Month: February 2016

LOVE IS

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

All you and I really need is to be loved with a genuine love that loves us warts and all. I never knew what agape love was but through His love in my wife. She glows with His unconditional love for me which I know is a reflection of Him. This passive love is a warm fuzzy that doesn’t go away. I can sense His arms around me and the comfort of the Comforter He left behind just for me.

This passive love power ignites and becomes most active when we show up for duty. Our Commander-in-Chief commands us to be kind to others including our enemies. He is convinced tht the Sword (Word of God) will prevail against the gates of hell. That’s love in action.

Competition seems to drive everything but love. What would happen if you became very generous and gave your love but freely to thinking about leaving some love with everyone I come into contact with sound like great but challenging fun.

The danger of this vulnerability is not being taken advantage of as much as it can be personal pride. When your focus transfers from grace to works, from Him to you, humility is the casualty. Widening your love out to a society form an individual will relieve this temptation of religious pride and widen your horizons of humanity.

The essence of this love is unselfishness. We become lesser so that He might become greater. When you exchange all you are for all He is, He becomes love with your skin on. When people sense love in you are they drawn to Him?

Your disposition changes and your good temper results in your conduct that drives toward righteousness. Understand here that the only true righteousness is in Him. Your love for Him, your public profession of faith will be accepted for what it really is, sincere. So we return to where be began and that is God is love and your loves to others is His.

LOST NATION

By Rick Mathes

Romans 1:25 (NASB) ²⁵  For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen,

There is no hiding the truth. America is badly tarnished and has lost its former glory. My father was killed in WWII protecting our essential values and today all I have left is a purple heart and the flag that draped his casket. God has all but left America but I believe He’ll be back!

To throw a match and walk away is destructive criticism. To throw a match and stay to put out the fire is constructive criticism. So in order to remain positive and know God has a purpose for us I propose these steps to a solution that will lead this beautiful country back to the throne of grace so that we may declare God bless America once again and really mean it.

Allow me to offer that our big God can and will restore our nation with your prayers, volunteer time and financial support.

Regeneration

I went to my last Southern Baptist Conference over 30 years ago and have not been to another ever since. Why? I’ll explain. I was the featured speaker so I milled among the pastors to pick up some current information that I could use in my speech. To a man all they discussed was how to get a bigger church with more salary and a better pension plan! No one said one word about baptisms.

Reformation

Accurate doctrine is critical. Calvinism is not an optional theology, it is the gospel of Jesus Christ, pure and simple.

Revival

You can yell and shout and preach, praise and condemn a dead body and nothing will come to life without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.

Revolution

We must take our Sword (the Word of God) to the authorities and soundly remind them of the Judeo-Christian values our country was founded on. If that doesn’t work, resort to stronger means of turning our nation back to Go so that we can once again sincerely sing “God Bless America.”

Don’t get me wrong. I would give my life for all religions to have the right to worship freely. They have an inherent right to be wrong. We have the imperative from Jesus Himself to be free. Jesus is the only Way!

LORDSHIP SALVATION

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 7:21 ” Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.

The NIV says to confess Jesus IS Lord and the NAS for us to confess Jesus AS Lord. Both IS and AS are the same word in the Greek but they have a far different meanings in English. IS Lord, is “easy-believism” in your head and AS Lord, is “Lordship Salvation” in your heart. Reead Evidence Deserves a Verdict by Josh McDowell for the former and The Gospel according to Jesus by John MacArthur Jr. for the latter. Here are the necessary precepts of true Lordship.

• There is no justification without regeneration. You must be born again and bear fruit accordingly. That means your talk will prove itself by your consequent walk.
• Faith without works is a dead faith. The cause always produces an effect. Your new self in Christ will show itself as Christ does the Father’s business through you.
• Justification proof is perseverance. If you are elect and are children of the promise, you will press on. Perseverance never gives up no matter how bad it gets.
• Faith in a Savior who is not your Lord is a false faith. You must be under His management or you are not His. The rest of your life is none of your business.
• To follow Christ you must bear your cross. Unbelievers will mock you, the world will hate you, and you will be persecuted maybe even to death. You must die to your sins!
• No one will see God with holiness. No darkness, not even a speck or sin will allow you to stand before God. Only Christ’s imputed holiness will due. Anything else won’t.

If you really take these six points to heart you may not be able to sleep tonight until you repent of your sins, submit to His Lordship and obey His commands. There is too many who think they are Christian and they aren’t. They think they are going to heaven and they are really destined to hell. Please don’t lie to your self.

Get real with Him or walk away, but don’t just stand there in your own self-righteousness. If you don’t you will be the laughing stock of hell’s Saturday Night Live Show. You are only entertaining demons. Think about this!

LOOK CLOSELY

By Rick Mathes

By Rick Mathes

John 1:36 (NASB77) ³⁶ and he looked upon Jesus as He walked, and •said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

John 1:39 (NASB77) ³⁹ He •said to them, “Come, and you will see.” They came therefore and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

We have two ears and two eyes but only one mouth and they should be used proportionately. You can’t learn by talking. You need to hear, listen, learn, apply and then evaluate but nothing teaches well than what you see and experience.

Begin by looking backward to a dying Christ. Listen carefully as He whispers your name and devotes His last breath to you and gave his life that He might live through you. Then look upward to Jesus pleading your case before the Father. I can hear His day, “Daddy, look at the scars and know I loved Rick as you do and I gave my life that Rick might live.” Inward you will see the glory of our Lord living in you. Once converted you become a living sacrifice, a holy temple. The Holy Spirit dwells in you and points forward to your redemption when Christ returns to reign on earth as He does in heaven.

The gates of heaven are blown off their hinges with the regeneration of mankind which is soon to come and bring a present day reformation of godly doctrine written in the blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit revival tghat is sure to follow will produce a revolution in you innermost places wehre Satan once had his strongholds. Freedom has a price and it is worth it.

Why should you come to Christ now? You were far away in the gloom of futility and your only salvation is to draw near to him. The closer you get the more restful you will feel. The peace that surpasses all understanding is merely being next to him and protected from His adversary, Diablo. How sweet is the fruit of your vine when it is watered by His Word and nurtured by His presence?

What fruit can we expect to blossom form this vine that we have begun grafted too? At the top of my list is: a full pardon. When I learned I was forgiven I dropped to my knees in my pastor’s office and wept. It gave me a strange new peace I had never enjoyed but I know now I had an assurance of salvation. A joy unspeakable rose up in my heart until I thought I would explode. Now, I finally had a real hope of avoiding hell and stepping into glory and everlasting happiness.

LOOK BOTH WAYS

By Rick Mathes

By Rick Mathes

Acts 1:10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was departing, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them;

Sermon and Bible study preparation is my favorite adventure into the mind of Jesus through the Words of God. I thrill at word studies and parsing verses in context of the message. My goal is for any disciple to hear, listen, learn, apply and then evaluate the teaching. That’s not easy to impart in their life style because of all the distractions that bombard us from everywhere.

To keep ahead of the devil, I go in advance of what I expect He will try to break the circuit of the learning process the Holy Spirit intends. Let’s sink our toes into holy ground and look around to see the truth that surrounds us.

• Look backwards: Ordinarily I would say to not look back and keep your eyes on the plough but every once in a while it is healthy to be reminded of where we have been. You may not be the Christian you want to be but praise the Lord you are not the person you used to be. Take note that Satan’s darts are in your back because you are pressing on in Him. How about just holding a mirror over your shoulder to peek at the devil’s ugly face once in a while to remind you that you aren’t leaving anything of value behind. The world is his and the Kingdom of the Lord’s.
• Look upward: All the weight of hell is on your eyes to look outward to all the advertised sins in every media Satan can get his smoldering hands on. There isn’t anywhere to turn away from temptation but to look up upon the glory of Jesus at the right hand of God. Your eyes are the origin of sin seeping through your mind, then your heart and finally your soul. Look up! Your redemption is near.
• Look inward: Just what condition is your condition in? The hardest thing to do to see your heart through the eyes of the Lord. I’m including those sneaky little dark places you hide your favorite sins: you know, the one’s you don’t want to repent of. Learn this: The sin you have is the sin you want more than Jesus because if you didn’t want the sin more than you do want the sin, you wouldn’t have it! You are the sum total of all the decisions you have made on the inside.
• Look forward: When I do I imagine the main street of the Magic Kingdom in Florida. I see one glorious, fun opportunity after another to love, enjoy and serve the Lord. It makes me strive for the finish line and complete the race with faith and a good fight. We win if we look both ways and take the narrow road. Stop, look and listen!

 

LOOK

By Rick Mathes

John 1:36 (NASB) ³⁶ and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

Jesus said, “Look unto me and be saved,” and CH Spurgeon, my mentor did and he was saved and the rest is history. The Prince of Preachers sermons are still circling the globe at the speed of light and thousands upon thousands continue to be saved because that chubby teenager looked.

Look backwards to Christ dying. Put your face in the mud, the blood and the tears at the foot of His cross and repent. Dump all your sins and guilt there and leave them there. The sins you have, you have them because you want them because if you didn’t want them more than you do want them, you wouldn’t have them. It’s that simple! Why torture yourself by looking back at old sinful memories and destroying your joy.

Look upward to Christ pleading your case before the ultimate judge Father God. All He has to do is remind our God how much He suffered and died to atone for our sins. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant it. The punishment due to u is complete in Christ’s sacrifice to His life for us. He loves us that much and He knows the Father will not refuse us as He pleads for us on our behalf.

Look inward to Christ living in you. Can you sense that the Holy Spirit dwells in you? You are His temple. You can’t do it without Him and He won’t do it without you. If your hands don’t go about His business, it won’t get done. Le the fullness of His glory shine through your eyes. When others get to know you do they get to know Him?

Look forward to Christ coming back. Stand on His promises. He said tht the gates of hell cannot prevail against you. He will never give you more than you can bear, He will always give you a way out, He will never leave nor forsake you, no one can take you out of His hands and where He is you will be.

Look to Him and you will never look away again. On the flip side, always be mindvul that He is looking at you!

 

LOOK CLOSELY

By Rick Mathes

John 1:36 (NASB77) ³⁶ and he looked upon Jesus as He walked, and •said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

John 1:39 (NASB77) ³⁹ He •said to them, “Come, and you will see.” They came therefore and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

We have two ears and two eyes but only one mouth and they should be used proportionately. You can’t learn by talking. You need to hear, listen, learn, apply and then evaluate but nothing teaches well than what you see and experience.

Begin by looking backward to a dying Christ. Listen carefully as He whispers your name and devotes His last breath to you and gave his life that He might live through you. Then look upward to Jesus pleading your case before the Father. I can hear His day, “Daddy, look at the scars and know I loved Rick as you do and I gave my life that Rick might live.” Inward you will see the glory of our Lord living in you. Once converted you become a living sacrifice, a holy temple. The Holy Spirit dwells in you and points forward to your redemption when Christ returns to reign on earth as He does in heaven.

The gates of heaven are blown off their hinges with the regeneration of mankind which is soon to come and bring a present day reformation of godly doctrine written in the blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit revival tghat is sure to follow will produce a revolution in you innermost places wehre Satan once had his strongholds. Freedom has a price and it is worth it.

Why should you come to Christ now? You were far away in the gloom of futility and your only salvation is to draw near to him. The closer you get the more restful you will feel. The peace that surpasses all understanding is merely being next to him and protected from His adversary, Diablo. How sweet is the fruit of your vine when it is watered by His Word and nurtured by His presence?

What fruit can we expect to blossom form this vine that we have begun grafted too? At the top of my list is: a full pardon. When I learned I was forgiven I dropped to my knees in my pastor’s office and wept. It gave me a strange new peace I had never enjoyed but I know now I had an assurance of salvation. A joy unspeakable rose up in my heart until I thought I would explode. Now, I finally had a real hope of avoiding hell and stepping into glory and everlasting happiness.

LOOK BOTH WAYS

By Rick Mathes

Acts 1:10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was departing, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them;

Sermon and Bible study preparation is my favorite adventure into the mind of Jesus through the Words of God. I thrill at word studies and parsing verses in context of the message. My goal is for any disciple to hear, listen, learn, apply and then evaluate the teaching. That’s not easy to impart in their life style because of all the distractions that bombard us from everywhere.

To keep ahead of the devil I go in advance of what I expect He will try to break the circuit of the learning process the Holy Spirit intends. Let’s sink our toes into holy ground and look around to see the truth that surrounds us.

• Look backwards: Ordinarily I would say to not look back and keep your eyes on the plough but every once in a while it is healthy to be reminded of where we have been. You may not be the Christian you want to be but praise the Lord you are not the person you used to be. Take note that Satan’s darts are in your back because you are pressing on in Him. How about just holding a mirror over your shoulder to peek at the devil’s ugly face once in a while to remind you that you aren’t leaving anything of value behind. The world is his and the Kingdom of the Lord’s.
• Look upward: All the weight of hell is on your eyes to look outward to all the advertized sins in every media Satan can get his smoldering hands on. There isn’t anywhere to turn away from temptation but to look up upon the glory of Jesus at the right hand of God. Your eyes are the origin of sin seeping through your mind, then your heart and finally your soul. Look up! Your redemption is near.
• Look inward: Just what condition is your condition in? The hardest thing to do to see your heart through the eyes of the Lord. I’m including those sneaky little dark places you hide your favorite sins: you know, the one’s you don’t want to repent of. Learn this: The sin you have is the sin you want more than Jesus because if you didn’t want the sin more than you do want the sin, you wouldn’t have it! You are the sum total of all the decisions you have made on the inside.
• Look forward: When I do I imagine the main street of the Magic Kingdom in Florida. I see one glorious, fun opportunity after another to love, enjoy and serve the Lord. It makes me strive for the finish line and complete the race with faith and a good fight. We win if we look both ways and take the narrow road. Stop, look and listen!

 

LOOK

By Rick Mathes

John 1:36 (NASB) ³⁶ and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

Jesus said, “Look unto me and be saved,” and CH Spurgeon, my mentor did and he was saved and the rest is history. The Prince of Preachers sermons are still circling the globe at the speed of light and thousands upon thousands continue to be saved because that chubby teenager looked.

Look backwards to Christ dying. Put your face in the mud, the blood and the tears at the foot of His cross and repent. Dump all your sins and guilt there and leave them there. The sins you have, you have them because you want them because if you didn’t want them more than you do want them, you wouldn’t have them. It’s that simple! Why torture yourself by looking back at old sinful memories and destroying your joy.

Look upward to Christ pleading your case before the ultimate judge Father God. All He has to do is remind our God how much He suffered and died to atone for our sins. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant it. The punishment due to u is complete in Christ’s sacrifice to His life for us. He loves us that much and He knows the Father will not refuse us as He pleads for us on our behalf.

Look inward to Christ living in you. Can you sense that the Holy Spirit dwells in you? You are His temple. You can’t do it without Him and He won’t do it without you. If your hands don’t go about His business, it won’t get done. Le the fullness of His glory shine through your eyes. When others get to know you do they get to know Him?

Look forward to Christ coming back. Stand on His promises. He said tht the gates of hell cannot prevail against you. He will never give you more than you can bear, He will always give you a way out, He will never leave nor forsake you, no one can take you out of His hands and where He is you will be.

Look to Him and you will never look away again. On the flip side, always be mindvul that He is looking at you!

 

LOGOS – RHEMA

By Rick Mathes

Hebrews 4:12 (NASB77) For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

There is not now nor ever was anything that touched a world view more that the Word of God, our treasured Holy Bible. This library of 66 books was written by 40 authors over a period of about 1700 years in three languages on three continents and has remained seamlessly true and non-contradictory: an absolute anomaly.

Every word in I cuts all over the body of sin and guilty consciences of very being on earth. Right and wrong was indelibly imprinted on the human soul in Eden. It wounds every hidden sin it touches. There is nowhere for the evil that resides in you to hide. It kills self, sin and unbelief!

So it can be rightfully said that the Word of god is a devouring flame that has not mercy on the miasma of those tortured in Hell: It consumes completely everything the devil touches without even a flaming fingerprint.

It’s a crushing hammer that has no mercy on anyone who tampers with it holy contents. All who twist, change, eliminate or misquote even one dot or tittle are annihilated and the remaining dust is swept into the furnace of the fallen angels as a reminder that they were warned that the Holy Word “was not to be tampered with.”

On the bright side, the Word of God is the only life giving force. All other powers destroy and diminish the goodness of God and all His creation. The amazing text of prophecies is the only saving power in all of creation, the esend of His word and the form of the Son of God, Jesus!

It is the shield that deflects the flaming arrows from the evil one. It is a weapon on defense and the only protection from the fatal disease of terminal sin. It will probe your most secret places and expose the darkest filth that you have hid even from your own memory. Nothing, absolutely nothing will escape the illumination of God’s Word in your soul. The Bible can be your most welcomed salvation if youwill only get “belly up” before the Lord. Will you do that today?