The Word of God is full of living words that we are supposed to live by. Anymore the Churchas a whole just says know the name of Jesus and you don’t have to know anything more. Is that true? If it were, there are a lot of wasted words printed all the way through the Bible on how we are supposed to act, treat others as well as serve the Lord.
1 Corinthians 5:9-13 – 9 I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”
Warnings galore! If we are honest with ourselves almost everyone is guilty of the very things were being warned about throughout the Bible.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 – 1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
This isn’t about having a witch hunt for those who are not perfect. We all need to read these words and try to improve on them in our lives. Help others realize that it is important to God.
We are in the last days. Look at that list. I’ve had to work on a third of those myself because the world is teaching that it’s the way of success.
Check out some of these. Don’t pass over them and don’t take them lightly, because the last sentence states have nothing to do with THEM.
Lovers of Themselves – plenty of books to accomplish this one.
Lovers of Money – you don’t even have to have it to love it. What makes you tick?
Lovers of Pleasure rather than Lovers of God – Ouch. We love our recreation. We pay lots to do it and plenty of time getting it done. Where is time with God on the pie chart? Big piece? Small sliver?
Our walk is a journey. We don’t want to walk backwards or sideways. We lose a lot of time and ground that way in our relationship with the Lord. We don’t need to become discouraged either, but motivated by knowing that we have a guideline to follow and today is the day we take a new step towards pleasing God, not ourselves.