Slipcover Christianity

We talk about works and a lot of people think they don't matter at all and in truth you don't get salvation by works, it is a gift, but that doesn't mean all works stop.


If you truly love someone you act certain ways towards them. I'm not saying all mushy and doe-eyed that equivalent of a new love not yet broken in. If you love someone fully you respect them and there are things you know they don't like and you don't do them, things you know they like and you do them out of that love. Many people say that loving someone is accepting them the way they are without trying to change them, learning to live with the faults that present themselves. However if someone loves someone and they see that loved one doing things that are harmful to themselves they want them to stop so they don't get hurt. Their love for them aches as they watch them hurt themselves. They might offer their loved one ways to stop harming themselves, out of love. There are degrees of this and if the loved one were involved in something extremely harmful, leaving them after you try to help them is one option. Watching a loved one hurt themselves over and over is hard. All this is on a HUMAN level. God is on a whole other level. God offers us salvation freely out of love and when we accept salvation we are accepting Him and all that entails. We join with Him and desire to live for Him. Our sinning nature will war against this, Satan will pull out all stops to get us to sin in one way or another. Temptations will become more frequent and stronger and when we slip and fall, sinning, we are led to despair that we'll ever be as God would have us be.


In Revelation the first few chapters we are told this over and over.


'I know thy works'


Jesus knows our works. If works are so unimportant why does it matter? Yet over and over Jesus speaks to the seven churches and to each church He tells them 'I know thy works.' He knows our hearts, He know our lives, He know how we work in all that we do and it does matter. We can't just say we love Him and that's all there is. We can't say we follow Him and in reality we follow our own lusts without any compunction. Jesus knows our works and to each church He reaffirms this. He knows their actions, He knows our actions. We can leave our first love, we can worship *others*, we can blasphemy, we can be seduced away by counterfeits, we can lose faith, we can become defiled, we can become immune, numb to truth, not caring to foster a true love of Christ but rather become content in the slipcover Christianity we profess. We can shout to the hilltops, shout in the streets, blog to the world that we believe in God but our actions speak louder than all the professing we do. To say our actions mean nothing is to be deceived. Accepting Christ, accepting forgiveness, showing true repentance and giving our lives to Christ result in our lives reflecting that love. If our lives do NOT reflect that love because we believe our *works* don't matter we are only allowing ourselves to be deceived.


God loves us and sees the dangers we are in. God loves us and knows the harm that will befall us when we let sin reign.


Heb 12:4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.


WE HAVE NOT YET RESISTED UNTO BLOOD STRIVING AGAINST SIN!


Instead we've soothed ourselves, stroked our weaknesses and mollify ourselves by saying God understands. Yes, God does understand. He has always been about love and out of love our actions are made. Turning from God has consequences, shunning the love of God, betraying the love of God all matters but we live in a world that wants to just ease our minds not trouble ourselves with anything. People stress God is love, and all the good things, while forgetting God wrote the Ten Commandments that Jesus reaffirmed. Commandments that tell us how to live. When we don't live in harmony with God's commands all the soothing and mollifying in the world is pure deception. Whole churches exist to mollify people. Whole churches are lukewarm and will be spewed out by Christ. People are going to cry out when Christ returns and rejects them that they knew Him! That they did many wonderful things in His name and He's going to say get away, He doesn't know them at all. They'll be deceived into believing they are Christ's and living as Christ would have them live. ALL BUT THE VERY ELECT will be deceived.


Mat 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.


We cry out with Paul, wanting God to hear us- Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.


Jesus Christ has to be everything to us. Our lives have to be filled with striving against sin...we haven't resisted unto blood in our striving have we? Have you? Have I? What true striving against sin do we do? We can't count the number of times we've succumbed to sin, but can we count the number we've strived against it? Resisted unto blood? We tell ourselves we aren't suppose to strive, that we aren't supposed to *WORK* because it will void Salvation being a gift, but that's not true at all.


Someone gives us a gift we don't deserve and we instantly feel as if we have to repay them in kind with a gift for them, but maybe it's completely IMPOSSIBLE for us to repay them. We are left feeling as if we don't deserve the gift but obviously the person giving it feels as though we do in some way warrant it, even if it's just out of their love for us. Part of us instantly wants to be nicer to that person, doesn't it? No, this can't compare to the gift of salvation, but we have to realize that out of love we must strive against sin because sin will separate us from God and to be separated from God is to no longer live in Him- now and forever- and the tragedy of that is unfathomable.


May God help us by the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Help us Lord to live as you would have us live in You. Knowing You and being known by You. Create in us clean hearts, renew right spirits within us. May we serve Christ, the law of God, knowing we are wretched in and of ourselves, our righteousness as filthy rags. Help us Lord to resist unto blood as we strive against sin.


In Your Love!


Amen.