January, 2021 - The Text Messages

January 21, 2021January 20, 2021

Wake Up, Church! (Pt. 3) Return to Your First Works

The words of Jesus to the Ephesian church in (Rev. 2:4-5) needs to be heard by the church today:

“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.”

The Ephesians had let their orthodoxy and legalism get in the way of the mission of God – have we? Just as marriages fail because the fighting over whose right outweighs fighting to save the relationship; speaking truth without love (Eph. 4:15) can get in the way of the point of the truth we are trying to communicate. The problem did not come upon the Ephesians suddenly but was a systemic leftover of their sinful nature rising up in them. As Paul was developing that church he wrote in (Eph. 4:31-5:1): “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God in Christ has forgiven you…walk in love, as Christ also has loved us.”

Look again at (Romans 13:11-14), Paul said that “the night “was far spent meaning the time of Jesus’ absence from us as well as of Satan’s work in this world was nearly finished. Whatever the conflict in our lives, it is ALWAYS darkest before the dawn. Its true, the final push whether in the boxing ring, on the field of competition, on the track or in military conflict is always the hardest. The enemy of God will fight hardest when his day is at hand and the Lord’s return is on the horizon; we therefore must be ready for the fight and as Paul said, “cast off the works of darkness.” Some of those works may be the complacency, apathy, indifference or misplaced zeal which control some believers today. Our lust, our desire to have things our way is dulling our senses and making us less that ready in these days to rescue the perishing. Paul says. “let us walk properly, as in the day – not in strife and envy.”

In a similar message spoken to the Colossian church Paul wrote:

“Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time….(Col. 4:5) adding in (Eph. 5:16) “because the days are evil.”

Redeem the time…how? Paul said it in (Phil. 2:5):

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…”

As we wrap it up today, I want us to consider the passion of Christ.

Jesus Christ left heaven to dwell among men. He minimized His glory and hid it within the frame of human flesh. He humbly allowed men to handle Him, talk to Him, question Him. He allowed their mistreatment against Him – their accusations, their attempts to harm Him and their mischaracterizations of who He was and why He had come. He allowed them to beat Him, literally ripping the flesh from His body – He did not fight back and as a sheep led to the slaughter so He opened not His mouth (Isaiah 53:7). He allowed them to spit on His face and tear out His beard. He allowed them to nail Him to a cross and raise Him up in their hatred, scorn and unbelief. He allowed this because His passion for the will of His Father and for those who would ever believe in Him was greater that His concern and passion for His own life.

Remembering that when Jesus did these things, we were all enemies of God (Romans 5:8,10) whom God nevertheless loved so much as to sent His Son to die for, His example serves as the best model for us today. His passion for you and for me outweighed His passion and zeal for Himself – He put aside every privilege and right belonging to Him as Creator of everything for us.

As we move forward church – let His example, His mindset change and become yours.

January 20, 2021January 19, 2021

Wake up, Church! (Pt. 2) Remember Why You Are Here

In (Romans 13:11) the apostle Paul appeals urgently to believers to wake up – to snap out of our stupor; those words were meant to shock his audience who like many of us were preoccupied more with the here and now than with the eternal. If the final salvation of believers was perceived to be nearer them then than when at first they believed, how much closer is it today- and how much further from being prepared for it are we than they were? I don’t mean to say that a believer can be MORE prepared to meet Jesus than to believe in Him rather, what I do mean is that believers have grown slack in the thing that we are to be MOST about today! Did not Jesus Christ Himself give a command to His followers to “occupy,” literally to “do business till (He) comes“? That is not a reference to the retail business but to HIS business! Today, many of us seem much more preoccupied with the world around us than with the kingdom of God today.

What one eternal concern ARE WE to be preoccupied with in these days?

Paul identified it in (v.8 of Romans 13) “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.” There is no caveat here. No – love them only if they agree with you or only if they love you back. Jesus said “love your neighbors” (Matt. 22:39), “love your enemies and those who spitefully use you” (Matt. 5:44) and “do good to those who hate you.” Today, division in our land is thicker than a 50oz T-bone steak; and love seems to be in short supply. In his prophetic warning concerning the last days, Jesus said, (Matthew 24:12) “And because lawlessness (or iniquity) will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” That is more than just a prophetic remark and indicator about the future, I believe its a warning to believers in every age and ESPECIALLY today! If we let our passions and zeal for what we love to get in front of our passion and zeal for God our love will not only grow cold toward our neighbor but by extension it will also grow cold toward God. Tell me that when God’s word clashes with your inclinations and passions that you DON’T shut out His words…

Right now, you may be thinking, “but, I DO love my neighbor!” And I would reply, “how do they know?”

Who have you been Christ to this week? Do they know that you love them from your attitude and words about current events or your angry posts on social media? My friends, the church is majoring on the temporal and frankly minoring or failing in the thing we were actually called to be passionate about – the souls of men! One hymn shouts, “Rescue the perishing!” In the process of doing that, Jude says, “And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.” (Jude 22–23) Jesus said, (Matt. 28:18-20) “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Believer, why are you here? To enjoy the freedom and rights you own as a citizen of the greatest country on earth or to share with others the only hope of freedom from bondage to sin and forgiveness with God through His Son Jesus Christ?! Even Paul said, that it was for the sake of the sinful man or woman that we remain here to reach (1 Cor. 5:9-10); otherwise there would be no reason for us as believers to continue in this life.

Many of us are so CONSUMED with temporal passions and zeal that we have forgotten the need of the souls among whom we live. Understanding that we live in a fallen world which will ALWAYS be HOSTILE towards God and recognizing that perhaps we have allowed passion for what we love to cloud our minds from the reason for our being here, we will go on in the last segment to address the question – what can we do about it?

January 19, 2021January 18, 2021

Wake up, Church! (Pt. 1) Recognize Where You Are

Driving through Hondo Texas you will see a sign declaring the area to be God’s country with a sign saying “This is God’s country, don’t drive through it like hell!” Did the author of the sign mean that just the Hondo area is God’s country? Did he have in mind the larger hill country area? Was he speaking of all Texas…of all America?

Many believers live as if this world is just that – God’s country, and while the Bible does say in (Psalm 24:1) “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” the world is hostile towards God. We sing a hymn in which we proclaim, “this is my Father’s world” and that all nature is singing His praise. At the same time, we read the words of Paul in (Romans 8:22) stating that “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” The Lord Jesus, while being interviewed by Pilate (John 18:36) hours before He died in our place declared: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” If this was God’s country would it groan – literally suffer and mourn? If this was God’s country, wouldn’t the Lord have been welcomed rather than rejected by the people of it?

God did not give up His ownership of the world He created. He still nourishes and cares for it and through a general grace still cares for every one of us, Christian or not. For now, this world is a land CREATED by God but occupied by the enemy of God and corrupted by mankind and his sinfulness. Why does it surprise and shock us to hear that the world is hostile to God? Why are we surprised at what we see daily happening in this world when we are told in God’s word to EXPECT it? Hear the words of Paul to young Timothy in (2 Tim. 3:1-5):

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!”

We are living in a fallen world occupied by Satan, “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). Paul called him “the god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4); and everything God made and called good has been corrupted by him as well as mankind’s sin and willingness to yield to sinful desires. We live in the temporary territory of the enemy of God – it is his territory for now and that isn’t going to change no matter what we as believers do. In fact, this world will remain occupied by the enemy until Jesus returns at the end of the great tribulation to set up His millennial reign (Rev. 20:1-6) and finally as God the Father makes His abode among us (see Rev.21:3), Satan’s occupation of God’s creation then will be FOREVER ended!

Part of our problem today lies in what we love; the apostle John points that out in (1 John 2:15-17):

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

We love our rights. We love our freedom. We love our country. We love to have it our way. We love what we love and our passion and zeal is stirred when these things are threatened. All of these things are temporal (temporary, earthly) – they are not everlasting but we allow our love, passion and zeal for things like our rights, freedoms and affiliations to cloud our minds from eternal things. Is it wrong to love our country? No. But even as the Lord reminded His followers that a disciple is marked by loving family less than he or she loves God (Luke 14:26); likewise, the Christian – the citizen of heaven MUST prioritize God before everything else he or she may love.

To accomplish the will of God for us we need to redirect our zeal…the most important thing cannot be OUR anything – it must be the needs of others and in a territory occupied by the enemy of God and man, the need of the hour is rescue.

Wake Up, Church! (Introduction)

“And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” (Romans 13:11–14)

Just when you didn’t think that things could get much worse than they had been for nearly all of 2020, a new level of craziness surfaces only a few days after we welcomed the New Year. To be fair, everything is a matter of perspective. While Covid and the draconian way that leaders of cities, states and even our nation worked to take advantage and manipulate the situation to advance their own agendas we saw opportunities to develop new ways to minister, opportunities to work on relationships with our children and spouses and opportunities to serve those in need among us.

One of the “slogans” that came from the church as we developed a “stay home, stay safe” approach to continuing worship services on-line instead of in person was this one – “the church has left the building.” That statement really bothered me because I deeply believe that the church, that is, the living organism called the ecclesia, the fellowship of the saints and the body of Christ was NEVER meant to be constrained by four walls! In saying that, I am NOT saying that we SHOULD forsake the assembling of ourselves together (Hebrew 10:25) but I AM saying that nowhere in the scriptures are we called to stay within the four walls of our church building and wait for those outside to come to us. Nevertheless, many believers are and have been content for a long time to limit the activities that they associate with church to what happens on the INSIDE of a building. That should not be and I say along with Paul that it is “high time to awake out of [our] sleep!”

To be fair to the context of (Romans 13), (v.11) concludes Paul’s exhortation that believers obey the governing authorities but to me, the the notion that Christians need to “wake-up” is a general statement applicable to every aspect of Christian life. Time is short – the Lord’s return is much closer today that ever has been before and we need to be about His work with more intensity and a greater sense of urgency than ever before as well.

As it happens, these words were laid on my heart the day after the craziness in the capitol took place. Again, and to be fair, craziness seems to be an ongoing problem in our nation and among our leaders but what I saw that day blew me away. Let me first say to you that I am a patriot! I love my country! My mind and my heart have been full of emotion over the last year as I have seen freedom, the flag, our rights as Americans, our shared faith etc., trampled upon. As I, like many of you watching from our living room TV sets saw the riots, fires and looting taking place in many cities around our county in the name of social justice over the previous year in addition to the mayhem in DC last week, my anger stirred and zeal for my nation was driving it. However, a few months back, after expressing some of my own frustrations on such things on social media and noting that bitterness was filling my heart, the Lord began to remind me of a few things that I feel we all need to remember today – one, we live in a fallen world and two, we need to redirect our zeal.

Over the next few days I hope you’ll bear with me as I unpack what the Lord laid on my heart concerning a godly approach to the days in which we live…