Minimizing me…making much of Jesus

The failure of this teaching in the gathering of the called-out assembled ones, The Church, is why many “professing believers” are simply “professing a belief” and have never experienced the regenerating, transforming power of salvation by grace through faith in JESUS.

There is no point system with God.

Being a good person – generosity, kindness, compassion, showing honor, dignity, and respect, saying prayers, reading sacred documents, fulfilling other ancient disciplines, etc. — will not earn you points of favor with the Lord our God, JESUS, King of the Universe, Creator of our souls.

Belief in a ”supreme being” called by many names in several world “religions” DOES NOT bring regeneration, redemption, or reconciliation with the Lord our God, JESUS, King of the Universe, Creator of our souls. There are no points for intellectual assent to a diety.

There is NO BOOK of secret revelations, mystic rituals, or self-help. THE Word of God, THE Bible, THE Word of Truth is the sole revelation of God Himself to humankind through JESUS and His only plan of redemption for fallen man. There are no points for devotion to a random volume of sacred law.

We are NOT able to, before God Almighty, improve our character and behavior in various ways, including acts of charity, moral living, and voluntary performance of civic duty. We DO NOT possess the ability to move from imperfection toward total perfection. Moral and spiritual perfection DOES NOT lie within men and women of their own volition.

JESUS scored the only point that can be scored for us. JESUS makes His Elect perfect through the redeeming and reconciling power of the Cross and the indwelling power of His Holy Spirit. JESUS is GOD ALMIGHTY, manifested as the Son who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of JESUS every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that JESUS Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Our character and our behavior are transformed by the person and the work of JESUS. As the Bride of Christ, our good works are merely an outpouring of our surrender, our allegiance, and our obedience to HIM.

Public education is one of the biggest gambling institutions in the US today. Children’s programming on media platforms is a distant 2nd.

You’ve got a better chance of winning a million dollars at the slots today than you do of your children NOT being groomed for slavery to the enemy by the curriculum, teachers, actors, animations, and gaming to which parents enable and expose them.

PARENTS; Whether you utilize the services of the public education system OR a private school — DO NOT SURRENDER YOUR CHILDREN to their schools and teachers. DO NOT SIT THEM UNATTENDED in front of any form of media.

God gives children to parents for a reason: DO YOUR JOB. Nurture, educate, instruct, model, correct, encourage, support, build up, hold them accountable, hold them responsible, advocate for them, stand up for them, protect them. This was never intended to be the responsibility of a teacher, administrator, actor, illustrator, or writer. Do not put that on already overwhelmed teachers and don’t enable the wolves that desire the hearts and minds of your children.

I’m so grateful for the godly men and women who teach and administrate in our public institutions, funded by our taxes. It is the greatest and most difficult mission field in the Western Hemisphere today. I pray the power of the Lord our God, KING of the Universe, Creator of our souls over each of them as they face a world of darkness, confusion, chaos, and deception in the agenda of the public education system.

There is a HUGE difference between being shamed/guilted by others and being convicted by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God.

Don’t try to assume the role of the Holy Spirit in another’s life. He is the Spirit of the Supreme, Almighty Creator of the Universe. I think He can handle conviction through the correct handling of the Word of God all by Himself. He doesn’t need us to do His job. And if He DOES need our assistance, then conviction, guilt and innocence, shame and honor are really worth very little.

Yes, He will absolutely use other human beings and circumstances to bring about conviction and transformation. But, there is a huge difference between the Holy Spirit using us and us using the Holy Spirit.

Conviction will never happen without the work of the Holy Spirit. If there is no conviction, more than likely, there is no work of the Holy Spirit in that matter.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ…

Consume the Word of God. Love the Word of God. Practice the Word of God. Share the Word of God. Don’t be ashamed of the Word of God. Let the Holy Spirit use the Word of God in you.

The Gospel is the Good News that God Himself walked the earth in flesh and blood to become sin for us, to be our scapegoat, to take our punishment for sin, to die in our place and rose from the dead in victory over the enemy, death, hell and the grave.

To receive the gospel is not just to receive or pass along this information. It’s not just about information…it’s about transformation.

To know God is to be invited into Oneness with the Lord our God, King of the Universe, Creator and Savior of our souls is to become ONE with Him…in such a way that it conceives new life within you.

The Christian Life is a life of discipleship. In His short earthly ministry, when Jesus called people into discipleship, he told them to deny themselves, take up their cross (a symbol of dying to self and maybe even physical death) and follow Him. He still calls men and women the same way today. To become a disciple is to surrender ALL of life to Jesus (not some parts), to pursue a transformed life (not a life of self-improvement), and to help others to do the same.

Unfortunately, many expressions of the evangelical church in our current culture have been diluting and dumbing down this call, watering down the message, and blurring the lines of being called out and set apart by God.

In an increasingly secularized America, these expressions of “church” are waxing eloquent on secular ideologies of self-care, self-help, and wokeism, trying to make man “good” rather than bringing him to God through the Gospel of Jesus, as the only One who can make anything good. The Gospel message of reckless abandon TO and reconciliation IN Jesus and liberty THROUGH His Holy Spirit is buried somewhere in the church basement. They have confused an entire generation or more, and rightly so.

Jesus asked for more…not less.

Can you imagine having unlimited resources, generosity, and sacrificial concern for another, offering and being invited into their home to renovate, overhaul and produce nothing but unimaginable goodness, unending amenities and luxuries, and undeniable perfection in every corner and crevice of their home for THEIR good, only to be restrained by them at every turn, denied every opportunity to use your money, your strength, your creativity, your power to do the work you were invited to do? How would you feel?

The fruit of the Spirit’s presence in a repentant, redeemed follower of Jesus is love, joy, peace, patience/forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness/gentleness, and self-control/temperance. The Holy Spirit takes up residence in our body by regenerating our spirit, dead in trespasses and sins, and becomes ONE with us in order to produce His fruit in our lives.

To reject the production of this fruit, to excuse the sinful cancers that counter this fruit, to deny this fruit manifesting itself in our regenerated character is to QUENCH, to SUPPRESS, to DENY the HOLY Spirit of God, to GRIEVE the person of the Indwelling Spirit in our life.

May we crucify the flesh and surrender to His unlimited, sacrificial love and generosity today!

I need You to soften my heart,

To break me apart.

I need You to open my eyes,

To see that You’re shaping my life.

All I am, I surrender.

Give me faith to trust what You say

That You’re good, and Your love is great.

I’m broken inside, I give You my life.

I may be weak, but Your Spirit’s strong in me.

My flesh may fail, but My God You never will.

Psalm 73:26 (HCSB) My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever.

…one nation, under GOD, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

In GOD we trust.

My praise to the Lord and my prayer to Him today, as we celebrate our Nation’s Declaration of Independence from tyranny, may we be reminded from Whom the power comes, to Whom our allegiance is owed, and on Whom we are dependent.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

-Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:

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We spend a lot of time waiting and even praying for God to change our circumstances, paying little attention to why the circumstances have come into our lives. Instead, we focus on the circumstances – we talk, gripe, and complain about the circumstances, some incessantly. And God IS sometimes in the business of changing our circumstances. We see it throughout scripture.

But God’s greatest desire is to change me THROUGH my circumstances, to transform me into the image of His Son. How rare it is that we talk about what God is changing in us, what He’s teaching us in the circumstance, how He’s shaping and chiseling us into His image.

He wants me to gear up with the same way of thinking as Jesus, with a love and a passion for the will of God rather than the passions of my flesh.

Idolatry = giving anything – possessions, people, activities, hobbies, occupations, etc. – higher priority than the worship and will of the Lord your God, King of the Universe.

Idols are the loves, thoughts, desires, longings, and expectations that we worship in the place of the true God. They are the things that we invest our identity in; they are what we trust. Idols cause us to disregard our heavenly Father in search of what we think we need. Our idols are our loves-gone-wrong: all those things we love more than we love Him, the things we trust for our righteousness or “okay-ness.” When followers of Jesus have idols in their lives, God calls it adultery against Him.

I’m continuing to tear down idols of my own heart, both alone and in community with brothers and sisters who love me enough to speak truth into my life.

I endeavor to never encourage or support anyone’s elevation of idols in their lives (even if the idol is their own image) but I will support their pursuit of Jesus, glorifying Him as King of their lives and joint heirs with Him, and I will, by invitation and in the power of the Holy Spirit, assist in any way I can with the tearing down of idols in their lives as God has taught me to do.