Introspective

The other day a bunch of the youth watched a movie on someone’s laptop called “The Last Battle” I guess it’s a Portuguese made movie with recorded over English. I didn’t see it, but one of the other SMs was explaining it to me. I guess it’s about the end times and about choosing Christ and standing up for truth, especially the Sabbath.

Kevin and I have been looking at the Sabbath recently and it really is amazing how important it is. But the thing that was impressive to me was that the next night we had prayer meeting and one of the youth leaders gave a whole sermon on the importance of standing up for truth and choosing Christ, and following Christ 100%, not just 50%. Not even 99%; 100%.

And I don’t know this culture well enough to know what they know and how far they’ve studied into the bible, but even though I couldn’t understand everything that was said, I just pray for these people. How cool is it to have them aware of standing strong for their faith and really thinking that is important and pushing to practice that. I just pray for the Holy Spirit to impress on them.

I’m curious about the end times, especially here in the mountains. I wonder what kind of trials they will have. It doesn’t really seem like they need to run to the hills, we are pretty far in them already. I wonder if they will experience persecution like I imagine it will be in established countries and cities like America. I wonder if they will struggle more with being temped to go back to the animistic mindset when things start happening. Unless the worldview is completely changed, I imagine that will really hit this kind of people hard. I don’t know very much about this culture, but it is amazing to see them want to drive ahead in truth. I pray that for friends and family back at home as well.

It’s so important to know what we believe and why, back it with the bible and really start living what we believe. I’m finding that that is pretty rare. It’s too bad that even fellow Christians and Adventists view standing firm and really living out faith is viewed as fanatical. Is it really so fanatical to follow the truths of the bible?

And that means that we really need to ask for divine spiritual discernment and seek truth. The Devil has done such a job twisting truth, even in the bible. Taking part and not the whole resulting in detrimental doctrines. Cheap grace, the prosperity gospel, eternal hell fire, the belief of the rapture. That obedience is a mean word and God’s mercy is more prominent than his justice. That we can pick and choose what we want to follow. That we worship God the way WE want to worship him instead of asking Him how he wants to be worshiped. Taking what’s holy and making it plain. Not truly thinking on what is PURE, noble, of good report, and putting things in our minds that has underlying lies and things that deaden our senses and thinking that because we are Christians and know truth that we are immune to not being affected by those things like TV and music. Are these things pure? Truly pure? Pure gold doesn’t have specks of wood and rock in it. It is truly pure gold. How much of the entertainment is truly pure?

I am in the process of really re-evaluating these things for myself and I really encourage you all to do the same. If we can truly humble ourselves and not get so defensive when we are condemned, I think the Holy Spirit could work much more in our lives. If a condemnation has no ground, it will not stand. But if it does, we only have righteousness to gain.

Whether the Lord is coming in a few years to many, we don’t know, but we are told to watch and be ready. Why would we not want to live our lives as if we aren’t ready? Do you want the Lord’s coming to wait? If so, ask yourself why? By the grace of God, he is if anything tarrying so that he may draw in as many as possible. Why make Him tarry? These are very personal issues that we need to be taking personally. We can’t use the excuse that “Well, this is just the way I am.” Isn’t that like saying Jesus is not strong enough to change me into a holy and blameless being? That his death on the cross is all in vain? Take this seriously. Salvation depends on it.