Immediate “results” are all that matter ~~
quick proofs of present success without a thought of next week or next year or even tomorrow.
Religious pragmatism is running wild among the orthodox, the evangelical, the churched, the unchurched..
Truth is whatever works.
Open your hearts and search the Scriptures. Bear your cross, follow where He leads you, seek His guidance for your life. follow your L-RD and pay no heed to the passing religious vogue is seldom spoken from the pulpits today.
A preoccupation with appearances, a corresponding neglect of the out-of-sight root of the true spiritual life are evident within the body today.
The Christian is strong or weak depending upon how closely he has cultivated the knowledge of God. Paul was anything but an advocate of the once-done, automatic school of Christianity. He devoted his whole life to knowing Christ, living a life devoted to Him ~ regardless the cost.
"Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ…. That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death… I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 5:8,10,14
There is no short cut to sanctification, no easy belief-ism, no grabbing of the glory. Back of it all is the slow buildup and preparation that comes from waiting upon God.
"they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40
The idea that God will pardon a rebel who has not given up his rebellion is contrary both to the Scriptures and to common sense.
How horrible to contemplate a church full of persons who have been pardoned but who still love sin and hate the ways of righteousness. And how much more horrible to think of heaven as filled with sinners who had not repented nor changed their way of living....
The promise of pardon and cleansing is always associated in the Scriptures with the command to repent. The widely-used text in Isaiah, ”Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool,” is organically united to the verses that precede it: ”Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”
...the teaching of salvation without repentance, the tolerance of sin, the acceptance of false religions as brothers has lowered the moral standards of the Church and produced a multitude of deceived religious men and women, boys and girls who erroneously believe themselves to be saved when in fact they are still in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.
The only man who can be sure he has true Bible faith is the one who has put himself in a position where he cannot go back. His faith has resulted in an everlasting and irrevocable committal, and however strongly he may be tempted he always replies,
"Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life."
Taken from the writings of A.W. Tozer
To G-d be the glory
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