Saturday, May 11, 2013

                                            
To all the radical Jesus followers: the world should hate you. 

Don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity towards God?
(James 4:4)

"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the
world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world,
but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."
(John 15:18,19)

Why did the world hate Jesus so much? Jesus said: 
"it hates me because I testify that its works are evil."
(John 7:7)

We do no service to anyone by pretending sin is not a big deal.   

Let's treat sin with the same seriousness that Jesus did -

"if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away.  It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."
(Matthew 5:30)
 
As a culture we have done away with the ideas of sin, guilt and shame; however, we each
have a conscience, and though it is suppressed in unrighteousness some will hear the
warning and be saved.

The truth of the matter is that outside of Christ:

"But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed." (Romans 2:5)

Sinners will give an account to him who is ready to Judge.

"For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living
in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.  They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living,  and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is  ready to judge the living and the dead."
(1 Peter 4:3-5)

Let us preach like Peter in Acts 2!

'With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with
them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”'
(Acts 2:40)

Loving others DOES NOT mean glossing over their sins.  It means pointing out the
absolute seriousness of sin against a Holy God who will judge the world in
righteousness and cast sinners into a fiery lake of burning sulphur.

It also means taking our own SINS very seriously, mortifying the flesh and
presenting our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, Holy and pleasing to him.

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