The War Within

Everyday we fight a battle with our flesh. This is the part of us which belongs to this world and therefore to satan, since he is the ruler of this world. The very few who have surrendered to God completely no longer belong to this world, which makes being part of it very painful. We see much suffering and pain, but can do nothing to stop it because satan controls the minds and hearts of those we love. We suffer because we long for the coming of our Savior to make us complete. We suffer because we are constantly tempted by satan and our flesh, but God living in us gives us strength to endure because of our faith.

Most people, especially Christians, consider themselves good enough to get to Heaven, even though they have not made a full surrender to Christ. This is a trap set by satan and we must be wise not to fall into this trap, because it is death. These people will be holding tightly to this world – accomplishments, family, possessions, career, money, approval of others, and they do so because in their mind and heart these are the things which are most important. Jesus taught us in Matthew 10:37-39 that if you love father, mother, son or daughter more than Him, you are not worthy of His Kingdom. He said we must take up our cross and follow Him or we are not worthy of His Kingdom. And He said that if we cling to this life, we will lose it; but if we give it up we will find it.

God's children will not love anything more than Him. They will cling to Him and seek wisdom and understanding from Him constantly, because they understand He is in control of all things. These people have a surrendered heart and have let go of themselves completely. Their lives are fully and totally in God's hands. They are victorious over their flesh because God lives in them and has given them power over sin. They clearly hear His voice and understand the path they are to take. They take His path without hesitation because they understand the other path leads to destruction for them and their children.

Those who still belong to the world will not have strong faith and hence, they will need things other than God for pleasure, security and fulfillment. Their actions make it clear that they rely on things of this world for their needs, because those are the things they cling to instead of God. Disobedience to God's Word will be common for these people, since they don't understand that it leaves a wake of destruction in their path. They misunderstand what it means to worship, so they worship all the wrong things – money, sex, approval of others, children, security, self-importance, career, and they fear losing these things more than they fear losing God and His Kingdom.

The war within us is real and the only way to win is to allow God to fill us with His Spirit. The suffering for Him will be great, but it will be worth it. Completely let go of yourself and surrender to Him. Ask Him to replace your will with His. Study His Word so that you will receive His Truth through the Holy Spirit. When you do these things, you will become the new creature He promises you. Then you will be amazed at how easy the most difficult situations become. You become stable and His wisdom flows within you. These are His promises and He never breaks His promises.

Am I Following Jesus?

Jesus warns many times in the Bible about following blind guides. In Matthew 15:13, 14 He said, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, so ignore them. They are blind guides teaching the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”

He is talking about the teachers of religious law here and saying they are blind guides because they are using man-made ideas as God's law. Such is the case today. When we follow man-made philosophies - such as once saved, always saved - we are not following Jesus, but instead we have allowed foolish men to steer us down the wrong path and away from Jesus. If God didn't say it, don't believe it!

Man-made philosophies and doctrines are created by men with little faith who need more than the Word of God to satisfy them. Beware of these false teachers and do not follow them! Jesus says they can be judged by their fruit:

“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” (NLT Matthew 7:15-20)

“A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad. You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good things from the treasure of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasure of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.” (NLT Matthew 12: 33-37)

In the verses above from Matthew 7 and 12, Jesus is warning us to look at the actions and words people produce to know if they are good or bad. If a person considers a man-made philosophy from God, this is bad fruit and you should not follow that person. If a philosophy causes division in Jesus' church, it is bad fruit, and it is satan's work to divide God's church and make it weak. We only need God's Word and nothing more! If you can't understand, seek a Spirit filled teacher like Dr. Charles Stanley or Dr. JD Greear. These holy men offer free sermons online for all.

We need to recognize that man-made philosophies and doctrines are putting man in the place of God. Look to God's Word for Truth. Seek Him with all your heart and He will reveal His Truth to you. Let go of pride and selfishness and surrender completely and He will create a new heart inside you, which matches His. Sacrifice yourself to Him daily by studying His Word, so you can know His will for your life. This is how we Love Him, and this is how we can be sure we are following Him.

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Consider a toddler who is determined to stick their finger into an electric socket. A parent seeing this act, will scream, leap over anything between them and the child, and slap the child's hand telling them, “NO!” In the mind of the child, the parent has just done an awful act. The child has no understanding that the electrical socket could cause their death, or that their parent was protecting them.

It is the same with God. He is our parent and He works very hard to protect us from eternal death. Anytime we are hurting, it always helps to ask God what we are to learn from it. Having the understanding that He is in control of every situation (with the exception of our free will) allows us to truly rely on Him for all that we need. When we rely on Him for wisdom, He gives it. When we rely on Him for comfort, He gives it. But the world we live in is hard and we can easily lose our focus on God and start to believe we are in control. But God loves His sheep, so He will go get them when they get lost. Meaning, He will bring us to our knees to make us look up and submit our lives to Him.

Suffering is a gift from God and His way to bring us back into the sheepfold. God does not cause the suffering, our disobedience does, but He will use it to mold us to become more like Him. We must be able to hear His voice in order to follow Him. When our lives become a living sacrifice to God alone, we begin to receive wisdom from the Holy Spirit. When this happens, we will start to view the world through God's lens and our blindness and deafness will become healed.

There will be much suffering during the last days, which are upon us now. This is God's way of retrieving the last of His very stubborn and willful lost sheep. To avoid this terrible suffering, we must become wise now and pick up our cross and follow Christ. He was a living example to us all. We must not let satan fool us into thinking we can never be like Christ.

So, how do we become like Christ? By keeping His every commandment out of love and devotion to Him. By honoring Him with every word we speak, every relationship we have, and every deed we perform. By understanding that we must never consider ourselves better than others due to our own righteousness, because righteousness comes from God - not us. By begging for God's mercy everyday, because we know we are still undeserving of His grace. And by keeping our hearts humble with the knowledge that we still have work to do, daily, to grow and to change to meet His standard.

God gave us the butterfly to show us what is needed for our salvation. The butterfly starts out as a worm, which crawls on it's belly on the ground. In Genesis, when God curses the serpent for tempting Adam and Eve to sin against Him, part of God's curse for the serpent was to crawl on the ground. So we should consider this part of our lives (while we are sinners) as being like the serpent. But then, when God get's a hold of us and puts us into the cocoon of suffering, He turns us into soup and reforms our character to be like His. Then one day, the cocoon opens and the beautiful butterfly is released into the world to perform God's work and to give all glory to Him. Oh, how beautiful that suffering is!

God's Upside Down World

In Jesus' time, the pharisees and religious leaders of the world were the moral standard for everyone to live by. However, when Jesus stepped into the picture, their heart condition was exposed and they were found to be corrupt. The pharisees were certain they were right and Jesus was was wrong. On several occasions, they accused the Holy One of being evil. But the reality of the situation was that the pharisees and religious leaders had it upside down and so do many leaders today. We are still ignorant to the fact that our hearts are evil and corrupt due to the inherited corrupt nature of our father, Adam. This nature makes it difficult to become humble. The pharisees had elevated themselves over people, believing they were powerful. When in fact, the person with all the power and authority was the one being tried and treated as a criminal. As Jesus hung on the cross, the pharisees and religious leaders looked upon his broken and bleeding body and claimed victory. But they weren't the true winners, were they? The truth was upside down and they were blind to it.

Church leaders, belonging to God, will teach intolerance of sin and work very hard to create disciples. This is what love is. Satan will work to corrupt the minds of God's people – we are at war. So, how do we defeat satan's corruption? By daily reading and understanding of God's Word through the guidance of His Holy Spirit. Through this education, God will give us the courage and strength we need.

In John 14, as Jesus prepares His disciples for His death, He tells them three times, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” But since satan has turned the meaning of love upside down to make people believe that love is tolerance of sinful behavior (disobedience to God's commands), most Christians don't care much about keeping God's commandments. A good example is keeping the Sabbath - the fourth commandment. How many Christians do you know who even consider Saturday to be God's Holy day? The Pope felt he had the authority to change God's Holy day to Sunday and most Christians follow the Pope, instead of God, and never give it a moment of thought. Many esteemed theologians theorize that changing the day of worship is the mark of the beast. The chancellor for Cardinal Gibbons, the first American cardinal, wrote “Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change of the Sabbath was her act, and the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things” (letter dated Nov 11, 1895, bold emphasis added, In His Word by Seminars Unlimited).

Martin Luther said it like this (The Great Controversy, p 95), “I am reading the decretals of the popes, and …. I know not whether the pope is antichrist himself, or whether he is his apostle, so misrepresented and even crucified does Christ appear in them.”

If Christ walked into our churches today, would we recognize Him or reject Him? I'm guessing that when He informed churches that they were worshiping on satan's day and not God's, He would be rejected and accused of being evil. God's people can no longer hear His truth, because satan has turned everything upside down. If we can not hear God's Truth, we no longer belong to Him, but instead we belong to satan. Psalms 9:10 (NLV) Fear of the LORD is the foundation of wisdom. Let us be wise!!!

Hypocrisy – Satan's Food for the Weeds

As the Holy Spirit continues to give me wisdom and knowledge, what He is making clear is satan's damaging effects of hypocrisy among believers. With our mouths we say one thing, but with our actions we say something completely contrary. If we say, with our mouth, we love Jesus and believe all He has done for us, but then we lie, cheat, steal, and promote doctrines which are contrary to His doctrine, this is hypocrisy.

Webster's definition of a hypocrite is this:

1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion

2: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

In God's Words hypocrisy is defined as well: 1 John 2:4 - If someone claims, "I know God," but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth.”

As true followers of Christ, we must recognize this is the war which was predicted in Revelations 12:17 (NLT) – And the dragon was angry at the woman and declared war against the rest of her children – all who keep God's commandments and maintain their testimony for Jesus.

As Godly and astute students of God's Word, you understand that in this Scripture the children are God's church or His people. And as intelligent men and women of God, you also know that very few churches today work to keep all of God's commandments. But God wants to bring all His lost sheep back into the fold. What is our part? As His disciples, how do we help God with this task?

Satan has been very successful at corrupting and confusing the minds of Christ's followers – making them believe that a shallow, idolatrous relationship with Christ is acceptable. This belief started with the Roman Catholic church in 311 AD, when, for political reasons, Constantine made friends with the followers of Christ. This corruption was predicted in prophesy:

Daniel 7:25 (NLT) – He will defy the Most High and oppress the holy people of the Most High. He will try to change their sacred festivals and laws, and they will be placed under his control for a time, times, and half a time.

Revelations 13:5-7 (NLT) - Then the beast was allowed to speak great blasphemies against God. And he was given authority to do whatever he wanted for forty two months. And he spoke terrible words of blasphemy against God, slandering his name and his dwelling – that is, those who dwell in heaven. And the beast was allowed to wage war against God's holy people and to conquer them. And he was given authority to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation.

Instead of teaching that we must be victorious over our sinful nature in order to be protected by the blood of the Lamb; we are teaching that we are loved and forgiven of our sinfulness and our works and behavior do not matter. Instead of teaching that we have a corrupt heart which we inherited from our father, Adam, causing us to be blind to our selfishness and hatefulness, and the only way to heal it is to obtain a deep understanding of God's Word through daily seeking and devotion; we are teaching hypocrisy that says - because Jesus died for our sins, salvation happens instantaneously and it is free and can not be lost, and all that is needed is to say the words - “I believe in Jesus.” This thinking is so foolish! Even satan believes in Jesus!

James 2:17-24 (NLT)- So you see, faith by itself isn't enough.  Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Now someone may argue, "Some people have faith; others have good deeds." But I say, "How can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds." You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.  How foolish!  Can't you see that faith without good deeds is useless? Don't you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: "Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith." He was even called the friend of God. So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.

Here are some of the hypocrisies satan is using in our churches to deceive the foolish:

1. Teaching that all Christians are sinners – Think about what the outcome of a bull ride would be, if sitting at the gate you already knew you would get thrown before the eight second bell rang. By thinking this way, we are defeating ourselves. This is exactly the reason God said we were made holy by Christ's blood – to get our minds right. Satan wants to us to believe this, because if we believe we are saved from our sinfulness due to our belief in Christ, he will no longer have power over us. We certainly have all sinned and fall short of God's glory, but as believers in Christ, our sins were nailed to the cross and now sin has no power over us, because Christ heals us of our sinful nature when His Holy Spirit comes to reside in us. It is satan's voice which calls a Christian a sinner, not God's. We must learn to hear the difference in what God says to us and what satan says to us! This does not mean that we won't suffer because of our nature tempting us. This does not mean that we won't struggle at times. But when we believe that God can heal us of your sin, when we humble ourselves like a like a little child and beg to be healed of our sinfulness, we will be healed. This is what believing is. Those who hold onto their sin will be destroyed with it. God does not want it to be this way. He wants us all to be saved. But when we hold on to our sin with all our might and refuse to let Him heal us, we leave Him no choice. He promised us that all evil will be destroyed, and He never breaks a promise. We must make a choice whether we want to be destroyed with the sin or whether we want to live for eternity with our Savior. It is totally our choice and God is patiently waiting for each of us to turn to Him and away from the sin which He will eventually destroy. (1 Peter 1:15, Gal 5:16, Romans 6, Hebrews 10:26, Rev 3:5, Rev 21:8, Romans 2:12, Exodus 32:33)

2. Teaching that all Christians doubt God – Again, by thinking this way we are defeating ourselves. Satan has created doubt since the very beginning, with the original sin, and he is still creating doubt today. But we must recognize that doubt is the opposite of belief, so if you doubt, you are not saved. Again, we must develop the ability to be able to distinguish between satan's voice and God's. If it is not Biblical, it is not God's voice. Sin will make us blind and deaf from God's Truth and His voice. That is the void or separation sin creates. Only the deep study and understanding of His word will heal this effect of sin. Fear and doubt are destroyers of God's will for us, in the same way they destroyed the children of Israel - preventing them from entering the promised land. We do not want to be foolish like those who refuse to believe God and His promises! If we decide to be rebellious unbelievers like these children of Israel were, we will not enter into the promised land either. (Genesis 3, Romans 10, Numbers 13:31, Numbers 14:34-35)

3. Avoiding teaching the law (character) of God – Satan does not want us to know God, so he invented a lie telling Christians that this part of God's Word is no longer relevant due to the new covenant with Christ. He also does not want us to understand the condition of our own hearts, because he wants to prevent us from completely understanding our evil nature – inherit due to our Father, Adam. If we don't understand our sin, we are still blind to it and can not repent and be forgiven. When we truly seek God, we will find Him. However, if satan is teaching in our churches that this part of God's Word is no longer important, due to the new covenant, then people are being taught NOT to seek Him. Jesus taught us to be persistent. If our teachers are teaching contrary to this, they are leading the flock away from the only one with the power to heal them and they will face very serious consequences for this action. If we do not dig deep into the law of God to understand the things which displease Him, we will never truly understand the sin in the deepest regions of our hearts. Our mouths can lie, but our hearts can not. God looks at our hearts and our behaviors that reveal our heart's condition. He does not care about our words. Our words are the surface and they are shallow. God cares about what is deep inside us. In Deuteronomy 32:47, God said these instructions are not empty words – they are your very life! We should not take God's Word lightly. If He says these instructions are our life, that is what He means. He does not change His mind. However, as we teach this part of God's Word, it must be made clear that we do not worship the law, we worship Christ; but that we must study these Scriptures on the law so we can learn - who we are, how we were designed to live, and who God is. When God's Spirit resides inside us, we are freed from the law – because we are living by His Spirit and His Spirit cleanses us from our sinful nature. (Luke 11, 1 Th 5:17, Deuteronomy 32:47, Romans 6, Gal 5:16-25)

4. Teaching that some things in the Bible are Truth, but not all – This is how satan keeps his hypocrisies alive. He teaches the parts about God's love, but not the parts about God's wrath and punishment for disobedience. Important Scriptures like these are removed and never discussed:

• Names will be removed from the Book of Life (Rev 3:5)

• You will be judged by the law (James 2:12)

• If you do not keep God's laws, He does not know you (Matthew 7:21-23)

• When you love Jesus, you obey His commandments (John 15:10)

1. Having bylaws, missions or any doctrine not 100% focused on teaching God's Word and growing and developing disciples – As the Roman Catholic church taught us, these bylaws, missions and doctrines lead to idolatry. If the bylaws, missions or doctrines are preventing growth and development of disciples in the church, they are idolatrous. The mission of the church must always be to develop disciples for Christ, just as He taught us to do. (Matthew 28:19-20)

2. Church spending is a clear indication of idolatry/hypocrisy. If there is more money spent no buildings, salaries, and hobbies than there is on educating and creating disciples, feeding the poor, and true Gospel missionary work - then God is not being made the number one priority. Pastors and leaders tend to get caught up in the church they love and lose focus on the real reason they are there – to develop disciples for Christ. We must remember that God does not need a building or an arena. All He needs is willing and obedient children who love Him and want to do His work. This is exactly the problem in the Roman Catholic church. When we make are focus about our buildings, arenas and any tangible objects, it causes us to lose focus on God. If we want to be the true church of God, we must keep our priorities in line with God's priorities. God clearly gives prophesy about what His last-day church looks: (Romans 10:15, Rev 14:6-12)

• Making disciples and teaching them to obey (Matt 28:19-20)

• Fearing God and giving Him glory (Rev 14:7)

• Will not worship the beast or wear his mark (Rev 14:9)

1. The inability to be humble is another clear indication of idolatry/hypocrisy - We must remember that God, the creator of the universe and everything in it, humbled himself and came down here to this earth to walk in the dirt and be tempted by satan and the flesh. We should try to wrap our minds around this and truly take in what God did for us here and why He did it. If God can make Himself humble in order to save us, can't we also humble ourselves to save each other? This is what He was teaching us to do, by coming here to save us. We are supposed to live by His example. We need to recognize that having the inability to humble ourselves is a result of having a Pharisee heart, not a Godly heart. God always picks the most unlikely candidate to bring forth His message. He will not pick someone full of pride. He will pick them based on the condition of their hearts and their willingness to be obedient. This was proven many times in the Bible - when He anoints David, the smallest and weakest of the sons of Jesse; when He impregnates the virgin Mary, the barren Elizabeth and Sarah; and even when He picks the 100 year old Abraham. (1 Samuel 16, Genesis 17, Luke 1-2)

2. Once saved always saved - The logic satan uses here is that Jesus' blood washes you clean, so now, no matter how much you sin, you are covered. All you are required to do is ask for forgiveness. This is such a great lie from satan! When you believe this, it makes sinning acceptable and repentance meaningless. There is no place in the Bible where it says you can continue living a sinful life, because of what Jesus did for you. As a matter of fact, it says quite the contrary – if you do not keep God's commandments, you are a liar, and God hates liars more than He hates murders, because lies destroy more of His people than murder does. Revelations 21:8 says “But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars – their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” God's Word clearly states that only those who have overcome sin will enter into His glory. We must remember that all sin is equally bad, and breaking one is just as bad as breaking all of them. Exodus 32:31-33 clearly tells us that those who accept Christ, but later turn back to sin will have their names removed from the Book of Life. Satan wants you to believe this lie, but a wise man will look to the Word of God and put their trust there. We must look inside ourselves and examine whether our hearts are like Adam's or Abraham's. There will be no sin or rebellion in Heaven. Adam's curse was to be expelled from paradise. We do not want that to happen to anyone! (Exodus 32:31-33, Ezekiel 18:24, 1 John 2:4, 1 Peter 1:15, Matthew 7:21-23, Matthew 19:17, Revelations 21:8)

A Spirit filled person will have an incredibly difficult time attending a church where hypocrisy and idolatry exists. So, what happens in this situation is the words (or the hypocrisies of the teachings) will be feeding the weeds instead of the wheat (Matthew 13:24). All the good wheat will die out or ultimately leave the church, and satan will be left standing at the altar preaching God's Word – falsely – and everyone will believe him, because they are ignorant and foolish.

So, my question to the Godly leaders is – how do we effectively go to war against this evil corrupting our brothers and sisters? I see this as the greatest task we have ahead of us. As disciples for Christ, God is calling us to unite and go to war against satan and his army. This is how we show love to our fellow man, woman and child. This is how we risk our lives for Christ.

This is incredibly important for the children. They learn to build their foundations to reflect the spiritual leadership at home. We must love the children enough to build their foundations solidly – on Christ. We must fight against satan's foundation of hypocrisy, which will not hold up in a storm. We must make father's understand that foundation building based on hypocrisy is not leading the children to heaven. So, not only is a foundation built on hypocrisy teaching the children in a way which is certain to cause them great suffering here on earth, but it will also prevent them from having eternal life. If we are creating a foundation based on hypocrisy for our children, we are certainly not loving them. Loving them means leading them to heaven!

What I say here in this letter reflects the love Jesus indicated in Matthew 22:36-40 (NLT) - Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “'You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments”

Much love and God's blessings to all! Amen!