Integrity And Our Confession!

    You know, I believe deeply in confessing the Word.  I know that with the mouth we bring treasures out of the heart.  I know we are to hold fast our confession of faith, speaking the Word.  No problem with that message, but, sometimes I wonder if we ought to broaden the message a little.  Is positive confession only about obtaining things from God?   Is that all there is to it?  I think not.   Our confession must also reflect integrity.  We should be good at our word.  There was a day when we actually described men of faith as those who were good at their word. Such men will keep their word and if they can't, they won't speak a word.  If they can't keep their word, they will humbly repent.  The Bible says of such men that they will "swear" to their own hurt.  They will keep their word, even it cost them something.  Integrity must be a governing factor in our lives if we have any intention of allowing our life to speak well of Him. We must not forget that the most important characteristic of the "God kind of faith" is that God is good at His Word. He has integrity!

      Integrity must also  influence what we call prophecy.  More than once in my life I have had someone who thought of themselves as a "prophet" give a word, supposedly from God, and then a short while later take it back. When we say "thus saith the Lord", we are putting His integrity on the line and we better be careful.  Those of us who listen, must judge, and not just the words of the prophet but also his integrity.  We don't stone those prophets who miss it in this covenant, but we should stop listening to them.  One simple reason we have false prophets is that we keep listening to them. When it comes to a prophecy that predicts certain things at a certain time, or manner, etc., and those things don't come to pass, there should be some visible humility. I have yet to hear very many so-called prophets say "Sorry... I missed it", but I think a real prophet should and would.  His, and God's, integrity is at stake.

      People who aren't prophecy types do the same, including leadership.  Leaders who say "God told me" and then a short time later, do the opposite of what they proclaimed God said to do, destroy trust. Or, how about people who say, "God told me to come here to church" and a month later leave the church and go somewhere else. Every pastor knows about those folks.  I once had a person tell me, that God told them, if oil was found on their property, they were to tithe to our ministry and we would have an abundance.  We prayed with and believed with them as asked and some time later, sure enough, they struck oil, gaining great wealth.  It was about fifteen years later before we heard from them again. No tithes, no abundance, no apology.  Such things leave you wondering if God has to do as we humans do on a occasion - say "Oops".  Really, do we think God changes His mind, or errs, so easily?  Did God really say one thing and then take it back? Is He that wishy-washy?  I don't think so.

   Some approach confessing the Word with no integrity.  They may say "I have every thing I say" but the fine print says "Unless I say something else".  They bring harm to this great message by their lack of integrity.  I know of those who seem to get everything they say, from God, but you can't believe a word they say to you.  That is not a good witness.  In some places the political way of speaking has made its way into the church - where we just say whatever we think listeners want to hear. There is not integrity in that!  Friend, it is better to keep the mouth shut then to speak carelessly.  Integrity matters!   ".. LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?  He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart...He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not..."  Ps.51

No Holiday For Me!

    
     A lady said "happy holiday" to me recently and before I could think, I repeated it back to her.  I walked away kicking my rear-end.  This is not "happy holiday" season to me.  This is CHRISTMAS.  This is the season we celebrate God so loving the world He gave His Son. This is the season we remember that in order to redeem man, God became what He made. What a gamble - to become what you previously made - to fill your creation with yourself.  This is the season we celebrate that God who came as a baby, lived in an earthly body such as our own, yet never sinned, died when He did not have to die, rose out of the grave by the power of the Holy Ghost and ascended on high to be crowned Lord of Lord and King of Kings.  This is the season, if you will, that He will confirm it all to you by the gifts He has prepared, the like of which we should be remembering as we gather around the tree and exchange gifts.  He gave us the gift of eternal life, of a heavenly home yet to come and most wonderfully the gift of the Companion Holy Ghost who is here to watch over us, guide us on our journey and when the call comes, usher us into the Presence of The Giver, the LORD OF LORDS.

    No, this is not a "holiday" for me.  This a season to remember how wonderful God has been to me and how much I thank Him and love Him.   This is a season to give myself and all I have, back to Him.  Oh, I know, I have nothing I could really say that was worthy to give to the King, but He loves me so much, and loves you so much, He will receive anything you lift up to Him - your thanks, your praise, you body, your life, even your sin.  Give it all to Jesus, as an act of your love of Him.  He gave His all for you, give your all to Him.  Its Christmas Time.

Crazy context

  You know, context is important, really important.  Especially in studying the Bible and discerning the things of God.  When you learn to read context and consider context important, you will be amazed at how much you hear thrown out from the pulpits of America that is out of context.  Could be worse and may get worse.  For example, did you know there is a Scripture that says "Judas went and hanged himself..."?  And another one that says "Go thou and do likewise...."?  Why, they go together perfectly don't they?   It is a wonder we don't have church hanging parties.  If verbally stoning wasn't so popular, along with  condemnation by comparison, hanging would probably catch on.  How about this verse designed for every man-hating women, "I would not have you ignorant brethren....".   I am surprised that is not used in divorce court more than it is.  "Imma gonna throw thata ignoramus bum out  and the B.I.B.L.E tells me itsa okay"

    On a more serious note, the rule of contextual study is ignored by nearly everyone. I could, without problem, name a dozen popular doctrines that are being fed into the hearts and minds of God's people right now developed almost entirely from Bible verses out of context.  We charismatics are bad at this.  We easily pick out a verse, or part of one, ignore the context in which it was spoken, and build a whole new doctrine on it.  And, then salute one another for finding "new" truths.  Yet, by ignoring the context, we end up burying or ignoring a greater truth found in the context.

    This I will tell you, the worst out-of-context preaching is preaching from the wrong covenant.  A huge number of the sermons preached every Sunday ignore the new and "better" covenant we have with God. Preachers will, without thought, present a spiritual plan, call it God's plan, demand we give heed to it, and the whole thing will be from the wrong covenant, out of context.  Some, when threatened, or have a desire to threaten, will pull out of the Old Testament a terrible threat of God and use it on their people.  Some preachers will tell of new testament blessing but use the old testament to preach it, creating all sorts of confusion.   Thousands of sermons will be preached,  either promising blessings or, depending on the mood, terrible curses and all out of the context of a relationship with God and out of context with His plans and purposes.  When you begin to see that we have new covenant that is a "better covenant, with better promises", you start to wonder "what part of new do folks not understand?"   My friend, if this new covenant is better, it is different.  If it has better promises, do you know them?  Why would I want the promises of an old covenant when I can have the ones in the new, seeing as how they are  better.

    

Sin & Grace

   You know, we should preach against sin. But, with a lot of humility.  Every time I hear a preacher preach on sin, it all too often is not done with humility.  It comes across as if "I've got it worked out....you don't".  And worse, sometimes it comes across as if salvation came because he got rid of all his sin.  You know folks, that ain't so!  While were still sinners, God started loving us (grace).  You are saved because you have accepted Jesus as Lord, thereby causing a new spirit to be created in you (grace).  And then, guess what?  The benefit of forgiveness became yours (grace).  God doesn't offer forgiveness to those outside of His family (they need to born again), but to His family, the "brethren",  He is faithful and just to forgive (1 Jo. 1:9). 

    Sometimes when we present salvation, we do tend to present it as if getting rid of all our sin by sufficient repentance accomplished salvation.  Folks, that ain't so either!   We are saved by grace - meaning we had no input in the matter. We were dead, doomed, without hope, but just as in the beginning when God gathered up a handful of clay and blew life into it by His choice, He gathers up the hopeless, the dead, the doomed, the undeserving and blows life into us and we are saved - by grace.

   To be saved by "grace" means you have zero reason, zero input, zero influence in the matter.   It was and is a gift! And, guess what, the gift lives on.  Not only were we saved, rescued from darkness and from our lost-ness by grace, we are also kept by grace.  Still as undeserving as we were in the beginning, we are kept by the "word of His power" (grace).  Thank God, grace is an ongoing flow from the throne.  It cleans up the past, surrounds us in the present and goes before us into tomorrow.  Should we ever think we deserve it, earned it, bought it, or inherited it, we have missed it.  Grace is free and unmerited - or - it isn't grace.  Man has a tremendous struggle with accepting grace.  In one way or the other, we want to add something we did to grace and we can't add a thing.   Oh, by the way grace has a name.  Know what it is?  "Holy Ghost", otherwise known as the "Spirit of Grace".

Defeated Foe

   You know, the Bible says things about the devil (since the cross) such has "defeated", "stripped of his power made and open show of", "works destroyed".  Every time I hear someone, especially a preacher, seem not to understand that, I shudder a bit.  Jesus made it clear the devil's power is to lie.  In fact, He called him "father" of lies.  Jesus also called him the "father" of Pharisees, representative of religion.  The enemy has power, but he gets it by lying. Then, the next thing you know, some preaching is expounding on the power of the devil without exposing how the devil got that power. This sets in motion a familiar cycle of confusion that results in him being magnified beyond his measure.

   Since we don't know how the enemy got his power, we then usually don't know how to take it away from him, something that begins with knowing from the Word that he is a defeated foe.  This cycle of confusion also leaves people not knowing how to defeat him.  Just knowing the truth about him, even from the Word, is not enough.  The Bible says the power comes when we submit ourselves to God and action which causes the devil to "flee".  The Bible declares "greater is He" (the Holy Ghost) that lives in us than "he" (the devil) that lives in the world.  The Bible declares we have an authority (name of Jesus) to use that is above every other name.   Know from the Word the enemy and all his lying cohorts are defeated.  Take a big drink of the greater one and shout the name of Jesus.  It still causes demons to tremble.  It even did that before the death, resurrection and crowning of Jesus as Lord.  If it did it then, it most certainly does it now.