Written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
To  Warn  Encourage  Uplift  &  Affirm
the will and purpose for His people 
 

FOLLY

 The glitter of the world which reflects the angel of light is blinding us and has caused many to close their eyes to the truth;
That light which is Jesus.
We say we believe in Him yet we don’t live for Him.
We believe in Him and live for ourselves…
We are building on sand…

Jesus came as a living sacrifice.
He called us to follow Him to be living sacrifices with Him.
We may say we are of Him but alas we are not in Him.
We have found ourselves content in this separation from Him in that He is the servant and we are the recipients. We know of Him, but giving our heart and mind and strength and soul our time and energy and ever willingness and our worth is like giving tokens from our abundance of self(ish) love. We give merely to get. We work for God when it is convenient or comfortable if even that is ever the case. We give little and expect much.
Because we love ourselves more then we love God, our faith is more in the things of the world which are imperfect and failing, then in the perfect that will never fail us. Our lack of faith in God constitutes our loss. Our belief now gains us access to observe and in that we see little but our lack also causes us to fail in every aspect of obedience to Jesus. From gaining converts, to serving, to casting out darkness, to healing, to miracles; the very nature of Jesus is missing in our doing and our lack of doing anything and everything, for it is without His love.  We cannot please Him without faith and without faith there’s no fruit. Faith works by love!

We are on the threshold of reaping what we have sowed.

We have shared this selfish, self-centered, self-serving form of religion with the world, calling it Christianity. It is our pride in material gain that we evangelize to the have-nots.
And faithful we are to that which gains us anything material.
We have broadcast our abundance of goods and purporting that wealth of the material kind and our lust for the things of the world are a blessing from Him who hung on a tree and died having nothing to cover His body but our sin of these very lusts.
Jesus carried with Him in death for us the original sin; where God’s provision was disregarded for the selfish want for an object of the world, in one single piece of fruit.

Disobedience began in selfish want.

It then turned to the lust that desired, then took for itself an object that God created. And we continue to share the sin we call good...
His provision then and now in Jesus is not enough for us; we want what we want and we take it, only now we claim God allowed it or worse that He gave it to us.
The abundance of grace God reveals has been replaced by an abundance of material goods. Bank books, CD’s, 401K’s, insurance, Gold and precious metals, heirlooms, stocks, property, do we ever have enough, are we ever content? Yet we seek more. Has God been excluded from these choices in life or do you truly believe He approves? Look in your closet or wardrobe and you will see an accumulation of things you do not use… why? We are selfish. “If you have two shirts give one to someone with none”
Unhappy, dissatisfied we want more without one iota of thankfulness.
The voice who excused and encourages you is the same one from the garden.
He is still beguiling; He is the God of selfishness.
Who do you serve? Whose voice do you hear?
Not who you say you serve but who your actions are attributed to?

So we continue to forego the love of Jesus saying it is good but acting like it is not enough in our pleading for more and more of the world. We desire Jesus today more for what He can give to us of this world then for Himself.

Where is the selfless sacrificial love in the lives of the saints today?

Observation of a life like “Mother Theresa” in Christ should be the norm for us not the exception. (And we are not catholic here) yet she is one in hundreds of millions…why?
Our Heroes are the speakers of truth, good men who represent our form of Christendom, our Graham’s, our Robinson’s, our Dobson’s, our radio and TV host’s right down to our local pastors find performance to be just that, impressive but theatrical. Who is in the trenches, who and where is the example of Jesus… Where are those who sacrifice their lives, full of His love?
Not the arm chair spokesmen… demonstrating talking without action… is that Jesus?
Where are those who live like Him with signs following?

Christ called us to be like Him and to live like Him… to act like Him!

When you read the Gospel of Jesus; The son of God!; the itinerant preacher we have God among us as a man in the streets touching us, hands on, healing, blessing, casting out our demons and giving of Himself the great and overwhelming love of God not in words only but by the sweat of His brow. How tired do you have to be to try to sleep in a rocking boat in the midst of a storm? He labored all day and prayed all night…
He lived among us with no pillow for His head, think about that when you pull the sheets up in your warm toasty bed tonight. The very work He did is not for Himself declaring what is done for the Father is more important then the food He needed to sustain Himself!
And you are surrounded by fast food shops, restaurants, and food stores filled with choices. We are overweight and still feeding our faces. Can we say we’re following Jesus? You have more then you need and you’re not thankful and looking for more!
Just look at what you give…
The love of God seeks no comfort for Himself only for others!
His only need is to love!
Even when He cried out “I thirst!” do you think it was man or His father He was speaking to? Who do you really want to hear you when you cry out?

We are so all about ourselves we can hardly see or hear…

We have little or no understanding of sacrifice while many seek to dance and sing to God for a few hours and think they please a Christ who sets an example of worship to His father filled with compassionate labor and the only song we hear Him sing is “Forgive them Father they know not what they do!” The new covenant is not filled with song it’s filled with examples of labors of love; the song of the heart bears fruit!
We have no desire to sacrifice our lives daily obeying Jesus in “Picking up our cross”
What little we do together finds us thinking worship is singing to Him? Duh…
Where are the laborers? Now you know why He said “The laborers are few”

Are we following Jesus? If not, what are we following…?

Our example has been for too long to live full and abundant lives immersed in the lusts of the world. And share our lusts and spread our lusts we do! This we not only put our mouth to, we put our money to as well; spreading a gospel of flesh filled with mammon; calling it good. What do we give other countries? Money and it is never enough.  
We don’t give we invest… we seek a return for our giving. And we’re reaping it soon.
We offer a Jesus that gives, gives, gives to our wanton desire of the world.
Deaf to “Love not the world nor the things of the world!”
The new gospel of receiving “Things” looks past Jesus, ignoring “It is better to give!”
Jesus gave Himself that we may be filled by Him, with Him that we may offer Him and Him alone to a world of people who feel alone and in need of Him.
No strings, No frills. No extras. No selfishness…

To those in need today Jesus is sometimes spewn about like so many words; try this, wear a cross, carry a bible; it’s like the giving of a talisman or a lucky charm or a magician who pulls lots of good things out of a hat at our bidding. We have replaced Him with things. We have lost sight of His purpose of unselfish giving, in that we desire to receive more, much more then we are even willing to give! We would rather have Him give us worldly possessions; then to be loved by Him… for that is what we do… follow our example God. We are like children tossed about by greed demanding our selfish want be filled.

In the end and it is coming very soon we may find that we already have our reward.

If you are honest enough to look up and around at what American religiosity has called Christendom you will… behold our Folly!
If you still have eyes to see! Now is the time to open your heart!

We are about to pay the price of our delusion.

What we have spread throughout the world, our false values and selfish materialism in the name of God, is about to bite us, the hand that feeds it. We have demonstrated with marvelous acumen, seeking more and bigger and better, seeking to fill ourselves for our non content we have set in motion a spirit of greed, that has been emulated and surpassed resulting in a beast that is so consuming that only presently and for a short time it is exceeded by and influenced by a perverted jezebel spirit of lust. That thing we yield to that consumes our attention has dominance over us. Jezebel controls in more ways then one… it seeks to pervert selfless love to lust, anything to usurp our attention from Jesus.
The world seeks God, and we continue to give them the God of mammon.
And we feed it capitalism even in the name of Jesus.
Capitalism; a term we’ve accepted as Godly and spread readily is all about money and buying and selling and possession, its real name is mammon!
Greed is now calling itself by many names. Capitalism is the right way to love money.
Capitalism is Mammonism; competition for worldly gain is lust and not in the purpose of Jesus. Where do we see or hear Jesus ask for money; or even handle money? He even gives the common purse to be held by Judas. What example do you think that had on the 12? In turning the distribution of money to the poor over to the deacons so they might pray and hear His voice says what about the control of money?
“You can not serve two masters…” who you’re serving is measured by where you spend your time… is it in gaining or giving? The widow gave all she had… what are you giving? Or is it what are you gaining… death or the resurrection?

The beast is greed!

In Europe the focal point of the beast, has quietly and quickly formed a unity of nations based on what else but money. Unifying for what purpose? To have more then they now have, to be better and be more stable then us. Observe Euro does not stand for their union as they have no political constitution yet, they are gathered and gathering nations around their money, their God. This is our legacy to them and every country in the world; the desire to want more, to work for more and to gain more money and never be satisfied nor thankful. That’s why they have created there own money… they have learned well. We have inspired them to make money their God. For us it is denial, for them it surpasses us in its bold and blatant desire motivated by greed. They have no need of God their need is in money acknowledging their lust and reprobate desire. Another monetary system, why, to compete with us or to surpass us?  Competition creates winners… and losers.
Selfishness begets selfishness and the world reeks of our example all in the name of God.
Their security and the security of the world is no longer politics or social causes or any number of idealistic fronts; Jesus is totality out of the equation; these only continue to be a thin covering for the love of money. Once power may have had a place of prominence to gain but today money is power and having it makes you prominent.

Greed is the beast and it is lurking as a desire for our choosing it over Jesus. Many already have made it first in their hearts and that is why the church is waning and growing cold men have defiantly put more faith in money then in Jesus with the excuse that you can’t even build the kingdom of God without money. Maybe the real question is whose kingdom are they building, the kingdom of God, who is our provision or are they building their own kingdom where mammon rules and they are the prince… even rivaling Jesus while brandishing His name to ask for money. Well do they work for Jesus or money? What we do, not what we say bears our intentions. The heart speaks our true motive… what do you spend your time talking about?

Our folly is that we have allowed mammon to have a foot hold in the church and it has perpetuated itself to rule over too many of us. Now will we wake up or shall we allow the strong delusions of God to pick up from here and find us completely outside the Kingdom.

Follow or folly… the choice is yours… just as is life or death!

Jesus Christ’s Community at Hebron

 www.jesuschrists.com