James 4:1-5, What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?
You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”?”
From the very onset of my ministry, God laid heavy on my heart that the church is in serious need of warning, and to give that warning to the church and to pursue that in my faithful study in the Word of God. I believe if that is of such tremendous importance to God, it must be important to me.
There are many churches today where the Spirit of God has long departed, because you cannot have an alliance with God and an alliance with Satan and the world.
In 2 Corinthians 7:1, Paul writes to the church at Corinth, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
That is the mandate on the life of every believer in Christ: to purify yourself from all defilement of the flesh, to pursue the holiness and the righteousness of Christ. That’s what it means to be “set apart.”
Satan is the prince of this world. I believe that it should be obvious to any Christian, and certainly any true teacher of the Word of God, that anyone who seeks to compromise with the world is no longer serving the One True Living God, but Satan, the god of this world.
Therefore, you need to have a right relationship with God and a proper relationship with others, and to follow the clear pattern set by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus said in John 15:22, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.”
Jesus confronted their sin, and they hated Him for it. We are not to align ourselves with Satan by compromising with the world.
We cannot be ignorant of Satan’s devices; the church needs to be warned, repent, and be restored! A church that is confronting the sins of the world is not a friend of the world, but under attack of the world!
Because I teach on many controversial hot-button issues, it has been said that I couldn’t care less whether or not I am liked. That’s not true, I believe that we all want to be liked, dare I say, we want to be loved. But as pastors, we tread a very thin line between teaching what is pleasing to God and shaving off the offense of the Gospel.
Given that choice, I am compelled to teach what is pleasing to God, in truth and in love, even at running the risk of being offensive to those whom I love dearly.
If Jesus isn’t your Saviour, then heaven will not be your home.
Written by Brian Monzón
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Christian Grandfather Magazine
Featured Image by Joshua Lindsey from Pixabay
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