Christians, Silence is Not an Option

With the exception of one column previously penned, I pray this becomes my most widely read to date.

The secular left has mastered use of the Internet to further its extremist goals. In fact, President Obama’s web-based “Organizing for America” propaganda machine may have given him the 2008 election.

Let’s beat them at their own game.

To that end, I have a strange request. I’m asking each God-fearing, freedom-loving American who reads this column to forward it, post it, tweet it, print it out and give it to every pastor, priest or cleric you know. If you don’t know any, give it to someone who does.

Why? I agree with Barack Obama that November 2012 represents the most important election of our lifetimes – perhaps our history. Of course, that’s where my agreement with Mr. Obama both begins and abruptly ends.

Here’s the operable question: Do we want America “fundamentally transformed” to mirror the secular-socialist ideals of the radical leftist currently “occupying” the White House?

In Barack Obama’s America, individual freedom is trampled beneath jackboots as a matter of course. It’s already happening at an unprecedented rate.

One need only look to the HHS mandate forcing Christian groups – both Catholic and Protestant – to violate, under penalty of law, biblical prohibitions against abortion homicide.

Or consider recent attempts by multiple elected officials, all Democrats, to shutdown Chick-fil-A – a private, Christian-owned business – simply because its leadership holds the biblical view of marriage.

Is this George Washington’s America, or Joseph Stalin’s Russia?

It’s definitely not your father’s USA.

Instead, wouldn’t we prefer the America envisioned by our Founding Fathers? A constitutional republic wherein individual liberty – whether economic, First Amendment or Second Amendment-related – is sacrosanct and off limits?

Pastors, you’re it. You’re our front line of defense. It’s up to you to rally the troops. Now begins the second American Revolution and, as with the first, it’s on you – men of the cloth – to take the lead.

That is, if you hope to remain free to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Speaking of chicken: In recent years there’s been an epidemic of cultural inaction exhibited by far too many ministers of the gospel. It’s fear-based. “Oh, I don’t talk about political issues,” they say. “You know, ‘separation of Church and State’ and all that.”

Baloney.

If this is you – and only you and our Lord know for sure – you’ve been deceived by the enemies of God. You’ve chosen the easy way out – the path of least resistance. This is something Christ, whom all Christians are called to emulate, never did – not once.

So, respectfully, man-up, Padre! Be the “salt and light of the world,” as Christ so admonished.

But you don’t have to go it alone. There are detailed, easily digestible tools available. Civil-rights firm Liberty Counsel, for instance, is distributing more than 100,000 copies of “Silence is Not an Option,” a concise, though comprehensive, DVD and printed material collection informing pastors and churches about what is permissible regarding political activity (Please, get it for your church at LC.org or by calling 1-800-671-1776).

“The church must be empowered to confront the assaults on our culture, our faith, and our freedom,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. ”I don’t want any pastor, church leader or lay person to say, ‘What more could I have done to protect life and liberty?’”

“Silencing people of faith in the public square has always been the goal of those who realize the influence that pastors, churches and people of faith have on elections. I want pastors to remove the muzzle and replace it with a megaphone,” he said. “Pastors and churches have a lot of freedom to address biblical and moral issues, to educate people about the candidates, and to encourage people to vote. Not one church has ever lost its tax-exemption for endorsing or opposing candidates or for supporting or opposing local, state or federal laws.”

Did you get that? Despite hundreds of thousands of threatening letters sent by hard-left groups like the ACLU and Barry Lynn’s Americans United, not a single church has lost tax-exemption for socio-political activity – zip, zero, nada. Not even for endorsing candidates from the pulpit.

Indeed, if these anti-Christian bullies had been around two-and-a-half centuries ago, and our forefathers had paid them any mind, we may never have had the first American Revolution.

Don’t let them halt the second.

We’re on the precipice of the abyss, and, pastors, I think you know it. But know this too: There’s a whole lot relating to both culture and politics you can both say and do, and very little – if anything – you can’t.

Churches can educate about political, moral and biblical issues. These kinds of issues – whether abortion, marriage, feeding the poor or any community issue – are never off limits from the pastor’s pulpit, even if politicians are also talking about them. “Silence is Not an Option” systematically addresses the misrepresentations used to muzzle America’s pastors and Christian leaders.

Leading up to Ronald Reagan’s landslide presidential victory in 1980, Rev. Jerry Falwell captured the crux of the church’s apathy problem: “What is wrong in America today?” he asked. “We preachers – and there are 340,000 of us who pastor churches – we hold the nation in our hand. And I say this to every preacher: We are going to stand accountable before God if we do not stand up and be counted.”

Dr. Falwell’s words ring no less true today.

Imagine the benefit to our culture if thousands of churches across America registered millions of Christians to vote. How about pledge-drives wherein pastors ask tens-of-millions of Christians to simply commit to voting biblical values?

The possibilities are limitless.

Proverbs 4:18 reminds us: “The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.”

Shine bright, salt and light. Don’t be choked into dark silence.

Because silence is not an option.

It can’t be.

Matt Barber

Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He is Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action and serves as Associate Dean and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at Liberty University School of law. In addition to his law degree, Matt holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University.

http://townhall.com/columnists/mattbarber/2012/08/13/christians_silence_is_not_an_option/page/full/

Every Day- Closer to Home

Every Day- Closer to Home.

Don’t Eat That Stuff!

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

Recently, when my wife Martie and I wanted to meet our sons and their families for a quick bite to eat, we decided that, with everyone’s busy schedules, it would be easiest to meet at a nearby fast-food joint. When I called my son Joe to suggest the plan, his response was, “Well, I can meet you there, but I can’t eat that stuff. I’m training for a marathon.”

Joe’s comment lodged in my brain, particularly because at the time I happened to be preparing a sermon regarding spiritual food, and his offhand remark illustrated a great spiritual principle. Let me explain.

Joe had a goal in mind—the successful completion of the marathon. He knew that reaching the goal was going to require months of disciplined choices, like waking up early to run longer and longer distances. And it meant that he would need to carefully guard and consider everything that he took into his body. Each meal—in fact, each snack—became an opportunity to choose to nourish and energize his body toward a successful marathon run.

Spiritually speaking, we have a goal in mind. Paul expresses it clearly in 1 Corinthians 9:27 when, using an illustration of running a race he states, “I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” In Philippians 3:10-11, he clarifies that the prize at the end of the race is the goal of knowing Christ “and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

I don’t know about you, but that’s a goal I want to strive toward. I can’t imagine any other objective more rewarding than finishing well and living for intimacy with and empowerment by the indwelling Jesus. But the reality is that many of us are not very committed to the training process that gets us to the goal.

A key part of the training is learning how to guard what we “eat” spiritually. Just as those training for a marathon need to guard and carefully consider all that they take in, those of us in training toward the goal of knowing Christ more fully need to guard and consider all that we take in. Paul gives us a phenomenal nutritional guide in Philippians 4:8, using words like true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy to describe the spiritual health food for followers of Jesus.

Which should lead all of us to evaluate what we’ve been feeding our hearts and our minds. How well does our TV viewing fit the criteria of true, noble, or right? What about the conversations we have at work? Do they fall in the categories of pure or lovely? Is there anything admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy about the movies we watch or the music we listen to?

Imagine how nutritionally strong we would be—when faced with a situation that we know would hinder our goal of finishing our race well and knowing Jesus more intimately—if we were to say, “I can’t. I’m in training.” That kind of spiritual dieting and discipline would groom our lives to run our race far more successfully.

We could all stand to take a lesson from Joe—no junk food! As they say, “You are what you eat!”

YOUR JOURNEY…

• What does your spiritual diet consist of?
• How would you rate the moral “nutrition” of your entertainment choices?
• What do you consider to be your ultimate goal in life as a follower of Jesus? How do the choices you make today impact the outcome of that goal?
• Read through Psalm 119:9-16 as an example of how nutritious, good, and right God’s Word is!

http://getmorestrength.org/daily/dont-eat-that-stuff/

“Do Not Quench the Spirit”

Do not quench the Spirit —1 Thessalonians 5:19

The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze— so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.

Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, “Once, a number of years ago, I was saved.” If you have put your “hand to the plow” and are walking in the light, there is no “looking back”— the past is instilled into the present wonder of fellowship and oneness with God (Luke 9:62 ; also see 1 John 1:6-7). If you get out of the light, you become a sentimental Christian, and live only on your memories, and your testimony will have a hard metallic ring to it. Beware of trying to cover up your present refusal to “walk in the light” by recalling your past experiences when you did “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). When-ever the Spirit gives you that sense of restraint, call a halt and make things right, or else you will go on quenching and grieving Him without even knowing it.

Suppose God brings you to a crisis and you almost endure it, but not completely. He will engineer the crisis again, but this time some of the intensity will be lost. You will have less discernment and more humiliation at having disobeyed. If you continue to grieve His Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, because you have totally quenched Him. But if you will go on through the crisis, your life will become a hymn of praise to God. Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be.

http://utmost.org/do-not-quench-the-spirit/

Eat, Love, Pray

“You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed.” — Joel 2:26

The prophet Joel says:  “You will have plenty to eat, until you are full and you will praise the name of the Lord your God . . .” This is a direct paraphrase of Deuteronomy 8:10, which states:  “When you have eaten and are satisfied,praise the Lordyour God for the good land he has given you.” In both places, the message is that earth’s bounty is a blessing from God and we should recognize that with gratefulness.

However, the Torah worries that instead of being grateful, we will become forgetful. Just two verses later we read, “Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God . . .” (Deuteronomy 8:12–14). 

How ironic! Just when we should be the most thankful, we are the least grateful. Instead of encouraging us to thank God, our many blessings lead us away from Him. It seems that when we are hungry and needy, we naturally turn toward God. But once He has satisfied our needs, we no longer need Him.

The saying goes, “you should remember who butters your bread,” but the Torah teaches us that man’s nature is to forget who gave him his bread in the first place.

This is why the Torah encourages us to make blessings not just before we eat but after we are satisfied as well. Deuteronomy 8:10 is the source for the Jewish practice of reciting a grace after meals. In doing so, we combat our human nature to forget who satisfied our needs once they are taken care of.  We take extra care to remember that our satisfaction – in all areas of our lives – is a direct blessing from God.

If the Scripture’s encouragement is not enough to convince us to thank God once we are satisfied, then history should be. The prophets remind us repeatedly that every time the children of Israel took their blessings for granted, they lost them. Every time they forgot about God, He appeared to forget about them.

We can understand Joel’s verse this way:  “You will have plenty to eat . . . and you will praise the name of the LORD . . .” Then, because you paused to say thank you, “never again will my people be shamed.” When we are thankful for our blessings, we become worthy of keeping them.

Don’t wait until your blessings are gone to appreciate them. We live in a time of unprecedented abundance. We dare not squander the opportunity to be grateful.

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/eat-love-pray

The Generosity Of The Early Christians

All of the believers were as one in heart and mind; and not one of them called what he had his own, but they all shared with one another. No one among them was in want, for those who owned lands or houses sold them and brought the money that came from the sale to the apostles. The money was then given to whoever needed it. Joseph, whom the apostles called Barnabas, sold his farm and brought the money to the apostles.

But a man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira sold some property, and with her approval kept back part of the price and brought only a part of it to the apostles. “Ananias,” said Peter, “why has Satan put into your heart the desire to deceive the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land? While the land remained unsold, was it not your own? Even after it was sold, was not the money yours to do with as you pleased? How could you plan a thing like this? You have lied not to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died; and great fear seized all who heard of it. The younger men arose, wrapped up the body, and carried it away to be buried.

About three hours later his wife came in, knowing nothing of what had taken place. Peter said to her, “Tell me, did you sell the land for so much?” And she answered, “Yes, for so much.” Peter said to her, “How is it that you two agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? The men who have buried your husband are here at the door and they shall carry you out.” Instantly she fell dead at his feet; so when the young men came in and found her dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

Then great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things. Many miracles and wonders were done among the people by the apostles. Even from the towns about Jerusalem crowds gathered, bringing sick people, and all were healed.

http://kids.ochristian.com/Childrens-Bible/The-Generosity-Of-The-Early-Christians.shtml

Tempered and Tried

“Followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Heb. 6:12).

They (heroes of faith) are calling to us from the heights that they have won, and telling us that what man once did man can do again. Not only do they remind us of the necessity of faith, but also of that patience by which faith has its perfect work. Let us fear to take ourselves out of the hands of our heavenly Guide or to miss a single lesson of His loving discipline by discouragement or doubt.

“There is only one thing,” said a village blacksmith, “that I fear, and that is to be thrown on the scrap heap.

“When I am tempering a piece of steel, I first beat it, hammer it, and then suddenly plunge it into this bucket of cold water. I very soon find whether it will take temper or go to pieces in the process. When I discover after one or two tests that it is not going to allow itself to be tempered, I throw it on the scrap heap and sell it for a cent a pound when the junk man comes around.

“So I find the Lord tests me, too, by fire and water and heavy blows of His heavy hammer, and if I am not willing to stand the test, or am not going to prove a fit subject for His tempering process, I am afraid He may throw me on the scrap heap.”

When the fire is hottest, hold still, for there will be a blessed “afterward”; and with Job we may be able to say, “When he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold.” –Selected

Sainthood springs out of suffering. It takes eleven tons of pressure on a piano to tune it. God will tune you to harmonize with Heaven‘s key-note if you can stand the strain.

“Things that hurt and things that mar

Shape the man for perfect praise;

Shock and strain and ruin are

Friendlier than the smiling days.”

http://devotionals.ochristian.com/mrs-charles-cowman-streams-in-the-desert-devotional.shtml

 

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Feeling Our Sense of Debt at the Lord’s Table

Feeling Our Sense of Debt at the Lord’s Table.

Tear Down That Wall!

The Wall. For people living in East Germany over 50 years ago, those two words were the only ones necessary to describe the barrier erected on August 13, 1961. That date marked the beginning of the construction of a concrete barrier that separated East and West Germany. Eventually, the wall became nearly impenetrable—secured with barbed wire and armed men. But in 1989 the wall was torn down, removing the barrier between the countries.

Another wall needs to be removed as well—the wall between humanity and God. That barrier was built in the Garden of Eden when a man and a woman committed the first act of rebellion against God (Gen. 3). And we all have continued that rebellion ever since! Can you visualize that impenetrable wall? Isaiah 59:2 says: “Your sins . . . have cut you off from God” (nlt).

Jesus’ death and resurrection, however, has made reconciliation with God possible (2 Cor. 5:17-21). All those who accept Christ’s sacrifice for sin will have the barrier of sin torn down and be reconciled to God. Christ’s death has also demolished other restrictive walls—between the Jews and Gentiles, slave and free, male and female (Gal. 3:28).

Don’t let your own “wall” of indecision prevent you from accepting God’s gift of salvation.

The veil is rent; in Him alone The living way to heaven is seen; The middle wall is broken down And all mankind may enter in. —Wesley

The Bible is a record of man’s complete ruin in sin and God’s complete remedy in Christ. —Barnhouse

http://odb.org/2012/08/13/tear-down-that-wall/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+odb%2Ffeed+%28Our+Daily+Bread%29

Tozer Devotional-Listening to God before We Speak for Him

Listening to God before We Speak for Him

Holy men of soberer and quieter times than ours knew well the power of silence. David said, I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me; while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue. There is a tip here for God’s modern prophets. The heart seldom gets hot while the mouth is open. A closed mouth before God and a silent heart are indispensable for the reception of certain kinds of truth. No man is qualified to speak who has not first listened. It might well be a wonderful revelation to some Christians if they were to get completely quiet for a short time, long enough, let us say, to get acquainted with their own souls, and to listen in the silence for the deep voice of the Eternal God. The experience, if repeated often enough, would do more to cure our ulcers than all the pills that ever rolled across a desk.

http://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer?id=640