Tag: Christian

WHY ME LORD?

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WHY ME LORD?

By Rick Mathes

Author of “Allah or Jesus”

I love the outdoors! The fresh smell of a spring breeze, sunshine and lazy summer days, the gentle falling of autumn leafs, and the gusting winds of many winters past and yet to come. Oh, how I love life and the liberty to reach for the sky with all that is within me.

What a blessing to live in the midst of my ancestors and yet have the privilege of watching my families grow up around me, tall and strong. Rooted and settled in a land of flowers, sunshine and gentle rains, and God’s creation in its fullest.

It was a dismal day, my worst in memory when I was uprooted and taken to a foreign land on a hill that was so depressed and foreboding. I ached with pain and terror as this wretched group of carpenters fashioned me into something I never dreamed of becoming, a cross. As wooden as I am, I still marveled that man was taking me the good and changing me into bad, the cross that the Son of God would be nailed to. What greater horror could I possibly go through!

I was totally depressed and dismayed until I recalled the lessons that were passed on to me from tree to tree since the Garden: What man has made for bad, God will use for good. This comforted me that maybe there was a reason for me to be picked to be the death stake of Jesus the Christ.

I bore the body of the King as they nailed him to my arms. I felt His pain and wallowed in His sorrow. His blood streamed down to the ground that wept in agony. The King was crucified and I was what held him up. Wait a minute. I held Him up! He was the King! Then that made me the throne. I was blessed to hold the King of Kings in my arms and lift Him up to the Father as He became the salvation for mankind. What greater honor could any tree have but to have embraced Jesus for the last time before He slept in the ground and then raised Himself up to His former glory?

I just know that I will be remembered for all times: the symbol of His sacrifice. When others look at me the will think of Him. And when they look to you, will they see Him?

For more go to:

www.MissionGateMinistry.org

www.RickMathes.org

PASS THIS ON? THANK YOU!

 

 

WHY DO YOU LOVE SATAN?

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WHY DO YOU LOVE SATAN?

By Rick Mathes

We are the sum total of the choices we make. They are sewn together by the family who raised us, sown by those we hung out with and collected with those of a feather: in church or in prison. The constant I have noticed with those in trouble and out of sorts with the Lord is that they make bad decisions and compound the likelihood of wrongdoing with those we associate with.

Peer group pressure can foster bad habits that we hang on to as natural because we don’t know any better. Evil thoughts materialize and become reality that includes the seven deadly sins. Think, who do you love and faithfully follow, Satan? Be honest when you consider your underlying and ulterior motives. You have them both you know.

When you choose sin over the Savior you love Satan and you are call Christ a liar.

(Read this over and over until you get this into your thick scull.)

The first tip off of totally turning your back on Jesus is when you are self-sufficient: when you sing throughout the day, “I did it my way!” Believe me you’re no Frank Sinatra. You will soon be making your jail cell bunk your way.

Another dead give-away is being self-serving. You don’t win because you died with the most toys. But when you do have that last visit to the center isle of your church, notice outside, there isn’t a U Hall attached to your hearse.

My biggest gripe is shallow, empty headed people who are too dumb to get saved. You can spot them having a meaningful conversation with their tossed salad before they eat it! Hello cucumber. Oh look there’s Mr. Radish and his girlfriend Olive. Duhhhh!

The sum of all the above feel they are above the laws of heaven and are led about my moron demons because that’s all that is needed to make them the “Saturday Night Live” comedy show of Hell. They become open sores and diseases corpses: the walking dead in memory of Michael Jacksons “Thriller.” The dead burying the dead.

What is it that makes you love Satan (sin) more than the Savior? You need to answer this.

WHICH DONKEY ARE YOU?

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WHICH DONKEY ARE YOU?

By Rick Mathes

(Author of Allah or Jesus)

When I study the Word to prepare for a sermon I try to sink my toes into the Israeli sand, look around and absorb all that is around the obvious message the Holy Spirit intended me to preach.

One such scene is the Lord’s triumphant donkey ride, as King, into and through the Jerusalem gate and the throngs of those attending this parade. Let’s do a 360 degree turn and soak in the drama that is surrounding god’s Son as He has His victory march on the Holy Hill.

Can you see them? There’s Peter of course, leading the entourage with John and James marching oh so dignified on the Lord’s right and left followed by the future potentates of the 12 kingdoms. They are so proud and holier-than-thou.

Not so the Pharisees, Sadducees and other officials. They are seething in jealousy and anger just waiting for their hired assassins to put a dagger in our Lord’s ribs. Look over there at the cheering mob of leftist liberals shouting for their entitlements. After all, Jesus could heal their diseases, raise the dead and feed the multitude. They will never have to work a day in their life. Long live King Jesus! Enough of this silliness.  Let’s get serious and ponder, “What was the donkey thinking about all of this?”

I’ll bet he was really angry that on this hot and humid day he had to labor away carrying this heavy body on his back while the crowd was shouting with ear-splitting noise during his migraine headache. Unbearable!

Let’s give this donkey some slack and suppose he really thought the parade was all about him. How excited and proud he must have been with his head held high, his chest pressed out, his tail up and footsteps in precision and perfection of a a pure-bred donkey. I don’t think so.

If I could get into his head, I would bet my last dollar that he was totally astonished that out of all the donkeys in the world, God chose him. How humbling can it get? He knew what unworthy an unworthy ass he was and yet out of all the donkeys that were behaved and more worthy, God chose him.

You know out of all those in the excited and cheering mob, I can relate to the donkey best. Within hours that same crowd was shouting “Crucify Him!” while the donkey wept for his precious Savior. I can feel his pain and I too weep for what I did to cause His death on the Cross for me.

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.

WHAT IS GRACE?

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WHAT IS GRACE?

By Rick Mathes

The simple answer to this question is, “unmerited favor.” But what does grace do? That was my question all through Roman Catholic grade and high schools. I finally have come to this conclusion:

The effect is not the cause of the effect; the cause is.

Works is not the cause of works; grace is.

That is as succinct as I can word it. So I am going to consider that you understand that and move on to some of the effects (works) of His Grace.

I thank God every day that the police don’t know all the crime that I have committed. If they did, I would be in prison for a long, long time. I have a full pardon now and I will be eternally grateful to our Lord’s grace that enables me to devote my life to His works.

  • Bible Only
  • Jesus Only
  • Grace Only
  • Faith Only

It blesses my heart to wave through my rear-view mirror at police putting a “make” on my plate’s numbers. The car is legally mine, the insurance card is real, I didn’t buy my driver’s license in California, I didn’t have a gun in the glove-box, no cocaine in the trunk and no pregnant girlfriends! I am clean and free!

Every time I am confronted with a sin I rebuke it and like a whipped puppy it puts its tail between its legs and crawls off in a hurry. I prefer to take on the big sins first because I know that if I whip Goliath the Philistines (lesser sins) will run like scared rabbits. Grace strengthens me.

One of my favorite verses is, “Though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Notice we walk “in the shadow of death” not in the darkness of death because we are walking in the Light. By grace we are saved, not by works lest we should brag or boast.

Hope is before you by grace as you have never known it if you will only take the first step, He will take the rest of them with you. He quickens the spark of life in you to into a bonfire of love and desire to exemplify Him. When people get to know you do they get to know Him?

You will be astonished at the changes in your as God begins, by grace, the process of restoring you to your first nature in His Image and Likeness walking with Him in the cool of the evening.

WHAT IS FINISHED?

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WHAT IS FINISHED?

By Rick Mathes

Jesus commissioned the Holy Spirit to carry on until He returned. It to Him we seek God’s works by grace in us. As Christians, sold out and totally committed to our returning King we have had our vanity transformed into humility. Once we understood His atonement for our sins on the cross we dropped to our knees, put our faces in the mud, the blood and the tears and cried out, “It is finished!” Our old self died.

In the deepest humility we have an earnestness of purpose that only God knows where it came from. It sure hasn’t been natural since we accepted Him in our head and heart as Savior and Lord.

Because of His finished work we are now friends of God. Can you get a handle on that? We are not at enmity with the Lord of our universe but rather personal friends of His now. We can walk into His presence and be more than welcomed at any time we want to. Imagine that for a moment.

We have been declared righteous. This is not a righteousness of our own but one imputed by Christ’s death on the cross. He took our rap-sheet (list of crimes) with Him. Our record is spotless. God will not even know we ever sinned! Isn’t that something? It is finished! I know that because we have been rescued from sin. The devil hasn’t got his claws in us because we are friends of God.

The cell door has come off of its hinges and the bars have been sawn asunder. We have been set free from the power, punishment and will soon be set free from the presence of sin.

How proud can we be when the Lord stepped from the tomb and Satan knew he was finished. Now like a junk-yard dog, he’s trying to take down every Christian he can until he is thrown into the lake of fire.

We have been chosen of god and predestines to be in that parade when the Lord comes back and reins forever. We who are born again will lift up our hands and shout, “Only you O Lamb or God are worthy!”

WHAT IS FAITH?

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WHAT IS FAITH?

By Rick Mathes

Faith is not a power you appropriate, it is an assurance you grow into for the certainty of things hoped for and not seen. We just don’t pull up to the Holy Spirit and get a fill-up. In Christ we always have a full charge but we control the dimmer switch in us. We can turn its power up or down as we choose to.

Our arsenal is stocked with weapons that are to eradicate or at least seriously cripple our arch enemy, pride. Untamed pride left to grow exponentially was the fall of the Angel of Light Lucifer. He swelled up in his imagined egotism, armed with an ultimate high of narcissism, he challenged Jesus and with just a Word our Lord sent him to planet earth like a flaming meteor; a fallen star that would never return to its orbit of prominence in the endless sea of God’s glory.

There is no greater God-pleasing gift but faith. This is the hinge that opens all the doors of spiritual knowledge and hope. It’s not a blind leap of faith but rather a certain absolute. We may not understand all of God’s actions or purposes in our life but by faith in His Word and the unbending assurance of its absolute reliability, owe appropriate more and more faith the closer we draw to Him and see His truths materialize, even those that defy our natural understanding. Strong faith pleases Jesus.

You were created for a purpose and God has a vision for your life that con only come to fruition by appropriating more faith and doing spiritual weight lifting. A steady diet of His Word will ignite your faith to blossom and to explode in revelation of who you are in Him your mind had never before even imagined. I challenge you to unleash the faith of God in you, get out of the boat and walk on the water!

I know it can be done. I have been out there in the midst of those sometimes terrifying waves for many decades.

It’s so simple and I must add easy: Just listen to the teaching and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Let god be God and step out in faith, face to face with the new you in His image and likeness, not yours.

WHAT HAPPENED?

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WHAT HAPPENED?

By Rick Mathes

Being a Christian naturally expects that you will be Christ-like. Mahatma Gandhi once remarked to a priest, “If you would live like a Christian I would be persuaded to be one” He saw through the false veneer of appearance with no substance. The alleged Christians didn’t walk their talk. In fact statistically professing Christians and non-believer can’t be identified because both have the same sins of pornography, adultery, divorces, crime, drunkenness, drug addiction, etc. Whatever happened to the light that was on the hill?

My blood-father gave his life for his country in WWII to preserve the Judeo-Christian values our country was founded on. All I have left is a purple heart and the flag that draped his casket and a country the God has all but left. What ever happened?

Did you know that South Korea is funding missionaries to come to America and tell us about the saving power of Christ’s death on the cross? The problem I see does not originate from carnal Christians it begins in the pulpits that are teeming with demons.

The Gospel According to Jesus is just not being preached but in a few hold-out churches that are watching their Wednesday night prayer nights die and their membership rush for the nearest entertainment center with a cross on the top.

The objectives sermons should contain and don’t are:

  • Death to sin
  • End of injustice
  • Chasing away of error
  • Truth of God
  • Increase of love
  • Return of gentleness
  • Peace among all men

So ask yourself as you stand on your holy ground, “How can I relieve the distressed, help the weary, cheer the saddened, and sweeten the love in your home?”

We must be one in Christ and preach from any pulpit that will have us. Whatever happened to “Repent, the Kingdom of God is near?” It must start now because our day of accounting is close.

 

WALKING DEAD

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WALKING DEAD

By Rick Mathes

The funeral home was plain, quiet and respectful and the silence was broken only with the sobs and cries of family and friends at my Dad’s last moment on earth before he was planted in the earth. I remember the flag that draped his casket and the rifle shots at the cemetery. It had taken years to ship his body back from Belgium and I stood as a 5 year only soldier, saluting him for the last time. He gave his life so that his “Butch” could have life protected by the Constitution and Bible he loved so dearly. Now that is all gone. I’m in the winter of my life and I miss my Dad.

It staggers my mind how man of “us” there must be: millions?

I have been blessed with three score and ten of that freedom he gave his life to in WWII but where is the return on all the lives invested in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan?  Post-traumatic stress disorder is rampant and so are suicides of those valiant soldiers: 20 per day! Why?

Middle-East conflict is just the point of the spear. The real problem is the fallen angel that wields the weapons of eternal death in the yawning pit of welcoming flames he has labeled “Heaven.” Satan is a full-throttle war with believers and is not holding anything back. He is evil personified

Lucifer’s temptations to self-destruction seduce this fine, young Americans and allies to take their lives so as to end their nightmares of death, beheading, child mutilations and worse. Their minds are a playground of the devil’s insanities that drive them to destroy their lives to end the seemingly endless horror of memories that would drive even the elect to despair if the Holy Spirit wasn’t there to rescue us from certain damnation.

The sign of the times only points one way: go back to your old sins, fighting evil if futile. Evil trumps God’s goodness and truth. And sadly, too many buy into this lie and sacrifice their lives as the seal of their abandonment of any god.

Let this serve as a life saver: To think Jesus is Lord is not enough. To live Him is your only salvation! It’s going to get worse so let this be a warning that you need to ask yourself: “How deep is your love?” Is it as deep at His?

There is no “Plan B” after your last heartbeat. Think of the consequences if you choose wrongly.

TWO ARE ONE?

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TWO ARE ONE?

By Rick Mathes

What is the best explanation you can come up with to explain the Trinity? The egg shell, the white and yellow yoke? I’m sure you can do better than that. Here’s a few I have read or heard about over the years. I’m sure there are more that you can add.

The Father is the lover, the Son is the loved and the Holy Spirit is the love between them.

The Father is the sun, the Son is the illumination and the Holy Spirit is the warmth between them.

How about ice, water and steam? (Really poor!)

Try light, heat and air that need each other to exist and cannot exist apart from each other?

My favorite is one times, one equals one.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Triune Godhead is a concept we will never understand completely. All we can rely on is that the Trinity is clearly taught in the Word of God and the ancient Fathers, Puritans and Calvinists agree to this moment which leads me to think about man made in God’s image and likeness. Try this one on.

Man is also a trinity of mind, soul and spirit which I believe survives the physical death of the body and in the last days will be rejoined in the new eternal body we will enjoy in eternity. So I have been studying the Word now every day because I really believe we take our mind’s knowledge with us. I have focused all these years on the Word and Works of Christ. It is called Christology, the study of Christ.

This has led me to think about my marriage to Trish. The Word teaches that we are complete when the two of us become one in marriage and divorce is never an option except for a partners infidelity. Ummm! The two shall become one in the covenant of marriage.

He Word teaches that there won’t be marriage in heaven. I can’t help but hope and expect that my wife and I will be one soul in glory. It makes sense to me that the Trinity of God can be three, and the trinity of man can be three and the trinity of marriage can be two in one, surely the completeness of husband and wife in His image and likeness.

What God close in eternity for two to be enjoined as one in the covenant of marriage will certainly continue in heaven? Just wondering: won’t you join me in this happy thought?