Not called to celebrate Christmas but to worship the Risen King

 

Not Called to Celebrate Christmas But to Worship the Risen KING

Brothers and sisters in the Lord, today is December 25^TH, 2020.  But as Christians, we are not called to celebrate Christmas, we are called to honor Jesus Christ with our ENTIRE LIFE EVERY DAY.  Jesus is no longer a little baby in a manger.  He is the risen Messiah who is calling this whole world to REPENT and to obey the gospel!  Most of the world today is worshiping Santa Clause, and dead religion and a FORM of Jesus that they have MADE UP IN THEIR OWN MINDS.  But as true disciples who KNOW JESUS, we follow the Lamb wherever HE leads, and today He is calling people to REPENT, to live righteously, to preach righteousness, and to call others also to the HOLY LIFE.  Are you really living HOLY, is your family following Jesus today? Or are you following dead religion and the FALSE, FABRICATED, ANTICHRIST, the FALSE jesus that has been set up?  Are you truly following JESUS CHRIST or are you following the WORLD? 

The Loveless Church

 

The Loveless church

I want to tell you a true story about a church that my family was a part of, but first I want to read to you Revelation chapter 2 and then ask a question.  “To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, ‘These things says He who holds the seven starts in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil.  And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary.  Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have LEFT YOUR FIRST LOVE.  Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and REMOVE YOUR LAMPSTAND from its place- UNLESS YOU REPENT.  But this you have, that you hate the deeds off the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  To him who OVERCOMES I will give to eat from the tree of LIFE, which is in the midst of the Paradise of GOD. 

              Here’s my question about this loveless church; they have all these things going for them, you know Jesus says that they have these works of patience, that they can’t bear evil, that they have tested apostles, found them to be liars, they do all these things that are good, BUT then you come to verse 5 and it says; “Remember therefore where you have FALLEN, REPENT and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and REMOVE YOUR LAMPSTAND.”  What do you suppose it means to have your lampstand removed?  And what do you think would happen if this church didn’t repent?  Do you suppose they would enter into the Kingdom of God because of their good works?  Do you suppose they would have everlasting life and be the sons and daughters of the Kingdom of GOD? Or do you think that when they came to the gates God would reject them because they didn’t have love?  Is love not that important? (Meaning, could lacking LOVE take you to HELL?)

              Now I want to give a story that actually happened in a church that my family was a part of.  This church was sort of like a Baptist church but they were non-denominational and they prided themselves in having good bible knowledge, having good teachers, good bible studies, they had a lot of people that went there that were wealthy, they could send people on mission trips, they did a lot of good deeds.  Well, at one point of time they invited some missionaries to come to the church and to speak on a Sunday.  And when this group of missionaries came, one of them had a word from the LORD, a prophetic word for the church.  And when this missionary shared and said that he had this word of the LORD to share with the church, everyone was all ears.  They wanted to know WHAT IS THE PROPHETIC WORD THAT THIS MISSIONARY HAS FROM THE LORD TO US?  And so, the missionary shared what the message was, and he said what the LORD had given him for that congregation, for the pastor, for all the people there was; THAT THEY HAD A LACK OF LOVE, THAT THEY WERE THE LOVELESS CHURCH!  The church did not receive that message well, in fact they brushed it off.  After that missionary left the pastor said, (I’m Paraphrasing) “Well that’s not that big of an issue, that’s not a big problem… it could have been worse.  The pastor said;  it’s not that big of a deal because we have plenty of things going good for us and we can just muster up more love, that’s not that big of a problem…. You know, we have our bills paid, we have good theology, we have good teachers… they had plenty of LOVE FOR THEMSELVES and their OWN LIKES, but they did not have the love of Jesus Christ. 

              So again, here’s my question, do you think that church, that church that I was a part of, that had so many good works going for them, would enter the Kingdom of GOD because they had correct bible knowledge, because they prayed, because they sent missionaries to different parts of the world?  Or do you think they would be REJECTED ETERNAL LIFE BECAUSE THEY HAD A LACK OF LOVE?  The question is HOW IMPORTANT DO YOU THINK THE LOVE OF GOD IS? Is it important or is it irrelevant? 

              In reality if you have no love you are nothing.   Jesus will reject you if you reject to love others as yourself and if you have rejected the love of the Father.  There is no way just to muster up more love in yourself, you have to REPENT, you have to seek JESUS, you have to ask HIM for HIS heart of LOVE.  And if you have not truly repented, you will not have any more love in you.  You will have the love of the WORLD, the love of the flesh, the love of YOUR OWN DEEDS, but you will not have the love of your Father in heaven.   Don’t suppose that you are going to enter Heaven being part of the loveless church.  Without love Jesus Christ will REJECT YOU.  There is not way to enter the Kingdom of God without true love.  We need to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and strength, and we need to love others as ourselves.  Do we really have the love of Jesus in us?  Have we really repented of our sins and are we living righteous?  Or have we fallen from our first love for dead religion, for the love of things that God detests?  Check your own heart and make sure you are really in the love of Jesus Christ. 

When you see the deception

When You See the Deception 

Give Jesus Christ glory, and today is the day to give GOD glory, not to give glory to men, not to give glory to agencies, to churches, but to give JESUS CHRIST the glory.  There is a BIG deception, and the deception is for the souls of men.  When we see that deception there’s a fork in the road and we have to choose between GOD and EVIL.  It is sad that so many people go for the deception in church, which is the easy grace gospel, that you can continue to sin, that you can live impure and that all you need to do to be saved is read your bible, believe that you are saved, say one prayer and go to church.  If we truly are with Jesus we are ENEMIES of the church, the church will HATE US, they will HATE OUR GUTS because the SPIRIT OF GOD is against the spirit of dead religion, the spirit of the anti-Christ.  I remember, this was about 10 or 11 or  12 years ago now, when I was still in church as a youth pastor, I remember my mom, (my mom is now passed away) but, my mom talked to me and she said something like, “You know Andy, when you see the difference between where the Spirit of God is leading and where the pastor of the church is leading, then you have to make a decision and don’t compromise.  When it becomes evident to you that you have to choose either the church and THEIR ideas, or GOD and HIS TRUTH, you have to GO WITH HIM, don’t compromise…”  And I remember thinking at that time that there was not any compromise going to church because I believed like every other Christian that we are saved by “grace” which obviously gives many of us a license to sin.  I knew it was wrong to sin, but when you are around people who are sinning and living ungodly and compromising then you just start to fall to compromise and you fall to dead religion, and you start thinking you are doing God a favor by giving your money to church, by giving your time to church, by going on mission trips and preaching…. As a youth pastor, living in the church as a hypocrite, I could literally preach on Sunday, then go and live for myself (in sin) and then at night I could lay down on my bed and fall asleep and pray as I was falling to sleep and just say, “God, I just know that I did such a good job for you today, didn’t I do a good job?  I did a good job!”  And then I would fall asleep believing that I had done a good job for God even though I was living in hypocrisy.  But when we see the deception, when we see the deception of our own sin and how satan is blinding us, then we have to come to that fork in the road, those crossroads and make a decision.  Will we follow Jesus or will we follow the way of the flesh?  And because I want to follow Jesus and not my flesh, that brought me to that fork in the road where I had to leave dead religion, I had to leave church to follow JESUS by HIS SPIRIT!  

Last night while I was waking up (well, the Holy Spirit wakes me up in the night) and He said to me in more or less words, just what a disaster it is, how horrible it is when people see the deception and they do nothing.  It’s one thing to be deceived, and to be wanting to following Jesus but not to know what is wrong going on in church and you’re are trying to do your best… THE LORD CAN WORK WITH THAT.  The Lord will call you out of dead religion, He will give you a new heart.  But it’s another thing to come to that crossroads, and to be told that church is a deception and to SEE the deception and the lie and hypocrisy and then to DO NOTHING ABOUT IT, or even worse, to start aiding in that lie and supporting that lie and telling other people, “You got to go to church, you got to pay your tithe, submit to the pastor, submit yourself to those authorities in the church…”  It’s one thing to be deceived, but it’s another thing to become a liar yourself and to refuse to REPENT when you see the LIGHT OF THE TRUTH.  And we are reaching a point of time when people are seeing the TRUTH, they see the difference between the lie of satan and the truth of Jesus Christ, and they’re choosing satan, they uphold a form of godliness, but they don’t actually walk in the light of the truth.  They’re like double agents for satan, pretending to be Christians, pretending to bring people into the Kingdom, but they are bringing people into the kingdom of the demonic.  Some of these pastors and Christians they KNOW the truth, they have seen the lie, and they just turn a blind eye to it and they continue to go their way and they think; “Well, God will just forgive me, He will understand, because after all, I need bread, I need water, I need to have my bills paid… and you know as a missionary or a pastor we have to have those bills paid, God would understand…” and they think GOD will make an exception for their SIN.  God is NOT going to make an exception for our sins.  Either we repent and we overcome and we walk in the newness of life, or we choose the way of the world and the devil and then Jesus will say to us on that last day; “Away from Me you who commit iniquity, I don’t know you…”  The whole church is deceived, they think that they can continue to walk in sin and just slowly, that maybe they will be getting better, but if they continue to sin God will just forgive them… They are extremely deceived, they don’t teach righteousness and purity and holiness.  If you don’t come out of the church you are bound to think like them, and if you don’t come out from among them and be separate you will touch what is unclean and you’re Father in heaven will NOT accept what is unclean, He will REJECT you.  That’s why Jesus will say to MANY people who THOUGH that they were saved; “Away from Me, you who commit iniquity, you who sin, I do not know you…”  And those people will have the fright and the shock of their life when they are turned AWAY at the gates.  We don’t want to be the ones that are turned away, we want to hear the words, “Good and well done My faithful servant, enter into MY Kingdom…”  Will we be allowed entrance because we were right with Jesus Christ and listening ONLY to HIM? Or are we deceiving ourselves and being deceived?  Do we see the deception and then choose to go the wrong way?  There is no hope for those who see the deception, that see their sin, and then they choose to go the wrong way.  The condemnation is that people love the darkness MORE than they love the truth.  And you are condemned already if you are choosing your sins yet KNOWING the truth.  I encourage you to really REPENT, confess your sins before Jesus.  Get right with HIM, because very soon you may have no more opportunity EVER to repent.