Being Loving and Compassionate

2 Timothy 3:1-5,12-15 ESV

 

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”

 

“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

 

What this passage of Scripture describes is fully representative of the days in which we are now living inside and outside of the gatherings of what are called “churches.” So many liars and deceivers and manipulators are serving in positions of world leaders, and heads of governments in nations, and as newscasters, and as pastors and elders of church congregations, and as “Christian” song writers and book authors and writers of devotions and writers of social media memes, etc.

 

And the message that most are largely giving out, at least in the Christian culture of today here in America, is that God loves you so much that he died to forgive you of your sins so that you can now be assured of heaven as your eternal destiny but regardless of how you live. For they are giving the impression that you can continue in deliberate and habitual sin and that God’s grace covers it all and so it will not impact your eternal security, regardless of the fact that Jesus and his apostles taught the opposite!

 

But what they are also doing is they are condemning the truth of the gospel and those who still share it by calling it “negative,” and by convincing people that they should only listen to what is “positive” and to what is encouraging to them while they continue living in sin and not in holiness, and not in righteousness, and not in obedience to our Lord. And many people are buying into these lies and so they are rejecting the gospel message, and they are adopting the lies, instead, for the lies are more comforting.

 

Yet, what these lies are also doing is that they are painting those of us who are still teaching the gospel that Jesus and his NT apostles taught as though we are unloving, unkind, hateful, prejudicial, unforgiving, judgmental, self-righteous, bigoted, and/or as people who don’t really care about other people, and as those who are “negative,” for they are training people’s minds to reject the truth as if it is “negative” and to accept only messages which they regard as “positive.” And so the Lord has been having me create memes to contradict their lies with the truth of God’s word.

 

So those of us who are still speaking the truth are being disregarded and rejected and mistreated and persecuted and ignored because the liars and deceivers have convinced the masses to ignore us and to discount us. But we are not to let that discourage us. For all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But we are to continue in the truth of the Scriptures and in holy living in walks of obedience to the Lord, even if we are in the minority and so we must sometimes stand alone.

 

[Matt 5:10-12; Matt 10:16-25; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 6:22-23; Lu 21:12-19; Jn 15:1-21; Jn 16:33; Jn 17:14; Ac 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; Phil 3:7-11; 1 Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 2 Tim 3:12; 1 Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb 12:3-12; 1 Jn 3:13; Rev 6:9-11; Rev 7:9-17; Rev 11:1-3; Rev 12:17; Rev 13:1-18; Rev 14:1-13]

 

Video Talk

https://youtu.be/Zw01VZnNL9w

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Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

 

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897

Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

 

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,

This is my constant longing and prayer;

Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,

Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

 

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,

Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,

Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,

Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

 

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,

Holy and harmless, patient and brave;

Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,

Willing to suffer others to save.

 

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,

Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;

Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,

Fit me for life and Heaven above.

 

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,

Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg

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