Are we doing enough to help our fellow Christian?

Galatians 6:1 – 5

As a Christian and more so as a Minister/Pastor I wonder how the Lord, our Master and Heavenly Father see’s us today. I wonder if we are truly walking in the Spirit as God commanded or are we in many ways failing God. The Lord never commanded that we only believe and teach the Truth of His word, but that we also teach and walk in His word. James wrote in 2:18 “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” The question I have is, are we actually walking in the very truth we believe and teach? The Lord told the Church in Laodicea “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.” Rev. 3:15 A cold church is one that is basically without spiritual life, a hot church is one that is absolutely walking in the Spirit and as correct as we can be. The Lord went on to say in V. 16 “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Have the churches fallen into a state of lukewarmness? The Lord commanded in Gal. 6:2 “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” Are we as Christians and churches “bearing one another’s burdens”? So, let us understand what the Lord is talking about here, I do not believe it is just financial but also spiritual, I believe this burden is our walk in the Spirit. Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 13:3 “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” So, no matter what we do in our Christian Walk, if it is not done in love than we are failing. Believing and preaching the Truth, standing strong in the Truth, this is not enough. To be a hot church, or to be a hot Christian is to walk within all the word of God. Do we remember the old WWJD (what would Jesus do)? This is exactly what our Christian Walk should be, asking ourselves am I handling this like Jesus would? As Christians and even whole churches we need to examine ourselves in all the word of God because it is our righteous walk. Do we see any commandments that we lack, and if we do, do we simply ignore them rather correct our walk. This is not what we believe, but how we are showing what we believe in our walk. The Lord said in Gal. 6:3 “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” Are we actually walking correctly or are just lukewarm or even worse cold in our walk, if so, are we deceiving ourselves into believing we are hot when we are not? The truth is bearing the burdens of others is a walk of love, it is loving the other Believers and doing everything to help their spiritual walk. If we just cast each other aside then we have failed in our Scriptural Walk, we have failed to help bear another’s burdens. We must understand that we are all subject to fall, we can all get to the point of needing spiritual help. Paul wrote in Rom. 12:3 “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” In the church we are one and if we are right in the scriptures we are in unity. And as Christians we are also one in Christ, one big family, and as part of that family it is our job to help, in a very loving way, to pick up our fallen brothers and sister that have fallen into the trials and temptations of Satan. It is sometimes a battle, sometimes we have to be a little rough, but the goal is to help and not just cast away. Where would we be if the Lord treated us the way we treat others? How would we like it if the Lord just broke fellowship with us, or just gave up and stopped trying to help us? Why if the Lord just refused to help us with our burdens and left us alone to continue in them alone. Where did we get all that love, doctrine, from. James warned us in James 5:19 - 20 “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; (20) Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.” A Christians burdens belongs to us all, we are one big family trying to help one another with much grace and love, just like God does with us. It is possible that some have fallen too far for our help, but never to far for our prayers.

What is your main priority in life?

Matthew 6:24-25 “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?”

We must all ask ourselves, what is our main priority in life? Is it family, maybe financial security for your family? I could ask you this in a hundred separate ways, but you get the pitcher here. Whatever you list first as priority on your list, it becomes the first in your heart. And if our priority is not God then we are wrong and devalue God, because we put something above God. Our first priority will enslave our heart, meaning we will focus and treasure that priority over all others. It will control our mind and cause us to value that priority more than God, therefore we will lessen our service to the Lord. As Christians we make choices everyday of our life, and our priority is what directs those choices. It is easy in this flesh, even as Christians to become shackled or a prisoner to the desire to have material things of life, for ourselves or our families. If our hearts are on material things then that becomes our treasure, and the more we seek earthly treasures the more we lose heavenly treasures. Earthly enrichment overrides spiritual enrichment which causes us to fail God in our worship. God said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.” Gods warning to us all is, we will hold to our most important priority and treasure it over God if He is not our main priority. Then God tells us, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Because worldly riches will become our god, it will even replace our need for God. And let us all be honest, money is high on every person’s list of priorities, we all like security for our families and ourselves. However, it is not money that is our problem, it is our scale of love for money. God said in1Tim. 6:10 “For the love of money is the root of all evil:” the key word here is “love” because we all know our love is where our heart’s desire is. Almost every evil on earth begins with money and our love for it. Then God said, “which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith” erred because we were “seduced.” By our sinful desires of it. Then God finished with these words, “and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Why sorrows, if it helps us so much, and we live a comfortable life, isn’t that a blessing from God? Listen, it matters not if you agree or not, but this is the truth, God will never bless us to lose our priority to worship Him. Once anything becomes our god over God then we have lost so much. We must understand we still walk on this world with our old fleshly nature, and it will attempt to cause us to sin against God, it is called the desires of the flesh. The desires of the flesh are sinful, Paul wrote in Eph. 2:3 “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” We will find that it is more profitable to direct all our “zeal” or “passion” toward our worship of God, the bible, and the church. As Christians we cannot allow anything, not even the love and support of our family come between us and God or His church. We must remember what Jesus promised, “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” We must trust that God will supply all our earthly needs, and believe me, God will never bless you with anything that comes between you and Him or cause you to “forsaking the assembling of ourselves together…” Heb 10:25 God will not always give us what we want but He will always give us our needs.  Php. 4:19 “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” The words “all your need” is everything you and your family need in life, this is His “His wealth in glory in Christ Jesus.” for us. The question is, do we trust God, do we have our priority in Him and him alone. Putting anything, including our needs or our family’s needs before Him, His word, or even His church is a sin and putting mammon as our god, whether we admit it or not. Christians can live in darkness because disobeying God’s word is to walk in darkness and if we are not walking in the light than there is no fellowship with God. And the riches we gain means we will pay a great price for those riches, because God did not give them, God become less valuable to you in your life. You can have riches as a Christian but only if God gives them without devaluing our worship and service to Him. 

It is about the Lord, and not about you.

“And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not…” Jeremiah 45:5a

Humility to every believer is their greatest walk in life. It is so easy to gain pride because pride is natural, but humility is a gift from God. We can see the greatest humility in the men who penned the scriptures, because they all understood that the Spirit of God gave them the gift of writing the Holy Script. I cannot say if they knew that what they wrote was going to become the Word of God for thousands of years. But I can promise you this, they knew it was special because they felt it deep in their hearts. I would have to assume that the most humbled servant of God must have been the Apostle Paul, because he arose from one of the biggest haters of Jesus Christ to one of the most loyal servants of Him. In his past he reaped the greatest havoc on the Lord’s church in Jerusalem to become one of God’s greatest servants. God used him so great, and of his greatest accomplishments he wrote anywhere from 13 to 15 books in the New Testament, while a Missionary, Pastor, and while being imprisoned. And of all his accomplishments he wrote these humble words, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” 1 Corinthians 15:10 He never thought of himself as anything except a very blessed servant of God. We see this same humility in so many of God’s servants throughout the scriptures, and it should make us very humbled in what God calls us to do. Humility begins with the understanding that we are nothing, that every accomplishment is a blessing from God. Greatness is not something we earn, it is God’s grace and humble servants do not seek greatness neither do they need it, because all glory is the Lords. The greatest man to have ever lived never seek glory for Himself, He said I come to do my Fathers will. “I can of mine own self do nothing…because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” John 5:30. Whenever a believer that God saved, called to be a servant, and gives him everything he needs to be successful, then God is to be the glory not him. As servants we never need to think of ourselves more than we ought, Rom 12:3, but to humility thank God for every success. Jeremiah knew this when “the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.” Jeremiah 1:9 Whatever we are, it is by God’s grace and work, and it is not about us, and it never will be. Never seek the Lord’s glory for thyself!

Lawlessness is a sign of the Lord’s return.

“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” Matthew 24:12

It is no secret nor is it any hidden thing that the time of apostasy has happened. As we study the seven churches of Asia Minor, we see only one church that remained faithful to the Lord, the Church in Smyrna. We do see the church at Ephesus left their first love “thou hast left thy first love.” But there is nothing said about their repentance and return to their first love; therefore, we must assume that they never returned. True churches today are called Smyrna type churches because they have remained faithful to the Lord and His word of Truth. It is sad when a church of Truth, or a Smyrna type church has allowed themselves to turn into an error church in the time of apostasy. The scripture we are looking at Matthew 24:12 is a scripture describing a sign before the Lord’s return. Jesus is privately asked in Verse 3 “And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Jesus’s reply was, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold...” I believe, the Lord is describing some churches and Christians here, because we all know that the world will wax worse and worse therefore this is speaking to the lawlessness of many churches. Just as six of the seven churches fell from the Lord and left their first love, so many have today. The Lord prophesied “…the love of many shall wax cold.” That is both churches and Christians, they have “left thy first love.” We can look into the world and see the heathenism, and as that is expected, but when we see this in the personal lives of Christians and even worse in churches, which is unbelievable. As the recipient of God’s grace of His gift of salvation and His gift of honor of being a church member, some need to ask themselves “how did we leave our first love”? The Lord answered this very question in verse 4 “…Take heed that no man deceive you.” Deception causes Christians to leave the Lord, and, in some cases, entire churches left their first love. They were deceived by their fleshly lust, for many different reasons to ignore the word of Truth and to think for themselves. This lawlessness that the Lord is talking about is not the world but rather His churches and Christians. When Christians refuse to join or attend a Smyrna type church or a church that has remained faithful to the Lord, then they are not godly believers. Church is not an option for a believer and remaining faithful is not an option for churches. Jesus said in verse 8 “All these are the beginning of sorrows.” That is, all these things listed in the verses above, including the lawlessness of churches and believers. Christians need to stop using ungodly excuses and lying to themselves and others, repent and return to the Lord because they have left their first love. However, as sad as it is, they’re going to believe their deception, justify their fall and never repent and return. In the end, only the Lord’s elected remnant will remain faithful, which leaves us asking, “where they ever really part of us?” “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” 1 John 2:19 Falling from the Truth and leaving their first love is no simply thing, it is inexcusable, it is ungodly even with all the fleshly excuses. I am personally not asking if all people who have fallen from the churches are Christians or not, I just repeated what God has said. But how do God’s children fall from the churches, from the Truth, and away from their first love and not even think it is wrong? Churches are absolutely dying because Christians refuse to attend and support their churches. There is no excuse for this sin against God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who assembled the churches. “iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” And there are no excuses because the Lord warned us all, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together…” Heb. 10:25 Please stop with the excuses, stop trying to justify your apostasy, stop using ungodly excuses and just realize that one day, if you are truly a Christian, you will stand before Jesus and understand you left your fist love, because He sure did not leave you! Did your love for the Lord and His church wax cold? “…the love of many shall wax cold.” If so, it is time to repent, its time to return, and it is time to ask the Lord for forgiveness, and if you do not, you will answer to Jesus in judgement. And if you believe that I am cruel in writing this, wait tell Jesus judges you.