SEVEN SUICIDAL SINS #5 REPENTANCE

The reason the Word of the LORD comes to anybody is to give them a chance to repent.  God gives us space to repent, but because we will not repent, that’s why He brings judgment. 

In the Book of Revelation when God is talking about “Jezebel”, and how the people are deceived by her and lead away from the Word of God and His commandments, God’s charge against her is not that she went against God, but that she would NOT REPENT! (Rev. 2:21 “And I gave her space to repent of her fornication and she repented not.”)  It is not that we committed sin, but that we don’t repent that God judges us.

We can no longer think or believe or teach that God hates whatever we don’t do but only what others do.  God hates sin.  Not just little sin or big sin, but ALL SIN!  He sends His Word to give us space to repent.  And He hates when He speaks to us and we will not repent.

Repentance is a gift from God.  You can’t just do it whenever you want to.  It is a grace from God that He gives us. We must come out of the sin when God gives us the gift.  If you ignore the gift long enough, you will get to where you cannot feel it anymore.  Your conscience will come so seared with a hot iron that nothing will cause you to feel uncomfortable or guilty about what you have done or are doing and you know it goes against the will of God.  You will continue in your own way because nothing bothers you anymore.  Still dancing, shouting and praying, and nothing will upset you anymore because God has stopped asking, because you have said “NO” so many times.  Thank you, LORD, that you can STILL disturb me!  Thank You, LORD, that You can still trouble me!  I never want to get so big that I can’t humble myself and say I am sorry.  Hard-headed people will lose all they have because they are too stubborn to change.  Stubbornness will lead to Egotism.

SEVEN SUICIDIAL SINS #4 DENIAL

Reference verse 1 Samuel 15:20-21

When Samuel comes to Saul and Saul says, “I have obeyed the LORD…” and Samuel says, “Thus says the LORD, what means this bleating of the sheep?”  Even though Saul has not obeyed and Samuel points out that the LORD knows better and that he is caught disobeying, red-handed, instead of Saul repenting he begins to blame the people for his misfortune.  Saul says, “Yes, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me…But the people took of the spoil…”  He is trying to blame others for his disobedience.

Saul didn’t understand that he lost the kingdom not because he did wrong, but because he chose to blame other people for his disobedience and refusal to repent.  How many times do we blame others for the mess we are in and miss our last chance for a moment of grace because we refuse to humble ourselves before the LORD and repent, turn from our ways and obey HIS Word?

The reason we go to church and don’t get any better is because when we hear the Word of the LORD, and the Holy Spirit comes to convict us, before conviction can deliver us, we blame someone else for our condition and situation.  We say we are like that because “My spouse made me act like that…. I’m like that because of….”  The truth of the matter is we are like that because our hearts are deceitful and wicked and we need to throw ourselves down before the LORD and say, “LORD I am sorry!”

We are in charge of ourselves and when we you are in charge that means the buck stops with US!  We must come to the point where we stop blaming others in denial of our actions and self-willed indulgences, and take responsibility before the LORD.  We must humble ourselves to say, “I’m sorry, I made a mistake!” 

I challenge us today to go through our lives and examine things and see where we are casting the blame onto other people for our mistakes and stop it TODAY! Assume responsibility today before we lose our kingdom.  Our denial will defeat us.  We will not walk away clean and we commit suicide every time we won’t take responsibility for our own mistakes.  And the only reason the Word comes is to give us a chance to REPENT.

Seven Suicidal Sins #3 REBELLION

Previously we looked at Arrogance, the thinking of a “we deserve it” attitude towards God that sneaks in on us after Pride has fully manifested itself in our lives.  When we come to the point of thinking we “deserve” anything from God or anyone else, it makes our heart to openly and purposely go against God.  Some call this “self-will”, “I can do what I want”.  Planning, knowingly and purposely to go against God can be self-suicide. 

When we set out knowing that what we are about to do is in direct violation of God’s law’s and statues, and breaks the covenant He has made with us, (To walk before Him and be mature, Genesis17:1, so He may bless us with life here and also in heaven), we purposely cut off our connection with the One who supplies all of our needs, according to His riches in glory.  The Bible says that “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft” 1 Samuel 15:23.  What is the “sin of witchcraft?  The word sin in the Hebrew is “chattah” which means habitual offense.  Something done over and over again!

Witchcraft is simply manipulation: one person trying to devise a way against all odds over another person.  Trying to make somebody love you or make somebody to be with you, who is going another direction, working against what God has purposed for their life, that practice is witchcraft and in direct rebellion against God.  If you are trying to get your children to do what you want them to do, instead of training them to hear the voice of God, and go the way God wants them to go, you might mean well but you are practicing witchcraft and in direct rebellion against God.  If you are trying to make somebody accept you, instead of just letting them accept you for who you are and the way you are, you are practicing witchcraft and in direct rebellion against God.  We must come to the point where we want nothing but what God has purposed for our lives and full rest and trust on Him to give us all that we need. 

Now be careful when reading this and examine closely your actions as I am also doing for at this point comes DENIAL!

Seven Suicidal Sins #2 ARROGANCE

Scripture references 1 Samuel 15 and 1 Samuel 31

In the last blog we looked at the Suicidal Sin of Disobedience.  The next Suicidal Sin that goes hand and hand with Disobedience is Arrogance.  In researching this I looked up the word arrogance.  Some of its synonyms are: Audacity, Nerve, and PRIDE!  God says that pride goes before destruction. (Proverbs 16:18)  Have you ever come to a point in your life and all that was happening was destruction?  Examine it closely and ask yourself, “Was I prideful before hand?”  We get prideful when we begin to think we are “all that”, when we start not to lean on God but believe we are the reason we can do what we do.  

Saul said in verse 1 Samuel 15:13“he had performed the commandment of the LORD.”    Or that he had obeyed God’s voice.  Samuel responds by saying, “What means then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen I hear?”  In today’s terms, “What then means this hemorrhaging of your finances I see, or your sporadic attendance at church, or your inconsistent giving of tithes and offerings?”  When we think we have a better way of doing things than God, we have moved from disobedience to arrogance.

When things that we use to shout about, or lay out on the floor thanking God for and now seem to bother us to no end, those are signs of arrogance.  The baby you prayed for and it finally came now you can’t stand to look at it.  The spouse you prayed and wept to have and now you won’t even talk to them.  The job you said to God, “If You give me this job I will always…….”  “LORD if You will only bless me in (an area) I will be satisfied and always give You the praise!”  Then God gave you the desires of your heart as is His promise, and now you spend more time complaining about the blessing than you do rejoicing over the God that gave you the blessing.  Do you feel that you deserve it?  That’s Arrogance slipping into your life.

Arrogance always thinks that it knows more than God, that it knows a better way to get the blessing, or that it knows what it is doing.   Arrogance is self-enthroned egotistical attitudes where you are working it out in your flesh.  Can you hear God reminding you that, “when you were little in your own sight, I blessed you?” (verse 17)  What in your life have you become arrogant about?  What in your life did you use to fall out and cry unto God for, but now you don’t even want to be bothered with?  How have things been at the job since you stopped paying your tithes?  How lacking is your prayer life and your word of deliverance to others since you slacked off reading your bible regularly?  Are we no longer thankful just to be in the service on Sunday morning one more time?  God misses the praise you use to give Him when you were truly thankful.  Arrogance makes us feel like we deserve it.  Arrogance will lead to Rebellion.

Seven Suicidal Sins #1 DISOBEDIENCE

Scripture references: 1 Samuel 15 and 1 Samuel 31 (in case you are not familiar with the story)

If you ever read the story of Saul and how he conducted himself during his kingship reign, you will find some interesting things.  How does a man go from being God’s anointed and chosen man to lead Israel, to being dead, having his head placed in the temple of a foreign god, all of his sons dead and his lineage being stripped of the crown?

Saul committed suicide, but not on that fateful day when he fell upon his own sword.  He killed himself by doing several things.  The first of them was his disobedience to God.  When he was told specifically by God to “go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not: but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass”, he disobeyed God’s instructions and kept the best things for himself.  If Saul felt it had value he did not follow God’s word and instruction but his own selfish desire.  This was the LORD’s judgment on the Amalekites for they had attacked God’s people in the wilderness when they were weak. (be very careful who you attack and when) and they were to be “utterly destroyed”.  Saul directly disobeyed the Word of the LORD.  He thought he knew a “better way” than God and decided to do things his way instead of God’s way.

How many times have we heard God’s Word, or maybe even Him directly telling us what to do (God’s way), yet in our disobedient selfish ways, we do something different (our way) and then wonder what happened and why we die.  Does God ever say, “Have no other gods before me?”  But how many times do we put money, cars, people and even our own prideful, lustful, vain self ahead of the very one who gave us the blessing in the first place?   It’s this spirit of disobedience that causes our downfall, and ultimate death.  Remember the words of the LORD, “And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams."  Disobedience is the first step in suicide.  Disobedience leads to pride.

Are you a Living Sacrifice? Part 1

In Romans 12:1 we read these words, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”  I challenge you to think of this in a new light.  Not as what you have to stop doing, or try to “be better at”, but one as our True Example, Christ was.

What do I mean?  Look at how Jesus was a Living Sacrifice.  You must first remember that a sacrifice was bound or tied to an alter.  Since Christ is and was our perfect example, how did Jesus present Himself?  He was brought, bound to the high priest, “Now Annas had sent him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest.”  John 18:24  And from there, the Bible does not record Jesus ever fighting, struggling to get away, nor even attempting to save Himself, even though He had the full power to do so, and the command of thousands of angels at His disposal.  He went willingly to the cross so that He could fulfill the work which God had created Him to do.

We don’t have an alter to be tied to, so how does God offer us up?  Through the things in our lives that we are tied to, that hurts our flesh and breaks our will.  What has you bound or tied up?   That marriage you’re sick of?  That job that is driving you crazy and when you asked God to move you He said no?  That job with the tough boss who gives you more grief than pay?  What about that relationship with that child that won’t seem to get better no matter how much you pray, fast, and cry?  And as you seek God, He says, “I want you to understand what it is I’m going through trying to raise YOU!”  He says this is the place of your sacrifice! 

All of us have something that brings us to the place of where we are a “living sacrifice” unto God.  We all have something we are tied to that breaks our heart, makes us pray and brings us before God, and God uses that place in our lives to make us priest unto God, and say “Yea though He slay me, yet will I trust HIM!”  How are we living, unto God, in the sacrificial role HE has placed tied us to?  Are you presenting your body a sacrifice to Him?  Are your actions, holy and acceptable unto God?  For it is our reasonable SACRIFICE!

God wants to date YOU!

God wants to date YOU!

The Bible has been called, “The Greatest Love Story Ever Written”.  Given this accreditation, I asked myself, what do you do when you really love someone?  As I began to study and look about information and publications on love and relationships, I found a common denominator.  It didn’t matter if the relationship was new, or if the relationship celebrated 70 years of marriage, the one thing they all did was to continue to date.

What happens on a date?  How does it all take place?  Usually if it is to be special, the meeting is pre-planned.   It is orchestrated, it is thought out, and there is an expectant end.  The couple is alone, even if they are in a busy restaurant; it seems as if it’s just the two of them.  The hustle and bustle of the crowd seems to go unnoticed as the couple talk with each other and communion one with another.  Surprises are planned, hands are held, and at the end of the date, a kiss of affection is given to say, “I did this all for you!”

Whether you are single or married, realize that God desires to “date you”.  What do I mean, Brian?  Well I am glad you asked me.  One gets a phone call saying, “Would you like to have dinner with me?”  And the meeting is planned.  God has pre-planned the meeting with you: “Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord…”  He has orchestrated your life “to give you an expected end”.  God calls us to be alone with Him in the beauty of Holiness, for God cannot dwell where there is sin.  “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord” 2 Corinthians 6:17  Have you ever felt like everyone has left you and that you are all alone and there is no one else to talk to but God?  That was Him divinely setting a “date with you” to woo you closer to Him.  Even though the hustle and bustle of the world is about you, it seems like there is no one else around but you and Him.  Then just when you think it’s all over and everything will come crashing down around you, God surprises you with a gift of health, or a sane mind, or a situation solved, a problem averted.  That is His way of saying He can provide ALL that you need.  And as you sit in awe of what just happened and reflect on how He brought you through, He gently leans over and kisses you saying, “I did this all for you.”  The sunset was for you, the provision was for you, the stranger offering you encouragement out of the blue was for you, and Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross, the beating He took, the humiliation He suffered, the separation from His Father, and the anguish God felt as He watch us crucify His only son, it was all for you!

God wants to date you, daily.  He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.”  Revelation 3:20 How is he calling you?   Is it through a circumstance, a job loss, a death of a family member, or is it just a still small voice that keeps saying, “I am waiting for you?  Come unto me if you are heavy laden and burdened and I will give you rest.”  Whatever way it is, answer the phone, and simply say, “Lord, I’m available to YOU!”