A Change

I pray that this blog entry will not leave you discouraged, but inspired to seek God's Word and be challenged to reflect internally on your heart and upward to Christ....

We are a sinful people. Left to our own devices, we would choose this world and the things of this world at every opportunity available. We entered this world a sinner not desiring God or anything that is a part of Him. Our flesh desires the things that we see and is captured and entranced by what the world offers as seen through television commercials and shows. We are motivated by money, entranced by surface level beauty, and our pride is fed in the downfall of others. We are enslaved to our desires and are driven to think and act, motivated by our fleshly desires. We desire to be seen and be known for something. Something that in our minds, people care about. And so, we'll do just about anything to fit in, to feel loved, to feel accepted by this sinful world and the people in it.  

 

As we desire the worlds acceptance, we get caught up in pleasing man. The problem is, man is never pleased. He always desires more and as his desires change, we never have peace within because we are seeking to appease man and our own flesh.  If we die in this state of sinfulness, appeasing our flesh and being absorbed with this world, we will spend an eternity separated from God. 

God on the other hand is perfect, holy, just, fair, loving, kind, and forgiving. He keeps no records of our wrongs and desires that we look beyond this world and its desires and see Him dying on a cross to relinquish us from the world's chains that bind us. We are blinded to our own sinfulness. We think that we are good enough to make it into Heaven because we think our sins are not "as bad" as the next guy. We may not physically steal or harm someone, but if we but ponder these sinful actions internally in our minds, God considers us guilty as though we committed them externally. Sin is such and awful disease, but we have a cure in Christ. 

Before the foundation of this world God the Father, chose a people that would constitute a bride for His Son, Jesus Christ. This bride is made up of those that believe in Jesus Christ. As Christ took the penalty that we deserve by dying on the Cross, He served as a substitute atoning for the death that we deserve. God desires that we repent, turn from our sinful way of living that focuses on self, and believe on the Lord Jesus. Many Churches today are not teaching this message illustrating the sinfulness of man and the holiness of a just God. What's unsettling is that people are perishing from the pews. A watered down gospel is being taught that leaves people thinking they are "better than" the person sitting next to them.
 

You say, 

All this isn't truth. This isn't the gospel message. It doesn't make me feel good about myself. There are multiple ways to get to Heaven and if I just do good things God will accept me in the end.

 

The truth is, what matters is the internal desires of your heart. We can't serve both God and man. Either you hate the things of this world or you're a friend of it. This is my story. It's my testimony in a  lot of ways. I was deceived thinking that my external "good" actions justified me enough to go to Heaven. I didn't know what repentance and sanctification was. God renewed my thinking through sound Biblical teaching and I'm being sanctified one day at a time by His Word. I wrestle with His Word daily and it changes me. Its not an external change. I've been there and done that. It's a redeeming change. One that sticks even when difficult circumstances are at my front door. Though my flesh may want to retreat to the comforts of the world which it knew before, God's Holy Spirit beckons me to my knees and I call out, "Abba, Father, please help me. For I am weak, but though art strong. Change Me. "