Category: Evangelical Christian

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father but through Me.”

Is Jesus a liar, lunatic or Lord? (You must answer this question to press on!)

DIVIDED WE FALL

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DIVIDED WE FALL

By Rick Mathes

John 7:43 So there arose a division in the multitude because of Him.

The Word teaches us that we are the Body of Christ that must be in one accord. The devil wants to squeeze in between us and Jesus any way he can because he knows that if we are divided we will fall.

What can be much worse than for us to divide because we have diverse opinions about our doctrine and church liturgy? Christians have never been in total agreement about either. We do, however, agree on the basic foundations of Christianity. If you confess Jesus as your Lord, which means living accordingly, then you are going to heaven just as you are. If your church or denomination excludes other Christians for disagreements over anything else, they are acting on behalf of Satan. We can agree to disagree and still have a wonderful opinion of Jesus together.

It’s all a matter of trust whether you are a Presbyterian, Baptist or Pentecostal, you still trust Christ as I do and love Him with your whole heart, mind and soul with all your strength. Truwst is what got Peter out of the boat and fear is what almost sunk him. You and Jesus must have a mutual agreement that you love each other and share an eternal destiny of glory.

Love is the super-glue that holds the Body together. Now understand that we don’t have to like each other but we must love each other. Yes, what I just stated makes sense when you think about it. WE don’t have to enjoy the same music, clothes or even culture to love each other.

It’s all in the development of obedience. There are not just growing pains but there is a learning curve involved also. This takes time so don’t allow a division because of things outward but rather has a unity of things upward. We’re back to the destiny of life with Christ here and now as a unified body.

Roman Catholics point out that we are divided because of our many denominations but they are not aware of our unity in the Spirit. Any true Christian knows that when we put aside our distinctions, our fundamental doctrine and beliefs are the identical. In my humble opinion we are all Calvinists but some haven’t matured enough to realized it yet, AMEN?

WHAT IS FAITH

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WHAT IS FAITH?

By Rick Mathes

Faith is not a power you appropriate, it is an assurance you grow into for the certainty of things hoped for and not seen. We just don’t pull up to the Holy Spirit and get a fill-up. In Christ we always have a full charge but we control the dimmer switch in us. We can turn its power up or down as we choose to.

Our arsenal is stocked with weapons that are to eradicate or at least seriously cripple our arch enemy, pride. Untamed pride left to grow exponentially was the fall of the Angel of Light Lucifer. He swelled up in his imagined egotism, armed with an ultimate high of narcissism, he challenged Jesus and with just a Word our Lord sent him to planet earth like a flaming meteor; a fallen star that would never return to its orbit of prominence in the endless sea of God’s glory.

There is no greater God-pleasing gift but faith. This is the hinge that opens all the doors of spiritual knowledge and hope. It’s not a blind leap of faith but rather a certain absolute. We may not understand all of God’s actions or purposes in our life but by faith in His Word and the unbending assurance of its absolute reliability, owe appropriate more and more faith the closer we draw to Him and see His truths materialize, even those that defy our natural understanding. Strong faith pleases Jesus.

You were created for a purpose and God has a vision for your life that con only come to fruition by appropriating more faith and doing spiritual weight lifting. A steady diet of His Word will ignite your faith to blossom and to explode in revelation of who you are in Him your mind had never before even imagined. I challenge you to unleash the faith of God in you, get out of the boat and walk on the water!

I know it can be done. I have been out there in the midst of those sometimes terrifying waves for many decades.

It’s so simple and I must add easy: Just listen to the teaching and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Let god be God and step out in faith, face to face with the new you in His image and likeness, not yours.

CRUCIFIED

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CRUCIFIED

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 1:23 (NASB77) 23  but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness,

The Jew as well as Roman Catholic and a host of other faiths are what are called ceremonialists. They have a variety of rituals, sacrifices, processions, holy celebrations and so forth that they participate in as they attempt to petition God and explain the unexplainable.

The Greeks were not much for feelings or experiences. They were thinkers and needed to be reached through logical persuasion or intellectual assent. One and one had to equal two so that the supernatural was not a consideration. God dying on a cross then a dead body rising to life was written off as nonsense.

Paul kept it simple for those simple and preached only Christ crucified. He saved the deeper waters for those experienced swimmers. This took not only to be called but also to be chosen. As any minister will confess, we are door mats for the general public to wipe their feel on. As an evangelist, I prefer to view myself as an anvil that has been the cause of many broken hammers.

When you put your face in the mud, blood and tears at the foot of the cross, you become born again: the minute Jesus is your Lord. This transaction unleashes God’s Holy Spirit’s power in you. You don’t need to be baptized again in the Holy Spirit according to both Paul and Jesus. You have the full power but you have a dimmer switch to turn it up or turn it down. The sin you have that reduces the power is one you want more than Jesus or you would repent of it.

As you stand in front of Christ on the cross you realized how rejected he really was.

As you stand in front of the empty cross you sense the triumph he has had over your sin.

As you stand before the empty tomb you realize how admired you are by the angels and all who have passed into glory for being believers.

And lastly, how proud Jesus is of you His trophy of grace!

COFFIN NAILS

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COFFIN NAILS

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 1:2 (NASB77) 2  to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

Paul’s companion Clement became the third bishop of the Church in Rome right behind Cletus and Linus. Fifty years afer the Church of Corinth was founded, Clement wrote to them after Paul had written the letter “3rd Corinthians” to sort out the internal dissention and abuse of the gifts. Clement had to rebuke them again because now the younger members were disrespecting their Elders and the whole mess was stirring up all over again. I might add that charismatic churches in your community have continued in this prideful destruction and here are some reasons that keep reappearing over the years:

  • Dissentions
  • Personality Cults
  • Cliquishness
  • Moral Compromise
  • Carnality
  • Sexual Perversion
  • Fornication
  • Incest
  • Adultery
  • Worldliness
  • Materialism
  • Suing Christians
  • Idolatry
  • Selfishness
  • Homosexuality

The sign gifts were being perverted to mimic the old rituals that included estate behavior and glossolalia. They became boastful of the gifts they claimed they had and they used them at times for personal gain as they do to this very day!

How awful must the Holy Spirit feel when so called “Spirit-filled full-gospel” churches do the same thing? It’s as if nothing has changed. This type of behavior is flat-out prostitution of the gifts and dangerously close to the unforgiveable sin of unbelief!

CHURCH CORRUPTIONS

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CHURCH CORRUPTIONS

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 1:2 (NASB77) 2  to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

Every denomination has a “Church of Corinth” that has drifted in its leadership and lost its first love and focus. There are a few basic corruptions that know no religious distinctive. When Satan gets his nose into your church fellowship, his body is soon to follow.

Following humn leaders, that are humanists, only provides you with a veneer of a carnal communityof self-gratification. The devil knows that to disrupt the church he needs access to the pulpit he is often relegated to a leadership position because of our shamefuil apathy.

When earthly wisdom is favored, spiritual absolutes are compromised and wateed down to relative absurdities. A twelve inch ruler is 12 inches long and not 11 or 13 inches long depending on your personal law or rule of measurement. The same applies to salvation. Jesus is the ony way and you can’t be part saved by believing otherwise.

Like a fish out of water, the Word of God. You are signing hour own death warrant or rather certificate of dying in flames continuing action. Without the “Rock that don’t role,” your faith will only have the substance and constancy of cotton candy. It will tase good but there is nothing thee.

There’s no sense o flattering yourself with self-gratifying deeds, prayers or rituals. When you are your own god, you will have to deal with your own hell all by yourself! Pride of self dropped Lucifer from the highest plateaus in glory down the  rungs to the dungeon of glow-torch flames from hell.

The culprit is lack of discipline. You are sovereign over you. The sin you have you want becaue if you didn’t want it more than you do want it, you wouldn’t have it! It’s that simple. Love the Lord more than the sin.

All the above shaken up and spread out is a fragmenting of the Body of Christ. When the head is sick the whole boy suffers. When lall yur body parrs are bruised, battered and broken, they can no longer work together in harmony. The corruption of your church has polited you too. Don’t be a Corinthian Church that even 50 years after Paul wrote the third letter to them, things got worse because of the younger members disrespecting the elders.

CONFESS REPENT

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CONFESS REPENT

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 3:2 ” Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Many will confess but very few truly repent and it is very important that you do so. Every time you wantonly sin Satan writes that sin on the caulk-board in heaven and every time you repent, the Holy Spirit erases the sin out of sight. Sanctification’s objective is to keep the blackboard clean but just confession won’t do it.

  • Confession sin is worrying about the punishment that is the consequence of sin.
  • Repentance is worrying about the sin whose consequence is punishment.
  • Conversion is a change of action after you have had a true change of mind.
  1. The first sermon John the Baptist preached was “Repent!”
  2. The first sermon Jesus preached was “Repent!”
  3. The first sermon Peter preached was “Repent!”
  4. The first sermon Paul preached was “Repent!”

Are you getting the message?

Repentance is simply a turning toward Jesus. I never quit drinking. It quit me. When you are looking upon Him, the devil has no entry level. I love Jesus more than the sin and you should too.

When you turn to God you have put your back to Father Lucifer. The devil does not like your disrespect of the “Angel of light.” You have declared war on hell and I can guarantee all of his fallen angels are going to break loose on you like a swarm of angry hornets. You can expect violence and deceit unimagined from the most unlikely people!

Reverend Lucifer is too slick to make him obvious. He would rather turn your heart back to him from the pulpit of your favorite churches. If your minister doesn’t preach repent, submit and obey you have been sitting under the evil one. You have become a Satanist because you won’t turn from the sin the Holy Spirit has been convicting you of.

You refuse to turn from sin to the Savior and cause the very angels of heaven weep for you as the Good Shepherd laments one lost lamb.

The fruit of true salvation is good works. You were created in the image and likeness of Jesus and all he did while he was on planet earth and served those who were His. Repent and do likewise so that all will know that you have had a conversion experience and are now walking you talk!

COMFORTER III

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COMFORTER 3

By Rick Mathes

John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Our Holy Spirit is a person equal in all respects to the Father or Son. I am still inspired by His humbleness. He doesn’t have a name. There are titles and appellations but no proper name and nothing like Jehovah God or Jesus the Son. The main misconception is that He is a power, force or level of faith. He’s a real person with intellect, reason, logic, feelings and all the fullness of the Trinity. Isn’t He something!

His faithfulness to His commission to amplify Jesus in your life is about as laid-back and as selfless at it gets. He is wholly existent to fulfill the purposes of cause and effect, purpose and accomplishment of God’s fashioning of your life. He exudes love, the perfect affection, unadulterated by the stain of sin.

God is love and apart from this instilled understanding from the Holy Spirit, we would continue in lust and worshipping false gods of materialism and sensual lusts. By knowing the real deal through Him we have a spiritual discernment and can spot the devil with a Christian mask on.

I know it’s the love of God because I am always comforted by Him. He never tires of meeting me where I am in the condition He finds me in. The closer I draw to Him the more unworthy I see myself. I see in His light the sine that lingers within me as a stain resists the cleanser. How can we measure His relentless enthusiasm and His present concern for our pursuit holiness in Christ?

It is a wise decision on your part not to languish over what you don’t understand. You need to act on what you do know because it is a matter of life or death. The Holy Spirit enlightens what you need to know and act on exactly as you need to. This is different for each soul as we differ from each other so don’t measure yourself by someone else’s progress or failure. Look up not out.

Believe me it is safe to be in active pursuit of the Holy Ghost’s blessing and proper to pray accordingly. He is ever present and always successful in all He attempts to do on your behalf. All you need to do is crave and desire Him more than the sin you are plagued with. It’s a blessing to be in bondage to the Holy Spirit and a slave of Christ’s. Give it all up for Him. He did for you!

COMFORTER II

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COMFORTER 2

By Rick Mathes

John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to walk in His shoes until He returns in glory. That is quite a responsibility to be our instructor, helper. In fact that’s a major issue for us Protestants. We don’t agree that just the Pope has the only correct interpretation of God’s Word not to mention the Pope’s new revelation that Paul condemns. We are to be instructed by God the Holy Spirit in all truth, the full Gospel without exemption. The Bible is the total and exclusive words from the very mouth of God, the Logos. The Rhema is the Holy Spirit teaching the essence of the Word to only believers. It is virtually impossible for an unbeliever to understand the God’s Word apart from the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

He is also the Advocate. I’ve studied two years of law and have founded a prison ministry so I have a good understanding of the criminal justice system and the department of corrections. I know the lawyer; advocate can be the key player in the judgment of your guilt or innocence.

Our Intercessor knows our case very well. Every word, action and even every thought we have ever had in our entire lifetime has been recorded, videotaped in surround sound for all to see, hear and witness in real time! No escaping the total reality of our relationship or lack of it with the King. Now we can stand before a Holy God without even a speck of sin to His knowledge.

In real life the Comforter is very busy communicating our repentance, submission and obedience to the Father much to the joy of the Son. When we become born-again, the Holy Spirit erases every sin we have ever committed from the backboard. And then every time we sin the devil writes our sin back on the blackboard and when we repent, the Holy Spirit erases it, back and forth. So the battle for our freedom in Christ goes on and on. Having an active compelling Comforter, Instructor, and Advocate in my life is a solid evidence to me of my salvation.

How much would you pay for contentment? Then why don’t you release the Holy Spirit within your heart and experience it? Satan has a litany of reasons why you shouldn’t do it right now and you are buying into them. Am I wrong? Then get on your knees right now and pray, “Father God, by your grace I have been saved, Brother Jesus, by your stripes I have been healed, Holy Spirit, you know the mind of the Father and the heart of the Son; What would God have me do?”

I guarantee He will answer you.

COMFORTER

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COMFORTER

By Rick Mathes

John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Islam teaches that Jesus sent Mohammed to be our counselor and teacher not the Holy Spirit. Talk about scripture twisting, they also claim that Abraham was to sacrifice Ishmael not Isaac. How out-there can one get. Yet, most people you ask haven’t a clue what or who the Holy Spirit is and what His involvement is in our lives to this moment! I won’t even begin to suggest to you that I am the final word on this issue but I have made a few observations the teachings of the Bible that makes the Holy Spirit a critical component of my life in Him.

The Paraclete is definable to the extent that we understand Him to be equal to the Father and Son. Now I have read many books and articles trying to explain that the three independent personalities are one person and none of them make any sense! But just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean God doesn’t know it. I just accept the Trinity by faith in the Word that says it is so. I like the analogy that the Father is the sun, the Son is the illumination and the Holy Spirit is the warmth between them. Or how about one times one times one equals One?

What can I say with certainty is that the Holy Spirit is the Comforter. He brings the warmth of the Son into your heart and being. He embraces us with the confidence that everything is going to be ok. It’s a real blessed assurance not a counterfeit that the devil cooked up. You can’t touch the flames without pain and where there is smoke, there is fire. But when the dove lights on your head, the peace that surpasses understanding washes your soul and enlightens your heart with an appreciated confidence that strengthens your resolve to press on.

The Comforter provides comfort to the comforted!

This is a real life experience with the Holy Spirit that is felt, actuated and confirmed by the Word of God and the lives of the spirits submitted to the Lordship of Jesus. The unbelieving doctor said, “Can you see, smell, taste, hear, taste or feel the Holy Spirit?” The Christian answered, “I can feel Him.” “That makes it 4 against and one for. As a doctor of medical science, I won’t accept that as fact.” The Christian countered, “Can you see, smell, hear, taste or feel pain?” The Doctor admitted he could feel pain. The Christian countered, “Then it’s a fact the Holy Spirit is as real to me as pain is to you. I pray you believe and the pain will pass!”

CHURCH CORRUPTIONS

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CHURCH CORRUPTIONS

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 1:2 (NASB77) 2  to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

Every denomination has a “Church of Corinth” that has drifted in its leadership and lost its first love and focus. There are a few basic corruptions that know no religious distinctive. When Satan gets his nose into your church fellowship, his body is soon to follow.

Following humn leaders, that are humanists, only provides you with a veneer of a carnal communityof self-gratification. The devil knows that to disrupt the church he needs access to the pulpit he is often relegated to a leadership position because of our shamefuil apathy.

When earthly wisdom is favored, spiritual absolutes are compromised and wateed down to relative absurdities. A twelve inch ruler is 12 inches long and not 11 or 13 inches long depending on your personal law or rule of measurement. The same applies to salvation. Jesus is the ony way and you can’t be part saved by believing otherwise.

Like a fish out of water, the Word of God. You are signing hour own death warrant or rather certificate of dying in flames continuing action. Without the “Rock that don’t role,” your faith will only have the substance and constancy of cotton candy. It will tase good but there is nothing thee.

There’s no sense o flattering yourself with self-gratifying deeds, prayers or rituals. When you are your own god, you will have to deal with your own hell all by yourself! Pride of self dropped Lucifer from the highest plateaus in glory down the rungs to the dungeon of glow-torch flames from hell.

The culprit is lack of discipline. You are sovereign over you. The sin you have you want becaue if you didn’t want it more than you do want it, you wouldn’t have it! It’s that simple. Love the Lord more than the sin.

All the above shaken up and spread out is a fragmenting of the Body of Christ. When the head is sick the whole boy suffers. When lall yur body parrs are bruised, battered and broken, they can no longer work together in harmony. The corruption of your church has polited you too. Don’t be a Corinthian Church that even 50 years after Paul wrote the third letter to them, things got worse because of the younger members disrespecting the elders.