The State of the Church

   For the Nigerian Church this message is very timely and approriate. Considering the situation we are facing,  what God requires of the Nigerian Chuch to avert disaster is REPENTANCE AND UNITY of the Church. Urgency and sincerity are two words  rolling around in my spirit as I write this. With yet another historic event—the senseless killing of now 59 people in Las Vegas—we are being warned as a nation.

At the end of last year, I wrote that 2017 was going to be a bad year for the world. I had a sense of darkness in my spirit. I was troubled and disturbed about the state of the church and the nation. 2018 will be worse. 2019 even worse. 2020 is very bad. I can't see past that right now. Time is running out.

The call of the hour is for repentance. Sincere repentance. Not lip service. Not self-justification. Not procrastination. But a whole-hearted, renouncing of your evil ways, and a permanent forsaking of sin and self.

And no, I am not a doomsday preacher. I am a prophet-hearted servant of the Lord and a preacher of righteousness. I am a voice crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord! Make His paths straight!" I sincerely believe the real church will shine in this day. I sincerely believe this is our finest hour. I sincerely believe we will have revival and awakening in our nation. How could I believe any differently and be a preacher? I have hope. But I also believe the present state of things in general in both the Church and the nation is very corrupt.

This Las Vegas tragedy comes on the heels of one of the worst storms in American history. It comes on the heels of record temperatures and raging fires in the West. It comes during a time in history where our national sovereignty is being threatened, where every kind of authority is dishonored and disrespected (especially the highest office in the land), where multitudes of university students mock God and celebrate filth and perversion, where hate and rebellion are everywhere in our society. Never has there been a time like this in the history of America and the nations.

Meanwhile in houses of worship there is no real worship. People stand in congregations, move their lips and sing their praises, but their hearts are far from God.

"These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. In vain do they worship Me ..." (Matt. 15:8-9).

Actors and pretenders they are, with no sincerity. This lack of sincerity marks the church culture today.

Much of what we do is just for show. There is always an insincere agenda behind it. Bottoms in the seats, bucks in the offering and buildings that must be paid. Another program, another project, another event, but there is no sincerity in many people. It is the spot and the blemish in our feasts and festivals.

How many more tragedies and casualties must take place before our attention is arrested and our insincerity brought to light? How many of those who were killed in Las Vegas were right with God? How many were ready to meet their Maker? How many were even conscious of Him? My guess is not very many. It is heartbreaking. The way to death and destruction is always far wider than the way to life that is always narrow.

Study the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28. It is obvious to even the casual observer that our nation, and many of our churches, are under the curse of disobedience. Yes, I am aware that God has a remnant, but I am not talking about the remnant. I am speaking of the masses of lost people and the multitudes of insincere professing Christians who praise God with their mouths but keep their hearts far from Him. Insincere.

The dictionary defines "insincerity" as not expressing genuine feelings; false, fake, hollow, artificial, feigned, pretended, put-on, inauthentic. Are you getting the picture? This is such an accurate description of our culture. The church is full of false converts and pretenders. They live double lives. Hypocrisy is their most glaring feature. They are living only for themselves. They do what they want and when they want. There is no fear of God in their hearts.

The judgments of God are real. Heaven and hell are real. Most people live without that sense of reality. Their eyes are dim, and they cannot see. Their ears are dull, and they cannot hear. Their hearts are layered with their own lusts and vain imaginations. Their minds are full of contradictory thoughts and destructive reasonings. Their mouths are full of excuses and self-justification. They are nowhere near ready for the judgment. They are not prepared to die and face God. They are nowhere near ready for the coming of the Lord. What will happen to them if they don't change? They will die and go to hell. Does that concern you at all?

I've given my life to the Lord and to His work, but I constantly search my heart nearly every day. I don't want to be insincere. I hate that in myself. I don't want to be wrong anywhere in my life. I want to dwell in the holy fear of the Lord. I want to love and revere Him always. Because I understand the nature of deception, I guard my heart with all diligence. I ask myself over and over again, "Am I sincere? Are my motives pure? Will they stand God's own inspection?" (See my book, Purity of Heart.)

The opposite of "insincere" is genuine, honest, open, real, truthful, upright and trustworthy. These should be qualities found in every believer, but pride blinds us. And that is the root where the axe needs to be laid. Pride. Self-admiration, self-glorification, egotism and self-love are some of its definitions. It is the opposite of humility. "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6b). That is our greatest need right now in the church and the nation. Humility and repentance.

"If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land" (2 Chron. 7:14).

If ... if ... if. Just one condition, and the church would be revived and our nation would be awakened, our sins forgiven and our land healed. What a marvelous promise? What a glorious remedy to all the death and darkness in our nation. What a grand solution to all the complacency and apathy in the church. And there is only one condition: If.

We need an overwhelming response to the if. Let it start with you and me.

Bert Farias' tetralogy of books speaks to these vital themes and the turning of the church and America back to God. If this article and others on this blog of this nature stir your love for truth and righteousness we highly recommend these books: The Real Salvation, The Real Gospel, The Real Jesus, The Real Spirit Of Revival.

Pasted from Charisma Magazine

God bless you.

Don't allow Satan

Don't Let Satan Rob Your Joy—

The Lord is saying to me that there's some of you who have pressed and pressed to see the doors open for you, but it just seems like they just won't get open.

I feel from the Lord to tell you, don't be discouraged. God is going to open doors for you that no man can shut. Don't let the enemy come in and rob your joy. Don't let the enemy come in and tell you it's never gonna happen.

For the Lord would say, "Do not be discouraged, because I am working behind the scenes to do things you can't know. I am moving chess pieces, as it were, behind the scenes so you can have a checkmate so you can do what you need to do—for your business, for your schooling, for your house and for your dreams."

The Lord says, "I am a dream maker." God is going to release a new ability to dream. It's time to dream again.

And the Lord says, "Don't let Satan steal those visions and those things I have put in your heart. It's time to rise up and say no to the voice of the enemy that would say to you, 'Oh, it's never going to happen.' This is the time for the violent to take it by force. Stand up and decree, 'No! I will have my doors open. I will have my breakthrough.'" 

God bless you.

Why You Need to Embrace the Lost Art of Saying "No"

   I descended to a whole new low in my parenting a little while ago. In a moment of paternal virtue, I offered an expedition to a local pottery painting shop to my elementary-aged daughter, For a brief moment, I was indeed “Super Dad!” And then came my spectacular fall from grace.

Sitting at the table, working together with great artisanal dexterity on a new bowl for our dog, I literally fell asleep. Twenty minutes later I found myself with her coat around my shoulders (“Dad, I thought you might be cold”) and Olivia on my cell phone with my wife, asking for advice on how to wake me up. The pottery shop, crowded with kids and super moms, appeared to have gone very quiet. Perhaps it was an attempt to let me sleep?

My falling asleep at the (pottery) wheel was a wake-up call of another type. There is something terribly wrong here. There is a crazy kind of busyness in my life that is just not working! Where do I go with this problem? What does faith have to teach me?

Well, you can’t make the case that Jesus does not know what it is to work absurdly hard and be exhausted. In Luke chapter 4, we observe Jesus pulling an “all-nighter.” We are told that “When the sun was setting” (verse 40) people came to him for healing and then we are told “And when it was day, he departed…” (verse 42), the inference being that He had worked through the night. But by light of the dawn, Jesus stopped what he was going and went to a deserted place to pray. Not surprisingly, the crowds followed. At which point, Jesus ostensibly said to them, “No.” Luke records “…[the people] would have kept Him from leaving them, but He said to them, ‘I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.’” (verse 42b-43). Jesus said “no” that morning to a lot of hurting people, who genuinely needed Him and who had, literally, followed Him into the desert for their healing.

Can we chalk Jesus’ “no” up to exhaustion? Here we see evidence that Jesus’ guidance was from His Father and not from circumstances alone. The Father evidently told Him, “It’s time to move on. I want you to go to Judea and preach there.” The Father said “No” so Jesus said “No.”

What would my life look if I got my guidance from my heavenly Father and not just from my circumstances, no matter how apparently urgent those circumstances appeared? What if Jesus’ rescue plan for me from my state of “crazy busyness” — has a lot to do with my learning to say “no” to a whole lot of good things so that I can be freed up to say “yes” to the most important things? If so, how would I know the difference?

In our crazy busy lives making time to reconnect with the Father will no doubt feel counterintuitive. Perhaps it feels like God has just added yet another to-do to your long list! But if we are to allow God to break the hold that “crazy busy” has over us, this is where we must start. We are invited to bring our unmanageable lives to the Father — and tell Him the truth about how we are doing. I fell asleep in a pottery painting shop with my eight-year old daughter! I confess the extent of my problem and my incapacity to fix it on my own! This step is humbling, but crucial. We must acknowledge before Him that we are powerless to throw off our crazy busy lives, that our own guidance system has crashed! This place of confession is where we start. If not, we are simply going to come back to the place where all we can do is try harder… which will bring us back to the same end, but in a deeper pit.

What will I discover in this place of reconnection and confession? Jesus clearly knew what exhaustion felt like. And He knows each one of us so well. He knows of what we are made and where our particular breaking point is. “For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:14). I was recently convicted by this verse from Psalm 127: “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil...” So, what is the Lord’s response? To berate us?  The Psalm continues with His response, “…for He gives to His beloved sleep.” (Psalms 127:2). We expect condemnation, but what we find is mercy and compassion.

Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29). In other words, “I know you are weary. I know what got you here…I long for you to come to Me…And actually, if you will only ask Me, I will lift the burden of your self-propelled life and give you power to break the cycle of crazy-busyness.”He is the one who provides the strength and power to us in all our weakness.

How does He do that? This is the role of the Holy Spirit. Here is our capacity and power to say “no” to the good things so that we might partake in God’s best for us. The Holy Spirit supplies the power for us to live differently — the power to repent when we don’t live differently, the power to live changed lives. And all you have to do is ask. Do we imagine that God would demand some four-month silent retreat in a horsehair shirt, drinking only rain water, before deeming us worthy of the Holy Spirit? No, all we have to do is confess our inability to cease being crazy busy and just ask for His help. Jesus told us, “…how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13).

So, having acknowledged my own power to change and having asked for the Holy Spirit’s help, I have suddenly found the inspiration and conviction to put into effect what Olivia and I call “The Saturday Plan.” This means I get up early on Saturday morning and complete whatever is still to be done for leading or preaching at our worship services on Sunday and then the day belongs exclusively to Olivia! And I managed to stay awake for all of it! I owe all of this to the power of God to say “no” to a few good things so that I might break free of being crazy busy and live in the moment.

I confess that I have slipped a few times. Some days “crazy busy” has a pull that is stronger than a black hole. Still, the power of God is greater and I have begun to recognize a process of repentance, compassion, mercy and His power to overcome that counteracts this gravitational pull.

Pasted from: crosswalk.com

God bless you.