Today's blog is for all my friends and family who are Christians. If you are not a Christian..no offense, but this blog is not for you. You may read it, you may even agree with some of it, but most of it will assuredly go over your head. You may even call me insane. I do not care. I have been called worse. If you think you are a Christian, I entreat you to read on. For I will deal with the change in the paradigm of being a follower of CHRIST in the last days and what that definition entails.
Now that it is even more apparent to me the days we are living in, I plan on running the race set before me without looking back. I plan on exposing the root of my faith. That is what the word radical means. Exposing the root. If you were put on trial today for being a Christian, would you have enough evidence to convict you? Read on....
I had a very interesting chat this morning with a friend of mine on Facebook. She and I went to the same pentacostal church several years back and were involved in the church's single's ministry. We seem to be on the same wavelength concerning all that is going on in the world~according to a Christian worldview, that is.
But then I got to thinking: this is only a small fraction of the people I know who are concerned about the events in the last days. I would be hard pressed to find many Chrisitans left nowadays who believe we are living in the last days, much less being vigilant to be on the lookout for deception.
If you call yourself a Christian and do not hold fast ot the tenets of Jesus (as outlined in the New Testament AS WELL AS THE OLD), then you are deceived and you are not a follower of Christ at all. You may think you are. Your church may even think you are. You may even be a leader in your church. But if Jesus Christ is not the One who reigns over your life, involved in every decision you make, if you do not seek His face and will according to the holy scriptures and live a life that is albeit not perfect but seeks to be pleasing to God, then you are not a Christian. The Bible is clear that a Christian does not persist in sin. The Bible teaches that a Christian is one who follows his Savior and lives a life of death everyday, carrying his or her cross, in order to be more LIKE HIM.
When I used to work with emotionally disturbed children, there was one little girl, who when she would go into a rage, would scream at the top of her lungs, "You are NOT the BOSS of me!" I got to thinking: this little girl had a point. We each of us thinks we are our own boss. Self vies for position on the throne of autonomy and independence in our hearts. As a follower of Christ, I must NOT be the boss of me. Jesus must be. And everyday it is a decision of my will that He remain so. Only His grace can see me through this "boss struggle" I engage in every single moment of my life.
Regardless of how you voted in the presidential election, I am not bashing any particular candidate in the race in this blog. I have read many people who are into name-setting and date setting concerning events in the end times and I am not into that. I do not believe in saying any person is the anti-christ or not because the Lord has not shown me that. To do so would be arrogance on my part. I have and will continue to pray for Barak Obama and he will receive my respect as my president. I also maintain the right to disagree with him. This is still America. That being said, I would like to raise up a mindset that holds everyone, every value, up to the light of scripture. And I would like to focus on what Jesus told us, His followers, to focus on in the last days.
Jesus said regarding the end times, "Let no man deceive you. For many will come in my name saying I am he and will deceive many". Are many being deceived right now? I believe the biggest the grandest deception, my friends, is not going on in the voting polls, although the political arena is one that is frought with deception. No, I believe the grandest deception is happening in the churches.
Jesus also said, "Beware of the leaven of the pharisees". What He was talking about is religious pride. Most of the pharisees (religious leaders and teachers of the Law) of Jesus' time were puffed up in pride, thinking they were righteous and holy and on their way to receiving Heaven in the afterlife. They also believed they were God's chosen, God's elect. They probably believed there was no way under the sun THEY could be deceived. Ahh, but that is the nature of deception....is it not??- it tricks one into believeing a lie based upon his or her own pride and a refusal to be dependant upon God for everything.
Today, I see so much of the spirit of anti-christ in the church. The word "anti" means against, or instead of. I see exampes of both of the meanings of this word in the Amercian church today. Most of it is in regard to being against what God has made plain in His Word, elevating the traditions of man above God's standards. 1 John 2:18-19 says:
"Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the anti-christ is coming, even now many anti-christs have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us".
Who is John talking about? PEOPLE WHO WERE BELIEVED TO BE CHRISTIANS!!
Even now, the spirit of anit-christ is in the world. And those who have gone out from amongst the true believers are FALSE CONVERTS. The Bible says in the last days, the wheat shall be separated from the chaff and the weeds will be separated from the good fruit. There are those who are in the church who are teaching the way of anti-christ. They are as weeds set aside to be burned in the fire.
Paul warned in 2 Corinthians 11:4 against those who would come preaching "another Jesus" than the one that had been preached to the believers. In 1 Timothy 4:1-2 says that in the last days some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared, as with a hot iron. This makes it clear that there will be those who professed faith in Yeshua, and yet were led away by deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. Some of these doctrines, which are of the spirit of anti-christ, teach that there are other ways to get closer to God than through Jesus. There are many practices in the church today that are rooted in these teachings.
Centering prayer, labyrinth walks, transendental meditation, and the like, are all attempts to reach God or a higher state of enlightenment. They are rooted in paganism, Eastern mysticism, which all goes back to the mystery religions of Babylon and sun god worship. And yet today, many are deceived into praciticing them and believing they are harmless practices.
Romans chapter 1 talks about those who suppress the truth of God. They neither give glory to Him as God and they approve of those who are sinning in the same way. They are vocal about it. The Bible teaches there is no excuse for not seeing the evidence of God in His creation. The creation points to a majestic and holy God. Have you ever watched the sunset at the ocean and been amazed? God is the one who created it for your enjoyment. The Bible doesn't set out to prove the existence of God. It assumes it. Those who deny God are supressing the truth. Those who deny the ways of God are in deception. They will be given over to their lusts and eventually over to final deception, the abased mind, rejecting Christ and accepting the anti-christ, the one whom the Bible calls THE LAWLESS ONE. (Remember the Law the Bible talks about is God and HIS LAW, His commandments).
The reason why I am very concerned about those who profess to be Christians is that most of them do not have the evidence of a life surrendered to Jesus. They are more interested in serving self. They are more interested in seeking a perfect earth- a utopia. Such ideology is rooted in anti-christ. One day it may be illegal to practice our faith in God. What will happen to those who are shallowly grounded in their faith right now? What will happen to those who have remained spiritual babies for far too long, refusing to grow up in God and instead follow after experiences and seducing spirits? I am speaking especially about those who come from the same background as me: charasmatic. We MUST be grounded in the Word in these last days. Only the things done for our Lord Jesus will have any lasting value. Wide is the road that leads to destruction, Jesus said, and many are on it. MANY IN THE CHURCH!!
Jesus said to WATCH THEREFORE and PRAY. Are we doing that? Are we being sober and vigilant? For we do not know in which day or which hour our Lord will come for us. Let's not fall asleep or remain in a drunken stupor. Let's get serious and wise.
For more topics of discussion and an excellent radio program designed to deal with end-times issues, check out Jan Markell's Understanding the Times.
http://www.olivetreeviews.org/radio_show.shtml
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