Tag: confession

AFFLICTION

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AFFLICTION

By Rick Mathes

Romans 12:12 (NASB77) 12   rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,

Sir John Powell: By affliction, God is spoiling us of what otherwise might have spoiled us. When He makes the world too hot for us to hold, we let go.

Jesus doesn’t’ tempt, He tests. It is good for us to learn the pressure points of backsliding so that we can see Satan’s punch coming if our Lord’s permissive will. Satan cannot lay a finger on us without our Lord’s permission and empowerment. Think about this

Sin of course is the final nail in the coffin that couldn’t hold our Redeemer in the tomb. It wears many masks to entice us with its counterfeit pleasures. The devil’s method-of-operation (M.O.) hasn’t changed. First your eyes linger, then your flesh tastes and then your pride holds you captive.

Backsliding is a lapse of spiritual weight-lifting. When you stop pedaling a bike uphill, what happens? You roll back. So when your tongue gets out of control, when resentments rear their ugly heads or pride and self-importance overcomes you, get into the Word!

Some will complain that their environment crafted them to be the creatures of sin that they have become. They claim that they were born into sinful circumstances and to a large extent, this could be true.

Mistreatment, a heart, idolatry, and hypocrisy, wait on every corner to collar you and take you captive in the chains of hell and the home to the fallen angels. Lucifer is there, always there, to welcome you with open, flaming arms.

Matthew Henry: Outward afflictions, wants and burdens are the great arguments Satan uses to make people of God question their Sonship as if afflictions, could not consist with, when they proceed from God’s fatherly love.

No pain, no gain is as true here as it is anywhere. We are to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Consider that there wouldn’t be a shadow if there wasn’t a light in front of us to follow It came to pass….

ABLE NOT TO SIN

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ABLE NOT TO SIN

By Rick Mathes

Romans 6:22 (NASB77) 22  But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

Was Jesus able to sin? Yes, He was able to sin in the flesh as we all are but in His Spirit, He was able not to sin. This same thing happens to you when you receive the Holy Spirit in your baptism: you are able not to sin. We move from captivity to freedom and salvation by being set free. When He stepped out of the tomb, death stepped out of the sting. We are eternal now and will never see death, only life in His presence now and until He calls us home.

This transaction of imputing sin on Him and righteousness on us infuriates the devil and when He discovers you were baptized he assigns a legion of demons to terrorize you with doubt and fear: the keys to hell.

Sin however keeps out of your path as darkness flees from light as you walk “in Him.” Your commitment to body, mind and soul is certainly noteworthy but probably the hardest promise you have ever had to keep. It’s worth the payout: set free.

If you don’t, your mind and heart will collapse into your soul. Your temple will be condemned when the lights go out. Your joy, comfort and contentment will evaporate in the smoke and sulfur of that caldron of liquid flames called hell.

Your family is first to suffer if you abandon His calling and get caught up in the devil’s entrapments. Your first love will be yourself and your stubborn attachment to sin will eventually splinter your family into divorce and estrangement. This demolished family unit, the nation’s building block will begin a coast to coast demolition of Judeo-Christian values and a disregard for the precepts of our constitution.

The ripple effect of a national meltdown has world consequences that apart from the grace of God are irreversible. The cost of all this destruction is not worth letting Satan get his nose in your tent when you have been set free. It only takes a single match to light a universe. Is that you?

 

A NEW COMMAND

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A NEW COMMAND

Matthew 13:34 All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable,

I have often imagined myself the President of the United States and the most unnerving ability I can imagine would be the office of Commander of the Armed Forces. All other duties, however important, would pale in comparison to having the lives of a million young soldiers in your hands. How his heart must break in wars when these men give their lives for their country as my Dad did in WWII.

When Jesus commands His army to war He provides the armor and sword. His victory is in the heart of those that are His because that’s where the war is waged. He commands us not just to love one another but to love our enemies “for they know not what they do.” As soldiers in God’s army we are to dig in our cleats and unleash the dynamite of the Holy Spirit that is within us at Rev. Lucifer and his wimps. The battle and victory belong to Jesus and the peace resides in our hearts that are joined to His.

Jesus breathed a soul into Adam and His mind and heart followed. So reason and emotions are the pathway of comfort to the soul, in His image and likeness. Satan’s whole being is committed to snatching your soul into his fiery clutches. He knows his time is running out and like the desperation of a rabid hyena facing death, he is determined to take you down with him; hie’s that evil!

Your mind is where the backsliding thoughts are hatched if there is nay fertile ground for them to grow such as: pornography, drugs, booze, gambling, etc. When your mind is in the gutter your heart will follow and your soul will fall from grace. All you have to do is blink and Satan will slip into your mind with the flesh not far behind.

So loving each other with His love is not an option. Our Commander-in-Chief demands it because He knows that love is life and without it you become a casualty and a victory for Lucifer and his hell-hounds.

Receive your marching orders like a good and obedient soldier for Christ. Each time you say no to Satan temptations you earn higher rank in the Savior’s Survivors Squad of warriors. You have His strength as the Holy Spirit partners with you in the conflict for your soul. Jesus says for us to love and then watch the feeble efforts of the devil wither before our very eyes.

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A JUDAS GOAT

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 25:45 45 “Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

When you look carefully at the division of the sheep and the goats in chapter 25 of Matthew, you will notice that it wasn’t what the goats did that sent them to hell; it was what they didn’t do. They didn’t pursue holiness and the effects of genuine works that are not masks of self-gratification.

The evangelicals like to throw around the label “carnal Christians” to describe plastic believers that are attached to the world and measure their faith by what power, money, prestige and influence their church may have. I once preached, “Is Judas still treasurer of your church?” at a large Baptist church. Needless to say, they never invited me back!

Holiness and good works was in the air the Lord breathed. As St. Francis of Assisi once said, “All I want to do is go about the work of the Lord and not know it.” You can’t be a practical atheist for too long before true Christians take your mask off and uncover the horror of your twisted motives: a midnight of your soul in the abyss of endless shock and awe. The hell that is displayed will startle you into insanity if you look long and too hard at the truth of your depraved mind. If you really believed in Jesus, you wouldn’t embrace your favorite sin: it was the weapon that killed God’s only Son!

There was a time in Rome when the dead body was attached to the murderer, chest to chest until the corpse rotted off of him. Such is the sin you willfully acknowledge that you love more than the Savior. It would drive the Roman prisoner over the edge of rationality and you are also on your way to a chaos of mental confusion, such as you may never recover unless you’re repent.

The goat turned his life toward the wider road that led the sheep to slaughter. The Judas goat gets his name from the fact that he is trained to have the sheep follow him to the butcher block. They blindly line up behind him and he returns again for more that dutifully follow him to certain death. The Judas goat isn’t doing evil, he just isn’t doing anything but leading to a oblivion of endless torture without relief, ever!

And so it is also with you not what you are doing as much as what you have not done. No decision to repent is a vote to reject salvation. Following the goat soon transforms into being the Judas goat as others see and imitate your example by what you didn’t do.

When faced with sin, just stop, stand still, turn around and return to Him. No decision is a decision to be a Judas goat. How many souls have you sent to Hell? When is the time to stop? What or who is holding you back?

Slay the goat and line up with the sheep that the Good Shepherd has chosen for His today!

A god

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A god

By Rick Mathes

2 Corinthians 4:4 (NASB77) 4  in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Father Lucifer fell with his angels because of his pride. This sin is the root of all evil and the devil is all deceitful false pride. He has nothing to be proud of because of his blindness to sin and all that brings in its tow. Things of this world become gods and the more of them you own, the more they own you. Eventually there is nothing more of you and you are too prideful to walk away from those that are irresistible. Like metal to the wrong magnet, the devil lures you into the bear-trap of worldly toys and then snaps it’s jaws shut.

The attractions the demons drag out for their god Satan and like decorations on a Christmas tree, they blink and glitter in a sensual manner that can pierce the self-protection unbelievers expect will protect them and it doesn’t. No matter what your occupation means to you, it can’t remain your god for too long otherwise you need to be worn down to where your resistance to more and more and more evaporates in the smoke of hell’s chimney.

The devil’s appeal is stronger than your resistance. You are a spiritual prostitute of the highest order his gang of evil hall-hounds will form an attack-pack and tear your unbelief to shreds. Apart from having the Holy Spirit within you, you are not able not to sin. You not only are hopeless with your god, you are being fed false hopes from demons in the pulpits of many churches. It’s the false god Satan and his doctrines of lies that will distort the true Christianity so bad that it becomes a confusing battle of contradictions and denominations that are hell bent on earing the Body of Christ apart.

Man makes god in his image and likeness to deflect notice of his sin by hiding it in a barrage of false teachings. It doesn’t take long to have a man become your god and bow to the wishes of this pope or senior bishop or priest. Once layered by sinful men the fear of man replaces the fear of God. This is the death knell of religion. You get a false assurance that the true faith is whatever you personally believe it to be.

A BRICK WALL

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A BRICK WALL

Philippians 3:12 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.

Physics has taught me that if I apply a constant pressure against any object, in time, it will move. It may take a thousand years of my diligent effort, but the wall will go down and the bricks will be scattered until they become the dust from which they were made. So it is with sin and all the agents of corruption: they will come down and return to dust if only you will apply the pressure long enough: persistence of the saints.

Take for example the allurements of the world and all the creature comforts that we are inundated with in every area of merchandising. I expect that when all the surfaces have an advertisement on them, someone will figure out how to project ads on the face of the moon for the whole world to see!

It is second nature to covet or lust for all those things that are dangled just out of our reach. This includes advancement in our career moves. I was so diabolical that I would teach those under me only to a point and I would keep key information and training of special skills to myself so that they would never threaten my position of power and authority. The presumption of corruption and underlying schemes was elemental and necessary to outmaneuver those clamoring to take me down with a smile on their wretched faces. The old leaven surely does foul the whole being and cause a tension of heart-ache only the blood-soaked Cross of Christ can heal.

When your soul has lost ground and Devine life has declined, take a good look at that which was and remind yourself: I can, I will and I must overcome in Him. My heart has lost its softness and my conscience is no longer tender. The Cross has lost its attraction and grace no longer seems sweet to me. I’ve lost my mind to the seclusion of he Netherlands and iti is read meat for the prowling and devouring lion, I am terrified!

Bring me back Oh Lord the convictions of my offense before your holy throne with a godly sorrow that is couched in true humility and confession. I ache to return to You and the sweet comforts of your embrace.

That brick wall will come down and my effort will persist. I will persevere against the immovable obstacle of sin in a measure consistent with my renewed and growing faith. The victory is ours, mine and yours as my besetting sin crumbles into the oblivion of my past, gone and never again an obstacle to the gateway and cornerstone of deliverance.

The wall has come down!

A CALLING

Ye call me Master                   and obey me not;

Ye call me Light                      and see me not;

Ye call me Way                       and walk me not;

Ye call me Life                        and desire me not;

Ye call me Wise                      and follow me not;

Ye call me Fair                        and love me not;

Ye call me Rich                       and ask me not;

Ye call me Eternal                  and seek me not;

Ye call me Gracious   and trust me not;

Ye call me Noble                    and serve me not;

Ye call me Mighty                   and honor me not;

Ye call me Just                       and fear me not;

If I condemn you Blame Me not!

 

FAITH:

Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible.

Faith is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable.

Faith is ideal when circumstances are right, only when they are adverse is one’s faith in God exercised.

Faith, like muscle, grows strong and supple with exercise.

Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.

A little faith will bring your soul to heaven; a great faith will bring heaven to your soul.

Faith is not believing that God can, but that God will!

Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.

Faith in God is indispensable to successful statesmanship.

 

Arabic Proverb

He that knows not and knows not that he knows not:

He is a fool; shun him!

He that knows not and knows that he knows not:

He is simple; teach him!

He that knows and knows not that he knows:

He is asleep; wake him!

He that knows and knows that he knows;

He is a wise man; follow him!

 

A NEW COMMAND

Matthew 13:34 All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable,

I have often imagined myself the President of the United States and the most unnerving ability I can imagine would be the office of Commander of the Armed Forces. All other duties, however important, would pale in comparison to having the lives of a million young soldiers in your hands. How his heart must break in wars when these men give their lives for their country as my Dad did in WWII.

When Jesus commands His army to war He provides the armor and sword. His victory is in the heart of those that are His because that’s where the war is waged. He commands us not just to love one another but to love our enemies “for they know not what they do.” As soldiers in God’s army we are to dig in our cleats and unleash the dynamite of the Holy Spirit that is within us at Rev. Lucifer and his wimps. The battle and victory belong to Jesus and the peace resides in our hearts that are joined to His.

Jesus breathed a soul into Adam and His mind and heart followed. So reason and emotions are the pathway of comfort to the soul, in His image and likeness. Satan’s whole being is committed to snatching your soul into his fiery clutches. He knows his time is running out and like the desperation of a rabid hyena facing death, he is determined to take you down with him; he’s that evil!

Your mind is where the backsliding thoughts are hatched if there is any fertile ground for them to grow such as: pornography, drugs, booze, gambling, etc. When your mind is in the gutter your heart will follow and your soul will fall from grace. All you have to do is blink and Satan will slip into your mind with the flesh not far behind.

So loving each other with His love is not an option. Our Commander-in-Chief demands it because He knows that love is life and without it you become a casualty and a victory for Lucifer and his hell-hounds.

Receive your marching orders like a good and obedient soldier for Christ. Each time you say no to Satan temptations you earn higher rank in the Savior’s Survivors Squad of warriors. You have His strength as the Holy Spirit partners with you in the conflict for your soul. Jesus says for us to love and then watch the feeble efforts of the devil wither before our very eyes.

 

 

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.

WHAT IS TRUTH?

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WHAT IS TRUTH?

By Rick Mathes

You have to be real careful when you list the absolutes of your life. When you insist something is “always” someone will come up with an exception. The only yardstick we Christians stake our eternal life on is that only the Word of God holds within it 66 volumes of the only truth.

When Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus didn’t even waste His breath to tell him, “I AM the way, the truth and the life.” “Thy Word is truth.” We have the answer and anyone who disagrees is dead wrong.

So what is truth? Let me begin with original sin. When Adam and Eve believed Satan and defied God, hey knew good and learned evil. That same sin is passed on to every living soul through our DNA. You don’t teach a baby to be bad, it just comes naturally. Good comes supernaturally.

Another truth that so many people just plain hate is election. Consider just good logic. If God is all-knowing, he knows who will be saved and who won’t be before they are even born. After they are born they can’t change what God pre-knew, can they? That’s election or predestination. No one “accepts” Jesus as Lord, He “chooses” them!

When Jesus wants you, He’s going to get you because He is all powerful. Like a worm on a hook, you may squiggle and squirm but you are hooked. This is His effectual calling. A hen has a general calling to let her chicks know where she is and she has her “get under my wings” cluck for the chicks to hurry, they are in danger. Get the point?

My favorite truth is “once saved, always saved.” We just don’t quit. We keep the faith, fight the good fight and finish the course. You can’t knock us down and keep us down. We always get our back off of the canvas and press on!

The least favorite truth is that Jesus didn’t take the unbelievers punishment on that cross. He died for those who would believe. If you are without faith in Christ, you will suffer your own hell that He suffered for me. This is called “limited atonement.”

I just know I know you know the truth. You may hide in denial or your might invent a convenient religion for yourself but in your heart of hearts, you know the truth, Jesus is Lord!

WE ARE MORE

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WE ARE MORE

By Rick Mathes

Romans 8:37 (NASB77) 37  But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

Peter’s transformation from a coward, intimidated by a servant girl to a warrior for Christ, preaching the gospel of His Resurrection in the face of certain death. Countless souls have turned from cringing to steadfast champions because the Holy Spirit has transformed believers from death to life.

This new energy or essence is totally designed to help us forget sin. A dearly s we have learned to love he Lord, conversely our hate for Satan has soared to new depths. The resurrection of the dead as exploded the netherworld with destruction and rampaging plagues of sin not heard of since Jesus cried from the Cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” The sky turned black as the Trinity was ripped apart and the Father turned His back on the unimaginable agony of His Son. It was the beginning of exchanging the power of sin to the power of a praying child’s victory.

Jesus leads us though the Cross as through a star-gate into the wonderful spender of the heavenlies, beyond description. Our Lord chooses us form all others to be and adopted son to the Father and brother to the church and Bridegroom of glory. As heirs of heaven we share our Lord’s throne with Him and stand as equals with all those chosen the Father loves.

This is why Father God permitted us to go through this life and earth experience so that we would fully understand that death stung Jesus and died. Isaiah 53 may be the hinge of the Holy Scriptures but the resurrection is the capstone that illuminates every word of the original Logos and manuscripts with God’s signature.

The glue that holds this all together is the prayers the rush of warriors to the front lines with no regard of self. The victory is of ours is oblivious to our deeds forf Him and our destruction of the devil and his fallen angels. All we ae are ofis His pleasure and approval. We live to make His joy compete!