Archive for March 2009

We all want beautiful feet. As women, we love to show off our newest pedicures with cute little sandals in the summer and bright, pretty colors that adorn our toenails. We might even put on a little ring that dangles around our little pinky toe, or a ankle bracelet that sparkles in the light. We consider these things, the things that make our feet beautiful. And we look forward to the pampering of our feet and sigh with satisfaction as we leave the beauty shop or spa with our beautifully dressed-up feet.

But what does God say about beautiful feet? What does the Maker of heaven and earth consider is the proper adornment of our feet that would make them look beautiful in His sight? God is awesome. Just so we would never have to wonder, He made it perfectly clear to us what He considers -beautiful feet.

Are your feet beautiful to God?

You left Your glory
Your seat upon the throne
And You exchanged it
For a Cross
In a place that was not Your Home.

Master, You took my scorn
My guilt and my shame
You redeemed my wretched soul
With Your blood
In Your name.

What awesome gift is this
I have received
That the King of glory would die
For the wicked
And deceived?

Your matchless love,
Your mercy and Your grace
Causes my heart to anguish
The high cost
My Savior paid.

How can I respond
To Christ saving my soul?
I will share His Good News
In every place
That I go.

Jesus, I call You Lord
My Master and my Friend
And will obey You with
All my heart
With every breath You lend.

And what will you do with the time you have left? Will you end your days living for your pleasures? Or will you live out the rest of your days as a living sacrifice to our Captain, Christ Jesus who calls all that are His to answer His battle cry for the souls of those who are still lost?

Remember, the harvest is plenty - it is the laborers who are few. I pray constantly to the Lord of the harvest to send in more laborers. Perhaps I've been praying for you. Won't you come and join in the battle? No longer a spectator, but an active warrior, purposed for the Lord's Kingdom work.

...who humble themselves.

All my life, I've heard differently. I've heard, "God helps those who help themselves." As with many things, I believed it because, well, for the most part, it sounded right. It sounded like something that could be and should be true. Fortunately for all of us, it's not true and is not found anywhere in Scripture.

Here are some Scriptures that remind us God does not help those who can help themselves, instead the Lord our God helps those who humble themselves; crying out to Him out of their helplessness, and not out of their ability to "help" themselves.

"The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From His temple He heard my voice, and my cry to Him reached His ears....For You save a humble people, but the haughty eyes your bring down."
~ Psalm 18:4-6, 27

"I was pushed hard, so that I was falling, but the LORD helped me."
~ Psalm 118:13

"For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
~ Luke 14:11

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such a such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit' -- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."
~ James 4:13-17

"But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne, and his glory was taken from him."
~ Daniel 5:20

We read over and over again in Scripture that God leaves the proud and arrogant people who think they can do anything good for themselves - to themselves. The Lord God in His wisdom and righteousness allows our arrogance to build as high as we can get it, so that when we fall, we will clearly see the truth; God is awesome, and we are only dust [Psalm 103:13-14].

Many a men (Elvis Presley, Donald Trump, Ghandi, Stalin, Hitler) and women (Elizabeth Taylor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Billie Jean King, Martha Stewart, Madyln Murray O'Hair) have gone before us with seemingly larger-than-life plans, goals and agendas. And they all wanted to do what they thought would be best for themselves and others in the world. But ultimately, they have, and will, wind up in the same place - as dust. And all of them, regardless of their worldly status, have come to their own demise because of their insatiable lust of pride. I'm sure in the eyes of the world, some of these people are still very highly esteemed. But people who esteem these men and women, are also the same people who esteem Jesus not.

We labor, toil and spend our energies, resources and everything we have, on what? To build what? Our reputations? Our earthly rewards, or awards and accolades? Our self-esteem? What? What do we labor and toil for? What is on this earth and of this world that is worth so much of our effort that we should give everything we have for it? When in the end, it will all be as we will be...dust.

Several years ago when I traveled to Louisiana on a missions trip to help those who had been devastated by hurricane Katrina, a very wise 12 year old who sat next to me on the bus said, "You know Mrs. Sunny, unless someone had told me which neighborhood we were in, you know, the rich ones or poor ones, I would've never known. It all just looks like trash. And when it comes down to it, trash is trash. There's no rich people trash or poor people trash. It all looks the same."

How right he is! To God, it all looks the same. The futile efforts of man to make something of himself, to "help" himself be something, or do something that's of value, is of no value in God's sight. It all just looks the same to God - like trash ["We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away." ~ Isaiah 64:6] For God alone can do anything that's worthy of value, or praise, of honor, or glory. And out of His awesome mercy and grace, He allows us, who are only dust, to participate in His good work - and He alone can give value to what we do.

So what are you building today to help your self-esteem and feel as if your life matters or is important? Are you building your marriage with your ideas? Are you building your children to bear the image of what you've always dreamed? Are you building a "ministry" not because God called you to it, but because you've decided since you enjoy speaking, writing or whatever - that you should do it?

I don't ask these questions presuming that I am better and more holy than any of you. I ask these questions of you and beg you to ask them of yourself, because I have done the same. And because of my gratitude to God for His awesome love towards me and also towards you, I beseech you; do not travel where I have gone, but go with me now to the Cross! Let us follow the only Savior given to man - Jesus Christ; carrying our cross to mortify the flesh with all its wicked passions so that the life of Christ may truly be manifested in us [2 Corinthians 4:10]!

Too often in my life, I have done many things, not for God (although at the time, I thought it was), but for myself - so that I could justify my existence. But in the end, I found that I could not justify (that is, make right) my existence. Only God can. And He did, through His Son, Jesus Christ. Nothing I have done or will ever do, will make my existence right with God - only Jesus can make me right with God; and while I was yet sinning, when I couldn't help myself, God helped me, and continues to help me, as I desperately and humbly cry out, "LORD save me!"

"So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
~ Romans 7:21-25(a)

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

~Matthew 10:34-39

The common misconception in the world and in Christendom today is that trusting in Jesus Christ will make you "a better you", or make the life you’re already living better than it was. But that simply is not true.

This is what God calls false doctrine as the Holy Spirit instructed the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John to write:

"If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness,"

~ 1 Timothy 6: 3

"Jesus said to him, 'I am the Way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' "

~ John 15:6

"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."

~ 1 Corinthians 2:14

Now, what I'm about to say, may make a lot of people angry, but as I stated in my latest post, I do all this out of pure love for God and for you also; therefore, I am fully committed to preach the Good News of Christ in accordance with God's holy word, regardless of the praise, or rejection of man. I am determined to speak this way until God grants me my last breath. May the Lord our God be glorified and may He pierce your hearts with His truth that you may share it with others and prevent the delusion that has overtaken the masses.

God is clear in His word, that we are to warn one another of false prophets and teachers that rise in order that the lost may remain utterly lost and depraved; and even the elect (God's children) may be led astray and deemed ineffective for our Lord's Kingdom work. Joel Osteen is among the many false prophets and teachers of our time.

In an interview with Border's Media in 2007, Joel Osteen continues to deny the supremacy of Christ, His word of truth that only Christians can understand and apply to their lives through the Holy Spirit and most importantly, that the destiny of all man is to know God the Father through faith and trust in our risen Savior, Jesus Christ alone. Here's an excerpt of this interview:

Interviewer: You also talked about though, finding your destiny. And that's obviously a path that so many people think about every day. And in that regard, this book has absolutely Christian foundation to this book. The themes though of self-improvement and getting better are completely universal. I mean it seems to me, there will be a connection in this book to people, regardless of their religious faith or belief. In here, there lies a lot of guidance for better living.

Joel Osteen: I believe that, you know, what I'm good at is taking principles in the Bible and putting them to teaching us how to live our every day life. But the principles I believe in God's word, help anybody [Osteen is wrong, read Hebrews 11:6].

We have people sitting in the audience today that are of different faiths. That doesn't bother me [it should, read Romans 9:1-3] because our goal is just to help anybody from any faith to improve their life. And so, I think you're exactly right on that they're universal truths to me. If you give, God's going to bless you and it's going to be given back to you [out of context, read Luke 6:34 and Matthew 6:19-21]; it [God's Word] doesn't say if you're a Christian and you give.

So, that's my whole thing is to just present this to people. I like it to be as broad [contradicts Christ read Matthew 7:13-14] as possible because I feel like we're not supposed to reach just our one group [yes he is, read 1 Corinthians 1:17-19].

According to God's word, He gives instruction for godly living only for those who belong to Him; for without the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, God's word is foolishness to those who have not put their trust in Jesus. While we are also commanded in God's word not to stay in a "holy huddle" and never leave our Christian bubbles, we are commanded only to leave in order that we might preach the Gospel of God's salvation through Jesus Christ alone. We are clearly instructed in Scripture that the reason why Christians meet is to exhort one another in our faith, and not to invite unbelievers among our midst so that our fellowship may remain holy and one in Christ (Hebrews 10:24-25).

If Joel Osteen is reaching the masses so that they foolishly and wrongly believe that they can understand the holy and profound words of our Father, and also apply them for godly living—that is, without faith in Christ, then Mr. Osteen is most certainly leading the masses, not to Christ and eternal life found only in Him, but to Hell, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Do I say all this to start an argument, make men angry or to puff myself up? By all means, no. I do this out of the deep abiding love of Christ in me for our Lord God Most High and for those who are utterly lost without Him and moreover, for the saints of God who unknowingly have supported or perhaps remained silent as this ravenous wolf, Joel Osteen is used by Satan to desensitize God's people, while he leads the blind to a black chasm that has no end.

When I heard the Gospel, repented and trusted Christ as my Lord and Savior, I didn't merely become a better me nor did the circumstances in my life improve. Instead, I became someone I could have never been on my own…a new creation, a child of the Lord God Almighty.

I want this for everyone. And my heart is grieved for all those who do not know my Jesus. It disturbs me that Joel Osteen calls himself a Christian and has no compassion for the lost and the fact that they are enemies of God; instead is more concerned with them enjoying life, in the here and now.

When Jesus' salvation came to me, my circumstances stayed the same, my eyes were opened to see my circumstances and those around me the way God sees them, in Spirit and in truth. I saw the people who hurt me not as people who ought to be hurt in return, but people who were just as wicked as I was, just as blind as I was, just as much of a lawbreaker as I was (God’s laws that is) and just as desperately in need of a Savior. In essence, my present life didn't get “better”, instead I was given a new understanding and new desires. I was transformed from the inside out, not the outside in. I was given a brand new life, not just an improvement on the old one.

When Moses asked to see God’s face, God said that no man could see His face and live. So God showed Moses where there was a cleft in the rock and God put Moses there. Then God covered Moses with His hand and allowed His glory to pass by. From this, Moses' entire face was glowing, his skin was radiant, just from God’s passing glory. Imagine how utterly destroyed Moses’ body would’ve been had he actually been in the full presence of God’s glory while still in the flesh, in his sin.

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

~ 2 Corinthians 5:16-20

When you come to know Christ, not merely come to know some facts about Him, but become involved in an intimate relationship with Him, you’ll come to realize He has provided you a way to be something more than merely a better you.

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