It has been over two months since I have written anything. My plans are to eventually stop altogether (which we will all do eventually anyway), but once these thoughts come, I have to get them out someway, so I will just do it here.
We are in the season of thanks (or should be). It is after Halloween and a little more than a month until Christmas – time is getting faster and faster (no matter what anyone says to the contrary). I am thinking though – just how thankful are we? We are in America, the most prosperous people as a whole, but yet are we satisfied? This goes doubly for the church – a group of people that should be the most thankful of all – but are we?
We, as Americans, have apparently achieved Nirvana. We have become our own gods. We now are able to supersede over absolutely positive things that our maker gave us and are now able to become a woman if we are a man, or a man if we are a woman. We can be both. We can make up our own gender if we would like. We can be whatever we want to be and do whatever we want to do – any time, any place. We are gods.
Since we have declared ourselves gods, what is the problem? By becoming our own gods and changing the very basics of human existence to whatever we want the rules to be, we are calling God a liar.
If you call your employer a liar, would you not get into big trouble. So, if you call God a liar, shouldn’t you expect trouble is on the way?
The very basics of life is this: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” –
Genesis 1:27.
When all of this type of thinking gets into the world, it eventually gets into the church – unless you can be very careful, and even if you are the culture of society changes and when it does those changes start creeping into the church. This is nothing new. Christ knew these things would happen, He knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen – and he knew this kind of thinking would creep into the church.
I will tell you something that you might not want to believe, but Christ talked about it with his disciples in the first century, and that has been handed down to us – the disciples of the twenty-first century. He talked about it with his disciples in a parable. He did this because only his disciples can see what he is saying because we are seeing it with the help of the Holy Spirit. Look at Matthew 13:33 –
“Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, til the whole was leavened.”
Have you ever seen an experiment where someone puts a rotten apple in with a bag or barrel of good apples? Unless you get rid of that rotten apple quickly, all the other apples start taking on the traits of the rotten apple! Jesus was describing what would happen to the church – something evil came along and was secretly mixed in with the good (in secret – no one realized it was happening) – eventually turning the church into an image of the world.
You don’t believe me do you? Take a look at the overall “church” of today. There are those that still try to listen to the teachings of Christ, who still believe that Christ is the way, the truth and the light. That no one can get to the Father without Christ’s help.
Even those churches that are staying by the stuff are plagued with the culture of today permeating into thoughts and hearts of the people inside the churches.
I have said my little piece for today, so what has all of this got to do with Thanksgiving? There are churches throughout the world suffering persecution. People are being martyred. Homes and families are being destroyed and separated all because of faith in Christ.
What are we, the American Christian, doing this Thanksgiving? We are sitting around, watching football, shopping, stuffing ourselves, and all the while we are complaining! The turkey is too dry. There are not enough sides. I don’t like this. I don’t like that. Things are too expensive. Stop it! Just STOP IT! Stop complaining! Stop being like the unsaved world. This is the season to be thankful – and we as Christians should be not only thankful during this season, but in every season. We already know the eventual outcome – we know who wins. Be thankful – stop complaining! The foundation of your home in Heaven is being poured, and you are complaining about dry turkey!?
“…behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates of the city.” Revelation 21:12-14.
AE
Voice of the Introverts 