I am never alone.

Acts 17:27 - 28 “That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”

I am no different than any other person, I am a sinner, born in sin, grew-up in sin, grew-old in sin, and yes, I will die a sinner. When I was born, I was born at enmity with the God of creation, the God of grace, and the God of salvation. Not knowing nor even caring about God or what He had in store for me. I thought as all people do, I must live and exist on my own, making my own way and being my own defender. It was not until my gracious Lord’s Spirit come to me, entered my body, quickened my dead spirit, and called and caused me to believe on Jesus Christ as my Saviour. It was that moment that this worthless and sinful young man became a child of God. It was that very moment I could feel the Holy Spirit working inside of me, while I did not know what was happening inside of me, I knew it was changing me. It was years later in life when I was taught that the life-changing experience I had was the power, grace, and love of God and His Beloved Son Jesus who died for me so many years ago. What I felt working inside of me was the Holy Spirit and that He would never leave nor forsake me, no matter what. It is hard to understand just how much the Lord God works in our life, and that He is so close that He is never far from us. I am blessed, because later in life I learned just how much God works in my life, I can feel Him working and see the results of His work in every move and happening in my life. I understand that I will live my entire life and never totally understanding how much God did in my life. God made me a promise, “that all things work together for good to them that love God.” Many things happen in my life, my day is full and there is no telling what good or disastrous thing may happen in that single day. But I have learned that every step I take, every breath of life I breath, and every happening thing, good or disastrous things, it is God that brought it, and it was brought for my good. The Lord is never far from me because He lives inside of me. I am not my own, I belong to the Lord my God and He has promised that no matter if the house falls on my head, it was He that caused it to fall. God has even promised me, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” It is I that must be patient and wait on the Lord because it is He that has made me all these wonderful promises, and that I will never walk alone for a single moment alone.

We all lack fear.

Proverbs 13:24 “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”

There are a lot of people, some even Christians, and even worse some Pastor who disagree with God here, but where there is not discipline there is no fear. If there is no fear then there is no righteousness, there is only unrighteousness. God said about fear, “…The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.” Psalms 36:1 God also said a child that is without discipline is an unloved child. “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” Hebrews 12:7 – 8. Satan is the one who tells us that an undisciplined child is good, he is the one who is against discipline. It does not matter, anyone who is without discipline is not upright. God speaks of discipline in our children, our families, our churches, and His own saved children, and discipline begins with fear. God said of people, “And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Romans 3:17. Today in our world children grow-up without discipline, churches fail to discipline, nations no longer fear one another, government are soft on crime, and the world does not fear God. All we must do is look at our godly and lawlessness society, where drugs are an infestation, children are shooting schools and committing heinous crimes in the streets. Grown adults have no fear of God, the laws of the land, and no fear of death. Most of it is because so-called churches with so-called pastors no longer preach the fear of God, the fear of chastisement, the fear of death and hell, or the fear of God’s judgment from the pulpits. Counterfeit churches are not the only ones to blame, parents are to blame because of the way children are raised, schools are to blame because of our ungodly education system, our governments are to blame because there is no fear of prosecution. Today, because of the way our children are raised, the world does not know “love” people do not know what love is, children say they love their parents then kill them, husbands say they love their wives then divorce them, families say they love their siblings and never talk of visit, people say they love God and hate His word. When the world lost its Reverence for God, it lost its reverence of good vs evil. God said of fear, “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 2Cor. 7:1 Let us walk in righteousness and holiness in our fear of God, this is where the world failed, now evil and drugs have taken over the world. “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” Eph. 5:21 The salvation sermon called the gospel of Jesus Christ has been watered down and destroyed by so-called church who are simply houses of unsaved souls. God is mocked, shown to be weakened, shown to be defeated, shown to be an old man with no teeth, but one day this world will see God in judgment and the flames of hells fire will burn and burn the pain will be unbearable and unquenchable. But how would the world even know this, people never hear these messages anymore, the message of fear is ignored in most churches. “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.” Psalm 89:7 And the Lord went on to say in, Hebrews 12:28-29 “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.” Where there is no fear, there is no godliness, and the people will suffer, and evil will take over. 

Does God truly “will” all men to be saved?

 1 Timothy 2:4 “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”

Most of those who fail to recognize and understand the Sovereignty of God will answer yes and point to scriptures like this one while ignoring all the rest of the scriptures. God is the Creator of all things and in that He is Sovereign in all things. David wrote in Psalms 115:3 “But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.” God does as He pleases because He can because He is Sovereign in all things including Salvation. Paul writes in Romans 9:13 – 14 “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.” God loved Jacob and hated Esau at His choosing, not because of anything else. God’s Sovereignty allows God to do anything He chooses and without unrighteousness in His choice. Paul went on to write these words in verse 15 “For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” God is not unrighteous in His choices even in making a person righteous and another unrighteous, “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” V. 21 If a person is happy taking scriptures out-of-context and making it seem that the ordained will of God is that all men to be saved as it appears here then they have found the scriptures to be out-of-context altogether making the bible worthless at best. The question we must all ask is can God be Sovereign and will for something He cannot have? Not all men will be saved, people die everyday lost and without Christ. The truth is, if God wanted all men to be saved then all men would be saved because the absolute will of God never fails. God will that people do a lot of things, but unless it is God’s absolute will or ordained will, none will do anything God wills. It is no different than to say God wills all men to go to church, or God wills all men to accept Christ. It is God’s ordained will that causes lost sinners to come to Christ, it is by God’s drawing power that delivers them. God does not want anything He cannot have, God never fails. Therefore, it is deceiving to ever look at a scripture that eliminates the ordained will of God. God would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth, but neither will ever happen. This is not because God failed, it is because God’s Sovereign will did not call them. Romans 8:29 - 30 “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (30) Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”     

When Christians Disagree What Do We Do?

Romans 14:1-3 “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.”

Here in this church in Rome they were disagreements over the eating of meats, some weak in faith believed eating meats was wrong and the stronger in faith believed that the old laws and customs were eliminated by our salvation in Jesus Christ. Any time there is an assembly of people there will be disputes and disagreements. We must always remember that we are people and while we are all saved by Jesus Christ and all cleansed through His glorious blood, we are still people with diverse ways and thinking. I suppose that throughout history every church has had disagreements and disputes over church issues or doctrinal meaning of the scriptures. God said of the church “For the body is not one member, but many.” 1 Corinthians 12:14 We are not mind-numb robots that God has saved and made us all the same, we all come from different backgrounds, we were all raised with different beliefs, we all have different mindsets, and we do not all always agree. The stronger members in the church are to help the weaker members and even in life we should help the weaker Christians who are not as strong as other might be. But the question is, who are the stronger members of the church or of the Christian faith? Some will say those who know the most scriptures, or those who have the higher education level and these are generally smarter, some may say the Pastor because he is the leader in the church. But all these are not exactly true, God can make a bush in a yard smarter than we all, God makes the foolish things wiser than the wise. We must all be reminded that whenever problems arise in churches or among Christians the problem solvers are the most intelligent. Sometimes, most times, when disputes arise it takes sacrifices to solve the issues. I am afraid that in today’s churches we have forgotten how to solve the problems, and the reason we have is because we are letting our head override our hearts. If one Christian disagrees with another Christian, do we withdraw fellowship or solve the problem? Problems are not always solved, if one believes in one thing and another thing, why is that and whose fault is it, and who is right or wrong? Doesn’t the Holy Spirit teach us, and does He teach us with the same doctrine and exactly the same understanding? We cannot force someone to believe something just because we do, nor can we reject them just because the Holy Spirit has not blessed them with the same knowledge. Since when do “we break fellowship” with other believers instead of loving them and praying that God will solve the issues. Who appointed us the judge of other Christians, who left us in charge of “right and wrong,” who among us is without sin or error, it certainly is not me! Again, I ask who are the stronger Christians, it is those who solve problems instead of worsening problems. It is those who sacrifice and stop eating meat to not offend those who believe it’s wrong. Paul wrote in Romans 14:10, 12 “But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ…So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” When we mishandle disagreements and disputing’s we become the sinners and show no maturity as God commanded. It doesn’t matter how smart you are in scripture that makes you strong, it’s the wisdom we have with that knowledge that makes us strong. We need to remember that Jesus will judge us all, and hurting other believers because we did not have enough wisdom will only cost us in judgment. “Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.” Rom. 14:13 Let us ask ourselves, how would Jesus manage it, with a breaking of fellowship or with grace?

Sacrifices Pleasing to God

Hebrews 13:2 “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

For the believer, (this includes every believer that God has graciously saved), we are bound to serve the Lord our God in everything we do in life, and even with our life if necessary. No believer should ever neglect to be as gracious, loving, and kind as our Lord is, because He is above us all. If God’s own Son can be a servant, then we can also be the same, always pleasing our Father before self. Pleasing God is a personal sacrifice, but it will never be more of a sacrifice than God giving His own Son to die by wicked hands of the lost, nor Jesus sacrificing His entire life to redeem us all, even in death. God said in Heb. 13:1 “Let brotherly love continue.” This means that all believers should never allow our brotherly love to ever be interrupted. Not with human love but with the godly love the Holy Spirit blessed us with after we were saved. The Greek word for love here is “Philadelphia” which is defined as “fraternal affection” that is God’s love That the Holy Spirit gave to us when we were saved. Paul wrote about this love in Rom. 5:5 “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” God’s love has been poured out from the Holy Spirit into our hearts, not just love but God’s love.
“This is agapē love, and the Holy Spirit flooded the hearts of believers with God’s love, and with the assurance of it,” as one writer put it. In the days of old, or the early years of the Lord’s church Christians had to flee because of persecution and afflictions. Something most of today’s Christians have not experienced, but as perilous times continue to flourish those times may return and include us. It may be hard for some Christians to understand but when we meet a stranger we never know who that stranger is. Therefore, it is incumbent on us to entertain all strangers. The Lord reminds us “…for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Could we encounter Angels, we never know what God is doing and how He is testing us. Angels have taken on human bodies before and could again, even in our day. I cannot say I have ever had contact with one, but I cannot guarantee that I have not. Therefore, no matter who we encounter or who is among us, it is our duty of hospitality to treat them with love, kindness, and gentleness. The purpose of this scripture is not for us to look for angels, but to exercise our Christian and church duties, being kind and entertaining even those we may not know. Always letting brotherly love continue and always entertaining and not judging if or if not we are to help others. Sacrifices pleasing to God and not to self, the Lord has given us a commandment and it is our responsibility.