Letters to Christ's Beloved Church

I personally found the article balanced and excellent.

The article can be found here:

https://breakpoint.org/venezuelans-are-the-victims-of-bad-ideas/

This post is not critiquing the article, but responding to the criticisms. And just helping us understand how as Christians we are to speak and live, an area I most certainly am growing in and have not yet arrived.

James 3:13-18 ESV
[13] Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.

[14] But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.

[15] This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

[16] For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

[17] But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

[18] And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

https://bible.com/bible/59/jas.3.13-18.ESV

I’ve struggled throughout the years with coming across arrogant. I know it can’t possibly be because I’m prideful, because I’m not, I’m completely humble, just ask me.🤪🤢 or maybe I need a Savior!

I have been told I’ve been rude in my writing. I struggle because the word of God says that we are to be humble and be gentle, not just assume that we are the only ones that are right and everybody else is wrong.

And most certainly not assume regarding our brothers and sisters that the Holy Spirit only works through us and our thinking and not through others.

Jesus warned the Pharisees against blaspheming the Holy Spirit when they called the holy spirit inside of him a devil; we need to be very careful how we speak to our brothers and sisters because if they are the ones speaking by the Holy Spirit and we are the ones in error, then it is not humans we are being rude to, but God.

We cannot assume that the Holy Spirit is leading us and not leading them.

What we can do is we can see threads of error, we can in love and humility and gentleness, say this is my belief of what the scripture means and I believe this is wrong. But humility acknowledges that maybe we are the ones that are wrong and is willing to hear the other side as friendly as we hear our own thoughts.

I will not lie, I’m not there yet. But God is working on me.💞

There are many threads that play into a conversation, many assumptions also that are often made.

We are to remember that we will be equally judged by the Living God with his standard of Justice.

Reminding ourselves that the Bible teaches clearly that pride and lies are an Abomination to God. Prov. 16:5, 12:22, 6:16-19.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that our pride is less of an Abomination than the act of homosexuality. Our pride is an Abomination before God. The Bible teaches that greed has consequences equal to murder eternally. We need a Savior.

And so humility is something we have to learn. We have to learn to speak the truth. And to speak it in love.

I would urge people to walk in the knowledge they have, but to be careful not to assume that their knowledge is the perfect knowledge and everybody else is wrong.

I thought this article was excellent.

We could discuss the argument that Jesus did not come to defeat Roman rule, but rather he chose the cross. And that is a true statement. To everything there is a time and a season. Eccl. 3

However, through Christianity Roman rule, the worship of their gods, the tortures and Horrors that went with it, was deposed.

There are fine lines and there are things that are right and things that are wrong in the different conversations.

Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth.

So certainly we are to glorify God, but does that mean that you do not go to a doctor when you are sick?

How does that glorify God especially if you’re seeing a secular doctor?

And so in this world, we are in the world but we are not of it.

We do not cease to function in the natural world; not everything that we do verbally proclaims Christ Jesus, but when we go to the doctor who does not know Jesus, we don’t have to say, this is not spiritual, so I won’t partake in this, but rather, care of our physical body is a blessing from God.

And we can tell the doctor, thank you, and God bless you.

But we don’t stop partaking in the natural world because we are Christians. Rather we influence it.

If we are following Jesus Christ, we will influence it through love.

If we are not walking in love even though we believe in Jesus, and even though we are doing things in his name, then we will not draw people to Jesus but we will push them away from God. We know that the Bible says in 1st Corinthians 13 that we can have all knowledge we can have faith to move mountains, but if we don’t have love, it’s nothing. In my opinion that is why we see Jesus speaking to people who did great works in his name according to them, and saying to them I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of iniquity. And so we must fear God and come and plead with him and ask him to keep us safe that we not be so foolish. That we might receive his salvation and love, and that we might bear fruit according to his will. Because if we are not loving and we do not have love, it is nothing. The knowledge is nothing; there will be no reward if there is no love. And then we must come back to Mercy and Grace, bowing before the one who was perfect and loved perfectly, acknowledging that we are not. Father forgive us when we do not know we’re doing.

Have mercy on us God, because every careless word you have heard and you will judge according to the scripture. Help us God. Forgive us and save us. And we know that he has, and he does. Glory to God through Jesus Christ Our Lord!

Love does not demand its own way.

The change in the world around us doesn’t come because we force other people to change, but because they see the love of God in us and they desire to change.

Sometimes that comes in smaller means of providing food and clothing and shelter, sense of self-worth, but sometimes the darkness and the strongholds are so strong, that the love is not seen until we physically die, as in the case of Stephen, the first martyr, whose bloodshed – and this is my opinion and conclusion to scripture, it is not stated in Scripture –  but to my understanding, Stephen’s sacrifice paved the way for the Apostle Paul.

Please do not misunderstand me: It is only through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice that Paul is saved.

But it is through the love of Stephen who prayed for those killing him, that the love of Jesus Christ was witnessed.

None of the disciples took a gun to people’s heads and told them to become Christian.

No.

That was not Christianity and it never will be.

And so when people stray from the truth and they go into error, we have to pray, because they and we too will stand in the Judgment before Jesus Christ for every murder, pride, lies about ourselves and about God, and wrongdoing, including greed.

No in this world, we live as Joseph, who married the daughter of the priest of On and lived life faithful to God.

We reflect Daniel who didn’t spend hours upon hours trying to convert Nebuchadnezzar or the other kings, but lived in an ungodly nation and I truly do not comprehend how he could have done this amidst evil sacrifices and blasphemy and all the things that he lived in, but he lived faithful to God, not constantly telling all of his coworkers what they were doing wrong, but just living such a just life they couldn’t prove him of wrongdoing. He was amazing and full of the spirit of God. And he loved the people including the ungodly King whom he served.

Daniel 4:19 ESV
[19] Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was dismayed for a while, and his thoughts alarmed him. The king answered and said, “Belteshazzar, let not the dream or the interpretation alarm you.” Belteshazzar answered and said, “My lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretation for your enemies!

https://bible.com/bible/59/dan.4.19.ESV

Even while he spoke Faithfully the word that God commanded him , his heart was that the king that he knew did not have to go through what he was about to go through.

He had compassion for the ungodly King, the one who had killed his family most likely, or at best taken him away from them, made him a eunuch and a Slave, you understand what that means, and yet he had compassion on the king of Babylon.

Daniel was a man of God’s love.

To everything there is a time and a season.

I do not agree with many of the choices President Trump has made and I found it very difficult and shocking that the Christian circles seemed to think he was the new solution to their problems.

I find it difficult to this day.

If somebody is greedy and somebody has a history of lying – though God knows what accusations are true and what accusations are false – and speaks foul language is this somebody that should be trusted? That does not make rational sense to me. Appears to me the one thing he had was a lot of money and a good business skill. But I don’t know that that makes somebody a good leader. However it is never the current generation that can judge such things it will be the generations that come after us that will determine whether he was more beneficial to the country or not.

I do not find the history of President Trump prior to his becoming president as a life filled with compassion and fear for God and love for people.

I believe he is loved by God. I pray that it is true that he came to Jesus Christ prior to his first election.

But that makes absolutely no sense that we would throw a baby Christian out to the wolves rather than urge him to work on the things that he needs to and take time away from politics for at least 5 or 10 years as he prepares to meet Jesus Christ.

I think it is completely unloving to throw a baby Christian, if that was real, which I pray it was, to the wolves.

I would urge the leaders to ask God to forgive them and ask president Trump to forgive them for being more concerned about their agenda than his spiritual health.

Those are just my thoughts.

However, and here’s the point, that doesn’t mean that I’m all right and they are all wrong.

It doesn’t mean that God did not intend for him to be president because truly, President Trump is president and we know that King Nebuchadnezzar was chosen by God. God gives people Authority. What they choose to do with it is up to them.

But sometimes I wonder if the discipline that we think is going to occur in the world, is not more likely going to occur within the church and in our own lives.

The article was excellent in my opinion.

Because God cares for the Venezuelans. Just as He cares for Americans and Russians and people of every tribe and Nation.

And so it is that loving care and that urges Venezuelans and Americans towards Solutions for their economic and physical well-being, while praying that as we minister to the needs of this Dying World we can also, as Colson Center so very well does, present to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

That Jesus Christ died for arrogant, greedy, lying, self-centered, unloving, rebellious, immoral people such as we.

He is forever lovely.

The Salvation comes through God Alone.

That we are saved by grace alone through faith not by works so no one can boast.

And so our humility is seen in how we speak to one another.

But I fall short, and I tell people, “the areas where I have failed you, as a parent or a person, aee the areas where God himself desires to come in and be the Perfection we are all looking for.”

So I point to Christ. Not neglecting the needs of the world around, because God cares for them and so should we.

Galatians 6:10 ESV
[10] So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to 💞everyone💞, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

https://bible.com/bible/59/gal.6.10.ESV

God’s peace.