Love or Hate
In John 15:18-19, notice what will happen if you are a child of God. The world will hate you. I believe that a Christian’s popularity can be an indication of how he is representing Christ to the world. I do not believe a Christian can be popular in the world. No Christian has any right to be more popular than Jesus was. Beware of a compromising position in order to be popular. The world will not love a real child of God. The world will love you if you are of the world. You don’t have to act oddly or be super pious. The world will hate you if you are a child of God. This is difficult, especially for young people who want so much to be popular. Let’s tell our young people what the Lord says. They are not going to be popular with the world if they are the children of God.
Unfortunately, there are folk in the church today who are not honestly born–again, and they will also hate you if you are a child of God. They will hate the preacher if he is true to the Word of God. May I say again, beware of the Christian who is popular with the world. Comments by J. Vernon McGee
Men of Christ
Men of Christ stop your dreaming!
Can’t you see their weapons gleaming?
See their warrior pennants streaming
To this battlefield!
Men of Christ stand you steady.
It cannot ever be said of you
For the battle, you were not ready.
Christians never yield!
From the hills rebounding
Let this war cry sounding
Summon all at Gospel’s call
The mighty force surrounding.
Men of Christ on to glory
This will ever be your story.
Keep these fighting words before you
Christians will not yield!
The original lyrics were “Men of Harlech” or “The March of the Men of Harlech” probably written and used as early as 1461 in Britain. It is important for Welsh national culture and gained international recognition when it was featured in the 1941 movie How Green Was My Valley and the 1964 film Zulu. You can go to any search engine and find the audio to this song. Here I’m using it to promote the idea that we are in spiritual warfare and need to pay attention to the times we are living in.
Death is the saints’ gateway to Heaven
Death should be viewed as the time for going home. It is the gateway to having our full union with Christ. At that moment, we join a host of elected souls, ordained to forever experience a joy without bounds. The destiny of our dearly departed Christian brothers and sisters, family and friends, is so high that we have no words and no language to fully describe it.
So hold your friends and family lovingly but be ready to yield them to Jesus. Don’t hold them back from the One to whom they belong. When they are sick, fast and pray for their recovery. But when they depart and cross over to Jesus, do as David did, who washed his face and ate and drank. You will go to them one day; they cannot return to you. Comfort one another with the thought of their joy in Christ and Christ’s joy in them and the Father’s joy in Christ and in them.
Let no gloom surround and take hold of you. Dying is but going home. For there is no dying for the saints. Soon, we shall know more about Heaven than all the Christian scholars can tell us! Heaven is the place of great union with Christ and reunion with redeemed loved ones.
Let us remember what the apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:13-14; “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
This comes from a book by Randy Alcorn, We Shall See GOD, Charles Spurgeon’s classic devotional thoughts on Heaven; Day 1 – Dying is But Going Home.
Psalm 119:35
“Direct me in the path of Your commands, for there I find delight.” Psalm 119:35 (NIV)
Lead me and give me guidance and use me. Do a work within me both to will and to do whatever You command. May I be given the ability and a willing mind to walk in the course of Your Holy Scriptures. I’m in need of fresh supplies of grace and more spiritual strength, for the battle here is hard and difficult; sometimes victory seems so elusive to me. But I so delight with great pleasure in Your Word; it’s peace to a troubled heart and a charm that draws me back again to Your heart and path.
Our Father…
We, who are saints by adoption, should address the first person of the Trinity in prayer as “our Father” partly:
- To secure a respectful fear of Him,
- To secure boldness and freedom of speech before Him,
- To express our trustful confidence in Him,
- To express our faithful interest in Him,
- To express our relationship to Him because we have experienced His paternal love and the witnessing of the Spirit of our adoption.
So well said by John Gill of the 1700’s.
Bill Wyler
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