Praise God For Smoking? (Let me explain......)

I would just like to publicly thank God for allowing me to smoke for 24 years. I started when I was 14 and when God truly converted me just a few years ago, He took that away from me. I tried several times to no avail and could not do it on my own. Kind of like my conversion too - I said "the prayer" countless times through my life and only until He saved me was it real.

So why am I praising God for allowing me to smoke for those 24 years? Because it gave me a common ground to be able to share my faith in God tonight. See, even though I may ramble on in my writings, in person I have a tendency to be somewhat quiet, well o.k. REALLY quiet. So when God opened my mouth this evening to witness to a group of teens at an area rally for teens, it was really breathtaking. There was a young lady smoking while sitting on a bench outside of the "Christian" event. In fact there were a lot of teens smoking outside of this event. A few of us were handing out tracts and Scott and Bobby are truly gifted in the area of street evangelism, me not so much. My heart is there, but my mouth doesn't seem to cooperate very much. I am normally there for spiritual support (which is needed), so when God saw fit to put me in contact with this group of teens, give me an "in", something I could relate to them with, it was awesome. Did I stumble on my words? You bet ya I did. But God was glorified, I did share the gospel and God did use me in a way I have been praying for - for a looooooooong time now.

Please pray for me as the Lord continues to mold me and shape me. Also please pray for the groups that go out from my home church to be empowered as we go out to spread the Word of God in the coming weeks. Please pray specifically that when God puts specific people in our path that we realize who they are, that we will look to the cross for His strength and that He is glorified. We are just spreading seeds and the Lord will water and harvest.

Praise the Lord for allowing me to smoke for 24 years, that it may work for Him to be able to spread His glory to others. Wow! I am speechless. God is good.

A Call To Question Christian Retailers

I have noticed recently an influx in heretical books into the market place. The list includes the much heralded “The Shack” (which turns the Father and Holy Spirit into 2 females) Velvet Elvis, Blue Like Jazz, actually any book by Rob Bell, Brian Mclaren, or anything else labeled as “emergent” or challenging someone to “re-think” the Christian faith.

Books such as these are really not new though. Take for example any of the Gnostic gospels; the apocrypha books in some bibles and the Quran. All have found notoriety in some form or another, but more prominently the Quran. What they do hold common with the books mentioned above is their denial of the true God of Scripture.

I did not really want to concentrate on the mirade of titles to choose from, but instead speak out against the retailers that are peddling these goods on unsuspecting people. The placement on a Lifeway Christian Store shelf, in itself is condoning such material. Lifesway does place a disclaimer on it’s shelf with some of these books, but I say that if it needs a “please read with discernment” placard on it, then it should not be sold by a Christian bookstore.

I recently have been in an email conversation with Jim Shull of Lifeway. He respectfully took my concerns, but did not address them. He did say that “we consistently do not carry as much as 20% or more of the best-selling books in the Christian market because of
unbiblical theology or other reasons”. My question back to him was, then why condone other, heretical books? Or was it simply that Lifeway could increase their profit margin by selling these works.

Today I came across a story at Christian Worldview that talks about Paul Young, author of The Shack, appearing at the upcoming Gaither Family Fest. If you are not familiar with the Gaither name then you probably have never heard Christian song classics such as “He Touched Me”, “Because He Lives” or “There’s Something About That Name”. The Gaither name packs a lot of punch in Christian circles, so an endorsement of appearing at the Gaither Family Fest could add a lot of fuel to an already out of control fire. It is still unclear to me what role Young will have at this event, but I am sure his goods will be up for sale there.

Lifeway is not the only “Christian” retailer that sells these questionable books and materials. Family Christian Stores, christianbook.com, bookschristian.com and Parable carry these questionable/ heretical materials as well. So what is a discerning Christian to do? First off, pray! Pray for these retailers and their decision makers that they will seek God in matters such as this. Then contact them and tell them how concerned you are that they would choose to sell and thereby condone such items. These are businesses after all, they are there for their customers and if their customers show concerns for what they see on the shelves they will have no choice but to remove these items.

If you have been hearing a lot of things about The Shack and are contemplating reading the book, I highly suggest you too seek God in this. Also reading this review at reformata.com may help you see some of the ant-Christ themes of the book.

Take heed to Paul’s inspired words to Galatia:
Galatians 1:6-9 6 I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

It doesn’t get much plainer than that. But then again, American Christianity has been so distorted over the past 150 years, that heresy like these books; videos and teachings are gobbled up as fast as they are being produced. The man-centered messages blaring from pulpits across the nation are this perversion of the gospel of Christ. The “what can God do for you” theology made famous by word of faith teachings and the “just say this prayer” form of salvation are sending millions to hell. Seek God, repent of your sins and trust in Christ. Now that is true biblical Christianity.

Just Knowing

Do you know how to read? Of course you do or all of this would look like a bunch of letters placed randomly across the computer screen. So do you remember how you first learned to read? Do you remember or do you “just know” how to read and it comes natural to you? Do you look at a string of letters and have to think back and remember what sound each letter makes in conjunction with the other letters or do you “just know” that W-O-R-D spells word?

What about mathematics? To add 2+2 do you have to free up your hands count out 1-2 on each index and middle finger, place your hands side by side and then count 1-2-3-4 and come up with the sum of 4 as the answer? Or do you “just know” that it equals 4? How about 10+10? Do you have to take off your shoes and socks, count all of your toes and then all of your fingers and then come up with 20? Or do you just know that you have 20 appendages hanging from your limbs?

These are things that you may have learned along the way down life’s roads, but they have also become second nature to you. They are engrained into your being so deeply that you do not even have to think about them to “just know” how to read (unless it’s a word like “Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis” which is the longest word in the English language). You “just know” how to put all of the letters together to form words.

Now let’s try to apply this to the spiritual realm. What do you “just know”? As humans we stand apart from animals in that we have a thought process and do not rely on instinct in order to live. We are unique creatures that were given reign over all things of the Earth (Genesis 1:26). We have also been given a conscience to “just know” what is right from what is wrong (Romans 2:14-15, Jeremiah 31:33, 2 Cor. 3:2-3, Psalm 119:11). I am not undermining the sanctification process, but some things a person will “just know” after their conversion. A person will be born anew (John 3:7) by the Spirit and the Spirit will bare witness in their heart (Romans 8:16, Acts 18:5, Gal. 4:6) when they do start following a path or series of motions that are not in accordance with the Lord and will “just know” they must turn from that particular sin. All of the talk that a Christian can be carnal or in a continual state of backslidingness (I just made that word up) is gibberish and heretical and sends millions of souls to hell every year. A true convert no longer has the sin nature and instead has been given a new nature that the Father changes, not the individual.

So with the new nature that God Himself transformed in a person there are a lot of things that the person will “just know”. They will have new desires, they will strive to please the Lord and obey Him. Not because they must perform to be saved (or possibly lose their salvation) but because their new nature desires to please the Lord in every way. Just as a child fears their parents in love, not a fear that is afraid of a spanking but a fear that doesn’t want to disappoint or go against what their parents say. We desire to please the God that created and saw fit to save our souls, which in affect saves us from the painful life of sin. Wow! That’s good. God saves us continually from ourselves and our original fallen nature, by replacing that with His nature. Not that we can’t sin, but we can’t continually live a life of sin.

Easy believism is prevalent these days. Probably because each generation changes the Word and trades it for more lies (Rom. 1:25 all of Jude). You see this more and more with books such as Blue Like Jazz, Velvet Elvis and more recently The Shack that have taken professing Christians by storm into a new belief system. The likes of Rob Bell, Brian McLaren and Erwin McManus are the larger voices of the postmodernism movement that claim Christianity as their beliefs. This is not to even mention the church of Oprah, which is ecumenical, new age and all inclusive. They say that no one religion is correct and that all roads lead to God. This is in direct opposition to what the Word of God says. Jesus said Himself in John 3:18 and John 14:6 that He is the only Way (and then throughout other scriptures Acts 4:12, 1 John 2:23, Romans 5:21, 1 John 5:11. A strong word of caution, if anyone claims to know Christ and is in blatant disregard for what the Word say’s then they are a liar and are not a Christian. If a person says they are a Christian and support abortion, they are in denial of much of scripture. This is the same with someone that lives a life of lies, promiscuity, drunkenness and so on. God’s Word is clear that these people are deceived and are in danger of hellfire. But this is prevalent in theology these days, that all you have to do is make a decision, walk an aisle or say a prayer and BAM! You’re in. I will say that there will be a BAM when God saves you and it will be your heart being recreated to love the Lord instead of living a life of sin. You will “just know” that God has done a work in you that you can not change. Imagine jumping off the Empire State building and having an encounter with the ground. Could you change the fact that you were changed on impact? Not at all. Could you change the fact that you hit the ground and splattered? Nope. So how could and encounter with the God that created everything be changed by you? It can’t be changed.

I urge you to read Gods Word daily. Meditate on what you read and “just know” what it says. Let it permeate your being and allow it to be a part of your new nature. If you know God then you will desire to know more about Him. You will desire to be a part of a body of believers, you will “just know” that you are not complete by yourself and need the rest of the body to survive, to give support and to receive support.