God Calls Us to Work (cont'd)

Psalm 37:4 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

I had to continue from my post yesterday because it was well over 1,000 words! I needed to add clarity to the full message, so here goes.

The post yesterday spoke of attending church and doing God’s work. To feel Him in you sometimes we need to be in places He resides. Pastor said something a few weeks ago that really hit the nail on the head (yet AGAIN.)  He said that we were sitting in a building, it is just a building; it’s the PEOPLE that make it a church.

That is so true. When you arrive at the empty building, you’re just sitting in an empty building; it isn’t until the seats fill up, you begin singing praises, and a message of the Lord is delivered that it really feels like a church.

I think there is some misconception in believers. They are under the assumption Christ died so they can sin, not Christ died to CLEANSE your sin; free you from sin. Take for example (loosely) football players. I see them declaring their acceptance of Christ and stating that without Him they are nothing. That’s all well and good because a lot of kids look up to these in-your-face media personalities. The problem comes when these same men, I assume, after the Super Bowl went out and partied, drinking it up, getting sloppy, cursing and gossiping.

They’ll say, “His blood was shed for me, I’m forgiven.”

WHAT? So Christ was nailed on the cross, dripped blood, cried out in pain and died…so you could SIN? NOW you see why the atheists point fingers at Christians! THAT is why they won’t believe in a God who sends mixed messages. No wonder they think its one big fairytale.

Let me tell you this, there IS no mixed messages. You SIN, you’re not guaranteed a place in heaven! Just being a believer does not guarantee eternity. The mixed messages are the ones so-called Christians are sending out; sin, you’re forgiven, sin, forgiven again, sin, sin, sin, I’m forgiven. And we wonder why the world is in the state it is in, sin?

The very clear message to MY eyes is this: Jesus died so we are FREE from sin. That means that we WORK and work HARD to NOT sin! Not to sit back, have faith, read, believe and SIN!

Will we continue to sin after being saved? More than likely! Will He forgive us? Yes sir!

But again, we will WORK HARD, NOT to sin.

God is using our sin to transform us into Godlike creatures. Is that possible? Well since we can’t go back to the days in the garden of Eden, since we can’t change the biting of the apple, God gave us FREE WILL and with that WILL means you WILL try to be Christ-like, defeat the enemy, slay the dragon! Please don’t feed me the line, “The blood of the cross will save me.” NO, the blood of the cross will TRANSFORM you!

Will you change? Yup! Guaranteed! You’ll still be the same lovable funny person that you were. You are a unique creature and God created you and it was good. He don’t want you to change THAT part of you, He wants to change the character that thinks sin is okay with Him; the character that lives behind four walls living a mundane life of sin. No, SIN is NOT okay.

“So what does that have to do with Church? Is Church going to save me?”

Matt. 16: 18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

NO! Only Jesus can do that.

Let me put it to you this way. Think of yourself as an electric socket. You know how an electric socket has a ground wire? It’s to protect a lightning bolt from shooting through the house and short-circuiting the entire house and possibly save the house from burning down.

Now, think of Church as a persons ground wire. It is there to help you to transform and protect and possibly keep you from short-circuiting with the saturating world of SIN.

Can you do it alone? You are fooling yourself if you think you really have the power to ground yourself from a lightning storm. We THINK we have the power. We stand outside in a storm with an umbrella thinking we’re protected from the rain, but do you realize you’re holding a potential lightning rod? We hold no protection from the surge of sin in our hands.

There is nothing of the physical world that will blanket you from the surge like a church will. Faith, reading and believing is not a solid form of protection from sin. You know how I can tell? Because you sin while you’re all alone, surfing the net, checking out the gossip magazines, lusting at all the hot women, belittling people who don’t fit YOUR standards of living. You are a sponge of society drinking in all that’s at your fingertips. It’s hiding in your PRIDE, SELFISHNESS, ANGER and HATE. These things are not of God, they are currents of satan.

Church is a spiritual temple that you take your body to, to be transformed by a living God. Church is the ground wire that feeds the current of the Word into your system; a church family, protects you when you fall, aids when you’re weak and surrounds you with LOVE. Isn’t that what Jesus is all about? LOVE? So why would you deprive yourself of the protection of LOVE?

Matt. 18:17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.