Holiness Then and Now       Kelly Durant 2-19-12

Whenever I announce I will preach on holiness, most people’s eyes glaze over because most people do not know enough of what it is or how to define it to appreciate it. If I ask you what is holiness, some of you have a general idea. You might reply, it is God’s purity, God’s love, God’s grace but you & I are a part of a “Holiness Movement”, the Salvation Army, so really how do we understand it better? The dictionary defines “Holiness” is the state of being holy or sacred. Holiness is being clean or pure, to be holy is to be like God.   

Well, this doesn’t really tell us much, does it? Tell me how do we discern what is holy and what is sacred? The Egyptians had holy cows! And how do we know what God is like except by looking at his past interaction with people? What we do know is what God says is holy “is holy”, right? As in Exodus Moses was on holy ground because God was there in the burning bush. Exodus 3:5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

God created the world pure, and His love was pure & holy but after the sin of Adam and & Eve there was a separation of God from people because sin cannot be near what is holy or someone dies! Let’s go back to where holiness made its first appearance after the garden in Genesis then in Exodus.

Adam was holy and talked directly to God but after Adam’s fall God established a system to allow a only a few holy men, or prophets to communicate with Him. In the case of today we are looking at Moses. And why him? It must have been that he had a love for God, a purity of life, an obedience to God’s principles, an outstandingly strong spirit and dedication that even though he was weak in is old flesh, he pleased God above everyone else and he was therefore holy & chosen from birth.

As Moses leads God’s people on the next focus of the verses we read in Leviticus 18:4,5 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the LORD your God. 3After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.4 Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God. 5 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD.  

These verses cause us to conclude that only following God’s ordinances will please him by separating ourselves from sinful others in the world. Leviticus 20:26 And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine. So holiness is a type of separation from the world and it’s customs so you can be used for God’s purpose. The implication is that the people of the world are so corrupted and condemned in darkness that God will not show himself to them.

In the verses in chapter 18 the Lord is basically saying, everything you use to know from your past culture, Egypt, and everything you will learn in the future about in the cultures in Canaan you must never accept, follow, conform to nor obey. What was being communicated was that all people of God in order to be separated and holy must follow and obey God’s commands only above any culture, nation, or people!

Why are we reviewing all of this? We must answer the question is: Are these principles still at work today for us as Christians?  We know we are “in” the world but not to be “of” the world!  We coexist in our world but still the implication is we bring God’s holy culture with us by non-conforming!

John 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.18As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

Don’t forget that all the nations & cultures back then, as they are today, are full of people corrupted by self-serving-ness, and man-worshipping, material- idol worshipping-ness, being sexually perverted, arrogant, liars and even murders to gain what their objectives to serve their inordinate passions.

To be able to make yourself become holy was a complicated process before Jesus came. You would need to read and fully memorize all the commands in Leviticus to know what rites to practice to achieve a temporary purity. The 10 Commandments were only just a few of the these (and most people think they were the only laws), but there are several hundred more in the list with detailed processes and you had to live obsessed in the Torah, the law of God, to try and fulfill them from day to day and in seasons.

Holiness then, nor is it now, something that you could bring on yourself just by having lawful behavior or by having a spiritual life, and eating certain foods and praying in a certain way. Holiness then was what the priest would intercede for you to temporarily obtain through him.

The priest’s intereceding was a process of soul cleaning, the which was always getting dirty week to week, but by the sacrifice and suffering of bleeding to the death lambs and other animals you could temporarily buy God’s tolerance. And then you would repeat this over and over all your life. You had to suffer with the animal’s loss of life by a blood sacrifice to know how God felt about how He was suffering over your sins!

Imagine if you had to buy a lamb on your way to church today and really hope that God would be pleased enough with it, because if not you feared His severe judgment!

Divine holiness you could never get for yourself personally either, only the priest had the high status of being worthy of the real holiness. It was up to him to intercede for you in the collective group in the church synagogue asking God to accept the sacrifices as atonement for all the sins.  But if the priest had sin God would kill him right then!

But in the end, the priests were the judges and police of the land and any person were not obeying God, he or she would be brought to the priest for the punishment outlined in Leviticus.  39 ordinances required the death penalty. Thank God I do not have that job responsibility of having to execute judgment on those of you here in the Corps that fail God! Today, it is done by conviction of the Holy Spirit!

Imagine, back then, if someone were judged for committing a certain sin, then all of us in the synagogue would need to punish them and if it was a capital offense we would all go outside, pick up stones, and stone the person to death as guilty without any consideration that we are friends with their family, children, or if they were a relative! God’s law was strict & harsh to maintain holiness in the camp. The fear of God before kept the order of the law. And today, the fear of the law maintains order in society.

Before Christ, you being able to get enough purity, or holiness was a fearful process and it was enforced in the community by the religious law legislating authorities. Today we may compare this type of governing, or Theocracy, somewhat to certain Arab nations today where the spiritual authority also serves as the ruler and judge and executer of the law. Early Pilgrim settlements colonies in the US were like this as well.

How was the system changed with Jesus being the atonement?  Consider this, what is holy and what is not to God has not changed in essence. We must as Christians pursue holiness and promote our own pure holiness culture, our separated-ness, or non-conformance to conforming to the dictates of the corrupted culture around us.

And it seems in our society today the culture war is more intense and people want to make it that way so that you are either say you are with me or you are against me! And as in Joshua 24:15

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

So as Christians in our current world, how can we become holy without severe enforcement from the Captains or the leaders?  Today with Jesus, we are in the world but not of the world, which means we are like oil in the vinegar that never mixes, not like milk in the coffee that you cannot separate once mixed together!

2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. This makes it clear, God’s people back in the OT time and today under Christ grace, are to live in a manner that is separated from the dirtiness and contamination caused by sin as the people of the world live.

But your holiness which is your salvation is your personal responsibility. Philippians 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

What is amazing, what is wonderful, and what is a real gift of the Holy Spirit is that now each of us, each individual person, you and I, can with Jesus Christ obtain holiness and purity without animal sacrifices and have it so much of it that we live guilt free with peace and happiness with our hearts full of love for the lost dirty ones in the world. That is why we are called “priests”, because we are as holy as they use to be!

Each person’s growth in holiness can be observed by you and I and we see it by how much love for Jesus you have. Love is manifested in attitude and good works done inside and outside the Corps. It is manifested in holy living and dedication, and you know your own holiness state better than anyone. Many of you have come a very along way and grown a lot in holiness in just a few years! And Jesus said Matthew 5:8

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

What concerns me and all Christian leaders, and what concerned Generals Booth of the beginning of The Salvation Army, and what should be of most important concern to you is:  Are you and I living holy enough lives to be used by God as He would like?  

Hebrews 12:14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

The proof of a holy life is evident in spiritual maturity, the ability to live in peace with others as you grow in love having love for others to win them with Jesus gospel of salvation. Our ultimate job is evangelism and copying Jesus, the preaching and winning of others to Jesus by our love and concern for them. To win people to Jesus we can do it best as He did it by being inclusive of all sinners with gentleness, forgiveness, and love as was shown to Mary Magdalene, Matthew, Zacharias and others. Basically Jesus’ purity convicted these people’s hearts to want to leave behind their sins of abusing others to satisfy their own greed.

So how will you obtain maturity to the point that you are in holiness as you should be? Is it just by the conviction you have to be separate from the vices of the world? Holiness is in its most part a full submission to Jesus in obedience to the truth revealed in His word. Jesus is THE example of what a “Holy person” should look like! Loving, forgiving, yet fighting against injustices! And preaching salvation all the time by deeds and words!

To know if you have real holiness in you, ask, do I have a heart full of love for God and others that is as passionate as Christ that I no longer have any pride or will but my desire is to do anything and everything possible to gain a lost soul for Jesus?

Holiness is about a connected-ness with God’s love and passionate about being obedient to Him, and His passion is new souls in His kingdom! Want more holiness? Ask God how to dedicate yourself in manner that is more pure, more dedicated, and more loving!

Thank God today that each of you can have holiness for yourself contrary to how it use to be before Jesus came! 

Love! All Kinds but Each Needed!

 LOVE! God Created All kinds!                   Captain Kelly Durant   2-12-12

Scripture Verse: I John 4:7-22

There is a story about a little child about 10 years old who wanted to get something special for his mother for Valentines. He asked his friends at school what their Mommies usually got for Valentines and the other kids at school said, well, they usually saw them get fancy underwear. Well, the boy had saved $10 dollars and he went to the store with his Aunt and sneaked off to the Ladies department. He told the store clerk he wanted some underwear for his Mommy and she asked him what size.

The boy said, gee, I don’t know that, but he explained he that she is the most best and prettiest woman on earth! The lady in the store thinking she must be about the size of a model by his description gave him a medium size, thinking it was a good guess. Well, a few days later the clerk saw the boy again and he asked the lady to change the underwear. He found out after Valentine’s Day what her size was and what she needed an X-large! Well, when you love someone, you overlook their size, or any imperfection and you see them as beautiful! Right?

What we read makes it very clear that if you do not have love for your bother then you do not know God! I thought today we would speak reflect on the different kinds of love since we are close to Valentines Day and some people stop and reflect a little more on what love is. You may be familiar that the Greeks had different types of love, the love for God, pure spiritual love is Agape. Eros was the love between a man and a woman; and Philos is the love between brothers and family. Storge is the love between parents and children, and Xenia, the love for friends which is shown by hospitality.

Let’s examine each of these from the Bible. Even though the Greeks define it this way, love is something that includes everyone, all, but in a special way of showing it!

What is the first and greatest commandment as defined by God’s Son, Jesus? Let’s look it up.            Matt 22:37-40

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

To show our love towards God, we should be at all times loving Him by wanting to spend time Him with all of our heart and soul! We can show our love by reading and reflect on His Word daily, and by ‘praying without ceasing’. If we spend time with God then we will be full of His spirit and full of His Love!

The worst thing a Christian can do is to be out of touch with God, not praying, not reading his Word, and simply not loving Him! When you see another Christian being critical of others, complainy and rude, prejudice, and unloving then take note that they are not just letting their brothers down but they are actually offending God!

We must pray for them!  Your brothers & sisters here are made in the semblance of God and no one ever has a right to think they are better than, or of more importance than another person, because we show our love for God in the way we serve and treat one another! Jesus made it clear when He said that ‘if you have done it unto his servants, you have done it to God’. Matt 25:40

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Love begets love!

Those Christians who truly love God are those that love the most and they are the most humble and happy and willing to do anything at anytime for anybody! So when we talk about loving God, which is the same as loving your neighbor, we also are talking about setting aside a special time for Him, a time to pray and a time to learn from His Word because how can we know Him without learning about Him?

It would be like comparing say, Kevin, or any single person here, who may have said I have a new girlfriend now and her name, is say, Lisbeth. So one day a  few months years later I ask Lisbeth, How is it going with Kevin? And she says, well, he rarely talks to me excepts when he needs something, I wrote him a whole bunch of love letters so he would know all about me, but he obviously hasn’t read them because he doesn’t answer me.

He does come to see me on Sundays though, but even then He only visits an hour!?

Do you see how God must feel when we are not close to Him & love Him back?

We love God by honoring His presence in our lives in every minute in everyday and in every decision we make, amen?

When we talk about Agape love, we are talking about an emotional happiness like having a feast with one another, no that is loving God and one another with God’s love. Let’s look up John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Philios is the love for brothers and sisters. I know it is impossible to be friends with everyone here in the Corps but if we really have a Divine love of God for one another, we will do our best to connect with, and have love for everyone the same.

Here in the US there is a city with the name Philadelphia and that means it is the city of brotherly love. The Philios part means the love towards our brothers. Thank God that our Christian forefathers of this country tried to set up a good standard to live by, but the reality today is that it is just another big crime filled city like so many in the world.

Many of us here wear the same uniform, and uniform or not as Christians we are in the same heavy battle together against the evil and sin in the world! Love, which is more than just a handshake, is giving a helping hand to someone in need.

How many of you have helped your brothers here with a ride, food money, or a job? Those that do that are practicing the love we preach and believe in and living as Christ! If we know about a person here without a job, or a place to live we should be as concerned for them as we would be for our selves! God’s love for another always has them in mind to help them obtain what they need.

I will confess several times I have suffered and even cried because I did not have the means to help another person with what they needed. A few years ago I remember a case when I was asked to help a young woman who is now paralyzed for life in a wheelchair due to the drunk coyotes who were bringing her across the dessert from Mexico crashed the vehicle and she got crushed inside.

She can’t get federal aid and she stayed with an unemployed friend with no means to help her! What I can only do at times is pray for others of the church or in the world and many many times I have seen God answer and supply for them when I could not do anything personal!

Love should cause us to love one another, pray for one another, and to be caring friends with one another, knowing each other’s spiritual needs and faults, and we must help one another to grow and live a higher standard in God’s Love! Amen?

And what about the Eros love which is exhalted on Valentine’s Day? It is the intimate love God intended for a man and a woman to have for one another. God made us to be attracted to the opposite sex and the Bible even praises human relations as a gift from God. Let’s look up Song of Solomon 1:2 (Read this on Valentine’s Day)

2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. (We will stop there because that is enough, right? Ha Ha!)

              

Relations inside a marriage covenant was made to be very pleasureful! Those that do not have God’s love have a serious problem though because they want intimate relations without including the One who created it! God commanded rules concerning man and woman relationships that protect us from harm and diseases, and all relationships include responsibilities with privileges, right?

The intimacy that two human beings have is not just physical, but mental, and spiritual! And it is an example or reflection of the deep love Christ wants us to have for Him because we are compared to be His bride. Rev. 21:9. But those that violate God’s standard miss the blessing of obtaining a true Love and a true relationship, and they reap the consequences of a low self esteem, a heavy conscience, and a burned bitter and cold heart towards the opposite sex and humanity!

Romantic love can be very beautiful and make your heart pound with great joy! And for those who are married, I pray you are being Romantic and ‘being special’ with your mate having a close communication and relationship! It is nice we set aside a Valentine’s Day to help us to remember to be nice and special to our mates or girlfriends but what must hurt God is to see so couples together with a love that is dead, without communication, beauty, or passion.

The wrong way is when the man works all week and then parties with his buddies on the weekend, and his poor wife gets stuck alone with the kids and the dirty laundry! If that is your case God’s knows your suffering, and we should talk about it to see how to make things better!

However, we do see a lot of families out together on Sundays and that makes me very happy to see especially those who come to our church Corps!

Storge is the love between parents and children, and it is sad that today many people suffer due to a loss of love between their family members. This is happening due to sin, selfishness, jealousy, and unthankfulness playing a big role in this society of dog eat dog. As Christians we must fight to exalt the families we know and support them!

Xenia is the love for friends which are quests and this is shown by hospitality. I am sure we all have had quests in our homes and it is a love that is done by serving another.  There are some people who almost never practice this type of love, but you should try it.

In the end love is what we reap if it is what we sew. When I open my doors, others will open their doors for me, right?  

God has a great plan for us and that plan is to transform humanity with His Love!

If we as Christians would just obey and love God and our neighbor in the radical way He intended then there would be no more selfishness and more wars, no more hunger because we would all share equally, no more prejudice and crime since we would all “do unto others as we would like to have done unto ourselves” and this earth could be a paradise with all of us living by the standard of God’s love!

How beautiful that would be!  And how is the love of God? God manifested His love to us through Jesus, and His way of communicating love was to sacrifice His life in order to give each of us eternal life!

Don’t get it wrong, so many people think that love is a feeling, a passion, a bunch of chemicals at work in our body, or an ideal that is an illusion, but we as Christians all know love is that and more than that: It is a sacrifice, a total giving of one’s self to serve God and others.

God created all the different kinds of love but in reality they are all the same, they involve deep emotions, passion, sacrifice, suffering, and the total giving of your self!

How much do you love? It will be apparent by the things you do and the way you live! How much you love will determine how much you are loved back! Have you accepted Jesus, God’s gift of Love to you?  Do you want true love in your life?  

Let’s pray….

Discrimination? From where does it Come?

Discrimination : Who Accuses Who? You Discern!                              Kelly Durant 1-15-12

Matthew 12:23-25    23And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?24But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. 25And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand

There is a saying that if you don’t love someone they can’t even walk across the room without you finding fault with it.  So many times in school I recall there were some kids,  that had never met me before, but for some reason they just immediately they didn’t like me! How many times in your life have you had that experience in your job, or amongst your blood family, or in the neighborhood?  It often is people from your own race too!

This is the Cultural Reconciliation Sunday, or in essence an anti-discrimination promotion emphasis taking into account the memory of Dr. MLK, Jr., a preacher who fought for marginalized people to be respected and he made a lot of progress from what was happening in the 1960s. He exposed an evil in society called “prejudice” which is a pre-judging, discrimination, or disqualifying of a person without giving them a deserving respect given proportioned God. 

Prejudice people are actually displaying ignorance, a pride of I am better than you, and abuse of power and the universal right that God gave to all men, that we are created equal no matter if our talents and outward shades of skin are different.  There is a fine line between being discerning, which is a good thing to discern from wrong behavior, and being prejudice, which is an unfair judgment. How do we as Christians know how to discern and not discriminate then?

*Don’t repeat stories or attitudes that others impart. Since there are many political debates going on right now, and they are going to continue, I thought I would use these influencers, or tale bearers as examples.   Tale bearers is mentioned in Proverbs 26:20

Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth

Discerning Christian people see how prejudice influencers and tale bearers control others people’s decision making while in the world the blind lead the blind. Christians must be equipped with a filter, and it is the Holy Ghost in us, however the people of the world love to swallow the lie and the spicy.  

It is time today to consider if the wrong influencers might be persuading you contrary to the things the Holy ways of God! This is a satan inspired discrimination by the prince of the airs air waves, and today many are blown to and fro like a ship of the sea.

*It very IMPORTANT to examine our own thinking processes. Ask God for the Holy Spirit to be renew each day in your decision making. We are to be conformed to the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ

I want you, and myself included to take decisions how a holiness Christian people should in all ways in how we think, respond, and react to the influences around us. We must govern ourselves with the, “what did Jesus do” way of life. We must be aware of the subtle, covert tricks that deceive our minds.

There is an expression in English, to, “demonize” and this term refers to portray a normal person as evil. For example, any and everything the targeted person does, it doesn’t matter how good or bad, it will always be communicated by an opposing group as something bad, wrong, or unpopular by all.

Do you know of a person in your family who discriminates or demonizes another?  Prejudgism includes more than race issues, it is a jealousy, envy, pride & evil.  I think all families experience it. Let’s look at a common scenario, when Juanito gives a $50 bill to help his mother once a month, the other brothers instead of praising Him for helping and doing something good, they all turn it into something bad, that Juanito is conniving something. The others might accuse, “Oh, he is trying to get in good with her so she will give him most of the inheritance. Or Oh he does that because he is trying get her to keep a secret because he must have done something bad in his past. So the one doing good, as in Juanito’s case, gets attacked and everyone hates him, yet he is doing no wrong so isn’t it criminal this discriminatory influence?

The point is of the matter is that whatever Juanito does, the others motivated by envy, hate, or prejudice will always demonize him and they never see it for it’s face value that he is just doing something good to be helpful.

It is the most unfair character assignation tools that exists. Amongst families & in the news media one person may get their personal appearance made fun of, their children ridiculed, their personal lives attacked while another person gets away with scandals concerning money having horrible friends with horrible reputations yet it is passed along as normal and acceptable and he is the good one.

Pray to be free of discrimination because at it’s core is hypocrisy and this is the sin that caused Jesus to get fighting mad!  One way to determine the reality is you should believe in the people who are most similar to Jesus Christ, not by their words, but in their practice of their values, life-style, and integrity.  Jesus discerned the ways of governing politicians; he labeled Herod as a fox. And how does a fox live? By being sneaky and stealing, and hiding! And the Pharisees were a brood of vipers!          Luke 13:31-33

31The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee.(Their motive was just to get rid of Jesus as everyone wanted to follow Him and not them) 32And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.   Jesus fought back! He was not intimidated!

*Refuse to be labeled or discriminated against. I hate how politicians address the Latinos as if they are going to win their vote just over what they assume is their self-interest in voting over the visa situation. And now that our current administration has had 3 years and several others have had 8 years and next to nothing has been accomplished regarding resolving the immigration situation, there still are 12 million people affected by both parties indifference. It is insulting to try to get people to vote over just the immigration issue, what must be considered is the bigger picture of good Christian leadership standards, the conservation of family values, and the practice of equality & justice for all.

Discrimination is flawed in its reasoning & justifications for some people, of forgiving and keeping a fruitless tree in leadership, yet CEOs, government officials, and even pastors get away with someone convincing others that they are better than the rest! Jesus said that all trees are known by their fruits, and if a vine has no fruit, then it is only good to be cut down and burned. If one does have some good fruit, then it is usually labeled by the fruitless as bad, having too little and not enough, but the misconstruction of prejudice is when the one producing nothing has others say it is good and it is not his fault that the soil and the rain are to blame for his fruitlessness. Ironically both plants get plenty of sun, rain, and fertilizer money.  Ask yourself & get informed, Who has good fruit and who has no fruit?

*Discrimination is the persuasion weapon used by leaders to war against you with their opposing worldviews; it is more about whose codes of conduct, philosophy and principles.  It is an issue of producing submission more than it is about race or country of origin. We must try the spirits.

For example Jesus, when he cast out a demon, this was good, right? People with demons produce fear as they will do violence to anyone when they snap. But recall it was not a good thing that Jesus cast out a demon for the Pharisees (who were Jews as Jesus was a Jew); for them his liberating power freeing others from Satan was bad, it meant that He was the chief of the demons and this is how he had the power. (Matt 12:24)  Really? How does that make sense? You cannot divide your own house and stand? 

I assume some of the crowd bought into that story, they believed the hypocrite Pharisees, so this is why we all need to pray always and try the spirits, because not all things that people say are true, and we must be careful that we judge righteous judgment being discerning in what we conclude. And because Jesus was not submitting to their hypocritical Pharisaical order, they hated him because they wanted to control everything, especially Him!  But since they had no power over demons or Him, they were full of hate and just wanted to destroy Him!

Prejudgism and discernment in Jesus time was the same as it is today. Discernment for me is the most important gift of the Holy Spirit! Each of us must pray to discern the spirits as we are instructed in 1 John 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world .” 

To discern what opinions we form we must take into account who we are listening to and why we are listening to them, are they a source with an agenda or just the plain truth. Consider that often the people us feeding information may not even be Christian and they may have motives completely opposed to what we know as truth. They may also even have no conscience whatsoever about telling lies to achieve their goals of persuasion as Hitler said, “When you tell a lie, tell a big one, because little ones no one will believe!’  His lie was the Jews were evil while he was totally Satanic and destroyed all! People everywhere in our families or in the media channels are continuously either making a person look great, amazing and charismatic or terrible like a demon.  So who do you listen to?

People often discriminate and hate others due to their envy of their abilities, authority, and true goodness or holiness which exposes their lack of it! (repeat) Do you dislike someone right now, check what is in your heart! We may dislike something God favors. You may mistakenly persecute the good!

Matthew 5:10-12  10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.11Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.12Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. In other words, Blessed are the ones discriminated against!

Jesus did good and healed on the Sabboth and cast out demons, but instead of admiring the fact that miracles took place, that something good had happened and that the church and everyone should honor and thank Jesus, these discriminators were angry and accused Him wanting him to go to jail and be killed for blasphemy. The lesson: Don’t listen to spin, good is good no matter, and bad is bad no matter.

As Christians we are all on the same team. But discrimination happens to Captains and preachers as well.  There are Corps where the Captain can start up new programs, go out into the community and attend all the Chambers and Club meetings, but because he is not doing what certain church members want, because the few that want to control things are not getting the control, then whatever the Captain does or says is never enough, there is always a negative comment”.  I have been discriminated against at times amongst our own and those outside, but I forgive people anyway as any of us may make the mistake of listening to the wrong opinions and the wrong people at times.  But in the end what does Jesus teach on the matter?

24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

Amongst Christians in general there is a lot of sicrimination about which church has the most Holy Ghost power as if this alone implies having discernment. Sadly many superficial Christians judge by appearance only not by sound doctrine and good fruit. Some think it is those with the most Holy Ghost power yell and praise the loudest, or speak in unknown tongues, or those who make others fall down on the floor have the most power and anointing, but these are only outward things.

Think about it, any of these things can be imitated and not be real at all!  The most important gifts are the ones displayed by good works, feeding the hungry, and preaching salvation and good will and love towards others.  Discernment, the opposite of prejudicism, should be at the top of your list for what you want in life because without it you will choose the wrong things, and be missing the mark and that is sin.

My wife already visited a few churches in Bolivia with people and she commented to me that there are so many people mislead by false teachers who claim they have the exclusive only church & Holy Ghost power. Since there is no outside authority present to correct any of them, people just blindly obey and believe whatever the preacher says, turning over great sums of money which they do not have but went into debt for to please the church leaders.  This is oppression & deception!

People get trapped by these harmful divisive things not taught in the Bible by evil influencers. These are the same as the Pharisaical hypocrites who accuse, judge and condemn, and practice prejudicism and discrimination on other churches claiming they are false!

In the past I have even heard hypocrites accuse The Salvation Army of being false and not having the spirit! The good fruit in 122 countries reveals that these false Christian pretenders are wrong! All of their words are just a ploy to lead people into their trap so they can fleece the sheep of all of their wool. And I am angry and sad to see that so many people fall into this spiritual slavery, and they use Jesus name be able to exploit and to enslave others! I fear the Judgment of hell awaits them!

*To learn to not discriminate simply do not judge others but discern wisely! 24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. It was the principle of turning the gun back on the person Matthew 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. Just as Paul stated in Romans 2 1Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.

The next time you hear anyone from your family, the church, or from the politicians accuse something, you & I need to immediately wake up out of our sleep like a Pavlov bell sounding and see that that is an invitation to activate the control instrument of trying the spirits. If a person accuses another person that they do their job or mission poorly then ask them, “How much have you dedicated lately? Where is it evident something was done good or bad”?

We need to take a conscious effort to develop discernment to combat discrimination to judge righteous judgment. One person may be imperfect, but the other one speaking up might be lacking a lot more.

What we learned from the experience of Jesus encounter with the hypocritical Pharisees that their prejudice, their passing of judgment, their discrimination against him, not only was immature and  motivated by jealousy and power, it was embarrassingly Satanically evil!

We capture this truth, we must discriminate or prejudge our own selves first.  We invite in judgment to ourselves when we judge, and we should have conviction to discern the good and eschew the evil; a discrimination which is never to be confused with the good judgment of discernment.

From now on when something makes you upset, check your own heart that it is not motivated by pride, jealousy, or envy, or the contrary, motivated by a thirst for God’s standards of goodness & righteousness. We are not perfect nor totally holy yet so we all must love but also reprove ourselves and others when we see prejudice. Prayer…