Aug 23, 2012
Music video by Bill & Gloria Gaither performing I Just Want to Thank You Lord (featuring Lynda Randle, Gayle Mayes and Angela Primm) [Live].
(P) (C) 2012 Spring House Music Group. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is a violation of applicable laws. Manufactured by EMI Christian Music Group,
I can’t escape this hell
So many times I’ve tried
But I’m still caged inside
Some folks embrace their depravities while others wrestle against them. There are even some that are ultimately undone (and succumb) to their darkest propensities and desires. Naturally and ultimately, none of us are safe. We are the enemy and God is our adversary.
Help me believe it’s not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal
From the beginning we are in a state of complete and total inability. Our fellowship with God requires a complete submission. We will go down fighting.
I can’t escape myself
So many times I’ve lied
But there’s still rage inside
Sin is in our blood and runs through our veins. We are the lords of atrocity. The road to dystopia is our ‘right of way.’ The absence of a spiritual roadblock defines our fate. We are coming full circle. Humanity’s moral descent is our depravity realized.
So what if you can see the darkest side of me? *
As the NWO standard penetrates and religious-humanism dominates, we will all become increasingly disposable, expendable, exploitable and dehumanized. Their ‘greater good’ reflects the highest and most noble secular standard. The right to die, the right to kill, the right to take, and the right to cheat (on behalf of a greater global agenda) is not only permissible, but preferable (to those bankrolling the movement).
Control the populace and the information, and don’t be surprised when a highly publicized tragedy becomes the catalyst for forwarding the agenda. A generous helping of economic/environmental control is in order and it seems as if even the pope is on board.
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
No sacrifice is too big nor indecency too small. The plan is at hand and heads are sure to roll. Your self-sacrifice is required, and the amount of misery endured is dependent upon your level of compliance. You are either on board or a deterrent. We the People voted our disapproval, but there’s simply too much evil in the air. ‘The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who are in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality,’ laments JFK (who would rue our day).
The reins are looser, the inhibitions are greater, the motives are darker and the lines are grayer. We are entitled and yet we lack a defined purpose. A lost soul is no problem to the ideological humanist who demands pleasure and fulfillment be achieved prior to the grave.
“To argue from mercy to sin is the devil’s logic.” – James Janeway
We were born this way, so celebrate me now or get out of my way. Altered histories and contorted legacies are at stake. After all, one person’s hell to pay is another’s better way.
“First we practice sin, then defend it, then boast of it.” – Thomas Manton
Jesus’ healing acts of mercy and compassion always included a final qualifier to demonstrate how He could never condone sin. Only the truly reborn will remain radically transformed, wholly dependent and fearfully loving and obedient. In a real economy of mercy, we must never sacrifice these truths…
“Most of God’s people are contented to be saved from the hell that is without; they are not so anxious to be saved from the hell that is within.” – Robert Murray McCheyne
It starts with acknowledging that we are dead in sin and trespasses, desperately wicked, and how all of our righteousness is as filthy rags. Jesus is willing to help, but have you reached out?
The crossroads won’t remain forever, and eternal protection is right down the road. Self-love lies not in our natural birth. We will never be fireproof.
‘Born This Way’ is what they say, but Gaga’s on the wrong spiritual plane. Jesus loves us too much to allow us to remain unchanged.
“But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.”
He loves you too much to leave you this way… in your wholly depraved state.
by AJ CASTELLITTO
*Quoted Lyrics by Adam Gontier
http://barbwire.com/2016/02/09/the-doctrine-of-total-depravity-part-2/
Matthew 7:7-11
Those who ask will receive answers. Those who seek will find. Those who knock will see the door open. The acrostic “A-S-K” will help us remember to “ask, seek, and knock.”
The Lord wants us to pray to Him, not only because it honors Him but also because it helps us to grow deeper in our relationship with Him. Furthermore, prayer taps us into His work in the world. At any given moment, you can pray for anyone anywhere on earth and have confidence that the Lord of the entire universe will hear you and respond in the most effective fashion.
For this reason, prayer is one of the best ways to get involved in God’s mission. What a wonderful privilege it is to be able to participate in the expansion and functioning of God’s kingdom by asking the Lord to help His children and impact His creation.
Another reason the Lord instructs us to pray is to build our faith in Him. Even sinful men give gifts to their children. How much more does our holy heavenly Father enjoy giving good gifts to those who ask Him (Matt. 7:11)! It pleases Him to help us along in our faith as we learn His Word, practice His presence, and allow His thoughts and ways to become our own. The Lord also loves to answer our prayers and see us grow bolder in our walk and witness.
God’s Word tells us that He is faithful because He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim. 2:13). Be certain to set aside time every day to talk and listen to Him, and you will learn this truth firsthand.
“Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD: give me understanding according to thy word.” (Psalm 119:169)
The closing 22nd stanza of Psalm 119 repeats many of the themes of the previous 21 and summarizes this epic to the majesty of the Word of God.
Seven passages contain prayer for “understanding,” which depends on the gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds (John 14:26). Our finite minds cannot understand God’s eternal truths apart from revelation and the “mind of Christ” granted at salvation (1 Corinthians 2:16).
Thirteen passages use “according to thy word.” Nothing that we can do pleases God more than our efforts to “magnify” His Word in our lives and ministries (Psalm 138:2). Every sentient creature will be judged by what is “written in the books, according to their works” (Revelation 20:12).
Eight stanzas include the prayer to have God “teach.” Again, apart from the Holy Spirit in our “new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17), we would be empty of both understanding and wisdom. Through reading and meditating on God’s Word, after salvation, we grow effective and gain maturity.
The writer also promised in eight stanzas to “not forget.” Our minds need to become stabilized with memorized Scripture and our hearts ready and sanctified with the stored Word of God so that we can “give an answer” both to those who ask us (1 Peter 3:15) and when we need guidance for our own life decisions (Colossians 1:10).
The psalm ends with a prayer for all: “Let thine hand help me; for I have chosen thy precepts. I have longed for thy salvation, O LORD; and thy law is my delight. Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee; and let thy judgments help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments” (Psalm 119:173-176). HMM III
And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him. —Genesis 17:3
Think about the reality of Abraham’s experience. Abraham was consciously aware of God, His presence and His revelation. He was aware that the living God had stepped over the threshold into personal encounter with a man who found the desire within himself to know God, to believe God and to live for God.
See the effect of this encounter on Abraham. He was prepared to pay any price for the privilege of knowing God. For certain he recognized the lofty, holy character of the Creator and Revealer God.
The Scriptures declare, “Abram fell on his face” as the Lord talked with him (Genesis 17:3). Abraham was reverent and submissive. Probably there is no better picture anywhere in the Bible of the right place for mankind and the right place for God. God was on His throne speaking, and Abraham was on his face listening!
Where God and man are in relationship, this must be the ideal. God must be the communicator, and man must be in the listening, obeying attitude. If men and women are not willing to assume this listening attitude, there will be no meeting with God in living, personal experience.
Oh, Lord, give me an attitude like Abraham’s, that I might have a living, personal experience of You. Amen.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world. (John 3:17)
Millions who have rejected the Christian gospel have generally been too busy and too involved to ask themselves a simple question: “What really is God’s intention toward me?”
They could have found the plain and simple answer given by the Apostle John: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world: but that the world through him might be saved.”
This is a gravely significant message from the heart of God Himself! Yet, even in the full light it provides, people are indifferent. Upon our eyes there seems to have fallen a strange dimness; within our ears, a strange dullness. It is a wonder, and a terrible responsibility, that we should have this message in our possession and be so little stirred about it!
I confess that it is very hard for me to accept the fact that it is now very rare for anyone to come into the house of God, silently confessing: “Dear Lord, I am ready and willing to hear what you will speak to me today!”
Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them. No man is competent to judge in matters of the kingdom, until first he has been tried; since there are many things to be learned in the depths which we can never know in the heights. He shall best meet the wants of God’s people who has had those wants himself; he shall best comfort God’s Israel who has needed comfort; and he shall best preach salvation who has felt his own need of it.
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