When We Don't Humble Ourselves, God Will Humble Us

Deut. 8:2-3, 16 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live. Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;

1. God does not take pleasure in embarrassing us but He is certainly willing to embarrass us.
2. God is jealous of His good name and will not allow us to disgrace His name. Ex. 34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:
3. God is no respector of persons. Acts 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: Rom. 2:11 For there is no respect of persons with God. 1 Peter 1:17 And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:
4. God does not care what may be your title or position, whether President, Pastor, manager, layman, laborer, etc.
5. If we continually hide sin in our lives we can be sure that it will come out. God is not afraid to humiliate any one of us. Num. 32:23 But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.
6. God hates pride. Just as surely as Satan fell in his attempt to exalt himself so our pride will lead us to a fall. Prov. 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

Are There Different Pews in Your Church???

In most churches the pews look alike. But they are really very different.

THE CRITICAL PEW- This pew watches the pastor of the church with an eagle eye. The singing is too soft or too loud. The building is always too hot or too cold. The critical pew finds everything but the blessings of God.

THE IRREGULAR PEW- Sometimes this irregular pew is full; sometimes it is empty. The problem is that you never know what to expect from this pew.

THE CORDIAL PEW- This pew is always radiant like the sunshine. This pew greets other pews with genuine cordiality, extends a handshake to every visitor and listens with joy to the sermons.

THE PRAYERFUL PEW- This pew spends a moment or two with bowed head in silent prayer upon entering the church. This pew comes to worship and brings the spirit of worship with it into the church.

THE SLEEPY PEW- This is the pew usually occupied by those who watched the late show. There are many "nods" in this pew but there are seldom "nods" of approval.

THE BORED PEW- This pew is occupied by those who take no mental or spiritual preparations for the service. It seldom offers a prayer for the pastor or singers or that the message will be helpful. This pew is located very near the Critical pew, usually in the back of the church. Not much music comes from the bored pew and when the services ends, it complains that the spiritual meal was blah.

Which of these pews will you occupy when you come to worship in the Lord's house next Sunday?

NewsWithViews Excerpts Worth Reading

Just catching up some of my email tonight, and I thought I would pass a thought or two (or three) your way from my reading of several articles from the NewsWithViews.com mailing list I received this week. Comments are welcome but I am sure the article authors would appreciate your feedback just as well.... and allow me to say I do not agree 100% with the entire views and language and theology of these authors, but most of the time, they do make me think!!!!!

"SOCIAL JUSTICE" IS NOT CHRISTIAN CHARITY by Paul Proctor
http://www.newswithviews.com/PaulProctor/proctor204.htm

You will find the word “justice” in scripture, as you will the word “gospel” – but you won’t find the word “social” in front of either of them because “social justice,” like the “social gospel,” is the wily work of men, not the Will and Word of God. Jesus Christ did not suffer and die on a cross so we could repair, remodel and rehabilitate a wicked world for Him to rule over, but instead to redeem us from it for a “kingdom not of this world.”

If someone doesn’t speak up and point this out, the issue will be forever confusing, controversial and divisive and the Church will continue to be swayed off course by those with political ambitions.

Scriptures containing the words “justice,” “justly,” and “judgment” that progressives handily quote to try and validate “social justice” as a Christian concept and mandate for the Church are predominately from the Old Testament, which is ironic considering progressives by and large prefer to dismiss or discount much of the OT and its so called “legalism” because it inconveniently clashes with their no-absolutes and no-authority philosophies, theologies and lifestyles. Frankly, it is God’s justice and judgments throughout the Old Testament that confound and offend progressives the most about the Bible resulting in the sleazy greasy grace they preach and practice as “Christianity.”

DOUBLESPEAK: THE LANGUAGE OF DECEPTION PART 4 by Martha West
http://www.newswithviews.com/West/marsha189.htm

Christendom has its fair share of doublespeak within its ranks. Conservative Christian apologists and those involved in the counter cult and discernment ministries who dare to expose apostates are accused of being divisive. For example, if a conservative attempts to combat the spread of the social justice gospel that emphasizes good deeds without the power of the gospel, their liberal critics cry “Pharisee!” Implying that these critics are Pharisees is another way of saying that they are narrow-minded, mean-spirited and unloving -- and yes, even intolerant and bigoted.

Word Faith (false) teachers use “heresy hunter” to define the opposition. But in reality discernment ministries are “truth-seekers.”

Most mature Christians recognize heresy when it rears its ugly head. But when they speak out against prominent false teachers who are leading the Body of Christ astray, their bamboozled followers invariably play the Matthew 7:1 card:

“Judge not, lest you be judged.”

This is doublespeak for: Shut the heck up!

First of all, discernment demands that we make judgments. As my pastor, Stan Way, said in a recent sermon, faithful Christians live their lives in a new center of gravity — the biblical worldview. Serious Christians must stand up and speak the truth with conviction and courage. We must be willing to lose our life for Christ and the gospel. In other words, for truth! Further, we must be willing to be treated with contempt by the world. Jesus said, “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38).

I don’t know about you, but I’m not ashamed and I will not be bullied into shutting up!

INTELLECTUAL BIGOTRY By Coach Dave Daubenmire
http://www.newswithviews.com/Daubenmire/dave187.htm

Bigotry—a stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.

Am I the only one who is sick of it or are we just so conditioned to sit obediently in the pew that we have forgotten how to stand up and fight? How long are we going to allow ourselves to be treated as second-class citizens in the land for which our fathers fought and died?

My blood boils over the way Christians have permitted the elitists to have silenced us. I can think of no other people-group who has permitted their system of beliefs to be so totally disregarded as those of us who proudly espouse Faith in Jesus.

In America, the new caliphate are the scientists and the academicians. They are the one’s who determine what will and will not be permitted. Anyone who stands on the authority of the Word of God is automatically written off as “religious.” Holding firm to faith in Jesus is secular apostasy and requires censorship so that the public will not be influenced by such fables.

They are very subtle, these secular bigots. They know that they can not get away with attacking the Truth of Christianity, but they can get away with a “reclassification” of Christianity. In their particular form of bigotry it is not that Christianity is “wrong” but that it is “religious” and religious views are not to hold equal sway with “science”. Science is head-knowledge (facts) while Christianity is heart knowledge (faith).

If you even hint of bringing Christian beliefs into the discussion you automatically become the law breaker and deserving of rebuke. “Religious beliefs belong in church, not in public discussion.” The “tolerant” intellectual bigots are only protecting innocent minds from “religious indoctrination” while they preach their secular gospel free of opposition. Soon we will be able to demand a Christian-history month in our schools.

I'm a Poppa!!!

We received a call from my oldest daughter early this past Saturday morning telling us it was now time!!!!! We have been waiting patiently for the past nine months plus almost one full week for the birth of our first grandchild!!! Well, after a quick trip down to GA in almost record time, we quickly became the proud grandparents of baby Clint!!!!!

If you are interested, please click on the link below to my daughter's blog which posts pictures of Clint's arrival plus his introduction to his new family. Of course, I believe he is just as handsome as his grandpoppa!!!!! : ) : ) : )

http://courtneyscontemplations.blogspot.com/2010/03/hospital-pics.html

How to Make Spiritual Progress

The complacency of Christians is the scandal of Christianity.

Time is short, and eternity is long. The end of all things is at hand. Man has proved himself morally unfit to manage the world in which he has been placed by the kindness of the Almighty. He has jockeyed himself to the edge of the crater and cannot go back, and in terrible fear he is holding his breath against the awful moment when he will be plunged into the inferno.

In the meantime, a company of people exist on the earth who claim to have the answer to all life’s major questions. They claim to have found the way back to God, release from their sins, life everlasting and a sure guarantee of heaven in the world to come.

These are the Christians. They declare that Jesus Christ is very God of very God, made flesh to dwell among us. They insist that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. They testify that He is to them Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption, and they steadfastly assert that He will be to them the Resurrection and the Life for eternity to come.

These Christians know, and when pressed will admit, that their finite hearts have explored but a pitifully small part of the infinite riches that are theirs in Christ Jesus. They read the lives of the great saints whose fervent desire after God carried them far up the mountain toward spiritual perfection; and for a brief moment they may yearn to be like these fiery souls whose light and fragrance still linger in the world where they once lived and labored. But the longing soon passes. The world is too much with them and the claims of their earthly lives are too insistent; so they settle back to live their ordinary lives, and accept the customary as normal. After a while they manage to achieve some kind of inner content and that is the last we hear of them.

This contentment with inadequate and imperfect progress in the life of holiness is, I repeat, a scandal in the Church of the First-born. The whole weight of Scripture is against such a thing. The Holy Spirit constantly seeks to arouse the complacent. "Let us go on" is the word of the Spirit. The Apostle Paul embodies this in his noble testimony as found in his Philippian epistle: "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ…That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection…but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (3:7-8, 10, 13-14).

If we accept this as the sincere expression of a normal Christian I do not see how we can justify our own indifference toward spiritual things. But should someone feel a desire to make definite progress in the life of Christ, what can he do to get on with it? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Strive to get beyond mere pensive longing. Set your face like a flint and begin to put your life in order. Every man is as holy as he really wants to be. But the want must be all-compelling.

Tie up the loose ends of your life. Begin to tithe; institute family prayer; pay up your debts as far as possible and make some kind of frank arrangement with every creditor you cannot pay immediately; make restitution as far as you can; set aside time to pray and search the Scriptures; surrender wholly to the will of God. You will be surprised and delighted with the results.

2. Put away every un-Christian habit from you. If other Christians practice it without compunction, God may be calling you to come nearer to Him than these other Christians care to come. Remember the words, "Others may, you cannot." Do not condemn or criticize, but seek a better way. God will honor you.

3. Get Christ Himself in the focus of your heart and keep Him there continually. Only in Christ will you find complete fulfillment. In Him you may be united to the Godhead in conscious, vital awareness. Remember that all of God is accessible to you through Christ. Cultivate His knowledge above everything else on earth.

4. Throw your heart open to the Holy Spirit and invite Him to fill you. He will do it. Let no one interpret the Scriptures for you in such a way as to rule out the Father’s gift of the Spirit. Every man is as full of the Spirit as he wants to be. Make your heart a vacuum and the Spirit will rush in to fill it.

Nowhere in the Scriptures nor in Christian biography was anyone ever filled with the Spirit who did not know that he had been, and nowhere was anyone filled who did not know when. And no one was ever filled gradually.

5. Be hard on yourself and easy on others. Carry your own cross but never lay one on the back of another. Begin to practice the presence of God. Cultivate the fellowship of the Triune God by prayer, humility, obedience and self-abnegation.

Let any Christian do these things and he will make rapid spiritual progress. There is every reason why we should all go forward in our Christian lives and no reason why we should not. Let us go on.

Taken from: A.W. Tozer's book Man: The Dwelling Place of God (What it really means to have Jesus Christ living in you).

Has Anyone Missed Me???

I have been out of commission for several months now, mainly due to a "dead" computer, but at the same time, simply taking a rest from the blogosphere environment. At times, it can be so much work and a period of desparation searching for a quality posting; and that is not fun at all. Blogging is supposed to be a time of enjoyment....

I am waiting for a phone call from GA anytime now announcing that my daughter is headed to the hospital to give birth to her first child, thus allowing me to enter the new stage of life of being a grandparent!!!!! That means even more gray hair for this "young at heart" man still married to the prettiest and most Christ-like "help meet" in the whole world!!!!!

I hope you are off to a great start here in 2010 continuing to serve our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. We have much to be thankful for even though the world around us continues to become darker and darker in these last days..... even more reason for us to share the light of Christ with all those we encounter each and every day. God is good.... ALL THE TIME!!!!!