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I’m sharing this here with you from my time of personal devotions with my Lord Jesus Christ, for your encouragement. Sue Love
Isaiah 29:13-16 ESV
Our Present Situation
In America, and perhaps in other nations, as well, this describes the majority of those who call themselves Christians and who profess to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. For most of them are believing in a half-truth gospel which does not put sin to death in the sinner, but it coddles them in their sins so as to not offend them with the truth of the gospel. And it makes no requirements for biblical repentance nor for obedience to Jesus Christ.
And since many (or most) of them are using Romans 10:9 out of context as their gospel of salvation and their invitation to believe in Jesus, many people are declaring with their lips that Jesus is Lord, and they are making verbal acknowledgments of belief that God raised Jesus from the dead, and so they presume that is all that is required, that they are now saved for eternity, and that heaven is their eternal destiny, regardless of how they live their lives.
But even many who know better, who have been taught the truth, and even many who have taught the truth themselves are not living the faith they profess, but they are also buying into the lies that excuse away their sinful practices and which give them carte blanche now to continue in deliberate and habitual sin without conscience, without remorse, and without compassion for the people they hurt when they sin against them.
And so they end up living double lives, professing one thing outwardly but then living another, with many of them engaged in habitual and secretive and deliberate sin against God and against other humans. So they may give an outward impression that they are living for the Lord, and that they love God, and that they are worshipers of Jesus Christ, but it is in pretense only, based in lies and not in truth. It is lip service only with hearts far from God.
For their professions of faith are in the flesh and not in the Spirit, for they are not walking by the Spirit but they are still walking according to the flesh. For those who still live according to the flesh live to gratify the sinful cravings of the flesh. And this is what they keep going back to cyclically and deliberately. For their faith in Jesus is not genuine God-given faith but it is a cheap copy of the real thing which barely resembles the real thing.
And so these are people who give lip service to God while their hearts are far from God, for their hearts are being given over to the desires of their sinful flesh, instead. And instead of following the teachings of Christ and of the New Testament apostles (in their fulness, in context), they are following the teachings of men, much of which come from Scriptures taught out of context and made to say what they do not say in context.
And although I am not looking forward to these liars and deceivers coming under the judgment of God, for I pray for their salvation, I do look forward to the day with great expectation when the lies will cease and the truth will be exposed and all these liars and deceivers’ fleshly wisdom will perish. For all these lies are leading people in the wrong direction, away from pure devotion to Jesus Christ to walks in the flesh and not in the Spirit.
Isaiah 29:15-16 ESV
Deeds Done in the Dark
Wow! This so much describes so many professing Christians today, for so many of them are caught up in habitual and addictive and deliberate sin against the Lord, in particular in the area of sexual immorality. And since they don’t want others to know what they are doing in secret, they will often cover up the truth with lies. For they have this false idea that if no one sees what they are doing then it will be just like they didn’t do it at all.
These people are fleshly, idolatrous, irresponsible, self-indulgent, foolish, full of lust, selfish, dishonest, corrupt, immoral, destroyed, ruined, wrecked, and damaged goods. Their professions of faith in Jesus Christ are therefore a sham. For although they give the appearance of being honest, genuine, faithful, upright, spiritually whole (healthy) and morally pure, they are liars, adulterers, the sexually immoral, and the spiritually dead.
For they turn the gospel upside down. Good now is spoken of as evil and evil is now spoken of as good. The adulterer and the abuser are now being defended while the godly and the faithful are being accused falsely and not protected. If you teach the truth of the gospel you are now considered hyper-religious or judgmental or legalistic or unloving. But if you are walking in deliberate sin and you are being abusive, you are being consoled.
But here is the truth of the matter. Jesus died on that cross, not just to forgive us our sins, and not just to give us the hope of heaven when we die. He died to deliver us from our slavery (addiction) to sin so we would now be slaves of God and of his righteousness. He died that we might die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness and that we would no longer live for ourselves but we would now honor him with our lives.
So, if our faith in Jesus Christ is genuine God-ordained faith, then we will surrender our lives to Jesus Christ, we will submit to him as Lord of our lives, we will die with him to sin, not just once but daily, and we will walk in holiness and in righteousness in obedience to his commands (New Covenant), by the grace of God, in His power and strength, and for the glory and praise of God and not for our own glory.
But if you refuse to accept our Lord for who he is, and his gospel for what it is, and if you refuse to let him be the Potter, and you be the clay for him to mold according to his will, but you try to turn it the other way around, then that salvation and eternal life you think you have is not yours to have. You will die in your sins. You will not inherit eternal life with God because you chose to live a lie and not the truth and you would not obey Jesus.
[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]
Broken Cord
An Original Work / August 29, 2018
Your bond is broken
With your Lord and Savior
And your testimony is
Separate from Him.
Your words not matching
Your actions today.
Repent of your sin and
Bow down and pray.
Live what you testify
In truth always.
Purity’s lacking in
Your life and witness,
For you profess one thing,
But other you do.
Not moral, spiritual.
Still of the flesh.
Not living in truth to
What you confess.
Lying about it
Puts you in a mess.
Living a lie is your practice,
‘tis true of you.
Masquerade righteousness –
None of it true.
Your heart is not given
To your Lord God.
Because of how you live,
You are a fraud.
Turn from your sin and
Give your life to God.
Isaiah 29:13-16 ESV
And the Lord said:
“Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
therefore, behold, I will again
do wonderful things with this people,
with wonder upon wonder;
and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
“Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
therefore, behold, I will again
do wonderful things with this people,
with wonder upon wonder;
and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
Our Present Situation
In America, and perhaps in other nations, as well, this describes the majority of those who call themselves Christians and who profess to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. For most of them are believing in a half-truth gospel which does not put sin to death in the sinner, but it coddles them in their sins so as to not offend them with the truth of the gospel. And it makes no requirements for biblical repentance nor for obedience to Jesus Christ.
And since many (or most) of them are using Romans 10:9 out of context as their gospel of salvation and their invitation to believe in Jesus, many people are declaring with their lips that Jesus is Lord, and they are making verbal acknowledgments of belief that God raised Jesus from the dead, and so they presume that is all that is required, that they are now saved for eternity, and that heaven is their eternal destiny, regardless of how they live their lives.
But even many who know better, who have been taught the truth, and even many who have taught the truth themselves are not living the faith they profess, but they are also buying into the lies that excuse away their sinful practices and which give them carte blanche now to continue in deliberate and habitual sin without conscience, without remorse, and without compassion for the people they hurt when they sin against them.
And so they end up living double lives, professing one thing outwardly but then living another, with many of them engaged in habitual and secretive and deliberate sin against God and against other humans. So they may give an outward impression that they are living for the Lord, and that they love God, and that they are worshipers of Jesus Christ, but it is in pretense only, based in lies and not in truth. It is lip service only with hearts far from God.
For their professions of faith are in the flesh and not in the Spirit, for they are not walking by the Spirit but they are still walking according to the flesh. For those who still live according to the flesh live to gratify the sinful cravings of the flesh. And this is what they keep going back to cyclically and deliberately. For their faith in Jesus is not genuine God-given faith but it is a cheap copy of the real thing which barely resembles the real thing.
And so these are people who give lip service to God while their hearts are far from God, for their hearts are being given over to the desires of their sinful flesh, instead. And instead of following the teachings of Christ and of the New Testament apostles (in their fulness, in context), they are following the teachings of men, much of which come from Scriptures taught out of context and made to say what they do not say in context.
And although I am not looking forward to these liars and deceivers coming under the judgment of God, for I pray for their salvation, I do look forward to the day with great expectation when the lies will cease and the truth will be exposed and all these liars and deceivers’ fleshly wisdom will perish. For all these lies are leading people in the wrong direction, away from pure devotion to Jesus Christ to walks in the flesh and not in the Spirit.
Isaiah 29:15-16 ESV
“Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel,
whose deeds are in the dark,
and who say, ‘Who sees us? Who knows us?’
You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
‘He did not make me’;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
‘He has no understanding’”?
whose deeds are in the dark,
and who say, ‘Who sees us? Who knows us?’
You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
‘He did not make me’;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
‘He has no understanding’”?
Deeds Done in the Dark
Wow! This so much describes so many professing Christians today, for so many of them are caught up in habitual and addictive and deliberate sin against the Lord, in particular in the area of sexual immorality. And since they don’t want others to know what they are doing in secret, they will often cover up the truth with lies. For they have this false idea that if no one sees what they are doing then it will be just like they didn’t do it at all.
These people are fleshly, idolatrous, irresponsible, self-indulgent, foolish, full of lust, selfish, dishonest, corrupt, immoral, destroyed, ruined, wrecked, and damaged goods. Their professions of faith in Jesus Christ are therefore a sham. For although they give the appearance of being honest, genuine, faithful, upright, spiritually whole (healthy) and morally pure, they are liars, adulterers, the sexually immoral, and the spiritually dead.
For they turn the gospel upside down. Good now is spoken of as evil and evil is now spoken of as good. The adulterer and the abuser are now being defended while the godly and the faithful are being accused falsely and not protected. If you teach the truth of the gospel you are now considered hyper-religious or judgmental or legalistic or unloving. But if you are walking in deliberate sin and you are being abusive, you are being consoled.
But here is the truth of the matter. Jesus died on that cross, not just to forgive us our sins, and not just to give us the hope of heaven when we die. He died to deliver us from our slavery (addiction) to sin so we would now be slaves of God and of his righteousness. He died that we might die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness and that we would no longer live for ourselves but we would now honor him with our lives.
So, if our faith in Jesus Christ is genuine God-ordained faith, then we will surrender our lives to Jesus Christ, we will submit to him as Lord of our lives, we will die with him to sin, not just once but daily, and we will walk in holiness and in righteousness in obedience to his commands (New Covenant), by the grace of God, in His power and strength, and for the glory and praise of God and not for our own glory.
But if you refuse to accept our Lord for who he is, and his gospel for what it is, and if you refuse to let him be the Potter, and you be the clay for him to mold according to his will, but you try to turn it the other way around, then that salvation and eternal life you think you have is not yours to have. You will die in your sins. You will not inherit eternal life with God because you chose to live a lie and not the truth and you would not obey Jesus.
[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]
Broken Cord
An Original Work / August 29, 2018
Your bond is broken
With your Lord and Savior
And your testimony is
Separate from Him.
Your words not matching
Your actions today.
Repent of your sin and
Bow down and pray.
Live what you testify
In truth always.
Purity’s lacking in
Your life and witness,
For you profess one thing,
But other you do.
Not moral, spiritual.
Still of the flesh.
Not living in truth to
What you confess.
Lying about it
Puts you in a mess.
Living a lie is your practice,
‘tis true of you.
Masquerade righteousness –
None of it true.
Your heart is not given
To your Lord God.
Because of how you live,
You are a fraud.
Turn from your sin and
Give your life to God.
