Tag: repent

DON’T LOVE THE WORLD

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DON’T LOVE WORLD

By Rick Mathes

1 John 2:15-17 (NASB) 15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

Satan hasn’t changed his method of operation since the garden when he tempted Eve with her eyes, then tasting she was too proud to repent so she enticed Adam to join her in her sin. Eyes, flesh and pride are the horsemen of temptation. I can hear their hoof-beats and they are approaching you closer every day you commit your soul to Jesus.

When you were deep in sin, lost and tossed aside, you had a little moron devil snoozing in charge of you. But when you turn your eyes to Jesus, an army of howling hell-hounds got on your trail to tear you apart and devour your relationship with the King of kings. Can you smell the sulphur? Do you feel the flame licking at your heals? Can you understand that you are only held back by the slender thread of your faith?

In the wilderness Jesus was tempted to change stones into bread, jump off the temple building to prove He was the Son of God and challenged to worship Satan in exchange for all the kingdoms of the earth. How similar our temptations are to this moment!

Your eyes are the window to sin. The look isn’t the sin; the lingering of eyes is. Then when you have gazed long enough, your flesh grabs you, you have to taste and have some more. Then you become to prideful to change. “I can handle it this time” is the biggest lie from hell you will ever hear.

I have learned to love the Lord more than the sin. It’s that simple.

When I am in a convenience store on a hot day and see the beer on display, I look away and say “This one’s for you!” and walk away.

When I see a pretty girl and am tempted to mentally undress her, I look away and say, “This one’s for you!” and turn my eyes.

When I smell some marijuana floating though the air, I turn away and say, “This one’s for you” and keep on walking.

As long as you love the Lord 51% and the devil 49% you are well on your way to conquer the eyes, flesh and pride. You may not be the person you ought to be but thank you Jesus you are not the person you once were. Press on!

DON’T LEAVE

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DON’T LEAVE

By Rick Mathes

John 6:67  Jesus said therefore to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?”

The church needs a team to visit those who leave the church and at least attempt to salvage their walk with the Lord. There are many wounded Christians who were in the crossfire of members and unbeliever alike, sword to sword. I was asked once, “If you were Satan, how would you destroy the Christian church? I replied, “Leave them alone. They are doing just fine without the devil’s help!” Seriously, why do so many people walk away?

I think the main reason is that they find the gospel offensive. Being covered by the blood or by His lacerated body we are healed? The toughest is the Trinity and God Jesus dying. I recommend that you read “Hard to Believe” by John MacArthur Jr.

Too many turn their back on the church because of the persecution they are getting from friends, family and fellow workers that make fun of their effort to change their ways. Also, church members can be so mean with their gossiping and backbiting. Some of my most friendly neighbors are unsaved!

My kid brother, among others, just laughs it off. His attitude is the same toward Jesus as it is to any religious leader or the tooth fairy, for that matter. He believes Christianity is just invented to have an answer to those questions and events that just don’t make sense.

Some blow off Christianity because of their evil companions. When I gave my life to Jesus I worried about losing my unsaved buddies. Well, they ran for the hills and I thank the Lord for that because they weren’t the friends I needed to strengthen my walk with the Lord. Good Christian members have filled the gap.

Others just cannot tear themselves away from the sensual enjoyment that the devil provides in every direction including the church. In some countries the prostitutes start out their night in church praying for a successful evening!

Let’s give some the benefit of the doubt and excuse them because the situation has changed. They may have a new job, change of homes, death, divorce or other tragedy that needs our prayers.

The two most oft repeated reasons why fellow Christians leave the church is from sheer laziness or a complaint of what they believe to be unsound doctrine. It all cases, it is painful to me that when I quit going to the traditional churches, no one who said they loved me did or cared to even call me. I have since become an ordained Baptist minister and have my own little chapel of believers that worship together with me.

 

DISCIPLE

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DISCIPLE

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,

We are called to make disciples, learners. It is the Holy Spirit who will teach these students the gospel according to Jesus. This is an invitation for world persecution because unbelievers go ballistic when we demand that if they won’t confess Jesus only as Lord, they will burn in the furnace of hell forever! Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father but through Me.” No one means just that, no one. So it takes fearless consecration when a newly ordained minister gets up from his knees to combat the evil one for Jesus?

Just try to get even a bold confession from anyone claiming to be born-again. It can be a hopeless task to find those with enough spiritual “T” to share the gospel out loud to anyone who will listen. Where can you hear a bold confession in the world’s marketplace? It might put you in jail!

It’s all about putting Jesus first way before anything or anyone Satan may put in our way to glory. Satan doesn’t care what you plan to do just don’t put Jesus first in your life today. What’s the rush? Enjoy life while you have life within you. You can always get religious when you are old.

Now is the time for fearless faith. What can man do to me? Nothing that I can’t take for Him compares to His sacrifice because He took the cross for me. I’m ready to bear my cross daily to follow Him. Let my feet step in His bloody footprints and go about His business for His glory and honor.

It’s all a matter of following Him: nothing more, nothing less. WE must be the anvil that takes many blows and has the perseverance to press on. He knows the way if we stay right on His heels. It’s His purposes we live for and it’s His power and presence that urges us on to deny ourselves. The more we realize how little we are in His scheme of things the easier it becomes to become lesser to as top increasingly so display His greatness. Teach me Lord, I am a willing learner!

DIABOLOS

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DIABOLOS

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

The forsaken one, Lucifer, reached beyond his grasp in pride and fell like a rock to depths of the abyss of hell. Satan has been a raging explosion of insanity that devours all within his damning reach. Like unleashed lightening, he strikes at the most vulnerable pressure points of any spirit he happens to target for eternal dying. Yes, I said “dying.” Those hopeless demons who would not pledge allegiance to our King Jesus are never consumed to death. Their torture for rejecting salvations call to humility is a sizzling death on a skewer of endless flames.

Beware! These fallen angels attack unexpectedly. We tend to drop our sword when we are prospering and our weakest point is most vulnerable. Our resistance in the flesh is useless and powerless against the devil’s allurements of lust, money and power. The devil keeps his prey in sight and on friendly terms until his appetite of destruction is awakened and an entry level is provided by the victim. His favorite perch to strike you from is the pulpit of your house of worship. It’s really a synagogue of evil and you are blind-sided. He is a polished and persuasive speaker that knows the Bible verses backwards in Hebrew. You are no match for our Lor’s arch-enemy, the whore of Babylon.

Satan’s most effective weapon is doubt and fear: the keys to hell’s gate. When your faith and trust are conquered diabolos will misuse his power by destroying the church from the inside out as he does to you. It all boils down to spiritual pride and selfish ambition.

The nail that seals your coffin and eternal terror is self-gratification. When it’s all about you, there’s nothing left for Jesus. You can see the end from the beginning as your life crumbles before your eyes. All and eternal terror is self-gratification. When it’s all about you, there’s nothing left for Jesus. You can see the end from the beginning as your life crumbles before your eyes. All you thought you were you find out was just an illusion. Nothing real remains. It’s all smoke and mirrors. All you thought was wasn’t; Nothing to hold on to and no reason to press on. How sad!

DEVOTED

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DEVOTED

By Rick Mathes

Acts 2:42 And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

How simple can it get?

  1. Teaching
  2. Fellowship
  3. Breaking of Bread

I ache to step back in time to the Primitive Church before 325AD when Constantine ruined it all until Martin Luther raised the true faith from the ashes and the Puritans brought it to our shores. It was a time when correct doctrine was not optional and the gospel still had the ring and memory of John the Revelator.

The fellowship was as much a struggle then as it is now but restoration was mandatory and love was unconditional. They had the problems as we do but their world view was fresh from the forty day seminar the Lord held with His disciples before He went home to the Father. We don’t have to like each other but we must love each other.

Our communion is unbreakable because our body is one: it is in unity with the Triune Godhead with our own trinity of mind, heart and soul. We can sense the spirits in our midst and the love that flows between us. We are only one heartbeat and one glimpse away from all of glory before us.

The communication that seals our security is prayer. It is a fragrance of praise to take to our Daddy (Abba) and tell Him how much we love Him. The fuel of faith is the prayer of a righteous saint and the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

The Baptist of believers makes us one in the Spirit and faith. Oh there are denominational distinctives yet to be agreed upon, but the basic fundamentals of Protestantism are unified and cannon. There is the rock solid agreement of Bible only, Jesus only, Grace only and Faith only. Any deviation from Calvinism is heresy. We believe that everyone else has a God given rightr to be wrong or too stupid to understand that TULIP is the only gospel. (I’m in trouble now!)

So let’s praise Him with joy in true worship. It can only be found at the feet of the Master. Just a look in His eyes will cause you to be devoted to Him to the end of eternity.

DEVIL’S CHILD

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DEVIL’S CHILD

By Rick Mathes

Acts 13:10 (NASB77) 10  and said, “You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?

A living abortion of the whore of Babylon is deceit, the root of lies. As you well know, Father Lucifer is the father of lies. His commitment is to hinder all forms of objective true knowledge. This infection of the terminal disease of unbelief will keep you from God, the Great Physician. The doctor of death will persuade you that pride is the cure. When you are secure in your confidence of handling it one more time, you will prove as you have many failures before that you can man up on your own and handle life’s problem without any major change in your life-style.

Deceit and all its offspring gives birth to fraud which is nothing new. Nothing is as it appears to be and everything is broken. This is the reality when your knee bows to the angel of light and his fallen demons.

Diablo conceal hate in counterfeit love. Flaming, smoldering embers from hell are the nest of counterfeit relationships and self-serving love: narcissism. I love me and I will take down anyone who thinks differently. It’s all about me and everyone else are just tools for me to use to my advantage. Those that resist are disposable and are of no consequence anyway.

Lies grow on lies and the offspring of the whore conceive one evil plan after another hammering the cross to splinters. What a wonderful fire it will kindle to celebrate the death of truth. Everything is relative so condemnation of sin has been eliminated because there is no law.

Everyone is encouraged to exercise their freedom to sin because there is no opposition unless you allow it. So the children of Esau and Ismael will stand together, God’s truth will never prevail.

Islam and Roman Catholicism are the right and left hands of Satan. Just a touch by either will pollute your soul to eternal death and your hardened heart will never recover. Finally, with lies and deceit ruling, Jesus will bow before Lucifer and worship the darkness that has conquered the light when you ae a child of the devil. He’ll love you!

DESIRES

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DESIRES

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.

What are you going to do with the rest of your life? “Duhhhh…I don’t know.” Most people spend more time planning their weekend than the next 10 years of their life much less next month. I ask, how can you know when you have arrived if you don’t know where you are going or how you will get there?

If you are a believer, you must win Christ and celebrate your victory over the evil one. It all begins with where you begin and if you are found in Him, nothing but good stuff lies ahead.

We must exchange our self-righteousness for His or we will fall back on our own resources and repeat the cycle of failure again. Satan will do his best that this time you learned from past mistakes and now you can do it your way one more time. It turns out to be a merry-go-round to hell or stated another way a dog going returning to his vomit. When you can be found in Him Satan can’t be found!

The same Holy Spirit of the Old and New Testaments that hovered over creation is still just as powerful as He always was. If only you would know His power, you would never yield to Satan’s lies again. In fact, when the Spirit is upon you, all of hell’s inhabitants tremble in terror. The lost in hell are better believers than we are. They really know Jesus is LORD but their desire to be saved now is too late.

Seek the fellowship of His suffering for your faith even unto death. If He isn’t worth dying for He isn’t worth living for. To prepare ourselves to be conformed to His death we need to be perfectly holy. It is impossible for us to be so but in Him and His resurrection we are assured that we will win the prize as long as our passionate desire is to be exchanged for Him in Him.

This is what causes the unity of believers, one faith and one Body in one accord. We are changed. Our body is is exchanged for His and we are united in Him because there is only His Body that will save us from the eternal death of flames. I beseech you to desire Him with all that is within you and finish the course to the finish line. I’ll be there to greet you into glory!

COREM DEO BEFORE GOD

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CORUM DEO – BEFORE GOD

By Rick Mathes

Hebrews 10:1 (NASB77) Heb 10:1 (NASB77)  For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.

Every instance in the Bible when someone came into the presence of God, their face hit the ground and they were horrified by how sinful they were in the face of God. It was a terrifying experience unlike the entertainment franchises with a cross on the roof we call churches. The majority of professing Christians are ignorant to what true worship really is: coming into the personal presence of God (in His face).

They are hindered by unbelief. Oh they may agree to the Westminster Confession of Fatih and have the right answers to the right questions but they stop short of believing that we must be Holy or we will never enter heaven. We form our own religion that suits our beliefs as far as we allow our heart to reach. Close but no cigar!

If this sounds like you, be honest: you have unconfessed sin that the Holy Spirit has been hounding you with. You have invented your own god who doesn’t really care about your minor sins. Your god is only interested in the big sins! How absurd. A Holy God demands nothing less than holiness.

Harboring what you believe to be a benign sin is a completely wrong attitude. It was sin that killed God’s only Son. All sin is lethal and you and I must be 100% sinless or we will never enter the glory-land. Well, you know well as I do that it is impossible. The only way to the Father is through the Son so face it. Anything you believe otherwise, no matter how small or insignificant you may thinkit is to be, if it is not wholly Jesus, it is wholly and fatally wrong: No sin period!

So if you keep placing your priorities around the edges, it won’t due. You are only fooling yourself unless you make your only goal in life the pursuit of holiness. Don’t hold anything back no matter how insignificant you may believe the sin to be.

You are advancing into the face of the enemy and Lucifer can be a formidable enemy. He only needs to would you with a small sin to cause a fatal blow. Stand boldly before God and don’t hold anything back. You’ve been warned!`

CORRUPTION

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CORRUPTION

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Corruptions on every front occur in the world and the church before our very eyes and we let them happen; everyone, whether in politics or in the pulpit is afraid to speak the truth because truth has been corrupted beyond recognition.

In either circle it begins by following humanist leaders. We call them liberals but the fact remains that they are conservatives with masks on. They are not just “Joe six-packs” in taverns or legislators in government; they are also graduates of seminaries.

They favor earthly, carnal, self-centered wisdom no matter how it’s packaged or marketed. I live in the real world but my heart is in the heavenlies. I see and you do too the nonsense that is offered as good-sense.

You can’t help but flounder in the flesh of relativism. It’s like throwing darts at a moving and changing target. There is no objective bull’s eye there is only bull s—t.

With an ever changing truth we give little or no thought for future judgment because what is there to judge? When there is no right there is no wrong and the lie becomes the truth. The Word of God warned us and the fulfillment is upon us. Why fear a judge of no laws or punishment. Muslims call it “kismet.”

The spiritual leaders flatter themselves by the attendance and wealth of their churches. All of hell has put its weight on their eyes to look outward instead of upward.

When you aren’t eye to eye with Jesus you are well on your way to sink to the depths of Satan’s evil abyss of fire. Faithfulness to Christ is measured by three words: repent, submit and obey If you will do these corruption wherever you feet are planted will flee.

Otherwise you are fragmenting the Body of Christ. You have corrupted to the point where you are not the solution, you are the problem. Guess what happens when you spit into the sky; it falls back on you.

CONQUERERS

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CONQUERERS

By Rick Mathes

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

C.H. Spurgeon: Jesus is the representative man for His people. The head has triumphed and the members share in the victory. While a man’s head is above the water you cannot drown his body.

All the hope of ministry lies in the

Spirit of God operating on the spirits of men.

Jess disciples in His absence. The Holy Spirit then is all the Christ we need until His return. We pay so little attention to the Spirit of God that maybe now, in this devotional, we can give credit where credit is due.

Can you even imagine they removed the head of a trained monkey and attached it to a headless body of another monkey and it retained all its knowledge and training! A surgeon removed the heart from a patient and put it into a pan and then returned and put the silent heart into the man again and it began to throb with life. Where is life if all our body parts can be replaced? In Christ!

This inner vitality from Him makes us “able not to sin.” We have put out the flames of hell and have been resurrected from the dead. There was a time we walked around looking for a place to be buried but we were cowards to take our life. Now we cherish the Lord because His is the way, the truth and the life. We can defeat the most evil demons of hell and not even fear Lucifer himself because we win!

Sin cannot have dominance over us any more than darkness can put out light. All of hell, all sin, all demons and Lucifer himself is nothing more than an itch on God’s nose! So why are you surrendering to the losers?

Finally, we have a Commander-in-Chief that leads us to certain victory. We join Him as family, His family and full heirs to His estate. It is this eternal Glory in His Kingdom that we pledge our life, liberty and fortunes.

It all begins at the beginning: we are more than conquerors because we put on the full armor of God and fight our battles on our knees in prayer. Imagine that! We have His ear, His full attention anytime we need Him. What more assurance do we need that the battle is ours?