Edition 241. January 7^th 2015

The average, nondescript, conformist Christian.

The average, non-descript, conformist Christian:

Introduction:

This edition should be seen together with Edition 208 Entitled “The normal and the abnormal.” Click HERE.

To even begin to look into this subject, we need to establish what the measurement of average is. Quite simply it is the masses of conformists. It is those who, without question follow the crowd in all their ways. Their pre-supposition is that because it’s what everyone thinks, believes and does it must be right.

The most powerful, liberating and stabilising thing for anyone is to understand that you are not your own, and you were made, fashioned and created by God for a purpose of His own. Talk about bringing meaning and purpose into your life!

Knowing God and His call and plan for your life is the most deeply satisfying thing imaginable. It is the destroyer of psycho-babble, and their philosophies of life.

As we move ever closer to the coming of our Lord, the revealing of the antichrist and a flood of evil being poured out on this earth, we can and must secure and anchor ourselves in the love of our Lord.

Bible prophecy predicts a great falling away of the church in these last days. It uses phrases like “The love of many growing cold” and the last days church being “spat out” of God’s mouth. We see terms like: “You will be cast into great tribulation” and others.

The Bible doesn’t give us numbers but the terms used to describe this falling away are frightening indeed.

 So, who then are these masses who will fall away? Can we know anything about them and why they grow lukewarm and cold? Can we know and take heed of hidden warnings in the scriptures and in reality all around us?

The danger of being Mr. or Mrs. Average is that you’re in a spiritual environment and climate and your life is a target. The forces are getting so much stronger. As an average half-baked believer you will not be able to withstand these great end-time, satanic powers.

Identifying the problem:

How do you establish what is average? It would have changed with every generation and within different cultures. There is one universal measure of what average is. It is the world now. That’s obviously the measure for the unsaved, but unfortunately it is also the measure for many churches today.

To become an average nothing you need to do nothing. Just go with the flow. Jump into the boat and go with the world. It will form you, design you and make you...to your great regret.

To become something from God’s perspective, much work is needed on your life. Complete “renovation” is needed; a big fight with all those who want you in their boat of conformity is required. You must break the powers of the demonic and set the course of your life on this new path of glory.

It takes determined effort, and many battles – but it is so incredibly rewarding now and will be in time to come.

Do you know why so many Christians are average, non-descript conformists? Simply because that’s what they have been taught and led into by their churches. They compare themselves among themselves. And they are simply lazy and don’t pursue Bible study themselves.

Tell me now, when last did you hear your leader teach you on any of the following verses in the paragraph below dealing with the world? (I’ve just strung them together for your benefit.)

The world’s works are evil. The whole world lies under the power of the evil one. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. The world cannot receive the spirit of truth. The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. Hate your life in the world. Do not love the world nor the things of the world. I’ve been crucified to the world and it to me. We are to be aliens and exiles in the world. We must escape the corruption in the world. Don’t become entangled in the world again after escaping it. Set your mind on the things above and not on the world. If you are born of God you will overcome the world.

Here are a few more just to seal it all:

John 12:25 “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

Galatians 6:14 “God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Yeshua Messiah, by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.”

Colossians 3:2 “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”

Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Do you get the picture?

►Appeasement means making concessions to an enemy to bring in a state of peace. Hilary Clinton says “peace only comes when you empathise with the enemy.” But the great tragedy of modern life is that the Christian world has more in common with Clinton that our Lord. They appease the world...God’s enemy all the time!

You can only have true peace in the world and within yourself if Satan is not the god of the world and does not operate in self or the flesh.  So what must you do to have true deep Godly peace? You must kill the devil! Yes, that’s right, but do it through the cross of Calvary. The cross has crucified you to the world and the world to you – isn’t that just incredible. How powerful is that? (Galatians 6:14)

You also do this in spiritual warfare by binding the works of the devil.

So many Christians today are one with the world. They have not applied the cross to their own lives or the world.

Some testimony:

May I share some personal testimony with you? As a journalist and photographer travelling the world in my younger days, it was my playground. I loved the world greatly. It was my job to love it, find it, experience it, ride and flow with it, and support its ways and then bring all that news to the people.

I lived on the cutting edge of the extremes of the good the bad and the ugly and I loved it to be so. Sometime after being saved, I began to see through the world. I began to become deeply disturbed by it. Shortly after winning some journalistic awards, I resigned and went full - time into Bible College. At the same time I did two correspondence courses. I spent all my waking hours praying, fasting and studying.

This was a time of dramatic change. It was the best time ever. My entire life’s course changed very deeply and quickly.

I recall discovering that I must apply the cross to self and the world. I recall discovering with revelation, the verse “If you find your life in the world you will lose it”. That verse was an abomination to me back then. Today it is my passion.

I recall reading Watchman Nee’s amazing book “Love not the world” for the first time. I couldn’t believe that I had been on the wrong course all my life. That book and others by Nee, Tozer, and Finny shattered my life - and not gently I might add.

I came to the conclusion very dramatically that I was not valuable and precious as I had been taught, but useless scum before my Lord. The greatest and most powerful experience and revelation of my entire life was coming to this shattering brokenness and realisation that I was nothing.

The Bible speaks of the wonderful story of an alabaster box or pot being broken so that the inner perfume could be used to anoint our Lord. That is the message of brokenness. As we break, so the Spirit of the living God “perfumes” us with the mysteries of God.

Through much fasting, studying and prayer I began to hear the voice of our Lord through His word. Only after all the brokenness, re-focusing and resurrection I was ready to be used by God His way. This process began nearly 40 years ago.

God will not share you with the god of the world. You can become valuable and precious to the world and its god, Satan, or you can become a broken vessel before our Lord. It’s only as you die to self, the world and the demonic that you become an instrument in His hands.

The nature you are subservient to forms you. The nature you feed will dominate your life.

Sadly most Christians love the world. They want to be a part of it. The reason is because they can’t even see it. They can’t see kingdoms in conflict. They don’t have the spiritual eyes to see.

For years, maybe, you have tried fruitlessly to exercise control over yourself, and perhaps this is still your experience; but once you see the truth, you will recognize that you are indeed powerless to do anything. Such discovery brings human striving and self-effort to an end.

Revelation is the first step to glory and consecration is the second. A day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our conversion, when we give up all rights to ourselves and submit to the absolute Lordship of Yeshua our risen Messiah.

As the cross works in us, we see that we are not our own anymore. We see that we are forgiven, purified and made holy. As we look to the cross, out of the mists and clouds comes a spectacular earth-shattering view of our Lord on the throne.

We are humbled and brought down to the ground in repentance, but at the same time, as the mists dissipate we see ourselves raised up to glorious newness of life. The cross kills those who apply it, but the resurrection places us at the threshold of eternity and all things new.

God empowers us for His will, not our own worldly will. God does all of this so that we may be acceptable servants in His kingdom, not for Satan’s world.

Here’s your big choice in life. You can be an average, non-descript, half - baked Christian, who might make it to heaven and also might not. Or you can be a radical Christian, a modern-day disciple of our Lord. To become part of the former – do nothing. To become part of the latter - prepare for the most wonderful, frightening, critical, up-rooting, journey ever! It’s a journey to put all other journeys to shame.

Isaiah 48:18 “Oh that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would be like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.”

How to bypass your church minister:

It’s not my place or right to instruct anyone to leave their church. But this I will say: You can leave your church in your dust! If your minister doesn’t preach the full truth, you can still get it all yourself. You can fly high above your church minister (not from a competitive point of view) and experience the fullness of what God wants for you.

Don’t let your church hold you back or bring you down to its experience of God. Set your sights and your goals in the land of the radical. Fly high with our Lord.

We need to become worthy to hear the voice of God.

No, I’m not talking about works-based salvation. But I am talking about all diligence in your walk. I am talking about a consecrated, separated life and a radical life. Today far too many people claim to hear the voice of God. Some have the audacity to say that God speaks to them in an audible voice. Many have ministries and claim that God has revealed this or that to them.

But their lives are shallow. They go to the movies and pay money to sit and suck in blasphemy and foul language and the demons of the directors. They worship the gods of Hollywood and the entire entertainment world.

These people are worldly-wise and have Jesus in their back pocket as fire insurance or a convenient sponsor to be brought out just at the right time and then returned to the dark pocket. These people claim God speaks to them! Liars -all of them.

Put very simply, Satan's power in the world is everywhere. Yet wherever men and women walk in the Spirit, sensitive to the anointing they have from God, that power just evaporates.

Truth does not negotiate, consult, bargain or compromise. Truth and holiness are family. They are twins.

Complacency is the deadly enemy of consecration and spiritual progress.

Today most churches have unknowingly “baptised” their members into the world. They are now dead to the full truth of God’s world and very alive to the things of the world. This modern church claims to have power, but it is the deadly, deceptive energy of the flesh.

 With this superficial sorrow-less, self-confident church come many evils including the worship of men. Golden calf, Sunday churchianity is the way of the average so-called believer today. Amusement-mad pagan-filled, Spirit-less churches are everywhere you look.

Yes there are a few here and there fulfilling God’s true call and purpose.

Today we are in a world of horrifying evil on every front including the church. There is no restraint because there are no consequences. The people want to have it so.

The holiest and freest are those who know God and are free from the real slavery of the world and the dictates of its media.

Proverbs 3:32-35 “His secret counsel is with the upright. The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the house of the just. Surely He scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble. The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the legacy of fools.”

Colossians 2:8 (Amp) “See to it that no one carries you off or captivates you by so-called philosophy and intellectualism  and vain deceit, following human traditions, men’s ideas of the material word, following the elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding the teachings of the Messiah.”

Whose tune are you singing to, and whose step are you marching to?

Today the pressures to conform to the world and all its ways are powerful indeed. Most Christians have no hope at all of escaping the world-power.  I have seen that first hand just recently in how many of my own Christian friends celebrate anti-Semitic, pagan-filled Christmas.

They don’t stop to question things that are so obviously suspect to start with. They are blind sheep. Many of them have been saved for ages. It really is these sorts of things where you can see the true heart of the individual.

May I say to my own Christian friends reading this, who participated in all the witchcraft of Christmas – you are an open, defenceless target for the devil. When the pressure is really on, you will go with the devil. You are already a betrayer of our Lord’s truth.

Deuteronomy 7:25-26 “You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver and gold that is on them (Lit=decorations), do not take it for yourself, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. Nor shall you bring an abomination (Lit=idol) into your home, lest you be doomed to destruction like it; but you shall utterly destroy it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.”

The verse above leaves no door open for the devil. You could apply Christmas to that verse or Easter or any of the convocations of the church rooted in Babylonian, Catholic paganism.

Note the most important fact of the verse. “You shall utterly destroy and abhor” all forms of idolatry.

Christians (including some of my own friends) participate in idolatry because they love it. They don’t “abhor” it.

Notice is being given. My own list of friends has just been reduced. I know some of them, the world-lovers, will be quite happy to see me go!

“Oh, we love the Lord”, they say – you liars, you don’t. You love the Lord of your own creation, with all manner of evil mixed in.

By the way, you Christmas celebrating half-baked sell-outs, did you know the name attributed to Santa, St. Nick is an ancient name for Satan? “Oh we don’t mean that when we indoctrinate our kids, we just use the name.”

Exodus 23:13 “Be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth.”

You know what really is a tragedy of monumental proportions? Santa is supposed to be for kids. I have some Christian friends (ex now) who are over 50 years old with no kids and their lives and homes are full of little Santa’s at Christmas time!

Again I say, you will go with the devil when the pressure is on. You have demonstrated where your real alliances are. You are no different from the world; you are sell-outs singing, “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.” - With your Santa Satan.

Find and follow your unique calling:

The Bible speaks of “the course of the world.” Its direction is set. Do you know the direction and course of your life?

“To whom much is given much is required and to whom little is given, little is required” says the Bible.

Everyone’s calling is different. But no one is called to be an average nothing. Everyone is called to holiness. Everyone is called into the truth. That alone makes you different and sets you on a radical course. But how we all fit together as the body of Messiah is obviously different.

The first step in finding your calling is wanting to find it, and being prepared to pay the price for such a great and wonderful thing.

Imagine the incredibly great shock of discovering that God had a brilliant, wonderful plan for your life and you missed it totally. For a great many this is not an imaginary scenario – it is frighteningly real.

You can and must seek out and find your own special calling and place in the body of Messiah.

Final thoughts:

John 15:19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own, yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

Being right with God is often an inconvenience and makes you wrong with the world.

Write and pray your way out of the average and into the radical. In 1980 I wrote my vision down, which was a denial of self list while on a long fast. Today every point on my list is reality. I’ve shared it once or twice only to find it hated by many!

You see when you do and don’t do certain things, it generally shows others up. They don’t like the fact that you’re not like them!

To pursue God is easy if we want to. He isn’t hiding. In fact He is seeking us and wants to bring us into His plan.

After the storm!

One morning I took a walk outside after a night-time storm. A large Stralitzia leaf had blown over and this was the detailed view on top of the leaf.

Shalom and grow in grace!