Your Focus as a Christian

 

Your Focus As A CHRISTIAN

Well, praise Jesus today, everyone. Our main focus as Christians and as disciples of Jesus should be pleasing the Lord Jesus with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. It's easier to say though than to do. It's very easy to get distracted by politics, by church events, by making money, our business, our family life. And it's easy to compartmentalize our life to where God is no longer part of our business, and we segment it into our business and God's business. And that is what has happened in the Christian culture today. They have their church business that's all about going to church on Sunday, bible study, their Christian gatherings. And then they have their political business that's all about getting the people politically elected that they want. And then they have their personal business, their shop or their merchandise that they're selling, or whatever it is that people do. And people compartmentalize their heart instead of being fully dedicated to Jesus Christ. Now, obviously, depending on where we are, we have to take into consideration how we share Jesus.

When I was teaching in the school district, I couldn't just speak Jesus openly without an invitation, because as a schoolteacher you can get yourself fired. And I actually really didn't like that element of teaching, because as soon as you walk onto the campus, you give up some of your amendment rights as a civilian and as a citizen of the United States, no longer can you speak freely about your faith. And our first focus in life should not be teaching eighth graders or high schoolers Math; our first focus in life shouldn't be making money; our first focus in life shouldn't be getting some political guy in office or any other worldly pursuit.

Our focus in life should be on hearing Jesus Christ, having ears that hear and eyes that see. Most people are chasing after religion. That is why they spend so much time looking for a church. They call it fellowship, they call it bible study, whatever they call it, they're chasing after religion, guys. But it's a very different thing to chase after Jesus Christ, after pleasing Him, after hearing His voice. In fact, most people just give up on it because they say “God must have stopped talking during the bible, and it's much easier just to follow a set of principles from the bible. So, I’m going to look over the ten commandments. I’m going to look over the Gospels. And I’ll pick the ones that seem easy for me to keep and that will be my focus.” So you have all these different denominations of churches and they all have their set structure of what the most important doctrines are to keep in order to get to heaven. It becomes legalism. So for the Baptist, they think you have to be reading your bible every day because we're more like the Bereans. We're more noble than others who are lazy, they don't read their bible. We go to church on Sundays. And they make a big deal about being in big church and reading their bible as if that will save them. For different denominations is different things. For the Pentecostal group, their focus is on speaking in tongues. So they make the entire faith experience about this feeling that you've received the Holy Spirit from your feet up and that you speak in a tongue that their church imitates.

So you have all these different focuses. But people get their focus off of what really matters, which is the love of Jesus Christ. The greatest commandment, guys, is to love the Lord or God that is Jesus Christ with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. And the next commandment is like it, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. The focus isn't on just looking like a good person on the outside, having a big church or being a big pastor. It's not about that. It's not about memorizing all these scripture verses to look good as your some kind of a preacher.

Knowing Jesus is about being genuine before God and then genuinely living your faith for Him in complete holiness. If we are holy, it's because the Holy Spirit is working in us, not the spirit of the world or selfishness or greed or pride. But if the Holy Spirit is in us, we will be holy because we are His body, we are the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He is living in us and we are the true church, so that needs to be our focus. Most Christians don't even hear from God, so they're not the true church. They're false believers. They're false jews as they're called in scripture. They have false churches, false synagogues. They are the synagogue of Satan. And their focus is on 1 million different things other than hearing Jesus.

But what it all comes down to is, do you hear Jesus Christ? Is that your main focus being led by the Spirit of God, receiving the Holy Spirit and making Him your One and Only teacher? Not 1000 other people or ten other people or whatever number of mentors and brothers and sisters you have. But who are you hearing and listening to and obeying? Is it the pastor in your church who creates whatever focus he wants for you? Or is it the Spirit of God who is the only one qualified to lead you and guide you?

So I want to pray for those who do want to be led by the Holy Spirit, not by a pastor of a church, not by a bible study, not by a set of mentors that think they know best. But I want to pray for those of you who do want to hear the Holy Spirit and have His love in your heart always. So “Lord Jesus, I do pray for the body of Christ. I pray for those who want to get their focus on you and who want to be led by your Holy Spirit. I pray for your body of Christ, the true church that they would have ears to hear and eyes to see and their hearts and minds would be open to your truth and shut off to everything else in the world. We want to make ourselves the people who only take direction from you and never take direction from others, because you tell us to make you are Christ and our one and only teacher. So that's what we want to do today and forever. In your name we pray, Lord Jesus, amen.”

Get your focus on Jesus. Don't be distracted by politics or who the next president is going to be or how the end of the world will happen or end day prophecies, apocalyptic speeches. Don't get your eyes on the things of this world that so easily menace with your spiritual walk. Keep your eyes on Jesus Christ, focus on him, not on the world, and you'll be walking the straight and narrow path. But as soon as you start listening to so-called prophets, brothers and sisters, even if they say they are the children of God, you will be listening to people. Who are we listening to? And who are we obeying? May the grace of Jesus be with you.

Anti-venom for true Christianity

 Anti-venom For True Christianity

Well, praise Jesus today everyone. It is a blessing to have revelation from the Lord, to hear His voice and to walk with Him, and not to be guided by false religion and by people who are misled themselves and misleading others. If you want to know the truth, it's all about hearing Jesus' voice, receiving the Spirit of the Most High Living God, and making Him your one and only teacher. You know where I live here in California is rattlesnake country. And the rattlesnakes have just started coming out, being that it's getting later in spring. And for years, ever since I was a little boy, we killed rattlesnakes that came around our house. We’ve had rattlesnakes come all the way up onto our porch. We’ve had multiple dogs bitten multiple times by rattlesnakes. In fact, one of our dogs was probably bitten five times by rattlesnakes. One of our dogs died from being bit several times by rattlesnakes. You know, they swell up, and if you can't get them to the vet for anti-venom, they can die. From what I've seen from rattlesnake bites, dogs often don't die. However, a lot of times they do. But one of our dogs was probably bit five times and do not die from a rattlesnake bite. So, it probably depends on how big they are.

But what I want to speak about is how anti-venom relates to false Christianity. Now, I don't know too much about anti-venom. I do know it's very expensive. If you get bit by a rattlesnake and have to pay out a pocket, it may be something like $30000 or $50000, some ridiculous amount of money, guys, to have to pay for anti-venom. And of course, that's why a lot of people have insurance and stuff like that. But it's quite a difficult process to get anti-venom, because you have to find a rattlesnake, and you have to basically milk its venom out of its fangs. And then you take that venom and you insert some of it into an animal, like, e.g. a dog. And you don't give that dog all the venom, but you give it a portion of the venom, so then its body can build up antibodies towards the venom. And then, after the animal has built up a bit of immunity against the anti-venom, you extract those antibodies. Now, you extract those antibodies, and you turn that into the anti-venom, which then you can give a dog that has a full dose of venom in Him. So the issue is, it can't only be stored so long in the freezer, and they have to constantly do this. They constantly have to be, each year milking rattlesnakes. They have to be putting a little bit of it into animals. And guys, I'm not a doctor or a physician, so I don't know that much about this. It’s just what I've researched and looked up on my own about this. But it's interesting to me, because this is very similar to what has happened in dead religion.

In dead religion, that is, churches all across California, all across the United States and pretty much all across the world, they have basically an anti-venom towards true Christianity. In other words, a little bit of the truth is extracted from people around the world that have the real message of the Holy Spirit. And to the worldly and to the ungodly, it's as venom. They hate the truth. They want to be alive to their sins, so they treat the Kingdom of God and the children of God like they are snakes. They are the whole thing backwards, guys. And so, they extract a little bit of their venom, or a little bit of actual truth from the children of God, or from the Holy Spirit, maybe they themselves at one point heard from the Holy Spirit, so they extract that, and then they put that venom, or that amount of truth into a host. You could call that host a pastor, a deacon, a leader of a church. And this little bit of truth that goes into that pastor's mind does not reach his heart, so it doesn't kill him. He doesn't die to his sins. This man does not truly repent. It's just enough truth to make the rest of the congregation that he is going to preach to receive those antibodies that will fight against the truth, fight against the real substance, the real venom. So now you have a man who is able to have something extracted from him that is not the real venom, but it's the antibodies towards the venom. And anyone who receives this sort of venom, or this anti-venom, rather, they become completely or most likely, they will become completely immune to the venom. They won't receive it. They won't die from it. They won't die to their sins.

And so you have pastors all across America and all corners of the world now who have received bits and parts of the truth of God, but it has not hit their hearts. They have not died from the venom. They haven't died to their sins. They haven't died to worldliness, but their sinful nature is still in them. And they will preach very convincing sermons and tell people, “Jesus loves you as you are, brother. Grace covers over a multitude of sins.” And they will pull out all the verses of the Apostle Paul, and all the places in the Scripture that talk about grace. And anyone who hears this message says, “amen, amen”. This is cutting edge. They believe it's actually hitting their heart. And actually, guys, real anti-venom, when it's put into you, it can make you very sick. But it's not going to make you as sick as real venom would, and that's why it's pretty dangerous to use anti-venom or anything like that, unless you've really been bit by a snake.

So, these false preachers that are across America that are giving this anti-venom, they make sure that all of their people are totally asleep. They make sure that they receive this, so they can receive this lie with believing that it's really the truth. And there's other names you could call it, you could call it a placebo. They're receiving fake medicine, but in reality, they're receiving a false word from God that is putting them all to sleep. And they're basically conditioned to reject the truth. They reject that Jesus Christ can speak to you. They reject that outright because they've heard for years that the Bible is their infallible word of God, so that sounds like the truth. So they believe the bible's the word of God, so they don't believe Jesus can talk to you. Bam, right there. They've received anti-venom, okay? They read verses right out of the Bible, and they believe, no one is without sin, so we're all sinners. So again, they take a little bit of truth, then twist it to a lie. And then again, they just receive right there anti-venom, instead of coming to the truth and believing they’re sinners and repenting of sin, now they have believed this anti-venom that is fighting against the truth, that “it's OK to have sin in our life, Brothers and sisters. We are the true Church already. God loves us just as we are. You know, we're going to be sinners our whole life.” So they receive this anti-venom with joy, not even knowing or realizing that they are rejecting the true venom. They're rejecting the hard, true, truth of Jesus Christ.

Everyone who receives this anti-venom, so to speak, is deceived by Satan. They're receiving lies. They have itching ears, and they are part of the apostate church. This apostate church now is so massive and so convincing that the whole world is being given over to her witchcraft, and there being, they are being given over to a huge deception. And we have been foretold about this, the prophets revelation. We've been told about the deception that comes on mankind, and God allows it to come on the face of the whole Earth, because people's deeds are evil. They choose evil over good, dark over light. So, God gives them over to this deception. We have to be very careful if we want to enter God's kingdom and be part of the true body of Christ, that we don't take this anti-venom, that we don't take this placebo pill, that we don't take this false medicine from these people. Because you will start to think, what is so bad with this Christian culture? They are going to church. They are better than people on drugs on the street. They are better than the people that are obvious sinners. I should get my children in church so they can be raised and they could learn the scriptures and the Bible stories, put them in Sunday school, you're basically giving them anti-venom. They're receiving a little bit of truth, but they're not coming to Jesus Christ. They will never learn to really pray, never learn to hear God's voice. They will never truly repent of their sins.

 I want to read to you now, from Revelation, about what happens to those that do partake in this and receive anti-venom. This is found in Revelation chapter 18. “1After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. 2And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!” Babylon is the false churches. It is those who have rejected Jesus Christ. In America. It is the apostate Church, which includes pretty much every single church across America, the 501(c)3 churches, and even the smaller home churches that have taken this anti-venom.

 “3For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.” 4And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. 5For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. 6Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. 7In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’ 8Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.”

These are the judgments that are coming on the false church that has taken this antiChrist message. The false churches with their false preachers, that are giving this potion against Christianity, this anti-venom. God is not pleased with the American Church. He is not pleased with that religion. He is not pleased with Christians. The warning we are given is to come out of her. If you are one of God's children, if you hear His voice, you are to “come out of her, My people. Least you share in her plagues”, at least you share in her sins. Will you come out and be separate? Or will all the judgments of God that are coming on false religion also come on you and your family? I hope that you stay separate and really hear the voice of Jesus Christ. That you hear Him and obey Him. May the grace of Jesus be with you.

Peace that passes all understanding

 Peace That Passes All Understanding

Praise Jesus today, brothers and sisters. Today, I'm down in the city getting some work done on my car. But I wanted to take just a few moments to share some things the Lord has put on my heart. I've had allergies the last few days, just because of all the pollen in the air here in California, and because of my allergies I was up later last night, and I was just thinking and praying, and the Lord put a few thoughts on my mind and in my heart, and that is what I wanted to share. It has to do with just the peace that God gives us versus false peace that the world has to offer.

Now, something that I was considering with life, and how everyone dies, and older and younger people, is the fact that it seems that God put in all of us, especially younger people the desire to live. In other words, nobody wants to die. All of us want to live a long, healthy life. We want to be remembered for doing good things. And it seems when we're young, we just have this drive to live, not to die. But older people, when I’ve talked to people that are in their eighties or nineties or close to a hundred years old, they don't have the same desire to live. Many of them have had a people who were in their family already pass away. The older you are, you've had friends die, you've had family members die, maybe your spouse already passed away. And you get to a point in your life where you're not just old or geriatric, but you actually want to die, because you really have nothing left to live for. And it's such a sad thing to see elderly people that they're just ready to die. That I got thinking to myself, do they no longer have the desire to live because they have the peace that passes all understanding? Or is it more just a selfish reason that they want to die? And is it something that God put in them? Or is it something the flesh is bringing up in them that they want to die? Because when we're young, we want to live, and when we're old, we want to die. But is that from God, or is it of the flesh? And I think honestly, for most people, living is of the flesh, and dying is of the flesh; wanting to live is wanting to live for ourselves, and wanting to die is wanting to die for ourselves.

But with Jesus Christ, to live is to live for Him, and to die is to die for Him. So it is a different kingdom and a different mentality, a different place our heart needs to be. And if our heart really is with Jesus, He gives us the peace that passes all understanding, which is different than just being elderly and wanting to die. I think, if you have grandparents who are 80, 90, 100 years old, they may want to die, but that doesn't mean that they have the peace that passes all understanding in their hearts. They probably want to pass on from this Earth because they're in a lot of physical pain. They maybe want to die just because how sad life has become for them, and how many other people have passed away. But it's hard for me to imagine that God is the one who put it in elderly people to want to die. I remember there was an old lady in my old church years ago, and she was approaching a hundred years old, and at that time, I was going to going and talking with the senior citizens, and I just asked her some questions and just about life. And basically, what she told me is she just hopes that Jesus will take her home. She is ready to die, and she has peace with her death. And it made me wonder, even at the time, is this the peace that Jesus brings? Is this the peace that passes all understanding?

And we need to be careful that we are not receiving a false peace. And a lot of people are very at peace with living or dying for themselves, guys. They are happy and content with the things of this world. And they believe that they are safe and secure in going to heaven, because at one point of their life, they have said that they were Christians. They believe that they will just go to heaven. And this is a scary thing, because it doesn't mean that we have the real peace that passes all understanding, and that we're going to be in heaven with Jesus when we die, unless we are really surrendered to Him and living according to His Holy Spirit. Jesus said, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has, can't be my disciple. And He said that anyone who sins is a slave of sin, and most people are still living in sin. I'm not here to condemn anyone, but to encourage people to come into the light, to have the peace that really passes all understanding, not just this peace that I set a prayer long ago, “I know that I'm saved. I know I'm going to heaven.” You need to check yourself. Each of us need to check our own hearts and see, is the peace that I have in me? Is it a false security that I got from church? Is it a false security I got from false doctrines from my family and from my friends, who are giving me this false hope that I'm going to heaven when I die? Or do I genuinely have the peace that passes all understanding from Jesus Christ? Can I know that I will be in heaven when I die because I'm doing the will of my father in heaven? And that is the big crux of it all. If you are right with Jesus, you will have His peace. When we are right with Jesus Christ, He gives us the comfort of His Holy Spirit. That is why the Holy Spirit is called the comforter. He comforts His children. He loves us, and He guides us into everlasting life.

But when we're not right with the Lord, our conscience pricks us. We don't have that peace. We're scared to die. We have conflict in our minds and in our hearts. We know we're not right with God and with people. So I want to encourage you to seek after that peace that passes all understanding, to get right with Jesus, of course, say the sinners prayer, but then actually come out of sins. Following Jesus is not just about confessing that were sinners, but then it is about the action of true repentance. We will put on our robes of righteousness. We will walk in purity. We will stand on the rock of Jesus Christ if we are His children. So, I hope this encourages someone to truly repent and to find the peace that passes all understanding.

“Lord Jesus, I pray for those that want your peace, I pray that they can pass from death into life, and that they will be filled with your Holy Spirit, and no matter what happens, that they will be in your hands of grace and mercy, and that they will overcome this world in your name, and that they will push out every evil and demonic thing and just come into your presence with thanksgiving, and that they will endure to the very end of their life with you in your name I pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.