Tag: aftercare

HOW FOOLISH

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 1:27 (NASB77) ²⁷  but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,

Man’s great desires or drives are power and immortality. We men seek power is a variety of ways, politics being what I consider the heroin of ego. Anyone running for office has got to have an enormous desire to be noticed, admired and lifted up. Another is being wealthy and yet another is being physically intimidating or criminal.

Immortality is mostly expressed in procreation. Having children to carry on your nae or gene-pool is very gratifying as any grandfather well knows. Other methods would be writing a book or having a statue erecting in your honor.

Reality in the Kingdom is a whole different focus. For example, if you want to get up you need to step down. I learned early in this ministry that to have it prosper I needed to replace myself. The closer my knees are to the ground the nearer my heart, love and submission is to Him. As we exchange all we are for all He is we become lesser and He becomes larger. It gets better.

If you want to be seen, get out of sight. Remember that your born again experience has changed you to Christ with skin on. So the question is that when people get to know you do they get to know Jesus? The greatest blessing is to go about the Father’s business and not know it. This humility of storing up your secret treasure in heaven is the opposite of what we are taught as humans: He who dis with the most toys wins.

And lastly, here’s the best for the last. If you want to be great, forget yourself. I once asked John MacArthur Jr. what his earthly legacy for Jesus would be; his church, his sermons, his books, etc. He replied, “What happens when you put your hand on the surface of water?” I said, “You create a hand-print.” Then he said, “What happens when you remove your hand?” I responded, “The hand print disappears.” “Exactly!” he shot back. Wow!

How foolish for me to think I can add anything to His glory.

HOW DEEP

By Rick Mathes

John 13:34  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

The mega churches and others are caving into the “Love will earn you heaven.” So they preach from this verse that Jesus agreed. This is a doctrine whose validity is certified from effect to cause when the true Word of God teaches from cause to effect. Allow me to illustrate with my own personal experience.

When I finally realized I loved the Lord more than my dear wife I felt that I had committed a “mortal sin” until it dawned on me agape love flows from Jesus only. In other words if I was the source of love to her, no matter how I would try, it would not satisfy her because somewhere in there it was self-gratifying to me.

However, His love to her would be unselfish and pure. She deserved the best and His love through me was complete to here, she became my crown at that point. There is much difference between my love and His.

His love is unchangeable and He loves everyone equally with all the love He has. God is love and you get all there is when you are His. He is supreme and alone in His magnificence. Lucifer, the angel of light, tried to depose God and fell with his followers to roam the world as wild rabid wolves.

When you submit to His Lordship, the question remains, “How deep is your love?”

Are you His servant? Are you going about His business as a pilgrim on foreign soil? We become missionaries to earth or more specifically ambassadors of God. My prayer is that when you hear me you hear Him.

He loves you more than you are capable of loving. So it is an easy matter to put your life and actions into His hand completely. At first it is like stepping off the edge of a cliff but after you take the first step, He takes the rest of them with you. You can be certain that when you see and walk in His footsteps before you that everything is going to be ok. You will experience a contentment that will satisfy you far in excess of any counterfeit happiness you have ever drank, smoked or slept with.

He’ll be back with open arms and it my payer that yours will be also.

HOPE IS

By Rick Mathes

2 Timothy 2:13 (NASB77) ¹³  If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.

We were once in the depths of hopeless despair until the Lord lifted us up and gave us a glimpse of the eternity we will one day step into. We know what hope is:

It is:

• Comforting
• Sure
• Sustaining
• Purifying
• Satisfying and
• Blessed

But what does our eternal hoope do fo us here with our feet planted in God’s good earth; you know, that beautiful blue pearl in outer space? This magnifying hope within our soul certainly cheers the dying heart. What horrorifying thoughts must go through the mind of an unbeliever approaching the grim reaper? What fear terrorizes their thoughts who expect the flames of Purgatory or worse? How sad that they don’t cling to the promises of God’s Word and clutch Christ’s hand as that moment of truth approaches.

Eternal hope answers immortality. What do the Jehovah’s Witnesses have to say about their soul-sleep when Jesus welcomed the good thief into His Paradise? How would we all live if this was all there is and there would be no accounting of our actions after death? Lawlessness would surely run rampant.

In this hope we enjoy heavenly treasure that our minds have yet even to imagine. His second coming verifies His “first leaving” and guarantees that we will one day join Him where He is. Our treasure is Him and nothing more and nothing less. There isn’t any moneyor anyting of worth or bartering: Christ is all. There is no no gold, jewels, money, wealth that is worth anyghing more than dust compared to knowing and worshipping Jesus.

This eternity to come anchors this moment in faith and His blessings. Nothing, not even Satan can budge you away from Jesus and even Jesus couldn’t save you without the shedding of His blood. His resurrection says it all. Think about it. He was stone cold dead in that tomb for three days. And then He opened His eyes and got up because it was finished but not done. The angels moved the stone and our faith walked us into the empty grave and soon will lead us into a heaven exploding in angels praising His holly name forever.

 

HONORED BODY

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 6:20 (NASB77) ²⁰  For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

The building that many Christians goon Suday morning is the house of worship. Church is your body you take to the assembly. You are always standing on holy ground because your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Wherever you are is church! The Word commands us to come together as the Body of Christ and His will is complete when we do and in His time Hewill return for His Bride and we need to be pure and holy for Him in that Day.

A real test of our spiritual fiber is when we are suffering individually or corporately. When the going gets tough the tough get going: ask Job. Jesus will withhold the Holy Spirit from us for a season and permit Satan to impose the mental duress or physical sickness. It’s in this very time our deep roots in Christ blossom a bouquet of joy, happiness, tolerance, good will and a prayful hope for healing.

Adam was made to work the crops and struggle with the harvest to provide for his family as we are. It is a double blessing to be responsible for the work of the Lord as laid out for us and to excel and take joy in the privilege of doing so. We are to love and pray for our taskmasters. We really are the “called out ones.”

A major distinctive feature of the Christian community is our benevolence and compassion to all those in need regardless of who they ae o how they differ from us. Race, creed, national origin, political preference all evaporate when a fellow human is suffering or in need of our service. We are slaves of Christ.

So whether we are worshipping in church or lobbying in government assignment, church or state we represent Jesus. When others, believers or not, get to know us, do they get to know Jesus. The differences of church and state fade away when we stand in place of the King. We are responsible to both to represent the gospel, the good news that Jesus loves you. This love of our fellow man requires that our body is constantly in desperate pursuit of holiness. We bring peace to the world gone mad!

This is what the honored Body of Christ is compelled to do.

HOME CHURCH

By Rick Mathes

Philemon 1:1-3 (NASB77) ¹   Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon our beloved brother and fellow worker, ²  and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: ³   Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The post-modern attitude of many struggling pastors and wealthy donors fill the church with anyone they can lay their hands on under the pretense that if you get them into church, at least they will hear the Gospel. Sounds like a good intention with an underlying motive of increasing revenue. The downside is that these well-intentioned ministers are a watered-down Gospel. We don’t want to chase off the fragile newcomers, do we?

Too many mega-churches have come and gone in my lifetime where I can’t help but be upset when are constantly hammering on the fellowship for money when the focus should be centered on the pulpit message. My solution is that instead of having a thirty million dollar church have thirty, million dollar budgets with separate home churches. This way the debt is more manageable for many reasons. Plus a good pastor even with two good staff ministers can’t shepherd more than 200 members which a large home church would comfortably accommodate: does this make sense to you?

When is a home a church? Your home is a building and where you stand is church. This leaves you with the option of getting other believers together and freely worship. I have a sundown Friday night service, the Hebrew Sabbath, so as not to interfere with the attendance of my friends to their Sunday morning worship.

Do you have a church in your home? You certainly do! Making your church a legal entity is only for the compliance of government requirements and tax exemption matters. But your house, your home has two or more worshippers, it is a church, no doubt about it.

Who are the members? All those who believe are of the Body of Christ. There is the visible and invisible church.

Who are the lost? Just confessing Jesus IS Lord is not going to do it. You must also confess Him AS your Lord. If you will walk your talk you are a true believer. What are you doing for Him? You can start today and invite friends and relatives to join you for a prayer night. Church begins and ends demands that if Jesus is your Savior He must be your Lord. If you believe, you obey! It all start and ends in the home unit.

HOME ALONE

By Rick Mathes

Ephesians 2:22 (NASB77) ²²  in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

The best I can understand is that there is the spirit of physical life and there is the Spirit of spiritual life. Jesus gives both but the spirit of life dies eventually as the Holy Spirit of hereafter survives for eternity in heaven.

Jesus displayed this when He gave up the spirit of His life on the cross as a man and His Holy Spirit rose Him from the grave and He ascended into heaven as our Savior. Those who refuse to believe in Him die and rise to hell with the fallen spirit of Satan.

Jesus, bless His heart, directed the Holy Spirit to remain behind for us until His return in glory. So now we are not alone, ever as we walk a walk pleasing to Jesus. Just what does the Holy Spirit do?

First and foremost, He is the ultimate teaches. Who could know everything better than God? And the Holy Spirit and the Holy Word of God are here so that we are without excuse. We can walk our talk as long as we ae hand in hand with God’s Word and His Spirit.

The Spirit is our finest advocate as we pray our supplications to Jesus. In fact, He intercedes and prays for us words that escape us. He also knows what our needs are so that nothing misses its mark.

And in times of worry and anxiety, He is our Comfort as the waves grow larger and more threatening. As long as our eyes and faith are on Jesus we cannot fail to live our lives within His will. But if we turn we burn!

He not only gives us comfort but when indwelling in us He becomes the Comforter. You know you know that the peace that surpasses understanding is real because it lives in you. He said He could never leave us and forsake us and He meant it. The third person in the HolyTrinity helps us to press on and in His time be restored to our first nature to walk in perfest image and likeness of Him.

So you are never home alone when God’s Holy Spirit lives in your Temple. You are a priest filled with the Holy Spirit as He promised you would be.

HOLY SPIRIT

By Rick Mathes

Acts 1:5 for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

When the Lord returned to His former glory the Holy Spirit rolled up His sleeves and went to work. The following is a brief list of some of the Holy Spirit’s efforts to tune you in and focus on the Lord’s pleasure in living and acting out His purposes that touch you.

• Strive:              contend, combat, fight, attempt, struggle, insist on
• Convince:        persuade, emphasize, comfort, be irresistible, influence
• Quicken:          raise up, revive, being around, resurrect, revitalize
• Seal:                validate, confirm, ratify, certify, document, surety
• Reveal:            be transparent, show through, transmit light, brighten
• Witness:          testify, vouch, attest, inform, verify, validate
• Intercede:        mediate, arbitrate, umpire, intervene, negotiate
• Calling:            conscience, honor, duty, conviction, belief, reason
• Ordain:            predestined, appointed, foreordained, intended, degreed
• Commission:   deputized, empowered, responsible, intended, assigned
• Invite:              entice, allure, attract, influence, prevail upon, induce
• Lead:               direct, manage, spearhead, excel, predominate, win
• Comfort:          pacify, placate, appease, lull, reassure, set at ease
• Overcome:      prevail, influence, master, conquer, dominate

The Holy Spirit was sent to us to reveal the risen Christ to us that we might live and abide in Him until He returns. At that time He will make us like Him and we will know Him as He really is. This is accomplished through such witnesses as John the Baptist together with those the Holy Spirit moved upon to open the Word of God for us: the Rhema. The Father testifies of the Son through the Holy Spirit as a breeze fills the sails or a boat or lifts a kite or turns a windmill that produces electric power: dynamite.

The Old Testament testified to Jesus Christ through the hovering and mothering of the Holy Spirit like a hen with its clucks. A mother hen has a general cluck that says, “I’m right here if you need me.” And there is the special cluck that warns, “Get under my wings! Danger is near!”

HOLD ON!

By Rick Mathes

Hebrews 3:6 (ASV)

 But Christ as a son, over his house; whose house are we, if we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end.

If you read just the “red letters” of the Bible, Christ’s actual words, it will take you three hours at normal reading speed. I did that many times and I paid close attention to what He said especially His promises.

Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against us, He would never give us more than we could bear, He would always provide us a way out, He would never leave us nor forsake us, No one would take us out of His hand and where He is now, we will be. I believe this.

Consequently, this 70 year pilgrimage we are on for the Lord is one we are assured we will complete. There’s no guarantee will remain unscathed but we didn’t sing up for al inclusive 5 star resort vacation when we made Him Lord. We promised to put on the armor, lift the sword and fight the good fight for Him. Let’s face it, we have declared war on Hell!

We are assured that He will meet our needs and make available the provisions we need to fight the good fight. Rest assured we are protected from evil. Satan can only fire blanks at us unless Jesus gives him real ammunition in the last days.

One thing for sure, He will give you strength in your weakness. Satan is a bed-wetting, thumb sucking punk, in the Name of Jesus. He is nothing but a pimple on God’s butt. He is a created angel that fell from grace and can only do what his Creator permits and empowers him to do.

My main assurance of salvation and passing through these trials to glory is that He is right there with me. I like to imagine that I am hand-cuffed to Jesus. This imagery gives me a sense of empowerment. With Him at my side I know that if I press on I will prevail and you will too.

Put all your worry and café behind you and hang on for the ride. I guarantee you it will be an experience you won’t soon forget. As His guest in His house we will enjoy privileges inexpressible if only we will hold on to the Him. Let’s go of you and let God be God!

HITTING THE ROAD

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 13:19
When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road.

There is no worse pain than heart-ache and that’s what I get when I preach and it just doesn’t register and a person just leaves untouched, never to return. I wonder what I could have done differently to reach them. I have finally concluded that apart from the election of God. I can’t do anything to turn a walking dead into eternal living.

This sad-sack is just plain inattentive to what is being said or sung. It is a distant indifference. This guy lives in a “whatever” world of relativity without anything to anchor on and no moorings to tie up to. This is a negligence of the highest order that has eternal consequences that are not within his vision.

It is really a hostile situation or rather a heart to heart combat with the devil for his soul and he isn’t even fighting back: whatever! With this wishy-washy attitude he has no sorrow for sin because his ears ae closed to what sin is. No guilt because he has become his own god and has done as he pleased. Others, including God are not a consideration.

The real deal is that he has no concern for Jesus because he doesn’t know him and really has no desire to. This is an inexcusable careless attitude that speaks values about his integrity and character or lack thereof. This guy is a real deadbeat that has calloused himself against the teachings of Scripture and conviction of sin, offenses against God.

This visitor is so hardened; the Word just bounced off of him. It’s like I’m preaching to a block of cement. I really believe that some people ae addicted to stupidity, not just ignorance but are flat out stupid! One thing I do know and rely on is that if this person belongs to the King, his knees will one day bow and his mouth will voice out, “Lord save me!” I will continue to preach into lifeless eyes and do my best to raise the spiritually dead to life. You have my promise.

HIS NAME

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 1:21  “And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.”

I went to court and had my last name changed to “Mathes” to honor my step-father. I have since learned that “Mathetes” means “disciple” in Greek. I enjoy being named “a disciple” and I am proud of my last name and my Lord and I am learning from. Many other names have a root meaning that is descriptive of their nature or occupation. Jesus was named for both the essence and form of God.

There is so much publicity attached to names such as, “The Donald” referring to entrepreneur Donald Trump in New York or Pau the Apostle in Rome. But no name turns more heads than when you read the name Jesus in any secular writing. Caesar hates Jesus but more and more we are hearing and reading His name. I can sense that Jesus is alive and near.

Each time I read His name, whether it be in a liberal newspaper or our Holy Bible I learn something more about Him: some true and other very derogatory but I can’t escape learning something from the context I read His name in.

Repeating His name reinforces all we have read and learned about Him as well as drive off the devil and his demons. Just thinking His name cleans my thoughts and energizes my commitment and faith in Him. I often sing, “There’s just something about that Name” in my head to keep me press on in His name. I don’t ever want to shame Him in my mind nor in my actions.

So I read, learn, repeat and pray His Name. Sometimes there isn’t time for a long thoughtful prayer and sometimes I don’t know how to pray during a certain experience so I just call out “Jesus” and the Holy Spirit intercedes for me. When you put these all together, you can’t help but break out in song.

“How great Thou art” still gives me “Holy Ghost bumps” and brings tears to my eyes. And what’s wrong with crying tears of joy and doing our spiritual laundry. My knees automatically bend at His name and the closer my knees are to the ground the closer my heart is to Jesus. “Jesus” is where heaven and earth meet and that’s exactly where I want to be. How about you?