Christ Centered

"And the Lord wasn't joking

When He kicked 'em out of Eden
It wasn't for no reason

That He shed His bloodHis return is very close

And so you better be believing that
Our God is an awesome God!"

-Awesome God, Rich Mullins

Devotion use to be a notion of being devoted religious to God. In today's world devotion now extends to politics, sports, social issues, health, entertainment, and more. It seems people are ready to pledge allegiance to anything, from the die hard sports nuts with painted faces to the environmental activists protesting emissions, there are causes to be had everywhere. And yet with the upsurge of devotion to all these things, there is a decline in the only One worth being devoted to. Today the eastern religions have stuck back, ensnaring people with their movies, yoga, and slow emersion of westerners through the Kardashians (Kim is an Arab), the Arab looking Jesus in Risen and almost every film now, even with Joseph and Mary (2016), a film staring Kevin Sorbo that has a young Jesus wearing a fezz cap, a red hat that Muslim Turks wore to flaunt that they slaughter Christians! Why would anyone put such a cap on Christ?! The Eastern invasion has added to Baal, Mammon, and Babylon The Great a plethora of other gods like Shiva, Allah, Ishtar (Ashteroth, Queen of Heaven) and other foreign gods in a nations that were suppose to be Christendom, and even in case of America, The New Israel. Just like Israel we face before us a important decision. Whom do we serve? The Prophet Elijah posed this question to Israelites, and their answer was what I would expect many in America, Europe, and other parts of Christendom would respond, "Then Elijah stood in front of them and said, "How much longer will you waver, hobbling between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him! But if Baal is God, then follow him!" But the people were completely silent." (1 Kings 18:21). Similarly, the Prophet Jeremiah encountered the same problem with the Israelites, women complaining that since they left Ashteroth Queen of Heaven (Aphrodite, Isis, Ishtar, Easter, and Roman Catholic Mary Queen of Heaven), "Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning sacrifices to other gods, and all the women who were standing by, a large group, including all the people who were living in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah, saying, “As for the word (message) that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not going to listen to you. But rather we will certainly perform every word of the vows we have made: to burn sacrifices to the queen of heaven (Ishtar) and to pour out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves and our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for [then] we had plenty of food and were prosperous and saw no misfortune. But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” And said the wives, “When we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and were pouring out drink offerings to her, was it without [the knowledge and approval of] our husbands that we made cakes [in the shape of a star] to represent her and pour out drink offerings to her?” Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and to the women and to all the people who had given him that answer, ²¹ “The smoking sacrifices (incense) that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem—you and your forefathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land—did not the Lord remember [in detail your idolatry] and did it not all come into His mind? The Lord could no longer endure it, because of the evil of your acts and the repulsive acts which you have committed; because of them your land has become a ruin, an object of horror and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day. Because you have burned sacrifices [to idols] and because you have sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord or walked in His law and in His statutes and in His testimonies, therefore this tragedy has fallen on you, as it has this day.” (Jeremiah 44:18-23). It is with shame that we name the celebration of our Lord Jesus' Christ Resurrection Easter, which is Eastre, or Ishtar, the very queen of heaven that Jeremiah and Lord rebuke in Jeremiah Chapter Forty Four! That is why I call it Resurrection Day, not Easter! Honor belongs to Lord Jesus Christ who is God incarnate, not the fallen angel Ishtar! she deserves to be dishonored and reviled!  

I am of the belief that the Church and many Christians today would be guilty like women of Ishtar (queen of heaven) who abandoned their gods only to offer them incense again, or worse many have abandon Jesus in sole devotion and started becoming polytheists, enjoying the fruits of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Baha'ism, Shintoism, New Age, Occultism, Kabala, and more. I shout as the Prophet Elijah did to today's Church, "How much longer will you waver, hobbling between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him! But if Baal is God, then follow him! The Israelites in response were completely silent" (1 Kings 18:21). But will the response be the same, silence? The truth is many in Church do not want to give up their other gods, they love their Yoga (which means to be yoked to Brahmin, god of Hinduism, and all the positions worship the gods of Hinduism and Asian gods), Zumba (African tribalism), Native American Spirtism via dream catchers, and more. If it isn't these gods, many Westerns serve Mammon (god of money), Baal (war god), Minerva (goddess of wisdom, pride of intellect), and Ishtar (queen of heaven, especially Roman Catholic Church, but she is generally a war goddess and sexual goddess, fertility, with the sexual revolution and obsession with sex and pornography in the west being a fruit of hers for sure).

As Christians we are called to only serve One God, the Lord God, The Trinity (Genesis 1:3, John 14:6-8, Matthew, Matthew). Jesus Christ is the fullness of Godhead (Colossians 2:9) and is supreme over all (Colossians 1:10-18, Hebrews 1:1-28). We are suppose to be devoted to Him, the same God Elijah (Elijah along with Moses even meets with Jesus at the Transfiguration, see Matthew 17:1-11) and Jeremiah worshipped and was called to be prophet by the Lord, which means Jeremiah was called by Christ for Jesus is the Lord (Romans 10:9). The Prophets foretold Christ would come, that He would show us, mankind the paramount of devotion and love by dying on Cross for our sins, gaining us admittance into heaven, breaking sin's power over us, and making us close to God again (Ephesians 2:13, Ephesians 2:18, Ephesians 3:12, Romans 5:1, Colossians 1:12, Colossians 1:22). Christ Jesus gave His life for us, showed us how devoted He who is God is, to become a man and die the most gruesome and excruciating death, and even being tortured with clubs that have cords of glass and metal hooks in being scourged (John 19:1). Jesus asks us in return for His free gift of salvation (Ephesians) to believe in Him, and give Him our lives; to live for Him (Matthew 16:25, 2 Corinthians 5:15, John 6:41-71). This means to put everything else to death, to count everything as worthless but Christ, "But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ--yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me [Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own]. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have laid hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should embrace this point of view. And if you think differently about some issue, God will reveal this to you as well. Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ [But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior], who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself." (Phillippians 3:8-21). The Apostle Paul tells us that this is the mature view to have! To count all things lost except knowing Christ Jesus is the mature Christian view (Philippians 3:15).

We are meant to live Christ centered lives! This means we must discard every other god, flesh desire, and opposition to Him! Our devotion must be absolute and total, just as Christ has absolutely saved us and given us total forgiveness! We cannot be half hearted, and lukewarm, for Christ demands we be hot or cold, "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold (invigorating, refreshing) nor hot (healing, therapeutic); I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm (spiritually useless), and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth [rejecting you with disgust]. Because you say, “I am rich, and have prospered and grown wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked [without hope and in great need]" (Revelation 3:15-17). I fear as the Apostle Paul did, that many in church will be led astray, "But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ/But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent." (2 Corinthians 11:3). Many brothers and sisters are being seduced by the serpent Satan (Revelation 12:9) and his other fallen angels (Revelation 12:7-9) through there paganisms, eastern religions, mysticisms, secret societies, sorceries, and affiliation with other beliefs that are not the True Gospel. The Church is in risk of sinking into a chasm, and being spewed from Christ's mouth if it continues to try and serve the Lord and Baal or the Lord and Mammon (money), for Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money (Mammon, god of money, see Ezekiel 28, its actually Satan, hence why Paul says, the love of money is the root of all evil in 1 Timothy 6:10)." (Matthew 6:24). You must decide, are you devoted to the One True God, Jesus Christ or to the others? You cannot sit on the fence or place one foot in heaven and one in hell, decide!

"And the Lord wasn't joking

When He kicked 'em out of Eden
It wasn't for no reason

That He shed His bloodHis return is very close

And so you better be believing that
Our God is an awesome God!"

-Awesome God, Rich Mullins