abandoned to Christ.

By the time you read this, I should be at home recovering. As a matter of fact the last few posts you’ve read were written prior to my surgery and were set to post during my stay in the hospital.

For the past four years, I have been very ill. I’ve had endless tests and procedures performed, had two (this being my second) surgeries in seven months, and I’ve even been radioactive! I was glowing from the inside…but we already knew that because the Holy Spirit of God lives in me!

Due to my ever-declining health these past four years, I’ve been very limited in my activities due to frequent debilitating pain and exhaustion. I often felt I was a great burden on my family (they completely disagree, but I’ve struggled with this thought). Many times I asked my Heavenly Father if there was a sin I committed that I was too dunce to recognize, and if He was choosing to reveal it to me through the discipline of this trial. If this was the case, I begged God to make my sin clear to me so that I might learn this lesson and no longer cause my family any further stress due to my personal sin. I also asked if this was happening because of another purpose that didn’t have anything to do with a personal sin issue, could He tell me. But I received no answer except the same one given to the Apostle Paul:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
~ 2 Corinthians 12:9

The more I learn about God, the more I realize how very little I know about Him. Because God is so awesome, so great, and so beyond any possible comprehension, my soul is constantly moved to be captivated by Him and His merciful love towards me.

Often, we are all so quick to judge (condemn) one another when God allows successive trials to come our way. I know, because I’ve been guilty of this myself. I suppose that’s why my first question to God was to ask if I had sinned and was being disciplined.

One of the things I’ve learned about my awesome Father God is how He answers His children…and He always does. Sometimes He answers, “Yes”, sometimes, “No”, sometimes, “Wait”, and sometimes, “My grace is sufficient, trust Me.”

God is God and doesn’t owe me an explanation for anything He chooses to do, for all His ways are perfect, good and just. But sometimes He does explain things to His little children, and there are times He doesn’t. One of the reasons He doesn’t is because if He did, due to our finite minds, we wouldn’t understand it any way (1 Corinthians 13:11-12), but in Heaven we will! Another reason is we might do evil with the knowledge He gave us. And since God is not evil, though we may ask Him for something, He will not give it to us, lest we sin (James 4:3).

Therefore I will lay myself down so that my Lord and Savior Christ Jesus may be exalted and lifted up (Galatians 2:20). I choose to relinquish all my desires to increase my knowledge only for personal gain, as well as all of my preconceived dreams of what I’ve always imagined my life would be. Instead, I choose to completely trust my God and Savior for ever breath, during every trial and in every victory, for they are all in Christ alone. And I will steadfastly seek to save the lost regardless of my physical state, trusting it is Christ who proclaims His Gospel through me. May Christ alone receive all glory, honor and praise for any good manifested in my life. For He alone is worthy!

Therefore my soul cries out:

“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
~ 2 Corinthians 12:10
(emphasis added)

Last year on December 9, 2007 the world witnessed another casualty of the seeker-friendly, worldly-based, false gospel that is not only injuring the purpose of the Church, but also grieving our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Matthew Murray, a 24 year old false convert of Christianity killed four people: two at Youth With a Mission Training Center in Arvada, CO and two at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO as well as wounding five others before he took his own life.

Below is a two page letter Matthew wrote "To God". It was found in his car after the second shooting. Please read the letter carefully and soberly, as Matthew describes his torment and anguished struggle to find the truth from professing Christians who could neither answer his questions regarding sound doctrine, nor lead him to the one and only Savior God has provided for all mankind, Jesus Christ.

Please click on the letter below to enlarge and read:

I hope this encourages every child of God, to never again support or preach the false gospel that states that we all have a "Jesus-shaped hole in our hearts", "build a bridge/relationship", or "accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and ask Him into your heart and He will most certainly come in". No He won't. The Bible never says that. Jesus clearly states that only those who are called by God (John 6:44 & 15:16, Romans 8:29), can come to Christ. And those called by God are granted the repentance that leads to salvation. (Luke 13:2-3, 2 Corinthians 7:10, 2 Timothy 2:24-26).

It's neither loving nor compassionate to tell lost people anything that tickles their ears so you can get a "profession of faith" and increase your numbers at your church. Instead it is selfish and self-elevating - both of which opposes Christ.

Preach the Gospel of Christ just the way He did and allow the Holy Spirit to lead them to the repentance, and faith in Christ alone, that can save them.

"Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams."
~ 1 Samuel 15:22

"For You will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."
~ Psalm 51:16-17

I know that statement seems a bit obvious and even strange to say, but I feel it’s necessary. It’s simple, clear and to the point…like me. And here’s the point: As much as sitting in a garage won’t make you a car, sitting in a church won’t make you a Christian either.

Many years ago when my boys were toddlers, during one of our breakfast, family devotionals, I wanted to explain to them that being a Christian is more than just saying a prayer, going to church or anything else. I wanted to share with them that they become a new creation. So to drive this picture home, I took my boys into the garage and began:

“Well, boys, guess what?! Mama’s a car! Isn’t that cool?!” They both looked at me as if I had lost my mind and said simultaneously, “No you’re not, you’re our Mama.” But I insisted, “No boys, what are in garages?” They responded, “Cars.” I added, “Correct. So, it only makes sense that if I’m sitting in a garage, then I must be a car!” Then I started to make sounds like a car, “dressed” myself to look like a car with wheels, pretend doors, etc. and stated, “Well, now, I’m sitting in the right building to be a car, I sound like a car and look like one too. Now do you believe that I’m a car?”

But before I could make the correlation between my being in a garage won’t make me a car, any more than sitting in a church won’t make me a Christian, my youngest son who was only 4 years old at the time quickly interjected:

“Mama, you’re still not a car. You’re in the right building, sound like a car and look like one too, but you’re still not a car. To be a car Mama, you need a motor, and you don’t have one Mama. A motor is like the heart of a car, it’s what makes a car, go. If you want to be a car Mama, someone would have to take your heart out and put a motor in you. But then that would mean you would die Mama, and you wouldn’t be my Mama any more. You would be something else. And I would be so sad because you would never be my Mama ever again, because you died and became a car.”

I was overjoyed as tears welled up in my eyes when I recognized my Father’s voice, teaching me, through the mouth of a babe! Truly, I would cease to exist in my present state and I would become a new creation and there would be no turning back.

Over the years, I’ve received some disturbing answers as to why people believe they are Christians – all of which are un-Scriptural. I feel very sad for these people because they have either been deceived by the false gospel that has infiltrated the Church (i.e., “accept” Jesus as your Lord and Savior and get a better, problem free life), or because they choose to believe their “good deeds” will appease God’s just wrath and give them admittance into Heaven. Many falsely believe that if they sit in church religiously, volunteer, look and sound like a Christian, they are. There could be nothing further from the truth.

Exterior piety means nothing to God, it’s what’s or rather Who is inside that matters. I can’t think of a better way to say it than the way God spoke it through my child: a person must die – cease existing as you did once before; and become a new creation – begin existing as someone you’ve never been or could have never been in your previous state. You need a new “motor”. You need the Holy Spirit of God to dwell within you. And that can only happen when you repent and trust in Jesus Christ.

Don’t you love it when you read something God inspired another brother or sister in Christ to write hundreds or thousands of years ago in which they share the current state of your heart? I sure do!

This morning, I was reading Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening and couldn’t help but rejoice in God my Savior as my brother Charles did nearly 200 years ago! Here’s an excerpt of my reading this morning based on Psalm 37:4:

“The life of the believer is here described as a delight in God, and we are thus certified of the great fact that true religion overflows with happiness and joy. Ungodly persons and mere professors never look upon religion as a joyful thing; to them it is service, duty, or necessity, but never pleasure or delight. If they attend to religion at all, it is either that they may gain thereby, or else because they dare not do otherwise. The thought of delight in religion is so strange to most men, that no two words in their language stand further apart than ‘holiness’ and ‘delight’. But believers who know Christ, understand that delight and faith are so blessedly united, that the gates of hell cannot prevail to separate them. They who love God with all their hearts, find that His ways are ways of pleasantness, and all His paths are peace. Such joys, such brimful delights, such overflowing blessednesses, do the saints discover in their Lord, that so far from serving Him from custom, His name as evil. We fear not God because of any compulsion; our faith is no fetter, our profession is no bondage, we are not dragged to holiness, nor driven to duty. No, our piety is our pleasure, our hope is our happiness, our duty is our delight.”

I cannot contain my gratitude for God’s gracious and merciful gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, our gracious Redeemer, who’s pure and holy blood alone can purify us from all unrighteousness!

The unfathomable fact that I, a despicable sinner can (through Jesus Christ) approach the Maker of all creation, the righteous Judge, the Great I Am, overwhelms me. I don’t increase God and I don’t make Heaven better. But my Father God delighted to save me from my sins, by giving me Himself so that I might know Him and engage in an intimate, holy relationship with Him. Oh how great the sacrifice, how high the cost, to redeem the rebellious, to save the lost!

Therefore, I delight in God alone. I delight in His law, His precepts and all His ways. For the law of God is perfect (Psalm 19:7), His precepts are right and trustworthy (Psalm 19:8, 111:7-8), and His ways are just (Deuteronomy 32:4, Daniel 4:37).

I dare not diminish the greatness of my God by delighting in Him because of what He can give me, do for me, or how He can make me feel. I delight in my glorious Redeemer because He Is.

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