Faithful Followers

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? … Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honour the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts.”
Psalm 15:1, 4 NLT

We continue to explore the attributes necessary for a believer to worship the Lord and enter into His sanctuary. We despise the “flagrant sinners” and now we turn to honouring the “faithful followers of the Lord”. It must be easy, one would think. After all there are many people who call themselves Christians and we only have to walk into a church on a Sunday morning to find them. There they are, seated in the pews, looking towards the minister speaking from an elevated platform called a pulpit. Or they might all be standing singing a song or hymn, accompanied by the sounds of a pipe organ, or in more modern times, a small band of musicians complete with guitars and drums. Surely we won’t have any problems honouring them. But if only it was that simple. There are many people who call themselves Christians but Jesus said, “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter” (Matthew 7:21). 

So how do we discern who the “faithful followers of the Lord” really are? In fact, are we ourselves counted in their number? And do we really know and understand what God’s will is for each one of us? Jesus continued in Matthew 7:22-23, “On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’” I know a successful pastor who said to me once that this Scripture worries him personally. Surely this bar is far too high for believers in God to reach, let alone jump over. But doing the will of God is to believe in Jesus, to receive the gift of the forgiveness of sin made possible by His death on the cross and to be declared righteous before God. Our standing before God is not about us but it is all about Jesus. Those who do tremendous things for God, even in His name, but who don’t know Him personally, are in danger of rejection on judgement day.

But we’ll consider the question again. How do we discern who the “faithful followers of the Lord” are? I would say we pray for that discernment and, if in any doubt, treat other Christians as though they were indeed “faithful followers of the Lord.” Not all members of a denomination other that the one we follow will be true Christians. Some “Christian” fellowships may not be following the same “Lord” that we do. And there are sects around like the JW’s who consider themselves to be Christian, but are they really, in the true sense? They think so, but does the Lord? 

We don’t want to get tied up with this, and instead we follow what Paul wrote in Romans 12;10, “Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honouring each other“. We start with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ in the fellowship where we worship. Paul wrote in Philippians 2:3-4, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too“. The body of Christ where God has put us will have many different people. Different ages, backgrounds, skin colours, professions and so on, but before the cross we are all equal. And before Jesus we honour them, whether or not they are faithful. How faithful they are in following the Lord is between them and God, but regardless, we pilgrims honour our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we will be blessed through doing it.

Dear Father God. There are those around us who profess to be Your followers and we remember that they too are Your blood-bought children. Help us to concern ourselves with them, praying for them and loving them. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

One Mind (1)

Posted on by korgrocker

“Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathise with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude.”
1 Peter 3:8 NLT

“One-mindedness” in any group of people is an elusive quality very much in short supply. It seems in these days that everyone has an opinion about themselves and others, and they expect that opinion to be ratified and supported by everyone else. Those who don’t agree with their opinions find out that they are accused of being some sort of “-phobe” and cancelled from whatever forum or meeting place they frequent. And that often applies to Christians who adhere to Biblical views of morality and ethics. But Peter wasn’t writing to disparate groups of people, struggling in their own secular fogs. He was writing to those early Christians located in the Five Provinces in what is now modern Turkey. 

Being of “one mind” is important for a Christian fellowship. Imagine a football team that lacked a sense of unity, with each player intent on following their own strategy and game play. Chaos and ridicule would result and their future together would be in doubt. Just as in any team, sporting or otherwise, unity, one-mindedness, is an essential quality in Christian fellowships. The members must be of one mind when it comes to strategic fellowship decisions. One church I was in had a vision statement stencilled in big letters on the church wall. It was derived from a Bible verse, and there was no doubt as to why that particular fellowship of believers were there. In Romans 15:5-6, the Apostle Paul wrote, “May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ“. Unity between believers leads to corporate praise and worship of God. And Paul emphasised that this is what believers must do. Of course, it goes without saying, that an act of corporate worship genuinely and lovingly focused on God will override any internal strife and discord.

Paul also used the analogy of the composition of a human being when he described the importance of unity in a church. In 1 Corinthians 12:12 he wrote, “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ“. Referring to our own bodies he continued, “But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body” (1 Corinthians 12:18-20). So the picture emerges of a fellowship of believers made up of different people with different giftings, but all heading in the same direction and functioning together as they are united by their relationship with each other. They are of “one mind”. So we pilgrims must ask ourselves if we are one-minded with our fellow believers. If we find ourselves out of step and disagreeing with them then we need to sort out the issues with “a humble attitude”. A disfunctioning believer is a toxic influence in a church and something to be avoided at all costs, for Jesus’ sake.

Dear Father God. We know that through Jesus we are united. His saving grace brought us together, and we are truly thankful. Amen.

Smoky Locusts

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then locusts came from the smoke and descended on the earth, and they were given power to sting like scorpions. They were told not to harm the grass or plants or trees, but only the people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were told not to kill them but to torture them for five months with pain like the pain of a scorpion sting. In those days people will seek death but will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them!”
Revelation‬ ‭9:3-6‬ ‭NLT

As if the smoke polluting the atmosphere and the darkness was not disaster enough, another problem appeared, bringing more woes to affect the people on earth. Stinging locusts. And they were given specific instructions, that they were only to sting “the people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads”. The effect of the sting was quite specific in that it was to be like the sting of a scorpion, not enough to kill, but enough to cause pain so great that people wanted to die anyway.

The verses today contain quite a lot of information. Firstly, the locusts were biddable – they were given specific instructions about what they could and couldn’t do. They were not sent from Heaven but came out of the abyss in the smoke. It may have been that satan wanted the locusts to wreak total destruction on God’s people, as he has always wanted, but God had other plans. Another indication, perhaps, that God limits the devil’s powers and capabilities? However, on this occasion God’s people were protected from the stinging insects.

John was also told that God’s people had a mark, the seal of God, on their foreheads. Were these people the 144,000 we read about in Revelation 7, or did they include all Christians everywhere? I believe it to be the latter, because God has no favourites when it comes to His love and acceptance. 

Another thought is what this seal or mark looks like. We will read about another mark, the mark of the beast, later in Revelation 13, so it wasn’t that. There has been speculation that these marks might be bar or QR codes. It was possible that this was a tattoo of some kind, but probably unlikely because the Jews in the Old Testament were discouraged from cutting or marking their skin (Leviticus 19:28). We of course don’t know what the mark or seal was, but what we do know is that it will be very distinctive and will declare unambiguously that the person with it belongs to God. And the locusts were not allowed to touch them. As a thought, I suppose that if we today were to carry a mark to say that we are Christians, would that make any difference to who we are and what we do. To what we say or how we behave? Hmmm…

What was the significance of the five months? Apparently locusts only live for five months so perhaps that was the reason, that they were going to be tormentors for their life span. However, to those being stung, it must have seemed like a life time. The non-Christians at that time must have gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid the locusts but I expect to no avail. As a resident of Scotland, I’m reminded of a wee beastie we call the Highland Midge. The female of the species is a very small insect that needs blood to mature the eggs it is carrying. And the effect of its bite is to cause an itch, sometimes painful, that takes some time to recede. Sadly, it does not distinguish between Christians and non-Christians. We have potions and sprays to discourage the midge from coming near us, and there is also an item of head and neck wear made of a very close mesh, that can sometimes help. There are even machines that attract the midgies (plural of midge) and dispose of them into a large tank underneath. But the midgies are relentless in their pursuit of blood. However, I can imagine the sting of the locusts in John’s vision was far worse, and there would have been no remedy or way of avoiding them.

Pilgrims still alive at this point in the End Times would have felt much relief that they were escaping the attentions of the locusts. But I would imagine that those unmarked in the population would have felt very resentful of them and I expect persecution of the Christians would have been severe and increasing. But Jesus said we must stand firm until the end comes. So stand firm we will, won’t we? We read in 1 Peter 5:9-10, “Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are. In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation”.

Dear Father God. We stand firm in our faith, in the knowledge that our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world are experiencing all sorts of persecution. We thank You that you have cut short the days of suffering and that we will one day share Heaven with You. We are so grateful. Amen.