 To them, i say, "You go. Attract the world. Be loved by them."
 "The Lost" is something wholly different from "the World." The Lost are those who would seek to be found. The World is that which believes it already is found.

 Many preachers would do well to consider, when trying so desperately to fill pews, that Jesus offered bread, and all ate till they were filled. John 6 tells us that the crowds followed Him, and Jesus would give them no more physical bread, but rather Himself, the Bread of Life, and they became angry and bitter. It says that many turned away and no longer followed Him. And Jesus' response was rather unexpected; He let them go and kept to His twelve. The reason He lets them go is because, as He says in the very same chapter, "Everyone the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will certainly not turn away."
 All who see and trust in Him will not be turned away; those who make the decision that they will starve the flesh to feed the Spirit; those who take up their cross daily and follow Him; those who trust upon His name; these are the ones He will raise up on the Last Day. The Father's will is that none should perish; we are to turn to Christ and repent of our sins or else we will perish not by His will but by our own.

 This choice is given each of us. And we would do well to share it.

Forgetfulness Or Remembrance?

Many of us Christians think that, when God sets us free from our sin, that He is telling us to forget it, or better yet to glory in it the fact that it happened. This comes from taking verses from the New Testament out of context (Romans 5:20 comes to mind; "...but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more"). But He does not often give us such a command.

Here's a summary/exposition of some events; Jesus is preaching, and while doing so He talks of the hypocrisy and immaturity of "this generation," and says they're like children in a marketplace, talking to each other. He speaks of how John the Baptist, His own forerunner, came in abstinence (not just sexually, but in the dietary sense), and they said he had a demon; then they say, of Christ, that He's a glutton and a drunkard because He does not observe the same dietary restrictions--and they say He's a friend of tax collectors and sinners.
After this, He is invited into the house of a Pharisee, and a sinful woman comes in, and soaks His feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, then anoints His feet with her jar of perfume. Simon, the Pharisee, is thinking that if Jesus was truly a prophet that He would know what kind of sinner she was and that she was unclean and unfit to touch Him. But Jesus knew. He says, "Simon, I have something to say to you..." and proceeds to tell a parable about two debtors who can't pay back their dues, one who owed tenfold the other's debt, and the creditor cancelling their debts. Simon says it's the one who owed more that would love the creditor more. Jesus concurs.

Because Simon, a "holy man," had been brought up in a godly manner, lived according to the Law, had little to be forgiven of, he did not love Jesus as much as the woman who apparently didn't stop kissing His feet the entire time He was in Simon's house.
Simon didn't put oil on His head, didn't greet Him with a kiss (as was the custom), yet that woman, seeing herself unfit to put oil on His head, anointed His feet--if she were a prostitute, the "expensive perfume" was crucial in her craft, and the condition of her hair was no doubt just as important. Yet she matted her hair with mud (the tears and dirt), and poured her perfume on His feet because she was giving up what she had been.
She basically says, "I don't want to be like that anymore, so I lay all of it at Your feet." She surrenders everything for Him, not the following day, not a week from then, but at that very moment she poured it all at His feet.

Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little. (Luke 7:47)

She was crying because of her sins, because she had sinned against Him. These were not tears of joy, these were tears of remorse. She knew He was the friend of sinners (read: He was the friend of her). And she knew this was her only hope, this man who spoke with authority from God, who the Pharisees feared, who preached a legitimate Gospel ("Good News"). And because she knew that, a Godly sorrow welled up within her until she poured tears about the floor and His feet, and she worshiped Him by giving up her livelihood to anoint not even His head but just His feet.
He did not tell her to forget her sins. He said they were forgiven--that He would forget. But she remembered her sins. And wept. And that's what anointed Christ.

See, we all have sins, and we all have a past.
Those who have been found guilty and yet forgiven for, say, stealing five dollars worth of merchandise will not be as happy and thankful to the judge as the person who has been found guilty but forgiven of attempted murder. And, sometimes, to sear one's conscience, we forgive them without reprimanding them.
This can serve to create a higher sense of guilt than punishing them. What's more, tell them that someone else decided to take their punishment; this will (or at least should) stir them up inside to the point of their tears flowing enough to soak the feet of the person who bore their sins. And they will (again, should) turn from their crimes and even say, "See this way I was? He took the blame for me. Because of that, I set my old ways at His feet and now they're an evidence to His love for me. And He'll do the same for you."

But how do we reconcile ourselves to our pasts of sin? How do we live on after this sin? Is remembering it and being filled with grief in itself a sin? After all, the New Testament says that sinful flesh, that old person has died; is remembering that equivalent to bringing it back?
Having spent time dwelling on my past, hating myself for it, i felt like i was doing something wrong because so many pastors say our sins are forgiven so we shouldn't even think of them anymore. That we should only think of good things (as mentioned in the New Testament). And now we have pastures filled with flocks acting like spotless lambs, when it was the only spotless Lamb chosen from the vile, filthy herd that we are to take our filthiness. Yes, we have been washed, but we must never overlook the fact that we were filthy, mangy, and unclean lest we forget the weight of the sacrifice of the truly perfect One sacrificed for us.
What glory does a Redeemer receive when those He redeemed act as though they're not even the same thing as was bought back?

And even so, we still have people saying we're to live like it never happened because we're a new creation. I once heard someone say we shouldn't refer to ourselves as sinners forgiven, because it in a sense dims-down the beauty of God's creation, and that it makes Jesus' work on the cross seem like less because we still focus on what we were before. Are we truly called to forget our sins? How do we resolve this?

Simple. Remembrance. Visit the grave of your old self, and do so often. Don't try digging up the body.
The Bible does say we are a new creation. But our past happened. We're not to be liars, and we're not to be ignorant. Keep reminders of the old self's death. Never forget it.
I remember my sin. And i don't want to forget it. Because i know i've been forgiven much; i never want to forget, because i don't want to love Him less. I want to see and to dance on that grave marked, "Joshua David Isaacs," because i know that self is dead, but i don't want to act like he never was a part of me or that he never lived.

I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God. (Ezekiel 16:62)

Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. (Ezekiel 36:31-32)

Remember. Be ashamed. Be confounded. Loathe yourselves. All the while, praise God for Christ's sacrifice!

And what's a blog post without some lyrics?

Won't You please come and remind me?
I need to know what I've become. I need to know where I've come from.
Take me from this madness, take me from this pain.
Take me from this sadness, but don't take my memories. ("Memory" by Decyfer Down, from the album, "Scarecrow")

Choosing Friends

 Something has been plaguing me lately, and it's a matter concerning those i call friends. This is not a post intended to share anything that has been learned, but rather a bit of a rant tinged with introspection.
 Second Timothy has a clear warning that, in the "last days," perilous and terrible things will happen.

People will be self-loving, money-loving, proud, arrogant, insulting, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, uncontrolled, brutal, hateful of good, traitorous, headstrong, swollen with conceit, loving pleasure rather than God, as they retain the outer form of religion but deny its power. (v.2-5, CJB)

 What's worse is these things are taught as not only normal, but good.
 "Yes! Love yourself! Be empowered! Do what you want to--" No! This is not the way it's supposed to be.
 And the love of money? Well, golly, nobody loves money, they just want more of it!
 Proud, arrogant, insulting . . . Our society tells us that we should love ourselves, and the result is just these things; we think we're better than everyone else.
 Disobedient to parents. Scarcely in a secular (read: popular) children's program are children actually encouraged to obey their parents. In fact, some actually discourage it. And the generation is evil, wicked, lawless, faithless, and so on.
 I could go on with each topic listed, but i'll cut to the chase.

 One sentence was left out from that passage.

Stay away from these people!

 Other translations (KJV) say, "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away."
 This isn't aimed at heathens--at least not at heathens that don't know Christ. This is aimed at those falsely claiming to be Christians; people that clap their hands on Sunday, pray a prayer, maybe even shed a tear, then go back to their sexual immorality, their vile tongues, their intoxicating drink, their cigarettes, their sports worship, their idolatry, their obsessions with money, their obscene gestures, their crude joking, their filthy forms of entertainment . . .
 Shall i go on, or would that step on even more toes?
 People who claim to follow Christ but ignore the voice of God, are without conviction, teach a false gospel, say something is "innocent enough," make God into a magic genie, repost everything that says to repost it in order for God to bless them (this is a contrary gospel) . . .

"People whose minds no longer function properly and who have been deprived of the truth, so that they imagine that religion is a road to riches." (1 Timothy 6:5, CJB, emphasis mine)

 Stay away from these people (CJB). Have nothing to do with such people (NIV). From such people turn away (NKJV).
 Basically, don't associate with them. Avoid them. Get them out of your life. Purge the contaminate before it makes you sick.

 Again, it does not say to avoid those who don't know any better; Jesus ate with sinners--find me one instance where He chose the company of anyone who claimed to follow Him but only publicly. He didn't. He kept company with sincere hearts and those who had not heard.

 And here we are in the twenty-first century, where ungodliness and vulgarity are praised, where Christ is more often used as a curse than a blessing, where music and movies and television shows openly deny God to the point of portraying anyone who does believe in Him to be stupid. And it has seeped into our churches.
 If a pastor actually condemns sin, he's got a small congregation. If a person speaks of God in daily life, he's laughed at*. If anyone chooses a stricter way of life, they are scorned and people cry, "legalist!*" If one abstains from sexual immorality or from alcohol, they are repeatedly invited to bars and strip clubs*.
 Why?
 Because people hate a Gospel that actually changes you.
 Because it's all supposed to be on the outside.
 Because nothing that flows from the mouth (the overflow of the heart) should have anything to do with God.
 And if it does, it bothers them. They cringe. They don't want to believe that anything is honestly wrong with acting like everyone else. They don't want to see it change someone else because they don't want to have to change themselves. They want to be comfortable with their flesh.
 They're lovers of self.
 Lovers of sin.
 Stay away from these people!

 Who, then, are we left to fellowship with? A circle of honest believers we can count on a single hand? Are we to seek purposeful naivete? Not so! for Christ knew the hearts of those He walked past--He discerned, and yet He chose only eleven (a twelfth that He knew would betray Him).

 And here is a glorious promise, unknowingly fulfilled by the world: If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:18-19, ESV)

 We will be hated. Though i have never been beaten nor spit upon nor threatened, merely mocked and ridiculed, for my faith, we should greet it as the apostles; "...overjoyed at having been considered worthy of suffering disgrace on account of Him." (Acts 5:41, CJB)
It is sad for sure when people can insult the idea of Christ dying for them, and that often brings me to tears. But our personal disgrace in the eyes of the world we will count as a grace from God. It means we're doing something right.

 And then there are certainly those who will say, "Well, you know, you have to look at who that was written to," or, "That was for a specific person or group," or, "That doesn't apply anymore because of Christ."
I am taking for granted those same people are discounting the fact that, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is valuable for teaching the truth, convicting of sin, correcting faults and training in right living." (2 Timothy 3:16, CJB, emphasis mine)
 All Scripture. That does not have an asterisk, a footnote, a cross-reference, it is just simply put that all Scripture is applicable. That the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the same God who wrought destruction and wrath on Sodom, the same God whose anger makes the earth shake and tremble, the same God who has wrath and fury, is in all actuality the same God that loves us enough to give us Christ as propitiation for sin. Christ did not abolish Scripture, but fulfilled it.
 All Scripture, regardless of who it was written to, is valuable to us for the things mentioned because it is God-breathed.

 *denotes that which i've experienced from Christians

One Bad Apple

 There are certain things that have a cascading effect. Sin leads to sin leads to sin; where sin abides, sin increases. Where faithfulness abides, faithfulness increases. Over the ages, i'd like to say God has, in some aged-like-fine-wine sort of way, become more faithful, but that's not so. The moment of absolute faithfulness to His people was the moment when He said, "Let there be light!"
 I say this because He already existed as omniscient and total. He did not need light, for He was already the light (we are given the image of the Spiritual "light" of God in Revelation 21, where it says, "And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb."). That means the first Word of creation was for us, not His, yet it was for His glory.

 Without getting too far off-track, let me explain the cascading effect; if you have a seed you can plant it and it will grow; if properly pollinated, and granting you don't cut the bloom(s), it will go to seed. If it is allowed to go the way of nature, it will drop several seeds, each one creating a new plant. Each one of those will multiply and, before several seasons have passed, one seed has taken over an entire field.
 Another example is the all-too-familiar saying, "One bad apple spoils the bunch." Basically, during the decomposition process of certain fruits, ethylene is emitted, and that speeds the ripening process and, soon thereafter, rots neighboring fruit prematurely. One rotting apple in a bag or basket causes the adjacent to begin to decay, and it subsequently "infects" the next, and so forth. Potatoes do this, too.
 So there are two metaphors in nature for this effect, one showing how good things multiply if left to their natural devices, and one showing how things turn sour if not quarantined immediately.

 To apply this in the Spiritual, as said, sin creates sin successively. What starts as "minor" sins, such as envy, can, if not put into submission, grow into a "major" sin, such as theft. Anger turns into hate and then into violence and finally into murder. Lust into adultery, gossip into slander, and so on. This is why the emotion of sin is the same as the sin itself. It must be killed before it takes root, before a bruise on the apple festers and spreads.
 Likewise, faithfulness does the same; one act of faithfulness will, if not put into submission, result in another. Giving a few cents could, through the same process of virulence, eventually lead a person to buy lunch for a stranger or far better things.
 These are but simple examples, and there are far more profound ones, but they suffice for the intended message.

 And, while i could never hope to be an example of sinlessness (that is Jesus alone; i'm merely a shade of the first Adam that is trying to stand in the Light of the Second Adam), i've come to understand the key ingredient to quelling sin; love. That sounds generic and cheesy, but it's a very solid truth. A great love results in great faithfulness; if you love your spouse you will not cheat on her, if you love your child you will not withhold necessary things, if you love your parents you will not do what they said not to. On the contrary, if you love your wife you will love showering her with affection and adoration, if you love your child you will discipline them and cherish them, if you love your parents you will do what they ask of you without grumbling. Love creates devotion. To love God is to obey Him. To love God is to honor Him. To love God is to run to Him in times of distress, as a child to their Father.

 I have tried to fight sin on my own terms, in my own means, and failed every single time. This is no coincidence. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and that's not an excuse; it's a fact. The times i've run to God, cried out, "I love You" to Him when being assaulted, though, He turns my focus away from whatever it is that's leading me away and turns me back to Him.
 This is why loving God is the greatest commandment; it causes us to eagerly obey the others. This is why loving our neighbor is the second; it causes us to get the focus off the bad of ourselves (sin) and onto the good of others. In other words, our desire for sin becomes a desire for God when we love Him and others instead of ourselves. Make a point of doing a small act of love and it will beg another. Continue sowing the seeds of faithfulness and it will turn into joyous servitude, but will also turn you away from prideful sin.
 Our cure for sin is genuine love, for God and for our neighbors/enemies. Here's how; envy, when quelled with love, is turned into generosity, anger is into hope for the object of your bitterness' well-being, gossip into encouragement, et cetera.
 Abide in love, and you will abide in obedience and uprightness. Where sin is sown, sin will continue to spread. Where love is sown, love will abound.

 If we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, joy in obedience as well as refuge from Satan's attacks shall be added unto us (i firmly believe these to be included in "all these things". After all, if seeking that first had no Spiritual promise it would hardly be meritorious, and every last word of Christ is laced with merit.

Pride and Love

 We should never discount love as the greatest tool to win hearts to Christ. Our love for people should be our wordless proof of faith. Without love, we surely have only pride which was the very cause of Satan's fall. Sadly, these two, though opposites (love being submission of the 'self' in order to elevate others, whereas pride, not hate, is the glorification of the 'self' in order to put down others), can tread a very thin line.

 Allow me to quote the second verse of a song much more eloquent on the subject than i could ever hope to be ("Failing In Love" by Cool Hand Luke).

"Would you tell me if you knew that I was dying,
Some sort of parasite that got into my brain?
Would I tell you that I thought that you were lying,
Ignoring evidence, ignoring all the pain?
There’s too much sugar, too much water."

 In the first verse, Mr. Nicks (the lyricist/vocalist) even goes so far as to say that if we don't speak the truth, if we don't proclaim the whispers in our ears from the rooftops, we have become the enemy of those perishing, not by saying the unsaved are dying.
 In that second verse, love takes an entirely new light, one where we plead with people for caution.

 Instead of tolerance for sin, we have an urgency. We must not lose tolerance for people, but culture is entirely different. We can love individuals and still remain vehemently opposed to the culture they come from--that we come from. More often than not, anger towards society is seen as self-righteous and hypocritical. After all, who hasn't sinned? Christ alone.
 If hypocrisy is about me, it is born of fury against the state of society. I am not claiming to be perfect. God knows how terribly flawed and vile i have been and am. It's human nature.
 If i am a garden, and Song of Songs says i am, and God is a Gardener, and i think He is, and my flesh is a weed, and i know it is, i must apologize for how busy He must be from pulling weeds.

 Love, again, i say is our surest vessel of bringing hope to a world dying. Love is what caused the men in Jerusalem to "sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed [there]" (Ezekiel 9:4). These men are the ones who were not sentenced to execution. These men received a mark on their foreheads (perhaps like the seal of God on the foreheads of those who were to remain untouched mentioned in Revelation 9?).
 Love scarcely comes without a word of caution. In fact, it's not a great dare to say most acts of love are a word of caution.
 So here is a word of caution to those who are in Christ: Weep. Mourn. Rend garments in your sorrow for the souls who do not know the hope that lies in you.
 A word of caution to those not in Christ: "Go and sin no more." We (Christians) do not condemn you because we are all as guilty as you; we are forgiven, and beg of you to turn from your sin and ask forgiveness from God as well.
 Condemning a person's sin is not condemning a person, and this brings me back to the first paragraph.

 Love and pride sometimes walk so close together as to be confused with one another, and we must daily kill our pride lest our love become self-motivated and, therefore, prideful. It is easy to condemn the sin as though we had never committed the same. It's easy to confuse the sinner with the sin. This is where love and pride are contrasted; love is the desire to see someone become like Christ, pride is the desire to see someone become like us. I do not parrot the boldness of Paul by saying, "Imitate me," for i know my sins and shame (i would, however, when he calls himself bolder in written word than face-to-face). I would rather point to Christ's actions in my life through God's children, and say, "Imitate them." This may be shucking responsibility, but i have a lot harder time resolving myself to sin than God has absolving me . . . Actually, it was much more difficult and painful for God to absolve me of sins. I know because i know what Christ looked like on the cross, bearing no longer any human likeness or semblance. And i know that's what i should look like. This creates a great well of sadness in me, matched only by gratitude.

 Pride and love are often hard to tell apart when it comes from Christians. With that said, woe to those who would use Christ for their own gain, for their reward has already come, and they have stored up treasures not in Heaven but in Hell.
 For them, we should surely pray.

Water And Oil

This post is intended to ruffle feathers, to step on some toes. Maybe it'll hurt. Maybe not.

Sin is so comfortable . . .

We take sin lightly in today's culture. We think that, maybe if we just love these people a little better they'll turn to God, or maybe if we are more inviting to them they'll come into the fold. If we accept their sin, they'll be more apt to accept us or will be more open to consider our religion (yes, i am calling it religion at this point, and not in a glamorous light).
We're sinners, too. Keep that always in mind.

Christianity is a stated fact from God. The reality of it is Heaven and, just as real, Hell. The possibility of achieving righteousness is as far away from us as it was for Cain the moment He killed his brother out of jealousy. We are Cain. We are murderers and adulterers, according to Scripture, if we have hated our brother or lusted after a woman. Guys, let's not sugar-coat it, you're an adulterer, i'm an adulterer; you're a murderer, i'm a murderer, even if we've never so much as touched a woman or held a weapon. In pre-Christ times, a man guilty of physically committing either of those sins would probably be put to death or else castrated, yet Christ and John tell us there's no distinguishing features from the emotion and the committed act. This is because God knows that, if not for His law and man's law, if there were no repercussions, no accountability, no shame, mankind would kill and fornicate profusely (as many in this world do regardless), and therefore puts our hearts in such a stalemate that if we were without law or penalty of any sort, we still would not commit such acts.. He knows the heart's intent. And He judges by it.

But here we have the majority of the world denying or unknowing of Christ. But it's not a matter of belief in existence. It's a matter of believing who He is, and not only that but believing Him unto repentance (do Satan and those under his unholy dominion not also declare that He is, "Jesus, Son of the Most High God?"--belief in His existence and identity serve no good without taking up the charge to follow Him) As a fact, it has to be denied or accepted as it is, unaltered and unopposable, just like any other fact.

"We as believers should so back people into a corner with the word of our testimony that they have to say one of three things: Either you are a liar, you are completely out of your mind, or what you're saying is true. People shouldn't be able to say, 'Well, that's what you're into, but it's not really my thing--but no! It is either for everyone, or it is completely false. Christianity is not an opinion, it is the truth of the universe in which we live." *

When Jesus was approaching Jerusalem, the Bible says that when He saw the city, He wept over it.
This is not just some, "Oh, this makes me sad" kind of cry. This is weeping, this is a Brother clinging to His beloved sibling who is dying of lung cancer from smoking, saying, "If you had only listened!"
And here is where we are to step into Jesus' shoes and look at not just the state of the nation or the world, but the state of the Church, and say, weeping for them, "Listen while you still can!"
We take sin so lightly in today's Church that we don't condemn it, but rather invite it in as a part of the sinner (as opposed to being apart of the sinner). Sin is a catalyst for death, and Christ the catalyst for life, and these two go together like water and oil. And i know what you're thinking; under certain conditions, water and oil can mix. They did on the cross, and never will again.

Sin will lead nowhere but Hell, and it leads there as an interstate; straight and fast. And here, we are letting sin run rampant in our lives because we're too afraid of offending people. We put up with it from others, saying, "Well, I'm not contributing," but are we actually opposing?
Here's another analogy for it; picture your closest friend who is not a Christian, or else is a Christian in title but not in deed ("Sunday Christians"). It seems alright to leave well enough alone so long as they're not doing anything that will harm them, but go a little deeper into it with me. Sin leads to Hell; it leads to death. Picture them now holding a gun that they think is unloaded but actually has a bullet chambered. They're playing with it, taking it lightly, and they put it to their head. Do you stand idly by, saying, "Well, maybe it won't kill them"? Do you hope they pull it away before firing? Or do you do whatever it takes to stop them from splattering their gray matter across the sidewalk (perhaps a rough bit of imagery, but perhaps necessary).
This is a more real situation than if they had a real gun in their hand. This is the rest of eternity, not just the rest of a 65-70 year lifespan, a vapor.

If you're of the sort that says that we have authority over sin and we need to just keep praying for our country, i want to point out a few things real quick.
The first being that you're right, we do have authority over sin. We have authority to eat healthy, we have authority to abstain from sex, we have authority to pluck our eyes from our faces rather than to gaze upon something unholy or to cut off our hand if it causes us to sin. But how many actually exercise this authority? Faith . . . Action . . . Get the picture? They are married; they mandate other or they're pointless.
Another thing i want to mention is that suicide is at the highest rate in recorded history. Sex-related crimes such as rape and pedophilia and incest are also at all-time highs. Abortion, other forms of murder, alcoholism (in the form of drunkenness), recreational use of drugs; all these things are either at all-time highs or else on the rise. Your prayer life may be perfect, but if your faith (as married to and inseparable from action) life is complacent and careless, your prayers are nothing. There are even prayers that God sees as an abomination--but don't tell anyone in church that. It might offend them out of the pews. Better they offend God than for us to offend them, right?
The practicing of homosexuality is no longer seen as filthy and amoral, but is now celebrated as some sort of boldness.
Now look at these facts and tell me that we have authority over sin and that we just need to keep praying. We do have the authority, and we do need to keep praying, but until we exercise authority in our own lives and encourage it in the lives of those around us, there will never be a change--at least not one for the better.

I'm not claiming to be perfect, but i am claiming to be exercising authority over certain areas of my life that i have in the past given over to sin. I'm not acting as if my faith or prayer lives were perfect, but i am practicing them in the name of Jesus Christ, the Perfector** of our faith. I'm not saying i'm holy because, as said, we are impossibly distant from achieving righteousness, but i am saying i follow the only Righteous One.

In all this condemnation of flesh and sin, it is necessary to close this by mentioning that Jesus Christ died in your sin so you wouldn't have to die in it. He was resurrected on the third day by God, and the invitation to live in Christ's grace is available to you. All you have to do is ask, and then let Him work in you any way He will. It might hurt, it might require cessations of things you want to perpetuate, it might mean losing much of your life, but these things are not worth comparing to the glory of following Christ.
He is hope, peace, mercy, grace, and above all He is love.

* Mattie Montgomery, from his sermon, "The Blood Of The Lamb And The Word Of Their Testimony," February, 2012

** It is my opinion that perfector is a more logical spelling than the accepted form, perfecter

My God Is Mine, And I Am His

There are times where i've said things that have been rather legalistic, and have decided to try and hold less Levitical opinions, and to stagger trivial things as being less than absolute. I take it back. All of it.
And i pray God allows me to make this as least condemnational as possible because, as is taught more often than the wrongfulness of sin, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1)

If something is not wrong, that makes it right. Likewise, if something is not right, that makes it wrong.
What is not right is not good, what's not good is bad, and what's bad is, well, sick. If there is one time that something is neither good nor bad in the Bible, i have not found it. The Bible draws all things as absolutes, right or wrong, blessed or cursed, living or dead, righteous or sinner; there is no halfway right thing, there is no barely blessed person, no one is only kind of alive, and there is none righteous.
And it's about time there were some things set as absolute again.

Sin is sin is sin is sin.

Now, to put this a little step forward, the Ten Commandments.
How do we reconcile them to Romans 8:1?
Simple. Do not condemn. This includes yourself. Do not condemn yourself by breaking the Law of God.
Yes, we are set free from the law of sin and death. Yet at the same time, a mere two verses later, Paul says that "[God] condemned sin in the flesh."
We are set free from the law because it could not free us. If we are in Christ, we are not condemned because He freed us by being the catalyst through which God condemned the flesh.

Despite this freedom from the law and condemnation, i feel that seeing a Levitical stand would be an act through which the glory of God could shine all the more unhindered through a set apart people.

Moses asked the camp of the Israelites, "Who is on the Lord's side?" and it was the sons of Levi who gathered around him.
It was the tribe of Levi that said, in essence, "We will do anything the Lord asks of us, no matter the cost to us or those around us." This stand was against any and every institution of man and it was for God alone. Then, in the same chapter, it was Moses, another Levite, who said to God (paraphrasing), "These people have sinned against You, but I am asking for forgiveness on their behalf. And if they are still to perish, as the one You have designated to be their leader, I must die with them."
Levites were the first, as far as i can tell, to make intercession.

When taking a census of the nation of Israel, the tribe of Levi was overlooked, because these people were not to be counted, but to be kept apart. They were to stay at the Tabernacle, to set it up, take it down, to guard it; the Tabernacle had been given unto them, this place where the Spirit of God would come down and rest was under the watch of these men. Under their watch was the presence of the Lord.
The man that guards to Tomb of The Unknown Soldier; this tribe was comprised of men with that sort of zeal.

"Take the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the people of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of their cattle. The Levites shall be mine: I am the Lord." (Numbers 3:45)
God made a special claim to the people of Levi; He chose them as His own. What greater statement could be made of a people over God saying, "[They] shall be Mine: I am the Lord"? Through Christ, all nations come unto Him, and He calls us all His.

Here's a personal favorite of mine regarding them; "At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord to stand before the Lord to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day." (Deuteronomy 10:8)

The Lord set them apart. They were the firstfruits, the wave offering, the choice grain, however you want to put it, they were just that. The best of the crop were they, and God set them apart to carry the Ark of the Covenant. In other words, He chose them to carry His promise to mankind among the people of Israel. They were the ones who had been entrusted with the Law, the pre-destination of Christ, the future hope of grace and glory was on their shoulders as they marched, and God set them apart for this specific act. In our lives, if we are to be Levites, we must be so overwhelmingly fascinated by God as to completely succumb to His will such that He can call us carriers of His promise. They had wholly died to self in order to become vessels of God's purpose--just as we're to do as Christians.
Not only this, they were called to stand before the Lord and to minister to Him and to bless in His name. Just as angels ministered to Christ after He was tempted, Levites were called to minister to God, to proclaim His glory, to pray without ceasing, to constantly offer up praise of pleasing aroma. With the New Covenant, Christ, we are all called to minister to each other and to God, and to bless in Jesus' name.

"Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him." (Deuteronomy 10:9)

And here, Levi has no portion with the rest of God's people. Because God called them His, they would call Him theirs. If you want to be set apart, it requires a call, but it also requires an answer. The only answer to the call of Christ, as i believe it was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who put it, "is an unconditional yes."

We can't say, "Well, God, we will carry the Ark so long as You have someone else relieve us sometimes. That thing is heavy, You know!"

No, this isn't a burdensome statement, this is freedom. God called them unto Himself, away from the material, and into sanctification. The liberties therein are boundless. Instead of worldly things that "moth and rust destroy," they were given something transcendental yet profound, and eternal. They were given the very presence of God.

This would be something to boast about for sure; to look at your neighbors and see them satisfied with their big houses, fancy clothes, and luxury cars, yet know in your heart of hearts that what you have will never be out of style, will not fade, can not be shaken or destroyed or taken from you, and will accompany you every day of your life, and being satisfied with it.

They were set upon things the other tribes could not see except through their lifestyle; the abundance of grace flowing to them and through them, the glory billowing from them like stacks in a furnace.

That is the Levitical order. That is God choosing His people, and choosing a people who would make Him theirs. That is resting in absolutes.

Christ offers this same prestigious honor to us all. He is calling, He is standing at the door, He is knocking.
God is looking for a Church set apart for Himself, of which He can say, "They are Mine." He's looking for a Church that will say, "God is ours at any cost."
And the first step towards seeing God's vision for His Church come to be is by saying, "Yes!" in your own life, and encouraging others to take that same step while interceding for them. The Church needs changed from the inside out, and this is how we do it; by letting God first change us from the inside out.
To quote Mahatma Gandhi, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." And the same goes for the Church. To see a Church set apart, be set apart in the Church.

Never again will i strive to be less Levitical in my words or actions.

Love, Justice, And Mercy

There are several ways of writing either "mercy" or "compassion" in Hebrew.

The three most common for compassion are follows:

1. חֶמלָה
2. רַחֲמָנוּת 
3. רַחֲמִים 

And for mercy:

1. רַחֲמִים
2. חֶמלָה 
3. רַחֲמָנוּת 

Same three words.
And to anybody who may be curious, i did use Google Translate for this--shoddy source, but it gets the job done. I'm not a multilinguist; barely have i a grasp on my first language, let alone a second.

This is the reason some versions say God has compassion for us, whereas another would say He has mercy on us. Essentially the same words, same expressed meaning.
A friend and i were discussing how justice and love come together, and how mercy would fit into the mix. This is my personal opinion.

Firstly, i'll state that compassion has the prefix of "com," which means "together" or "with." Passion is "ardent love."
So compassion means, in essence, "with great love."
The Passion of Christ was His transference from King of The Universe to Servant of All and, ultimately, obedience to men unto the point of receiving a criminal's death sentence (Philippians 2:5-8).
We, as Christians, must show mercy to all without exclusion or condition. In this mercy, we show compassion to them for the glory of God. We share with Christ His passion for them.

Galatians 2:20, Paul says it's no longer he that lives, but Christ living in him, as he has been crucified with Christ.
When we show compassion for people for the sake of God's glory, we share in Christ's passion, in His crucifixion, and we crucify ourselves with Him. We cannot show compassion except at the cross, and not because of us, but because of Christ.

Now, love and justice are a tricky pair.
Love is undue. In terms of its nature, it is not treating someone how they deserve to be. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love keeps no record of wrongs.
Justice is treating one how they deserve to be treated, taking into account their wrongs and their sins.
Justice and mercy seem to contradict, but there is a point where the two marry.
At the cross.

At the cross, justice for us was set upon the shoulders of Christ, yet by His very nature, He is love (looking over those who had crucified Him, He said "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.")
That is love. There is no greater love than for a man to lay down his life for his friends.
Jesus, embodying love, was now holding justice upon Himself as He hang from the cross.

They fused at the cross and became something new. They became passion.
For this, as products of that passion, as people set upon by grace, sinners who are forgiven by God's love and mercy, we are to look at others "with great love," or with compassion--with His passion.
When we forgive, when we have compassion for someone, we do as Jesus did; we take their sin upon ourselves to unburden them of it, and in sharing His passion with them, sharing the cross with Christ, He takes it from us ("For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you").

We forgive because He first forgave us.

By forgiving those who have wronged us, we show them love by not counting their transgressions against us. This love expresses mercy. But it's no longer mere mercy that we show them, but justice since the death of Christ. It's justice because God showed us mercy, and it would be unjust for us to not show them the same mercy that was shown to us ("while we were still sinners, Christ died for us").

At the cross, justice and mercy become united, and love is their conduit.

Some Brief Correlating . . .

The other day, i was having a conversation about forgiveness, and who it benefits. I find that forgiving someone does little good for me, but it's me offering grace (what little i have to offer), a wholly Christian theme, to someone who doesn't necessarily deserve it. Christ on the cross, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," (or something along those lines) did little good for Christ's sake but show yet a further example of grace. It was for their sake that He forgave.

I digress. That has little to do with this post. Now to the meat of it.

As said, i was having a discussion about forgiveness. I thought back to what happens if a "brother" wrongs us.

We are told it's our duty to take it up with them, not theirs to come to us. We do this to cause a stirring inside of them so that they may see their wrong and right it, or at least apologize. If they do not hear us, we're to go and gather one or two witnesses so that it may be established by the testimony of two or three (Matthew 18:15-17).

Now in Romans 3, we have this little passage: "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin." (v. 20)

As those two seemingly unrelated passages came to mind, so did a revelation.

The law, the Torah, is from God. It is how we become conscious of our sin. In Matthew, it's our duty to make our brother conscious of his sin against us by telling him what he's done.
God does just that; through the law of the Old Covenant, the Torah, He confronts us, He brings the wrongs we've committed against Him to our attention.

Then Matthew 18 goes on to say that, if they do not hear us, we're to get one or two witnesses and confront him again.
God did that, too. He sent His Son, through Whom all things were made to be. He came back with a witness. Christ. We killed Christ. What greater witness to our wrongs than the very One we crucified?
No, not just one witness; He sent another. The Comforter, the Helper, the Advocate. The Advocate. An Advocate that stirs up our heart to repentance. Through the Holy Spirit, we are inclined to godly or spiritual sorrow, which is seeking penitence with God through Christ.

We sinned against God.

He sent Christ.
We crucified Him, emphasizing our breaking of the Torah.
He sent the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit inclines us to apologize for our wrongs.

In this, the selected passage from Matthew 18 is fulfilled; God made known our sins by means of the law (Romans 3). We didn't hear Him, so He came to us with the two Witnesses.

"Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, you Israelites: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin, they will die for it; because of the sin they have committed they will die. But if a wicked person turns away from the wickedness they have committed and does what is just and right, they will save their life. Because they consider all the offenses they have committed and turn away from them, that person will surely live; they will not die. Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?
"Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!" (Ezekiel 18:25-32)

We know we've wronged Him the moment we accept the Torah as His law. That is His beckon to you; He wants you to repent. He wants you to seek Him. He wants you to live.