I am amazed at the hypocrisy in the church. It is so rampant and so unholy, and so very disrespectful to the Lord our God. Am I judging? Well, you tell me.
Some claim to have the authority of Christ, thereby making themselves equal to Christ. At the other end of the spectrum, some claim to be submitted to God and to perform His will day by day, yet they curse like sailors in the same breath. So at both ends of the spectrum, we have people claiming to know Jesus and to love Jesus, and yet they are haughty, arrogant, and disrespectful to Jesus. I have expounded frequently about those who claim to have the authority of Christ, so today I will speak of those who simply have no respect for Christ.
Dear friends, Jesus is holy, the Father is holy, and the Holy Spirit is holy. How dare those who claim to believe in and speak for them ignore their holiness. When I was born again I knelt before the Son of the living God and I was mesmerized by Him. He was so loving, so kind, so understanding and so holy.
Within days after that experience, two men at work were goading me because I spoke of being a new Christian. They goaded and goaded until I finally got mad and said the word damn. I immediately burst into tears right in front of the two men. I had sinned against the One who loved me. I was devastated. It took months to get over that. The two men who had goaded me felt awful. They apologized profusely. They had only meant to tease me, but it ended with my sin.
I have a hard time believing people who claim to be close to Jesus and still curse without blinking an eye. If they knew Jesus and loved Him, one would think they would be more respectful of Him. One cannot see God and live. One cannot bow before the Son of God and walk away without respect for Him, unless, of course, one prefers to live in sin. However, there are some who bow before Jesus and walk away convinced they are Christians when they are not. The Bible calls them hypocrites. I call them Drugstore Christians.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. There are preachers galore preaching lies and calling them truths. Just last week I heard a preacher say we are all going to continue sinning. Well, if that’s the case Jesus was a failure because He came to take away sins. Don’t you think the blood of Jesus is much more precious and powerful than the blood of animals? Of course, it is, for He rose from the dead and became a new creation; a creation in which everyone who believes in Him and denies himself and takes up his cross and follows Him is led not into temptation but into holiness of mind and spirit; a new creation being trained up in the way he should go and learning obedience through that which he suffers.
This is why Adam was called man, he was an adult. We are called children because we are birthed, a new creature. We are then trained up by our heavenly Father so that we might learn obedience and share His holiness. Adam was trained by no one.
Hebrews 9:13, 14,
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh,
14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Jesus saves us from our sinful selves. God raised us up with Him into the heavenly places where we walk today in our new life in Christ. We are new creatures, a new creation, a holy creation. The sins of Adam have ended. The holiness of Christ has begun.
Galatians 5:16,
16 Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
1 Corinthians 15:34,
34 Become sober-minded as you ought, and stop sinning…
1 Peter 4:1, 2,
1 Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has CEASED from sin,
2 so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
1 John 3:7-10,
7 Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;
8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
Ephesians 4:29,
29 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.
Matthew 12:36, 37,
36 “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
37 “For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
We are free to make our own decisions. We can follow whatever preacher or doctrine we want. We can choose to continue in sin or we can choose to be obedient to Jesus who says, “Go, and sin no more.”
There are two creations, one of disobedience and sin, that is, Adam, the other of obedience and holiness, that is, the body of the risen Christ, the church.
So, you tell me, am I judging, or am I just telling the truth?
Jon David Banks, God’s most unworthy servant
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org
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