1 John 2:16
"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." KJV
There are many things in this world that are enticing, when we talk about lust often we simply think lust means a sexual desire for a member of the opposite sex. When in reality lust is defined as an overwhelming desire or craving. Perhaps we might have a craving for Dr. Pepper (okay that's me) and we cave to that craving, we are a very self-satisfying self-seeking people. Now I am not saying that wanting or having a Dr. Pepper is a bad thing, at all. It goes deeper. The desire for self indulgence is where we go wrong. Satan sneaks into our hearts and our homes through greed and self satisfaction. When we are focused on ourselves, our little world, our little family and nothing else then satan has succeeded with step one in sucking us into his world. Now, focusing on our families is by NO means wrong, only when that becomes our only focus in this life. Even our birthdays..... there is a book called "ascent from darkness" (a MUST read) that describes one mans walk with satan until he found Christ. In this book he describes the favorite holidays of witches. Halloween isn't on the top like you would think. Instead above that...the day is..... BIRTHDAYS. Why? Because that is the day a person becomes the most self involved, we teach our children that the day is all about them, gifts, parties, food.... me me me! It is all about self, I can see how satan would revel in that day. Now I don't think we should stop the celebrations of birthdays, but what if we celebrated differently? What if we gave to others, taught our children to celebrate the day of their birth by honoring and thanking God for their very existence and what if we taught our children to be at their fullest Christ like potential on that day? What if we went out and gave to the poor and the needy on that day? After all, we didn't create ourselves, we didn't give ourselves a soul. We were made by the Lord most High. Yet we stay full of greed and forget to honor our creator on the day of our birth.
This won't sit well with many people, it is a different concept, a hard pill to swallow. We desire the things of the world, we desire to have a day like everyone else does. And we desire to have things on the other days of the year, spend money on everything we can, that we think will make our families or ourselves happy. What about the amounts of money we spend on sporting events, cheer, camps, clothing and so on? How many starving children could you feed with that money? How many Bibles could you provide to those who don't have them? Did you know in many places people spend time in prison for being caught with a Bible, yet they continue to bring the Bible to others because it is the ONLY way those people will hear the name of Christ. Next time you buy a soda and popcorn at the movies, ask yourself...how many Bibles could this money provide?
There is a song out, I don't know who it is by, but it really hit me hard. The lines go like this:
"I raise my hand to the sky shaking my fist asking God why, why won't you do something? And God answered "I did, I made YOU"!
God made US to be the doers of the Word, the takers of the Word, to go INTO the world, NOT to be OF the world, to share the gospel.
Let me close this by saying, as long as there are starving, neglected, hurting, broken people in the world, children in shelters instead of loving homes, children being buried because of abuse that led, ERs full of scarred babies.... we are NOT doing enough. I am not doing enough.
It is time to stand up, and pray for revival. revival of our hearts, may they be broken for the cause of our Savior Jesus Christ. Take 12 minutes of your life and watch this video, it is well worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment