Tag: church

REAL CHURCH

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.

The Primitive Church of the first century was a spiritual emergency room. It was a hospital of healing that was explosive of healing: the dead got up and walked! The Holy Spirit exercised some spectacular signs and wonders to validate the reality of the sacrifice in Christ and His followers. Once established, the signs and wonders diminished as the power of God’s Word became more established and publicized. There isn’t any corner of this planet that doesn’t’ have access to God’s love letter to us, His children of the promise.

The real church has broken people that are in need of a healing. It’s by faith that they seek out the Great Physician because His reputation precedes Him. He even accomplished the ultimate healing or raising the dead to life. But it is not just physical but also emotional healing. Let’s face it, we just want to be loved unconditionally.

You will find dependent people in the Lord’s Church that were born again to depend on Him. We tried our mother and father and grandparents and the rest of our earthly family to be our caretakers and there weren’t any takers. It’s really every man for himself as we pass through the turn-style, one at a time, and hacve our day before the Lord alone.

If you are looking for the perfect people and the perfect church and find it, don’t joint and wreck it with your imperfections. Seriously, it doesn’t exist. You may find teachable people but not perfect people. I may not be the man in Christ I should be but praise the Lord, I am not the man I used to be.

Oh, we are a forgetful people but thanks be to God the Holy Spirit is our friendly reminder to pray, do our devotions, attend church, repent and love one another. We may be very   troubled from time to time but we are always reminded that the foot of the cross is level ground for everyone from kings to pauper.

But in a word, most churches that are really His are filled with those who have been lost. It is here that they learn that He is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but through Him. He is the only real Church.

R.I.P.

By Rick Mathes

Colossians 3:3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

We didn’t as believers realize we were dead and hell-bound until we died: died to sin that is. Our world turned upside down as we stepped away from the old life and began walking the exciting adventure of the new life that lay ahead of us. I visualize my life as walking down the main street of the Lord’s Disneyland with one place after another of fun evangelism and ministering. Life began and continues to be going from one joyful experience to another in the endless narrow road to heaven and holiness. It was like I stepped out onto a different planet when I turned my back on my old employer, the devil and signed up to be a soldier in the Lord’s army.

Adam was the first-created of the flesh and Jesus was the first-born of the Spirit. The first Adam gave us death and the second Adam gave us life: a resurrected life. I love the metamorphosis of a caterpillar as it turns into a butterfly. It proves that the ugly old self that crawled in the dust could rise to a new level of beauty in the blue skies and beyond.

When you exceed your level of worldly incompetence and rise to His level of excellence, you are elevated to new heights that can make your head spin in His glorious wonders. The protection of being His shatters the bars of the iron cage and breaks the steel cuffs. The captives are set free and protected by the Cross of Christ.

Get off your throne. You are not your own god. Now you are Christ-centered and all within and around you are filtered through Him. You died so that you may finally live in His image and likeness as you were created to be in the first place. It’s this hope that keeps you focused on your life ahead of you and beyond. I love to vacation with my wife and it is especially memorable to me because I have stepped away from alcohol and drugs. My lives now has moved from black and white snapshots of shameful memories to a future in widescreen color and surround sound.

There was a dark side in my life where it seemed death would be my only relief: death to the flesh. I never suspected that the death He had in mind for me was death to the world so that I might rise in the Spirit of His life.

PUT TO DEATH

By Rick Mathes

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

We must die to live, have pain for gain and suffer persecution for having done so. Now that’s a hard sell that can’t be swallowed whole. We need to deal with the sins one by one as the Holy Spirit leads so it si really dying to sin: a continuous action called sanctification.

It has been proven that a man dying of hunger will skip a meal to have sex: such si the power of this drive. I looked up the word “immorality” and the dictionary called it “illicit sex.” The Bible doesn’t define it as an indiscretion but refers to this sin as impurity or perversion which at best is lust that leads to unnatural passion.

In our own times this insatiable desire for sexual gratification if consensual is just considered recreational sex. The end result however leads naturally to homosexual, child molestation and bestiality I met more than a few men in prison who had sex with the body of a victim after they had murdered them. How ghastly can it get! We will find out if this sin is not put to death.

So promiscuity is and has been rampant since the Fall in the Garden. A.W. Tozer once said tht Adam’s sin opened hell for the first time. Sinful desires have followed and new forms of depravity were invented along the way.

Having sex outside of marriage is the number two sin on our Lord’s list. Number one is having something or someone you love more than Jesus. Unbelief means Satan is your god and to hell you will go to be with him. As a result, we enjoin ourselves in intercourse with a whore and sin within our bodies instead of outside our bodies as all other sins do. This is literally screwing the temple of the Holy Spirit which is very close to the unforgivable sin!

The battleground is our mind. If ever I get a sinful thought in my mind, what I do is sing a praise song in my head and the evil thought flees. If you keep a sin as an option, count on it, you will eventually fall and commit it. So your sins must not be put off but put to death instead.

PROPHECY

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 14:3 But one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation.

The gift of fore-telling has yielded to forth-telling because the Canon is complete. There isn’t any “Thus saith the Lord” except what you can read in the finished Word of God. Forth-telling is when a minister selects a section of writing and verbally helps it blossom to your understanding. It always edifies the church to strengthen it, encourage it and to give it comfort.

We find our only satisfying comfort in Jesus. He is one that can still the storm and calm the waves. Hand-in-hand with comfort is contentment. You just cannot buy it and when you experience it you just can’t explain it. How personal can our Lord be to lay out the path of peace for us to walk as we prepare ourselves to meet Him as He is?

When we are weak is when we become strong. It’s easy when it’s easy but you will never know what you are made of until it gets tough. It’s when you say, “I can’t” Jesus says “I can!” When you reach beyond your grasp, His strength begins and your weakness increases.

One of the greatest gifs I awakened while listening to a minister was to have a clear conscience. Repentance is a wonderful exercise that is absolutely necessary in the pursuit of holiness. Having a clear conscience is a reinforcement of His righteousness being imputed to us.

I once searched the Scriptures for some material for a funeral service and came up empty handed. I was encouraged that every time Jesus showed up for a funeral the corpse sat up and came back to life. Now that’s what I call a healing, one I expect to experience in His time.

The main energy I receive from an anointed prophecy is the faith I need to empower me to love, serve and enjoy Jesus in the midst of this sick word of mad dogs. In the middle of this manure grows the Rose of Sharon. There are Christians who care and a remnant that will survive the holocaust of the end times.

All in all, I am sustained when God’s Word is opened and expanded to my understanding. It’s amazing how every time I study the same Word over and over again, He takes me deeper and deeper into the Water of Life.

 

PRISONER OF CHRIST

By Rick Mathes

Philemon 1:1-3 (NASB77) ¹   Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon our beloved brother  ²  and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: ³   Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Can you see the obvious sermon? Of course you can because first and foremost you are a trusting believer. There is no higher appellation, position or title in the world that tops “Christian.” It says it all from the Word of God. Satan has twisted our vocabulary and biblical interpretations and housed his organization in the Vatican. A true believer takes Gal 1:8-9 dead serious and does not add nor subtract anything from all we are called to believe ony found in God’s Word. Roman theology ignores this condemning warning from Paul.

The Lord is near nd all the fallen angels are arming themselves to the teeth for the final battle. I can hear the hoof-beats, the train wreck is imminent, the war of wars is about to begin and I have good news: we win! You have been through basic training and you are battle ready and now is when the army of he Lord needs to put on their armor lift up the Sword and fight fot he Commander-in-Chief of the universe.

We, the Body of Christ must roll up their sleeves and get to work. Nothing good comes easy but the joy of serving Him trumps the pain that brings the gain. He took the cross for me, how can I do otherwise for Him? We must humble ourselves, pray, seek His face and turn from our evil ways then He will hear our supplications, forgive our sins and heal our souls. What a privilege it is to labor any fingers to the bone so that He might have His heaven on earth so that when we leave this earth we will be in His third heaven.

My proudest privilege is to be a prisoner for Him. I welcome persecution and suffering for my faith. I delight in demonstrating my faith and loyalty to Him. I don’t have a Messianic complex, I don’t claim I am god I’m not into pain or suicide but I would gladly lay down my life for Him as a living sacrifice or as a death martyr. I jut pray that the Holy Spirit will help me keep the faith, fight the good faith and finish the course with dignity. Don’t be afraid because we win!

PRIMITIVE CHURCH

By Rick Mathes

Acts 9:31 (NASB77) ³¹  So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and, going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.

Paul would be sadly aghast if he attended a modern day church worship service. He would experience a funeral for the Body of Christ or an orgy for Baal and Ashtoreth in most of the modern day worship services. Over 2,000 years ago, witnesses of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus would gather in a hushed then joyous celebration of the Lord’s eminent return. Their eyes were skyward and their hearts beat within their chest aching for the rapture and reward of their faithfulness and trust even in the jaws of a lion. Today they poke each other to keep awake those few times their wives nag them and they attend the service of entertainment and orchestrated thrills and Holy Ghost bumps. Oh, how shamed to the bone Paul would be.

The obvious was the peaceful assembly of happy and loving attenders. They naturally gravitated to lifting each other up and edifying the love of God they came to corporately worship. Their groups were small home churches at first and it was then they experience the fullness of agape love for each other: a family of he promise at the altar of grace.

The whole event circled around a banquet meal. Each brought food according to their ability and none went away hungry. All were sanctified with communion which followed the evening meal.

The family of God was genuine in humble submission to each other. The most important dignitary in attendance was the fellow Christian seated next to you. The smile were genuine expressions of the happiness all shared in honr of their special guest, Jesus Christ!

He was there in their midst and they all experienced the Holy One and the blessing that couched them all. They couldn’t help but multiply. It wasn’t an early church explosion; it was an implosion of the Holy of Holies open for all elect to enter. The veil was torn and the way open!

PRESS ON!

By Rick Mathes

Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

Our past thoughts, memories, ambitions, standards, ideals and morals all pile up into a mound of horrors if we go back and walk through our despicable life without Christ again. Satan will rub our nose in it all to steal the joy of our salvation away from us. We must turn our back on the devil and press on if we are to keep the faith, fight the good fight and finish this earth experience which lays yet before us and our resurrection day.

If you look back the first demon to confront you is the spirit of pride. I’ve learned that the more I seek the humility of our Lord, the more I discover the pride that still lurks in my self-serving nature that I drag around with me. Satan fell because of it but Christ will overcome it in me by dropping me to my knees in repentance.

The ambitions that swell up in me soon begin to own me. My eyes are constantly going to and fro outward instead of submissively upward to my Lord and Savior. All of hell’s weight attempts to pull them down to linger on the toys in Satan’s playground. I’ve learned that I am never satisfied with the devils counterfeit pleasures.

Forever looking over the fence of that which surrounds my needs extends into infinity with the wants I covet that others have satisfied themselves and I don’t care who the casualty becomes, just get out of my way. I am going to get what you have including your wife. It is only the boundless blessings of Christ in heavenly places that gives me cause to consider how happy I am in my present comfort zone.

As you press on forward in the Lord, you will have new interests, new relations, and new activities. It’s all a matter of pulling up weeds and planting flowers. The whole life experience does a 180 degree turn and you are well on your way.

The laws of physics have proven that pressure on an apparently immoveable object will eventually move. It can’t do otherwise as long as the pressure continues without letup. As long as you press on the future will come upon you and the past will burn to ashes as you turn your back on hell and keep a steady pace toward the throne of God.

PREACHER MAN

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 15:1 (NASB77) ¹  Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand,

Foretelling future events is a sign gift that has ended with a warning at the end of the Bible. However forth telling is what every preacher does. We blossom the bud so to speak. We expand the truth of the Word so that there is a clear understanding and application of the truth.

There is a process for the hearer to go through for the message to have any value. The first thing you need to do is hear him. You rear drum vibrates and your brain interprets to your understanding if you are deaf or not listening, the sermon won’t even get off to a good start.

So first hear and then listen. This requires your undivided attention so you can’t allow yourself to be distracted but if you do listen, hopefully you will learn, apply and then evaluate. It all starts thought with a preacher. The Word needs to be preached or as I prefer to state it, “forth told.”

Now all the words and Holy Ghost bumps in the world won’t do anyone any good unless it’s received by the elect. If you haven’t been charged with a sin and felt the strong obligation to Jesus to repent, you are not saved. You are not a believer and your are on your way to hell below.

If you believe then by God’s stooping grace, you obey. This is a no opion situation. You believe you obey or He’s not your Lord. All your faculties need to come together in cooperation.

You see, hear, receive, obey and they live out your Godly decisions in agreement with the ministers exhortations. You are now under new management.

What triggered the whole chain reaction? You heard the Word, the Holy Spirit spoke to your heart and your believed. In some African dialogs they don’t have two words “believe and obey.” It most nations, it is one word, “believeobey.” Isn’t that nice and doesn’t that pae the way for other saints to do the same.

PRAYER

By Rick Mathes

Acts 1:14 These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.

Christians go to church Sunday morning because they love the people. They go Sunday night because the love the Pastor and they go Wednesday night because they love the Lord. If your church has cancelled your mid-week service, run from it and go to a real church, one that the Lord attends!

Kentucky Fried Christianity has swept America in this post-Christian era but hang on everyone, there is a remnant that is still of one accord. They meet faithfully and approach the throne of grace in praise, repentance and supplication. The fullness of their communication with a Holy God is to be consecrated with things below unto things above. The true Primitive Church let go and let God as we should.

The attitude of prayer has many glittering facets of application that in total bridges the gap from here to there. We grasp His extended hand and cry, “Daddy!” It is this childlike attitude that touches His heart as it would the heart of any loving father. It is a deep respect that must be earned and then recognized.

Fathers can’t buy truth love from their children. When they look up to Him because He is who He is the gifts are sure to follow as the effect of a genuine cause: the children’s true love and requests brought in humble admiration of their father, mentor and best friend.

An expectant prayer is one brimming with confidence. I know, I know He heard me and has answered with whatever is in my best interests. He always says yes, no or not yet. It is just a matter of being submissive.

When my knees bend and my head bows at just the thought of the Lord, I am in prayer. I am in a humble mode of worship that only words of praise and love can express. The reliance on Him is complete.

When your mind is His and your heart beats with His it’s then He truly is your soul-mate. WE become one in Him in fervent prayer that is cleansed by your repentance and you become victorious. There is no fuller worship.

We’re back to the verse and the beginning: He is raised. How I ask, how do you approach and boldly form words to speak to God incarnate? I suggest, very carefully.

 

 

PRAYER NOTES

By Rick Mathes

Come To “Throne of Grace”

What would you think of a man who had $1,000,000 in the bank and only drew out a penny a day? That’s you and me, and the sinner is blinder than we are.

The throne of grace is established. There we are to get all the grace we need. Sin is not so strong as the arm of God. He will help and deliver you if you will come and get the grace you nee

“Lord, Teach Us To Pray”

Jesus’ disciples came to him, and said, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). It is not recorded that Jesus taught them how to preach. I have often said that I would rather know how to pray like Daniel than to preach like Gabriel.

If you get love into your soul, so the grace of God may come down in answer to prayer, there will be no trouble about reaching the people. It is not by eloquent sermons that perishing souls are going to be reached. We need the power of God in order that the blessing may come down.

Praise God for:

• His majesty.      
• His glory.      
• His excellency.
• His greatness.      
• His holiness.      
• His wisdom.      
• His power.      
• His goodness.      
• His mercy.      
• His loving-kindness and truth.
• His faithfulness and truth.
• His salvation.      
• His wonderful works.
• His consolation.
• His judgment.      
• His counsel.      
• Fulfilling of his promises.
• Pardon of sin.      
• Spiritual health.
• Constant preservation.
• Deliverance.      
• Protection.      
• Answering prayer.
• The hope of glory.
• All spiritual blessings.
• All temporal blessings.
• The continuance of blessings.

Never Found Time

I knelt to pray, but not for long.

I had too much to do.

Must hurry off and get to work,

For bills would soon be due.

And so I said a hurried prayer,

Jumped up from off my knees,

My Christian duties now were done,

My soul could be at ease.

All through the day I had no time

To speak a word of cheer;

No time to speak of Christ to friends,

They’d laugh at me I feared.

No time, no time, too much to do.

That was my constant cry;

No time to give to those in need—

At last was time to die.

And when before the Lord I came,

I stood with downcast eyes;

Within His hands He held a book—

It was the “Book of Life.”

God looked into His book and said,

“Your name I cannot find,

I once was going to write it down,

But never found the time.

Why “Lord’s Prayer” Is Longest

The prayer our Lord taught his disciples, called the Lord’s Prayer, is in the seventeenth chapter of John. That is the longest prayer on record that Jesus made. You can read it slowly and carefully in about four or five minutes.

I think we may learn a lesson here. Our Master’s prayers were short when offered in public. But when he was alone with God, that was a different thing, and he could spend the whole night in communion with his Father.

My experience is that those who pray most in their closets generally make short prayers in public. Long prayers are too often not prayers at all, and they weary the people.