If there is any hope for America, it is going to going to take people who want to surrender to God and say Lord thy will be done.
I don’t know how many people God needs but God did more with 12 men (11 disciples and the apostle Paul) to impact the world than America is doing with 20 million people who profess they know God. But in works they deny him.
America’s problems are multiple but a big one is the entire country thinks it is right with God and that God is tickled pink by our religiousity and our self sufficient efforts apart from God. America doesn’t understand the God of the Bible, but for the most part neither does the average church.
America could not be on a worse path right now than if Hillary Clinton was president and Jody Arias was her running mate.
Speaking of Jody Arias, she is a good illustration to get started. I had written a post on my old blog about her called Jody Arias — Lessons from a Killer Girlfriend. Americans in general can see she is evil and see her crime as horrible. What is not comprehensible for most of America is this. She brutally murdered her ex-boyfriend, Mormon motivational speaker Travis Alexander by stabbing him multiple times, slicing his throat, shooting him in the head, then stuffing him in the shower. She was found guilty but the trial has to be redone because they couldn’t decide whether to give her the death penalty. When it gets restarted does it begin at her conviction? Or do they have to re-convict her again? Well here is where it gets hard to comprehend. Travis Alexander is in hell right now. He will be there for all eternity. And it is possible but Jody Arias could still end up in Heaven. It will take a miracle, but that is what salvation is.
It doesn’t make sense nor does it seem fair unless you know the God of the Bible and also know how wicked we all really are. Hatred is murder in God’s economy. That is one reason I write this blog. To explain things from God’s viewpoint. I am nothing, but I know personally the God of the Bible and I have learned over these 11 years that God’s thoughts are not my thoughts and his ways are not my ways. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. We need to see our sin as God sees it because then and only then can we appreciate the cure of the cross, the penalty for our sin. I can’t give you a cure for a disease you don’t think you have.
The world can see that Jody is a wicked woman. What they can’t see is that what Travis did caused even more destruction. The world assumes Travis is in a better place. And that God could never forgive Jody. The church would cry out that God can forgive Jody, but it offers very little hope that she really truly could be saved. The church of America could get Jody into it’s fold, tell her about the wonders of heaven, and get a profession out of her. And when her next boyfriend dumped her, it would be another gruesome murder scene.
That is the main point of this post. To give truth that both the “world” and the “church” can bite into.
I can back up by looking at our past election. It was Mormon Republican Milt Romney vs. Liberal President Barak Obama. The “church” said false gospel preaching Milt Romney was the answer for our country. It in general backed him because of his stand on moral topics, being against abortion, and for traditional marriage. It felt Milt was the more conservative answer and felt Milt was a step in the right direction. I don’t believe either were the answer to America. The real answer for America is to get rid of the TV (but keep the internet so people can blog please!) and replace it again with the Bible. The sad thing is the church put a lot of faith in a man of a false religion that is damning souls to hell on a daily basis. Obama is for abortion and abortion is a horrible horrible thing. Hitler was able to murder millions of Jews because he was able to convince people they were not really human beings. Abortion is the same lie and it is America’s Holocaust. Life begins at conception and they lie and tell woman it is just a blob of tissue. They cut up babies in the womb and it is clear from sonograms these babies suffer agonizing deaths. Whether a baby is 4 months old in the womb or 4 months old outside the womb, it is still a baby. If you killed me now it would be murder. If you killed me 38 years ago (I am 37 and 1/2) it would still be murder.
Yet as horrible as abortion is, false religion is worse. Why? All those aborted babies end up in heaven. False religion damns people to hell forever. False religion keeps people in bondage. They think they find the right answer and they start walking on this spiritual path, but it snares them like a spider’s web and most don’t escape. Worse than Jody murdering Travis is the multitudes Travis influenced for the devil. Sadly Travis was brought into a life of enslavement in the false Mormon faith after a life of tragedy. Mormonism was his salvation he said. Sadly it was also his damnation.
The world doesn’t understand that. How can we Christians be so mean? So intolerant?
That is what I am trying hard to explain. We aren’t. It seems unkind but think of it like this.
1. I am throwing a Christmas party and give you an invitation but don’t put my address on it. You call me up as you drive clueless around my neighborhood for the right address. I say, “I don’t want to be offensive or intolerant. Go to whatever door works for you.” Um, no. There is one right address and many wrong ones. If I write a great letter to send my Grandpa but put the wrong address on it, he won’t read it. I am sure he would love to read it, I just sent it to the wrong place. God gives you his address in the Bible. God tells you how to come but he also says all are invited. He made heaven, yet we think we can dictate to God how we will get there. That is foolish and arrogant. He also made hell. The Bible says to fear him who hath power to cast you into hell.
2. America’s got talent but it is wasted talent. I was searching and praying for why so many are in hell when they seem like such good people. Take a Dr. Seuss for example. He seemed like he led a harmless life and a good life. Surely he should not be in hell. However from what I can tell he never had any Christian testimony. If that is the case he is in hell. Here is the main reason why. He was no doubt talented. God wired us with amazing abilities. He gave Dr. Seuss some great gifts. Yet he squandered them on himself. I could use my “writing” ability to start a blog that earns millions of dollars of revenues. Yet God wants me to use it for him. Wasted talents are a good way to describe most of America.
3. The world doesn’t understand salvation because it only sees the powerless gospel that most churches have right now. It is like a cancer hospital injecting everyone with a cure that has been watered down every year and now it is 1 speck of medicine for every gallon of normal saline. People enter sick and come out worse and no one wants to enter that hospital. If Jody ever gets truly born again, you will see a completely different Jody. Not a rehabilitated ex-murderer who has to white-knuckle it the rest of her life. But a Jody who now sees how wicked she really is and is now in awe of Who God is. True forgiveness and salvation produces a new creature who doesn’t want to sin again. Oh, the sins I have committed since being saved. I have done some wicked things, especially in the eyes of God. But know that I am saved I learn from my falls, I don’t fall as hard the next time, and I don’t stay down as long. I am not impressed with me and I know that if it is not for God I would be in a mess even worse than before I was lost.
I haven’t touched booze in 10 years. I haven’t smoked a cigarette since before I was saved. I was a sports addict, had a live in girlfriend, you name it. Salvation changed all that. But you know what? Over time, God is showing me the far worse sins. Pride. Self righteousness. Not truly caring about someone’s soul. Prone to unbelief. When you get saved, you really are like an onion. Every layer reveals another layer. But the point is God is removing those layers and you may not like where you are but you are not what you were!
When I was lost, on a scale of 1 to 100, 100 being the best, I thought I was a 98 as far as being a good person. In reality when I met God I saw I was really a ZERO!!! Yet now I am maybe a 85 by the work God has done in me, but I now feel like I am a 2. I am impressed with the God in me, when before I was impressed with me.
True salvation truly delivers. It is not white knuckling. If you are a drunk, you can go to AA and they can put the straight jacket on you and every week you can moan about how you can’t drink anymore. You are a miserable sober drunk in AA. You are not delivered. Who would want that? You attend for years and become a chain smoker but you tell every one you are a former alcoholic. “Hello, I am Bob and I am an alcoholic. It has been 3 years since my last drink.” Yet if someone said, let’s have a beer to celebrate your sobriety, you would drink to that and end up completely back in the gutter. That is not salvation. The Bible said YOU WERE A DRUNKARD if you drank, and when you were saved you are no longer a drunk!!! Not in God’s eyes and NOT BY YOUR ACTIONS. If you still can’t say no to booze it is because you never really drank of the living water that quenched the thirst the booze tried to quench. It is becoming instantly a new creature that has different taste buds. At times we may fall back during times we just don’t think, but we who are born again do not want to stay there. No matter how powerful the sin is when you meet the Lord Jesus He satisfies. Jesus delivers if it is the real Jesus.
Drunkenness is cured by drinking the living water. Chain smoking is cured by breathing in the spirit of God. Homosexuality is cured falling in love with the God Man Christ Jesus. Fornication is cured saying I Do to God. I love this song — I must admit it, I’m hooked on Jesus. He’s nearly always on my mind. I must admit it, I’m hooked on Jesus and I stay high most all the time.
God is able to keep us from falling. God is also there to pick us back up. And we fall into our old ways and habits less and less as we grow in Christ.
Only living things grow.
Salvation is a living Christmas tree that starts off looking like a Charlie Brown tree.
Mere religion is an artificial Christmas tree. It can look pretty impressive. But it is not alive.
Christianity is alive.
The real version, that is.
The problem is most of America has settled for a counterfeit.
And that is why America doesn’t want Christianity. It really doesn’t want the counterfeit kind. The gospel gun is only shooting blanks. The riche’s at Christ’s expense are being written on bounced checks. America doesn’t want phony religion and a church full of actors playing church.
Do you blame them?
The Bible says O TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS GOOD.
O America, the real Jesus of the Bible satisfies! O America, the Bible is alive! Junk the counterfeit Jesus of the Mormons and Catholics! Junk the modern counterfeit Bible versions!
O America, when you find the real Jesus HE is everything you are looking for and why you are never satisfied.
If you find the real Jesus, there is some real hope for this country.
And the Jody Arias’s of this world. When you truly know God, you will see you are no better than she is. There is none righteous, there is none that deserve heaven. Only Jesus is good enough for heaven. And he was the one who left heaven and came to earth.
To save and seek that which is lost.
America, you are as lost as a sheep in a snowstorm. Jesus is waiting to be your shepherd.
God can reach America one sinner at a time.
Are there any sinners left in America? I will give you a clue. Jesus said lust is adultery. Jesus said hatred is murder.
You can see Jody Arias is a sinner. She murdered. But in God’s economy, you did to. Multiple times. Can you yet see yourself as a sinner yet? You won’t have heaven your home, until you see you currently are destined for hell.
Can you cry out WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?
The Bible says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shat be saved.