Truth Inspires

Ezra 9:4  Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel assembled to me, because of the transgression of those who had been carried away captive, and I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice . This passage, although not the most quoted by any means, is a very powerful picture of a society, culture, or nation ( ἔθνος- ethnos) that is inviting destruction if things are not set aright. Ezra the leader of Israel and priest and scribe of God (Ezra 7:11) is literally torn at the heart that his people could fall so quickly into the abominations of the past that had invited the destruction of foreign nations upon them. What abominations am I referring to but the intermarriage of one ethnic group with another. To most today that sounds so archaic. I mean what is wrong with a Japanese woman marrying a German? Or a Russian marrying a Scot? The biblical answer is nothing, really, unless the marriage involves something much greater than two ethnicities intermarry...

Eric Metaxas has written a very good piece titled, "We Might as Well Be Holy" that I am linking for all to read. In a nutshell he reveals the obvious: Christians will not win over the world or others to Christ by acquiescing to it; it does not work. So we (Christians) are left with one conclusion, "We might as well be Holy" like God has asked us to be, (see 1 Pet. 1:15-16). Of course the position one will take in response to the article will be determined by whether they care enough for the Word of God, whether they truly value their relationship to Jesus, and the amount of concern they place on lost souls. Not meeting any one of those prerequisites on the level that Christ desires makes the point of "Being Holy" a moot one. If that is the case one could be characterized as falling into the category of being rendered useless for God's work: "They will appear to have a godly life, but they will not let its power change them." The Bible goes...

In the Bible there are several sexual sins that are categorized under the term,"Sexual Immorality." Not the least of these is, "Fornication." However fornication has become an outdated, and in many places, the acceptable sin in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As a matter of fact, many do not even know what the term "fornication" means. Since the advent of the modern Bible translation, many have never heard of it. This article focuses on what the Scripture says about this out-of-control acceptable sin. Fornication is mentioned thirty-six times in the Bible (MT), thirty-two times in the New Testament. In almost all modern translations the word has been substituted with, "sexual immorality" and has come to mean any number of sexual sins. However, sin (missing the mark) is still sin and sin still separates a person from God. So why has this sin become so acceptable even in modern churches???? UPDATE : Here is a testimony of life...