It's Time for An Appeal to Heaven

The American political climate is contentious, fraught with conflict, ready to burst asunder in flames.

In fact, those destructive embers have broken out many times already over the past eight years. These eruptions of violence will not go with the next election. The problems afflicting this country are spiritual in nature, not political or even cultural. Yes, politics is downstream from culture, but culture is downstream from religion.

The Biblical Christianity of our forefathers has been replaced by the cult of woke cultural marxism. This perverse idolatry has even overwhelmed the churches and other houses of worship.

We need to stop thinking that electing the right person to the White House is going to fix everything in this country, including Washington DC. Who is Lord in your house?

Paul prayed that only one would be at home in your heart:

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love ..." (Ephesians 3:17)

The word "dwell" in the original Greek is "κατοικέω," katoikeo, which means "dwell in, settle in, be established in (permanently), inhabit."

The word "oiko" specifically means home, so one could translate the phrase: "Let Christ make Himself at home in your heart."

We need to remember from where our freedoms, our rights, our blessings flow!

They flow from God Himself! Reflect the opening statements from the Declaration of Independence:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We have nothing apart from God's graces. We have no good or perfect gift without the Father of Lights (James 1:17), and this Fatherhood is bestowed on us because of Christ Jesus.

The Framers of the United States Constitution were Christians, by and large. Even the non-believing Benjamin Franklin was not the remote deist that many scholars paint him to be. It was his suggestion that that the framers seek wisdom from God when they were drafting the Constitution during the 1787 Convention.

Fast forward to today, and Pastor Joseph Prince of Singapore remarked that the current President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, urged his leaders to seek God's wisdom in prayer when they came to power. The terrible forces of violence, destruction, and mayhem which had overwhelmed the country stemmed from spiritual forces. Satanism is rampant among MS-13 and the other gangs that had been running and terrorizing El Salvador for the last three decades, including human sacrifice. There was no way to demolish the strongholds in El Salvador without going to the source.

Bukele recognized the need for spiritual solutions to help El Salvador. He recognized that El Salvador needed The Savior: Jesus Christ.

Most people are not aware of this, but the refreshing free enterprise reforms taking place in Argentina are not merely the result of political outsider Javier Milei, but because Christian revival has been sweeping the country for years! On top of that, not to diminish his impact, President Milei adheres to Judeo-Christian values, and he took his oath of office swearing on the Holy Gospel! 

The American Framers recognized our need for God's grace, for the wisdom, revelation, and power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Every country which adopts the Gospel, which takes Christ Jesus as leader, prospers!

And today, that revelation needs a restoration. It's time for a Third Great Awakening. It's time for an Appeal to Heaven!

Man's Sin Cannot Stop God's Love

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

I  have begun meditating on God's love more deeply, the sins which capture people and hook them in, and why is it that so many people are unable to break free.

People acknowledge their struggle with addiction. They call themselves "addict" many times, and then they work hard to break free.

I then realized something: condemnation so powerfully hooks people, that they cannot break away. In many cases, it seems pretty clear to me that they feel that they cannot come to God with help.

It takes the love of the Father for us to break free of all the lusts of the flesh which afflict us:

"15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." (1 John 2:15-16)

Lusts of the flesh all connect to addictions. That's what they are!

The reason why? The individuals in bondage do not know the love of the Father. The love of the Father is not in them. Why does this happen? We struggle too much in our own efforts. We want to come to Him after we have cleaned ourselves up.

All that stuff is of the world, and it will never last. It will never suffice.

Now, about our sin ... it cannot stop God's love.

God sent His Son, His Only Begotten, to die for us, to rise for us, to live for us and through us.

God the Father sent His Son while we were still sinners!

"8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." (Romans 5:8-9)

Our sin cannot stop God's love. If it could, God would have never sent His Son, or worse yet could not have sent His Son!

Consider also the types and shadows in the Old Testament:

"I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated." (Malachi 1:2-3)

Jacob did not deserve God's love at all.

He lied, cheated, deceived, put his own needs ahead of others. He played favorites among his four wives and his twelve sons and daughter.

Yet God loved Jacob.

That's how God loves us! Unconditionally. When we understand how great, how wonderful God's love is for us, then we fall out of love with the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life.

Lean on His love. Ask Daddy God to give you a broader, wider revelation of His love for you! (Ephesians 3:16-19)

How Tithing Frees Us, No Longer to Fear Not Having Enough

I used to resist tithing.

I just never knew if I would have enough money, and I couldn't trust God to provide everything.
Learning how to understand God's leading was very difficult for me. Because of the rigorous indoctrination that I had to put up with from my mother and her cult-like attachment to Alcoholics Anonymous, I had gotten to a place where I was constantly looking to her and taking her word for everything.

It has gotten really crazy. There were times where I would tithe, and then she would correct me for doing that, or tell me that it was not OK to do so.

Constantly I was looking to her or to other people to tell me what to think, what to do, how to assess difficult situations in my life.

Tithing was not easy because of that bad sense of training. There was also a period in my life when I was faithfully tithing at my local church, but it didn't seem that my life was getting better.
I have also learned with the greater revelation of God's grace that He loves me because of His Son Jesus. It does not matter whether I tithed or not. However, I want that growing revelation of God's love and resources in my life.

Because I realize more of what he has been able to accomplish in my life, I want to see His favor and resources flowing. I had such a small revelation of God. I simply did not realize that He is constantly at work in my life.

God invites us to enter into His rest. No longer are we striving and writhing in our self-effort to make things happen, as though God is light-years away and uninterested in what we are doing.

I also remember at one point in my life, when I was drawing from unemployment less and less, then I was switching to giving more and sharing more. I found that I had plenty of money, and I even had enough to spend on others. At one job, I was an after-school tutor of sorts. I had my own classes and provided different types of lessons. When we had reached the end of the year, I purchased food for all the students.

It felt good to be able to give something. It just was nice to know that I had money--and that money did not have me!

Last week, I was struggling with a strange point of discussion. Would I be able to tithe?

The pastor was preaching on Malachi, the passage about robbing God and not holding back.
Of course, it's important to read every passage in the Old Testament in light of the Finished Work of Jesus Christ. We no longer have to worry about the curse our the devourer in our lives. Yet still we have the opportunity to "test" God, or at least allow Him to prove His generosity towards us.
When I tithed again this past Sunday, a sense of hope and relief swept over me.

I refused to be in bondage to a certain set of dollars in my wallet, pockets, or elsewhere. It's essential that we realize how money is the least of God's concerns, but rather that He wants us to prosper and be in health even as our souls prosper.

Under Grace, Righteousness Finds Us and Blesses Us Through Christ Jesus

"He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, righteousness, and honour." (Proverbs 21:21)

The word "follow" also means pursue or hunt down.

David uses the same Hebrew word when he writes "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." (Psalm 23:6)

So, what's going on? We are called to follow righteousness and mercy, which also pursues David in Psalm 23.

There has been a change, and it all happened at the Cross, when God' Son died for our sins, and was raised from the dead for our justification.

"For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.." (Matthew 26:28)

Today, we are not supposed to rush after righteousness.

Righteousness has found us!

Christ Jesus is our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30), and He came to us because we could never come to Him:

"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (John 1:17)

and

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

So that today, we receive and keep receiving God's grace and His gift of righteousness:

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive [lit. are receiving] abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." (Romans 517)