Christianity and Us
We all have a desire to be included in the 144,000 that go to heaven when Christ comes again. Yet, have we fully considered what it will take to be included in that group? Have we mistakenly made the assumption that since we were baptized and attend church every week that we have an automatic ticket to heaven? I believe that it is very important, in fact, critical that we look carefully at what it takes to be the type of Christian that will be able to enter heaven for eternity.
Obviously the first thing that we must consider is who, or what, is our God? Will it be the god with a little g, or the God with a big g? Is our god one that we can feel and touch such as material possessions, money, television, or prestige? Or, is it the God of heaven? We cannot have both. Open your Bible to Matthew 6:24;No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
This admonition should remind us of our limitations. We are not computers that can multi-task. We cannot operate with our right brain serving God and our left brain concentrating on acquisitions of power and material objects. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 10:21; 21You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord?s table and the table of demons. 22Are we trying to arouse the Lord?s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
A Christian that tries to serve God on Sabbath and than fulfill his own wants and desires the rest of the week is just treading water. He is not getting anywhere in his spiritual life. He is not putting Christ first in his life. Christ must always be first and foremost in your personal life.
I love bumper sticker theology. It may not always be the most sound theological statements, but they generally at least have the ability to make you think. The one in particular that I am thinking about said, "God is my Co-pilot." Do you remember the sticker? It took a great deal of heat. Perhaps that heat is what made a new saying come out. It has been seen more on church signs. Church sign theology is also kind of fun. This one says, "If God is your Co-Pilot, change seats."
Too many Christians have been saved by the grace of God, yet have continued to serve two masters. They want to do things their way, and they want God to comply. It doesn?t work that way. Indeed, you will get into trouble quickly and eventually find yourself hiding amongst the rocks and caves when Christ returns instead of standing with the joyous crowd singing praises to Christ at the second coming. The only way to defeat the devil is to put Christ first in our lives. Always.
When does a Christian get in the most trouble? When they decide to rely on themselves. When they decide to go it alone. When they decide to not associate with other Christians, to separate themselves from the church and God. This allows easy access for Satan to enter into their lives.
When Jesus was by himself in the desert what happened? Up popped Satan to make his presence known. But what did Jesus do? He maintained that link with his Father. He kept the knowledge of his heavenly presence in his heart and soul. If you are off by yourself and the devil comes calling, you better have the knowledge of Christ in your heart and soul and a strong prayer link to heaven or you are lost.
Turn to Matthew 12:30; ?He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.
Again, one cannot serve two masters. We must tie ourselves to Christ and never let go.
Don?t ever think that when you are by yourself that nobody is watching. Don?t think that when you are separated from other Christians that you can commit a small sin and get away with it. God see?s all, the good and the bad. And like Santa Claus, He is keeping a list and He will be checking it!
Everything that we do.
Everything that we say.
Everything that we are - must be acceptable to Christ.
Is He acceptable to who you are today? If not, then you must start praying. Pray without ceasing, asking God for guidance on how to get your life in order so that it may become acceptable and pleasing to Him.
Is He accepting of what you do today,
yesterday,
or even tomorrow? We can never satisfy man, since man is never satisfied. Mostly because man always wants more. However, we shouldn?t even be trying to satisfy man should we? We live in such a sinful world that there are many people out there that think they should be satisfying mankind. They have strayed so far away from God that they don?t even know who or what God is. We do don?t we? He is our heavenly Father, our Creator. He has given us the Gospel and the task of spreading it?s message throughout the world. He trusts us to complete the task. Therefore, we should be pleasing God and not man. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 2:4; On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. If we are close to the Lord in our hearts, then we should have no trouble fulfilling our task and pleasing God.
How will a stranger on the street recognize that you are Christian? I suppose I should ask ?Do you want the stranger you meet to know that you are a Christian?? There are many people who profess to be Christians that would rather keep that fact a secret. They are afraid of what others might think of them.
They are afraid that they might not get the loan they are applying for.
They are afraid they might not be accepted by others.
They are afraid they might lose their job. If they were a Christian should they have these concerns? I don?t know what Christ they serve, but my Christ would take care of me and I should not worry about anything. Matthew 6:31 - 34 tells me that God will take care of me and my needs and I know that He will take care of you as well.
Do you bear the marks of Christianity? I am not asking if you have physical marks. I am not expecting you to have nail scars on your palms or feet. Nor do I expect you to have the scars of the whip on your back. What I am asking is: do you have spiritual marks of Christianity in your body? Have you been marked by your faith? Have you been loyal to God?
If you are faithful then you will be loyal. If you are loyal than you will be trustworthy. Remember Paul? In Galatians 6: 17 he remarks about the marks in his body. He calls them the marks of the Lord. He wrote this while chained in prison. He certainly wasn?t talking about the scars on his ankles from the rubbing of the heavy chain. He was in prison because of his uncompromising service to the Lord. He certainly could have saved himself the deprivation, loneliness, and suffering of prison by renouncing the Lord. But he didn?t.
He could have sworn allegiance to Caesar. But he didn?t.
He could have gone back to the Sanhedrin and been their headhunter again. But he didn?t.
Once Paul met Christ on the road to Damascus, he knew who his Lord and master was. And Paul was loyal to Him. Loyal unto death. He never wavered. He never questioned. He never made excuses. He never quit!
Was his task easy? No. Did he meet resistance? Yes. Was he always successful? No. But it did not sway him from doing the Lord?s work. He also knew that despite whatever happened to him on earth he would receive his reward in heaven.
Turn to Revelation 2:10; 10Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.
Paul did not know for a fact that he would die at the hands of the Romans, but I suspect that he expected it to happen. He certainly never worried about it. He never told others to worry about it either. He trusted his life to the Lord. And for that I believe he will be rewarded handsomely by the Lord. I certainly feel that Paul is a prime example of a Christian. We would do well to emulate him.
A young American engineer was sent to Ireland for a year. When he left, his fiancé gave him a harmonica. She said, "I want you to learn to play this: it will help to keep your mind off those Irish girls."
He wrote to her often and told he her that he was practicing his harmonica every night. After a year she met him at the airport, he grabbed her to kiss her and she pushed back and said, "Wait before you kiss me, I want to hear you play the harmonica."
Another consideration we must have if we are willing to be Christians is this: we may have to give up our life because we are Christians. In other words, there will come a time in earth?s history when Christians will once again be martyred. Are you willing to be like Stephen and gladly accept death because of your service to Christ? A gentleman by the name of Jim Elliott was once quoted as saying, ?He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.?
We are not immortal, we will die sooner or later. However, if we live the life that God wants us to live, then we will gain eternal life in heaven. Stephen was ready, willing and able to defend his faith. He was also aware that in the process of defending his faith that it may ultimately lead to his death. This fact did not dissuade him from preaching about Jesus Christ to his accusers.
Nobody is asking you to be a martyr but, have you ever considered it? How many are unwilling to take the risk of mentioning to others what Christ has done for you? How many of us are unwilling to talk about Christ at work because we are afraid of what others will say. Still many of us say quite proudly that we are willing to die for Christ. A real Christian is willing to not only die for Christ, but also, willing to share the gospel with others in the face of persecution. Indeed, a real Christian must die to Christ before he can die for Christ.
We need to remember that Christ shared the gospel with others knowing what the consequences of his action would be. He did this because he believed that we were worth the time, trouble, and sacrifice.
What were the last words of Christ on the cross? He beseeched his father to, ?forgive them for they know not what they do.? What were the last words of Stephen? In Acts 7 it states that Stephen fell on his knees and said, ?Lord, do not hold this sin against them.?
Both these men had a forgiving heart. Both these men were harassed, lied about, tortured, and ultimately killed. Yet, they both asked God to forgive their executioners and tormentors. This tells me that a good Christian must have a forgiving nature. A Christian must make the ultimate sacrifice of placing their pride behind them.
A Christian does not hold grudges.
A Christian does not seek revenge.
A Christian loves their enemy as much as they love their friends.
So far we have seen that a Christian must have faith, he must have loyalty, he must be willing to sacrifice. Another facet of true Christianity is passion. Open your Bible to Matthew 22:34, 34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. Then one of them asked him a question, testing him, and saying, ?Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?? Jesus said to him, ?You shall love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.?
We must love the Lord with all heart, soul, and mind. There are no half-way measures. We must love the Lord with everything that we have. It must be an all-consuming love. The same love that Christ showed us when he came to earth and accepted the penalty for our sin.
This must be a love that drives us. It must be a love that motivates. It must be a passionate love. It must be an honest love that sits embedded in our heart.
Open your Bible to Matthew 6:21; For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Is our passion for God our treasure? What we think is what we are. If we think about God all day, then we will be God-driven. A God-driven person emulates Christ since He obviously was God-driven when He was on earth. Our goal as Christians is to emulate Christ. Therefore, a God-driven person is a true Christian.
This may be in conflict with your real desire. We are human after all and therefore prone to human failings. We may want God in our life, but something always tries to get in the way. Perhaps it is a new car, or the latest red-hot computer. The problem is that whatever we want the most is what we are going to spend a considerable amount of time going after. So we must look carefully at our priorities. What do we have the passion for most? God, or something else?
Not only must you have passion for God, it must also be enthusiastic. Open your Bible to 2 Chronicles 15:15; All Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them.
We are also told in Psalms 42 that as a deer pants for water so should our soul desire God.
Enthusiastic. All-consuming. Passionate. This is what our relationship with God should be. Is this what we have? If not, perhaps you should spend a considerable amount of time on your knees looking for this relationship.
I am not saying that we need a heart transplant. After all, you and I are here in church today. That indicates that we recognize our need for God. We recognize that we are sinners. We recognize that Christ came to earth and sacrificed himself for us. We recognize the fact that Christ will come again. We just don?t recognize that our heart and soul must be completely turned over to God. Ergo, we don?t need a heart transplant, we just have clogged arteries and they need to be cleaned thoroughly.
These arteries are clogged by our recurring sin. Thus, our love and passion for Christ is not reaching through out our body. Sin is waylaying us and our minds therefore are consumed by earthly things and not dwelling on our Lord and Savior. We know that we must follow the path he set for us, but there are so many interesting things along the path to see that we stray off the path. That is sin influencing us.
Time is short. There is much distance yet for us to travel along the path and we don?t have much time to complete the journey. We cannot be found straying off the path when Christ comes back. Open your Bible to Revelation 3:2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember therefore what you heard; obey it and repent!
Our condition is desperate. Our time is running out. Christ admonishes us to carefully review our situation and return to Him. We cannot allow sin to divert our attention away from the Lord.
How do we reacquire this lost passion? When was the last time you associated with your fellow church members in fellowship? I don?t mean by just attending church and the monthly potluck. What about Bible study? What about Vespers? What about the ongoing Revelation Seminar? Were you at the picnic last week? Do you have reservations for the Camp Meeting at the end of this month? Did you invite someone from church over to your house lately for a visit?
You see, we socialize with non-christians daily at work. We mingle with them when we go shopping. We are therefore, unduly influenced by them because of this association. To counteract that influence, we need to spend as much time with fellow believers. We need to spend that time not only in Bible study and discussion, but also just socializing as friends. As brothers and sisters.
God has given each of us a golden opportunity, an opportunity to leave this sin-sick world and spend eternity with Him. We have a choice to make, a choice of life and death. A choice that only each individual can make. Do we follow the examples of Paul and Stephen?
Or do we follow the example of Judas Iscariot?
Do we approach God with passion, loyalty, and faithfulness.
Or do we stray from the path and explore what the world offers? God allows us the ability to choose, so choose wisely. After all, God also allows us to reap the consequences of our action.
