Passionate for Truth - Part I

Passionate for Truth or Fully Devoted to God

Introduction

We live in very dangerous times. It seems that what’s happening in our country and in the world cannot really be happening. It is almost like a bad dream. But, it is not as bad as it seems is it? No, it is not. It is worse, and getting worse, more than we realize: The apostle Paul wrote:
1Ti 4:1-2: Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.
2Ti 3:1-4: But understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
2Ti 3:13: While evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

Because of the perilous times we are up against, today I would like to encourage, and yet challenge you about devotion and passion for truth. I would like to impress on you the importance of being fully devoted to God with a godly passion and love that is evident in godly obedience by doing the will of God. It is this devotion and love for God through His Word that will be our light in the darkness in a world hostile to the gospel. Because, if you will, God will enable you to move forward and out into God’s will and do what is right. And that begins with having Christ in your heart and loving God with all your being in all of life! If you are a genuine believer, this is the challenge for you today. If you do not know the Lord, I pray that you may believe Christ, and make sure you come to know Him, because knowing the Lord Jesus is the key to true pleasure in all of life. Now, I have much to share, but I will be as brief as I can, and ask the Holy Spirit to work in your mind the truths we share today. But, allow me to ask you:

Where is your heart and mind today? What is your treasure? You will recall that Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” We cannot serve two masters, the world and its money, and God. God alone must be our true treasure and our devotion. So, what are you devoted to? What are you a lover of? What is your ambition or devotion?

Will you sacrifice or even pay the ultimate sacrifice for God’s honor? Is Christ in your heart? Will you show it in full obedience of faith by doing the will of God?

Well, we might ask, first off, what is passion? I am sure you know, but passion might be described as “a stirring of the soul and spirit over something that we deem of value and worth.” It is what commands your full devotion and consequent actions. Passion is a strong, uncontrollable desire for something or someone. It is a longing and suffering over something or someone that is the object of one’s desire, longing, or full devotion. It could be the overtime dedication to something; or the labor, the struggle, to obtain, reach, or accomplish something worthy and valuable. This could be good or it could be bad. We could speak, for example, about the “passion” of the Lord Jesus Christ, which refers to His suffering and sacrifice in our place; for He was fully devoted to the honor of God and doing the will of the Father.

In the Old Testament book of Psalms, Psalm 42:1-4, the writer says (deliberate), “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, "Where is your God?" These things I remember, as I pour out my soul.” This is a godly longing for God himself alone. Is this our longing today? Or are there “idols” in your heart?

Do you, do we “thirst” for God? This is a “metaphor” that pictures a deer that cannot get to the flowing stream to quench its thirst, and so he pants and longs for the water. Or notice also, Psalm 63:1, where David writes: “O God, you are my God; earnestly will I seek you; my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” This is the same metaphor directly applied in life.

Do we long for God like that, for the God of the Bible?

Please also notice, for example, Luke 24:32: “And they asked each another, ‘Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?’” (KJV)  The word “burn,” here, refers both to the lighting of a fire, and the consuming of the object. In this case it was their heart within that was consumed. This refers to a full devotion that consumed them; implying a deep satisfaction, a blessed or happy state, an excited joy that lead them to proclaim the gospel, and the fact that Jesus was risen from the dead.

Is this your experience? Does your heart burn within you for the things of God? Are you consumed with devotion, love, and passion for who God is, and His honor? It is possible to have that! But, that blessedness only comes as you prayerfully read and study the Word of God; there is no short cut. What do you value as worthy over everything and anything so that you make time for it? Will you make time to read and study the bible? What is it that stirs you to overtime dedication or full devotion? It should be a passion that is the serene repose of a full confident, mature, and devoted, contented, satisfied love for God by doing the will of God from the heart in all of life.

The Intolerance of Tolerance: Our Present State of Affairs
by Jesús Escobedo

The intolerance of “tolerance” cries out for a hearing. The progressive-statist far left in the United States has reached a crescendo in our society. It is time to redeem our society, culture, language, life, religion, government, and politics from the progressive-statist far left in all of life, especially within the halls of the Christian faith, the halls of justice, the halls of education, the family, and the halls of government. Political correctness has accomplished more destruction than what the radicals in the Middle East could ever dream of.  Perhaps all this has been by design. “Social justice,” “diversity,” “tolerance,” “fairness,” “equality,” “gender,” “healthcare,” and other such terms have been so redefined that they do not have significance any more in the arena of ideas or of living. These terms or words have become the code words of progressive-statists. Most people, the uninformed, live within a blissful fog of nothingness and have no regard for truth and the issues of life. It seems that Nietzsche, Freud, Darwin, Wilson, Roosevelt, Sagan, Sanger, the “war on poverty,” and many such persons and movements have won the battle of ideas and life living in the post-modern age. In the meantime, most persons have turned over their living, life, freedom, and brains, willingly or unwillingly, to the ardent pursuit of pleasure while the progressive-statists turn up the heat. Many others, victims of progressivism, are so busy living life and making a living that the “human din” has drowned them out to the destructive realities statist progressivism.

The contemporary belief in “tolerance” by many persons today is in reality intolerance. The progressive-statists, men and women from all walks of life, vehemently demand that society and people conform to their worldview. If you do not agree with them you are labeled “intolerant,” “racist,” “homophobic,” and many other such, now derogatory, names. Is it not “intolerant” of them to demand “tolerance,” when they constantly negate, demean, depreciate, and despise any point view that does not conform to their worldview? Who then is being “intolerant”?

Among the many issues that progressivism holds dear are biological evolution, eugenics, sex, abortion, social justice, healthcare, and equality. These are some of the issues they champion in their quest to obtain, reach, and accomplish their many “utopias.” They are proud of the fact that they care about “justice,” “fairness,” “health,” “poverty,” “equality,” “race,” and all the other injustices of “right wing” societies (religious or political).

Two of the many issues that progressivism has no tolerance for are differing points of view about sex and the Christian faith. The latter is particularly ironic since some progressive persons claim to be Christian or religious. The other matter, sex, has reached a most destructive level. Progressivism has redefined sex so as to champion immorality, sexual perversion, and the destruction of the family and the fabric of society. Any point of view, or worldview, on these issues, that is contrary to their view is immediately, and without mercy, labeled intolerant. They believe in “diversity,” but they do not allow for it when it comes to any point of view contrary to their own. This is intolerance, an “intolerance” that enslaves people to totalitarian tyranny.

How God Has Spoken

How God Has Spoken

by Jesus Escobedo (sola scriptura)
I write today on a critical issue. One of the religious “sink holes” of our present and last centuries is the worldview that teaches that God still “speaks” today in an audible voice or other voice through certain spokespersons. This is a fallacious belief and assumption. If Christians will be Scriptural, then we must hold to a high view of Scripture- namely, that God speaks “only” in and through the written 66 books or writings of the Bible. There is no other voice or revelation or any more spoken or written “revelation” from God today outside of the Bible and the 66 writings contained in the Old and New Testaments. To believe otherwise is to deceive and lead people astray, willingly or unwillingly, with the belief that “God” has spoken outside of the 66 books of the Bible through some person, persons, or angel. Christians, if they are going to be Christian, should and must maintain that God has spoken “only” in the written Word of God- the Bible. There is no other “Word of God” or voice of God or Scripture today outside of the Bible. We must maintain the historical Christian view that “what God says, the Bible says; and what the Bible says, God says." The Bible alone is God’s revelation. The Bible alone is the voice of God today, there is and can be no other. The Bible alone is God’s authoritative Word, breathed out and written by the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit of God as he “spoke” through the human writers of Scripture without error in the original autographs. (Textual Criticism is a whole other subject for a later post).

The Charismatic and Pentecostal movements, unfortunately, as well as many other individuals in Christianity, historically and to the present time, have erred to the extreme on this issue by assuming that God still “speaks” today in some person, persons, angel or written documents. St. Paul, the Apostle, wrote much about this matter. For example: 1) He said that "All Scripture is God-breathed (Theopnuestos) (inspired)."
(2 Timothy 3:16). 2) He said that if an angel were to come down from heaven and preach or teach a gospel contrary to “Apostolic teaching” then that angel is to be accursed (Galatians 1:6-9).  The Christian community of the first century knew that God had spoken through the Apostles, including St. Paul. What Paul and the Apostles preached and taught, was correctly received, as the “revealed” Word of God as spoken by the Apostles- who also wrote the God-breathed writings. (1 Thessalonians 2:13). The Apostle Peter, for example, affirmed that the writings of St. Paul were or are Scripture (2 Peter 3:16). St. Peter further confirms the fact that Scripture is God-breathed. He states that God’s chosen (holy) men “spoke from God as they were carried (or borne) along by the Holy Spirit.” He further stated that no word from God ("Prophecy of Scripture") is of private interpretation because it was given by the Holy Spirit (I Peter 1:20-21). The Bible alone is the Word of God. There is no other word or testament from God but the 66 books of the Bible revealed or “inspired” (God-breathed) by the Holy Spirit of God. Lastly, the writer to the Hebrews (1:1-3) clearly delineates God’s historical methodology. Notice: 1) God spoke long ago, 2) God spoke long ago to the patriarchs of Israel, 3) God spoke to the patriarchs of Israel through or by the prophets of Israel, 4) God spoke in many portions and in many ways to them (many kinds of methods), 
5) Lastly, God speaks in the last days “only” through the Son of God- The Lord Jesus, Messiah. This means that the God-breathed New Testament gospels are the written record of what God has "said" through the Son. This also means that the God-breathed New Testament, the Apostolic writings, are the record of God’s revelation through the Son.  Scripture is quite clear, then, that the Bible alone is the revealed, written, Word of God. There is no other, and there can be no other, or will there ever be any other Word of God until we see Him personally face to face on "that day." Amen. Sola Scripture. Jesu juva. Soli Deo Gloria. (A.D. 7 April 2014). J.E.

Bless Ye The Lord

Bless ye the Lord the almighty the King of Creation.
Blessed is His Name, for He is a great and mighty King.
Indeed He is Lord and God.
The God of the Bible- all 66 God-breathed scrolls.
There is no other God, only He alone.
He looked around to see if there is any besides Him.
There is no other.
He alone is Lord and God;
King of kings and Lord of lords;
The Great I AM;
The only wise God and true Savior;
Uniquely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
Three distinct persons in the godhead, yet One Personal being- God;
The Lord our God,
The God of Abraham,
The God of Isaac,
The God of Jacob;
The God of Moses and Aaron;
The God of Samuel;
The God of Elijah;
The God of David;
The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
The Holy One of Israel,
Our Savior;
The One Who was, who is, and is to come;
The lamb that was slain, yea, rather, who is risen again;
Blessed be the Lord our God;
The King of the universe.
Amen.

ONE PASSOVER NIGHT

It was long ago, but we can’t forget.
A night different than any other;
Why was that night different from any other?
And so they came,
To arrest my Jesu,
In the darkness they came,
For their time was finally permitted;
And so with lanterns and torches they lit up the night;
John was there- he saw and heard and hurt.
The cohort was ready, perhaps 200, to quell
Any uprising, for it was Passover.
Yet my Prince, my Beloved, offered no resistance;
'Twas enough for Him to say “I am” and they retreated
And fell to the ground.
“Let these go their way” protected His sheep.
But not for Him, even with Iscariot’s kiss.
Peter, bold and true to the challenge, only found the Master’s rebuke.
Yet 12 legions of Angels were ready at his command to
Meet the Roman cohort,
But He chose instead to drink that cup for me!

THE LORD'S BIG TEST

by Manolete-je

The big test it was!
It had to be,
Without twelve legions of angels
That He could have called.
Led by the Spirit
Into the desert furnace of holy men,
Moses and prophets;
Tried and polished and proved.

The Tempter was allowed to come,
To prepare and test the
Perfect One,
The Holy One of God;
Tempted and tested in every possible way
Son ship to deny;
Yet in human flesh true,
And without sin!

By grace alone
Victorious in battle,
Intense and consuming;
In silent darkness and
The shadow of death,
For 40 days and 40 mortal nights
Faithful was he,
And, "It is written" was His
Near dying breath!

The Dragon bruised Thy holy heel!
But thou didst bruise
The surrendered Serpent’s head!

Amazed angels drew
Near to worship
And tend thy royal feet.

DON'T GIVE UP TRYING

Don't Give Up Trying

by Manolete-je

“Where's there is love and inspiration, you can't go wrong. So don't give up trying to do what you really want to do.”

That's what the lady said in the song. Ella got it right, and Lou Gehrig did it!

What do I really want to do?

To serve my Lord Jesus, and see me active in or establishing a Spanish "L'Abri."
To serve my family, and find me doing His good will.
To serve my brethren in the Lord, and love them as He loves me.
To serve my neighbor, and love them as myself.

These things I really want to do.

What else? ¡Torear un toro!
¡Matador!
This too I really want to do.