by David Brenneman
"Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:10-17.
"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name." 1 Peter 4:12-16.
So many shake their head at the evils in this world and aren't aware that the levels of evil are increasing.
So many Believers have a very strong misconception about the things that they're going through.
The two are very much connected and are even at times intertwined.
I am not really surprised at all that what Paul said about Scripture was preceded by talk about the people of this world and as history showed he was speaking of evil within the Church.
Satan's schemes get permission from God to be used, do you not realize that? Satan's got a tremendous intellect and nothing but evil to back it up. When permitted we see levels of evil that are worse than what was seen even a few years ago.
Several times in the Scriptures we read of the evil people within the Church. That hasn't changed in the centuries since these books were first written. Evil people exist within the Church today...it's just that those leading those particular groups of people aren't willing to do whatever Scripture says to do to deal with them. So their evil influence persists. With the result that the people are lead astray and such church leadership will have much to explain before Jesus for why they truly feared man rather than God.
We're going to face storms in life. We went over that in an earlier post. We have our orders, so to speak, on what is to be our focus on living life in the face of such storms.
Some use an acronym "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth" for Bible. Basic Instructions Before Living Eternally or something like that makes more immediate sense for more immediate application. We are to be in God's Word daily to learn how to live NOW not just for whatever is to come and for after we are Raptured.
We aren't studying the Bible for the sake of doing so. We're learning what the character of Christ is so that we can live life in like manner.
We will sometimes be the ones facing evil head-on. Sometimes we deal with the effects of evil. Sometimes within the Church sometimes outside of it. But we will run into it.
Some of Satan's schemes we give him credit for that have nothing to do with him. It's stuff that convinced ourselves to do or be like. We choose to either forgiveness or we don't. We choose to overlook the sins of others or we don't. We choose to hold a grudge or we choose to let it go. We choose to do things and bear the ramifications of them. Satan had nothing to do with it...it's our own inexperienced life in Christ because we're not doing more to live a life that honors Christ. We choose bad choices and blame it on anyone or anything but ourselves.
We do these intentional things because we're either intentionally avoiding what God's Word says or we're too ignorant with regards to what God's Word says.
We have our Instructions in the Lord. It's all there in black and white for us to read and take to heart. We don't know the kingdom impact we could be having by our obedience rather than our current view that is tainted by our disobedience.
You, my Dear Reader, are either living in obedience or you're not.
While it's a certainty that evil men and women will proceed from bad to worse...it's just as certain that you will give an account of your life before Jesus.
Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.
Quit with the excuses and get into the Word of God so that you'll be adequate, equipped for every good work.
All NASB Scripture Excerpts used by permission.
New American Standard Bible
(C) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation.
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