31 SIGNS YOU MIGHT BE APOSTATE (Check your spiritual pulse.)
- Thread starter LightShinesInTheDarkness
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Indeed I was thinking that same verse too. God gives riches not for man's glory, but for his own I think. The verse before is interesting to this point.
Deuteronomy 8:17-18
[SUP]17 [/SUP]And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.
[SUP]18 [/SUP]But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
Anyhow you all will quite suck me into this to take it the bounds thereof if I do not refrain myself, so I shall take my leave here of the subject of riches, but I suggest again, perhaps this be an interesting topic to make a thread of by itself as there are many thoughts and verses to consider on just this one subject alone.
F
FenceMan
Guest
Well, I guess I'll stop setting aside money in my bank account. Every penny is a piece of my soul, apparently!
Precisely. Jesus was not saying being rich is evil, he was pointing to the people that were believed to be super-blessed by God and saying "Even these people are going to find it impossible to get to Heaven."
Also, consider it was God Himself who gave Solomon riches - and long life, and peace from his enemies. Wealth wasn't what caused Solomon's downfall.
But it's a lot easier to condemn rich people, just like it's really easy to criticize the president (whomever it may be at the moment.) The rich are natural targets, easy to deride, especially if one takes scripture out of context.
(Maybe you should read/re-read my post on the definition of apostasy. That pretty well addresses the perfect obedience/sinless perfection issue.)
Keeping the commandments of the Lord is really not stressful or grueling (at least it shouldn't be). It's like walking; you don't think about every step you take when you walk, you just walk. That doesn't mean you never stumble, just that you're knowledgeable of how to do it and have been practicing it long enough to do it without intense focus on every little movement.
The Holy Spirit brings to mind those things we need to remember in order to keep in step with Him, if we are knowledgeable of God's written Word and are obeying Him to the best of our knowledge; and He also checks our spirits when and if we stray or stumble. (It's up to us how we respond to Him though.)
We refresh our knowledge of God's commandments by reading His written Word regularly (daily, ideally), to stay on course. And the Lord directs us as to what to read according to His knowledge of our needs and His will for us---provided we're applying what we already know.
I don't have a checklist running through my mind every minute of the day, nor am I fretting constantly about sinning. I think you have the wrong idea of what obeying the Lord looks like (or think that I do): You don't keep all of the New Testament's commands every day like a long checklist; you apply what is applicable when it is applicable.
Your description of obeying the Lord ("spiritually debilitating", "strict and endless lists of do's and don'ts") sounds very man-powered, like the way the Jews kept the Law. A Christian who feels this way is relying too much on himself and doing something wrong in how he applies the commands of the New Testament to his life.
I don't at all feel burdened by the Lord's commands. I just live by them. It's not that hard with God's help. It does require a conscious effort, self-denial, mindfulness of the Lord as we go about our business, prayer, and a daily and moment-by-moment commitment on our part; but all of this becomes second nature to the one who makes a practice of doing it, just like learning to walk; and the Lord works with us to do what is pleasing to Him.
He doesn't point and say "DO" and not go with us to help us to do it. Without Him, it would be impossible: As it is, whatever He commands us, Jesus is on one side of His yoke, and we're on the other.
He is our Master, and we do have to obey Him, but He is a loving, patient, compassionate and merciful Master---not a mean, overbearing task-master. We work together. (Even the desire to obey God comes from God. Apart from Jesus we can do nothing.)
In my experience, people who think of God as a mean task-master are those who don't have a good conscience towards Him, or who don't know Him very well.
Yes, there are consequences for disobeying Him, and serious ones; but when He metes them out, they are 100% deserved and righteous.
(Why don't Christians who get indignant about the fact that God judges those who despise Him get mad about the fact that the people who He judges are despising Him? They take the side of the sinners, and not of the righteous, loving, and long-suffering God that those obstinate rebels are sinning against.)
"All day long I have held out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people." (Romans 10:21)
"...I have been broken over their whoring heart..." (Ezekiel 6:9)
"...I persistently sent to you all My servants the prophets, saying, 'Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!' " (Jeremiah 44:4)
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. (Ephesians 4:30)
How much more punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:29)
Remember this: If God is angry, He has a REASON to be.
I'm glad your wife enjoys the Bible. We all should. And we should certainly all love God.
A word for you, my friend.
John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
Friend, there's a biiig difference between creating wealth for the righteous to give it to the poor, & those who are consistently rich because they hoard it.
Amen. (And His commands are not burdensome; we have a Helper.)
God's commandments are our instructions in how to love God and others. So if we choose not to keep His commandments, we prove that we don't really "love" anyone but ourselves (regardless of how we or others feel about what we do): Not God, not our neighbors, not our enemies or our brothers and sisters in Christ; not our wife/husband; not our children.
Love is not whatever we define it to be, or always doing what makes other people happy or makes them feel good. Love is what God says it is and must be done the way God says it must be done, or else it's not genuine---not love that He recognizes.
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. (1 John 5:3)
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. (1 John 5:2)
(If you're going to harp on love as a Christian, harp on the real thing. Yes, Christianity is all about love; but it's all about genuine love, by God's definition, and in God's way, not our own and not the world's.)
and what are the commands? in the same letter, ( 1st John ), 3rd chapter, John states to believe in the name of the Son, and love one another.
context people, context.
agree with this. but people quote 1st John verbatim about command keeping, but most of the time do not mention what John said the commands he is referring to are.
I see what you mean...But why would anyone take what it says in 1 John out of the context of the rest of the epistles and the gospels? They're all related and they explain each other. What may not be explained in detail in one place is elaborated in others. And taking one verse or passage out of the context of the rest of the NT is a recipe for error.
I can't imagine how anyone could claim or believe that the only commandments of God for Christians are to believe in the name of Jesus and love one another, and disregard all the scriptures that explain those two things. That's like a word without a definition.
The belief in the name of the Son, as well as the love of one another, are not so much commandments in themselves (as isolated from the rest of the New Testament scriptures) but an encapsulation of the other commandments of the New Testament which explain what those things mean and what they look like; otherwise, we would not know what that "belief" or "love" means, practically.
So it wouldn't be stretching those verses in 1 John to say that they refer to keeping the commands of the New Testament in general, because they actually do. The other commandments fall under those two commands: Belief in the name of the Son of God (which is proven by actions and not words only, as other scriptures explain) and loving each other (which other scriptures also explain). You can't do those two things without the other commandments.
My point is that if your mind and actions are in serving God then you won't be breaking any commandments. To me that seems more spiritually fruitful then constantly fretting over whether or not you're going to sin. I guess that I choose not to live in fear but to trust God that what He provides is sufficient for my daily needs and for his infinite compassion and mercy when I do stumble. I certainly believe in keeping the commandments because without those I would not know what sin is.
There CAN be a kind of pride or self-satisfaction that goes along with living in lack. "look at me I'm righteous because I'm broke" "Isn't it wonderful how that rich man is going to hell?"
In this we are in perfect agreement.
I find this to be a helpful scripture, and one to which the Lord refers me regularly:
By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
(1 John 3:19-22).
(And what verse 23, which follows, says, I already addressed in a previous post.)
K
kaylagrl
Guest
You might want to ask the rich young ruler on that one.
It wasn't the fact that he was rich that was wrong with the rich young ruler,it was the fact that he loved his possessions and money more than God. Being rich is not wrong,loving your riches is what is wrong.
K
kaylagrl
Guest
You know when I traveled in ministry you would not believe how many church have million dollar bank accounts. Churches you'd never guess have that much money stored away. Yet the little country church I attend gives almost 50% of the money that comes in to missions,the poor, pregnancy crisis and womens shelters and anyone who comes to them in need.