| Whatsoever
Things Are True
by Dan Coburn Pastor, Emmanuel Baptist Church pastordan@mtida.net Is your first response excitement at the opportunity to share your faith – or do you bow up inside thinking: “that’s none of your business”? Is Jesus your favorite subject – or simply a FIRE INSURANCE policy? Do you even think about this stuff at all? Do the people you run with ever discuss their faith – or is Jesus only a punch-line to chronic jokes? Do you even have any faith – and in What or Whom is that faith directed? Do you think you are a Christian because your family is? Does belonging to this church or that make you a Christian? Are you automatically one due to the fact that you are an American and America is a Christian Nation? Do you use His name more in a reverential tone or as a cuss word? Are you counting on “making it” to Heaven cause you aren’t as bad as most folks? Cause you haven’t done anything “really bad”? Do you think that when you obey God by being subject to a commandment, that He is somehow obligated to you? Are you then bargaining with Him? Does a certain level of obedience mean He owes you? Do you, then, get to dictate to Him how He helps you with your life’s issues? If so – if you get to tell Him what to do, who is God anyway? Do you think of these things? Have you been “playing church” for years knowing in your heart that something was terribly wrong? Have you long ago turned the page to ignore this article? Are you counting on something you did years ago that He again – owes you for? Let’s turn the Spiritual Switch. Two things we will establish this week and next. Number 1, is Why would I ask these questions. Am I being presumptuous? Judgmental? What gives me the right, if I have it at all? Let me answer that with a question. If you are “saved”, why did God save you. To what purpose? Was it so you could go to church, circle the wagons, pull the shades and wait patiently till Jesus returns? No. The Great Commission of Matt. 28 instructs us to: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:”. In Acts one, we are promised we will receive Power in the person of the Holy Spirit. To what end? Just to endure? No. “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespassed unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” 2nd Cor. 5:19. Then Paul goes on to tell us we are “ambassadors for Christ”. What does that mean if not that we are here to represent our King, for the purpose of Saving others. Bearing fruit if you will. He who sits and soaks, soon sours. So my desire to ask you these questions is bourn of my calling to obey my Lord. It is to your benefit, and His glory. It isn’t a judgement call, it is a Divine call. Next week, we will show you from Scripture how you can know you are (or are not) a Christian. God gives five specific tests in the book of 1st John, and we will discuss them next week, so fasten your pew-belts. God Bless. |
 |