All for Love - IV

I believe that heaven will be filled with people who are forgiven and born-again but never entered salvation in their daily lives. They are those who did not find Jesus as their daily Savior from vexing sins that control, the guilt that follows, and the unavoidable and escapable bondage. Being born again will get us into heaven according to John 3, but we need salvation from the things that currently oppress.

Repeating failure can cause our hearts to condemn us. We need not only forgiveness, but freedom from all that took us to the point of death.

What would be the loss to my life if I believed that salvation is only for a future time? Very great, but I would continue to suffer defeat today, looking forward to freedom in the future; when all the while I could have lived in victory had I seen the Savior as someone who delivers today and every day until the final deliverance from this body.

Salvation is to be a daily experience that must be supernatural. John 15:5 “apart from me you can do nothing.” But if we are full of unbelief, then those words will in our minds sound like a blessing, but in our emotions sound like a curse.

If, however, you are an unbelieving believer, then you have not been able to look to God to meet your deepest needs. Where have you looked to have these needs met? How are you coping with the world around you? What do you do in the midst of the severest defeat? To what are you turning when under extreme pressure? Where do you find comfort? How do you exist in a world where God is relevant only for the future to keep you out of hell? How do you live among humanity that seems to be pitted against your every move?

Whenever we are hurt, we must find some way of coping with that hurt. The thing that we run to when injured is our idol.

This man was enticed with pornography because in the past it had worked to relieve his hurts; thus, he would be susceptible to returning to it.

God will not allow any idol to meet the Christian’s needs!

It has been said that there are only four types of people in the world. The first says, “I, not Christ!“ This group includes such people as Buddhists, Hindus, Agnostics, and Atheists. The second says, “I and Christ!“ These will let Christ be fire insurance to keep them out of hell, but will take care of everything else themselves. The third type says, “Christ and I!“ These are the most miserable Christians, for they want Christ to be Lord, and yet if he does not act according to their plan when they think he should, out come the idols. The fourth kind says, “Christ, not I!" Having learned the secret of dependence upon and trust in Christ alone, they enter into God’s rest and cast all anxiety upon him.

An idol can be anything, for it is what we run to other than Christ when under pressure or pain.

There are normally two elements comprising any hurt; the first is pain and the second is rejection.

There’s only one thing readily available to purge both pain and rejection. It is quite popular because it normally cost nothing monetarily, and we are assured covertly from all sides that it will indeed heal us of our hurt. That one thing is sex.

There are easily recognizable idols that are very ugly and repulsive, which come from the evil side of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There are, however, idols that do not appear to be all that bad at first glance. These are in many ways more common because they are easily excused or accepted, or harmless or even beneficial when not used as substitutes for God. Included in this list are food, shopping, television, radio, clothes, control, lying, manipulation, withdrawing, contention, exploding, reading, slander, fantasy, and greed. A particular thing may be an idol for one person but not the next, depending on whether or not it is used to meet inner needs.

An unbelieving believer runs to their idols when under pressure. God will not allow his children to worship idols, and therefore will withhold his peace from those who do. Ezekiel 20:8 “but they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me; they did not cast away the detestable things of their eyes, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt.”

Ezekiel was given a vision that told him to dig through a wall in the temple and describe what he saw. “So I entered and looked and behold every form of creeping thing, and beasts, and detestable thing, with all the idols of the house of Israel were carved on the wall all around”...Ezekial 8:10. In the very temple of God, Israel had hidden her idols!

Even in a heterosexual relationship, contrary to what is popularly taught, sex for the man is much more emotional than physical. When he is rejected it is a blow to his identity, not his sex drive. He feels unacceptable and worthless, then angry, depressed, and withdrawn. Hence, Paul’s command, “Stop depriving one another… “ in 1 Corinthians 7:5.

Therefore, God must do for us what he did for Israel, allowing us to wander in the wilderness to depend upon the self-made idols, which fail us over and over again until we cast them aside and once again make him the focus of our lives.

Just as then, God must put his people in one miserable situation after another until we are forced to the conclusion that God alone must receive our full trust.

What items do you run to under stress and pressure? We all have them, and, as believers, we are in the process of laying them aside.

Are you willing to give up all but the Lord Jesus Christ? If you are, then you are ready to enter into the promised land, the place of real rest, that domain where God is all in all.

Unfortunately, many today have more faith in Satan’s ability to deceive than in God’s ability to hear and act; more confidence in Satan’s proficiency in taking a believer away from God then in Christ’s capability to keep. But this is not the case; our Father in heaven is infinitely more powerful than our enemy. All we need to tap into the power of the Father is simple faith, which begins with the words in our mouths. The problem many of us have with faith is that if our experience does not immediately follow our request, then we believe God has not really heard us, and once again we offer up the prayer. Let me emphasize that the power in prayer is not in how it is said or in the person who says it; the power of prayer rests wholly in the one who hears it. And it is the Father in heaven who has commanded us to message him for one reason, that he might hear and answer.

That you may not feel God hears you means nothing. The power in prayer is that God himself hears you!