Seek, and ye shall find

God did not say ‘please’

by R. Douglass  Mahaffey

In Luke 19:11, “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you,” Jesus is making an imperative statement, not a request. The verse is as much a command as “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Do you know why the average person walks around this world sulking? They (we) grieve the spirit of God. God is not some storm trooper, sitting at the ready to strike down anyone who gets out of line. He truly is heartbroken when we step out of His will. He wants so much to bless us with a life that is richer than anything that the currency of this world can afford. Why? So that He is glorified. 

A father dotes on his children from the time that they are babies, until they are young adolescents. Ever wonder why? It is so the child will know that they can turn to their father for whatever their needs are; and some of their desires, as long as their desires aren’t based on self-centered ambition. The father wants his child to be comfortable in turning to him for help.

When the child grows older and pride takes over, it is harder for the child to repeatedly turn to him when they find themselves in the same scrape over and over. It is possible that the child knows that a lecture of chastisement is coming, and they want to avoid the embarrassment. They would rather risk losing their lights, water, insurance on a car, or worse yet, their home, to keep from the embarrassment of having to turn to daddy again. 

Let this article submit to its readers a little secret. That is exactly what God put that daddy in their lives to do. Not necessarily bail them out every time that they are irresponsible with their money, but to help them to see that they have a choice in the way they perform their stewardship as a child of God. If it involves a lecture, then that might be what is needed to shake some sense in the child.. (Of course, I am talking about adult offspring here, but to moms and dads, they are still that child they have raised from an infant. 

God is no different. When we don’t turn to Him for help inn times of need or distress, the Bible says we grieve the Holy Spirit, by which God provides us with all we need. Jesus told His disciples, “Consider the lilies of the field. They neither reap, nor sow, yet God takes care of their daily needs. Are you any less than they are? No.”

By taking matters into our own hands and not turning to God for our “daily bread,” we open ourselves up to all kinds of possibilities for evil to come upon us. It really is better to seek God’s will, knock, when it is time to come before the Father for help, and ask Him for it, not in vain glory, or self-centered ambitions, but for the glory of the Lord to be seen by others in our lives.

R. Douglass Maahaffey - Founder and Publisher of The Wise Conservative.

The law of God

The ultimate standard of perfection

by R. Douglass Mahaffey

      God created everything. There is nothing that exists that was not created by the one true, perfect God and for God's own purpose. God is governed only by Himself in His perfect form of morality. There is no power greater than the Creator of everything that "is." God is obligated to obey or bow to nothing and no one. 
      He created and controls us too. However, God did not create robots without souls or a free will. He desires fellowship with all of us, knowing that He will only get that from us when we want fellowship from Him as well. He is a gentleman and does not force His way into any one's life. That being said, how hard is it for us to understand that His standard should be our own as well? 
      There are too many people on this earth that believe and live by the standard of thinking that they are their own person. Any time a person is warned about the error of their ways and says that no one has the right to judge and condemn them but God, they are at least acknowledging that God exists and has a standard. Therefore, by their own admission, they are saying that they are guilty of the law (not living by the standard that God gave them to live by). 
      There is a huge difference between a Christian condemning them with a judgmental attitude and telling them a better way (God's way) to live their life because they are concerned with their well being, as well as their eternal life. 
      So why does the sinful person get defensive when a brother or sister of the faith calls out something that they know they have done wrong? Are they comfortable in their sin perhaps? When they accepted Jesus as Lord of their life, did they do it in vain, not intending to change the way they lived, but make heaven by the skin of their teeth? Do they subscribe to the ideology that there are different levels of heaven, and they are willing to settle for a cottage if it means that they can escape hell? Are they having so much fun in their season of sin that they would risk hell for the flimsy pleasures of this dying earth? God is no respecter of person and we will all be judged according to the same standard! 
      I am talking to the believer here, not the lost. I am talking to those who have prayed the sinner's prayer and asked God to come into their heart and save them from their sins. Did it end with forgiveness of sin? Not even close. We have an obligation to read God's word, find out what His will for our lives is and live by that standard. I'm not talking about a person's destiny with God either, I mean His will for their lives. I'm talking about the absolute standard that when we get out of line and go our own way, that we question our own salvation to the point that we realized we have offended God and would give life or limb to make that right. 
      I was in downtown Houston one day and was on my way to an ice rink to play what we called "drop-in hockey." I was on the number 2 Metro bus headed to Sharpstown Ice Center. A homeless man got on the bus and was looked down upon by most of the passengers on the bus. He smelled bad and was wearing ragged, torn clothes. The people immediately close to where he sat down at, got up and sat somewhere else, making fun of him. We were approaching the Salvation Army when the man pulled the cord to signal for the driver to stop. 
      As he was stepping down, a man in the back yelled, "I hope that place has a shower for you!"
      The man tripped as he was stepping off the bus. I was furious at how these people of far more privilege were treating this man who had nothing (in most estimations) but the clothes on his back. I got off the bus with him, approached him and offered him $10. I had plenty, and wanted to help. He told me that he had enough money for the stay at the Salvation Army, however, he had something much more valuable to offer me. 
      He asked me if I was a child of God's. 
      I said, "Yes, I go to Langwood Baptist Church in Houston. I am in the choir and I serve as a youth sponsor. I am also on the planning committee for church events." 
     (I, I, I, I, ME, MY, I! Who cares?)
      He replied with, "That's not what I asked you. Have you come to the point in your life where you realized your sin offends God?"
      No one had ever asked me that before. I was quite proud of the fact that for years, (since I was nine)  I was the only person in my family that had darkened the door of a church in almost 11 years. I had defied the odds and stayed in when most wouldn't. Good for me, but he had now posed a question that I had never even considered or thought mattered, until now. 
      He began to tell me that he used to be an executive for a booming business in Atlanta, was on the school board, and even taught a Sunday School class at his church. "So what," he replied, "None of that mattered when stacked beside a relationship with God, the Father." 
      He told me that because of how empty he felt in his life, even though he had position, respect, money and responsibility, he was still empty and searching. He turned to drugs, alcohol, sex, and any other vice that he thought would help heal the hole in his heart because there was no relationship with Jesus. 
      I began to relate. I knew that empty feeling of putting myself out there for my church and not being thanked or appreciated for my troubles, because at the time, I thought it was all about me. It is NEVER about you or me, but about pleasing God and remaining in His standard. 
      The man's name was Don White, and he showed me through scripture that as a luke warm "Christian" (which by the way is a huge oxymoron) that God would sooner spit me out of His mouth than allow me to enter into His glory. I began that day, seeking ways to please God and minister to others in His name. Not because this man judged or condemned me, but because he saw my compassion for him and so he returned that compassion for me and my eternity. And you know what? He never once made me feel judged or condemned. That's because he did what he did and he said what he said with love. That's how it was received. 

R. Douglass Mahaffey - Founder and Publisher of The Wise Conservative.

      

Why we are called "The Church"

Who the Church is called to be and why

by R. Douglass Mahaffey

This weekend, the youth at my church took over the Sunday evening service. They sang in the praise and worship service in place of the usual vocalists that grace the stage. The instrumentalists were the same though. 

After the music service, there was a skit. I don’t even know what name the skit was given, but it was called “A Human Video.” If it were to be given a title, I would have called it, “Why Not Me Too?”

The skit starts out with a drunk husband and father with a beer in one hand and a television remote in the other. His wife is pleading with him to come to church with them to introduce him to a change in heart, a change in the way he thinks and a change in how he lives his life. That change can only come through Jesus. 

Naturally, as usual, what follows is a violent outburst from the husband, who gets up to slap his wife, when his daughter, who is watching from upstairs, runs in the middle of it and is hit as well, before the father finds her heart, tears it in two and walks into his bedroom to be alone. 

The mother takes her daughter to church. The people there ignore them, make them feel unwelcome and basically turns them away. 

NEEDLE SCRATCHES ON THE RECORD! 

What? The church turns her away? Certainly not God’s church, who was called to save the lost and make disciples of them, they wouldn’t do that.

Yep, it happens all the time. Some of us “high and mighty Christians” turn our noses up to anyone that fit the mold of the church goers that we are. God doesn’t call us to be church goers! He has called us to be Christ followers so that in our example, a light might shine in a dark, lost, dying world. A light so bright that it chases the darkness away and shines the way to the glory of the Lord. 

But all too often, God’s people are sometimes too busy to love those that require guidance to help them understand that the path they are on is a destructive one. It takes leadership. It takes reaching out and pulling them out of the pit that they are clawing and scratching to get out of. It takes love. It takes the love that Jesus had on the cross for us when he said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Are we incapable of that kind of expression and dedication to see the lost saved? Actions speak louder than words. I have even experienced this rejection in the past from churches, simply because I didn’t know all the right scriptures, or sing all the right songs, or because I didn’t know that what I believed or what I had been taught in my early life, didn’t necessarily line up completely with God’s word. 

If it was something that I was taught as a new Christian, then it wasn’t necessarily my fault. I used to make the mistake of putting my faith in what the teacher was teaching me, that I didn’t read it and check it out on my own. Many are being misled by what others are teaching them because they do not check into it further with daily devotions. Differences in doctrine divide believers and this ought not be so. 

If you get one thing from doctrine and it isn’t necessarily what someone else has been taught, do you shirk your duty as a minister (that we are all called to be) by not showing them by love, the true interpretation of scripture? Then why go to church and fellowship with others in the first place. No one’s theology is perfect and no two people’s theology will ever be exactly the same. 

Basically, salvation is found in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Everything else is just details. Don’t sweat the small stuff. There are things that none of us can even fathom about the Kingdom of Heaven. Those are the things that we will have made known unto us on that “Unclouded Day.” 

R. Douglass Mahaffey - Founder and Publisher of The Wise Conservative.