ARE WE PLEASING TO THE FATHER OR DO WE CAUSE HIM TO BECOME NASEOUS

Did you know that God is serious about changing our characters into a spiritual facsimile, or more accurately an authentic manifestation, of the indwelling noble character of Jesus Christ: “For whom He did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29).

Daily, God longs to change us , to mold us, to form us to be more like His image, and less like the one we have fashioned for ourselves.

Jesus was the perfect image of the Father, and He will fashion us to be like Jesus, in spiritual maturity, which is the mark of the full development and consistent manifestation of the Christian graces, or the “fruit of the Spirit”, that Paul taught us about in (Galatians 5:22-23).

Jesus said it like this, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

By Gods imparted grace and our consistent cooperation with His dealings with us, we may each grow into this biblical spiritual perfection, if we desire to do so.

Do you have the same desire for perfection in your life, as the Father has for you.

Or have you too become indifferent about your spiritual development?

Are you satisfied just to be saved---a useless lump of unchanged clay in the house of God, showing no resemblance to a Holy God or His Son?

Or are you one of those who desire to go on to fully know, fully obey, and fully glorify the One who saved you from a life of meaninglessness and an eternity of torment?

Do you believe that Jesus can really make you upright, noble and spiritually minded?

Or has unbelief robbed you of your vision of a truly sanctified life?

Because many Christians do not aspire to or attain spiritual maturity does not mean that you cannot.

The heavenly Fathers Son shares His Fathers passion.

Two thousand years ago He stated in His message to the church at Laodicea, (which interpreted prophetically means, lukewarm and materialistic, in regards to this final period of the Church Age) that many of His Fathers vessels would lose their passion for perfection and become spiritually and morally indifferent.

He added that such halfhearted Christian vessels nauseate Him: “ I know…that thou art neither cold or hot… so then, because thou art lukewarm…..I will spew thee from my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16)

That is something that we need to consider.

Do we want to sicken our Savior and be “spewed” or suddenly thrown up, out of our place and work in His End-Time plan?

That’s a very high price to pay for spiritual passivity,

Strive to keep the Fathers passion for you alive and growing in your soul.

Then instead of increasing His and His Sons nausea, you will be one who is a blessing to the Father and Son, and a relief to an upset stomach.

“HOW OFTEN WOULD I …….AND YOU WOULD NOT!”

LUKE 13:34

When our Lord was on this earth, He was all the while trying to show us that there is a higher life everywhere, appealing to us, but being refused.

The parable of the good Samaritan illustrates this.

Lying in the roadway is the robbed and wounded man: A priest comes by, and sees him, but refuses to help.

Then a Levite passes by in similar refusal.

Next, a Samaritan comes by, and sees the half dead victim is a Jew, one of the peoples detested by those who are Samaritan, yet he responds with a compassion that overleaps racial animosities.

The Priest and the Levite, notwithstanding their religious appearance and profession, refused the appeal of the higher, bigger more divine realm which is everywhere around and appealing to us; but the Samaritan responded despite obstacles of racial antipathy.

The priest and the Levite saved themselves much inconvenience, but they also refuse “the kingdom” and missed the greatest joy we can know on this earth.

We see the same thing in the parable of the sheep and the goats: “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not unto Me.” (Matthew 25:33-46)

The tragic, damning feature is not active committing of evil, but of selfish refusal of the higher, which at last is exposed as refusal of Christ Himself.

There it is: The kingdom of heaven is everywhere around us, beckoning, appealing, in daily incidents, situations, and opportunities.

It is our sense of having refused what might have been which cast such gloomy reproach over us as we look back.

We have allowed the evil to keep us from the good; the good to keep us from the better, and the better to keep us from the best.

We have allowed selfish refusals to keep us from richest self-fulfillment and mystic communion with the “King in His beauty.”

We must drag out those innate attitudes of refusal.

Our psycho-analysts do not speak of sin, but they insist that the worst enemies to peace of mind lurk in the subconscious, and that we must drag them up to conscious exposures if we are to conquer them.

That then is close to Plato’s dictum of “the lie in the soul?”

We should guard against becoming morbidly introspective,but an occasional crisis of dragging these sub-conscious refusals to light is a wholesome necessity.

Drag the skulking Agags of pride, snobbery, fear, prejudice, green envy, the ugliness of grudge to light, and hack them into pieces!

These are the hidden emotions that trick us into refusing the meek, lowly, brave, noble, generous, lovely, Christ like life which we know we ought to live

Thank God, there is blood-bought absolution from all the accumulated culpability of the past; and if we will fling wide the portals of our inner life to the risen Lord Jesus, He will work gracious miracles in our nature, so that the shining ideal may indeed become the daily reality.

I have heard it stated that preaching the reality of hell is a little to intense for some audiences.

By preaching eternal damnation for the punishment of sin, the seeker may be repulsed and turn away.

I do not believe that and do not know how anyone who has studied and who believes, the teachings of Christ, that can make that deduction.

If a seeker is taught that he must be born again, (John 3:3) that Jesus is the Son of God, (Luke 22:70, John 1:3-4) that all who call upon Him will be saved, (Matthew 16:16) then he immediately is no longer a seeker, but is either a receiver of the truth of the gospel, or he becomes one who denies the truth.(Romans 1:18-22)

When ever there is no foundation in the mind of a person that there is a certain place of punishment, that persons concept of the purpose of the perfect sacrifice of Blood of the Savior is flawed, even to the point of their eternal damnation.

The price was paid to save a sinners soul from the reality of a literal burning eternal punishment.

Jesus believed in the reality of hell and spoke of it in terms that were very intense.(Luke 16:20-25)

If it was real enough in the heart, mind, and words of the one who created it, for those who follow after satan, (Matthew 25:41) then it should be real enough in any follower of Christ to not be afraid of teaching it.

How many people have we loved, and led away from the cross of Christ because we were afraid to offend their senses.

Love someone with the truth, if they reject the truth, you will not be held guilty, for they have rejected the message of truth, not the bearer of the message.

Hell is a very real place, it is intense, there is only one way to avoid it.

(Romans 10:9-11)