Friday, November 15,
2013, 5:07 a.m. – The Lord Jesus woke me with the song “He Keeps Me Singing” playing in my mind. Speak, Lord, your words
to my heart. I read 1 Thessalonians 2
(ESV).
Shamefully Treated
For
you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. But
though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you
know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the
midst of much conflict. For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or
any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be
entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God
who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know,
nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people,
whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles
of Christ.
When we commit our lives to Jesus Christ, to follow him
wherever he leads, to share his gospel, and to be his servants and witnesses,
we will meet with much opposition from the enemy. He often uses human beings to
do his dirty work, and many times through lies and deceptions. In other words,
if the enemy can convince people that Christians are somehow evil, or that
scripture is false and misleading, or that “God didn’t really say that, did he?”
or if he can convince them to dilute the gospel to make it more comfortable,
appealing and less threatening, then all of a sudden, those who preach the full
(true) gospel are treated as though they are the enemy, and so they are
persecuted, shunned and cast aside. As well, the enemy loves gossip. He will
use gossip to try to destroy the reputations of Christ’s true servants and
messengers in hope that people will close their ears to them, and it works.
Yet, even though we may be treated with such contempt for
preaching the full gospel message, and even though many throughout the world
are being severely persecuted and even killed for their testimony for Jesus
Christ, we should not let this discourage us. We should persevere in sharing
the truth of the gospel even in the face of strong opposition, because we know
that the gospel of Jesus Christ contains the only life-saving message that is
able to transform human lives from darkness to light and from the power of
Satan to God. We need to throw off Satan’s lies and hold fast to the truth of
God’s word. And, we need to make it our goal to please God, not to please human
beings. If we are trying to please humans, we can’t be true servants of Christ.
We need to give our reputations over to God, and trust him with our lives, and
continue to obey him in spreading the truth of the gospel, even if we are hated
and persecuted and rejected in return. God knows our hearts.
Exhortation and
Encouragement
But
we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own
children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with
you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become
very dear to us. For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked
night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed
to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and
righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. For you know how,
like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you
and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own
kingdom and glory.
People have their own ideas of who we are supposed to be and
what we are supposed to do in this life, and they will often hold us to their
own standards, which are based upon culture, tradition, training, upbringing,
or their own human thinking and reasoning. Yet, as servants of the Lord God, we
answer to a different standard – that set down for us by Jesus Christ and his
word, and that is what we are to follow. This will not usually jive with the
world or even with the worldly church, who will think we are somehow strange.
They may even accuse us falsely of wrong motives because they are judging us by
themselves, which is not wise. It amazes me how many Christians in America will
read the stories of the heroes of the faith in scripture and will think how
wonderful, and yet if one of us exercises similar faith and commitment to Jesus
Christ in today’s culture, those same Christians may think we are peculiar,
maybe even crazy, hyper-religious, addicted to Jesus, egocentric, and the like,
and they may feel as though we are not acting “normal.” Funny, how that works.
Yet, scripture sets a different standard for us, and that is
the one we are to follow. The idea of us being like a nursing mother caring for
her children, or like that of a father, exhorting and encouraging one another
to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord is exactly how we should be with one
another. So many people are so concerned with everyone liking them that they
are afraid to love their fellow humans or their brothers and sisters in Christ
with such love as that of a parent caring for his or her children, which puts
their true needs above us and our own reputations. We get this idea that we are
just supposed to hang out and have fun, make jokes, play games, and go away
happy all the time, but if we did that with our real children all the time, they
would end up spoiled rotten, with no respect or honor of authority, with no
sense of values, and with no sense of right and wrong or of what is pleasing or
displeasing to God. Balance is very important. And, we are taught the correct
balance in scripture. We need to love others as our Father God loves us in
every way.
They Drove us Out
And
we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God,
which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it
really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. For you,
brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in
Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did
from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us
out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to
the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of
their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!
When we make a commitment with our lives to live for Jesus
Christ and to allow him to live his life out through us, we can expect to be
treated just like he was. He said so. And, we may even suffer such rejection
and/or abuse from those within our own families, our own communities, our own
countries, or even from those within the family of God. And, we may even be
driven out of the church (or our homes, jobs, countries, et al) because we hold
to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and so we serve as a threat to
them, and they want to keep us from speaking the true gospel of salvation. As
well, we may be forced to go out into the highways and byways of life because
even the church has rejected us. Or, we may be forced into hiding because of
such severe persecution from our fellow countrymen, or even from foreign
entities coming into our countries. Yet, it is all worth it to see people come
to faith in Jesus Christ and to see them commit their lives to follow him, even
if it means persecution and death for the sake of his name. It is awesome to
see people grow in their faith and to love their Lord Jesus and to take him and
his word seriously. Amen!
I know that many of the leaders of my country have been
involved in the persecution and murdering of innocents and of believers in
Jesus Christ throughout the world, because the Lord Jesus has shown me this,
i.e. he spoke these words into my heart. I believe our president, his cabinet
and many leaders in Congress are part of this New World Order which is going
around the globe murdering innocents, raping, looting, destroying, and taking
over the nations and governments of the world in order to bring us underneath
one rule of law, alias the Beast of Revelation. I believe they are giving the
world the message, “Bow to the New World Order or pay the consequences,” and
this includes Christ’s true servants and witnesses being told that they must
stop proselytizing their faith in Jesus Christ or else they will be killed. I
believe this “Global Climate Change” conference is really about the political
climate change of the N.W.O. sweeping across the globe, and that the nations of
the world are being threatened into compliance. I have seen this over and over
again. Yet, God will judge them for their sins. He will visit them in wrath,
and I believe that is not far from us.
In summary, there are many lies being told by our government
leaders, by our church leaders, and by those who live among us, and for many of
them it is for the sole purpose to deceive us into believing things to be true
which are not true at all, oftentimes to cover up for what they are really
doing, i.e. to cover up greed, murder, et al. If we are preaching the true
gospel of salvation, we may serve as a direct threat to them, because many are
truly followers of Satan, and not of God, by the things they do, believe, and
purpose to deceive. So, we need to pray, and we need to inquire of our God, and
we need to ask him to reveal to us what lies we are believing. We should ask
him to show us what is true so that we are not listening to lies and therefore
blocking our ears from hearing the true gospel. Time is running out. We don’t
have time to just keep playing games and thinking life is to be about
entertaining ourselves and us indulging in self-pleasure. We need to commit our
lives to Jesus Christ to do his will, and to allow him to live his life in and
out through us. Amen!
He Keeps Me Singing / Luther B. Bridgers
There's within my heart a melody
Jesus whispers sweet and low:
Fear not, I am with thee, peace, be
still,
In all of life's ebb and flow.
All my life was wrecked by sin and
strife,
Discord filled my heart with pain;
Jesus swept across the broken strings,
Stirred the slumbering chords again.
Though sometimes he leads through
waters deep,
Trials fall across the way,
Though sometimes the path seems rough
and steep,
See his footprints all the way.
Soon he's coming back to welcome me
Far beyond the starry sky;
I shall wing my flight to worlds
unknown;
I shall reign with him on high.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,
Sweetest name I know,
Fills my every longing,
Keeps me singing as I go.
