Tag: alcohol

GROW IN GRACE

By Rick Mathes

2 Peter 3:18 (NASB77) ¹⁸ but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

It all begins with the last thing Satan wants you to do and that’s study the Scriptures. Get a handle on this: the form of Jesus (God) is in heaven but He left His essence behind in the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is the teacher and you are His favorite student. All the angels are cheering you on!

To continue a saving relationship with Him, it is natural to talk (pray) to Him all day as you go about your normal activities. He enjoys your company and when you take time to listen (meditate), He will speak back to you through the Bible.

If you love the world and it’s toys more than Him, He will take His protective hand away and you will be fresh meat for that roaming lion from beneath. Even an appearance of evil will block and blessing He may have for you.

My spiritual weight-lifting is that I testify to His salvation from sin daily to anyone who will listen. Just cheerfully give of yourself to anyone who wants to get without regard to any return on your investment of time, money or prayers. It’s all in God’s providence. I just go through the day giving God options and then He exercises those which are in His will.

Seek to know:

• His divine nature to you
• His human nature to you
• His finished work on the cross.
• His death.
• His resurrection.
• His intercession.
• His future return.

When your, “I, me and mine” changes over to “He, Him and His” you are asking in His will and have the grace and knowledge of your only Savior. All glory be to Him!

GOOD SHEPHERD

By Rick Mathes

John 10:14 ” I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me,

It all fits: the “I AM” is a Shepherd. His for too many years I followed bad shepherds and the led me down the wide road with all the strobe lights, booze, marijuana, sex and rock and roll. It was a 25 year nightmare that I thank God every day that it is over. My new life was begun and by His grace the Good Shepherd led me beside quiet waters and does so to this day.

He is the owner of His sheep. They were bought and paid-in-full on His Cross. The rest of your life is none of your business. Jesus is going to do with you what He wants to do, when He wants to, how He wants to, if He feels like it. We are willing sheep of His of His flock and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I know that as a member of His flock, He will keep me well fed and protected for any fatal attraction or deadly force. The alternative is a cage in Satan’s mansion: a house of death and insanity. We truly are good hands when we are in His. He said He would never leave us nor forsake us and no one could take us out of His hands.

What better provider and leader would you prefer to Jesus? He is our defender as well, so I would strongly suggest that you get to love Him and His Holy Spirit will be very active in your life because Jesus is life. How can a person such as Jesus be a concept? We’ll find out in glory.

It’s really fascinating to witness a shepherd call his sheep and then watch the sheep that are his separate at His voice from those who are not His. They know His voice and respond to his calling because they were chosen to be his sheep and his sheep only.

Everyone is under authority of someone and in free countries that someone is someone you have chosen. We listen to their statements of purpose and if compatible with our beliefs, we follow them. The most notable leaders are the pastors who follow our Master. No man is an island unto himself. But no man can stand alone. He either loves trusts or follows Jesus or he casts his lot with Rev. Lucifer and his army of fallen angels. It’s all a matter of love. The Bible says that if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. Choose to love the Good Shepherd because He first loved you, fair enough?

GOOD SOLDIER

By Rick Mathes

2 Timothy 2:3 (NASB77) ³   Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

It’s easy when it’s easy but the true athlete, the good soldier will still be standing tall and competitive after the wave of suffering and persecution. He may lose a battle from time to time but we always win the war. This assault from the enemy inherently provides the good soldier with a discipline that can only come about by God’s grace.

Our Commander-in-Chief reveals His grace when all else appears futile in the face of hand to hand combat with a fallen angel. This exercise in faith and trust in Jesus sharpens the Sword and strengthens the arm that lifts the shield of faith: spritiual growth is the ultimate result.

When a new reruit has been passed through the flames of combat and has went face to face with Satan’s tarnished angels, he soo learns why man will ultimately command legions of battle ready devils in the ends times battle of the worlds.

Once you have the scars and bruises, our Christian serice to the King will be exchanged and your surrender to His will, completely, will be in full effect. The iron fist of faith will prevail against the very gest hell has to throw against we believers.

We will lift our hands in victory to our Savior as we surrender to His will and put our full reliance on His provisions. Believe and obey, believe and obey, that is the cry of the Crusader “Believer and Obey!”

In short, a good soldier’s always maintains his perspective through the pris of God’s Holy Scriptures By decree, our leader will accept the battle beaten victor and separate him from the rest that talked the talk but didn’t walk the talk. No counterfeits will get b the Holy Spirits inspection.

A fully commited soldier is consecrated by the imputed righteousness of Jesus: this is holiness personified. A soldier wholly His walking in holiness and persevering to the end. This is the essence a selfless martyr that sores in the regenerative power of Chris and kills death with the Sword of God, the Holy Bible!

GOOD MAN

By Rick Mathes

Acts 11:24 for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord.

Barnabas means “Son of Encouragement.” He was a good man. Christianity was just now blossoming into a faith similar but advanced and separate from Judaism. As the faith was strengthening in power and numbers men like Barnabas were raised up to search out and recruit the Pauls of the world. He had an irresistible kindness, compassion and patience that complimented Paul’s more aggressive spirit. It developed willingness, a passion to make known the spiritual cure to the sick and dying. Most ministry leaders have had the same experience.

The basic component of any outreach ministry is charity or rather the extension of love through physical resources prayer, time or money. I might add that every Christian ministry is unified with only one goal: restore whole families to the throne of grace.

When you are the man of God He has called and chosen you, eagerness and trembling occurs within you. It’s unguided energy apart from the Word and prompting of the Holy Spirit. This extension of Christ in you exhibits His humility and loyalty to those who are His. The same will be a permanent exercise of your faith you do well to all around you and let others take the credit. He actually becomes more prominent in your life as you become smaller.

Your courage grows as your apparent successes mount. Timothy held in His hand the future of the Kingdom when Paul passed it on to him and he was afraid and in fear of God. He was young and inexperienced and it showed. But his gentle spirit and heart of love and forgiveness prevailed as it will with you.

Let us just step back a step and sink our toes in Israeli sand as we study this verse. Notice he was a good man, he was filled with the Spirit and had a strong faith: and so it can be with you if you so desire it.

It only takes one match to light up a whole universe. It only took one Barnabas to seek out the Super-Apostle Paul and it only took one Paul to be used of God to teach us all we need to know to go to heaven.

What in heaven’s name is holding you back?

(Put your excuse here so that God and man can see it!)e w

GOOD CONSCIENCE

By Rick Mathes

Acts 23:1 And Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, ” Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day.”

A police car was on my tail making identification on my license plates. Having a bad background BC, before Christ was a bad history I had left behind as I waved to the cop through the rear-view mirror. I had a clear conscience and no fear of what his computer check would reveal. I had done my duty to God and man. My past was all cleaned up and my future was in the Lord’s hands. I still smile when I think of having a clean conscience. It’s all because I have been born again and now live for Christ’s approval. There are certain responsibilities to remaining tuned-up in Him.

It all begins and ends with reading the Word. Now there is a lot in between but it all begins with “in the beginning” and ends with “maranatha” at the end. God needs to speak us through it’s principles. The Logos became flesh then returned to the throne and now speaks to us who will read, listen, learn, apply and then evaluate.

This conversation is in prayer or rather conversing with God. Now think for just a minute. How many great or powerful people would you like to just walk in and give them a piece of your mind? It’s virtually impossible to reach these rich and famous people because they have layer upon layer of protective fences around them of friends, employees or even body guards. But you and I have an immediate cleared path to God. Not only can we come to Him in prayer whenever we want to bu He encourages us to do so.

Satan doesn’t like it when we pray for forgiveness so he lurks around until he can disrupt us with temptation. We must be watchful and see his punch coming so we can turn it against him. Our best effort is cross-bearing. We must be willing to get up on our cross, suffer the flesh to death so that we might rise to life in Christ.

So the exhortation I have for you that comes directly from the Lord is to repent of your sins. Get rid of them by loving Jesus so much, continued sinning is not an option. Then submit to His Lordship. In other words, walk your talk and then prove your conversion by making obedience to His will your passion and only obsession. This will give you a clear and clean conscience that points only to His Cross and loved for you!

GOOD CHRISTIAN

By Rick Mathes

Romans 7:21 (NASB77) ²¹  I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good.

What is the good in a good Christian and what becomes new a evil is displaced with good? First let’s consider what godly good is:

• Good for good is manlike
• Bad for bad is beastlike
• Bad for good is Satan like, and
• Bad for good is Christ like!

Believe me; it is better to lost the battle and win the war. God’s agape love will always prevail if you have the spiritual “T” to pull it off.

Now what changes from ol to new when your old you is born again and a new you rises from the dead?

All you have to pray is, “Create in me a new heart, O Lord,” and He will. You can’t repair a sin infected heart, O Lord” and He will. You must have a heart transplant to insure a new future with a new life. The old fades out to make way for the new, no longer shackled to the past nor worried over the future.

It’s not usual for a close old acquaintance to say, “I don’t even know you anymore. You’re not the person you used to be. What happened to you?” Well, you can let him know that you are waling a new walk in a new life you never suspected even existed.

You pledge allegiance to an old God that has made Him-self new to you. He has been there for all eternity just waiting for you to confess Him as your Sovereign Lord. It’s given you a new occupation.

Your employment is only useful to support your occupation of knowing, loving and sharing the love of God with others. This is a new source of energy for you because the more you share Him with others the more you receive of His love and goodness.

A new family surrounds you now of those wonderful Christians that were there all the time but you just don’t choose to notice. You have received a full inheritance from your Father in glory anda new assurance that you cannot lose the love of celestial family ever, for all eternity.

FALLEN SAINTS

By Rick Mathes

John 6:67 (NASB77) ⁶⁷ Jesus said therefore to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?”

Satan’s arrows and saints’ friendly fire often cause seekers to fall away and remain condemned to eternal dying in the furnace of Hell. Even with the best of intentions unbelievers find our Gospel offensive. Think about it: God dies in shame on a death stake. That’s hard to believe. Jesus the man is fully God and equal to the Holy Spirit that forms a Trinity? How about Jesus of His own volition died and then rose himself up from the dead; the ultimate healing?

Many fear the persecution by family and friends is sure to follow a conversion. They will just laugh off your “born again” experience and just wait in the bushes to catch you when you sin.

More often than not the reason people turn their back to the Lord is peer-group pressure; your evil companions become your only support system and you would rather stay in comfort zone of sin and step out into the wilderness of vulnerability which is sure to follow your new life and new friends.

It’s really hard to let go of your sensual enjoyment of drugs, sex and rock-n-roll. You can’t even imagine a world without alcohol, loose women, gambling and crime. It really is  new planet when you forsake the devil an pledge allegiance to the King!

Sad but it is true, that many just plain don’t want to be bothered about religion. It’s just sheer laziness. Why waste time hanging out with Christians that just don’t know how to have a good time.

The reason some drop out is unsound doctrine. I’m not into handling snakes, drinking poison or jabbering in silly unknown language. Satan has to corrupt the church with false beliefs that unless you get the “real deal”, you will fll for anything a persuasive demon can preach to you.

Lastly is when the situation you are in changes from terrible to tolerable, this is when Satan persuades you that you don’t need religion, you can handle it one more time.