Do you ever wonder about those people who you thought were saved for years and they suddenly get saved out of no where? I think this does not sit well with most people who profess to be Christians because it forces them to look to themselves. It ruffles the feathers of Christianity and places salvation totally in the hands of “God” and not in the hands of “man”. Listen to Susan’s testimony on how “God” saved her after years of believing she was a Christian.

In accordance with yesterday’s post by the editor, today’s post continues with an urgent clarion call to the Christian to not waste their time, their opportunity, their life. Our next series of posts will have this theme: The Christian’s stewardship of time. May we be reminded with the Psalmist: “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you.” (Psalm 39.4-5)

RICHARD BAXTER (1615-1691)

A holy life is inclined to be made easier when we know the usual sequence and method of our duties – with everything falling into its proper place. Therefore, I shall give some brief directions for spending the day in a holy manner.

Sleep
Measure the time of your sleep appropriately so that you do not waste your precious morning hours sluggishly in your bed. Let the time of your sleep be matched to your health and labour, and not to slothful pleasure.

First Thoughts
Let God have your first awaking thoughts; lift up your hearts to Him reverently and thankfully for the rest enjoyed the night before and cast yourself upon Him for the day which follows.
Familiarise yourself so consistently to this that your conscience may check you when common thoughts shall first intrude. Think of the mercy of a night’s rest and of how many that have spent that night in Hell; how many in prison; how many in cold, hard lodgings; how many suffering from agonising pains and sickness, weary of their beds and of their lives.
Think of how many souls were that night called from their bodies terrifyingly to appear before God and think how quickly days and nights are rolling on! How speedily your last night and day will come! Observe that which is lacking in the preparedness of your soul for such a time and seek it without delay.

Prayer
Let prayer by yourself alone (or with your partner) take place before the collective prayer of the family. If possible let it be first, before any work of the day.
Family Worship
Let family worship be performed consistently and at a time when it is most likely for the family to be free of interruptions.

Ultimate Purpose
Remember your ultimate purpose, and when you set yourself to your day’s work or approach any activity in the world, let HOLINESS TO THE LORD be written upon your hearts in all that you do. Do no activity which you cannot entitle God to, and truly say that he set you about it, and do nothing in the world for any other ultimate purpose than to please, glorify and enjoy Him. “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31.

Diligence in Your Calling

Follow the tasks of your calling carefully and diligently. Thus:

(a) You will show that you are not sluggish and servants to your flesh (as those that cannot deny it ease), and you will further the putting to death of all the fleshly lusts and desires that are fed by ease and idleness.
(b) You will keep out idle thoughts from your mind, that swarm in the minds of idle persons.
(c) You will not lose precious time, something that idle persons are daily guilty of.
(d) You will be in a way of obedience to God when the slothful are in constant sins of omission.
(e) You may have more time to spend in holy duties if you follow your occupation diligently. Idle persons have no time for praying and reading because they lose time by loitering at their work.
(f) You may expect God’s blessing and comfortable provision for both yourself and your families.
(g) it may also encourage the health of your body which will increase its competence for the service of your soul.
Temptations and Things That Corrupt
Be thoroughly acquainted with your temptations and the things that may corrupt you – and watch against them all day long. You should watch especially the most dangerous of the things that corrupt, and those temptations that either your company or business will unavoidably lay before you.
Watch against the master sins of unbelief: hypocrisy, selfishness, pride, flesh pleasing and the excessive love of earthly things. Take care against being drawn into earthly mindedness and excessive cares, or covetous designs for rising in the world, under the pretence of diligence in your calling.
If you are to trade or deal with others, be vigilant against selfishness and all that smacks of injustice or uncharitableness. In all your dealings with others, watch against the temptation of empty and idle talking. Watch also against those persons who would tempt you to anger. Maintain that modesty and cleanness of speech that the laws of purity require. If you converse with flatterers, be on your guard against swelling pride.
If you converse with those that despise and injure you, strengthen yourself against impatient, revengeful pride.
At first these things will be very difficult, while sin has any strength in you, but once you have grasped a continual awareness of the poisonous danger of any one of these sins, your heart will readily and easily avoid them.
Meditation
When alone in your occupations, improve the time in practical and beneficial meditations. Meditate upon the infinite goodness and perfections of God; Christ and redemption; Heaven and how unworthy you are of going there and how you deserve eternal misery in Hell.
The Only Motive
Whatever you are doing, in company or alone, do it all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Otherwise, it is unacceptable to God.
Redeeming The Time
Place a high value upon your time, be more careful of not losing it than you would of losing your money. Do not let worthless recreations, television, idle talk, unprofitable company, or sleep rob you of your precious time.
Be more careful to escape that person, action or course of life that would rob you of your time than you would be to escape thieves and robbers.
Make sure that you are not merely never idle, but rather that you are using your time in the most profitable way that you can and do not prefer a less profitable way before one of greater profit.
Eating and Drinking
Eat and drink with moderation and thankfulness for health, not for unprofitable pleasure. Never please your appetite in food or drink when it is prone to be detrimental to your health.
Remember the sin of Sodom: “Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food and abundance of idleness” – Ezekiel 16:49.
The Apostle Paul wept when he mentioned those “whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame — who set their minds on earthly things, being enemies to the cross of Christ” – Philippians 3:18-19. O then do not live according to the flesh lest you die (Romans 8:13).

Prevailing Sins
If any temptation prevails against you and you fall into any sins in addition to habitual failures, immediately lament it and confess it to God; repent quickly whatever the cost. It will certainly cost you more if you continue in sin and remain unrepentant.
Do not make light of your habitual failures, but confess them and daily strive against them, taking care not to aggravate them by unrepentance and contempt.

Relationships
Remember every day the special duties of various relationships: whether as husbands, wives, children, masters, servants, pastors, people, magistrates, subjects.
Remember every relationship has its special duty and its advantage for the doing of some good. God requires your faithfulness in this matter as well as in any other duty.

Closing the Day
Before returning to sleep, it is wise and necessary to review the actions and mercies of the day past, so that you may be thankful for all the special mercies and humbled for all your sins.
This is necessary in order that you might renew your repentance as well as your resolve for obedience, and in order that you may examine yourself to see whether your soul grew better or worse, whether sin goes down and grace goes up and whether you are better prepared for suffering, death and eternity.
May these directions be engraven upon your mind and be made the daily practice of your life.
If sincerely adhered to, these will be conducive to the holiness, fruitfulness and quietness of your life and add to you a comfortable and peaceful death.

Satan called a worldwide convention.  In his opening address to his evil demons, he said,  “We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the Truth.  We can’t even keep them from conservative values.  But we can do something else.  We can keep them from forming an intimate, abiding experience in Christ.  If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken.  So let them go to church, let them have their conservative life-styles, but steal their time, so they can’t gain that experience in Jesus Christ.  This is what I want you to do.  Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection through their day!”  They asked,  “How shall we do this?”  He answered,  “Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, then borrow, borrow, borrow.  Convince the wives to go to work and the husbands to work 6 or 7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their life-styles.  Keep them from spending time with their children.  As their family fragments, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work.  Over stimulate their minds so they cannot hear that still small voice (THE SPIRIT).  Entice them to play the radio (OR IPOD) whenever they drive, to keep the TV, the DVD player and their CD’s going constantly in their homes.  See to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays music constantly.  This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ.  Fill their coffee tables with magazines and newspapers.  Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day.  Invade their driving moments with bill boards.  Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, sweepstakes, mail order catalogs and every kind of newsletter, promotional offer, free products, services and false hopes.  Even in their recreation, let them be excessive.  Have them return from their vacations exhausted, disquieted and unprepared for the coming week (OR SCHOOL YEAR).  Don’t let them go out in nature.  Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts and movies instead.  When they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotion.  Let them be involved in soul winning, but crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Christ.  Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family unity for the good of the cause.”  It was quite a convention in the end.  The evil ones went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get busy, busy, busy and rush here and there.’

The thing that disturbs me the most about this clip of preaching is flippant use in which he takes the name of the Lord in vain. I heard it said once that we take the name of the Lord in vain any time that His name is on our lips, but His love and reverence is not in our heart. Truly truly sad.

Listen to this message by John Piper on the Supremacy of Christ and how it creates radical Christian service.

Methodology without Theology breeds Idolatry.

God never ceases to amaze me! This is unbelievable yet just like Him.

Time doesn’t forgive sin.

- Jeff Noblit

There are certain issues in our society that must not be ignored. We must Biblically discern whether or not things in our culture are truly right and or pleasing to God. I am surrounded by people who are always talking about rules, always making gestures towards regulations or the way things should or should not be done. I do not think one day has gone by without hearing something directed in this manner for the last four years of my life. Not that four years correlates with the time it takes to get a bachelors degree or anything. lol Do not get me wrong rules are a great thing and we do need some order in our lives or less man would be out of control. But really who’s responsibility is it to give us these rules? How far should we take them? If we do not listen to them are we out of line? Questions are running through my head constantly regarding things like this. I do not want it to consume myself with it but at the same time I want to do what is right. I want to honor God in everything I do and if wearing a tie to church is what honors Him then I will do it. But until I hear that from Him I do not want to continue believing it is the mark of my spirituality much less look at others to gain my approval. Mind you I do not have a problem wearing ties, I really like them. They come in all different shapes, colors and patterns. But more importantly why have they and so many other minor issues become major issues. Why is our conversation always directed in such meaningless or empty, self-fulfilling manners. It makes me sick how man centered Christians have become. I think somewhere along the way man in His effort to please God ended up creating this list of rules that is destroying the relationship we ought to have with our Savior. I do not know how the list was made or gathered but I am sure it was somewhere in the South. If I were to guess they sent out a post on the front page of the Sword of the Lord calling all families to send in their requests. A bunch of Amish people sent in there letters and BAMMMM!!!! Now we have the holy list of rules to live by. It is an insane thought but someone has to figure this thing out. Someone has to figure this out because its breeding something wrong in the lives of many Christians. It is giving us a false view of the Gospel and bringing man to a guilt driven lifestyle. A preacher once said, “Satan brings guilt, God brings conviction.”

“Rules without relationship breeds rebellion.” This statement at shows at first glance that giving rules out to people without getting to know them just develops a group of rebellious followers. They all start to do things not because they want to but rather because they have to. Now that is so true but at the same time I want you to see a deeper Truth. God did not just come to die so we could be saved and then send His rule book so we know how to act. We have all heard the saying about how dangerous the Bible can become just another textbook, now lets apply that saying. The law was simply given just to show us how much we cannot keep the law. Now we all know that we are no longer under the law but under grace. So how do we apply grace to our lives in order that we may live a God honoring life?

I think first we must take into consideration that God has no favor in anything that we do! That is a bold and disturbing statement to most legalists but is so true. Ultimately God is only pleased in glorifying Himself. Yes, he uses us in many ways to glorify Him but if all glory is due His name then our motives must be right. If the rule is right but done in the wrong motive the rule becomes self-righteous and self-rewarding, therefore God is displeased with it. Yes we are to strive at pleasing God, but before we can, our motive in pleasing Him must be acknowledged.

Like I said before man has good intentions for giving out rules but I think it has a dark reverse effect that breeds not only rebellion but complaining, gossip, critical-spirits, hypocrisy, pride… In this world cheat sheets work, trust we all have used them. lol Unfortunately they do not in the Spiritual. But so often we want a cheat sheet or just a list of what I can and can’t do. If only we had this sheet it would be so easy to do things. Wrong! This list of good intentions is beginning to replace the Word of God and it is a danger that I would never wish upon anyone. You cannot expect to follow God and be right with Him if you are not reading His Word. You cannot expect to discern right from wrong if you are not daily abiding in Him. Daily we are called to be conformed into the image of Christ and deny ourselves. I see so much of this traditional christianity that it makes me sick. To think that everyone before us did all the work and now we can just sit back and enjoy the benefits. It does not work that way.

I beg you all to search yourself to see your motives in doing things. May nothing be done self-righteously. In everything we do may it all bring glory to God and God alone.