Tag: sin

LOOK BOTH WAYS

By Rick Mathes

By Rick Mathes

Acts 1:10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was departing, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them;

Sermon and Bible study preparation is my favorite adventure into the mind of Jesus through the Words of God. I thrill at word studies and parsing verses in context of the message. My goal is for any disciple to hear, listen, learn, apply and then evaluate the teaching. That’s not easy to impart in their life style because of all the distractions that bombard us from everywhere.

To keep ahead of the devil, I go in advance of what I expect He will try to break the circuit of the learning process the Holy Spirit intends. Let’s sink our toes into holy ground and look around to see the truth that surrounds us.

• Look backwards: Ordinarily I would say to not look back and keep your eyes on the plough but every once in a while it is healthy to be reminded of where we have been. You may not be the Christian you want to be but praise the Lord you are not the person you used to be. Take note that Satan’s darts are in your back because you are pressing on in Him. How about just holding a mirror over your shoulder to peek at the devil’s ugly face once in a while to remind you that you aren’t leaving anything of value behind. The world is his and the Kingdom of the Lord’s.
• Look upward: All the weight of hell is on your eyes to look outward to all the advertised sins in every media Satan can get his smoldering hands on. There isn’t anywhere to turn away from temptation but to look up upon the glory of Jesus at the right hand of God. Your eyes are the origin of sin seeping through your mind, then your heart and finally your soul. Look up! Your redemption is near.
• Look inward: Just what condition is your condition in? The hardest thing to do to see your heart through the eyes of the Lord. I’m including those sneaky little dark places you hide your favorite sins: you know, the one’s you don’t want to repent of. Learn this: The sin you have is the sin you want more than Jesus because if you didn’t want the sin more than you do want the sin, you wouldn’t have it! You are the sum total of all the decisions you have made on the inside.
• Look forward: When I do I imagine the main street of the Magic Kingdom in Florida. I see one glorious, fun opportunity after another to love, enjoy and serve the Lord. It makes me strive for the finish line and complete the race with faith and a good fight. We win if we look both ways and take the narrow road. Stop, look and listen!

 

LOOK

By Rick Mathes

John 1:36 (NASB) ³⁶ and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

Jesus said, “Look unto me and be saved,” and CH Spurgeon, my mentor did and he was saved and the rest is history. The Prince of Preachers sermons are still circling the globe at the speed of light and thousands upon thousands continue to be saved because that chubby teenager looked.

Look backwards to Christ dying. Put your face in the mud, the blood and the tears at the foot of His cross and repent. Dump all your sins and guilt there and leave them there. The sins you have, you have them because you want them because if you didn’t want them more than you do want them, you wouldn’t have them. It’s that simple! Why torture yourself by looking back at old sinful memories and destroying your joy.

Look upward to Christ pleading your case before the ultimate judge Father God. All He has to do is remind our God how much He suffered and died to atone for our sins. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant it. The punishment due to u is complete in Christ’s sacrifice to His life for us. He loves us that much and He knows the Father will not refuse us as He pleads for us on our behalf.

Look inward to Christ living in you. Can you sense that the Holy Spirit dwells in you? You are His temple. You can’t do it without Him and He won’t do it without you. If your hands don’t go about His business, it won’t get done. Le the fullness of His glory shine through your eyes. When others get to know you do they get to know Him?

Look forward to Christ coming back. Stand on His promises. He said tht the gates of hell cannot prevail against you. He will never give you more than you can bear, He will always give you a way out, He will never leave nor forsake you, no one can take you out of His hands and where He is you will be.

Look to Him and you will never look away again. On the flip side, always be mindvul that He is looking at you!

 

LOOK CLOSELY

By Rick Mathes

John 1:36 (NASB77) ³⁶ and he looked upon Jesus as He walked, and •said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

John 1:39 (NASB77) ³⁹ He •said to them, “Come, and you will see.” They came therefore and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

We have two ears and two eyes but only one mouth and they should be used proportionately. You can’t learn by talking. You need to hear, listen, learn, apply and then evaluate but nothing teaches well than what you see and experience.

Begin by looking backward to a dying Christ. Listen carefully as He whispers your name and devotes His last breath to you and gave his life that He might live through you. Then look upward to Jesus pleading your case before the Father. I can hear His day, “Daddy, look at the scars and know I loved Rick as you do and I gave my life that Rick might live.” Inward you will see the glory of our Lord living in you. Once converted you become a living sacrifice, a holy temple. The Holy Spirit dwells in you and points forward to your redemption when Christ returns to reign on earth as He does in heaven.

The gates of heaven are blown off their hinges with the regeneration of mankind which is soon to come and bring a present day reformation of godly doctrine written in the blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit revival tghat is sure to follow will produce a revolution in you innermost places wehre Satan once had his strongholds. Freedom has a price and it is worth it.

Why should you come to Christ now? You were far away in the gloom of futility and your only salvation is to draw near to him. The closer you get the more restful you will feel. The peace that surpasses all understanding is merely being next to him and protected from His adversary, Diablo. How sweet is the fruit of your vine when it is watered by His Word and nurtured by His presence?

What fruit can we expect to blossom form this vine that we have begun grafted too? At the top of my list is: a full pardon. When I learned I was forgiven I dropped to my knees in my pastor’s office and wept. It gave me a strange new peace I had never enjoyed but I know now I had an assurance of salvation. A joy unspeakable rose up in my heart until I thought I would explode. Now, I finally had a real hope of avoiding hell and stepping into glory and everlasting happiness.

LOOK BOTH WAYS

By Rick Mathes

Acts 1:10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was departing, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them;

Sermon and Bible study preparation is my favorite adventure into the mind of Jesus through the Words of God. I thrill at word studies and parsing verses in context of the message. My goal is for any disciple to hear, listen, learn, apply and then evaluate the teaching. That’s not easy to impart in their life style because of all the distractions that bombard us from everywhere.

To keep ahead of the devil I go in advance of what I expect He will try to break the circuit of the learning process the Holy Spirit intends. Let’s sink our toes into holy ground and look around to see the truth that surrounds us.

• Look backwards: Ordinarily I would say to not look back and keep your eyes on the plough but every once in a while it is healthy to be reminded of where we have been. You may not be the Christian you want to be but praise the Lord you are not the person you used to be. Take note that Satan’s darts are in your back because you are pressing on in Him. How about just holding a mirror over your shoulder to peek at the devil’s ugly face once in a while to remind you that you aren’t leaving anything of value behind. The world is his and the Kingdom of the Lord’s.
• Look upward: All the weight of hell is on your eyes to look outward to all the advertized sins in every media Satan can get his smoldering hands on. There isn’t anywhere to turn away from temptation but to look up upon the glory of Jesus at the right hand of God. Your eyes are the origin of sin seeping through your mind, then your heart and finally your soul. Look up! Your redemption is near.
• Look inward: Just what condition is your condition in? The hardest thing to do to see your heart through the eyes of the Lord. I’m including those sneaky little dark places you hide your favorite sins: you know, the one’s you don’t want to repent of. Learn this: The sin you have is the sin you want more than Jesus because if you didn’t want the sin more than you do want the sin, you wouldn’t have it! You are the sum total of all the decisions you have made on the inside.
• Look forward: When I do I imagine the main street of the Magic Kingdom in Florida. I see one glorious, fun opportunity after another to love, enjoy and serve the Lord. It makes me strive for the finish line and complete the race with faith and a good fight. We win if we look both ways and take the narrow road. Stop, look and listen!

 

LOOK

By Rick Mathes

John 1:36 (NASB) ³⁶ and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

Jesus said, “Look unto me and be saved,” and CH Spurgeon, my mentor did and he was saved and the rest is history. The Prince of Preachers sermons are still circling the globe at the speed of light and thousands upon thousands continue to be saved because that chubby teenager looked.

Look backwards to Christ dying. Put your face in the mud, the blood and the tears at the foot of His cross and repent. Dump all your sins and guilt there and leave them there. The sins you have, you have them because you want them because if you didn’t want them more than you do want them, you wouldn’t have them. It’s that simple! Why torture yourself by looking back at old sinful memories and destroying your joy.

Look upward to Christ pleading your case before the ultimate judge Father God. All He has to do is remind our God how much He suffered and died to atone for our sins. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant it. The punishment due to u is complete in Christ’s sacrifice to His life for us. He loves us that much and He knows the Father will not refuse us as He pleads for us on our behalf.

Look inward to Christ living in you. Can you sense that the Holy Spirit dwells in you? You are His temple. You can’t do it without Him and He won’t do it without you. If your hands don’t go about His business, it won’t get done. Le the fullness of His glory shine through your eyes. When others get to know you do they get to know Him?

Look forward to Christ coming back. Stand on His promises. He said tht the gates of hell cannot prevail against you. He will never give you more than you can bear, He will always give you a way out, He will never leave nor forsake you, no one can take you out of His hands and where He is you will be.

Look to Him and you will never look away again. On the flip side, always be mindvul that He is looking at you!

 

LOGOS – RHEMA

By Rick Mathes

Hebrews 4:12 (NASB77) For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

There is not now nor ever was anything that touched a world view more that the Word of God, our treasured Holy Bible. This library of 66 books was written by 40 authors over a period of about 1700 years in three languages on three continents and has remained seamlessly true and non-contradictory: an absolute anomaly.

Every word in I cuts all over the body of sin and guilty consciences of very being on earth. Right and wrong was indelibly imprinted on the human soul in Eden. It wounds every hidden sin it touches. There is nowhere for the evil that resides in you to hide. It kills self, sin and unbelief!

So it can be rightfully said that the Word of god is a devouring flame that has not mercy on the miasma of those tortured in Hell: It consumes completely everything the devil touches without even a flaming fingerprint.

It’s a crushing hammer that has no mercy on anyone who tampers with it holy contents. All who twist, change, eliminate or misquote even one dot or tittle are annihilated and the remaining dust is swept into the furnace of the fallen angels as a reminder that they were warned that the Holy Word “was not to be tampered with.”

On the bright side, the Word of God is the only life giving force. All other powers destroy and diminish the goodness of God and all His creation. The amazing text of prophecies is the only saving power in all of creation, the esend of His word and the form of the Son of God, Jesus!

It is the shield that deflects the flaming arrows from the evil one. It is a weapon on defense and the only protection from the fatal disease of terminal sin. It will probe your most secret places and expose the darkest filth that you have hid even from your own memory. Nothing, absolutely nothing will escape the illumination of God’s Word in your soul. The Bible can be your most welcomed salvation if youwill only get “belly up” before the Lord. Will you do that today?

LIVING WORD

By Rick Mathes

Hebrews 4:12 (NASB77) ¹²  For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

You have a love letter from your special Daddy in your hands when you are holding the Holy Word. Jesus as the Son of Man is His form but the Word of god is His essence that you need to read through and have it come alive in your hands. I always suggest you start with the Gospel of John to understand that Jesus is your God. Then move to First John to learn some main attributes of a true Christian and then on to James and His practical application suggestions. When you’ve got them down fairly well, go to the “Magna Charta” of the Bible, the Epistle to the Romans.

My next suggestion is a fun one we often do at our home each month with friends: pray the names of Jesus. It all started when an Elder of my church challenged me to pray for 15 minutes without asking for anything. I couldn’t. In time I could then he couldn’t stop me. Then we wrote down all the passages that described or named Jesus and prayed them. My favorite that neither I nor anyone I know has ever done is a Psalm each night for 30 nights. I can only get so far and then I get so pumped in the Word that I become a walking Thompson Chain Reference Bible maniac!

Another thought I had was, “Why did God create us sinful creatures and go through all this aggravation and trouble for in the first place? Why not just bask in His own glory? What could possibly be His motivation to have Jesus die for our sins and leave the Word of God for the Holy Spirit to guide us through?” My answer is, “To see Himself in us.” Remember, He created us in His image and likeness and sin tarnished that view. So to multiply His glory He multiplies Himself and increased His narcissism by looking on us and seeing Himself. The Holy Spirit reflects our Lord’s image back to the Father when He sees us justified and sanctified.

Lastly, the Word is the Sword of the Spirit that we must pas on so that we can multiply the stand against Satan’s kingdom until the Lord returns in glory and we live forever in heaven with allthe gifts and blessings He promised us.

All of that barely scratches the surface. I have two earned doctorates degrees and I tell you the truty all I have learned in the Word of God is how little I know.

 

LIVING WATER

By Rick Mathes

John 4:11 She •said to Him, ” Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?

There is nothing more refreshing to a parched throat than cold, clear water. Our body is about 80% fluid so you can see that venting and perspiration causes a thirst to our body engine that must be quenched or we over heat and die like a dry car radiator in a waterless desert. Our soul or spiritual body engine is no different. We need living water or we wither and die. Too much Word and you dry up, too much Spirit and you blow up but a balance of both and you grow up! What is it about his living water that we can identify and respond to?

My first thought is that the Living Water is refreshing, not only to my thirst but it does my spiritual laundry. When I am drinking in the Word of God such as when I read Psalms, the Spirit comes up on me in a wonderful way. I might be old and wrinkled on the outside but on the inside I am an enthusiastic and vibrant teenager.

As Living Water it is powerful because of the energy it generates. The hydraulic principles appy as that water rushes over the edges of my life. Everyone around me notices that I have a special smile, glow and purpose in all that I do for Him and for His glory.

Once we ingest the Word and it flows in our spiritual veins, we attach ourselves to the vine and abide in Him. Even though we are engrafted, we share the same vitality of everyone who believes. How exciting can it get!

With this new nourishment, it’s like we are doing scriptural steroids. WE bulkup and abound in good works that are fully in His will. There are three things that can we can never recover: a sped arrow, a spoken word and a passing opportunity.

Your opportunity has arrived! Let’s do an inventory you can underwsta

He has it.

He has it to give.

He has it for the asking

He alone can give it.

Won’t you drink deeply and live as you have never lived before?

LIVING DEAD

By Rick Mathes

Romans 6:23 (NASB77) ²³  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

C.H. Spurgeon:

It would be an awful experiment to set a house on fire intending to let it burn just so much and no more. “This far you shall come and no further?” If you could say it to fire, among standing corn, blown b the wind, yet you would say it in fain to sin. Sin swiftly grows from a pygmy to a giant, and ever increasing in its awful powers, it crushes down the man who is in its grip and holds him under it dreadful sway.

We have enough religion to make us hate,

But not enough to make us love.

Carnal Christians:

1. No spiritual leaders.
2. Evil associations.
3. Worldly success.
4. Shallowness.
5. Empty lives.
6. No spiritual insight.
7. Love of the world.

C.H. Spurgeon:

That sin must die or you will perish by it. Depend on it, that sin which you would save from slaughter will slaughter you.

Sin would have a few takers if its

Consequences occurred immediately.

Alexander MacLaren:

Every sin is a mistake as well as a wrong; and the epithah for the sinner is, “Thou fool!”

Sin Destroys:

• Soul: core of one’s being.
• Family: household, relatives
• Nation: character, temperament
• Church: denomination, service
• World: everyone, society, church

LIVE UP

By Rick Mathes

Philippians 3:16 however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.

Anything the devil has to offer you will only degrade and lower you until you need to jump up to touch bottom. So it is critical that we set our goals up and take a real inventory about what we do have in Christ. Let’s take a look at the practices of Paul and see if there are any similarities.

Most obvious is the attribute that Paul worshipped God in the Spirit. He turned his dimmer switch up to the top. He put his pedal to the metal. He was all out a buddle of humility at the feet of His Lord and Savior. Many times his tears were those of Jesus and his heart beat with His. It gave him great cause to die to sin and rise submissively to the Holy Spirit even to the third heaven and hear words and see scenes he was forbidden to speak about.

Here he was in a hole in the ground called a prison confinement, with the searing heat, stifling humidity and odors and vermin beyond civil description and he was having a 4^th of July celebration of joy for the Churches he had birthed. His heart leaped from his chest knowing tht he had lit the fuse that caused the holy explosion of the Spirit everywhere he traveled. He had been chosen to throw the rock into the cesspool of civilization and cause ripples of salvation, one family at a time!

Paul had no confidence in his flesh even though he had all the credentials of a pedigree. He knew that all he once staked his reputation on wasn’t anything more than a handful of sand that slipped though his fingers to be forgotten: meaningless.

This transformation left him absolutely void of any self righteousness. He began the sanctification process of exchanging all he was for all Christ is. He never attained complete holiness but he did all he could to live up to Christ’s excellency and put his own incompetence behind him.

Paul knew to treat anything of Satan’s as trash. As long as we bless the Lord with all we have, the devil will never have a toe-hold onus. Live up to Christ and don’t look outward to temporal distractions.