The Bone Picker

I have another bone to pick this week.

For those of you who do not know our Lord and Savior, I want to give you my slant on Him.  The Virgin Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and she bore our Deliverer, whose name is Jesus.  He is The Christ or Messiah.

I want to state exactly what Jesus said about himself in Luke 4:18-19

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,

Because He has anointed Me

To preach the gospel to the poor;

He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”

Not one time in the New Testament did Jesus ever say, “If you will give me $100.00, I will in turn give you $1000.00; or if you sow a seed of 30, 60 or 100 dollars, I will give you my best garment to wear.  If you believe the reason Christ gave up His throne in Heaven was to come to earth for you so you could gain money, then something is dreadfully wrong and you are deceived.

God is fully aware that it takes money to live.  He is also fully aware of the fact that it costs money to take the gospel to the nations.  You need to go to God and tell Him what you need and then turn around and stand on what faith you have and let Him bring the increase.  Yes, you need to sow into the kingdom but you need to find out why.

For those of you who are teaching this, I say to you here and now, “Get behind me Satan, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, for you do not have in mind the things of God but the things of man.”

Atonement

I have a bone to pick today.  Several worldwide ministries are misleading others about the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur.  This day falls on September 28 this year. 

The Bible teaches in Exodus 23:14-33 that three times a year (verse 17) all the males shall appear before the Lord God with the firstfruits of their land (verse 19).  One of these times is known as The Feast of Ingathering or Tabernacles.  On this day, the firstfruits (first part) of your land, in other words, the first and very best you have to offer God from what you have (your land), is brought to God to a place He says, as atonement for your life.

This scared day, which should be observed out of obedience, has become a “selling gimmick.”  Ministries are telling you, “Sow your best offering and you will receive X amount of blessings.” Let us set the record straight once and for all in regard to this particular misconception.    

Nowhere do I read that God states exactly the kind of blessings that are being peddled by worldwide ministries.  They are leading others down a path, trying to sell them on the idea that if they sow money at this particular time, specific favor from God will be received, no matter what is going on in their life. 

Let me give you my take on the Day of Atonement.  This is a holy day unto God.  He has ordained this day so we can be cleansed and forgiven for our past year’s sins.  I celebrate this day, repenting of my sins and thanking God for all He has done for me.  I do this with a pure motive, not asking Him for one thin dime.  I do this with an obedient heart, knowing if I keep this celebration, He will be with me and in turn, help me in the way He has ordained for my life.   I want to honor Him with my very best because I love Him, not because I am trying to get Him to give me something.

YOU need to celebrate the Day of Atonement for yourself unto the Lord for all He has done for you.  If you are still alive, that is a big deal.  Do you have your sanity?  Do you eat?  Do you have clothes to wear?  Then acknowledge this and honor God with an offering, giving where He tells you.  Don’t just randomly think that because someone is on TV, their hearts are right before the Lord.  It is our Lord God who tests the minds and hearts.  Unfortunately, many have gotten away from the true worship of God.       

God is speaking, telling us in verse 20, He will send an Angel before us to keep us in the way and bring us into the place He has prepared.  In other words, we will hear a guiding voice behind us saying,  “This is the way.” Then God tells us in verse 21 to be careful and not to sin, provoking Him.  In verse 22, He tells us to be obedient, doing all He says.  We must be careful not to worship idols but to expose them.  Finally, in verse 25 we are told to serve the Lord our God and He will bless us in our hands, taking sickness from us, filling the number of our days. To "bring it down" to our level, this means God will bless the work of our hands and we shall live to fulfill the number of years God has ordained for us.  Where in the Word can you find where God rattles off double portions for us all, promising everyone financial abundance, blessings and miracles?  We have to understand what God is trying to tell us here and expose carnal thinking for what it truly is.   It is your duty to learn about YOUR Father in heaven if you call on the name of Christ as YOUR Savior.  You need to  learn God's ways and His ways require obedience to Him.  We don't talk enough about sheer raw obedience because doing so hurts our flesh and we don't like it. 

To make an offering that God deems worthy of Him is a privilege, not something to be taken lightly.  Making offerings for the sake of getting a string of blessings is childlike and you must reconsider your thinking in this area.  You are being taught that all these good things are going to come to you if you give God an offering.  This is not from heaven and it comes purely out of man’s thinking. 

Yes, you need to go to God on the Day of Atonement and make an offering to God.  Remember that it is most important to make the offering where God tells you to, and do it with a pure motive, not simply for selfish gain in order to get something.  Never forget it is God who tests the mind and heart, so be wise.  Understand that God can withhold any blessing He has laid up for you and never has to give it to you.  Don’t ever think a dollar bill is going to jerk God’s chain and release blessings.

Psalm 103 states that Moses knew God’s ways.  Do you know God's ways?  I believe we have forgotten that we need to honor God because He is worthy, not because we are looking for a list of blessings.   We have to mature in the body and get away from this kind of teaching.  Frankly, God cannot and will not come back for a church who is childish being tossed about so easily.  He will only come back for a church without spot or wrinkle and there are way too many wrinkles in the church today.

Molly

Today I was in prayer thanking God for everything He does for me.  This is not the first time I have done this.  Time and again, the Holy Spirit has told me, “Molly, you have broken every rule and still in God’s infinite wisdom, He has chosen to use you.”

Trials in our lives seem to be at an all time high and they seem to be escalating on a worldwide scale.  We are not only going to need to be in the safest place we can under the covering of the wings of heaven, but we need to be there because it is the best place we can exist while here.

God’s mercy is so magnificent; I do not, for the life of me, understand why you wouldn’t want to be captured by it.  His love is so abounding, reaching down into the deep recesses of your very being with healing that can’t come from anywhere else.

Then I told the Lord how much I loved Him.  It wasn’t a romantic sort of love but a love that is hard to explain.  It is bigger than romance (although romance is good), it is bigger than anything I have ever known, making me feel whole and peaceful.

To have sinned as much as I have, seemingly right in God’s face, He still chose to forgive me when I turned to Him for help.  In spite of it all, He chooses to use my life to help others.  It is more than I can comprehend.  His agape love is just more than we realize as humans.  Yet it is that very love that keeps me going.

Yes, He wants good things for you and He wants to give them to you abundantly.  This does not mean that you will have everything that everyone else has in terms of material goods and you will not receive what He wants you to have the same way He has chosen to get things to others.  You are the individual God made you to be, with your own identity.  No two people are alike, and He treats you in that way.  He knows your life, your heart and your motives.  He searches your heart and mind.  You need to understand God for who He is; He is omniscient and you cannot fool Him with anything you are doing or saying.  If you would learn to go to Him with everything that is going on in your life, you would soon come to understand that He would move for you in whatever situation you have. The key is learning to ask Him for the help you need and then trusting Him to move in that situation.

If God has done so much for me in every little area of my life, then He will treat you the same way.  RUN to Him, not to someone else.  It doesn’t matter what you have done. I have killed five of my very own children.  Even so, God forgives me and still loves me.  He also comforts me over my regret about what I did.  As if that was not enough, He has chosen to set my destiny, using me to bring Him glory.  Knowing this, what in the world could you possibly be waiting for?  Run to mercy knowing it is the only way.

His mercy, my friends, is neverending.  Choose this day your mercy..

Molly        

I was preparing some new things for the Website this week and repeatedly I kept saying, “People want to hear from God.”  People need God.  People have been spoon-fed the Gospel long enough.  People need answers.

We at Jesuswithoutthejunk have always been obedient to do what the Holy Spirit has told us.  We do not spend much time guessing or wondering about many things.  Yes, there certainly are times when we fast, come in agreement, use a fleece and occasionally use offerings in order to discern God’s divine will.  Every time we receive an answer in some fashion.  God is always on the move and He is always moving forward.

I have realized over the past months that “the same ‘ole, same ‘ole” just isn’t God.  When we are stuck in a routine “doing” God, then we cannot mature into what He has for us as His children.  We have played around with church too long now.  I see and hear firsthand the immaturity that binds, keeping us from purposes and destinies.

God is always on the move.  His wheels are constantly in a state of motion.  We have to grow up into the things of God.  To be certain, this is not an easy thing to do.  It will cost much time and effort on your part but in the end, history will prove that the best place for you to have been was striving after the will of God.

Choices have to be made regarding this.  Your very state of existence could be jeopardized by laziness if you take the mindset of thinking you don’t have to do much to gain the victory in your everyday life.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I have toiled and labored long to keep Satan off my back so I could mature into what Christ died for me to have.  This is not a “cakewalk” and I don’t want to mislead you into thinking that it is.  I was misled in this area and I discovered by walking through it that your inheritance isn’t just handed to you.  You have to do your part by pressing into the things of God.  

It is time to wake-up and smell the coffee.  We endeavor at Jesuswithoutthejunk to bring new light to areas where you can grow up into what Christ died to give you so you too can mature and get what you need.  It is time to get real, so you can get what you need…. isn’t it?

God bless you,

Molly