Tag Archives: holiness

Are Our Politics Spotting Us With The World?

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Are Our Politics Spotting Us With The World?

How does today’s message of the Church or the conversations of Christians differ at all with the preoccupations of the world; the desire to obtain and maintain power, to amass and defend their possessions, or to protect their place and nation?

What does any of this have to do with following Jesus? What does any of this have to do with what He came to do: to redeem creation, to save us from separation with God, to bring us who were far off near to the Father, to love such that God would be known and glorified?

How do we not see what is so plain?

Are we not spotted with the world?

Repent! And, let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness”
— Matthew 6:31-33

“Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this:

to visit orphans and widows in their trouble,

and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”
— James 1:27

“No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”
— 2 Timothy 2:4

“[those] who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.”
— 1 Timothy 6:5

“For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?”
— 1 Peter 4:17

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.

Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.

Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent.

Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.

You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.

He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
— Revelation 3:1-6

Strange Fire

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Strange Fire

Strange Fire

Notes from my time in the Word this morning.

“Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.

So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.

And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke, saying:

‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy;

And before all the people I must be glorified.’”

So Aaron held his peace.

So they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said.”
-Leviticus 10:1-3,5

God does not want my thoughts, He wants His.

God does not want my love, He wants His.

God does not want my service, He wants His.

The only proper way to serve God is with what God supplies.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
-Isaiah 55:8-9

“As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.

If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.””
-1 Peter 4:10-11

To bring “strange fire”; our ideas, agendas and methods to the service of God defiles and makes little of Him, but most egregiously it defies the purposes of God, causing death, leading people astray, cutting them off from the Fountainhead of all meaning, creation and life.

Bringing strange fire is a crime that is killing people for which God will kill us with eternal death if we do not repent.

“If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”
-1 Corinthians 3:17

So, in the spirit of Jude 1:22-23, I plead for your sake: please do not mishandle the things of God or approach them trivially, appropriating His things for your purposes, or doing your thing in His name. It is sin –a deadly sin.

God is gracious, but He’s also severe. A good way to draw His wrath is to hinder others from coming to Him.

There’s a lot of this going on in Christendom today, especially to support our proclivities and our politics.

Repent!

All strange fire; ideas, identities, values, religions, systems and methods other than God’s, will be destroyed.

The only thing that can stand before God is God.

Which is why Christ is such good news.

Jesus Christ is God and is the only one in whom we can find shelter from the consuming fire of the wrath of God.

Therefore above all, be diligent to be found in Christ: die to self –forsake what you’re doing (put away the strange fire) and live to Christ –putting your complete faith in what Christ has done.

Only Christ is acceptable before God, so we must utterly depend on the grace He supplies to make your heart His heart, to say just what He says, to walk the way He walked by the same power that was at work in Him which is the Holy Spirit.

The only thing that can stand before God is God.

So let all we do be done with what God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Nothing else is acceptable before God.

All strange fire will be destroyed.

“And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.”
-Jude 1:22-23