Be a Real Christian!
I awoke early before dawn today with the reality of time and eternity weighing heavily upon my mind. It seems this world of ours is more like a churning, boiling, troubled sea than anything else right now. It reminds me of an unstable, double-minded, wavering individual like the Apostle James described in James 1:6,”…For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven of the wind and tossed.”
Even among many Christians, there is an unhealthy and eroding love of this present world and the things they delight in instead of a life of commitment and unwavering devotion to Christ. So many give Christ mere perfunctory attention on a Sunday, feeling they have performed their only necessary duty, and live the rest of their week absorbed in their own selfish earthly life, ignoring their life in God’s word and beautiful responsibility to be a witness in word and deed, while willingly wed in bondage to their cell phones, computers, entertainment, sports, and hobbies. And all the while, the churning of the world like a hurricane tossed sea is getting worse, not by the day, but by the hour.
And now, as a forgiven, totally God-dependent, broken in prayer, unworthy servant of the Lord, I must warn you of what may be the most unpopular Biblical truth of the Twenty-first Century, and that is,…. Judgement like a roaring sea is bearing down on this world.
It is not the message that makes a generation raised on
“feel good,” “sing the chorus 50 times”, “name and claim it,” “the Bible’s metaphorical,” theology rise up and shout, but it should drive us to serious introspection and soul-searching repentance.
I was shaken by my reading of Daniel Chapter 12 this morning especially verses 8-10 from the
New Living Translation, and while the KJV is equaling sobering, let’s for the moment look at the NLT.
“I heard what he said, but I did not not understand what he meant. So I asked,
“How will all of this finally end, my Lord?”
But he said, “Go now Daniel, for what I have said is sealed and kept secret until the time of the end. Many will be purified, cleansed, and refined by these trials. But the wicked will continue in their wickedness, and none of them will understand. Only those who are wise will know what it means.” Daniel 12: 8-10 NLT
If you think things are getting skewed, unscrewed, lewd, rude, and the world with the devil doth collude, you haven’t seen anything yet. The spirit of anti-Christ is rising in a tsunami of evil, and much of the leadership, media, and centers of power and learning in the United States are riding the crest of the wave.
But…..there is one more thing.
We, as God’s people, must be….God’s people. Read your Bible and pray for wisdom to understand it.
Seek God every single day. Look for open doors to witness ( God gave me just such a door at a business this past week, and it became a place where I prayed with them while tears flowed.).
Seek the Lord about your family and those you love. Pray for a fresh anointing and God’s protection on your pastor.
I leave you, my dear friends with a verse and chorus of the great
Charles P. Jones Hymn that I heard years ago in my youth….sobering then…more sobering now.
“When judgement day is drawing nigh.
Where shall I be?
When God the works of men shall try,
Where shall I be?
When East and west the fire shall roll,
Where shall I be?
How will it be with my poor soul,
Where shall I be?
Oh, where shall I be when the first trumpet sounds,
Oh, where shall I be when it sounds so loud?
When it sounds so loud as to wake up the dead,
Oh, where shall I be when it sounds?
Dr. David M. Griffis