“…let God be true,
but every man a liar…” – Romans 3:4
Hard words, but wise ones.
They are indeed true. (Romans 3:4
is not the only place in the Bible this point is made. You can also read Numbers 23:19, Hebrews
6:18, Titus 1:2, and 1 Samuel 15:29.
God is the one you can absolutely rely on, trust,
believe. His words and promises are
true. This is a truth you must know now
and in the coming days.
But you do have to know Jesus to understand this. You have to know God is real. And you have to be guided by the Holy Spirit
to be able to discern truth from falsehood, the right way to go from the wrong
way.
These are difficult, difficult times, especially so for
God’s people – his believers – because we see what is happening. We discern the times. Remember, people who do not know God cannot
do that. When you hear some leader say
things that sound to you as patently false and then you are shocked at how many
seem just to receive this false speech, remember that they can’t discern the
truth. The Bible makes the point ever so
clearly that the god of this world, the devil, has blinded the minds of
unbelievers. And unbelievers make up the
great majority of society.
Just because so many say they believe in God or that they
are Christians does not make them Christians or believers. In our society how many of the top leaders
say they are Christians? Yet look at
their actions. Look at the positions
they take. Look at the actions they
advance. I can say I am a nuclear
physicist too, but you and I know I am not.
Going to a church occasionally does not make anyone a Christian. Being born anew, born of water and the spirit
as Jesus explained to Nicodemus, does it.
Or as Paul says, if you proclaim that Jesus is Lord and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, then you are “saved.” When Paul says believe, he means absolute
belief, the type of belief you would give your life for. And proclaiming that Jesus is your Lord means
he is your boss, your leader. It means
you do what he says. How many qualify
under that explanation?
In this difficult, difficult time as we step every day down
the path to the end of this age and the return of the Lord, there are so many
conflicting and distressing actions and behaviors and such horrible news we are
confronted with. I heard someone say
recently how shocked he was to see how rapidly the approval of the homosexual
agenda in the US roared through. You
could say that about so many things, such as the taking of Jesus’ name out of
government programs. Or the extraordinary
support given the muslim world by the government in Washington while
increasingly oppressing Christians at home and barely recognizing the terrible
horrors being inflicted on Christians abroad.
Yet the blind majority of Americans sits by and goes to work and to
school. They do not realize that soon
there may be no work to go to, no school to attend. This time is ending. Their focus had better be on the Lord and
what they should do in this time.
Back to the title.
Yes, God is the one you can trust – Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit. Now we all I hope know a few close people we
think we can trust, and likely we can in most instances. I pray in all. But we all know the pressures to which people
are subject. Haven’t you wondered why
some people boldly run for office with some bold stands that you applaud, and
then when they are elected suddenly they are silent and you scarcely hear from
them again? Were they just lying before
when running for office, trying to get your vote? Possibly.
But also consider this – you do not know what pressures have been
brought to bear on them since they were elected. I mean real pressures, the kind most people
do not know about or want to think about.
And maybe these pressures were so serious they had to give up their
campaign positions. See, they are
people. They just couldn’t come through.
What if several terrorists with automatic weapons burst into
a Sunday morning service and declared they would kill everyone who did not
renounce Jesus? Can you trust yourself
in that situation to give the right response?
How many in your church do you
think would give the right response?
There is no living to the next day here – you cannot ever renounce
Jesus. Why do you think the early
Christians willingly went to their death in arenas or elsewhere rather than
renounce Jesus? They knew he was real, that
God was real. They knew it was all
true. They knew they couldn’t renounce
him. One weakness of many who say they
are Christians and attend weekly church services is that they really do not
know God is real – they haven’t encountered the Holy Spirit, they haven’t been
born again. They don’t know Jesus.
Well, a lot to think about here.
One last point – the gift of discernment is extraordinarily
important in this time, as well as the other gifts of the Spirit. They come with being filled with and baptized
with the Holy Spirit, as happened throughout Acts as God used the disciples to
bring the Lord to new believers. The
Holy Spirit is for you who are near and for you who are far away, for all whom
God will call, as Peter said in Acts 2:39.
He is someone you should earnestly seek.
If you don’t know the Holy Spirit, seek him. Ask God for this gift. Attend services of Spirit-filled ministries
if you can find them. Ask a born again,
spirit-filled person to pray for you to receive and be baptized with the
Spirit. Spend time with God. Get in a right relationship with him.
May God bless you and protect you and hold you in the palm
of his hands.
Keep Your Eyes on Jesus!
(May 2015)
Copyright © 2015 by John
Newlin
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