That message is quite frankly to hold on to your seat belts because we are going to be in for a wild ride!  No I am not going to try to prove something to you by stuffing scripture down your throats, but I am going to tell you a few things that are supported by scripture that it is not hard for you to look up for yourself.

   My main concern in all of this is to get those of you who have been listening at all to what the Spirit has been telling you in these writings to understand that our Lord has never intended for our salvation to be used as an escape clause to avoid all of that which is bound to happen in this world because of the hate and sin taking over this world.  Long sentence, and yet truthful.  The facts remain that we too often get the real message about our salvation wrong.  We have some how interpreted it to mean that we will never have to suffer the slings and arrows of this worlds hate toward Christ because we are God's Children.  If we were to actually read the word and think for a moment about those things we often skip over we would find that in truth those of us who are willing to be completed in Christ may well be among the first in this age to lay down our lives for the cause of Christ simply because of the times we live in.  The word predicts the age of accountability as being a time when we must stand and give account for our salvation.  Christ did Himself say that if we did follow Him completely we should look forward to a time when we too were persecuted and hated as He was.  We cannot consider our lives more so than we think Christ's to be; for if the world hated Him it will surely also hate us and for the same reasons.

  I often wonder what we are thinking when we say we will follow Christ so completely...are we speaking like Peter did when he boldly said that he would never deny Christ no matter what may happen?  We know what happened when that was tested under his own power.  The truth is that we cannot and will not stand for Christ under our own power to do so.  We desperately need the guidance, the power and the grace of God's Spirit at work within us before we can ever stand in a world filled with hate for the truth.

   The concept of transformation through the power of God's Spirit has many facets to it, but one of the main ones is in allowing to find the strength to die to the influence of this world.  The true secret then to our demonstration of God's power in this world is our death to this world, for one who has died to something is no longer controlled by the circumstances and the rules that those who live within it are.  We are in the greatest sense actually saying to this world we die to it in exchange for that which is promised to us by God, and then live accordingly.  If we are truly dead the insults and physical harm will no longer sway us from our commitment to Christ for as it was for Paul " For us to live is Christ, and for us to die is gain".  Eventually we all are faced with that same question...are we willing to step out of the boat and onto the water?  May you richly bless God through your life in Him.



The Unworthy Servant

   I send greetings in the complete love of God:


    There is now doubt that you have probably been told many times about how God reads the intent of our heart when dealing with us as mankind, and that is for a very good reason...for the most part God cannot trust what we say to Him.  Now there are several different views about our relationship with God that would lead us to believe that God is all trustworthy with those who have confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior, and because of that we are not only forgiven, but in many cases we can pull the wool over His eyes when it comes to our commitment to what we say to Him.  Many churches today have painted God as a  loving Father who would go to any length to forgive in spite to how many times we have played Him with the same kinds of games we have used in our work a day world of promising one thing and  then finding ways  to make sure anything promised comes out in our favor.

   While it is not a very popular subject the real truth is we will not get away with lying to God, or discarding our commitments made to Him.  Just as we remember those sins against us by those who have acted very similar  to the ways we have acted to God...we can know that God keeps records as well and is not fooled by our false promises.  For many of us the dealings with the true intent of the heart, is very strange to us.  I can't help but to think that most people even refuse to think about the true meanings of why God reads the intent of our heart rather than to take our word for it when we say we love Him. There are many reasons that reading the intent of our heart should cause us to be somewhat nervous when  it comes to our relationship with God.

       1. We cannot lie to Him and get away with it:  Perhaps you can better understand this if you could think of how you would react to those around you when they would tell you something, and you would know immediately if they were lying or not...  Do you think your relationship would change with that person?
   Do you think you would be different to requests they might make of you?  How about the promises they made to you in exchange for something you could do for them?   This is such a simple thing and yet every day we  deal with people who will not think twice about lying to us to get what they want.  The problem is that I know this is so much in our human nature that I doubt if in some way there is even one of us who has not treated God that same way at one point.

        2. In His own time He will settle all issues:  The perfection of God does not allow Him to just wipe our debt free without first dealing with it.  It is bad enough that we remain guilty of lying to our Heavenly Father, but for us to say " He understands my heart"  is not enough when we have not repented, confessed, and allowed Him to transform us.  Jesus taught us that it isn't what that goes into us that defiles us, but what comes from us that defiles us.  When we really study that thought it does not just deal with the food we eat, but what we take into our lives, and allow to influence our thoughts and desires for life .

        3. How are we processing  things in the intent of our heart?  I believe the truth is very simple to understand, and that like the Gospel it can be understood by the most simple of minds.  I also believe that we as people don't like to deal with the truth much because it tends to take away some of our control over what we can do or say to people...as well as to God in relationships.  What do we use to process those things that come into our minds and hearts?  Do we keep things simple and truthful, or do we tend to mix some gray areas into things when the sin in our heart tells us to..Take some control.

    Well I suppose my point is made by now, but in truth our relationship with God ends up being much like a relationship with anyone else, it must be based upon how much we can trust love, and believe each other.  May you richly bless God through your life in Him;


The Unworthy Servant

      Greetings in Christ Dear Ones:

        In the last week I have had some very interesting things come at me from people that I had always considered to be very deeply set into the word of God, and yet I have found still are responding to a call to preserve their own opinion and life.  I must be very careful here to explain what I mean because I have come to realize that it is a problem that includes all of us in some fashion.  Our very lives are held in the balance when it comes to our belief and action taken in our belief in Christ Jesus.  This world has changed a great deal from the days when it was just good enough to say to someone that you were a Christian, and that you believed with your whole heart in the promises of God to all who claimed Christ.  This world has become skeptical toward anyone who makes any claims about God giving us hope in a world which is desperately loosing hope every day.

      The truth is people will no longer take our word for what we say we feel about God in our life.  The reason for that is that all along they have also been closely watching our life to see if there is any real evidence of hope there.  If they have seen no evidence then to them what we have told them is just another false hood.
      People need proof of what we say we are, and rightly so...If we say that God has given us a brand new Tux to wear when we see them next time, and when we meet we show up wearing a T-shirt with the picture of a Tux on it the power of our witness of Christ is much less than it could have been.  I have felt now for quite a long time that we have in a sense been doing that kind of thing with our witness of Jesus the Christ in our lives.  I am not saying that we go out with the intention of miss leading some one, but what I am saying is that we cannot give someone else something that we don't have ourselves.  I fear today that there are many people who have been fooled into thinking that they are a part of the Bride of Christ because they are a church member some where, and who may well wake one day to find a great disappointment  because they never really had that relationship with God  that they had heard so much about.

     Today God is not only testing us to see what sort of belief we have ; and what sort of love we possess through the power of His Spirit, but this world will now long take our word for the age old claim that we love God; or even that God loves us.  What a radical thing we must do!  We actually have to have our lives transformed through the power of God before we can lay claim to such things!  It is this information that has been escaping  the teachings of many churches and Christians today.  We will be dealing more with this very subject as time goes on in the blog series because our very lives are depending on it.  The concept that Jesus has taught concerning our death to this world has been skirted now for so long it is no longer even found in most services today.  The PC concepts of our Christian lives seems to be centered around loving everyone and not judging another because that's what God said we must do!  The truth is very clear for us if we look...we cannot love the way God loves until we are willing to die for each other, and that cannot happen until we first die to self.  But what does that really mean?  we will pick up on that in the next blog...may you richly bless God through your life in Him;



The Unworthy Servant

      Greetings in Christ Dear Ones:

        In the last week I have had some very interesting things come at me from people that I had always considered to be very deeply set into the word of God, and yet I have found still are responding to a call to preserve their own opinion and life.  I must be very careful here to explain what I mean because I have come to realize that it is a problem that includes all of us in some fashion.  Our very lives are held in the balance when it comes to our belief and action taken in our belief in Christ Jesus.  This world has changed a great deal from the days when it was just good enough to say to someone that you were a Christian, and that you believed with your whole heart in the promises of God to all who claimed Christ.  This world has become skeptical toward anyone who makes any claims about God giving us hope in a world which is desperately loosing hope every day.

      The truth is people will no longer take our word for what we say we feel about God in our life.  The reason for that is that all along they have also been closely watching our life to see if there is any real evidence of hope there.  If they have seen no evidence then to them what we have told them is just another false hood.
      People need proof of what we say we are, and rightly so...If we say that God has given us a brand new Tux to wear when we see them next time, and when we meet we show up wearing a T-shirt with the picture of a Tux on it the power of our witness of Christ is much less than it could have been.  I have felt now for quite a long time that we have in a sense been doing that kind of thing with our witness of Jesus the Christ in our lives.  I am not saying that we go out with the intention of miss leading some one, but what I am saying is that we cannot give someone else something that we don't have ourselves.  I fear today that there are many people who have been fooled into thinking that they are a part of the Bride of Christ because they are a church member some where, and who may well wake one day to find a great disappointment  because they never really had that relationship with God  that they had heard so much about.

     Today God is not only testing us to see what sort of belief we have ; and what sort of love we possess through the power of His Spirit, but this world will now long take our word for the age old claim that we love God; or even that God loves us.  What a radical thing we must do!  We actually have to have our lives transformed through the power of God before we can lay claim to such things!  It is this information that has been escaping  the teachings of many churches and Christians today.  We will be dealing more with this very subject as time goes on in the blog series because our very lives are depending on it.  The concept that Jesus has taught concerning our death to this world has been skirted now for so long it is no longer even found in most services today.  The PC concepts of our Christian lives seems to be centered around loving everyone and not judging another because that's what God said we must do!  The truth is very clear for us if we look...we cannot love the way God loves until we are willing to die for each other, and that cannot happen until we first die to self.  But what does that really mean?  we will pick up on that in the next blog...may you richly bless God through your life in Him;



The Unworthy Servant