This Is War!

by Patryk Jaskula

“Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.”
Isaiah 58:1-2

How big is (your) God?

To the question, some may quote the Scripture here and there, but truly, how much of your reality is awestruck by the presence of God?

Yahweh is the sacred name of God, the name by which God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush. This is the unspeakable name, the ineffable name, the holy name that is guarded from profanity in the life of Israel. The four consonants – yhwh – are the unspeakable four letters.

There are certain words or terms that we use in a very light manner without any forethought, such as blessed, redeemed, born from above or born again, holy, Christian and so on.

To this point, let me ask you something : When was the last time you wept over your sins? Now, a much tougher question : When was the last time you were on your knees because of the ‘acceptable’ or ‘hidden’ sin(s) within the body of Christ?

For those among you who are part of the Facebook community, you must have already saw (or are part of) a group page called “I’m proud to be Christian”. Frankly, I hate that group page – and proud about what!?! Seriously!

As brother Paul D. Washer has said, “As a matter of fact, realize this: Satan and the angels fell and God sent then no savior. And they will go to hell. Our father, Adam, fell and I want you to know that if God would have never sent us a savior and allow the whole human race to go strait to hell. He will still be just, He will still be glorious and still be loving.” Both Scripture and history tells us that on that tree, He was crushed under the full-blazing-hot, white-blinding justice that was coming for you and me. Jesus has emptied His treasures so He could have us, a bride, so that we can humbly say, not arrogantly or proudly, that we are blessed because He was cursed. That we are redeemed because He was abandoned. That we are holy because He was treated as the horrid, helpless and grotesque monster that we truly are (apart from His grace).

“I think the most awesome thing in the world tonight is a person that dares to say he’s a Christian. It makes me tremble I’ll tell you that.” said once Leonard Revenhill and he is right about that! Anytime you are about to utter any of those precious words that are so commonly used and taken for granted these days, there should be this holy-revering dread before you; a reminder that rightly crushes us in humility but exalts the Sovereign God above all other things.

At the very early stage of my Christian life, most has been wasted by pursuing madly a girl that I have fallen in love with. She wasn’t a Christian and even as I have met her prior coming to Christ, for me, she was my jewel and more specifically, my idol. I knew what Christ has done to redeem me from both the condemnation of sin and the power thereof. Although my cry to God was to draw me nearer unto Himself, but for a very long time my response was ‘Get off from my face!’ Stinky attitude, I tell you that! And to clarify it a bit more, I was as dumb as a rock…. Really dumb!

When I was running after her and, at the same time, wounding the heart of my God, no one dared to come with a rebuke out of love, but did so just otherwise, which were basically saying, “Congratulations and go fetch her, brother!” It is so secular to be more concerned about the attitude and feelings of men than to be for the glory of God.

Some of you out there cry (possibly even more than I do) to God that He would give you strength, break you and make you whole again. But you hold back when He comes to woo you by His Holy Spirit to let go of the very thing that not only wounds you, but also hurts Him more because you rather stay with this ‘thing’ or ‘person’ than to go and commune with Him. Another quote by Ravenhill, “If there’s stagnation in your life, it’s your fault and not God’s.” Whatever you may be holding to, God is not mad at you but pleads with you to come back to Him. He will send either a brother or a sister, or a sermon, or even a verse to bring you back unto Himself. You must let it go even if it hurts, or makes no sense or does make some sense. Consider Paris Reidhead‘s quote, “I say to you, dear Christian, if you do not know the fullness of the Holy Ghost, come and present your body a living sacrifice and let Him fill you so that He can have the purpose for His coming fulfilled in you and get glory through your life.”

If you think that you can do whatever you want and still remain a Christian, then you are better off joining the Atheist’s club because God is NOT looking for some one that will follow Him halfheartedly but rather He is interested in that person that would live recklessly for Him.

The Bible is clear on the fact that God will not always strive with man. So if you continue holding onto your ‘idol’ (for whatever it may be) and pushing God away, there will come a time when He will no longer strive with you. And once that happens, O, what a terrible thing that would be. Here is yet another terrifying quote from brother Paul D. Washer on illustrating the final verdict, “ … before all of the holy heavens. Before all of those blessed creatures that dwell in the presence of God. Man is so defiled, so dark, so disgusting, so twisted, so loathsome before all of them that the last thing they will hear when they will take their first step into hell would be all of Creation standing to its feet and praising God because He has rid the earth of them.” Moreover, Ravenhill said that of the old Puritans, “One of the agonies of hell is the Holy Ghost will be there still convicting men of sin and there will be no place to get rid of it.”

The Christian life is not meant to be easy at all. May I ask you if you are so willing to be tempted, to be courted by sin, to listen to its proposals as, ‘Is it not a little one?’ or, ‘There is mercy provided’ or,’I will soon give it up,’ or worse yet, ‘God will understand it,’ which is its cunning language? If ‘Yes’, then be terrified because by your own submission, the deceitfulness of sin has ensnared you, deceived your heart and has made your marriage affection to Christ of no effect.

So while the world succumbs every single day to the law of sin. You, my dear brother and sister in Christ, set your affections on the cross of Christ because only this is eminently effective in frustrating the whole work of indwelling sin.

God bless.