The Price of Liberty, Part 1: Achieving a Right Perspective

Is America still the land of the free and the home of the brave? Or is our nation dangerously adrift on a sea of complacency and immorality? Too often we are content to think only of our families and ourselves, and ignore the world around us. We pay little attention to the continual changes taking place in governmental policies.

Like the frog in lukewarm water—unaware that the water is boiling until it is too late for him to leap—we, too, may be in more danger than we realize. When more than 3,000 babies are aborted every day, the Bible and the Ten Commandments are removed from the classroom, and prayer in the school is forbidden, it is time to assess where we are as a nation.

Psalm 33:12 states: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance.”

We should ask ourselves, however, whether the Lord is still America’s God—or, like the children of Israel, are we now pursuing other gods? Although our Founding Fathers based America’s important documents—such as the Declaration of Independence—on Christianity and the Bible, through indifference, ignorance, and neglect of biblical principles, we are in danger of losing our precious freedoms. However, it is yet possible to reclaim what we’ve already lost if God’s people will awake and rise up.

As an immigrant—now a naturalized citizen—to this great country, I would like to share some of my concerns for America. I have come to love America and its rich heritage. This country means so much to me because of the persecution I experienced in my birth country of Egypt. I know firsthand what it is like to be persecuted for one’s faith, and I understand the process that takes place in a country to get to that point. When I observe these telltale signs rising everywhere in our country, it causes me great alarm.

Imagine with me the following scenario. Due to my kindness and hospitality, I decide one day to bring a young man into our house. He needs food, shelter, and a job—all of which we gladly provide for him. He also needs an identity, so we let him use our family name—giving him all the privileges and responsibilities of being in our family.

After a few years, the young man decides he doesn’t like the arrangement of the furniture, so he rearranges it without regard to the rest of the family. Then, over our vigorous protests, he decides that family devotions are offensive to him, so he insists that our family must stop praying together. Moreover, he decides that having too many Bibles in the home is offensive to him, so he takes the Bibles away.

Finally, he tells me, “If you ever talk about your religious views publicly, I will have to take you to court because I find your views offensive.” His attitude is reflected as follows, “You brought me into your family, you gave me all of the privileges and legal rights of being a member of the family. Therefore, you have lost your rights to continue living your biblical and moral lifestyle because I don’t like it.”

He continues by saying, “I may be one of seven in this house, but because I believe that your belief system is out of date, I demand that you be silenced while I pillage and reinterpret your faith for you. I demand that you accept my new understanding of the foundational principles of your life.”

You are probably thinking, I can’t imagine a worse nightmare for my life and for my family’s life than that.

But something much like that has been happening in our own country of late. From my past, I know what it is to grow up in a family that has been subjected to socialism. I know, too, what it is like to lose family property. In fact, overnight, family, and friends lost the company that had belonged to their families for years. In the 1960s, they lost everything they had worked for because the government seized their property and possessions. The argument, of course, was that the government knew how to handle these businesses better. We were told that it was only getting the rich “to pay their fair share.”

Let me caution you that these same things have been happening in America for the past several years. It is time for us to become fully aware of the path our beloved country is following. There are reasons why we are experiencing so many problems as a nation.

For the next several weeks, I’ll be exploring those reasons and how we have turned away from God’s protection and blessing. Only by first becoming aware of the significance of our flawed path can we take the necessary steps to reverse course.

http://www.michaelyoussef.com/michaels-blogs/the-price-of-liberty-part-1-achieving-a-right-perspective.html

Acknowledge His Presence

Acknowledge His Presence.

Getting Through

I will hear what God the LORD will speak, for He will speak peace to His people and to His saints. —Psalm 85:8

Gone are the days when a real person greets you on the other end of a phone call. It seems as though whenever we try to “reach out and touch someone,” we are greeted with a computerized voice.

I’m glad this isn’t true of our Father in heaven. He is always there. No voice-mail boxes, no “press 2 for more grace” and no “call waiting” interruptions. Thankfully, “Call to Me, and I will answer you” (Jeremiah 33:3) has not been replaced by, “All lines are now busy. Your call is important to Me. Please stay on the line.”

Yet I wonder what kind of access He has to us?

Communication with God is a two-way street. He speaks to us through His Word when we come attentively before Him in prayer and through the clear voice of the indwelling Spirit. He paid a great price to keep the lines open so that we can experience the joy of being still long enough to know that He is God (Ps. 46:10). As my grandmother’s favorite hymn “In the Garden” says:

And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own; And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known. —Miles © Renewal 1940 The Rodeheaver Co.

The joy of hearing His voice is a call you don’t want to miss!

Is God getting through to you?

http://getmorestrength.org/daily/getting-through/

The Discipline of the Lord

My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him —Hebrews 12:5

It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, “Oh, that must be from the devil.”

“Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, “Don’t be blind on this point anymore— you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I’m revealing it to you right now.” When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.

“. . . nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him.” We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, “Oh well, I can’t help it. I prayed and things didn’t turn out right anyway. So I’m simply going to give up on everything.” Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!

Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me— sanctification is God’s idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).

http://utmost.org/the-discipline-of-the-lord/

Can You Hear It?

“When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble?” — Amos 3:6

The trumpet, or the shofar in Hebrew, is a call to arouse us from our spiritual slumber. It is a nudge to awaken and repent. But what if the shofar is sounded and the people remain unmoved?

This is the question posed by the prophet Amos:  “When a trumpetsounds in a city,do not the people tremble?” In other words, how can it be that the shofar is sounded and no one trembles? Like the saying, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it still make a sound,” we ask, if the shofar is sounded and no one trembles, does it still make a sound?

A blacksmith’s assistant from a village once visited a large city. There he visited the local smithy. He noticed that the workers used bellows to fan the flames in the forge. Back in the village, they fanned their fire manually. The bellows were much more efficient and far less exhausting than manual fanning. The assistant excitedly purchased a bellows and returned with enthusiasm to his master’s shop.

Immediately, he set out to demonstrate the magic that he had uncovered. He set up the bellows and began to pump vigorously. But, alas, no matter how quickly he pumped, no flame appeared. “I can’t understand it,” he said. “In the city, I saw with my own eyes how a huge flame was produced by the bellows.”

“Did you first light a small fire?” the master asked.

“No,” the assistant replied. “I just pumped the bellows.”

“You fool!” the blacksmith said. “The bellows can only increase the size of the flame when you begin it with a spark. When you have no spark of fire, all the pumping of the bellows is of no use at all.”

Like the bellows, the shofar can only arouse us if there is a spark lit inside of us. If there is no spark, if we are spiritually deadened, then all of the shofar-blowing in the world will not get us to tremble.

The shofar represents the many messages that God sends to us all of the time. The tragedy of 9/11 was a shofar call. The tsunami was a shofar call. All of the upheaval in the Middle East – it’s all a great shofar call. Do we not tremble? Do we not repent?

The answer to our original question is yes; whether or not we hear the shofar, it does indeed make a sound. God is desperately trying to wake us up.

Now the question is:  Do we hear Him?

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/can-you-hear-it

God’s Word is like a hammer though many don’t know it yet

How can we expect God’s blessing upon America when we refuse to honor Him at heated points of contention?

God has been so gracious to America.  How can we not see that?

With what we have allowed to be piped over our airwaves for generation upon generation, for our aborted babies and now, most recently under President Obama the major assault upon Biblical marriage – flying in the face of a Holy God.

A special thanks to Randy who emailed me the following:

From the Bible (1st Corinthians: Chapter 6 verses 9, 10, 11 says)

New King James version

9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,[a] nor sodomites,

10. nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

11. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

———————————————-

I used to wonder how it could be that Sodom and Gomorrah became Sodom and Gomorrah.  In other words, how could it be that there were only something like 10 righteous people remaining in that depraved land.  [Genesis 19].

Increasingly, we are getting a sense of that more and more.  I surmise something like the following:  intimidation, lethargy, apathy, fear, not wanting to be seen as judgmental, or “not with it”, accommodation.

In our case – in America today, we also have the addition of television and the many programs that have been rolled out upon us since 1996 or so.   Coming this fall (now being heavily advertised is NBC’s “The New Normal”.

For your perspective, here is an article from the Washington Times; USA Today in January 1996 (reprinted by AFA Journal, March 1996): Entitled:

Networks, sponsors, bombard viewers with pro-homosexual TV

“America’s most powerful influence makers have intensified their public relations blitz aimed at convincing Americans that homosexual behavior is normal and, more specifically, that homosexual “marriage” should be legalized.

In what USA Today has called “the gayest TV season in memory,” network programmers – subsidized by well-known companies – have become more and more bold in their homosexual advocacy.

“It is amazing to see two gay weddings within a month on two big sitcoms.  It seems like they’re trying to push some buttons.  Even in the gay community, a full-on-same-sex marriage is a minority kind of thing,” said Rob Greenblatt, executive vice president of development for Fox.  “It is 1996, and little by little everybody has gotten a little less afraid of the old taboos.”

And push and push some more the networks have done and are relentlessly doing.  And, man’s fallen nature is targeted.  Our weakness, our fear to stand alone, our failure to trust in God even though we know that His Word is True!!

The late, great Christian author, thinker, writer,  and theologian Francis Schaeffer stated it this way in his book “The Great Evangelical Disaster”  (1984) –

Here is the great evangelical disaster – the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth.  There is only one word for this namely accommodation:  the evangelical church has accommodated to the world spirit of this age.  First, there has been accommodation on Scripture, so that many who call themselves evangelicals hold a weakened view of the Bible and no longer affirm the truth of all the Bible teaches – truth not only in religious matters but in areas of science and history and morality.  …

And second, there has been accommodation on the issues, with no clear stand being taken even on matters of life and death.

This accommodation has been costly, first in destroying the power of the Scriptures to confront the spirit of our age; further in allowing the further slide of our culture. Thus we must say with tears that it is the evangelical accommodation to the world spirit around us, to the wisdom of this age, which removes the evangelical church from standing against the further breakdown of our culture.  It is my firm belief that when we stand before Jesus Christ, we will find that it has been the weakness and accommodation of the evangelical group on the issues of the day that has been largely responsible for the loss of the Christian ethos which has taken place in the area of culture in our own country over the last forty to sixty years (now 60 to 80 years).

I quote the above with heaviness of heart and great concern for what lies ahead.

I want to thank a number of you who wrote us last week sharing that you care deeply as we do and that you get it!  Our God and His Word is our guide, our shield, and our sword!  Suffice it for now just to share with you one of these comments:

Thank you for loving the Lord and not being afraid to stand up for modesty, traditional marriage, and all things that honor God.  I pray more men will take a stand for righteousness,  as you have done.  There is so much more I want to say, but please know that you are appreciated and supported and prayed for in our family. Thank you, and may God bless you!

God’s Word is where we must take our stand.  God help us.  Many that follow after us need Christian adults to not succumb to the intimidation, the accommodation, the networks, or the liberal church that molds the Bible into a word that is not God’s Word.

Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Jeremiah 23:29

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with your whole heart. – Jeremiah 29:13

http://www.americandecency.org/archives/the-new-normal-you-and-me-god%e2%80%99s-word-is-like-a-hammer/#more-6939

Stephen The First Christian Martyr

During these days, while the number of the disciples was rapidly increasing, the Jews who came from lands where Greek was spoken began to complain against those who were born and lived in Palestine, because their widows were neglected when the food was given out each day. Therefore the twelve apostles called together all the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up our preaching so as to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven of your own number, men of good reputation, wise and spiritually-minded, whom we will put in charge of this work. But we will continue to give ourselves to prayer and to preaching the good news.” This plan pleased all the disciples; so they chose Stephen, a man of strong faith and spiritual power, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, who came from Antioch but had become a Jew. These men they brought before the apostles, who after praying laid their hands upon them.

And the message of the Lord continued to spread, and the number of disciples in Jerusalem was greatly increased. A large number of the priests also accepted the faith.

Stephen, who had personal charm and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. Some belonging to the Synagogue of the Libyans, and Jews from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and the province of Asia began to argue with Stephen; but they were unable to get the better of him because of the wisdom and spirit with which he spoke.

Then secretly they bribed certain men to say, “We have heard him speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God.” In this way they stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes, so that they seized Stephen and took him before the council. They also brought in false witnesses who said, “This man is always talking against this holy place and the law. We have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses handed down to us!”

Then all who were sitting in the council fixed their eyes on Stephen and saw that his face shone like the face of an angel. But the high priest said, “Are these charges true?” Stephen answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The Most High God does not live in houses made by men.

“You stubborn and evil-minded people! you always resist the Holy Spirit, as did your fathers before you. Which of the prophets did they not persecute? They also killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, whose betrayers and murderers you have become–you who received the law given through angels, and have not kept it!”

When they heard these words, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked up into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look, I see heaven open,” he said, “and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” But they stopped their ears and with a howl rushed at him all together. Then they threw him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses who threw the first stones, laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they stoned Stephen, he prayed, “Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit!” Then he knelt down and cried aloud, “Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge!” When he had said this, he fell asleep. Certain devout men buried Stephen, mourning deeply for him.

But Saul consented to his murder. He also tried to destroy the church, entering into every house, and dragging out men and women, put them in prison.

http://kids.ochristian.com/Childrens-Bible/Stephen-The-First-Christian-Martyr.shtml

 

Cock Crow

And immediately…the cock crew–Luk. 22:60

What You Hear Depends on What You Are

It is a deep truth, though not the whole truth, that what we hear depends on what we are. The meaning which we find in any voice is largely determined by ourselves. Peter was not the only one that night who heard the thrilling summons of the cock crow. Through that tense night of agony many would be wakeful in Jerusalem. But for Peter there was something in that note which was inaudible to anybody else; he heard it with the hearing of his soul. To the sufferer it meant that the darkness of the night was passing. To the laborer it was a sign and token that the toil of another day must soon begin. To Peter it was a swift reminder of his cowardice and of his boasting, and of the warning message of his Lord.

Our Memory Is a Light Sleeper

One notes here, what is so often true, how a simple common thing can wake the memory. Our Lord wanted to waken Peter’s memory, and He did it by the crowing of the cock. In the dark hour when he was tricked and trapped Peter had forgotten everything. He had forgotten his loyalty and love, and his infinite indebtedness to Jesus. One might have thought that nothing but a thunder-clap would arrest that panic-stricken heart; but Jesus is wiser than our thought. There is no peal of thunder at the dawn. There is no angelic music as at Bethlehem. There is nothing but ordinary cock-crow, familiar to Peter since he was a boy. But our Lord, who knows our nature perfectly, knows that memory is a light sleeper, waking up at the very slightest knock. A bar of music or some familiar fragrance, and the past is all back with us again. A scrap of writing or a little shoe and we are wandering through vanished years. Often when we have sinned and fallen, and are in peril of the hardened heart, it is in such ways that memory awakes. Hence the simplicity of Christian sacraments. They are not anticipative; they are commemorative. They do not portray One who is unknown; their office is to recall One who has been here. So all that is needed is a bit of bread and a cup of wine upon the table–and we remember the Lord’s death until He comes. Legend would have awakened Peter by some wild shattering of the elements. It would have sounded a trumpet in high heaven. Christ, who knows our frame, and is always economical of miracle, does it by the crowing of the cock.

Why Did the Lord Choose a Sign of the Dawn?

One detects also in this note of warning a message of high hope for Simon Peter. There are birds which start their singing when the evening falls; but cockcrow is the herald of the day. The cock was crying that morning was at hand. It was the scout of sunrise. Its call was a clarion that after the dark hours there was going to be hopeful light again. And I think that our blessed Savior chose that token to tell Peter that his night was passing, and that the dawn was going to redden on the hills. Might He not easily have made His note of time the paling or the setting of the stars’? Might He not have pointed to the soldiers’ torches, and by the quenching of these torches dated things? But deliberately, right in the heart of warning, our Lord brought in the shrilling of the cock–and cockcrow is the harbinger of morning. Peter had known that since his childhood. He had heard that note across the sea of Galilee. After many a weary night of fishing it had broken with reviving power on his ear. And who can doubt that now, with all the bitter memories it awoke, it struck a chord of hope in Peter’s heart? Sinner though he was, there was going to be another day for him. He was going to have another opportunity of showing love and loyalty and service. That deep blending of memory and hope is the authentic touch of Jesus, as we all find when we take the bread and wine.

One feels the beauty of that symbol more if we compare it with what we read of Judas. “Then Judas, having received the sop, went immediately out, and it was night.” Between Judas and Simon Peter there was all the difference in the world–the one deliberate, calculating, cold; the other failing in temporary panic. And Judas, sinning, went out into the night; it was the symbol of his darkened spirit–but Peter, sinning, heard the bird of morning. The one had made himself the child of darkness; the other, for all his sin, was facing eastward. Judas had let night into his heart before he went out into the night. But Peter, for all the staggering of his cowardice, loved his Lord with a passionate devotion and immediately, when he had sinned, he heard the, cockcrow. There was bitter memory in that, but there was something more than bitter memory. There was something that Judas never got; there was the promise of another day. And how that day dawned, after the resurrection, and how Peter was restored to love and service, all readers of the Gospel story know.

http://devotionals.ochristian.com/george-h-morrison-devotional-sermons-devotional.shtml

 

Persevere in Love

Persevere in Love.

Tozer Devotional-The Power of Godly Living

The Power of Godly Living

The most effective argument for Christianity is still the good lives of those who profess it. A company of pure-living and cheerful Christians in the community is a stronger proof that Christ is risen than any learned treatise could ever be. And a further advantage is that, while the average person could not be hired to read a theological work, no one can evade the practical argument presented by the presence of holy men and women. To the sons and daughters of this tense and highly mechanized age a holy life may seem unpardonably dull and altogether lacking in interest, but among all the fancy, interest-catching toys of the world a holy life stands apart as the only thing slated to endure. The stars make no noise, says the Italian proverb; yet they have outlived all man’s civilizations and in their unassuming silence have shone on through the centuries, preaching their simple doctrine of God and enduring things. Francis of Assisi composed some sublime hymns and preached some quaint sermons, but for none of these is he known and by none of these has he captured the moral imagination of mankind. The utter purity of his life it is which has won him a lasting place in the hearts of every seeker after God.

http://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer?id=641