Post by Les Brewer on Apr 27, 2012 17:29:20 GMT
I KNOW YOU GO TO CHURCH! BUT ARE YOU SAVED?!
“ So since Christ suffered in the flesh for us, for you, arm yourselves with the same thought and purpose
[ patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God]. For whoever has suffered in the flesh [ having the mind of Christ] is done with [ intentional ] sin [ has stopped pleasing himself and the world, and pleases God ].
So that he can no longer s...pend the rest of his natural life living by [ his ] human appetites and desires, but
[ he lives ] for what God wills. “ 1st Peter 4:1-2
Moral failure is not by impulse; but by lack of discipline; most failures are the products of habitual practices.
The Apostle Peter by the inspiration of God used a militant term when he said “ arm yourselves “. It infers that we equip ourselves with a militant mindset. In other words weaponize our mind to attack sin in the flesh, even to the point of pain. To have a mind that is preeminent in the warfare against those innate desires and appetites of our carnality. One cannot overcome what they will not confront. It is plainly described to live for the lust of this world is to diametrically oppose the will of God.
When we are inundated and infatuated with the world with it’s empty glamour, glitter, and glory and persist in being partakers of its deceitful delicacies designed for the demise of the soul we are actually being hostile toward the God we say we love and are now serving with all our being.
In the Epistle of James, the third chapter begins with dealing with the products of the tongue and ends expressing the fact that a spiritually wise person’s tongue is yielded to the meekness of the Spirit by first being pure, then peaceable, gentle, easily approached, full of mercy, manifesting good works without being partial or hypocritical. This is the context which leads into chapter four, that the tongue though it is a very small member concerning the mass of our bodies, it as the power to cause chaos or produce peace. It can be used as a weapon or as an olive leaf. Then James takes us further; he begins to explain some extenuating dynamics concerning hostility which is directed at one another and underscores the ultimate direction that hostility takes and who is affronted and reproached the most by it. I believe because we are living in the last days the Lord wants us to wrap our minds around these truths; then examine ourselves and begin the purging of those things which are detrimental to our relationship with Him.
(1) What causes wars and contentions among you? Is it not the cravings which are ever at war within you for various pleasures?
(2) You covet things and yet cannot get them; you commit murder; you have passionate desires and yet cannot gain your end; you begin to fight and make war. You have not, because you do not pray;
(3) or you pray and yet do not receive, because you pray wrongly, your object being to waste what you get on some pleasure or another.
(4) You unfaithful women, do you not know that friendship with the world means enmity to God? Therefore whoever is bent on being friendly with the world makes himself an enemy to God.
(5) Or do you suppose that it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "The Spirit which He has caused to dwell in our hearts yearns jealously over us"? James 4:1-5 WNT
Today we live in a society which is clothed in covetousness, hence the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That lust ( ungodly desire ) has trickled down and pooled up in the Church. In world and now in the church there is a campaign for power, position, and prestige. Today many within the Church want intimate relationships with the world while proclaiming they’re loyal to the Lord. James doesn’t mince words when saying “ that friendship with the world means enmity to God “. In other words to befriend the world by loving the world ( cosmos ) or the ways of the world or its adornment; means enmity
( echthra) hostility and opposition against God. Which makes them enemies of God. So to be friends in a intimate fellowship with the world is to become enemies of God. We cannot be friends and enemies with God at the same time, we must decide which one we will be. Why do Christians today feel they are exempt from following the precepts of the word.
(14) Do not come into close association with unbelievers, like oxen yoked with asses. For what is there in common between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what partnership has light with darkness?
(15) Where can harmony between Christ and Belial be found? Or what participation has a believer with an unbeliever? 2nd Corinthians 6:14-15 WNT
(17) Therefore come out from among them and be separated, says the Lord, and do not touch the unclean thing. And I will receive you
(18) and I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.
(1) Then having these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilements of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. 2nd Corinthians 6:17 - 7:1
Mingling and Commitment are two different things, we must mingle in the masses to conduct our affairs in life. When we are in the world we are not of the world, but we are sojourners traversing through this realm on our way to the City and Homeland whose builder and maker is God. Many Christians are compromising the principles of the word in order to partnership with the world, thereby defiling and polluting themselves.
Acceptance by the world will always mean that we will have to compromise the word. In verse 14 of 2nd Corinthians we are reminded of the precept which defines a principle from the old testament; not to yoke together an oxen with a donkey, why because they were unequal in the yoke. An oxen was easily trained and also larger and stronger than a donkey and could outwork it, but the donkey was stubborn in nature and could decide not to pull together with the oxen and could ultimately drain the oxen of its strength by carrying the weight of the donkey. Therein lies the principle: Christians and Sinners have two different natures and two different motivating factors. The Christian is endowed with the nature of God, the Sinner is still under the bondage of sin and is motivated by the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. A Christian and Sinner yoked together will produce a hardship on the Christian and a continual conflict for the Sinner. Why? Because there is no real harmony in those relationships without compromising the word of God.
I have found one thing about soul winning, you can not force a green tree! What I mean by that is that no matter how much we would like to see someone get saved, they are not going to get saved until they’re ripe for the harvest.
Brethren keep the faith today by purposing in your hearts to live a spiritually separated life, one that is inundated with the principles, precepts, and protocols of the word of God. Satan loves to get us all tied up, wrapped up, and tangled up in the world through different avenues, but resist him steadfast in the faith by ingesting, digesting, and then manifesting the word of God through humbling yourselves under the mighty hand of God, come out from among them and be not partakers of their sins, touch not, taste not, and handle not those relations in such a way that they drag you down to ungodliness.
Shalom Aleikhem,
Apostle Ray Ritchie ( Emissary of the Faith )
“ So since Christ suffered in the flesh for us, for you, arm yourselves with the same thought and purpose
[ patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God]. For whoever has suffered in the flesh [ having the mind of Christ] is done with [ intentional ] sin [ has stopped pleasing himself and the world, and pleases God ].
So that he can no longer s...pend the rest of his natural life living by [ his ] human appetites and desires, but
[ he lives ] for what God wills. “ 1st Peter 4:1-2
Moral failure is not by impulse; but by lack of discipline; most failures are the products of habitual practices.
The Apostle Peter by the inspiration of God used a militant term when he said “ arm yourselves “. It infers that we equip ourselves with a militant mindset. In other words weaponize our mind to attack sin in the flesh, even to the point of pain. To have a mind that is preeminent in the warfare against those innate desires and appetites of our carnality. One cannot overcome what they will not confront. It is plainly described to live for the lust of this world is to diametrically oppose the will of God.
When we are inundated and infatuated with the world with it’s empty glamour, glitter, and glory and persist in being partakers of its deceitful delicacies designed for the demise of the soul we are actually being hostile toward the God we say we love and are now serving with all our being.
In the Epistle of James, the third chapter begins with dealing with the products of the tongue and ends expressing the fact that a spiritually wise person’s tongue is yielded to the meekness of the Spirit by first being pure, then peaceable, gentle, easily approached, full of mercy, manifesting good works without being partial or hypocritical. This is the context which leads into chapter four, that the tongue though it is a very small member concerning the mass of our bodies, it as the power to cause chaos or produce peace. It can be used as a weapon or as an olive leaf. Then James takes us further; he begins to explain some extenuating dynamics concerning hostility which is directed at one another and underscores the ultimate direction that hostility takes and who is affronted and reproached the most by it. I believe because we are living in the last days the Lord wants us to wrap our minds around these truths; then examine ourselves and begin the purging of those things which are detrimental to our relationship with Him.
(1) What causes wars and contentions among you? Is it not the cravings which are ever at war within you for various pleasures?
(2) You covet things and yet cannot get them; you commit murder; you have passionate desires and yet cannot gain your end; you begin to fight and make war. You have not, because you do not pray;
(3) or you pray and yet do not receive, because you pray wrongly, your object being to waste what you get on some pleasure or another.
(4) You unfaithful women, do you not know that friendship with the world means enmity to God? Therefore whoever is bent on being friendly with the world makes himself an enemy to God.
(5) Or do you suppose that it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "The Spirit which He has caused to dwell in our hearts yearns jealously over us"? James 4:1-5 WNT
Today we live in a society which is clothed in covetousness, hence the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That lust ( ungodly desire ) has trickled down and pooled up in the Church. In world and now in the church there is a campaign for power, position, and prestige. Today many within the Church want intimate relationships with the world while proclaiming they’re loyal to the Lord. James doesn’t mince words when saying “ that friendship with the world means enmity to God “. In other words to befriend the world by loving the world ( cosmos ) or the ways of the world or its adornment; means enmity
( echthra) hostility and opposition against God. Which makes them enemies of God. So to be friends in a intimate fellowship with the world is to become enemies of God. We cannot be friends and enemies with God at the same time, we must decide which one we will be. Why do Christians today feel they are exempt from following the precepts of the word.
(14) Do not come into close association with unbelievers, like oxen yoked with asses. For what is there in common between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what partnership has light with darkness?
(15) Where can harmony between Christ and Belial be found? Or what participation has a believer with an unbeliever? 2nd Corinthians 6:14-15 WNT
(17) Therefore come out from among them and be separated, says the Lord, and do not touch the unclean thing. And I will receive you
(18) and I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.
(1) Then having these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilements of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. 2nd Corinthians 6:17 - 7:1
Mingling and Commitment are two different things, we must mingle in the masses to conduct our affairs in life. When we are in the world we are not of the world, but we are sojourners traversing through this realm on our way to the City and Homeland whose builder and maker is God. Many Christians are compromising the principles of the word in order to partnership with the world, thereby defiling and polluting themselves.
Acceptance by the world will always mean that we will have to compromise the word. In verse 14 of 2nd Corinthians we are reminded of the precept which defines a principle from the old testament; not to yoke together an oxen with a donkey, why because they were unequal in the yoke. An oxen was easily trained and also larger and stronger than a donkey and could outwork it, but the donkey was stubborn in nature and could decide not to pull together with the oxen and could ultimately drain the oxen of its strength by carrying the weight of the donkey. Therein lies the principle: Christians and Sinners have two different natures and two different motivating factors. The Christian is endowed with the nature of God, the Sinner is still under the bondage of sin and is motivated by the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. A Christian and Sinner yoked together will produce a hardship on the Christian and a continual conflict for the Sinner. Why? Because there is no real harmony in those relationships without compromising the word of God.
I have found one thing about soul winning, you can not force a green tree! What I mean by that is that no matter how much we would like to see someone get saved, they are not going to get saved until they’re ripe for the harvest.
Brethren keep the faith today by purposing in your hearts to live a spiritually separated life, one that is inundated with the principles, precepts, and protocols of the word of God. Satan loves to get us all tied up, wrapped up, and tangled up in the world through different avenues, but resist him steadfast in the faith by ingesting, digesting, and then manifesting the word of God through humbling yourselves under the mighty hand of God, come out from among them and be not partakers of their sins, touch not, taste not, and handle not those relations in such a way that they drag you down to ungodliness.
Shalom Aleikhem,
Apostle Ray Ritchie ( Emissary of the Faith )
