SCRIPTURE

The World or GOD

Saul

2014 was a period of extreme conviction in my life. I now saw my coworkers as family. I was feeling the effects of multiple chronic illnesses weighing me down. I read the Book of Enoch, The Book of Jasher, The Conflict of Adam and Eve. I told GOD I didn’t want my way anymore, I didn’t want my salvation, I wanted his, not only for my soul but for my life. I had come to the conviction that, if I don’t trust GOD with my life then how do I trust him with my salvation? I had recently understood my relationship to the man looking down on the publican. My relationship to rocky soil. My relationship to the lukewarm and the Nicolaitans. If I died, who will people say I was? My children will say my dad worked on computers.

I thought my legacy was to advocate for Christ, that we should follow him. Somehow, my life had become something it should not have been. I prayed to GOD of how to be a good father, not in the worlds eyes but his. The examples of Noah and Abraham were brought into my mind. They lived by faith and taught their children to follow GOD by doing as he commanded. Not by going to a church or saying they were Christian but by walking in their life according to His will, following His commandments.

Many say they love Christ but few follow Him and live according to what He requires. They accept that because we feel comfortable and that life is easy, that we have done according to what He said and are enjoying blessings. This in contrary to what He taught. Christ said the more we are like Him, the more we follow Him, the more the world hates us. If the world loves us, we are probably in a very bad place spiritually.

I left my job, it was not for Christ. It was for me. My expectations for my future. The idea I had control. The idea I had moved up a ladder towards increasing prosperity. That I had to serve the expectations of my family and in laws, those were all worldly concerns. Everything I did was to save myself from poverty to gain prestige and a feeling of a sense of control. But there is no control, there is no ladder, there is no prestige in leading the world in darkness.

My conviction was, I didn’t want any more plans I created and striving to achieve them, only to bring me further away. If I trust Him with my salvation, I must trust Him with my life. I wanted His salvation, in the next one and this one. I want his escape his plan. And if that was true, I had to live it, not just talk it.

I left that job. In the next ones that followed, I talked to people as people. No plan for climbing a ladder or building something. Just one person helping another. Be there to serve, working for them as for GOD and to that end, fully ethical, calling out what was clearly wrong, professionally and spiritually without regard for consequences of employment. Employers can come and go but my walk with Christ must be the same.

I don’t have the ringer or vibrate on my phone activated. I don’t check my email frequently. I don’t have Facebook installed on my phone. These things are *not* expedient for me. They become a burden. I had to take responsibility for my life by taking control of what I believe to be acceptable, not on the merit of our cultural or social expectations but what I can handle and what Christ requires of me. The requirements of Christ must always come first. That means I must always schedule time for prayer, reading and meditation of the Word. Fulfilling the mandate from Christ must determine my schedule. And that helping should never be a burden but a joy. I found that when I was pressured from all sides to accomplish certain things, the things in life that should have been joy, became burdens. And that is a good sign you need to head for the exit.

This world will give you more than you can handle. And our fallen nature will eat it up. You have to drop it and work your way back up in Christ establishing what is needed before you allow the world to have an audience.

We will find to follow Christ does have a price. Many say that this is a Christian culture in our society. So we will and do have it easier. I say not so, it is easier because they deceive themselves. We don’t follow Christ in our culture. We serve ourselves; the proof is in II Timothy. Holding that judgement against our lives we see that we do love pleasure more than truth. Our good works requires that we have time and that if it doesn’t profit us, that it won’t trouble us. We only do good if it has no cost.

How many times have you been silent at work when something bad was happening? Or silent in a group when they were doing things you knew were wrong? They say don’t rock the boat. Just nod your head yes and get through the day and get your paycheck. That’s the opposite of integrity. What kind of integrity only operates in fair weather?

It was much different for Daniel when they threw him to the lions and the fire. They were asking him to say something or just eat something against what GOD called us to do. But he valued truth and GODs commandments more than the law of man. We have been convinced in our culture that such sacrifice is vain. Far be it for us who are His children to have that belief.

In our culture at this time I’m hearing of people who follow the Word and being “ex-communicated” from protestant churches. It is the same now as it was in the early church time and as Jesus said, the difference between a Christian and non-Christian is being born again. If you’re not born again it doesn’t work. People build churches, hire interfaith teams, marketing staff and fill the seminary colleges. Yet, according to what I see in the churches today it amounts to nothing. They create their own mission without Christ. People that aren’t born again only see a “moral code” or a standard of ethics. They reduce the Word of GOD to fables, as spoken of in II Timothy.

To guide others to faith, to fulfill the great commission does not have anything to do with a Bible college or some type of seminary. Christs work only requires that we repent and be saved and then share his Word with others. If you’re not led by the Spirit you’re blind. No seminary or marketing team can change that.

My conviction in 2014 was that the churches in America were dead trees. No fruit. Jesus says the branches that don’t bear fruit are thrown into the fire. Remember the fig tree. It didn’t have fruit, Jesus cursed it and it was withered.

GOD is serious about obedience to him. What you have in churches is a love for tradition and pleasure, more than GOD, not a desire for the truth. Christmas, Easter and even Halloween. No one questions not keeping those. But to follow the sabbath, a commandment, is hindered. GODs appointed times are ignored. Those who try to follow them are told, those are the commandments of men! A perversion of His Word. Our traditions are mans, not GODs! And that is when the walk becomes very difficult and you start to see the universal and real problem, people don’t want to follow GOD and will come up with almost any excuse not to do it. Even twisting His Word to align with beliefs that make them more comfortable. We should not live in the comfort of this world but the joy of His salvation.