Thorn in the Side

Posted by anointedplace on May 7, 2010 · 2 Comments 

We have allowed the world, Satan and our selfish pride dictate to us “the believer” how Jesus Christ‘s church should be ran. Plus we now believe that we should take authority from God the Father and make God the Holy Spirit a slave. We have inserted ourselves as rulers yet refuse to take ownership of the results of the actions of our sinful hearts. Satan has done to us what he couldn’t do to Christ in the wilderness.

Luke 4

¹Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, ²where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

³The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

⁴Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’^[a]”

⁵The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. ⁷So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”

⁸Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’^[b]”

⁹The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. ¹⁰For it is written:
” ‘He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
¹¹they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’^[c]”

¹²Jesus answered, “It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’^[d]”

¹³When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

Our thorn in our side is our pride and the tendency to reduce the Gospel to steps as well as our tendency to developing principles.  We have this desire to make the way of the faith easier to travel.  We run from trials and tribulations and spread the lie that you grow as a Christian by living a safe life free of challenges.  We hate authority and anyone who represents that authority.  We have the nerve to challenge truth and let foolishness run free.  Because in order to free ourselves of the convictions of our own sins we let others run free with theirs.  We remove accountability so we will have no standard and no sense or urgency to overcome or to be regenerated/repetitive believers.  But we need to appear genuine so we develop principles and we dare not call them rules as a way to hide the legalism of it.  My war is not on people but hearts and sin.  I give myself to Christ to use me.  So we now hide behind our knowledge and degrees in theolgy as a measurment of righteousness.  We have churches creating school to spread their doctrine and develop a christian validation factor.  They pour in princples and ignore the sinful heart problem.  They ignore the grace of God and run from election of the saints, because if a Christian dared to know that it is God who choose; they could now longer hold salvation captive behind their check list of princples and external behaviors.  Let Christ set the captives free from bondage so that God may be glorified.  We love to run to different conferences and speaking engagements yet return the same.  Just as in the early church there will be those who just love to listen and nod their heads and not get in the game (Acts 5:12-14).

2 Timothy 3

Godlessness in the Last Days

¹But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. ²People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, ⁴treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— ⁵having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

⁶They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, ⁷always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. ⁸Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. ⁹But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

Right now we boast about our thorn in the side.  We boast about who we are and what church we attend.  We boast about our degrees and what seminary we graduated from.

Jeremiah 9:23-24

²³ This is what the LORD says:
“Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches,

²⁴ but let him who boasts boast about this:
that he understands and knows me,
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,”
declares the LORD.

You can pretend that what I say is not true but you know that it is.

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