ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH: TAKE THE LOVE!

When I first started going to church and sincerely seeking to honor, worship and reverence the only true living God one of the first things I noticed was this:

“These people can’t possibly be a Christian!”

I was right…

I was a new Christian in my very late twenties. I was extremely ignorant about the Bible, the Holy Spirit and Christians. Ignorant, not stupid. I was poorly informed, uneducated on the things of God but now I was saved and on my way to deliberately and delightfully choosing to cultivate my passion for Christ, the Father and the Spirit through loving truth and wisdom. I joyfully finally turned from my self-involved-only- life and lived first and foremost for my God and my Savior. As I started worship at a local church I knew God; but not enough. NOTE: Truly everyone’s relationship with God must continue to flourish.

Selah.

So here I was at a wrong church (which truly lacked much teaching and POWER) observing people who attended regularly, some of them even serving. I particularly remember a single woman bashing men, all men, as she stood right outside the sanctuary door by the pastor as he greeted everyone exiting! I was shocked! I knew she was an idiot even at my first beginnings of fellowship… Another instance was the kind of young handsome married man who immediately strikes a Christian as a schmuck, a phony. We all know the kind, the dissembler who is too stupid to know you are on to him. As a new baby Christian I could not like this man although he seemed to say all the right things. Why? Again, I have a particular memory: him praying, looking very Sunday in his suit and tie. His business was to impress for a reason, but not the reasonable act of worship. I will never forget on this Earth that his prayer was correct; nothing did he say out of line. BUT, I hated his prayer. I took this to the Lord God Almighty. Sometimes it takes a long time, even years, to find answers. It did and I did. This young man’s prayer was for show, for pomp. Pomp is another meaning for vainglory. Hit the nail on the head! His head was full of himself. This is what the Lord spoke to me; he was there for business connections…

Judge for yourself if those who claim Christianity are Christians. Not everyone who claims this most precious title is.

Then there’s the Sunday School teacher who tells you to ignore hitting. What about the ‘brother’ who hates the medical profession because his wife died? Or the grandmother who teaches her children to cheat at a game? And get mad when she’s challenged!  Would she be cheating if she were playing with her pastor? No! You know she wouldn’t! Hypocrite! Then there’s the woman who’s Oh!  Who’s so very concerned for her son… (because he is a Free Mason.) And when you get concerned and give her true information (information she should have researched herself)  she wants nothing to do with you…  Stick with God.

 

Proverbs 18:24
One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

 

TRULY IT IS CRUCIAL to know that people lie. Some people, not all. People lie at work. People lie to their neighbor. People lie to their children! Stop it! People lie who go to church; people lie when they’re in church!

 

FALSE BELIEVERS ARE RAMPANT IN THE CHURCH:

Isaiah 29:13
The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.

 

1 Timothy 4:1-2
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

 

2 Timothy 4:3-4
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

 

Hebrews 6:4-6
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit,  who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age  and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

 

 

So many people these days want to call all of God’s people His children. Wrong. Wrong! Wrong!! A thinking, loving person can see some are full of the devil! Yes! Full of the devil! Why do you think it is called demon possession?! Some are; and some are right in the Church, the true Church.

 

PLEASE NOTE THE CHURCH IS:

Romans 12:4-5
For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,  so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

 

Ephesians 1:15-23
For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.  I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength  he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,  far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

 

1 Peter 2:9-10
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

 

We are the called out ones. We are the children of God, Israel and The Church:

 

John 10:14-18
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.  I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.  The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

 

1 Corinthians 12:12-14
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

 

A CHRISTIAN CANNOT BE AGAINST HIS BROTHER IN CHRIST:

 

1 John 3:11-18
For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.  Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.  We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.  Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

 

A CHRISTIAN WANTS ALL TO BE CHILDREN OF GOD:

 

Matthew 22:35-40
One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

 

Romans 3:21-24
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile,  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

 

Romans 12:17-21
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.  On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

 

Selah.

A CHRISTIAN CANNOT BE AGAINST ISRAEL & CANNOT DENY THEIR COVENANT:

 

Genesis 17:19
And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.

 

Isaiah 45:17
But Israel will be saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation; you will never be put to shame or disgraced, to ages everlasting.

 

Romans 11:1-6
I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.  God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel:  “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me” And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.  And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

 

MET ANY HYPOCRITES TODAY?

 

 

SCRIPTURAL TRUTHS FOR THIS JOY STORY:

 

Proverbs 12:1
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid.

 

Ecclesiastes 10:1-3
As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Even as fools walk along the road, they lack sense and show everyone how stupid they are.

 

Romans 12:1
Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies [dedicating all of yourselves, set apart] as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, which is your rational (logical, intelligent) act of worship.

 

1 John 2:9
Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister^[b] is still in the darkness.

 

1 John 3:13-15
Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.  Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.