Tag: born again

FOR HIM

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 10:31 (NASB77) ³¹  Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

My matra when I was lost in alcoholism was, “This Bud is for me!” Now in the power of the cross, when I walk away from a sinful temptation I say in my heart “This one’s for you Lord!” I can’t tell you how that rush of victory feels when I do this one for Him.

I have much cause to praise Him for setting me free to life up the Bible instead of the bottle. I have often sung, “I did it my way” at the top of my lungs but now I kneel in honor to my King; a complete turnaround for Him and for Him only. Nothing else worked.

You can’t deny cause and effect. When applied to the born-again experience the cause is a real exchange of all I am for all He is. The effect, ideally then, is to go about the Father’s business and not know it. That is true humility when the good works you do are for Him only and unconditionally.

The words, “forgive me” never left my mouth nor even entered my mind until I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. All kinds of crazy things happened and my attitude toward even offensive people took a 180 degree turn. A healthy tree bears good fruit and so will you for Him as long as you afe planted and rooted in good soil” the Holy Word of God.

The greatest show of appreciation is when we demonstrate our unity in Him without sacrificing the truth of His Gospel. Too many well-intentioned faiths join together with those of blasphemous faith for the sake of unity among so-called “fellow believers.” The Body of Christ cannot be divided so if you are in a church that fights and splits, leave it. I will even say that denominations that separate Christians from each other are straight from hell! We are united for Him and nothing can separate usfrom the love of the brethren, faith to faith.

Nothing but the consecration of our bodies and the total commitment to holiness will satisfy our God that must judge sin for His Son. Nothing but His Son’s righteousness imputed to us will satisfy God’s wrath and punishment of sinners. Our willingness to surrender our heart, mind and soul to Him is for Him!

 

FOLLOWERS OF HIS

By Rick Mathes

John 6:2 And a great multitude was following Him, because they were seeing the signs which He was performing on those who were sick.

People either lift their heads or hang their heads at the name of Jesus and many have manipulated both with the slick merchandising of sins and wonders,. House churches of the primitive Christians have been converted to amphitheaters or merchandising Jesus. Turn up the lights, it’s ShowTime!

I don’t want to go there with this article. I’d rather step into the Word, the crowd and sink my toe in that Israeli soil and walk around. Won’t you join me?

The most obvious in the crowd are those that are just plain curious, like some who happen to visit your church from time to time. Unfortunately, there are those who ae false enthusiasts. They come for the entertainment and to get some “Holy Ghost bumps.” Let’s not forget those who are really receptive and reflective to the worship experience. The crowd about Jesus was no different than it is now.

Let me continue with the similarities by suggesting that some are just sensation seekers. They are like groupies that follow the most fireworks they can find when they themselves are nothing more than bottle-rockets. When you try to calm them down to focus on the Word they become murmurers. Their demeanor now becomes one of poison in the Body;. their “under t radar” complaining canturn yhour church’s foundation to sand. If they can’t get the bells and whistles, they will bring you down with them: no different that in Christ’s time 2,000 years ago.

Some gatherings of so-called Christians, your church includes allow blatant, in-your-face backsliders to continue in fellowship. By permitting them to stay, you have joined their sin. The Body of Christ is just that. No unbelievers or known backsliders are allowed unless they repent of their sins.

The worst are the secret believers. These are demons recruited outright from the population of Hell. In fact, too many are occupying the pulpits of influential churches across our nation. Those that follow them take the wide road that says, “This way to Heaven!”

FOLLOW ME

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 4:19 (NIV) ¹⁹ “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”

There is always someone in the lead. We are forever following someone at any given time: parents, teacher, police, politician, traffic, ministers, etc. And all too often, as in my case, it’s following the wrong people: people that only lead to alcoholism, drug addiction and prison. That was my path for 25 years of my life.

When I finally surrendered to His grace and accepted Him as my Lord, I didn’t trust the writers of the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I thought they were just “con-men” merchandising Christ for a profit so I ignored them and only read the “red parts” (the words of Jesus). It’s amazing to me now that I can preach a home-run sermon and everyone is dazzled by my eloquence for an hour or two but Jesus’ recorded words only take 3 hours to read and 2,000 years later we are astounded by this unfathomable wisdom and insight!

And all He asked his disciples to do was, “Follow me.” Sublime simplicity!

This begs the question: “What does following Him mean?”

• When you follow Him you are separated unto him.
• When you follow Him you leave others.
• When you follow Him you abide with Him.
• When you follow Him you obey Him.
• And when you follow Him you believe Him implicitly.

Now on this fishing thing: I only went fishing with a case a beer and no worms before I met Him and now I go to the supermarket and do my fishing in the fish department!

But fishing for men has become my full-time vocation and I might add avocation. If I’m not fishing, I am out of the water and about to dry up and die. I have since noticed some parallels between “fishers of fish” and “fishers of men” I thought you might be stimulated to think about.

A fisherman is dependable and trustworthy.

He is diligent and persevering.

His own very words will “scare the Hell out of anyone!” Don’t believe me? Take three hours of the rest of your lifetime and just read and meditate on the words He said and how He said them and you will find my style quite refreshing and welcomed as a method of love rather than a harsh insensitive, unloving, dolt I have often been accused of being.

REPENT OR BURN IN HELL FOREVER!

(Did you get my drift?)

 

FOLLOW HIS VOICE

By Rick Mathes

John 10:4 (NASB77) ⁴ “When he puts forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

The sheep-pen is the Church and the Gate Keeper is the Holy Spirit. The Good Shepherd, of course, is none other than our Lord Jesus and we are His sheep. This parable is perfect to show our relationship to our new Master.

We follow Him because He knows His sheep and they know, trust and obey Him. They quickly respond to His calling. We are very close to each other in the person of Christ and the spirit of the Third Person of the Godhead. We, the sheep, love and follow Him wherever He goes.

The big difference between sheep and His elect is that sheep are herded from behind and His own, those that Father gave Him, are lead from the front. It’s a real family in every way.

Our Lord, our Good Shepherd talks to us through His Word s if He were talking to His own children. We respond with our prayers. How can anyone have a meaningful relationship unless they have a continuing conversation and progressive fellowship?

Our hearts beat with His because we owe our lives to Him. We were once lost and following only bad shepherds that crossed our path randomly as we wandered through Satan’s open fields riddled with land mines.

There isn’t any counterfeit satisfaction that is an improvement of the real thing. Only Jesus can fill that “God space” that is in us. Only Jesus can save us from ourselves and certain destruction. Only Jesus and His perfect Word will give us the fullness of His glory our souls agonize for.

He died for us. Let this sink in and never tire of searching the depth of this truth that He actually took our Hell upon Himself and died so that we might live in His resurrection power and glory. This alone unties us as one body, and one soul. Our hearts beat with His. We can return to our first nature if only we will  follow the Good Shepherd an leave the false shepherds far behind.

FOLLOW HIM

By Rick Mathes

John 10:28 (NASB77) ²⁸ and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.

Many of us have followed the wrong shepherd as he led us to prison and that included the wall-papered kitchens of certain death. If the penitentiary doesn’t get you and overdose of prescription drugs will. So we all get an invitation to turn from the devil to salvation from sin. What did you do with yours?

Following Him includes a consecration of holiness. Catholic priests consecrate their two fingers so as to hold the host they wrongly believe to be the actual body of Jesus but the thought is great How about if we consecrate our whole bodies and be not only wholly His but holy.

This following also includes a separation of you from all the non-believers. Ecclesia (Church in Greek) means “called out ones.” Our Good Shepherd calls us out of the world and endows us with a new sense of self-denial. As we become more Christ like we think, see, feel, touch and act as He would. It’s like being on an entirely new, foreign planet. You are probably shaking your head yes at this comment.

Put the old selfish self behind and move forward with a self-sacrificing, serving self in the image and likeness of God. You were made a mirror of Him and the Holy Spirit is here right now to enable you to do just that: reflect Him back to the Father and to all those that see you. I’d rather see the sermon than hear it wouldn’t you? How you live speaks volumes about who you love, yourself or your Savior.

We continue this pilgrimage in imitation of His image as we are enabled by the Holy Spirit. It expresses itself in service to Him that I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, comfort the sick and visit those in prison and though they were He.

It all starts and ends in “Him.” There is no other reason to press on except our Lord commands us to follow Him. If you don’t, what is your “plan B?” Who will you follow? You: you’ve done that long enough to know that it doesn’t work and more of what doesn’t work, doesn’t work. Duhhhh!

FIRST NATURE

By Rick Mathes

Colossians 3:5 (NASB77) ⁵   Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

Adam walked in the Shekinah glory of Father God because it was his first nature to walk in the perfection of the Image and Likeness of God unhindered by sin. It was his second nature to sin that did him in. It’s been asked, “Could Jesus sin?” The answer is that Jesus in the flesh was “able to sin” but in the Spirit was “able not to sin”: and so we likewise able not to sin in His Spirit. The sin you have is the sin you want more than Jesus because if you wanted Jesus more than you wanted the sin, you wouldn’t have it. Sin killed God’s Son and that makes Him very angry when you sin and certainly in no mood to bless you until you hate sin and love His Son.

You can start with immorality or illicit sex because that is Satan’s easiest entry level to your mind and soul. We are under a bombardment of inducements to sin sexually in any direction we look we are immersed in sensual shame.

Impurity is a branch on that tree that blossoms into a lot of damage most of which becomes water under the bridge and un-repairable. This could include homosexuality, affairs, pornography, and the seed of corruption, lust.

Our mind can be a playground for lust if we allow it to be. I’m sure Jesus looked at Mary Magdalene and noticed she was attractive but His eyes turned away. It’s not the look that does the damage, it’s lingering that causes you to move to acting out.

This lingering on a sinful thought promotes an evil desire and when your mind leads to this sin, your heart and feet follow. We are by in large real wimps when it comes to shutting down lustful thoughts. All of hells demons are laughing at our weakness!

The bottom line to our second nature is putting Jesus in second place. This is called idolatry. It can include promiscuity indecency, covetousness, greed or a host of material possessions. Any preference, anything we hold above Jesus will insure our fall into the flame-throwers hands of the devil and he has a way of making us think we are having a good time on the way to hell.

We must die to the flesh and in the Spirit of Jesus demonstrate we imitate Him. Let’s return to our first nature and be wholly His and consequently holy as Adam once was.

FIRST GOSPEL

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 15:1 Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand,

The primitive church was blessed with the pure gospel from the original participants. How breathtaking it would be to sit at Paul’s feet and hear his voice, feel his passion and learn the truth from the lips of the Holy Spirit to my ears. It’s heartbreaking how the world has invaded the church and captured the pulpit since then.

The “other gospel” Paul warned of makes a secret of the resurrection because the risen Lord is the hinge of our faith. All we believe depends on the witnessed fact that Jesus laid down His life down and He alone picked it back up again. Paul condemned to hell all those who changed, subtracted or added even one speck more or less than it was taught by the Apostles.

Garbage in-garbage out: this seems to be the trend of seminaries all over our country. The truth must be preached or condemnation will inevitably follow and the sheep who strayed into the wrong pasture. WE desperately must pursue regeneration, reform, revival and revolution!

One preached, God’s Word must be received. This means tht we need to always have our spiritual antennae up. I love to think that I am giving Jesus options when I apply God’s Word throughout the day. Much of His Word that I often need I memorize from repeated use. All the Word, only the Word, is what I believe and have given my life to.

Without His Word there would be no resurrection. I praise the Lord that the Holy Spirit, like wind in the sails, moved eye-witnesses to preserve testimony for us. “Blessed are those that have not seen and yet believe.”

If the original gospel was lost or perverted (redacted) we would have worse that no faith, we would have a false faith right from the playbook of the devil. We would not have forgiveness’s (imagine that) and the future would be a “crap-shoot” the Muslims call kismet (fate). The bottom line is would have no life worth living. The “Lord of the Flies) would reign once again!

FIRST AID

By Rick Mathes

Hebrews 10:1 (NASB77) For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.

Worship is too often contrived by the traditions of the church you are attending and mechanically followed like mind-less robots in a theater production. Stand up, sin, sit, kneel, recite a prayer, dip hand in holy water, make sign of the cross, smile at everyone, leave, go home and resume normal sinning patterns. You did more good than bad. Hogwash!

With no intent of setting up another dreary ritual for worship I would like to suggest a few aids to enhance your worship experience with Jesus. I believe the door to His glory is just plain meditating of who He is, what He said and what He did. A rerun of all you know with your toes sunk in Israeli sand will set the stage for all that is to follow.

Once you stand face to face with Him you will automatically confess your sins in total shame of what He knows about the real you. The Holy Spirit will drop you to your knees in heart-felt repentance.

With a clear conscience you will sense that God imparts His praises and you will worship Him is song without a thought about those who can hear you, your mind, heart and soul will soar in harmony with Him.

You will notice an orderliness among your brethren as corporate worship becomes spontaneous and all the swords are pointed to the evil one and no longer to each other.

At this point you are ready for the highest honor of a Christian. You can step into the throne room and talk to God person to person. That is exactly what prayer is, conversation with the Holy One. Astounding!

This experience will cause you to go to full-throttle for the Kingdom in your prayers, volunteer time, and financial support. We realize that everything including our next breath is His.

Bible study is the ignition that makes all the above happen and guess what the last thing Satan wants you to do? You have it! Pick up the Bible and have God speak to you. Will you just let the Word lay on the rack or “pick up and read?”

FIRST – LAST

By Rick Mathes

Mark 1:15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Jesus began His life with the King of this world (Herod) hell-bent on killing Him and ended His life with the King of this world (Satan) accomplishing the task. Jesus began His ministry with His first sermon to repent and in His last act He forgave the thief on the cross to His right. The shepherd men welcome the King of Glory into this world and the thief was the first to welcome Him into heaven. He said in many different ways that He was and is the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega. He was at one time last to consider in my life and now He is all of my life.

What is the good news? If you are a believer, you will never ask that question because there will be no doubt in your mind that the resurrected Lord and Savior is the good news. He is the greatest gift of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Our hope is that He is coming in His kingdom and glory soon as our reward for faithfulness.

Why should we repent? There is a great necessity that is much more ominous and pressing than we can even imagine. When the day of the Lord arrives, God is going to unleash His pent up wrath, rage and fury for sin having killed His only Son. We must pray that we might turn our eyes and not witness the devastation His hand will apply. Christ will command that this event collimated in the devil, his demons and unbelievers be cast into the lake of fire.

Please get a handle on this: the kingdom is near! It is nearer than you think and your moment before the Lord is closer than maybe you would like it to be. The time will come when the end times will pass and He will be exalted on His throne of grace as He Was when He spoke all creation into existence.

The final effect will be your contrition and confession of sin because you will witness His holiness and you will have a self abhorrence of your sinful condition. At this moment, if you are a true believer, you will abandon your self at His feet and cry out for mercy. May God help you!

FINAL EXAM

By Rick Mathes

1 Peter 2:20
For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.

How can you run your hands through a cesspool of foul excrement and then lift them to a Holy God for mercy? You are making God gag and you deserve the fullness of His wrath for have such audacity; sin that killed God’s Son cannot pass for a benign wrongful digression or an acceptance that displeases God and insults His Son on the cross.

At least with guilt you can be assured that the Holy Spirit is at work in you because the devil would never convict you of sin. The shame of this is tht you haven’t repented but you have given Satan a toe-hold. It’s an unusual darkness that comes upon you because even though your eyes are open, you don’t see it but you do wreak it. It is a sickening defilement of your spirit and pollution of your soul when you turn you back on that bloody death stake on Calvary.

Love is quenched and distorted when you divorce yourself from the bonding of the Holy Spirit. The hope that once lay on the horizon is clouded over and barely visible. The joy that once ws the lifeblood of your prayers has evaporated in silence and has left you void of any positive emotions. Grace has fled and the source of your strength and perseverance has been forsaken by your choice of Lucifer over Jesus. What an awful condition to be in, all alone and forlorn with flames licking at you heels.

Backsliding or rather open-eyed willful sin deprives you of any enjoyment. It renders you useless in your generation and a bad example for the next to follow. It becomes injurious to the cause of Christ. All you do while in open sin shames not just the Cross but even the very name of “Christian.” You are in mortal and immortal danger of sinking deeper until you can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. You are a walking corpse looking for place to be buried. But how can you escape this certain sentence of eternity in hell when your mind is enfeebled, stupefied and defiled?

God may not wajt to help you for very long. Turn around and come back to your church today!