THE lying liars and the lies they tell

Have you ever heard a lie that had small nuggets of truth associated with it?  It’s like a chocolate covered doughnut that has sprinkles on it.  The lie is the doughnut, and the sprinkles are the truth.  While the truth can be seen, it is barely noticeable when it is eaten.

Now that I have all of you salivating over this imaginary doughnut, I want to talk a little bit about our enemy.  So let me ask you an honest question, do you feel awkward bringing up his name in the midst of a conversation?  Do you find yourself looking for words like enemy, or our adversary?  I do.  It feels off to say the following sentence, Satan is influencing my thoughts today, please pray for me.  Or how about this sentence, You are under Satan’s influence, and you need to start praying for the Holy Spirit to guide you.

We live in a weird world today.  Paganism, and Satanism is on the rise, and getting its own monuments outside of public buildings.  There is a growing trend of Christians who believe that  Satan is not a real entity.  Many preachers teach that hell is not real.  And Bible believing Christians feel embarrassed to talk about the influence of Satan on theirs and others lives.

And it is all about influence, NOT demonic possession.  Everything in the current media is focused on exorcising demons and the increase of exorcisms.  Nothing focuses on the day to day influence that a demon, or Satan can have on you.  What kind of influence?  Anything that could change or alter your behavior towards God, or towards sin.

So when I say THE lying liars and the lies they tell, I am referring to Satan and his demons working overtime to give you the doughnut, with enough sprinkles on it to get past your truth meter, or to trick you.

To use myself as an example.  I have been in the process of writing several books over the last year, and just completed my first one.  All of these books are related to being a Christian.  Throughout the process I have had a nagging feeling that no one will read the book, and at times I have had to force myself to continue work on them.  This became so regular that I wrote on the potential influences that our adversary can have on our lives, through influence alone.

The name of the book is The Interview and it is now available for purchase through Amazon on the Kindle, and through paperback.  If you want to see numerous examples of how THE lying liars and the lies they tell can impact your life, read this book.

Buy it now for the Kindle for $3.99 or in Paperback for $6.99

I have many gods….but only one God

YOU! Are the most common god...

I love the Ten Commandments.  What an interesting study into the natural and moral law of God.  My Pastor has started a series on the 10 commandments (to listen to the sermons CLICK HERE).  Each week he is going through a commandment.  I am posting this a couple of weeks behind but two weeks ago was the first commandment.

Now the first commandment is the one that typically is used for the reason that the 10 commandments cannot be displayed on public property.  In recent history this has become one of the more controversial commandments, not only because of the First amendment debate but also because of the implications to everyday Christians who think that this only applies to worshipping Buddha, or Zeus or whatever…  Just like the transformers, however, there is more to this than meets the eye.  Much of this is taken from the sermon, so if you take a listen…many of the points here will sound familiar.

Commandment 1 – You shall have no other gods before Me. (Exodus 20:3)

Everyone has a god.  Now, some one of you are probably thinking “I have a god and it is God”.  Others, like atheists, say I have no god, nor do I believe in God.  Still others, like Kenneth Copeland will tell you, you are a god or you can become one (Mormans).  In order to rightly explain this we have to look at each one of these…

Christians – Most Christians will tell you that they don’t worship Buddha or anything along those lines so they follow the first commandment.  That may be, however, the furthest thing from the truth.  The truth is that anything can be a god to you…even yourself.   Your god can be…

–          Success and Money (Luke 16:13).  Yes you can worship one and not the other.  The question is which is the priority in your life… From which do you place your significance and security? The money you make (or have banked) or God?

–          Society (Galatians 1:10).  You can worship others opinion of you.  The question to you…which one carries the most weight for you, the opinion of others or the opinion of God?

–          Pleasure (1 Timothy 5:6).  You can worship doing whatever feels good.  You basically put your personal pleasure before God.  Living with a boyfriend… going out to party… pre-marital sex…  Homosexuality…  So the question…Which most affects your decision making, personal pleasure or living with God?

–          Family (Luke 14:26).  Yes you can replace God with the worship of your own family.  Now I can hear the Atheist (and some Christians) exploding right now.   What Jesus is saying is that God comes before family.  Our love for Him should look like contempt for everyone…even your family.  So now the question…Which takes prescedence?  Your family… or God?

–          Yourself (Proverbs 14:12).  Ahhhhhh worship of one’s self.  This covers a broad perspective.  Check this out…Ever heard or caught yourself saying the god I know would’nt  judge people for (fill in the blank with something that is expressly mentioned in the Bible)… CONGRATULATIONS!  You have created a god that doesn’t exist in the Bible, instead, you have created a god in the image of yourself. Go back up to the Pleasure god.  

Atheists – All atheist’s have a god to worship.  It can be any of the things listed above, but it could also include nature, or science.  Nature in the fact that they could worship protecting the environment, or the “Science” that claims that nature was able to create itself (evolution).  But even if you are an atheist or an agnostic, and you don’t buy into global warming or evolution, you more than likely worship one of the things listed above.  More than likely you worship yourself.  You might be thinking is that you determine your own destiny, or moral values, or world view.  This would make you a god in the most basic sense.

The first commandment is a call to worship only God.  To put aside all of the things that could distract you from being with God and focus on him.  If you are a Christian…your god can be anything that distracts you from the one true God!  If you’re an atheist, your god HAS taken you away from Him already!  Simply denying he exists doesn’t take away the fact that He is truly God.

One Nation, Indivisible….what’s the big deal?

What is the big deal?

A few weeks ago there was a story about a secular group in North Carolina that posted billboards in several locales with the words, “One Nation, Indivisible”.  What the secular organization did was removed “God” from the phrase “One Nation, Under God, Indivisible”.  And so sparks the debate… America was created based on Christian principles…No it wasn’t.  The founding fathers were Christian…well not really…etc, etc, etc…  Their point they are attempting to make is that you can be a patriot without using the words “Under God”.

As I sat and thought about this I realized that I wasn’t angry, or even upset.  Any number of arguments could be made about this billboard.  The only real legitimate argument that I could come up with is just the overall attempt to remove God from society as a whole.  What I mean is the fight to remove God from government to be a little more specific.  Both sentences are intentional, please let me explain…

In my last post I discussed what freedom actually was to a Christian.  I made the specific point that a government can take anything away from you but they cannot take your Christian freedom from you.  These billboards, and ultimately the response from Christians illustrate this point beautifully.  Christians who get upset about the removal of “under God” from a pledge of allegiance to a country, may need to check their priorities.  If you read my last post you know that a government (or any person for that matter) can deny you of certain freedoms.  They can deny you of material possession.  They can even deny you the right to use “Under God” when saying the pledge of allegiance.  I ask you…why should we care if “under God” was removed from the pledge of allegiance?

I can hear some of you right now….”But Robert….this is just another example of the removal of God from society.  This has caused the downfall of the American society”.  Is it really the fault of the government if I don’t teach my kids about Christ?  Is it the fault of society if I do not provide an absolute moral compass for my kids (from God’s perfect and reliable Word)?  The false premise here is that you let yourself off of the hook when you blame society for being amoral or providing entertainment that is not godly.  It is each individual’s responsibility to act in a Godly way.  It is OUR responsibility to teach our kids about God.  After all what makes up society…millions of individuals.  Perhaps if the millions of individuals spent as much time and energy focusing on God individually…society would improve.

Just a thought.