Devotionals
We live or die by the truths of the Bible.
What we believe about the authority of the Bible molds us into who we are and what we do in our daily lives; how we interact with people; and what our eternity will be.
If we can’t accept the Bible as the inerrant, undefiled, and inspired Word of God; inspired of the Holy Spirit and given to man to write down as our guideline for living; If we want to pick and choose those things we will accept from God’s word as being applicable to us and disregard the rest, then we are not one of His and have no part in the inheritance promised to those who believe on God’s Son, Jesus.
(2 Timothy 3:15-17 (K J V) 15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
We are daily faced with, “How much of God is enough?” How much of our time and resources will we allow God to possess? Daily we make decisions that affect the rest of our lives here on this earth as well as our eternal life. We live our daily lives in light of eternity. What we do now determines how we will spend eternity.
A sad fact is … our children are most affected by our daily actions and the choices we make. Folks, many of our teens are already gone. They have accepted their public school teachers and the books they teach as being the acceptable truths by which they model their lives. They spend most of their learning years under the pressure of teachers and peers who have a worldly view and who deny the truths of the Holy Bible.
Too often in our churches we tell the old Bible stories without teaching that the Bible is the only authority by which one is to live their life. How can our children believe this when their parents and even many of their Sunday school teachers don’t live by the tenets of faith taught in the Bible.
Our kids see a double standard. “Do what I say do, not what I do.” Didn’t work in my days and won’t work in yours. They come to church with or without their parents and see their parents and other church folks in that environment of “Charades,” but the minute they get outside, before they can even get home, they are bombarded with the filthy language, obscene music blaring from the car radio, and who knows what else?
Oh, perhaps a stop at the Food Lion or 7-11 to get a case of beer just to make sure they will have enough on hand to get real buzzed before they go to bed.
Often bedtime is preceded by a knock down drag out fight…in front of the children. Life is sweet, ain’t it?
Ahh, but tomorrow is a better day. They get up, apologize for their last night’s stupidity and pass it off as being a little tipsy so you got loose lipped but you didn’t really mean it. Yea….
The kids will get over it, after all they are just kids and don’t know the pressures we are under that makes us drown it in our joy juice. Who do they think they are fooling? They and their family are doomed…doomed…doomed!
Hey, they are not alone…many of those other church folks they sit piously beside on Sunday morning are playing out the same or similar scenarios in their own lives. How are our children to accept the authority of the Bible when they go home to this trash life that they have to encounter day after day. No wonder they are prone to accept the humanistic, hedonistic lies taught by our public schools.
This is often a safer environment for them. No one there is telling them they must live a certain way that they don’t live. At least they are constant in their beliefs. They live the same way at home as they do in school. No hypocrisy there.
Already gone…many of our children are already gone. They have heard all the neat Bible stories, read their Bibles, sat in church, did as their parents did and one-upped them one.
Our children have the ability to take what we teach them and do it a little bit better…or worst, for that matter. To pacify our children, we gave them Ipods and Blackberries. Opened up a whole new world to them. Now they don’t even have to listen to their Sunday school teachers or preachers at all. They can stick a little piece of foam rubber in their ear and tune out…or…they can exercise their nimbleness by practicing their texting skills.
That’s when you see that “devotional heads down look” as they pretend to be following along in their Bibles. Oops…I forgot, they stopped carrying their Bibles, for the most part. Humm, I wonder where they got that bad habit from?
Already gone…too often we lose our babies because they are out having babies. How did we lose them? How did they get the opportunity to spend so much time out of our sight and out of our minds?
All our children are good children…they often make bad mistakes because they too often have seen us make bad mistakes. How can they accept the authority of the Bible when their parents don’t?
The Bible has all the guidelines we need to make it blissfully and safely through this earthly life, but we make choices not to accept the tenets of faith because it interferes with our vices. These vices are killing us and our family. Yes, many are already gone and we may not be able to turn them around but we had better try and try now.
The events here on this earth are about to make a drastic change. Change that man has never before experienced. Nothing will ever be the same again. Nothing will get better in our economy till that man of sin, the Antichrist, make a 7-year peace treaty that will bring peace and prosperity back, but for a very short time.
If you happen to witness this event it is because you have been left behind. The church will be already gone and you will be in a world of trouble. Oh…so will your children who followed your “way to live,” example. You won’t be the proud parent of an honor roll student then. You won’t win Mom or Dad of the year, for sure.
There will be one slim chance to escape this hell, but the chances are that you won’t make it. If you didn’t make the right decision before the Rapture, you probably won’t have the fortitude to do so after.
The fact is: Jesus is coming to retrieve His bride, and all those who believe in Bible prophecy realize we as a church are actually coming down to the wire. In fact we are getting so close to what many of us have been patiently, and in some cases impatiently, waiting for that the excitement is almost to a fever pitch.
There are no limits it seems to written commentaries on the subject of end time’s prophecy. Some people get so keyed up they find it difficult to concentrate and they get consumed with the inevitability of the imminent rapture of the Church to the exclusion of all else. Yet others, belonging to the same fold of Christianity, pay all this prophecy stuff little mind.
For those of us who actually believe in Bible prophecy, we see the true church being prepared for a great event. A huge departure of believers is on the near horizon. Believers who’ve fixed their sights on their home in Heaven are seriously anticipating that snatching away of the saints.
We are going home! Praise God.
There’s something else that has bothered me for quite some time now; I’m speaking of Bible illiteracy. Along with biblical illiteracy goes a lack of discernment. Just because Christians are seemingly in the majority in this nation doesn’t mean the majority of those Christians have any biblical discernment, or if they do, from what I’ve seen, it’s precious little. After all, as a nation made up of a supposedly Christian majority we’ve now allowed ourselves to be placed under the control of a fully secular humanistic government that gives no more consideration to the God of the Bible than does a maggot.
How is that possible with a 70% majority of Christians?
Failure to know and understand God’s word for one thing, and apathy and greed for another. Somebody’s gonna give me something I didn’t work for! If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge I’ll like to sell you.
Folks, Central to the Christian faith is the knowledge that we, as born again believers, are set apart from the world. We belong to Jesus Christ. That really does place a huge responsibility upon us. We aren’t to conform to the world so why do we?
Jesus tells us over and over again what happens to those who become consumed with the cares of this world. Pride, greed, fear, covetousness, lust are ever recurring themes throughout the entire Bible, all of which stem from losing our focus on Jesus and replacing that focus with a materialistic world view
Do you know:
We have now entered the "perilous times" as stated in 2 Timothy Chapter 3
Godlessness in the Last Days
1But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. (In other words, don’t embrace this type of life.)6They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. 8Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. 9But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone. 10You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Not all who confess Christ will heed this warning and turn from the trap Satan has set for us.
Check this out:
(2 Timothy 4:3-4) "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."
Why we must heed this warning: Look at (Ephesians 5:27),
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
The Bride of Christ cannot be spotted with the things of this world. The Bride will be perfected and holy without spot or blemish. You will be tried and tested.
(James 1:12) Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
We are not gone already but soon now…………we read in:
(1 Thessalonians 4:16-18) "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words."
Paul reminded the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:11) of a spirit of strong delusion that would be prevalent in the last days that would cause people to “believe a lie”. That is sadly taking place in many churches around the globe today.
Folks, In spite of all that is happening right now … it will get progressively worse; But…God offers us comfort.
In Matthew 11:28-30 we read 28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
There’s a lot of brokenhearted people right here among us right now and God is telling you He will comfort you. He will never leave your or berate you or belittle you, or put you down in any way. He will never curse you and call you filthy names or batter your body, mind, or spirit. He loves you with an everlasting love and He will, one day, wipe away all your tears. You will be seated at a table with honor and a crown will be placed on your head. You will never have to endure shame or pain again.
Some of you are struggling with things in your life that seem to keep you defeated and unable to rise above that which is an offense to God. This is your moment to be set free. Come to Jesus now before the chance passes you by.
You who do not know Jesus as your Savior and have been struggling with questions of faith…the call is to come now; now is the accepted day of your salvation. You are not promised tomorrow. Come now before this moment passes you by.
Yes, many are gone already but you can be saved before the time is “gone already” for you. Come…
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About The Author
Lucian Thompson is Co-Pastor, of Trinity Christian Fellowship, a non-denominational church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where the old time Gospel is good enough for us, and Vice-Chancellor of TCF Theological Seminary. He is an avid student of Eschatology and his major thrust of ministry is geared in Outreach. He has written a fictional book titled, “Cop Out”, based on his experience as a former Chief of Police as related to the premise, “what if he were still a cop and the Rapture happened?” It is now posted as an e-book at www.trinitychristianfellowship.net A free download is available. Pastor Thompson can be contacted at::[email protected]
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Ahhhh Lucian.....you know that I love you friend but I have to part company on several of the points. You don't need a magnifying glass to see that our country is travelling down a sad course or that people are without hope and turning to false hope and putting their kids in the path of the same lost status and hopeless life but they Admitedly, Christians are a sorry lot and seem to have forgotten for the most part that there is a lost people that need to hear that there is hope. But God.... God in His mercy and grace provided the time of tribulation so that people would have another chance for the free gift of salvation. It will be a dreadful time for those who choose to go through it but there will be those who get saved and Christians (if they care) should be loading their houses and computers with materials that will make it easy for those who are left behind to come to the saving grace of Christ. We have work to do......if we care....if we love......if we have compassion....if our heart breaks as God's does.
ooops...left off the most imortant thing they are not already gone
Lucian, Brother, this is so sad, but true. I witnessed some of this on Tuesday. We must be real and stand upon His Word, the only Truth. God bless you and your ministry.
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