The Truth Is

"Men and women Jesus gave up His life for will continue to deny anything is wrong with how they are until we pray for them, until we show them."

MY MOTHER USED TO have what she called “a flesh flash.” Usually, that meant reading a magazine that’d been lying around instead of her Bible. God is not against reading, just certain things we set before our eyes. But what brings this memory up for me today is God’s love for people. I preach on this, and you’re probably all, “Oh, there she goes again.” But in that light, if you’re annoyed with it, you haven’t seen God’s heart at all.

Just this morning I read the story of a young man shot for encouraging people to come to his church, killed over politics that matter not at all in the light of eternity. People dance around in their ignorance, happy to put it on display. That is the way ignorance is. We always think we know more than we know and are proud to show it. When the truth is, every man is only doing the best he can with what he hasn’t learned yet.

People kill and steal and destroy because they haven’t met Jesus, because their flesh has been given control. They run from Him because His light exposes their sins, and it’s easier to hold onto them and pretend they’re invisible than to give them up and be cleansed. Cleansing requires desperation, requires change. Changing who you have chosen to be, who you’ve been pushed into.

Several days ago when in prayer, the Lord said to me, “Leave no one out.” We were praying for those in uniform, specifically friends and family, church members. But His heart is for everyone, and if we don’t include those who are happy in their misinformation, those who think they know what they know and believe it’s good for them, then they will die without Jesus and be shown what they missed when it’s too late to begin again.

Don’t think God doesn’t mourn those who are lost and gone. He treasures every life. But “God freely allows every person to determine whether to accept his Remedy or not (1 Peter 1:17 Remedy).” And in another place, it says, “It is time for right judgment to begin with God’s house; and if it has begun with us, what will happen to those who close their minds to the good news about God (1 Peter 3:17 Remedy).”

Those living in the world, drawn this way and that by what they think and feel, men and women Jesus gave up His life for, will continue to deny anything is wrong with how they are until we pray for them, until we show them. Not with fists balled and angry voices, nor with speeches and long sermons, what causes a person to give up themselves and follow Jesus is the same thing that caused the Father to send Him to earth. He loves them.

Minister Jesse Duplantis says what turned him from being a rock musician, deep into drinking and drugs, was a dare by his wife. She got him to watch a Billy Graham crusade saying Billy Graham drew larger crowds. Suddenly, he wanted to know why. He’d been running from God for years, chased around by his mother’s prayers and those of his new wife’s. He’d attended every denomination in Louisiana, or so he felt. None of that made him turn around and see how empty he truly was. But that night, he listened to the gospel and felt the presence of Christ in a hotel room, and God met him there. He came to church afterward and speaks good and bad of those he met, but what saved him from his lifestyle was love and God’s wisdom.

The flesh ignores wisdom in favor of how it feels. The mind thinks it knows the truth. But until salvation, God’s wisdom is not open to us, and we can only follow our thoughts and emotions. Salvation gives us the Holy Spirit in our inner man, He’s the very wisdom of God, and with Him in us, we have no excuse to not see things like God does. When praying for those in the military or those in Israel or government, we must speak God’s heart. Because that one who thinks he knows where he’s at in the universe and where it’s leading him will either dive off the cliff the devil has led him to, and our loving God mourns again, or he will see the truth and with his new life, change everyone around him.

Rome went from killing Christians to being the center of Christianity. They who killed the Messiah for a group of angry Jews created the largest church denomination in existence. One woman from Colorado, a man from South Africa, and a Norwegian Baptist pastor have led millions of Muslims to Christ. How many others are there, who set aside who they were and what they thought to carry God’s cross and make a difference? We are not all Billy Graham but then again, maybe we are. God is looking for us to lay down our way of thinking and take up His, to feel compassion on the scale He does, and not be like we have been.

“Christ, therefore, having suffered in flesh, do ye also arm yourselves with the same mind; because he who suffered in flesh has ceased from sin; that ye no longer live the rest of your time in the flesh to the desires of men, but to the will of God.” (1 Peter 4:1-2 Worrell NT)


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com