These words should be mounted in BIG letters in Congress and on the walls of every school. Life cannot be about anger and raised voices. I should know. I have a problem with my anger. Not all of the time but…it happens more than it should. Ever since I became a pastor at a small church, God has changed that part of me so that it doesn’t show up nearly as often. My wife has never heard me raise my voice, only my son has heard that part and I’m ashamed to admit it.
I suppose I’m like my Dad in that respect. I remember his raised voice from many years ago. Thankfully he wasn’t violent and he didn’t hit me or my Mom. God gives each of us a spirit but until we surrender our lives to Him, our human nature gets to “play” more than our spirit. Sometimes that is not a good situation nor a good outcome in many instances. Seek to know Jesus as your Savior and let Him change your spirit and your nature so that you will be more like Him rather than being the sinful person that your nature tries to mold you into. God know who you really are and only He can move you into the direction to be the child that He knows you can be.
If you go to church on a Sunday or maybe Wednesday night, what do you see and hear? Is the service done as a show or is it a teaching service from a chapter in one of the books from God’s Word? Do you feel welcomed into the fellowship of believers or are you just a guest who is visiting and a number to be counted?
Do you see Jesus and His teachings being lived out for all to see when they come to His church or is it just a building with people in it?
In some churches today, regardless of the denomination, you will find the love of Jesus Christ and you will feel it when you come into the building. The people will seem to radiate it to you in their attitude and their greetings and the message will follow that as well. In other churches, again regardless of denomination, you may not feel it or hear it at all. You may hear it from a few people individually or from the message but the “church” feels cold and almost lifeless. As if there are a few people who are radiating the love of Christ but not enough to fill the building.
This is a sad state of affairs for the church of Jesus Christ. Not only in America but in other places around the world. The message has been diluted and changed with the addition of “man-made laws and wisdom” in the messages and in the bylaws of the church itself. The believers who began the church at Pentecost after the ascension of Jesus would not recognize the message that is being taught today or the people claiming to be Christians!
Now don’t read this and think that I am pointing my finger at any particular church or denomination. The facts have been showing up for a few years now and they are becoming more common. Granted, the facts that I speak of are only in America but it is possible that the same condition is present in churches all over the world.
Sadly, this is the condition which the church finds itself in today. Not so much because of the doctrine being taught from the pulpit, if it is a Bible-teaching church, but because of a dearth of teaching from the Bible at home! The Bible has been kicked out of public areas and from public schools along with prayer too so there are fewer people who have grown up hearing prayer and learning from God’s Word. With that in mind, why would the past couple of generations want to attend church to learn about their Savior?
They may not realize that they need a Savior in the first place! That is one of the main problems plaguing our world today. A moral compass is missing along with the laws which guide that compass. So, how are we to tell young people that they aren’t supposed to do this or that if they have never heard of a reason for it?
See the Ten Commandments: Exodus 20:3-17
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
12 Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
13 Thou shalt not kill.
14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15 Thou shalt not steal.
16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.
If you check most of the laws in Western society you will find that they are in line with nearly all of these laws of God.
The Living Message of Christ 