‘Our society strives to avoid any possibility of offending anyone except God.’ -Billy Graham
‘Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.’ -Thomas Watson

From the two quotes mentioned above, you can tell why the people’s perspective on love differs from God’s definition of God. If we go back a little into history to the fall of man mentioned in Genesis 3, you would know that the fall saw Adam and Eve receive to themselves their own standard of righteousness (Gen 3:1-6), forsaking the righteousness of God in the process. This self-righteousness continues to be passed down to all of Adam’s posterity through procreation. So, now the world’s definition of love stands outside God’s definition of love because they serve different interest. From the fall, man is a god to himself because what he primarily serves is his own interest, meaning… his self-righteousness is fashioned to serve his own interest but the truth is man is not God and so whatever man does from his selfishness is naturally evil. God on the other hand, in serving His own interest accomplishes good because the truth is He is indeed God. So, from Billy Graham’s quote above, we see that unbelief is not just about people naturally having a lack of consideration for God’s sentiments but about how this nature arises from the tendency to suppress the righteousness interest of God, lest their own interest be revealed as counterfeit and they be proved liars, which their damn self-righteousness will just not allow. To capture what I am saying through scripture, I would like to quote an excerpt from Proverbs 8 for you.

Prov 8
35 “For he who finds me (God) finds life
And obtains favor from the Lord.
36 “But he who sins against me injures himself;
All those who hate me love death.”

So, if you asked: is the love the world seeking different from the love that God is (1John 4:8), I’d say yes… all the way. The devil is in the detail literally because the love the world is seeking is an acceptance of its sin as its identity in society. Yes, Christ did die while we were still sinners (Rom 5:8) but in Christ we are called to the righteousness of God (Mat 5:20). Salvation is freely available to all who receive Jesus as their Lord and Saviour but this is only made possible with the elect (Jn 1:12-13) in whom God overcomes their nature and desire for sin (Rom 3:22-25) and replaces it with a love and zeal for him (Heb 10:16). For the rest of the world, this Salvation is freely available to them in Christ but that righteousness of God, with which the believer must persevere for the cause of Christ serves as a deterrent to those self-serving fools. Take a look at the world today and see how the liberals are fighting for homosexuals and paedophiles to not just be integrated in society but also in the Church. The problem with the world is that people are looking for a love that excepts them as they are without correction (Heb 12:8) because they want to continue serving their own wicked interest and be loved all the way through to the grave and to hell. The best part is, their heads are so swollen that they expect God to be such a subject of their wishful thinking. I’d must leave you with an excerpt from 1Corinthians 6 that you may see God’s perspective on love towards the repentant sinners.

1Cor 6
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

I’d like you to think for a moment of a wife who is filled with zealous love for her husband and vehemently acts out against all that which undermines the interest of her spouse. So, though she may exhibit hatred towards those who undermine the interest of her husband, she is not acting out of hatred but out of a selfless and zealous love for her husband. By this I am in no way justifying the Islamic execution of unbelievers, I am simply saying the feeling of indifference between the Church and world is mutual and this enmity God has decreed (Gen 3:15) keeps the world out the Church and the Church out of the world. Please note that unlike Islamic society a Biblically nurtured society is not fascist because we recognize that it is God who makes believers and not men. However, in following after God, His Church has to swim against the flow of the world. So, the Billy Graham’s Quote is also conversely true… i.e. in following after God’s interests, believers many a times cannot avoid offending the people of world. Why? Because we admit God is for real and He and his righteousness is greater than the world and its love for sin (1Jn 4:4).

John 15:18-19
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

So, what the world knows as true love is only true in the sense that it genuinely serves their own fallen interest and appetite for sin. The love of God on the other hand as described in scripture is longsuffering (Numbers 14:18) and it is from His nature of great forbearance that true love is defined in the Bible as patient and kind (1Cor 13:4-6). Love is indeed a perfect attribute of God but so is His justice and when you look at Num 14:18 in which God speaks of His love, He also says He shall by no means clear the guilty. This is where the substitutionary atonement of Christ comes in because His Justice demanded the wages of sin (death) be paid but in His love, He gave us His own Son in human flesh (Jn 6:23) that we may have true life (Jn 14:6) and be adopted into the family of God as sons (1Jn 3:1). I would like to leave you with a last piece of scripture, it’s not every day that you read John 3:16 in its rightful context.

John 3
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His [e]only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Before you go, I need to also say this… sex may be the pinnacle expression of the world’s love but sex was only given to us that we may bear the responsibility of raising Godly stewards upon the earth with joy but the world sees sex not from God’s purpose but from its own wicked purpose and in doing so… Kills More People Every 4 Months (by way of abortion) Than The Holocaust Did In Twelve Years. It’s no wonder people who are polyamorous and philanderers just keep piling years on themselves. Take look at Bill Clinton and Donald Trump who are both 71, Clinton looks like walking cadaver while repentant Trump looks like he is still sailing through his fifties or sixties. Here’s a head’s up people there is neither male nor female after death (Mat 22:30) because there is no need for procreation, whether you be in heaven or hell. It’s as I said, everything including you was made to glorify God’s purpose, not your purpose. So, you shall either glorify God’s mercy in Jesus Christ or glorify His justice in following after your own wicked appetite. Remember, if the saving love of God does not interest you don’t blame him for the misery in the world because all that misery is the result of the extent people go to meet their own selfish interests (Prov 8:36).

I would like to close this post with this righteous, apt and well intended salutation: May God bless you in the saving love of Jesus Christ – Amen!

This post is a tribute to my dear brother Melvin Everingham on his birthday. A man whom God has used as a conduit of His reproof and blessing in my life. Mel is someone I look upon as an elder brother for the study resources he has provided me to satiate my yearning to know the Lord. Another reason am writing on this subject is because Mel asked me to do so a while back.

Let’s take a look at Rom 2:12-16

Rom 2
12 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law 13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

A look at the above passage helps you understand that the truth is: life is best enjoyed on God’s terms because life is powered by God (John 14:6). The unbeliever might see that there is no place for God in the world but what characterizes the world’s ignorance about God is their wishful thinking and their lack of interest to connect the dots, which comes from their nature to alienate themselves from the truth about everything including themselves. The reason the world finds truth generally bitter is because they are estranged from God. From the fall of Adam, man is a law to himself because the interest he serves is his own (not God’s) and when he looks at the world, he sees no future for himself in it and so his perspective on the future of world is one which is filled gloom and despair. Take a look at the popular movies like Mad Max, Resident Evil and Terminator created by unbelieving Hollywood, these movies showcase a future where the earth is desolate. The case of the unbeliever is thereby one of deep despair because no matter how far up the social ladder he is in life, he is not conscious of the fact that world exists to serves God’s purpose and not his own. So, the unbeliever in his conceit naturally fantasizes of the desolation of the earth for such is the fate he succumbs to outside God. The unbeliever from his incapacity to grateful to God, fails to understand that he couldn’t be where he is currently, with the kind of degenerate outlook he has towards life and God, but such is common grace and sovereign nature of God, that He is Lord over the unbeliever as He is over the believer, while He reveals Himself as a Saviour only to the believer through Jesus’ saving grace (John 1:12-13, 17-18).

Exodus 20:14 (Action)
“You shall not commit adultery.

Leviticus 20:10 (Penalty)
‘The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.

Mat 5 (Intention)
27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Before I talk about the verses above, if you are not familiar with the Moral Law of God, I would suggest you read about Judicial Law and Moral Law, so you would get a deeper perspective on the subject. Now we know that man was created in the image of God, in the sense that man was created to share the very nature of God. This nature is revealed in the Moral Law and hedged by the Civil/Judicial Law. It is within the confines of this Law that we can live and enjoy life to the fullest because we are simply men living in God’s world. You might ask, how can this be possible? My answer is, it is only possible in Christ because in Jesus, God overcomes our rebellion and supplants our fallen self-serving nature with a nature that yearns to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. This is the spiritual rebirth a believer enjoys in Jesus Christ and it is this living spirit we share which make us brothers & sisters in Jesus because if blood can make people siblings since life is in the blood as the Bible teaches, then how much more does the life giving Holy Spirit make those who believe in Him, brother and sisters in Jesus. Now coming back to the scripture quoted above, we need to look at these in the light of Deut 6:8, which teaches that the believer both meditates and acts on the Law of God in his life because to bind God’s Law on your forehead refers to meditate on His Law while to bind His Law on your right hand is to be a doer of His Law. It is for this reason James 1:23 teaches that the Law of God is as a mirror (yardstick) into which the believer looks and works upon his own character in willingly yielding to God who calls the believer out of the world and grafts them to His family adopted in Christ (Rom 8:29). It must be understood that Jesus did not come to do away with the Law (Mat 5:17-20) but to enrich our understanding of it. In Mat 5:27-28 above, we see that Jesus is not merely emphasizing on how our actions must adhere to the Law but also how our thoughts must adhere to it as well as emphasized in Deut 6:8. This is made possible through spiritual regeneration in which we receive the mind of Christ (1Cor 2:16). This goes to show that we are answerable to God not just for our actions but also for our intentions (Prov 16:2/Jer 17:10). So the Judicial Law hedges the Moral Law in the sense, that it is when a person actions his wicked intention, by acting them out against his neighbour/s, that the Civil/Judicial Law kicks in and eliminates him from society in order to maintain the civil aspect of civilization. Now let’s continue reading from Mat 5:28 above, through verses 29 & 30 and though these are figuratively speaking, you will find some startling similarity with what it is said in Deut 17:6-7 (below).

Mat 5
29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

Deut 17:6-7
 On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.  The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So, you shall purge the evil from your midst.

For all those hyper-grace antinomians posing as Christians out there, I would like to add a small disclaimer to this piece I have written. Please note: we are not saved by the Law, we are saved by grace through faith alone (Eph 2:8-10). As much as a seed is not its fruit so to salvation is by grace through faith alone but we know that the seed is for real when it grows into a tree and bears fruit. The Christian life is not a lawless one, the Christian life has a Standard and that Standard is the Moral Law… the very nature/image of God in which we were made and restored to in Christ (Rom 5:17). As for the rapture believing premillennialist, it is the tares that go first because unless you haven’t noticed the wicked die early (Job 21:7-13). As for the #karma believing humanists of the world, please understand that that karma (Luke 6:38) you go ga-ga about, only protects your interest because as I sighted in Rom 2:12 at the start of this blog post, those who sin without the Law happen to also perish without the Law. For those of you who differ with me concerning what defines godliness, please know I have nothing personal against you. I am only focused on speaking the truth about God here and the truth about God is known make unbelievers uneasy, after all it reveals the intention with which your Creator made you, and though a Godly life is tough, the detour/denial is even tougher because there you are on your own. It’s either God’s way or the Highway. Finally, for those you who are seeking the Lord and feel God calling out to you in His Son Jesus (John 15:19), to you brother/sister I have a duty given me in the Great Commission (Mat 28:18-20) and I must tell you that God loves you as I leave you what Jesus requires of you. So, go in the peace of Christ to love and serve the Lord dear brother/sister.

Mat 22
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

God bless…

In the light of all the communal rioting that is happening in Mumbai and around India, I would like to make this clear… what I am campaigning for is #IndiaAgainstHate and certainly not #IndiaAgainstGod because the Bible teaches that God is Love (1John 4:8) and that He seeks people to worship Him in Spirit and truth (John 4:24).

Mat 5:9
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.

It is a very atheistic mind set to throw God out of our lives for the sake of peace, but peace will never come at that cost because if we are afraid of pointing out where people err spiritually, then letting everyone be right in their own eyes is certainly no solution for peace. Rather, it breeds anarchy where each are a law to themselves, judging right and wrong only as per what is most convenient to them in that moment. Why don’t you take a look at societies around the world? You will notice that most of the developed nation are those which were shaped by the Gospel. Though you may see some terrible back sliding today in the west from being a God-centered society, you will also notice that where they are now coming to something any self-centered fool anywhere in the world can very well relate with. As for the middle-east, they are only rich because of their oil and being the poor/wicked/ungrateful stewards (Mt 25:26-28) they are, this blessing of theirs is also their curse (Malachi 2:2). Let’s take a look at the blessing a nation enjoys in God.

Ezekiel 36 (look at this from the construct of Jn 3:3, 16)
27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. 28 Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. 29 I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. 30 And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations.

It’s time we all stopped fooling ourselves and learned that the only dividing line that really exists are those who put God first & those who put themselves first. If we were to look at the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20 in the light of what Jesus said in Mat 22:36-40, we understand that there will never be an equality among people unless God is first in our lives. Look closely at the 10 Commandments, you will see that the first 4 commandments teach us the awe filled reverence we are called to have for God. Now look at the other 6 commandments, they teach us to love and respect people around us just as much as we love and respect ourselves. This precisely is what Mat 22: 36-40 teaches us, that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our strength and the second is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Now owing to our fall from grace in Adam, we have a natural inclination to throw God out of our lives but when we do that, it is only because we consider it is better to be self-centered as over being God centered. So, thanks this fall of ours in Adam, we have usurped that place God must occupy in our lives with ourselves. This is turn effects our relationship with those around us because now we see people only as objects that serve our vested interests. This truth however remains that we are not God and so our selfishness is wrong and sinful. So, religion estranged from the truth about God, does nothing but create unrighteous divisions and exploits people from the vested motives of those in power. Let’s now look at how the Civil Law given us in the Bible protects the interest of various people in society.

Exodus 20
10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
…
21 Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Contrary to how world religions represent themselves, a Biblically established society is not fascist because each is accountable to the same God, no matter where a person may be in the hierarchy of power. So, a foreigner’s/unbeliever’s rights are protected, and he/she enjoys as much liberty in that society as a believer/native does under God (Exo 20:10). The other thing is, true religiosity cannot be forced upon unbelievers/foreigners in such a society because religious devotion is calling from God and cannot be imposed forcefully by (Jn 1:12-3). This however does not mean that the Gospel won’t be preached as the means of saving souls in that society. The Bible teaches us that the most precious resource on this earth are “Human Beings” because we were made in the Image of God, not even the angels have this privilege. This precious resource can only be valued in true religion and not in the lies the world has concocted about God. Where this Image of God remains broken, lies a spiritual state where the salt has lost its saltiness (Mat5:13), it isn’t even good enough to be used in the manure pile and is thrown out (Lk14:34).

John 1
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

It is so sad that people today are scared to take a stand in their seeking the truth about God because they are afraid of hurting other people’s sentiments. I hope you can see the extent of unbelief underlying in this psychology because these cowards are more concerned about not hurting people’s sentiments than they are about honouring God in their lives (Mat 10:32-33). This lukewarm nature typifies their unbelief in which they choose to honour people’s misplaced sentiments about God in lieu of bearing witness to His divine majesty and the atonement He offers us in His Son Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 9
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace

So, to those who God is stirring to seek Him in their lives, I have this to say from Isaiah 62:6-7 & Eph 2:11-13. Do not be ashamed of the Gospel because in it lies the elixir of learning to speak the truth boldly, constructively and with love (Eph 4:15) for the upliftment of society, for though we may be few are as salt… where just a little is needed to flavour a whole lot of food.