Are Truth and Love at War?

psst.... hey you.... have a minute?



I have considered of late the unspoken debate that is going on in circles we are touched by. Seems some would pit two powerful maxims of Christianity as being in contention.

Love and Truth

Truth and Love

I was listening to the "Inspired By" dramatized Bible and while listening to Hebrews 11, the words of this scripture seemed to go in my ears and with it's meaning grip my heart.

"For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
Hebrews 11:10

I have read and heard many trumpet and wax eloquent about the "Love" of God. In this waxing, it seems Love is lifted up as a virtue that replaces all others.

Given a chance and a few minutes, I can speak for days and write for hours on the things I have learned and have grown to appreciate about this divine quality. Jesus was/is Love manifested. With that said, often it seems that in the discourse of ideas and competing agendas often Love is held up as the only responsibility that as Christians we are bound to. Let me say....

Love is Perfect
Love never Fails
Love is God and God is Love.

However, love is such a word that has been cheapened in our sensualized culture that calls many things love.

Sex is considered love.
Sharing a Beer with a bud is called love.
Permission and Enabling is called Love.
Lazy and Compromise uses the word love to defend the indefensible.

The Biblical and Christian concepts and definitions of "love" and the "love" that is in our culture are counter and polar opposites. It speaks to the word of God that says that they will call evil good.

What can be more evil, than calling love something that it is not.

Love will always speak the truth. Truth without love is cruelty, but love without truth is cowardice. We must strive for both. To do one and neglect the other is folly.

Let me challenge you, in the spirit that I feel this. With compassion and christian charity, I challenge you to consider our responsibility to those we love to present the truth without compromise.

Even if it is counter to the culture. Even if it will fall on deaf ears. Even if it will hurt feelings. Even if it will cause debate and consternation.

As Biblical Christians that claim to believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God, when we are disciplining people into truth and establishing them in the church, let us not cheat those who follow us out of the virtue and value that is found in truth that will challenge them to live a life of holiness and sanctification.

If you really love, as I know we all desire and strive to do, you will give those that you are responsible for nothing less than the what the Word teaches.

Love them enough to pray for them when they are sick.
Love them enough to lead them in repentance from their sins.
Love them enough to baptize them in Jesus Name.
Love them enough to disciple them in the doctrine of the Apostles.
Love them enough to teach them and lead them in living a life of sanctification and holiness.

Let us not compromise what was given to us by those who paid such a high price in prayer and sincere consecration for a few wooden nickles of convenience and acceptance.

Coffee House Musings are great. However, be careful that this does not become the seedbed for your identity and moral compass. Let us for a season begin to seek the face of God for days and weeks. Let us unplug from the social circle and begin to ask Jesus what he expects from us, understanding and considering the high price he paid for our salvation and redemption from carnality, sensuality and sin.

We started this church in Clinton five years ago. We have been blessed to see some amazing things. I know the struggle of disciplining people and the frustration connected with trying to not ask for more of them than is vital. I have had a few dark nights of the soul where I struggled in prayer and I studied the Bible intently... "Is this really necessary?"

The things I have learned and been taught has only been reaffirmed when I spent the time praying and studying the scripture. I have come to this simple conclusion. This apostolic experience, doctrine and identity was not something that was purchased cheaply. I know some would like to dissect a part of it and discard the rest, however these three components are the DNA of who I am... of who you are.

I love the Word of God enough to understand that my responsibility to those I love is to share with them everything I understand that will be beneficial and a blessing to them.

The challenge is that truth is often in paradoxical challenge to love. However at the end of the day it is my high calling and privilege to present truth to everyone that I love, even if it will not seem like love at the time.

Did Jesus love the laodicean Church? He loved them enough to warn it of it's failing and provide a prescription for restoration.

This being called of God is not pleasant or easy. We all have felt like we are being scrutinized and criticized. However, my conclusions are not based on what others might think, but what I believe is being true to who I am and what I believe. If we are truly going to fulfill the calling of God to be preachers of the Truth, we are going to have to be man enough to do it.

We are on a journey of faith, looking for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God.

If I am going to build a church, it must be a foundation worth building on. I am an Apostolic Preacher, because I truly believe the only foundation, true foundation a church can be built upon is the uncompromising word of God. In doing so, I will remain true to the experience, doctrine and identity that is the DNA of who I am. I would not want to cheat others of that same three fold cord of blessing that has been the source of salvation and strength to me.

Truth and Love are in a War. Not against each other, but against this wicked and evil world. Truth and love are the only way that people are going to be saved. We must love them enough to tell them the truth.

Just some thoughts that have been peculating in my heart and I took the liberty to share with you.

Scott A. Phillips
www.inbythroughhim.blogspot.com

The Difference God makes

The Difference God makes

There is a line that no one can see, but God. It is a distinction that is made by God and his will. There is a line, that God will not cross when he in his sovereign will begins to pour out his judgment on the world.

In the Exodus story of Deliverance we find that throughout Gods dealing with Egypt he seemed to draw a line around his people and no matter what came upon Egypt, Israel was spared. Be it Flies, the plague on the cattle, hailstones, darkness or death, while Egypt suffered, God made a difference and honored the difference that he setup for his people. The distinction was a testimony to Egypt, that the God of Israel was the source of the judgment and therefore responsible for the protection for Isreal.

Before they had the Ten Commandments, before they had the Law, before they had a system of Sacrifice while still in Egypt God sanctified them for his purpose. While still in Egypt, God made a difference in their lives.

While still in Bondage, God made sure, though they were in Egypt, God took special care of them that they would be preserved to be led out and delivered. Even though most that came out, never came into the promise, God still made a difference between the Egyptian and the Jew.

In pondering this subject, I find great comfort to know that even while in sin, God is separating people out of the multitude to serve him in his purpose. When a wreck would have killed many, one will walk away to live another day, because God has marked them as a special project he has taken on.

If you view the history of God with Israel, it would seem that God being able to see the future, chooses rather to extend mercy in spite of his foreknowledge.

Why would God cause seed to be sowed by the wayside, the stony ground or the thorn-infested ground even when he knows that it will only bring fruit on the Good Ground?

This is a question I do not claim to know the answer, but I must say, I am thankful and in awe of his amazing ability to live and let live, to spare and deliver even when people are in “Egypt”.

When the Israelites were no more than a slave race in Egypt, good for manual labor, uneducated and of no national significance, God chose these poor penniless people to raise them up to become a special project to demonstrate his amazing mercy and power to the world.

Just as God made a difference between the Jews and the Egyptians, you and I God has made a difference when we were yet still in Bondage. While we were yet in sin, Christ died for the Ungodly. I can take comfort that no matter the calamity that falls on this world; I can take safety in the knowledge that just as God protected his people in Goshen, he will protect his people in this modern day world.

God makes a difference, and Thank God For it!

He has Made a Difference For Me!

Originally Written

Apr 23 2003 11:32PM

Exod 8:22-23
22 And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth. 23 And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.

“For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” Col 3:3-4

Give God an Excuse

Today while having lunch with a good friend, we were discussing the way and working of God. It came to me as we discussed, that often God is looking for an excuse.

The nature of God, we see reflected in our own makeup. A sense of competing values. A desire for justice, but loving mercy. A need for judgement, yet longsuffering. Competing values within the same person.

When God was fed up with the wickedness of the world... but God found an excuse to spare the world and save Noah.

When God had decided to destroy Sodom, he bargained to say if only 10 righteous souls he would spare them all for those few who were good.

"If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?"

In his dealing with you and I, there have been many times where if it were left to the letter of the law... we would all be suffering the beginning of eternal torment... but God gave us grace and time to find our way to a place of repentance... and in that repentance God was given an opportunity to do what he does best.

When it comes to healing... he is just waiting on someone to open the door...

When it comes to deliverance... he is waiting on someone to cry out...

It seems in this world and it's nature of spiritual laws, God does nothing without being invited in, called upon or some individual to be a conduit and emmissary to bring the will of heaven in this wicked world.

... thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven....

God is looking for an excuse... permission to work...

God will work, but who will let him?

If we seek the Lord... he will be found...

If we call, he will answer.

If we repent and confess, he will forgive and restore..

It is amazing to me to consider the fact that A God that created all that there is placed within the will and deciding of Man the power to let God be God in their individual life. Without a doubt God does at times build a prayer room for you and put you in a position to where calling on him is the only option you have... however the world and eternity will be full of people who even when down to nothing, still surrendering, repenting and trusting God was not the choice they made.

My simple words of encouragement today is this.... God wants to bless you. God wants to forgive you. God wants to restore you.

He is simply looking for an excuse to do it.

Let Him.

Listen to the Preacher, A Test will follow!

Saul was on a search for something his father had lost.

Saul could not find what his father lost.

Saul went to Samuel looking for what his father lost.

In this meeting, Saul did not know that God found him, when he was looking for something that was lost.... it was the Lost thing that brought Saul into the path of God’s purpose.

He met with Samuel. Samuel anointed him to be king.

Samuel told him, your going to meet two men, they are going to have three loaves and give you two of them.

You are going to come into the company of prophets, and you are going to prophesy.
Saul left Samuel and he met the two men who gave him two loaves.

He came into the company of priest and he prophesied in this spiritual journey, the Bible says that God gave him a new heart.

Bottom line to the message, "Listen to what the Prophet says... because a test will follow."

God gave Saul one instruction after his anointing... and Saul did not obey it.

Saul was given another instruction with the Amelikites and again Saul did not obey it.

God does not give us directions and instructions for his health. What he says to us has a purpose.

Thank God for the Warm anointing of Purpose.

Thank God for the Bread of provision and confirmation.

Thank God for the prophetic experiences where we are transformed and changed... but in the midst of confirmation, anointing and prophetic experiences, don't forget to obey God.

The final chapter of Saul’s experience with God came this for us to ponder.

Obedience is better than Sacrifice.
To hearken is better than...

"And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king. " 1 Samuel 15

Obedience and Submission is the Antidote to Rebellion and Stubbornness. Those who are rebellious and stubborn against the word of the Lord are even as the Heathen and unbeliever.

Saul failed the test in the area of obedience. This continual failing put him in position to be rejected by God and a substitute selected.

Saul failed to listen to the preacher and obey the instructions given and he failed the test.