Sunday, June 13, 2010

"Work Out" What God "Works In" You..."

"Work Out" What God "Works In" You..."work out your own salvation...for it is God who works in you..." (Philippians 2:12-13)

Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a nature that renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord initially comes in contact with our conscience, the first thing our conscience does is awaken our will, and our will always agrees with God. Yet you say, “But I don’t know if my will is in agreement with God.” Look to Jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. What causes you to say “I will not obey” is something less deep and penetrating than your will. It is perversity or stubbornness, and they are never in agreement with God. The most profound thing in a person is his will, not sin.

The will is the essential element in God’s creation of human beings – sin is a perverse nature which entered into people. In someone who has been born again, the source of the will is Almighty God. “…for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” With focused attention and great care, you have to “work out” what God “works in” you – not “work” to accomplish or earn “your own salvation,” but “work it out” so you will exhibit the evidence of a life based with determined, unshakable faith on the complete and perfect redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposing will up against God’s will – God’s will “is” your will. Your natural choices will be in accordance with God’s will, and living this life will be as natural as breathing. Stubbornness is an unintelligent barrier, refusing enlightenment and blocking its flow. The only thing to do with this barrier of stubbornness is to blow it up with “dynamite,” and the “dynamite” is obedience to the Holy Spirit.

Do I believe that Almighty God is the Source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.
(Oswald Chambers – My Utmost For His Highest)

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Powerful Testimonies From Former False Converts

WHAT'S NEXT TO DO?

I believe that perhaps there is so much apostasy in the church today it’s because the church (organized denominations) is busy doing its own thing and it has lost all discernment and as a result of that has drifted away from the will of God and HIS purpose! Faith has been given to individuals and as individual believers we must learn from God and stop being spoon-fed in church buildings and seeking after personalities. They are feeding the saints pabulum (baby food), and in some cases POISON! The poison comes mixed in with the baby food, just a little at a time so as not to detect it. Jesus said in Matthew 16:6, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” He was talking about the religious LEADERS, folks!  The following was written by Oswald Chambers many years ago.  God's truth does not change.  I pray that God would give ears to hear what the Spirit is saying.  Did you join a church so that you would have something to do on Sundays and to acquire new friends and have a good time.  If that was your motivation for doing so, then the time has come for you to really sit down and examine yourself.


Be determined to know more than others. If you don’t cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to cut them to send you out to sea. Everything in your life should be afloat upon God. As you sail out on His sea of purpose, your eyes will be opened. If you are following Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy and always tied to the dock. You have to get out into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself—begin to have spiritual discernment.

When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Look back on times in your life when you have become disinterested spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.

The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1—2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…”(1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17).

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Believers in Grace

by Bill Randles

Do you remember the social and moral revolution of the 1960s? The youth movement of the left was destined to break all the rules and liberate society from the dreary bondage of the past. They were going to show us how to do it the right way! As an anthem from that day proclaimed, “All the world over so easy to see, that people everywhere just want to be free.”

Isn’t it ironic that those same revolutionaries, now come of age, have created a society that is vastly more restricted than the one they worked so hard to undermine? We now live in a “brave new world” in which every aspect of daily life is hyper-regulated, speech is scrutinized to the point of absurdity, and even thought is criminalized (hate crimes laws)!

Although they have, in large part cast, off the shackles of any fear of God, they have a rigid concept of “righteousness”: they are very religious about global warming, population control , a woman’s right to choose (abortion), tolerance of all religions (except of course evangelical Christianity), woman’s liberation, transgender acceptance, and multi-culturalistic dogmas.

My theory is that they are so religious, although godless, because people are made in the image of God and must have some kind of religion. Furthermore, they are raised in America, where once a vast Christian consensus permeated our society and its institutions. It is for this reason that there has developed among the secular elite a “godless righteousness.”

The idea of any accountability for the sins enumerated in the ten commandments has been cast off, but they have their own tablets of stone. “Thou shalt not, ever, ever, make a moral judgment,” “Thou shalt not smoke (in public or private),” “Thou shalt support all forms of abortion,” “Thou shalt not claim any absolute truth,” “Thou shalt not think western civilization is any better than any other culture,” and so on and so forth.

It has often been pointed out that as long as these pieties are observed, it doesn’t really matter what a person does as an individual. All personal indiscretions are excused as long as these positions are held.

The real sins, which have proliferated and intensified as a result of the sexual revolution of the sixties (i.e. the rampant fornication, the destruction of marriages, homosexuality, adultery, abortion and pornography) affect the consciences of those who practice and promote them whether they believe in God or not. One cannot escape the psychological trauma of these evils by just dismissing the concept of a God or a binding personal morality.

That’s part of the reason why the Left has developed an alternative morality, to try to feel good about themselves, to assuage their conscience. They have to assure themselves over and over again that they are all right, because they support Cause x, and wear the ribbon in solidarity of Cause Y. They are good people, on the good side regardless of their personal immorality.

In short, godless righteousness isn’t individual – it is collective. As long as you hold to the positions of the Left Wing, you are “in right standing” regardless of your personal failings. This is why the counter culture has always shamelessly championed people like Che Guevarra, a mass murderer, Albert Kinsey a known fraud and pervert, and other personally sordid fellow travelers. As long as they hold to the dogma, it doesn’t matter.

The tragedy is that this righteousness is a sham and will be found to be as helpful as Adam and Eve’s fig leaves on the day of Judgment. It may feel good to “be in the right” with the culture – there is no doubt a certain satisfaction in it. But there is no way that “godless righteousness” can heal the troubled conscience. Is this why this generation needs so much valium? There is no possibility that “godless righteousness” can take away the shame of sin, and it certainly will not reconcile anyone to the true and Holy God.

There is a true righteousness, a right standing that can be obtained before God, but only as a gift to be received from Him. The good news is that what God demands, perfect righteousness, God provides for us, as Scripture says, “For he [God] hath made him [Jesus] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

Thursday, June 3, 2010

A Good Soldier of Jesus

"Christians will sin, but they will walk in repentance. They will not walk in rebellion as a way of life. Therefore, when we see professing Christians getting worse and worse in their apostasy, we must conclude that they are to be excluded from fellowship and exposed as wolves in sheep’s clothing if they are confronted and they do not repent. On the other hand, if we do confront these men about their sin and they do repent then we must accept that and include them in fellowship as long as they remain in that repentance."

A Good Soldier of Jesus