Culture War

Whether we like it or not the culture war has begun in earnest. Up until now it has been more of a "cold war" but has now broken out into open hostility. I am speaking of course about the current controversy over the comments of Chick fil A CEO concerning gay marriage. This is just the tip of a huge iceberg that has been with us for a long time but has now come to the forefront and will test the very foundation of your relationship with Jesus Christ.
As I watched people lining up to support Chick fil A by purchasing meals my heart was warmed but at the same time I wondered how many of these same people are being hypocrites by standing in line at Starbucks for their caffeine fix when Starbucks is on the other side of the same issue. You can't have it both ways. Our stand for Christ can not be two sided. Just because some brave soul takes a stand against evil we jump in to defend them but when evil goes on in our favorite establishment we ignore it saying we can do nothing about it anyway. I'm not saying that we should go out and begin to demonstrate against Starbucks or any other establishment that supports ideas or morals that we don't agree with because we would quite possibly run out of places to purchase anything that we need. My point is that we can't have it both ways and now that hostility is out in the open the true Christian had better get his act together and decide which side he is really going to be on and get his relationship with Christ on a firm footing because soon there will be no choices left. You will either take the devils mark or go without the ability to purchase food or anything else nor will you be able so sell anything. Will your faith stand up under that kind of pressure? Will you be able to wait on Him to bring food to your table by miraculous means or will you cave in when your wife or child begins to complain about their hunger?

What has for so long been a future scenario is now a present reality. What is presently demonstrations will soon be violent uprisings. There is a very short distance between the kind of disagreement that we now see and outright hatred that will result in destruction and death. While the government may make feeble attempts to quell it they will have little affect because they really do not want to stop it for it plays right into their grand plan. This all leads to what I really want to talk about here and that is our foundation.

 We often talk about Christ as our foundation and our rock and Jesus said that if we were founded on Him as the Rock then the storms could come and we would stand but if we were founded on the shifting sand of society that the storms of life would cause a collapse.

Now is the time to decide whether you value your relationship with Him more than any worldly thing including that daily coffee fix or the trip to your favorite retailer or your bank account or even your life.
The first question to ask yourself is "Am I truly Born Again"? In order for you to be able to answer that question I am going to attempt to define what that really means because everything depends upon it.
Jesus said "you must be born again". This is nothing to do with being a faithful attender of a local church nor of giving of your finances in tithing though that may be part of the result of being "born again".

First of all I believe that no one can understand what it is to be "born again" unless they have experienced it. Even if you have experienced it you cannot really explain it because it is spiritually discerned. Just as the Bible is foolishness to the unbeliever because it is spiritually discerned. In other words unless the Spirit of God dwells in you, you cannot know what I am talking about and must come up with some other means to describe the religious experience.

Man will never be changed by obeying a set of rules. Witness our present world. We have so many laws that no one even knows them all and yet we become more lawless everyday. Something has to change a man on the inside. No human in the flesh or natural state is even worthy of the name Christian. I don't care how moral you are, if Christ does not live in you then you are eternally lost for Christ said that all our righteousness is as filthy rags.

Christ was and is the only perfect person to walk this earth but through the New Birth He puts into man His own disposition or nature which is absolutely perfect, displacing our old adamic sinful, hateful, selfish nature. This is accomplished in the most simple but mysterious way and that is by your total surrender. It is so very simple but for most it is very difficult because it means the willingness to give up everything in order to receive something that is promised but not experienced yet so there are many questions that will not be resolved until you take that big leap of faith. Personally I cannot imagine jumping out of an airplane at 20,000 feet with a parachute on my back that was packed by someone I never met but that is about what it is like, you just don't know if it is going to open until you try it. Secondly there is no half hearted way to try sky diving is there, it is all or nothing. Well there's not really a way to just try Jesus either, it' all or nothing because He doesn't respond to half hearted efforts. He may stand at the door of the aircraft and try to encourage you to take that leap but in the end you must jump out in order to find that He is there to catch you.

Once you do take that daring leap you will discover what was unseen and a relationship will begin that must grow. If you will work to maintain that relationship then His very perfection will become yours. You may argue that point with me by saying "no man can be perfect" but you are thinking in human terms and God does not think as a human. According to the Bible the word perfection means "complete or mature" and I will leave it at that. I will let God be the judge. I just want to be considered complete in His eyes.

The term surrender is a very important one and needs to be fully understood because it is key in your relationship with Him. To surrender is to give up all power and defences and all decision making and handing it over to an occupying force. Consider Germany and Japan at the end of the war. They not only turned over their defencive weapons but complete control of their country and peoples to the occupying forces. I'm sure that it was difficult and even humiliating for them but it turned out for their best because the occupying force was truly benevolent and set out to rebuild them. Consider them today. This is actually a poor comparison because one is natural and the Other is spiritual and the most benevolent being in the universe but I think you can get the point anyway. He won't do all the good He and only He can do for you unless you will dump yourself squarely down in His hands and say just take over. While this may sound like you just giving up doing anything that is not really the case. As time goes on and He is training you in His ways then more and more the decisions you make will be good decisions because you are learning how to hear His still small voice. It is not as though that you have to pray and ask about everything you do but as you walk hand in hand with Him your common sense decisions will be in line with His perfect will and your confidence in His ability to direct you will increase with each passing day.
Just don't ignore that check in your spirit when you hear it because that is His voice and ignoring it could lead to much sorrow.
How do you know if it's working? Life should be getting better. The Apostle John wrote these words;

3 John 1:2


New King James Version (NKJV)2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

Early in my Christian walk I often thought scriptures like this were just kind thoughts from loving people to people they cared about but now I know that they are divine truths. The very words of God intended to give us a message and that being, "as your relationship with me grows then I can bless you with good health and bless you with finances because I know I can trust you to do the right things with it. I love you and I will prove it but you must prove that you really love me first. Not all at once, after all love grows with time when nurtured."  What are you spending your time on?

God bless you all,
john