Tuesday, December 3, 2013, 4:55 a.m. – the Lord Jesus woke me with this song:
Give Me Jesus
Oh, What Gladness!
An Original Work / December 2, 2013
Give me Jesus. He’s my
Savior.
I’ll walk with Him in
His favor.
I’ll abide in His love
always;
Follow His ways to the
end.
Jesus is the Son of
God.
He died upon a cruel
cross.
He’s forgiven all my
failures
By His mercy and His
love.
Give me Jesus – His
compassion,
And His mercy; loving
kindness.
Let Him teach me how
to love Him,
And to please Him.
He’s my friend.
Jesus died for all our
sin
So we could have
eternal life.
He will free you from
your bondage
If you trust Him with
your life.
Give me Jesus. Let me
trust Him.
May I listen to His
teachings.
May I follow where He
leads me
In His service. He’s
my Lord.
Jesus Christ will come
again
To take His bride to
be with Him.
Oh, what gladness;
free from sadness
When I meet Him in the
air.
Speak, Lord, your words to my heart. I read 1 Peter 2 (ESV):
So
put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like
newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up
into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
As
you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen
and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a
spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold,
I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and
whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
So
the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The
stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,” and
“A
stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”
They
stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But
you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own
possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of
darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are
God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Beloved,
I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh,
which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles
honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your
good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Be
subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the
emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil
and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing
good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people
who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as
servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the
emperor.
Servants,
be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle
but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one
endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you
sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for
it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you
have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example,
so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit
found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he
suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who
judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might
die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For
you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and
Overseer of your souls.
A Rock of Offense
There are many people
in this world who are on the “fast track,” i.e. “a rapid and sometimes highly
competitive route to progress or advancement that exists alongside the slower
conventional one” (Encarta). The Lord Jesus is showing this to me on two
levels: 1) Spiritual, and 2) Political, only the “fast track” route is not
traveling alongside the slower one, but is changing route in midstream and is going
ahead and is abandoning what is conventional or what is true and trustworthy. The
two don’t parallel each other, for one abandons the one in favor of the other
and thus runs ahead toward ultimate destruction.
On a spiritual level,
this has to do with the gospel of our salvation, our relationship with Jesus
Christ, and with our eternal destiny. There are many who are abandoning the
true faith of the gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by Jesus and by the apostles
and are going after a twisted version of the gospel which is light, quick, and
which does not “slay” the sinner, but which entertains him, i.e. it is not the
crucified life but more like a fast food meal that you pick up at a drive-thru
and then go on your way with no real inconvenience to you at all. Yet, this is
not what scripture teaches, though those who teach it will pull scriptures out
of context to try to prove that what they are teaching is the true gospel of
Christ.
Jesus Christ took
upon himself the sins of the entire world. He bore the pain of unjust suffering
for you and for me. When he died, our sins died with him, and when he rose from
the grave, he conquered death, hell, Satan and sin. He has given us the gift of
salvation from our sins, but we must receive it by faith. Faith is not a
feeling or an experience or an intellectual assent to something, but it is a life-time
commitment of surrender, obedience, servitude, freedom, love, joy and peace –
all in the power and strength of the Spirit of God living and working his will within
us for his praise and for his glory. We are thus to forsake our lifestyles of
living for self and sin, we are to be transformed in heart and mind of the
Spirit of God, and we are to live for Jesus Christ in his righteousness and
holiness (See Lu. 9:23-25; John 15:14; Eph. 4:17-24; Rom. 6; Gal. 2:20; 1 John;
Titus 2:11-14).
This is what this is
talking about here in 1 Peter 1-2. As obedient children, we are not to conform
to the evil desires we had when we lived in ignorance. Just as he who called us
is holy, we are to be holy in all we do. We are to live out our time here on
earth as though we are strangers, foreigners or travelers who do not belong to
the world, but as those who are just visitors. “This world is not my home. I’m
just a passing through.” And, we are to live this time on the earth, not in
self-gratification and fulfilling the lusts of our flesh and with a goal of satisfying
our hedonistic desires which rage within us, but we are to live in reverent
fear of Almighty God with all due honor, respect, submission and surrender to
his will for our lives. And, we should do this, realizing all that Jesus Christ
did for us so we could be set free from slavery to sin and set free from the
empty way of life handed down to us from our ancestors. This world we live in
and all its pleasures are going to perish, but the word of the Lord endures
forever. We must make certain we are living for the word of the Lord!
Our goal should be to
please Christ in all we do. We must rid our lives of all that hinders our
spiritual walk and the sins that so easily entangle us so we can run with
perseverance the race marked out for us (See Heb. 12:1), and so we can mature
and grow up in our salvation. As well, we should offer to God not just the
things we are willing to sacrifice or give up for him or even the sacrifice of
our time and efforts in doing “good things” that we think might be pleasing to
him, but we should offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, which have
just been described here and in 1 Peter 1-2. In doing so, though, we should expect
to be persecuted and to have the people who twist the scriptures to their
advantage to come against us and to try to convince others of the twisted
version of the gospel (lite) which is the “fast track” gospel of salvation
which makes no such demands as that of repentance, submission, and surrender to
Christ resulting in obedience and a crucified life. We will become the enemy,
and they will convince many that we are the enemy and even that we must be
killed because we preach the true gospel of salvation.
Human Authority
The Bible teaches us
that we must submit to human authority and that we are to show proper respect
to everyone. Yet, it also teaches that we are not to worship or bow down to
what is false or to foreign gods, and that we are never to deny our Lord or to
cease speaking in his name or praying to him in order to obey human authority.
As well it teaches us
not to compromise with the world or participate in fruitless deeds of darkness
but rather to expose them. Jesus and the apostles set great examples for us in
how to show proper respect, and in how to submit to human authority while not
compromising their faith and practice, and while continuing to speak the truth
in love and to share the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ despite all opposition
and even in the face of threats against their lives. So, all submission to and showing
respect to human authority should never compromise the Word of Truth. We should
never worship humans or follow them blindly, trusting them implicitly, for they
may lead us astray to what is false. Yet, we should not resist arrest or
confiscation of property or even death for the sake of the gospel, for this
life has no hold on us and all that is earthly is going to one day pass away.
In our present world
the Obama administration, and at least some of Congress, as well as perhaps
some local government leaders, are working in partnership with the New World
Order (their political allies) in conquering, usurping and overthrowing
national governments in the world, including in the USA, in order to bring the
whole world ultimately under the rule of the Beast of Revelation, i.e. a one
world government (order). In countries such as Ukraine and Thailand, for
instance, this New World Order (and our own country’s leaders) are busy forcing
the leadership of those nations out of office so that they can bring in the “international
community,” alias the New World Order and to set up transitional governments leading
the way to this rule of the beast. In order to accomplish this, they produce
these uprisings, playing the roles of both the anti and pro-government forces,
in order to bring about a situation which will require the intervention of the “international
community.” Their goal is two-fold, I believe: 1) Political conquest and
overthrow of national and local governments, and 2) The conquest of believers
in Jesus Christ who hold to the testimony of Jesus Christ and who do not deny
his name (See Rev. 13).
So, although we must
submit to our leaders, and we must show them proper respect, this does not mean
that we should worship them or blindly put our trust in them, for some or many
of them are on this fast track, and their goal is to abandon the people of
their nations, and true followers of Jesus Christ, and in the case of our own
leaders here in the USA, their goal is to also abandon the constitution of the
USA (the slower conventional route) and to go another route of their own making
which will lead us inevitably to destruction, famine, sword, pestilence and the
like, i.e. this is the path to tribulation and the severe persecution and
murdering of true followers of Jesus Christ who hold fast to the truth of the
gospel, even within the United States of America. They are already doing this
in other nations in the world and are forcing the people into compliance with
the New World Order (Beast), and this is being done at the hands of our own
government leaders, too. And, they will leave us “holding the bag,” i.e. they
have and will desert us and will leave us to pay for their sins, i.e. such as
all the national debt they have incurred, for one. They always have to have
someone else to blame for their dirty work. And, the innocent will suffer.
Yet, many will suffer
who are not innocent, too. The Lord Jesus is showing me here that many have
abandoned the true faith, i.e. they have abandoned him and have gone off to
follow the “fast track” route instead. His word promises that he will bring
judgment, not just on the unbelievers, but on his people who have abandoned him
to follow after other gods of their own making (See Rev. 2-3). Yet, this time
of difficulty ahead is for our purification, to prune us, and to get God’s adulterous
and idolatrous church to return to him in revival so he can restore them and so
that the true gospel will go forth and many will be saved before the time of the
end when God will judge all mankind and many will face eternity in the flames
of hell because they refused to have true faith in Jesus Christ. May we take
the teachings of the Word here to heart, get off the fast track, and follow our
Lord Jesus in full surrender.
Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken / Henry F. Lyte / Mozart/ Arr. Hubert
P. Main
Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to
leave and follow Thee;
Destitute, despised, forsaken, Thou,
from hence, my all shalt be.
Perish every fond ambition, all I've
sought, and hoped, and known;
Yet how rich is my condition, God and
Christ are still my own!
Let the world despise and leave me,
they have left my Savior, too;
Human hearts and looks deceive me; Thou
art not, like man, untrue;
And, while Thou shalt smile upon me,
God of wisdom, love, and might,
Foes may hate, and friends disown me;
show Thy face, and all is bright.
Man may trouble and distress me –
‘Twill but drive me to Thy breast.
Life with trials hard may press me;
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
Oh, ‘tis not in grief to harm me, while
Thy love is left to me;
Oh, ‘twere not in joy to charm me, were
that joy unmixed with Thee.
Go then, earthly fame and treasure!
Come, disaster, scorn, and pain!
In Thy service pain is pleasure; with
Thy favor loss is gain.
I have called Thee, Abba, Father, I
have stayed my heart on Thee;
Storms may howl and clouds may gather;
all must work for good to me.
Haste then on from grace to glory,
armed by faith and winged by prayer;
God's eternal day's before thee, God's
own hand shall guide thee there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission,
swift shall pass thy pilgrim days,
Hope shall change to glad fruition,
faith to sight, and prayer to praise.
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