Grievous Chastening.

Grievous chastening. NO ONE likes to be chastened. 

Chasten means- to subject someone to discipline. 

Being discipline means-  enforcing the acceptable patterns of behavior, punishment to teach obedience.

Grievous chastening is not something we are supposed to enjoy. We are to endure it because we know that we are being taught to obey, taught to follow the Lord as we need to. We endure it because we know that the ultimate goal of the many hard learned lessons will be our holding fast to Christ's righteousness, and being partakers with God's holiness. The ultimate result of enduring the chastening and allowing ourselves to be taught obedience to God's will is only for our good.

Heb 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 

The many trials and tribulations we go through in our lives, the many chastening's we endure as we navigate this sin-filled existence, struggling to find the narrow way, struggling to be known by our Savior- known so that we may be called His, belonging to Him- are for a purpose. Teaching us that to obey our Creator, our Savior, to obey our Heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Only Begotten Son of God.. this is the lesson we must learn. Obedience- surrendering our will which would have us try and demand obedience rather than give it. Surrendering to the love of God. We must be exercised by the tribulations, the chastising, the grievous times of our lives that can happen often, constant, or seldom. We need to allow God to work in us and let it be for His glory. We need to have all the situations we find ourselves in draw us closer to Christ, being exercised by the very things that would destroy us if Satan had his way.

Please, Lord, help us surrender, help us endure, help us learn obedience, help us be YOURS in all things, in all ways!

All through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Lord, now and forever!

Lives of Tribulation.

If I were to ask you to undertake a top secret, obviously extremely important mission you would laugh at me, wouldn't you? I know I'd most likely laugh at anyone I knew who asked me to do such a thing. Why would I laugh, or expect you to laugh? Because I am a person of little influence, as are most of my acquaintances. I lack the authority, the power to be involved in much that could ever be construed as being top secret, or a mission of any consequence. However, if an FBI agent, or CIA agent, or one of those 'men in black' came to you and convinced you of their authority then asked you to undertake a top secret mission then how would you feel? What do you imagine your thoughts would be? You might be frightened, apprehensive, worried, as well as excited and thrilled to be a part of something deemed important.

Where am I going with all this? Well, the most supreme authority in existence has asked us to be a part of His organization, a part of His plan, He wants us to undertake the most important mission (albeit not top secret) that we will ever be asked to undertake in our lifetime. Are you scoffing right now? Are you sitting there shaking your head as if what I'm saying is a letdown, that it is nothing new and not overall very important. Maybe you already know where this is going and are going to stop reading about now, or you have already and that's fine, you can. It's not like I have you tied to a chair, with your eyes taped open forcing you to read what I put in front of you, no, no and yet another, no. That would be considered torture and manipulation, force that the Highest Authority would never ever consent to being used.

Seriously, God would have us be PARTAKERS of HIS HOLINESS.

Partakers of HIS HOLINESS. GOD WANTS US! And not only does God want us, He wants us to partake of HIS HOLINESS.

When becoming a secret agent, or perhaps joining an organization such as a fraternity, or lodge, or other such club- often as a part of ritual you are subjected to certain traditions called hazing or more acceptably- tests. And yes, some are truly tests of skill to prove your capabilities, while others are simply pranks passed down to intimidate and assert power and authority over others, doing to others what was done to you, making others go through what you had to endure- a rite of passage.

Government agents I like to believe are truly tested, not hazed, and in their testing they are subjected to a lot of situations that are unpleasant, dangerous and possibly deadly.  Why are they tested? We know the answer to that, they have to be prepared for the jobs they are going to undertake, the missions they are called to go on. They are often tested to their breaking point, and part of that breaking is part of the teaching experience. They are broken and then put back together piece by piece if they are deemed worthy to continue on with their training. 

People who join the army might not realize what they signed up for until they are in the rigorous basic training. The realization of what it really is can be a bit daunting for some because it is set up to break down individuality and build up team mentality. It is geared towards stripping a person of individual thought and teaching them to listen to authority, to obey authority even against their own seemingly better judgement. They learn a chain of command and their place in that chain of command under hard training, and yes, a lot of ridicule. Those movies about basic training aren't all lies by any means.

We are asked to join God's army. We are asked to take on the supreme mission of eternal life. We are told that God wants us to be partakers of HIS holiness. God wants us to be a part of HIM. The importance of all God wants of us cannot be stressed enough! This isn't some past time in our lives meant to give us social status among those who believe like we do. More often than not in the Bible those who were called of God weren't called for stagnation, but for action. To spread the good news, or help those called to spread the good news. Spreading the good news was very necessary. And the gathering together was to strengthen one another during the spiritual warfare each person is called to endure once they return to their everyday life. The gathering together wasn't a social event, it was a spiritual event to uplift one another through the guidance of God's chosen to lead others in the truth.

Spiritual strengthening, this is why God told those who choose to follow Him that they are to not forsake getting together. We strengthen each other spiritually by sharing the truth that we are called by God to be partakers of His holiness. We are called to a life most treacherous, most dangerous, more so than any FBI, CIA, Black Ops, etc. agents are called to because their calling may endanger their physical lives, but our calling endangers our spiritual lives.

The recognition that our spiritual life is eternally important is something God allows by His mercy and grace, by His will, because He wants us to be partakers of His holiness in eternity, not a member of a clandestine organization for thirty, forty, fifty years.

We need to remember something very important. People go through a lot of hardship when they are in training, and some training never ends. If I'm to believe some of the shows I watch on television, then training for S.W.A.T., for Navy Seals, for many of those types of jobs- never truly ends. They are constantly striving to stay in shape and on top of things, never allowed to grow soft, or forget their hard training because to do so would mean they would be less efficient at their jobs. They have to work hard constantly, not get to a place where they can kick back and relax because they attained the status, the position they were aiming to attain.

As God's soldiers we are called to such a position. Our training will never end. Our need to be up to date in all our spiritual skills is paramount and if I understand correctly, those skills will be forever honed- never reaching a place of complacency- at least not until the entire battle is over in all its aspects.

You are being called to enlist in a lifelong mission of the greatest importance, yet how many take it that seriously?

We are told we will be spiritually chastened and scourged- and often the spiritual lessons we are being taught through the chastening and scourging are those found in our physical, mental, emotional world that feeds into our spiritual existence.

You may face innumerable challenges all geared to ultimately guide you to a spiritual existence that will culminate in partaking fully in God's holiness as a son or daughter of God's.

When we stop recognizing, or fail to even begin to recognize that our life is such that it is a training ground meant to keep us trained for God's service we fail to live spiritually.

The trials and tribulations we face which can be overwhelming are allowed to exist because we are being called to a spiritual strong hold, called to recognize our nothingness and God's everything.

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 

Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 

Heb 12:8  But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 

Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 

Heb 12:10  For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 

Heb 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 

This is truth!

Joh_16:33  These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

We live our lives now in constant tribulation. There is NO sugarcoating going on here. Constant spiritual tribulation that stems from the countless number of worldly tribulations that exist all around us in our lives. One tribulation after another, one chastening after another, one scourging after another and NOT to destroy us but to have us recognize that there is an eternity which is the ultimate goal in overcoming as our Savior overcame. NO MATTER what we go through here and now, or have gone through in our past, or may be called to go through in our future- what awaits us in eternity with God, partakers of His Holiness, all through our world overcoming Savior, Jesus Christ, will make it worth clinging to the hope found only in Him. IN HIM ALONE WE HAVE PEACE. Any peace we find elsewhere is meaningless without HIS PEACE.

God please, help us believe! Make our spiritual lives reality far beyond the reality of the tangible temporary training ground we live in now.

All through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, now and forever!!!!!!!

Amen!

Chastened...Why?

Chastened.

Who likes being chastened?

To be chastened means to - make somebody subdued, to be subjected to discipline, to moderate the intensity of something. Here in the word of God we know the term is being used as being subject to discipline.

So who likes to be disciplined?

To be disciplined is to - practice the methods of teaching and enforcing acceptable patterns of behavior, a controlled orderly state, the ability to behave in a controlled calm way even in a difficult stressful situation, mental self-control used in directing or changing behavior or training for something, education, punishment to teach obedience, a system of rules in a religious order.

Here in the passage we are studying now it is being used as punishment to teach obedience.

Well, who likes to be punished?

Punished- to undergo a penalty for a wrongdoing, receiving a punishment for a crime, to treat someone harshly, causing damage or pain, to be treated unfairly, discriminatorily.

Okay, enough of the breaking down word meanings. Let's read the Biblical passage, the message from the Word of God.

Heb 12:5  And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 

We are NOT to despise the chastening (discipline, punishment) of the LORD.

THE LORD will chasten us! The LORD will rebuke us! We receive this chastening, this rebuking from our CREATOR, from our HEAVENLY FATHER why? How?

Hold up for a moment of contemplation. All of us started out as babes, grew into toddlers, aged into young children, became older children, entered into the teenage realm and then young adults and onwards (depending on your age whoever might be reading this). The point being we grew up with parental figures in our lives and those parental figures tried to chasten us in order to teach us the proper way of behaving in our society. Even if you have the most awful parents (or parental figures, not particularly your biological parents) in existence you were exposed to some sort of chastening during your upbringing. Home, school, wherever it was you had exposure to learning what behaviors were acceptable and what behaviors weren’t acceptable. One way we learned was by behaving unacceptably and when that occurred we were told it was wrong and if we insisted on continuing that behavior we were punished, chastened in order to enforce the comprehension of what is acceptable and what isn't.

Learning to behave acceptably or knowing there are consequences to unacceptable behavior, and choosing to risk those consequences really are the only choices we have in our lives. Behave or not to behave. You may think there are more choices but there aren't- it's all wrapped up right there. Even if you NEVER get caught misbehaving and suffer any of the possible consequences to your misbehavior, you are risking the possibility of receiving the known consequences to your misbehavior.  Behave or not to behave. We live our lives under this rule of life and we also live our lives under the SPIRITUAL rule of life that is the same- behave or do not behave.

In the spiritual realm of this- our HEAVENLY FATHER will do all He can to teach us the necessary right and wrong behavior and guide us to the right behavior.

Let's read a bit more of the passage-

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 

Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 

Heb 12:8  But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 

Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 

Heb 12:10  For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 

Heb 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 

Why does our Heavenly Father chasten us- so we might be PARTAKERS OF HIS HOLINESS. He wants us to be HIS! And to be HIS, we need to comprehend right from wrong and choose the right over the wrong. To choose to obey rather than disobey. To comprehend obedience is a gift, true love, true life not a stricture placed on us to hurt us in any way at all.

We all understand the ways parents use to protect children- restricting them in ways they seem to resent. The parents restrict them to protect them out of love. If you have a child who begins to crawl and an open stairway down to a basement, you take precautions to keep the child from hurting themselves. You aren't doing it to be mean, you aren't trying to limit your child from its life- you are protecting the child so the child continues to have a life. God would protect us in this way. If we become willful, as children can, we might succeed in circumventing any protective measure put up to keep us from taking a bad fall down the stairs. The consequence will be us falling and even dying.

God would have us be PARTAKERS of HIS HOLINESS.

The position we were originally created for- to be a part of God's existence in pure peace, in pure love. The joy that waits for those who will partake of God's holiness goes beyond true comprehension in its wonder, try as we might to compare it to something we can only know it now cumbered by sin's degradation.

We are spiritually chastened so we may become PARTAKERS of GOD'S HOLINESS.

More on this tomorrow by the will and the mercy, the love, the grace of our LORD and SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST.

The Race for Eternal Life.

The weight of the world, we've all felt it haven't we? Of course, figuratively speaking we've felt that weight pressing down on us threatening to destroy us. It's those days when everything seems to go wrong. One problem after another arises and the flood of mental, emotional pressure, as well as physical ailments just want to crush us until there is nothing left of us. We somehow make it through- though there are times we end up broken from it all and need a lot of time to heal. Some of our world-weight, crushing injuries are able to be hidden, other times we can't help but wear the fresh wounds for all to see. The term mental breakdown holds a stigma - less so now than years ago- but still, it's a term we use to label those we classify as too mentally, emotionally weak to handle the weight of the world pressing down on them.

Are people who have mental breakdowns weak simply because another person in a similar situation is able to handle it without succumbing to a mind freezing, world altering, numb, strangeness that slips us out of the normal world into an unfamiliar and very scary strange realm of mental existence? Weakness truly has no place in mental, emotional breakdowns- they are the result of sensitivities unique to us all as individuals. You may have a sensitivity to eating mushrooms and they make you break out in hives, are you weak because of that? No. You may not be able to take the same medicine that thousands of others are able to take without bad side effects, does that make you weak? No, it's just who you are. Your heart may have damage to it done from genetics along with various abuses - diet, smoking, lack of exercise does that make you a weak person? No. You may have been born with the inability to regulate your insulin, does that mean you are weak? No. All these things that happen to us in response to the world's influences, through our genetic makeup and the like do not make us weak people, they make us people with sensitivities that are perhaps not average, perhaps not the same as yours, and when the weight of the world comes crashing down on an emotionally, mentally sensitive person and puts cracks in their way of life making things really difficult for them, we need to build them up, help them without stigma and ridicule.

We need compassion to comprehend their differences. Their difficulties in handling this thing we call life is not due to weakness but to their individuality.

Their weakness may exist because of your strength- and if you refuse them your strength they only grow weaker- where does the failing lie in this scenario, in truth? We have the ability to give our strength, and as long as we have no sensitivity of our own preventing that ability to give our strength, then our refusal to give strength to the weak makes us the truly weak ones, the flawed ones so much more beyond the one who is sensitive to the world in ways not fully comprehended.

That the world HAS weight that can crush us is not lost in Biblical teachings.

Some of the weight is of our own making, our own choosing. When we choose to disobey God's teachings and surround ourselves willing with sins we are covering ourselves with weights of this world. When we have knowledge of sin and know something we are doing is contrary to God's love- and we have NO repentance, no remorse, no guilt at all- we can't expect the weight of sin not to crush us.

God expects from us capable of doing so, to choose His love, His compassion, His ways of living. God knows that sin will tempt us and try us threatening to destroy us. We choose God's way over the way of sin, the right over the way of wrong, we choose to live surrounded by the weight of sin's temptation without it piling up on us.

We will never live in this world without sin tempting us on a constant basis. Some sins are more appealing to us than others and do easily capture us and it is those sins we have to lay aside. We have to recognize them and consciously decide to keep from them, to strive to keep from them, to actively choose to stop yielding to the temptation. To repent with a sincere remorse and desire not to yield to the temptation. To seek forgiveness always! To beg for whatever it is we need to keep from us from sinning.

We have entered into the race for our eternal life and along the route are millions and millions of potholes waiting to trip us up. But it's not too hard to avoid a pothole because we see it as being detrimental to our racing. Yet, also along the route are many waystations set up to tempt us to stop racing, offering us every incentive to drop out of the race. These waystations are outfitted with the most personally tempting enticements and often there is a tempter in the waystation with its foot stuck out in front of us ready to trip us up so they can pull us into their station keeping us from running.  We need to run the race with patience- with comprehension that all those temptations to keep us from running are out there waiting for us and we need to purposefully choose to look to the finish line and not let ourselves be taken captive by anything that would keep us from making it there. 

We have to look to JESUS who ran the race and won. We have to look at the horrors that Jesus endured to get to the finish line, paving the way for us. We need to keep Jesus ever before us in the race, not looking away from Him for a moment, ever dragging our focus from the tempting sins and towards Him and His love for us! He endured the greatest of temptations because He had the greatest relationship with the Father. He knew He could drop out of the race all He had to do was say the word. His temptation was so much more than any temptation we can imagine, and He never yielded! He wants us at the finish line with Him! He knows the sin weight of the world would drag us down and keep us from Him if we let it. He is there always to encourage us on toward Him. He comes to know us, every bit of our lives, as we race on and keep in constant contact with Him.

Yes, we may be called to struggle through the darkest valleys, and pits of the thickest mud on the racing route but as long as we keep our hope in that finish line where our Savior waits for us, ever pressing onward He will see us through the most world weight crushing times of our lives. Even when we break under the weight, He is there ready to keep us safe in Him as we heal. 

Our Savior will help us avoid the pot holes, get us through the rough terrain and inclement weather, and He will keep us from turning into the tempting waystations which only want to keep us from finishing the race. Our Savior gives us all the supplies we need along the racing route, we get the refreshing life giving water from Him, we get the bread of life from Him to sustain us, we get all the rest we need safe in His embrace, and the joys of true, everlasting love will be given to us.  All by HIS grace and mercy, His love now and forever!!!!!!!

Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 

Heb 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

Heb 12:3  For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. 

Eating, Drinking-Living-All to Glorify God.

All, not some of the things, but all the things we do should be done to the glory of God.

If we live our lives with the thought of God in all we do, would our lives be led differently?

Eating and drinking are two very basic necessities in our lives. We scarcely go a day without doing both, and often several times a day. When a person stops eating and drinking it's because they are usually sick and those around the person know that if they don't start doing both soon they could die. Sure, going a day without eating because your stomach feels off, isn't too bad of a thing. But going several days without eating is something very worrisome. To go even a single day without drinking anything is worrisome, two days very troubling, three days then you know something is seriously wrong and your health is in danger. Looking it up on the internet it states a person can go up to a week without drinking, in another place it says three to four days. We can last without food a lot longer, but fluid is a whole other story.

Eating and drinking, again I state, these are two basic needs we have for survival and we are told in the word of God that whether we are eating or drinking we should do it to the glory of God.

Eating and drinking to God's glory.

If God is FIRST in our lives, the place He is supposed to hold before all else, then it stands to perfect reason that eating and drinking, and truly ALL we do is done to God's glory.

Honoring God, recognizing God in everything we do, not just a few things.

Do our lives bring glory to God? 

Do our actions bring glory to God?

If we answer no then we have to reevaluate our lives, our actions.

We cannot take God and set Him aside while we live in a way contrary to Him. Even a person in the lowest estate needs to recognize God and glorify Him. A beggar on the street, a person caught up in a life of sin, needs to recognize God and seek His glory- and seek forgiveness, seek a way to live to glorify God. God has made ways for us to escape any temptation to sin, to disobey Him. We must seek that way. We must strive against sin…

Heb_12:4  Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

Luk_13:24  Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

We truly have to strive - which the dictionary tells us means- to try hard to achieve something or get something, to fight in opposition to something, to compete resolutely against somebody or something, to struggle, endeavor, attempt, try, go all out, do your best, do your utmost, make every effort, do all you can do, pull out all stops.  

Striving is not a half-hearted attempt towards something, but giving it everything we have to give.

Doing all to the glory of God means just what it says.

1Co 10:31  Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 

1Co 10:32  Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: 

1Co 10:33  Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. 

We must do all to God's glory, and in doing so we are to live peaceably with everyone- not a single person excluded. We are to glorify God by letting God's love live in us and through us. We are not to love anyone with our own love, but with God's love. We can love all when we love with God's love and not our own. When we seek to help all and in doing so live the example of God's love- glorifying Him for all the help we are able to give to anyone, we are pointing them towards salvation through God. To this end Christ came, to this end we live. All by the power, the grace, the mercy, the will of our Lord, Jesus Christ, now and forever! May we live our lives to glorify God!

Keep Fighting Evil.

Idolatry. We need to choose who we worship. Many might immediately say that they do not worship anyone or anything and in a world without God or Satan that might be possible, but that isn't the case. You may choose to believe there is no God, but that doesn't make it true. Just because we believe doesn't make something a fact. Children believe in many made up stories their parents tell them, it doesn't make them reality. Of course, people will then say just because we believe there is a God doesn't make that true.

For me, it is fact that we were created by God. There can be no other logical explanation. Come up with all the big bang theories you want, there is no logic behind something being created from nothing, and you have to go down, way down to the very first something- and ask, where did that come from.

God who is from everlasting to everlasting, God who always ways, without beginning and without end answers the questions that can't be answered. God Is.

Because God Is, all things can be.

God Is and evil became, the two oppose each other with God able to arbitrarily cause evil to no longer exist. The choice not to simply end evil was a choice made because evil came into existence through a creature's choosing. To absolutely destroy evil would mean that choice to destroy being proven to be made from love, pure love, and the decision that evil would never be possible again.

Evil was possible, and we have no way of knowing how long it was possible before it came to fruition in Lucifer. We do know that once it began it was something that needed to be taken to the utmost limits of its power proven beyond doubt the horror and necessity of wiping it out of existence entirely never to be possible again.

Right now evil is almost at its end and what remains is a short window left and in that short window exists still a chance for us human beings to choose God or Evil.

We have a choice and that choice will only exist for as long as we individually live with mental capacity to choose, after death you cannot make the choice. Or until God proclaims enough is enough, and it is over.  Once God makes His proclamation we are all on one side or the other no longer able to choose.

Idolatry is making the choice to choose anything other than God being first and foremost in our life.

If we live for God, we are not living for the Devil.

We truly cannot live for both, if we do we are living a lie. God sees through lies and into the hearts and knows the hearts. We try to hide our hypocrisy but it isn't something that can be hidden from God.

We provoke God to jealousy when we live the lies trying to enjoy sin for a season while proclaim to love God. There is the knowledge given to us by God to know how to live for Him, the things that come from love, and that knowledge is something a lot of people choose to despise. Once a choice to despise the knowledge of God is made we are in grave danger of becoming blind to the evil that exists. We may then, having allowed ourselves to embrace deception, be unable to comprehend the difference between evil and God.

We are told the truth, we are not forced to live the truth.

May we choose God over all… truly over all other things. May His love be what we live, with Him living in us through the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ.

May we actively choose to partake in the war against Satan, by being a warrior for God. May we comprehend we won't win every skirmish we are involved in, but we must continue to fight against evil not allowing the setbacks we encounter to cause us to change sides.

All by the grace of God!

1Co 10:15  I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say. 

1Co 10:16  The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? 

1Co 10:17  For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. 

1Co 10:18  Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? 

1Co 10:19  What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? 

1Co 10:20  But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. 

1Co 10:21  Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. 

1Co 10:22  Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he? 

You Believe- But Do You Live For God?

Run as fast as you can from idolatry! Run! Faster! Run! But first…

You have to recognize a threat before you can be frightened by it, or if not frightened at least concerned that the threat exists.  There are many kinds of threats but one thing about a threat it bodes no good for anyone being threatened. Whether you are threatened by something out of your control- say a hurricane threat, or you are threatened by a thief with a knife- neither of these is under your control. When we are threatened by something of our own making, that's where we have to stop and take inventory of our own selves. You've heard it said and maybe quite often, that we are our own worst enemies and that's true a lot of the time. We self-sabotage, we give in and do things that harm us with either short term or long term damage. Some of our harming is ongoing daily, unendingly. People will see therapists to help them stop their own negative self-destructive ways hoping to get out of the habit (natural or learned) of harming themselves- mentally, emotionally and even physically.

The specific threat in this study we are discussing is one of idolatry. We are told to flee from it…

1Co 10:14  Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. 

Yesterday we touched much more in-depth on what idolatry is, today I want to touch on a few of those verses.

Rom 1:25  Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 

Idolatry- when we WORSHIP the CREATURE MORE than the CREATOR.

I need you to re-read that, and think about what it is saying.

We are in grave danger when we worship OURSELVES more than we worship God. We are in grave danger when we worship OTHER PEOPLE more than we worship God.

The first commandment of the royal law, the decalogue, states this--

Exo 20:3  Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 

You say you don't have any other gods before God, now do your actions prove what your mouth is saying and your mind proclaiming? This is the greater test your life and how you are living it. It is so easy to check the 'yes, I believe in God' box and yet live a life void of the actions to prove the validity of that statement. You might be chuckling and thinking- It's valid, I believe God exists but that doesn't mean I'm going to live my life for Him. The Bible even says that devils believe. (James 2:19) We know devils don't live for God. So it isn't enough to believe.

How many can check the box, 'I live my life for God.'  That's a better gauge than the 'I believe' box.  And if you can check that living your life for God, do you? Is this your daily waking desire, to live your life for God? A life He can use for His purposes, a life He can accept as surrendered to Him? A life that holds true to having NO other gods before Him?

Is the creature (self or others) ranking much higher in your estimation than the Creator?

We are also told this-

Rom 1:28  And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient

Retaining the knowledge of God. Do we? To retain the knowledge of God is to not forget God's will. When we choose NOT to retain the knowledge of God we are choosing to discard His will and replace it with our own. And if our focus is our will being done and not God's then we are not God's at all, but liars and deceivers trying to pretend we belong to God by mouthing the words of belief and showing up to church or Bible study without any heart desire for the will of God to be done.

Faking a relationship with God, or having a half-hearted relationship with God to serve our own ends isn't a real relationship with God. As soon as we decide to serve ourselves we are allowed to be godless, we are given up to our own will. The self-serving, godless mind is an awful thing - even if it comes from a beautiful, seemingly sweet, kind, and gentle façade of a pretend God-fearing person.

We must pray with David…

Psa 139:23  Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 

Psa 139:24  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. 

We need to flee our SELF serving, idolatrous ways. We need to flee idolizing other people. We need to run to God and give ourselves over to Him and His leading, worshipping God and no others.

All by the grace, the mercy, the will of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Now and forever!