Christians in America - An Unbelieving Generation? by Rob Marshall
In a lot of ways I'm pretty average. I may be a bit taller than some, and probably weigh more than I should, but there isn't really anything extraordinary about me. So when I read the stories in the Bible, and think about how the majority of the people who were there reacted, I assume that I would have done what everyone else was doing.
One example is the story in Mark 9:14-29 about a father who brought his demon-possessed son to be healed. When the father came to the disciples, Jesus wasn't there. He was with Peter, James, and John and they were on their way back from the mountain where they had seen Jesus transfigured before their eyes. As they approached the other disciples they noticed that a large crowd had gathered, and that the teachers of the law were arguing with them.
When Jesus asked what they were arguing about, the man whose son was demon-possessed came and explained to Him how his son was being tormented by the spirit, and that he had asked the disciples to cast it out, but they hadn't been able to. It's at this point that Jesus says, "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me." (Mark 9:19)
Like I said, I'm pretty average. If I had been one of the disciples it's a good bet that I would have been in the middle of the crowd, arguing with the teachers, and trying to figure out why I hadn't been able to cast them demon out. And it's not like casting out demons was a foreign concept to them. When we look at Mark chapter 6 we see that Jesus sent them out, two by two, and gave them authority over demons. This was actually something that they had done before.
But when I look at my life, I realize that even though there are things that I've done before, it doesn't mean that it will be easy for me to do it again. All I have to do is look at how I spent the last few days, or weeks, in my life and realize that Jesus could very well look at me and say, "O unbelieving Rob, how long will I have to stay with you? How long will I have to keep reminding you of all that I've already taught you?"
I don't know about you, but when I'm faced with a new problem, or just an ongoing old one, I tend to forget all that God has already done for me. When struggling with financial issues I usually get discouraged and depressed. I focus too much on the problem, or what I don't have, and I forget that all things are possible with God.
One of the scriptures that I battle with the most is in Matthew 6:28-34, especially verse 33 which says, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." I find myself worrying about what I'll eat, or wear, or how I'll pay my mortgage this month. In other words, I worry about "all these things."
This verse isn't hard for us because God is asking to do something that is impossible. We have difficulties with it because it's so unnatural. If we look around us we can see dozens, hundreds, maybe even millions of examples of people who worry about how they are going survive, let alone doing any better than that. The fact that we worry about it is normal in the sense that it's something everyone does.
But I wonder if Jesus would look at us, those of us in America and other countries where the Word of God is readily available, and just shake His head in frustration. Would He look at us and say, "O unbelieving generation, when are you going to finally understand? When are you finally going to believe?" We are surrounded with God's word, it's being preached in our pulpits, over the airwaves, and at us in our daily email devotionals, but do we believe it?
In all fairness it is a frightening thing, the prospect of really believing God's word, or really trusting Him. And it's not about us having to do anything that is really crazy, or risky, but just trusting Him with our daily battles. It's sad to think that Christians in America are just as likely to get divorced, struggle just as much as everyone else financially, and are just as unhappy with their lives as people who don't believe in God at all.
But I know that taking a step to trust God, to begin to pray with the expectation that He will answer and do amazing things in our lives, won't be easy. Too often we end up like the disciples who watched helplessly as a demon-possessed boy fell to the ground and foamed at the mouth. We end up overwhelmed by our circumstances and unable to see how God can change things.
Because I'm not particularly extraordinary, I'm just an average Christian; I have to realize that the same thing applies to me that applies to everyone else. I have to allow God to change me. I need to ask Him to open my eyes so that I can see beyond what's happening to me and finally see what's possible with God. I must let Him put my faith to the test so that He can remove my doubts. And even though that will be hard, the reward is that I will finally begin to truly have faith in God.
Get two chapters from Rob Marshall's book, "Taking On Goliath - How To Unleash The David In All Of Us" when you sign up for his free weekly Faith-Full Life Newsletter. Visit:
http://www.TakingOnGoliath.com
Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Is America the Last Home for Those Who Love the God of Love
Is America the Last Home for Those Who Love the God of Love by Rev Michael Bresciani
America is sliding fast toward becoming the next great post Christian nation behind Europe. This is what all Godless societies throughout time immemorial have thought would be their final advance. Secularism has always labored under the notion that civil government and secular society is all we need to get it right. Perhaps as it pertains to kooky religions, cults, heresies and pseudo Christian religions that may be true. The absence of real Christianity as given to us by Christ himself will produce a vacuum that no one can bear.
As a young man and a new believer I was told that true Christianity as not a religion at all but a great love affair. The people of God love God and his son Jesus Christ. Oddly it is because they find out how much he loves them and are awestruck by his compelling gift of forgiveness and eternal life.
In the Muslim religion God is painted as a murderous entity that requires that we kill and destroy anything or anyone who will not submit to its tenants. It is a picture that is diametrically opposite the picture of Christ dying on the cross not for anything he had done but for the sins in thought, word and deed done by all mankind. This is what draws enlightened men and women who have exercised reason good judgment and faith after investigating and prying into the matter with full cognizance. In other words Christianity requires some real thought not just the consent of dumbbells.
Christians don’t worship other Gods because they think they’ve got the best one. Rather he is the only one. There is only one creator and one redeemer and one King that shows up at the end of time to rule for all eternity. God is not jealous of other Gods, because there aren’t any. See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me, De 32:39.
Mans insistence in creating other gods is evidence only of mans persistence in idolatry. Beyond that the darker and more sinister truth is that the god of this world (Satan) does not stop short of deceiving men with standard temptations. In addition to fame, fortune and power he has religion and those with the proclivity toward it in the palm of his hand. God knew better than to trust men to go shopping for a true religion as if they were trying to find a nice cut of meat. That also is what separates Christianity from any and all other religions.
God provides a revelation of who he is and exactly what he wants in the person of Jesus Christ. He allows no shopping around and does not encourage guesswork. Thank God. The only thing he doesn’t do is force faith on us but as a loving God allows us to see what he has done and to decide for ourselves if we want to get onboard. How else could he be sure if he had the right ones? If I was God I wouldn’t want the coerced, the threatened or the cajoled around me either. That’s not love!
We don’t believe because we are forced and we don’t obey on that premise either. Jesus said we would only obey him if we loved him. John 14:21 More amazing is that when we do decide to obey him the first, greatest and most compelling commandment of all is to spread the love around. Matthew 22:37 No diatribe against Islam or any other religion in the world here, just one deal…love. Got love?
Trying to imagine America without these people that love is harder for me to imagine than a world without the oceans or the moon or the trees. I have worshipped with faithful Catholics and Protestants of every kind. I have never needed an ecumenical manifesto to see that when they worship God in “spirit and in truth” they are all one regardless of what church they hail from.
I can’t see a country where there are not huge Catholic cathedrals and every sort of Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal and other types of churches to numerous to name spotting the roadsides in every city, town and village in America. I can’t imagine the names of the great evangelists no longer being mentioned like Billy Sunday, Billy Graham and great teachers such as Donald Barnhouse, R.C Sproul and others. It wouldn’t seem right, it wouldn’t be America.
Hearing the gospel being bellowed late at night on powerful radio stations while riding down the highway would leave only the secular rant of the news caster and the farm reports and God knows what kind of music. Many a soul would not have pulled their car over to the side of the road weeping after hearing of the love of God toward them. Not seeing the telecasts of TBN, CBN and televised gospel crusades would make television the “vast wasteland” a former head of the FCC once called it.
More than just the loss of familiar Americana the absence of the Christian faith and its visible churches would create a void for which there is no substitute. Godless secularism by its very nature requires a confidence and a strong will to maintain. After all it requires man to pull himself up by his own bootstraps. Intelligence, savvy human will and lots of other exaggerated notions are required to prop up pure existentialism. But Christ knows us better than that. We are not always strong, smart or aware but more often than not we are weak, wishy washy and woeful. Guess what, God doesn’t care about that, he only cares about you.
To the end of my feeble life I will always thank God that on any day of the week I can freely call a pastor, find a good church or a group of people to pray with. I will be thankful that I live in a country where I am not hindered from doing this at least for this moment in time. May God help us in our future?
Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water? Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite's hope shall perish: Job 8:11-13
Rev Bresciani is the author of two Christian books. His articles on the second coming of Christ, faith, politics and the American way of life are read in every country in the world. Come visit http://www.americanprophet.org
Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com
America is sliding fast toward becoming the next great post Christian nation behind Europe. This is what all Godless societies throughout time immemorial have thought would be their final advance. Secularism has always labored under the notion that civil government and secular society is all we need to get it right. Perhaps as it pertains to kooky religions, cults, heresies and pseudo Christian religions that may be true. The absence of real Christianity as given to us by Christ himself will produce a vacuum that no one can bear.
As a young man and a new believer I was told that true Christianity as not a religion at all but a great love affair. The people of God love God and his son Jesus Christ. Oddly it is because they find out how much he loves them and are awestruck by his compelling gift of forgiveness and eternal life.
In the Muslim religion God is painted as a murderous entity that requires that we kill and destroy anything or anyone who will not submit to its tenants. It is a picture that is diametrically opposite the picture of Christ dying on the cross not for anything he had done but for the sins in thought, word and deed done by all mankind. This is what draws enlightened men and women who have exercised reason good judgment and faith after investigating and prying into the matter with full cognizance. In other words Christianity requires some real thought not just the consent of dumbbells.
Christians don’t worship other Gods because they think they’ve got the best one. Rather he is the only one. There is only one creator and one redeemer and one King that shows up at the end of time to rule for all eternity. God is not jealous of other Gods, because there aren’t any. See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me, De 32:39.
Mans insistence in creating other gods is evidence only of mans persistence in idolatry. Beyond that the darker and more sinister truth is that the god of this world (Satan) does not stop short of deceiving men with standard temptations. In addition to fame, fortune and power he has religion and those with the proclivity toward it in the palm of his hand. God knew better than to trust men to go shopping for a true religion as if they were trying to find a nice cut of meat. That also is what separates Christianity from any and all other religions.
God provides a revelation of who he is and exactly what he wants in the person of Jesus Christ. He allows no shopping around and does not encourage guesswork. Thank God. The only thing he doesn’t do is force faith on us but as a loving God allows us to see what he has done and to decide for ourselves if we want to get onboard. How else could he be sure if he had the right ones? If I was God I wouldn’t want the coerced, the threatened or the cajoled around me either. That’s not love!
We don’t believe because we are forced and we don’t obey on that premise either. Jesus said we would only obey him if we loved him. John 14:21 More amazing is that when we do decide to obey him the first, greatest and most compelling commandment of all is to spread the love around. Matthew 22:37 No diatribe against Islam or any other religion in the world here, just one deal…love. Got love?
Trying to imagine America without these people that love is harder for me to imagine than a world without the oceans or the moon or the trees. I have worshipped with faithful Catholics and Protestants of every kind. I have never needed an ecumenical manifesto to see that when they worship God in “spirit and in truth” they are all one regardless of what church they hail from.
I can’t see a country where there are not huge Catholic cathedrals and every sort of Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal and other types of churches to numerous to name spotting the roadsides in every city, town and village in America. I can’t imagine the names of the great evangelists no longer being mentioned like Billy Sunday, Billy Graham and great teachers such as Donald Barnhouse, R.C Sproul and others. It wouldn’t seem right, it wouldn’t be America.
Hearing the gospel being bellowed late at night on powerful radio stations while riding down the highway would leave only the secular rant of the news caster and the farm reports and God knows what kind of music. Many a soul would not have pulled their car over to the side of the road weeping after hearing of the love of God toward them. Not seeing the telecasts of TBN, CBN and televised gospel crusades would make television the “vast wasteland” a former head of the FCC once called it.
More than just the loss of familiar Americana the absence of the Christian faith and its visible churches would create a void for which there is no substitute. Godless secularism by its very nature requires a confidence and a strong will to maintain. After all it requires man to pull himself up by his own bootstraps. Intelligence, savvy human will and lots of other exaggerated notions are required to prop up pure existentialism. But Christ knows us better than that. We are not always strong, smart or aware but more often than not we are weak, wishy washy and woeful. Guess what, God doesn’t care about that, he only cares about you.
To the end of my feeble life I will always thank God that on any day of the week I can freely call a pastor, find a good church or a group of people to pray with. I will be thankful that I live in a country where I am not hindered from doing this at least for this moment in time. May God help us in our future?
Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water? Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite's hope shall perish: Job 8:11-13
Rev Bresciani is the author of two Christian books. His articles on the second coming of Christ, faith, politics and the American way of life are read in every country in the world. Come visit http://www.americanprophet.org
Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com
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