We hear it all the time, “I have my rights!” or “You need to stand up for your rights.” Or perhaps that most famous proclamation about men’s rights in the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Time and space would be exhausted here if one were to try to list all the legal rhetoric out there expounding on “rights” in the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and all the various definitions in Bouvier’s, Black’s or Dean’s law dictionaries. It should be evident to every American that the idea of men’s rights (especially since the civil rights movement) is nowadays held to be an undisputable fact. But I would boldly say that the concept of “rights” is one that is rarely properly understood, even by Christians.
Archive for February, 2012
The rights of man…
Posted: February 29, 2012 in Shared Thoughts, Wake Up!Tags: Civil Rights, Faith, filthy mammon, freedom, grace, Jesus, judgment, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, Rights, stewardship, tree of life, unjust steward
faith, faithfulness and forgiveness
Posted: February 27, 2012 in Shared Thoughts, Wake Up!Tags: Christian, Faith, Forgiveness, grace, Holy, hope, Jesus, justified, Mustard Seed, victory
It has been several months that I felt the Lord has been speaking to me about faith, faithfulness and forgiveness. Throughout it all I have found myself wanting to write about what He has been showing me regarding having “faith as a grain of a mustard seed” where Jesus tells His disciples, “you might say unto this sycamine tree, ‘Be you plucked up by the root, and planted in the sea,’ and it should obey you.” I have sought various opportunities of late to write so concerning faith and a few other things that I might leave my own children a record of what I feel the Lord has revealed to me pertaining to the promises and conditions of the Kingdom of God of which Jesus testified “every man presses into it.” However, I have felt restrained by His Spirit prior till now that it wasn’t time to write. Why, I am not really sure, the Lord knows though. Perhaps so will I when I am finished.
The Goodness and Severity of God . . . Do you believe?
Posted: February 23, 2012 in Shared Thoughts, Uncategorized, Wake Up!Tags: Christ, Christian, Faith, Holiness, Holy, Jesus, Obedience, salvation, The Goodness of God
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Understanding how God’s grace saves us.
Why we need faith, why we must hear and believe God’s word to us . . .
Ro 11:18 Do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.
19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
20 Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear;
21 for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you.
22 Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.
23 And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again.
Test yourselves to see if you are truly in the faith.
Examine yourselves!
Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you
–unless indeed you fail the test?
(2Co 13:5)
Why judgment must begin in the Lord’s house, with those who are called by His name.
Posted: February 11, 2012 in Devotionals, Uncategorized, Wake Up!Tags: Bride, Christ, Christian, church, Jesus, judgment, LORD, love, Obedience, taking the Lord's name in vain, third commandment
Sadly, what is mostly offered to the world as “The Church of Jesus Christ” is in truth nothing more than an apostate whoring religious system which, though naming the name of Jesus Christ, has succumbed to the worldly wisdom of marketing experts in order to increase their numbers. To avoid offending the attending ignorant, they eagerly embrace the latest fashionable watered down translations of Holy Writ reducing God’s word into a flimsy weapon useless against the adversary and too dull to pierce the heart of unrepentant sinners . . . many who already proudly boast in their illusion of “salvation.” Have they forgotten the warning “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life?” Or are they just so arrogant and lacking of fear?
Gates of the City 