Change! Change! Change!
Change has been the mantra spouted by the socialists and politicians of the day.
If you have been reading my articles very long you know I am a conservative Christian, so it may surprise you to know that I am also in favor of change. Not just lip service change, but REAL change. Change you can sink your teeth into.
I want change that will really rock the world.
I want change that will turn the world upside down. ( See Acts 17:6b ‘These that have turned the world upside down have come hither.’ This of course referred to Christians.)
I want the world turned upside down for Jesus Christ.
I want the lost to at least have a chance to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I want them to understand that unless they choose the second birth, they will face the second death.
The early Christians, who turned the world upside down, understood something that seems to me mostly lacking in the so called church today. They understood that they personally were subject to the instructions provided for them by God through His written word. They knew exactly who they were, and exactly what they wanted to accomplish.
Today, Christians in general are having an identity crisis. They act as though they can pick and choose the scriptures that they like, and totally ignore or even oppose those teachings with which they disagree.
Take abortion for instance, many so called Christians favor it, and still call themselves Christians.
Many Christians believer that they can present anything they wish to God as worship. They choose their own preference in music and expect God to accept it as OK because they are ‘sincere’ in their presentation.
Christians are prone to excuse the vilest of sins in the name of ‘God wants me to be happy’.
NO – He doesn’t want you ‘to be happy’.
He wants His children to be obedient.
Happiness is just a by-product of obedience. Without obedience to God, Christians are separated from God. Repentance must come before fellowship can be restored. Apart from God, there is no happiness, no joy, no peace of mind, no discernment, no wisdom, no comfort, basically nothing but ultimate misery.
So called Christians often feel they can base their beliefs and actions on ‘what is right for them.’ The current VP Biden ‘knows’ when ‘life begins’ for him. Who cares when he thinks it begins? What matters is the truth. Life begins at conception.
I once spoke with a preacher who was completely flabbergasted after a conversation with a so called ‘youth minister’ at a nearby church.
The man and his girl friend had been living together for some time.
They had decided to get married. They wanted my friend to marry them.
He said, ‘Well, you will have to live in separate residences and go through pre-marital counseling first.’
The poor youth director was equally flabbergasted that the preacher had a problem with the way he and his girl friend were living. He assured my preacher friend that that was the world did things now and that God didn’t have a problem with it.
My preacher friend assured the alleged youth minister that God indeed DID have a problem with the way he was living. And, that God also had a problem with the man leading the young people of the church astray. AND, that God had a problem with the elders of the church putting up with such blatant sin and defiance of God’s instructions.
I could go on with examples of so called Christians acting like heathens. The truth is some of these so called Christians are not Christians at all. Others are Christians, but they are not in fellowship with God, because they have chosen to do their own thing instead of doing things the way God wants them done.
This isn’t really about Christians as a whole anyway. It is about the individual Christian. It is about YOU, and it is about ME. It is about how the individual Christian acts, not how the group acts.
For the world to be once again turned upside down with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, individuals who profess themselves to be Christians must do the things Christ says to do, whether it is convenient or socially acceptable at the moment or not.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only thing that can bring lasting change that is for the better. Any other change is just changing from one ineffective and oppressive ideology to another ineffective and oppressive ideology.
If you want to be part of real change, read and do all the things in Isaiah chapter 58.
Verse 13 instructs us to honor God, and not do our own ways, nor find our own pleasure, nor speak our own words.
Following the instruction in this verse is how the world was once turned upside down by those who believed in Jesus Christ as the only way into heaven. Jesus is still the same as when those early Christians first walked across the known world telling the lost about how to be saved.
Today is a good day to start turning the world upside down again. Today is a good day for YOU (and me) to set aside what pleases us for the moment, and do the things that please God for eternity.
