Tag: born again

BLIND

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BLIND

By Rick Mathes

(Author of “Allah or Jesus”)

 

Romans 3:11 (NASB) 11  THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;

AUGUSTINE

Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that thou mayest believe but believe that thou mayest understand.

The ignorant man always adores

What he cannot understand.

Our condition before God is so bad we get into denial to hide our real self. If you saw my heart as God sees it you would run from me and yours would be terrifying if exposed. We have an underlying and an ulterior motive. The underlying motive is in plain sight but the ulterior motive is under the table and driven by self and sin.

When we walk in willful sin we cannot really see the beauty of Christ’s countenance. It’s blurred with the smoke from hell. You lose the presence of His grace because you have yielded to Satan’s lordship; Satan has become your lord. It’s like running your hands through the filth and decay of a cesspool and then lifting them to God for mercy. You are only making God gag.

Keep focused on the things of God by seeing through His eyes. It’s like moving from black and white to color; a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. This can be a wonderful adventure as His world, sin-free opens up to you.

I have controlled glaucoma in both eyes. My mom and grandfather both went blind from it. I am so grateful for the gift of sight and I dedicate this medical miracle to the Great Physician. Of all the terrible things that could happen to me physically, I fear going blind most.

The pressure of Jesus points out the need of a new birth. The evil of this world is smothering us body and soul with the filth of sin. This sin killed God’s Son. This is very serious. In your blindness you will have the penalty of sin fade into the wide road that leads to eternal flames. So get your spiritual eyes checked as I did and don’t allow yourself to go blind to the grace and goodness of our Savior, Jesus.

BLESS VS. CURSE

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BLESS VS. CURSE

By Rick Mathes

Romans 12:14 (NASB77) 14   Bless those who persecute you; bless and curse not.

Everyone, including myself, have an obvious motive and an ulterior one. Both or either can be blessed or cursed of the Lord. The motive on the table could be self-sacrificing or under the table, self-gratifying.

There is the form and the essence. The form of God we see with the eyes of the Holy Spirit is the body and life of Jesus. His essence, or what He’s made of is found in God’s breathed Word, our Holy Bible.

A double blessing is a double grace.

Bless the Holy Spirit with all that is within you and He will reciprocate with all that is within Him: the words and works of Jesus Christ. We know His efforts are successful because He is God: all-knowing, all-powerful and all-present. God never fails with His intentions. You might pray, “I’m not having a good time,” but you are in His perfect will nonetheless.

Your heart beats with His and His instructions for your life are perceived and accepted. The Words He has for you leap off the pages of the Gospel according to Jesus Christ. Our Lord’s Words and Works. Try my system: read and parse all the red parts of your Bible with as many commentaries as you can carry. I did. I was a red-letter theologian.

Born-again means you die to the old life which hardly any professing Christians do. They continue to drag that rotting corpse along behind them. His power, the very power of creation itself, think about this, is in you!

  • How big is your God?
  • How much room is there in you for the Holy Spirit?
  • How much of Him will you allow in?

Your yielding to divine grace is absolutely irresistible. Like metal drawn to a magnet, you are being drawn to the foot of the Cross to repent of your sins in the mud, the blood and the tears of those that preceded you to this holy ground of forgiveness.You may not see, hear, taste, touch of smell our Lord but as heaven is real, so are all your feelings of His presence in the Holy Spirit. The blessing is Him and the curse is sure to follow if you stand at the foot of the Cross and give Him the finger!

BETRAYED

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BETRAYED

By Rick Mathes

Luke 13:21 (NASB77) 21  ” It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of meal, until it was all leavened.”

Have you ever had a close friend turn on you? I have. I really think I have too high of an expectancy for those few I call friends. Most I know thrown that term “friend” around very loosely but I don’t. I try to use David and Jonathan as a model. But no matter how hard I try I am not the friend to Jesus I expect Him to be to me. I’m just a sinner seeking a Savior and I let Him down time and time again.

You see, deep down like you, I am rotten to the core. I have an evil nature that at times even scares me. It’s natural and easy to sin. Every molecule in my body is attracted to those things that displease Jesus. But when we become born-again we are “able not to sin” in His Spirit. The old excuses to sin vaporized in His presence and of course where He is, are the Temple of God I carry around is called my body. You and I are just animated dust that betrays Him at every chance we get apart from His Spirit which has taken up lodging in our “walking temple of God:” our body.

Sinful betrayal yields evil gain. We are piling up smoldering treasure in Hel with each sinful, self-glorifying act. Our heart hardens to each hammered blow to our pursuit of holiness We’ve done a 180 degree at this point and there aren’t any tears left.

Have you ever sobbed so had your ribs hurt? I imagine that Jesus is that deeply distressed when you or I sin. We’ve turned our back on the Cross and with the kiss of Judas we have begrayed Him and scorned His Word, trust His words to our advanae and join Satan in shaming Him or committing sin blatant, “in your face” sin?

If we have a modicum of intelligence, we can’t misunderstand “Repent the Kingdom of God is near.” Sin murdered God’s only Son. Get a handle on that. This is a dead serious charge to be held a sinner. There is no greater crime on earth than sin!

BELIEVE OBEY

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BELIEVE-OBEY

By Rick Mathes

Luke 6:46 And why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?

When you confess Jesus is Lord you have attained intellectual ascent. But when you reach down 18 inches to your heart and confess Jesus as Lord, you have put him on your throne and made Him the boss: you are under new management. There are a few guidelines along the way that you should use as a check-list and it is my purpose in this article for you to live under His Lordship and leave easy-believism in the dust of your history and step into His-story.

Jn. 3:7 There is no justification without regeneration. No matter how politically incorrect it is, you must be born-again. This is the catalyst for all that follows.

Jas. 2:20 Faith without works is a dead faith; no faith at all. For every cause there is an effect. When I’m happy I smile, sad I cry. When I love Jesus I work for Him.

Mat. 10:22 The mark of true justification is perseverance in righteousness. This means that if you are truly born-again and He’s your Lord, you never give up.

Lk. 6:46 Faith in a Jesus who is Savior but not Lord is a faith in another Jesus. It is an inevitable experience of a true believer that if you believe you obey.

Lk. 9:23 If one wants to serve Christ: pick up your cross and follow Him. You have no one to blame for your sins and their consequences but you alone.

Heb. 12:14 We must pursue holiness. To be holy we must be wholly His. We can’t hold anything back. You can’t be part saved. Indecision is a decision: you remain in the filth of sin.

In total these sign-posts are there along the way to measure your relationship to Jesus. Satan’s greatest delight is for you to live the illusion that you are saved when you are not. That’s what carnal religion is. It is a faith in Father Lucifer’s doctrines, ceremonies and traditions.

Satan uses men to invent a religion when they make God in the image and likenss of God. They turn your eyes out instead of out. You begin to obey the Lord of Hell and in short you become a Satanist if you confess you believe and don’t obey. (Read this last sentence again.)3

BELIEVE IN HIM

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BELIEVE IN HIM

By Rick Mathes

Romans 4:24 but for our sake also, to whom it will be reckoned, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,

What we do with our belief is not prescribed by manmade rules or rituals such as the Church of Rome are so choked by. No, real belief results in a real spontaneous response from our mind, to our heart and from our soul. Hands up, down, folded, all this is not something to follow because others do it that way.

What I do know about believing in Him, worship just happens. So as not to be distracted by others, when I want to approach Jesus and worship Him I close my eyes and get into my own little private chapel. I also have observed that everyone who approached the Lord fell on their face and were overwhelmed with shame at the sin they were still infected with. How horrible can it be to be transparent before our Lord and have Him see us as no one else can?

Repentance is the issue believers constantly wrestle with. Repenting of our sins is the absolute opposite of what our natural self wants to do. It is down-right ugly how we resist the holiness required of us by God’s breathed Word in the Bible.

Once we make an honest confession as believers in the Holy of Holies, we are supernaturally to let Him live through us. We imitate in our flesh the Lord of heavens that is clothes in our skin. When people get to know us, they get to know Him. As a bond servant, it is not too hard to conclude that we are to live to serve Him.

This can be done in a number of ways but it all begins with selflessness and sacrifice. The Lord knows all that needs to be done by us to advance the Kingdom but the heart of all efforts is our relationship to Him. It isn’t what you do t counts, it’ who you are in Him that is everything. St. Francis of Assisi said it so well when he said, “All I want to do is go about the Lord’s business and not know it.” That’s what I call humility.

Would make this suggestion to you, “Do the best you can for Jesus and let someone else get the credit” or “Replace thyself.” It’s all about Him not you.

BELIEVE HIM

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BELIEVE HIM

By Rick Mathes

John 11:40 Jesus •said to her, ” Did I not say to you, if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

Do you want to step into glory? The key to heaven’s gate is belief. It’s too simple. Why do we have to complicate it with so many man-made distinctives? He simply instructs us to have faith and to believe. Faith, for His purposes, is beyond our grasp. What I mean is this: when we say “I can’t” He says, “I can” and if we act on that faith in Him it is called belief and we have stepped out of the boat. It’s all about Him while we walk on Living Waters.

The most obvious inquirer is the questioning unbeliever. What a blessing to have someone approach you and ask, “What must I do to be saved?” Now they may not use those exact words but the message is the same. We all want to be loved and we aren’t to our satisfaction until we believe and are loved by Jesus. Our love for each other is self-gratifying will our love for each other through Him is self-denying.

The most exciting confrontation with Christ is the anxious seeker. Follow this logic:

  • I don’t know I don’t know
  • I don’t know I know
  • I know I don’t know
  • I know I know

Which of these is the inquirer you are being confronted with?

Let’s take a look at the suffering believer for a moment. Life can be quite a drama with its ups and downs. The real world has some tough places we have to pass through on our way home. When you believe in Him you see Him being glorified in all your experiences of sickness, stress, fear and the world of unbelievers. Just stand fast and it will pass.

I can speak for me that I have often been a discouraged worker. It’s taking me many years to learn and accept that God has never had a bad day. I may not like how things are going now bujt when I look back at all that has happened; my life has been a masterpiece of His genius.

Last but not least is the dying Christian. How you die displays how you lived. Believers die believing.

BELIEVE A LIE

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BELIEVE A LIE?

By Rick Mathes

Romans 5:5 (NASB) 5  and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

God makes a promise, faith believes it, hope anticipates it and patience quietly awaits it. Our hope is that we can discern the lie and it’s by our faith that He will lead us out of the flames into the living water.

Thomas Scott

No affliction nor temptation, no guilt nor power of sin, no wounded spirit nor terrified conscience should induce us to despair of help and comfort from God.

All unbelief is the belief of a lie.

Think. What would you do without Jesus? Do you really believe the lie that you can do it your way and earn your own right to heaven? What god will you turn to? Jesus said that He would lay His life down for you and then pick it back up. He did it, that settles it, and I believe!

Jesus said from the cross, “It is finished!” and after the white throne judgment He is going to say, “It is done.” When He does not even God will be able to save you. That’s right! Not even God Himself. There is no “Plan B” in hell; no options. I don’t like that so I chose to live and at least make an effort to lift m myself back up and have a chance of making up for all the people, places and things I have damaged beyond repair.

Don’t wait. You never know when it’s your last chance.

Alexander MacLaren

Unbelief is criminal because it is a moral act, an act of the whole nature. Belief or unbelief is a test of man’s whole spiritual condition because it is the whole being of affections, will, conscience as well as the understanding which are concerned in it.

Make a choice. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the Life.” Then He said, “Do you believe this?” If you do then act like it. When people get to know you do they get to know Jesus or the devil. Don’t wait until there isn’t an option: this is urgent.

BELIEVE

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BELIEVE

By Rick Mathes

Acts 16:31 and they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and your household.”

Faith is reaching beyond your grasp and when you do in Christ you become a believer. So the Christian faith begins with you believing in Him. Once I knew I knew He rose from the dead, I believed and have never turned back since. It is finished business because the Lord said so from the Cross but it isn’t done. He doesn’t announce that until after the white throne judgment when He will say, “It is done.”

The bone chilling consequence of this is that there will be a moment, a blink of an eye from that point forward no one will be able to be saved. It will be too late for those that have put it off and rejected Jesus as their Lord. The Muslims, Roman Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science and other eastern cults will drop into the flaming pit, the abyss of the dark-side with evil personified in Father Satan.

Receiving our Lord’s offer is the best choice you will ever have to make. His grace is handed to you and all it costs is everything you have and you are. In fact, the rest of your life is none of your business. You didn’t come to Him, He extended His hand, the Master’s hand and you reached back a slave evermore subservient to His slightest wish. This is the biblical truth! Don’t let anyone “soft-soap” you out of this fact with any scripture twisting.

He earned your trust through the witnesses of the sixty-six book library we call our Bible. They looked forward to the Cross and now we look backward to the same Cross.

WE do this to hear His voice ring through the ages in word and deed; As Josh McDowell has put it in his book “Evidence Deserves a Verdict.” Is Jesus a liar, lunatic or Lord? Let the Holy Spirit open your eares to hear the saints as they speak to you from the precious pages of His gospel.

“Look and be saved!” Moses had a foreshadow of His crucifixion. By His stripes we have been healed. Once you look into those pitiful eyes of our dying Savior, what choice is there but to yield to His call, “Believe in Me and be saved.” What is your plan B compared to Him?

BEFORE THE DAWN

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BEFORE THE DAWN

By Rick Mathes 

John 3:36 (NASB77) 36 “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

The world is a howling wilderness to those who go recklessly through it, stumbling in their self-made darkness: world gone mad. They have no concept of the consequences of their random and unleashed actions of sinful aggressions. It becomes a merry-go-round of evil, careening before them with a forever of no beginnings or ends of cowardly suicide of integrity and character.

Another night of lurking fear as the streets darken and the shadows flee the sundown and beams of thinning traffic headlights: loneliness no human should ever be asked to endure. Road-rage and taunt nerves cause tempers to flare and fights to spontaneously ignite. The irresistible lure of the taverns and relief of liquid levity is only one swallow away: the devil knows. “Pass that joint my way, bro.” The shakes from last night still linger. I can’t believe there is another day when I prayed last night would be my last: a dog returning to his vomit.

My sorrow is overwhelming me when I revue those shadows that follow me. Skinned knuckles, bloody mouth, vomit and shame: night after night: Can I ever be truly sorry for living the same horrors day after day, after day, after day?

The shroud of death, coffin and hearse are lined up and prepared for my demise: my enemies would rejoice. “Oh look, there’s a big Mack truck!” It’s coming my way and all I need is a sharp turn to the left and this nightmare would end and who would care: no one? They can hold my funeral in a phone booth.

Some would fake tears and regrets but the day would dawn and if the truth be said, my passing into oblivion of the abyss would be secretly celebrated. What hope is there for me for you for that matter?

If ever there was a time for the Holy Spirit to breathe His life into me once again it is now and I pray that it will be for you also! Suck it up and drink it in deeply right now as you read this.

I need the right loving spirit to give me a Son-rise (sunrise) in my soul that will quench my prideful and hardened heart. I don’t even know what “humble” is so I cry out to You Lord, “I can’t!” and I can hear the heavens echo your response, “I CAN!”

I come to your Cross and beg forgiveness and as your Word promises, you forgive me with your atoning blood. Help me to accept it and put the past behind. It keeps rearing its ugliness to destroy the flickering joy within me. I receive the forgiveness and pledge to become a forgiver, forever.

The dawn has come to light and the night drifts slowly into the horizon of defeat. It has not power over the Light of the Word, the only Son of God, and my Savior!