Truth Inspires

The third Restraint we can list is that of Conviction.  Using the Holy Scriptures, the invisible attributes of God (Rom. 1:20), or the proclaimed message of the gospel the Holy Spirit will move upon the heart in His office of restrainer.  It is active restraint, in that it involves how believers act or react in any given circumstance throughout their lives.  The scriptures teach us that the Holy Spirit has a job to convict or convince of sin, righteousness, and judgment: Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged (John 16:7-11). Simply put, Jesus is sayi...

In continuing the series on Restraint, today I want to look at the Restraint of Darkness. In John 3:18-21 we read: "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." Sin is a pseudo form of well-being. It clouds the mind and entangles a person so tightly in its cords that it literally chokes the life right of him; and oftentimes, the person does not know it is happening. I like to envision the forces of Hell as tentacles that are reaching up through the ground adorned with a candy-coated sweetness...

In the next few posts I would like for readers to consider the uses of restraint that are found in scripture. Starting with the Restraint of Vision I will work through five types of restraint that I see used in the scripture. The other four are The Restraint of Darkness, The Restraint of Conviction, The Restraint of Grace, and The Restraint of the Church. Shortly after Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some other women, Luke 24:10 had found the tomb miraculously empty on that first resurrection Sunday another amazing miracle occurred. It happened to the two travelling companions of the Lord as they made their way toward the nearby city of Emmaus; the Bible relates this way: Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes ...

Jesus said "...on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." (Mt. 18:18b NKJV)  Lest we forget our roots let us memorialize these eternal words of Christ who also said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away." (Mark 13:31 NKJV) Two of the awesome gifts of Christ to the world were His word and His Spirit. No other religion ever has nor ever will be able to claim these two gifts as universally given from above for the empowerment and illumination of every believer. By themselves alone they cast life changing and life generating power into every faithful believing heart. Christianity is truly unique and it's foundation secure. In Christ "we live and we move and we have or being" (Acts 17: 28a NKJV)   We, as God's faithful, must never grow weary in upholding the banner "We Shall Not Be Moved!" There was a time in history when this was not so in the lives of ...

“Who among you fears the LORD? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness And has no light? Let him trust in the name of the LORD And rely upon his God. Look, all you who kindle a fire, Who encircle yourselves with sparks: Walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled— This you shall have from My hand: You shall lie down in torment. (Isaiah 50:10-11 NKJV) At one point in my life, while living in Kansas, I moved to a somewhat secluded rural home on some beautiful land in the country. Nearby there was a small white church that was sitting on the lonely corner of a soy bean field. There was not a tree in sight and it had a circle drive that was half weeds and half gravel. The only time I ever witnessed any traffic there was, of course, on Sunday morning. There would be the usual 8-10 cars and maybe 15 on a special holiday. Year after year it was the same. It was what had become known to some as a “Family Church”. All the offices of the church were held...

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Heb 4:12 NKJV) Up to this point I have tried to discuss why I believe that many churches are suffering from lack of attendance and lack of power in the congregation. I am in no way authoritarian in the matter, but can easily see many churches sliding backwards when they should be going forward. I see communities in dire need of healing; drugs, prostitution, and all sorts of crime running rampant; innocent children in our public schools being led in a direction that often scorns God, but lifts up the beliefs of other cultures. We have allowed secularism and atheism infiltrate in often subtle ways. It is these communities we have to reach out to. Our work is harder because of the wicked spiritual defenses that the enemy has walled around so many families. However the t...

It’s been a hectic few weeks for me. But I wanted to continue the discussion on Spiritual Lethargy. In the first post I stated "The world purposely fights the teaching of God in order to release itself from His submission. Like Satan, the world wants to be its own God." If you do not believe that then read some of the comments that are posted to Christian News articles. Yesterday it was announced that a group of Chinese explorers discovered Noah's Ark on the side of Mt Ararat. Only time will tell if it is indeed true. But flood story aside, the flurry of comments trying to debunk the idea of a Literal Ark that saved Noah, his three sons, and their wives from the Great Flood are almost comical. But in reality they are very sad and pitiable. The lack of understanding about the Ark story in the scripture is very prevalent; which indeed underscores the writing of this article. Sure, we know we have an enemy on the dark side that is going to try his best to trip up God's ...

There is a spiritual crisis in America today, that I believe is near breaking point levels. What I am referring to is the spiritual bankruptcy of society. In March of 2009 The Barna Group published a survey that examined the changing worldview of Christians over the past 13 years. It can be found here: Change in Churches worldview In the article they define a Biblical Worldview as: "believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today." -Simple foundational Christian doctrine. If you believed each of the statements to be true then you were considered to hold to their definition of the biblical worldview. The results were as...

I am glad you found it! I am so excited!!! The purpose of this Blog is to uplift the "Truth" as it is given and taught through our Lord Jesus Christ. I have been under a steady conviction now for about 1 year to get this going. But because of past experience, I have become a firm believer in waiting on the Lord for His direction. It’s the only way to succeed. It’s the only way to find lasting peace. It’s the only way to be free. So here it is...12 months later and, hopefully, just in time to give and receive advice to as many as God would send this way. I have no intent on demeaning or putting anyone down for not believing in Christ. So you will never see me do that. That's a promise. I have every intent on dissecting the Scripture to expose truth and to help guide others in the way that they may see the awesome power of God and experience the peace that will never be spiritually understood by the unbelieving. God has put so many on my heart. Every day I see people ma...