Always Faithful (Semper Fidelis)

 

“…So David prepared abundantly before his death” (I Chronicles 22:5c).

   Did you run track in high school? Perhaps you ran the 95-yard dash, or the 215. I ran track for one year while in high school. I wasn’t the fastest or the best, but I enjoyed it. I was young, ambitious, and just wanted to do something. But one thing I do know, I never ran the 95 or the 215. My friends ran the 100-yard dash and the 220. I ran the longer distances.

     The point is this: In marriage, as well as the Christian life, it’s not how you start that really counts, though important, it’s how you finish. You can run for 95 yards and even lead the field, but if you stop five yards short, those 95 yards were an exercise in futility. There are too many Christians, too many fathers and mothers, who are running the 95-yard dash. They quit on God and stop on each other.

    We are losing our families to this culture. Our boys and girls need to see personal commitments from each of us (dad, mom, grandparents, teachers) to finish the race. It is a surrender each and every day to the new mercies and compassions of Almighty God. We must repent each day of our own desires and allow God’s ways to saturate and permeate our lives. There is a race to be run; there is a race to be won!

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  • The Up-and-Outer

    “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).

    Confession means to simply admit unfaithfulness to God through your sinful thoughts and actions; to totally agree with God’s point of view regarding your thoughts and actions as inexcusable; to humbly accept any consequences brought about by those thoughts and actions; to diligently act in renewed faithfulness toward your gracious, forgiving God.

    The Son of Man majors in sinners.  He doesn’t major in sin — He majors in sinners.  But then, everybody’s a sinner, right?  Then what kind of sinner does He focus on?

    Hungry ones.  Desperate ones.  And still today, Jesus gives His attention to sinners who desperately need Him to address their sin because of who they know He is.

    Could it be that many of us are just too righteous for Jesus?  You know…we’re too “okay” for Jesus.  We’re part of the crowd.  We have not broken loose to go climb the sycamore tree as Zacchaeus did.  We just haven’t realized, as of yet, that unless we’re galvanized into Jesus’ mission, we’ll miss Jesus.

    How hungry are you?  How bad do you want Him?  That’s what God wants to know from us.  Are you up in a tree looking for God?  Are you out of fellowship with God?  Then look no further for God is passing by and He is passing for you and me.

  • Why Pray?

    “Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36).

     

    1.  There is a devil.
    2. Prayer is what God has given to obtain what we need from Him.
    3. Prayer was the most important thing to the early apostles.
    4. Our Lord prayed.

     

    5. Our Lord is even now interceding for us.
    6. Prayer moves God to obtain grace and receive mercy from Him.

     

    7. Prayer gives to us God’s fullness of His joy.

     

    8. Prayer along with thanksgiving frees us from anxiety.

     

    9. Prayer is the means in which we keep watchful.

     

    10. Prayer promotes our spiritual growth, brings power into the work, leads   others to Christ and gives power and blessings to the church.
    We cannot afford not to pray. Prayer should be the most vital part of a believer’s life. Prayer is how we talk to God and how the Word speaks to us. Prayer draws us nigh to God.
    Prayer is not the last thing we should do — it’s the best thing. It’s the only thing that matters until we pray.

     

  • Hypocritical Subterfuge

    “After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight” (Hosea 6:2).

    When we come back to God, He brings the dawning of a new day with refreshing showers. We have a God who hastens but He also heals and revives His people. Why would we delay to return to Him?

    Aren’t we like a morning cloud that promises rain and yet does not deliver? We are much like the dew in the morning, our religious duty evaporates before the sun, and we are not changed. We have burning desires that smolder and at the right time they flare and blaze forth when opportunity comes. We are like half baked goods.

    It is God and Him only that can tame the heart and give the grace. The people in Hosea’s day thought they could come to God and ask for a quick release. The false prophets were like physicians putting suntan lotion on a cancerous tumor instead of calling for drastic surgery.

    Will we allow God to deeply cleanse us? Will we continue to be mechanical in our words and ways before the Lord? God’s desire is for us to stay before Him and surrender everything daily in dependence before and upon Him. “On the third day He will raise us up, if we will live in His sight.” Blind optimism if not the order of this day. We must seek Him and not delay.

  • One More Night With The Frogs

     
    “Moses said to Pharaoh, ‘I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for these that remain in the Nile.’ “Tomorrow,” Pharaoh said.'”     (Exodus 8:9-10).

    Frogs everywhere. The nation of Egypt was in trouble with toads. Everywhere! The bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, playgrounds, school class rooms, on the ground, in the sink, by the river, everywhere they went it was frogs between the toes.

    Pharaoh had the opportunity to rid the nation of the frogs and he wanted them gone but can you believe he said, “Tomorrow.” So many people are like that. We do want to get right with God, just not yet. We would rather drown in our misery one more night. Stay like we are just one more night. The Bible, God’s Word, oh, we will read it another time.

    It is a sad indictment upon the human race and heart to live one more night with the frogs. Just one more night and then…. tomorrow. Well, tomorrow may never come. Our families will suffer, our churches will suffer, and our nation will suffer because we don’t want to admit we are stubborn and prideful.
     
    One day the frogs will disappear.     But it will be too late. When we stand before the Lord to give account of our lives we will see the folly of saying, “Tomorrow.” When our children could have been for God, when our families could have impacted a world, and when we could have allowed the Good Shepherd to lead us into green pastures and by still waters, the words, “Tomorrow” will sting, and we will feel the toads beneath our feet once more. Don’t say, “Tomorrow” but say, “Today.”

  • Is God on America’s Side?

    “Are you for us, or for our adversaries? No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord” (Joshua 5:13-14).

    Is God an American?  Is He a Republican?  Is He a Democrat?  Is God King and Defender of our nation?  In Christian thought God has been often invoked for political ends, but history shows He will not be so used.

    We are not just another country, but neither are we God’s chosen people.  We should not believe that America is God’s chosen nation.  God established one chosen nation and people:  the Jews.  We are not Israel.  We are not God’s gift to the world.

    There is no doubt we drink from wells we did not dig and we eat fruit from trees we did not plant.  We will no doubt be judged nationally and individually with stricter judgment for “unto whom much is given, much is required.”  We expect blessing, but we have done plenty to expect judgment.

    Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, was asked whether God was on his side and he replied, “I do not care whether God is on my side; the important question is whether I am on God’s side, for God is always right.”

    Our greatest gift to this country is to return to biblical priorities of the church, and, more importantly, in so doing we will be pleasing to our Heavenly Father.

  • Going Beyond the Gun

    Hundreds of students across the Piedmont Triad walked out of class during Wednesday’s nationwide walkout, but Connor Groce had his own way of taking a stand by staying in his seat.  Connor said, “I just spent the moment in prayer and in reflection,” the West Forsyth senior explains.  “Obviously, for the families of the victims in Florida and the horrific tragedy down there but for our nation as a whole because I think we live in a very fragile time.”

    At its core, the current debate taking place about gun control is about more than guns.  What’s being protested is a symptom of a much larger problem.  We will not be able to legislate away evil.  No laws written on any book will change the human heart.

    Our day is a lost culture that the students have inherited from us.  It’s a lost culture that mocks or ignores God and His “Timeless Truths“.  We live in a generation that is top-heavy for carnal pleasures and temporary thrills.  We have lost control of ourselves.

    There is a growing epidemic of gun violence.  In addition to Florida, there have been school shootings in the states of Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  “How many schools, how many children have to get shot?” Andrew Pollack asked and pleaded with the President of the United States.  Mr. Pollack’s daughter, Meadow, was murdered in Parkland, Florida.  He said, “It stops here, with this administration and me, because I’m not going to sleep until its fixed.”  Any parent can understand this man’s broken heart if it were one of us before President Trump.

    Many of the people who want to control and eliminate the symptoms are the very ones, sadly, who want to ban the very things that will lead to healing and revival.  Unless this country and her churches turn back to God, those with a fervent and sincere faith are going to be continually mocked and marginalized rather than respected and uplifted, meaning there is absolutely no help or hope from outside of ourselves, for God is out and Satan is in.

    John Adams, second President, remarked that “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  History is very clear:  godlessness and immorality leads to any outbreak of evil.  If Conor Groce can take 17 minutes to pray in a classroom, can not God’s people take more and call upon God’s grace and mercy to start in us.