Ruminations and Ramifications

I desire to be well known in hell...

With all that I disagree with my mom on, I know for sure she has a reputation there, and it's not a good one. I want that same reputation.

As I've been considering the events in my life of the past week, I've come to a few conclusions:

Spurgeon, Tozer, Edwards, MacArthur... they aren't wrong to preach about hell. We look at the Great Awakening with disgust at the fear it must have created in the country. In our time of peace in America, we have on clue what it means to fear anything. But we must fear God. There is only one way to heaven, indeed One way to heaven. Our culture has filled itself with a lifestyle of so much revelry we've forgotten the importance of sobriety. What we do is medicate ourselves until Jesus comes. That's what we've decided to do. We've medicated ourselves with movies, TV, music, all sorts of entertainment. We've forgotten that heaven and earth will all pass away, and one day we will stand before the Lord and be held accountable for our actions.

Jesus is ALSO merciful. I can't think of any other religion in the world which offers people such rich grace and undeserved mercy as Christianity. But we've been riding on His grace and mercy to the point of reveling in the same sins as those who do not profess to be Christians. We are not different. We have become assimilated. We are not aliens. We do not provide salt. We do not provide light. We watch the same movies, we listen to the same music, we even dress the way they dress. Our words are not often seasoned with grace. We are not different.

The amount of repentance in my own life has been staggering.

I had to repent from blasphemy. The idea that the Blood of Jesus has enough power to save my soul from hell, but not enough power to shake anyone else out of their slumber. The idea that I could neglect time in the Word and still be close to my Lord. The idea that I could be like the world and still be effective, still store treasure up in heaven. We must not stop short of just not depending on our possessions, but must even go so far as to let go of them and not even bat an eye at material goods.

I had to repent of not spending enough time in prayer. Not enough time in the Word. You know, nobody told me I had to spend hours per day with the Lord. NOBODY TOLD ME THIS!!! And I can't blame anyone but myself, for if I had followed the prodding of the Lord when He wanted me with Him, I would have learned on my own.

I just makes me sick to think of it.

Jesus did not come to bring peace, but division. (Luke 12:49-53, Matt 10:34-36)

Jesus preached "repent or perish." (Luke 13:1-5)

God's patience with us WILL run out. (Luke 13:6-9)

I know this may sound cruel, but I've always believed that God will cut down those who do not bear fruit. We are His planting. Nothing can grow that the Lord does not make grow. But if we do not bear evidence of that growth in our lives (fruit) we will be cut down and thrown into the furnace. Why don't we EVER explain this? Our church has done a grave disservice to its congregants by not mentioning this to them.

So what then? We've been dishonest with our Lord's possessions. He catches us in our dishonesty through conviction by the Spirit. And what then? Read Luke 16:1-13. We love verse 13, but we ignore the story it's tagged onto. And we don't want to hear it either, no one does, that they may lose everything because of their dishonesty. But this parable says to be shrewd. We are all dishonest, but respond and repent. This dishonest manager did just that. He didn't lose his job (from what is written in Luke) but the master commended the manager for acting shrewdly. He was commended!!! I had such a hard time understanding this. I was listening to Luke on CD when I heard this and i shut it off because I couldn't understand why the master would commend such a dishonest man. What was Jesus preaching, for heaven's sake!!! But i wasn't listening with my spiritual ears. I was blind and deaf to the Spirit. But He heard my cries for explanation! We CAN be taught by the spirit. We do not always need a commentary if our hearts will not hear the lesson in the first place.

Read the Word.

And do not look to men, but to God. He is all you need to please.

posted by Marcian @ 1:01 PM