Tag: Christ

DONE DEAL

By Rick Mathes

Mark 11:23 Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it shall be granted him.

Christians fight their wars on their knees. Prayer unleashes God’s power tht makes an atom bomb to be nothing more harmless that a fire-cracker. We too often have a small God instead of the same powerful, off the chart God He has always been. It’s a shame that we keep our Lord a big secret. In fact we don’t even talk to Him except when we need Him. Now don’t misunderstand me, I know He wants us to come to Him like a child to the Father when we are in need.

Let’s give prayer then our 100% and have the faith of God, not our puny faith but His and let’s pray with certainty. When we know our prayers is in His will we can be very sure He will answer it in the best timing and in the fullest needed to fulfill your supplication. He loved you more than you are capable of living so you can be assured He hears the cry of His child and responds accordingly.

Don’t qualify or limit our Lord in what He can do or may not want to do. As the Spirit moves you to pray just cut loose with it knowing Father God is blessed you’ve come to Him in the blood of His Son and power of the Holy Spirit. There is no room for doubt when your prayer is fervent and specific.

You know He is waiting for the prayer and He hears it and you can be assured He answers it. So you need to have faith and believe that He has granted your supplication. The issue isn’t if He favored you with an answer, it’s when will that blessing occur.

Just pray His will. You can find out what He wants in His Word and then pray accordingly. In fact, there is a whole book of His promises you can get started with and with a pure heart you can move mountains. It mainly depends on your faith and heart condition. When it’s right with Him, it will be done for you!

DON’T STUMBLE

By Rick Mathes

Galatians 5:7 (NASB77) ⁷ You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?

Been there and done that and it didn’t work. Sound familiar? How many have gotten off to a great start in Christianity and all of a sudden we learn that they have slipped away from the faith? Maybe you are too.

Have you been holding back? Is there a dark, sin-filled closet in yourself that you refuse to open and let the light in? Something or someone has caught your sinful attention and pulled your eyes down and out instead of up and in His vision. You just don’t seem as loving and excited as you once were. It seems the flame has gone out and you are struggling to hang on. What happened?

Did the world do it?

Did the devil do it?

Did you do it?

The root of all that have become lukewarm is worldly care. There is a good possibility that your “things” own you. You have been blessed with all the toys that need winding up and your carnal ease has coaxed you away from the foot of the cross. Let’s face it, pride is the issue.

You seem to be quitting the old faith for new ideas. Many complain that we believers are old fashioned and indeed we are. Our faith goes back to before the beginning of time.

So nothing has really changed. Your “born again” experience was a fraud and you remain worldly. Satan then continues to be your Lord and that’s a sorry situation to be parked in. All you care about self-gratifying and horizontal. That’s not even a glance from time to time to glory. You really did it this time by loving what you have more that who He is. That’s a scary position to be in.

So you remain self-centered and don’t have any part of the day for Jesus. Likewise, He has no part of the day blessed for you. Look closely while you still have time and remove the obstacle before you. The sin you have that separates you from His is the sin you want more than Him because if you didn’t want it more than you do want it, you wouldn’t have it.

(Read this last sentence again) AMEN?

 

DIVIDED WE FALL

By Rick Mathes

John 7:43 So there arose a division in 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?

DISOBEDIENCE

By Rick Mathes

And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,

No one ever has to teach a new-born child to be bad as it grows up. Its second nature is to be disobedient. We inherited that trait from the father of all nations, Adam. Its first nature is to be sinless and wholly righteous before the Lord. We who are elect make our feeble attempt. Faith always conquers fear. The Savior always overcomes sin and we are more than conquers if only we will obey.

The biggest enemy to obedience is self-righteousness. We become gods and make up our own rules that wink at our failures and pet sins. We follow pastors that don’t invade our own high estimate of our holiness and join churches where those who are violators of God’s Word to believe and obey. I call this the Roman Catholic mentality of doing more good than bad as a means of salvation.

Too many well intentioned sheep follow the wrong shepherds because of their wrong motives. The most obvious will always follows the spot-light and basks in all the center of attention they can arouse or find. They believe that heaven revolves around them and they live only to sooth their passion for others to admire and fawn over them.

It hurts to admit that I have met countless professing Christians that have a false faith. Most obvious of these are Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Roman Catholics, and Christian Science. My yardstick of a true Christian is: Bible only, Jesus only, Faith only and Grace only, ONLY!

It’s sad that when the going gets tough, I mean close and personal, those with a shallow commitment fall down and drop out of sight. The redwoods of California have lasted these thousands of years because their roots grow out instead of down. They hold on to each other! Those of strong faith do likewise, they hold on to each other in obedience to our Lord’s commands. Go and do likewise as an example for others in your church to follow.

 

DELIVERED

By Rick Mathes

2 Corinthians 1:10 (NASB77) ¹⁰  who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us,

There is very little fear of God or hell in the hearts of most professing Christians. My fear of dying, frying and being in the flames of hell’s furnace without a “plan B” was more than I could bear. I came to Jesus to escape a certain death in sin without a Savior. This was a bad place to be.

Without hope there is only a despair that convicts you of futility. All you cn do is jump into life without direction or any destination and aimlessly take on whatever comes your way.

Lucifer has studied you very carefully, every move and mood. He knows exactly what buttons to push and strings to pull; he puppet master. Deception builds on every sin that catches your eye and then the father of lies gets in gear. He’s four-wheeling you past everything that is fight and escaping your conscience with all the tricks in His book.

What appears to be daily temptations from the devil are really targeted tribulations from our Commander-in-Chief, Jesus Christ. Our Lord is eager to toughen your resistance to sin because the final 12 round championship bout is just around the corner,

It’s imperative that we as soldiers of Christ put on the armor of God to deflect the unseen dangers of poisonous darts and explosive land-mines of spiritual death or disability. How can e walk through these killing fields of Satan’s temptations without the assurance of protection that only the Holy Spirit can furnish.

When you are delivered from the clutches of the evil one you begin to see the devil’s error run rampant. Did it ever occur to you that Satan is more dysfunctional and screwed up than you are? There are natural corruptions which come with the original sin of fallen man. There is also spiritual chaos that the moron demons cause whie they know that they are under the sentence of death in the flame-throwing abyss: their eternal reward for rebellion.

So, heads up, be alert and see the punch coming so that you might counter that knock-out puch the devil doesn’t fear enough. He has lost all reality and only lives to take you down.

CROSS PURPOSES

By Rick Mathes

Luke 23:33 ³³ When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left.

Two thousand plus years later and we are still marveling over the Cross that became our Lord’s throne as He gave His all for all of His. That same Cross attracts and repels and our world hasn’t been the same since. It is a place for the hopeless to receive mercy which for the lost world just doesn’t make sense. They can be so near their salvation and yet be so far; a real enigma.

You have to admit that His crucifixion was a strange event. Come on, God was nailed t a tree and died? How could such a thing happen? Why would you want a dead god? Well glory to Him, He rose from the dead and that makes it all make sense, like Josh McDowell wrote in “The Evidence Deserves a Verdict.” But no, who wants facts that oppose their preconceived conclusion? Only those He causes to understand will ever receive the Holy Spirit and accept this atonement and guarantee of our eternal life.

It was all unequaled suffering that is not known in our day. We just don’t understand the horror our Lord suffered mentally in the garden and physically on the death stake.

His sacrifice met the just standard Father God has set for the forgiveness of sin. He could not have put the bar any higher. The death of His own Son was the ultimate display of His love for His created.

It was the forgiven thief that was the first to welcome our returning Lord to His throne. Our Savior took three days to set the captives free but the thief couldn’t wait. He said, “Today you will be in paradise.”

This was a totally peerless example of God’s justice, forgiveness and love. There has never been an equal nor will there ever be. Just imagine: He died deader than a door-nail and raised Himself up to life! A dead corpse decided on His own to come back to life. This has got to leave you breathless and in complete submission to His Lordship and your hope of eternal life in the New Jerusalem.