Tag Archives: free

Sex And Money!

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SEX AND MONEY!

Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed be kept pure, for God will judge the adulterers and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?’ (Heb. 13: 4-6).

Sex and money! Doesn’t the ungodly world revolve around sex and money? God has set the boundaries around which these two things are to be used for our blessing and benefit, and for His glory. When we stay within the boundaries, we enjoy God’s favour and blessing and both work for us as they should.

The problem is that human beings have said, “We don’t like your boundaries, God. They are too restrictive, so we’ll make our own rules.” However, our rules are – no rules. As far as sex and money are concerned, anything goes. The Hebrew concept of hell is a place with no boundaries. By casting off God’s restraints and refusing to believe that there are consequences until it’s too late, the human race has created its own hell on earth.

As bad as that is, what is worse is that the church, to a large extent, has followed suit. Church leaders, and prominent ones at that, rationalise sin away as though God’s standards are equal to “situation ethics” – whatever feels right to you is right. What passes for “love” is the excuse for every kind of sexual promiscuity and perversity. Homosexuality, for example, is condoned and excused because people of the same sex “love each other.” “Falling out of love” is a perfectly good reason for adultery and divorce, and pastors very often lead the way. As for fornication among the youth, well . . .

What passes for “God’s blessing” is a cover up for greed and even extortion within the church. How did we get to the place where we buy God’s miracles by being given the guarantee that, if we “sow into” so-and-so’s ministry, God will do what we want? The tragedy is that gullible, uninformed so-called “believers” swallow the bait and line the pockets of unscrupulous big-name preachers so that they can enjoy the hard-earned money of those they deceive. Guilt is the whip these “spiritual” leaders use to drive the people “in the name of the Lord.”

And what of what I call “charismatic shopping”! “For a gift of x amount or more (note the “or more” bit!), you can have this book, or CD, or DVD” or whatever is on offer. Have you ever! Imagine going into a shop and seeing the price of an article stated this way: “For a gift of . . . you can have this . . .” Isn’t is the same thing?

Satan, under the guise of promiscuous or perverted sex and greed, has staked his claim to be Lord, and laughs at those who follow him. He knows very well where he is leading them. He gets them exactly where he wants them, enslaved to sin and in line for God’s judgment. He knows he is heading for the lake of fire and he is determined to take as many with him as he can. He dangles the carrot of pleasure and gratification in front of the unsuspecting until they are hooked and then he laughs in their faces.

What should our attitude be to these two most powerful forces in the world – sex and money? God has set His boundaries – and our response should be to obey. The surprising thing is that, when we do, we enjoy more pleasure and gratification than all the pleasure people seek who do it by bending the rules. God is smart. He knows why we were made, how we were made and what works for us. He ought to, since He is our Creator, with apologies to the “big bang” people.

His rules are simple. Rule number one: You can have all the sex you want, within the boundaries of monogamous marriage and a faithful and loyal relationship. Rule number two: You can have all the money you want as long as you work for it and use it to serve you, your family and those who are in need. Money is a good servant but a bad master.

Within these boundaries you will live in and promote peace in your family and wherever you can be of help to others. Unity in marriage is a reflection of the oneness within the godhead.  Generosity with your money and possessions is a reflection of the generosity of our God who gave His only Son to save us from perishing in our sin. Our best and only response to love like that is to do what He tells us because He knows that it works.

A wise person, according to the Scriptures, is one who does what works. A fool is one who knows that what he does, does not work but he does it anyway. He does the same thing over and over again but expects a different outcome. How dumb is that! For us as human beings made in the image of God, there is only one thing that works – obedience to God’s instructions.

So why buck the system? You will not hurt God but you will certainly hurt yourself.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

All Or Nothing

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ALL OR NOTHING

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again with a yoke of slavery.

“Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” Galatians 5:1-4.

Imagine how foolish it would be for a slave whose ransom has been paid and freedom bought by a benefactor, to insist on paying the ransom price again, even though he has been a slave all his life and has never earned a cent. How silly to think that way and yet this was what the Galatians had been deceived into thinking. Although Jesus had paid their debt, they thought they still owed God something. They had to be circumcised to make sure that they were okay with Him.

Paul reminded them that Jesus was passionate about setting them free. That’s the reason why He came. Sin and Satan had enslaved them. This was never God’s purpose. He intended for people to be His sons and daughters in His family, created in His image to live in the joy and freedom of a loving relationship with Him.

The first human pair was ensnared by the devil’s deception which brought the whole world into slavery to sin. God gave the law to show His people just how enslaved they were. They were trapped into disobedience and rebellion by the requirements of the law. When God said, “Don’t!” their sin nature rose up in defiance and said, “We will!” That’s what sin does. How can we ever live in harmony with God when our very nature is against Him?

The problem is that sin brings the penalty of death, not only physical death but, far worse, spiritual death. We were all born dead to God. For most people God is a phantom figure whom they hate, fear and from whom they flee by ignoring Him and pretending He doesn’t exist. The problem is that God created us with an inner awareness that we were made for Him and that we are accountable to Him. However hard we try, we cannot escape that.

So what did men do?  They made up their own gods to try to appease their conscience. Religion is man’s attempt to get to God their own way; like Frank Sinatra’s famous song, “I did it my way.” But it does not work because every religion is a lie, even religion that believes in the one true God but tries to get to Him by people’s own efforts is a lie.

Atheists insist that there is no God and yet they use the very word “God” in their vocabulary. If He does not exist, where does the idea of God come from? Who made it up? Agnostics say that if there is a God, we cannot know Him? Who told them that? Evolutionists have concocted an unbelievably ridiculous story, against all the evidence of a super-intelligent Designer, that the entire universe just happened by chance, and that it took millions of years to happen.  Only fools believe that rubbish.

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.” Psalm 14:1.

As soon as a person acknowledges that God exists, he also has to acknowledge that he is answerable to God for the way he lives. People don’t like that because they know that they are guilty of going against their own conscience and the awareness of God which He put inside them as a witness to His existence.

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” John 3:19, 20.

It is impossible to free us from these false notions and the consequences of believing them. Jesus came to set us from our guilt, our sin and our slavery to deceptions. He did it all by dying in our place on the cross. Why would we think we should and why would we want to add anything to what He did?

As soon as we do that, we cancel out His free gift. Paul said when we do this, we have fallen away from grace.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

No Condemnation!

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NO CONDEMNATION!

“Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because, through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life, has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-4.

Ahhh! Romans 8!

Like a breath of fresh air in a stuffy room comes the grand climax of Romans 8. The first seven chapters of Romans are gloomy and depressing, but for a reason. Paul must make clear how desperate our situation was until God stepped in with His solution

In one grand act of intervention, God sent His Son into a hopeless and helpless world to rescue us from our plight. No condemnation! What magical words after setting the scene of our despair. But how many believers are still trapped in their insecurity and fear because they have failed to embrace those two liberating words!

The woman who was caught in adultery and dragged before Jesus for sentencing knew what it felt like to hear His words, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and leave your life of sin.” She had just been pardoned by none other than the Son of God and escaped the death penalty to go free, both from guilt and from the life that had imprisoned her for so long.

It was not Paul but God Himself who had pronounced the whole of mankind “Not guilty!” But how could He do that? Someone had paid the debt and set all the prisoners free. It was the season of Jubilee then, the time for setting prisoners and slaves free and we are still living in that season until Jesus comes.

But what if we sin again? No condemnation! What of those who have committed heinous crimes against humanity? No condemnation! What about those who died before Jesus came? No condemnation! What of those who have not yet been born? No condemnation! What about those who have never heard about Jesus? No condemnation!

Jesus died for the sin of the world – before the foundation of the world. What does that mean? From God’s perspective, although He sent His Son into the world at a point in time, and He died on a specific day in history, the effects of His death are for all people for all time. Does the mean that all people are automatically saved? Of course not! God’s forgiveness must be personally appropriated to become effective in our lives.

God’s holy law can do no more than show us where we have gone wrong. Only the power of God’s Holy Spirit can set us free from the power of sin to live a new life of righteousness in Christ Jesus. The struggle is over. The voice of condemnation has been silenced. Whose voice do we hear when we feel condemned? It is not the voice of God nor the voice of conscience because God has pronounced over us, once and for all, His verdict, “No condemnation!” It is the voice of our enemy, repeating what he hears about himself.

By offering Himself as an atoning sacrifice, Jesus both agreed with God’s verdict that all people are guilty of breaking His holy law, and He accepted in our place the punishment that God required. God carried out His sentence on Jesus that we might go free.

“…God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them…” 2 Corinthians 5:19.

No condemnation! Do you believe that? Have you received His verdict? You are free! Like His words to the guilty woman, Jesus says to you, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and leave your life of sin.”

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Living In Denial

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LIVING IN DENIAL 

“They answered Him, ‘We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?’

“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence and you are doing what you have heard from your father.'” John 8:33-38 (NIV).

These were new believers! John has just informed us that many of the Jews believed in Him, the very same ones who were now protesting against His Word.

These people either had short memories or selective memories! Didn’t they celebrate the Passover every year, a festival to commemorate their deliverance from slavery in Egypt? And what about Purim, another annual feast to remember their deliverance from extermination at the hands of Haman when they were captives in Babylon? And what about the Romans? Weren’t they under Roman occupation at that very moment?

But Jesus was referring to slavery far more sinister and far-reaching than enslavement to another nation. His so-called disciples were oblivious to or in denial of their slavery to a ruthless master — sin. Because of their meticulous observance of rules and ritual, they thought they were okay.

Their protest was hollow even though they prided themselves on being descendants of Abraham. They claimed natural birth as the reason for their confidence that they were acceptable to God. They were Jews by birth and Jews by tradition — after all, weren’t they God’s covenant people? Didn’t they have the mark of the covenant in their bodies?

Many of the people in the church today, who claim to be the children of God, are relying on the same false hopes as these Jews did. They claim natural birth as their reason for being in the family of God. “My father was a minister; a missionary; a Baptist; an Anglican; a Presbyterian or whatever.” Some claim performance as their reason for being a “Christian.” I go to church; I read my Bible; I pray; I pay my tithe; or whatever I rely on to make myself acceptable to God.

Some even try to put God under obligation to them. “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'” Matthew 7:22, 23 (NIV).

But Jesus was not fooled. On another occasion He had taught the Twelve, “You will know them by their fruit.” He was aware that these men who claimed to be His disciples were planning to kill Him because He was too nice, too wise and too straight with them for their comfort. Their claim to being His disciples did not penetrate to the nerve centre of their beings — the driving force of their lives; self.

It was there that they needed deliverance from slavery — from the sin nature that motivated every thought and action. No self-help could free them from the nature they were born with, the drive to be their own boss and to be number one in their lives. Jesus knew that He alone could break that bondage and set them free to become lovers of God and lovers of their neighbour.

What would it take to subdue the old human nature and replace it with a nature “renewed in the image of its Creator”? It would take their choice to destroy the only person who ever lived a perfect human life and then took the rap for every person who did not. It would take the death of one who took the worst that human beings could throw at Him without flinching, protesting or retaliating. Once that debt was paid, every slave to sin could be set free.

No one can ever know the freedom that Jesus offers until they stop living in denial, acknowledge that they are slaves and accept the gift of forgiveness and become reconciled to the Father.

Only Jesus can set you free!

 

 

 

Free To Obey

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FREE TO OBEY

“Even as He spoke, many believed in Him.

“To the Jews who had believed in Him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'” John 8:30-32 (NIV).

Freedom! Is that not what the human race craves? Everyone wants to be free but free from what? What is freedom? Is it freedom to have no boundaries so that I can do as I please? Millions have tried that and found it doesn’t work. In fact, that kind of “freedom” produces the worst kind of bondage.

It’s the trap Adam and Eve fell into in the beginning. When the devil offered them “God-likeness” in exchange for disobedience, did they not believe that to be like God meant that they could make their own rules?

The essence of true freedom is not only freedom from…but also freedom to…There is no freedom without boundaries. When boundaries are in place, within those boundaries we are both safe and free. When God put Adam and Eve to the test, He gave them one restriction to check their compliance. Up to that point they were like God because they were in perfect oneness with Him. Would they protect that unity at any cost?

Slavery is the consequence of believing that we can make our own rules. The problem is that disobedience to God’s way produces the fear of punishment which is essence of slavery. God created human beings to be His sons and daughters who would live with Him in submission and obedience. It is self-will that had produced the spirit of slavery in the human race and the enmity against God that goes with it.

When Jesus offered His disciples freedom, He was saying that true freedom is to come back under His authority and do life His way. Real freedom is returning to God and becoming one with Him again. That means recognizing that His way works and submitting to Him in love, trust and obedience.

Living in obedience to Jesus is like playing an instrument in an orchestra under the direction of a conductor. Imagine the cacophony if every instrument played a different tune! Every musician plays his own part but, under the master musician and when each part is played under his direction, the orchestra produces beautiful and harmonious sounds.

It takes the greatest power in the world, the power of the Holy Spirit, to control our self -will and submit ourselves to God’s authority and God’s will. Strangely enough, submission to Jesus is the only way to experience freedom. Real freedom is freedom from the beliefs and behaviour that produce shame, guilt and fear. The problem is that that more we try to be free by doing our own thing, the more we are enslaved by emotions our behaviour produces.

Jesus’ offer includes setting us free from those enslaving emotions by forgiving and removing our sin and reconciling us to the Father. It is our rebellion that has alienated us from God and set us on the path of self-destruction.

As we read on we see that even Jesus’ followers did not understand the nature of their slavery. There are many of Jesus’ so-called followers today who are just as much in bondage as unbelievers because they do not understand that true freedom is to be one with the Father and with His Son. Jesus was a true son because He refused to do anything that would break His union with the Father.

Imagine the impact the church would make on an unbelieving world if it returned to the simplicity of Jesus’ invitation, “Follow me.” Just as He protected the love and unity He had with the Father by His submission and obedience, it is our task to protect love and preserve unity with our Father and with His children at all costs. Then we will truly be free.

The greatest freedom of all is peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and the peace of God which transcends all understanding when we allow Him to direct our paths.

Are you free to obey Jesus?