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Editorial . . . "Is it me or what?" For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? 1 Peter 4:17-18 There are so many people doing so many things in the name of Jesus, and some reasonable facimiles of, but we are not doing what the WORD of God requires of us. The WORD says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments", it further says, "thy commandments are not grievous". What are these commandments? Jesus says, they are to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself!" That's it. Sounds simple enough, but lately it seems that God's people have been somewhat preoccupied with other things. We're concerned with our Christian radio, TV, etc. program. Are we selling enough propaganda to stay on the air. We ask for donations to pay for our air time, and instead of filling it with the WORD of God, we fill it with advertisments to pay for the air time to broadcast advertisments, to pay for more air time - Go figure? Where's God in all of this. If I'm looking for Him on the TV, I'm certainly not going to find Him. In the last seven years, God has been dealing with me in the area of love. Loving Him, and loving my neighbor, and forsaking everything else. We read John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." However, we have no idea what that word "love" really entails. Furthermore, we have become so smug in our religion, so sanctimonious in our purveyance of the Gospel to those whom we deem worthy enough to hear it from us, so caught up with the commercialism that has engulfed Christianity in the last 50 years that we think we're doing okay. We're not. Peter is warning us that God's judgment is going to begin with us; and that we are going to fall severly short, and that if we are going to fall sevely short, what chance at all do the sinners and the unrighteous have? NONE! Why, because we're not on our jobs, that's why. Don't you know that their blood will be on your hands. All those people you were too busy to talk to, pray for, sing for, read the WORD to, talk about Jesus to, minister to . . . the blood of all those people you neglected to "love " in the name of Jesus will be required of you. When God began to minister to me about the word "love", He first took me to John 3:16. Then He required that I look up every time the word "love" was used in the New Testement. 176 times - 11 different words for "love." The first thing I discovered was that the word "love" according to God required two words not just one. In the Strong's Concordance, you will find that the word "love" as used in John 3:16 is actually two words. Word number 25, and word number 5368. Furthermore, after exploring every usage in the New Testement, I realized that God's love was either used as a noun, (word number 26) or a verb (word number 25), and that these two words were the only words used to describe the way God loves us, the way He desires us to love Him, and the love between a man and his wife. All of the other words used for "love" were different. Out of eleven different words used for "love" in the New Testement ony the three I've mentioned are used in relation to God and us. This intense lesson in the WORD caused me to go back and re-evaluate my realtionship with God and His people. Was I loving God the way He needed to be Loved? No I wasn't. Was I loving His people the way He need for me to love them? Probably not. Was my love a tangible noun, or an active verb? The Bible is very clear about letting us know that without "Love", it really doesn't matter what we do. We can preach till the dead jump up out the grave and do the Holy Ghost dance, we can sing like we imagine the angels in heaven sing, we can pray until we are consumed in the flames of spontaneous combustion, we can produce miracles, lay hands on, speak in tongues, interpret tongues, discern spirits, speak a word of wisdom, or a word or knowledge, BUT, without "charity . . ." The Bible requires us to share the Gospel or "Good News". The world is already "enmity" with God, so giving it a good effective dose of the Gospel requires a reasonable measure of love to go with it, or God's Good News is not going to be effectively received, and it ain't cause the news isn't good - it's because you're delivery was not done in "love". The other day I was sitting outside in front of our office on the smoker's bench. Whether you smoke or not, if you go outside, and want to sit down, you'll have to sit there. On this particular day, I'd gone outside to warm up from the intense air conditioning in our building, and to call my friend Norma on the phone. God blessed me with Norma as one half of an anointed pair of prayer partners. While I was talking, a lady came over to me to hand me a Bible tract. If I could have verbalized her thoughts, the scene would have played out something like this: "Hello you piece of trash sitting here on the smoker's bench." "You look like a low-life to me, so try not to touch me when I hand you this tract. Personally I think it's a waste of good paper . . . oh yeah, Jesus loves you." Woooooooow - that was deep. My friend and I laughed about it, but the truth was, that that was really not a nice experience, and I certainly wasn't feeling the love of Jesus. Was I that insincere? Did I make people feel like garbage when I presented Jesus to them. Christianity has become commercialized even by the Christians. What are we doing? we've forgotten God, and are simply practicing our version of godliness.If you watch us on TV, and listen to us on the radio, or buy the CD's and the DVD's you will see that we are not different than the world. We exploit God, make up all kinds of cockamaimy revelations heretofore unheard of by anyone else but us. We ask and cry for donations, but are reticent to give our money to anyone else's ministry. "You mean there's someone else out there besides me?!" We are more concerned with our popularity ratings than with how many people we tell about Jesus. We are more concerned with the quality of people we tell about Jesus-after all, converting a celebrity is way cooler that the conversion of some nobody that you may never see again. We worry about what order we appear on the program, and if someone that can preach better than us, or sing better than us, or who looks better than us, is going to go on before us. The one that was genuinely better than us, has indeed gone un before us, and will come again for us as He promised (John 14), but,will we be able to go when He comes? The time truly is coming when the judgment of God will begin at the house of God, and who of us will be able to stand? And those of us who will be saved, if we are just "scarcely saved", what really is the end for the sinners? We cannot turn away from our responsibilty as Christians. We have a debt to the Master that we really cannot ever pay. He doesn't require us to pay it, but He requires us to tell others what He's done for us, and what He can do for them. That's all, and to do it with love. I know what kind of sinner I was, and I know where God brought me from. I know what He's done for me, and I know that several lifetimes wouldn't allow for me to even begin to attempt to repay Him. . . So, if all He want's from me is to love my neighbor and to share the Gospel with them, I count it a pleasure, and a very small price to pay. I already must stand before the judgment seat of God to account for the things I've done in my body, and my idle words. I have no desire to add to that the blood of those that are on my hands because I shared not the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them. Judge yourself this day, that ye be not judged later by the Great Judge. All things that you do, ask God that you might do them in "love", (words number 25, 26, and 5368). I don't know if it's me or what, but I want to run this race to the end, and finish my course. I want to hear the words, "well done my good and faithful servant", and mostly I want to know that when I get there before the throne of God, I will be allowed entrance into that place where the Son shall be the light, and there shall be no more tears, sorrow, or death, and as the old folks used to say, "where every day will be Sunday, and we'll say Howdy, Howdy, and never good-bye". |
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Great Cloud of Witnesses