Wednesday, February 12, 2014

ARE YOU DENYING THE TRUTH

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT DIES AFTER SETTING HIMSELF ON FIRE!

DID THIS GET YOUR ATTENTION?  GOOD!

      This message is actually about denial and the end times. Denial is a subject that is usually found and discussed in addiction recovery programs, where I've been involved as an addiction recovery mentor for 30 years. That position has allowed me an opportunity to closely and intimately observe and evaluate the behavior of thousands of individuals from all walks of life, and in every circumstance imaginable. People from all Faiths, and of no faith. From Christians to atheists, and everything in between. People from many different cultures and nationalities, young and old. People struggling with every conceivable addiction there is. People who are just starting their addiction recovery and people who have been involved in it for their entire lifetimes. People who have found some success, and others who relapse over and over again. Nearly 30 years of face to face, eye to eye contact and communication, not from a distance, over the internet as I’ve been doing more recently. No matter who was sitting across the room or table from me, we all shared one mutual and common emotional demon that controlled our addictions, a part of human nature known as denial. I’ve come to recognize that denial doesn’t just exist in the area of addictions, but in every aspect of our lives! Denial is an emotional form of human nature based on the truth as we see and understand it. Some people see a bright, beautiful, blue sky as grey and cloudy, not because they’re color blind, but because they’re unhappy and living in a state of depression, and in denial of the truth. Others see a grey, dreary, cloudy day and rejoice that they’re alive to enjoy it!  

       I believe as a Christian, that it all begins with God’s all defining absolute Truth. Since God IS The Truth, we either belong to Him, believe in Him, trust in Him, and follow Him, or DENY Him! If we choose to DENY Him, we have nothing! God’s Truth is split into right and wrong. We’ve always known right from wrong according to man’s laws, now, as Born Again Christians, we know it according to God’s Sovereign Truth. Titus 1:16, “They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” As Christians, we cannot deny, or even question any element of God’s Sovereign Word, or we’re denying Him and questioning His authority in our lives! As Saved, born again Christians in addiction recovery, God’s Truth has been revealed to us, and we can no longer claim our “drunkenness” as anything but sin. (Gal.5:19-21) We must repent according to Acts 26:20, “First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.” That means that we must turn from the denial that has kept us in our addictions, and turn from the denial of any of God’s Truth as He has revealed it to us. This may seem like a giant task to some, but if we’re born again, we’ve received The Holy Spirit to help us, and He will convict us every time we slip up, and it’s up to us to act upon that conviction and repent, or “deny” The Truth!

      Now back to the original purpose of this message, “denial,” and how it applies to every aspect of our lives every day of our lives. The above headlines were in our newspaper recently and turned my stomach! During the past year there have been a number of heinous, tragic, and unimaginable news events, and other ridiculously immoral and indecent events that should have created public outcries, yet instead have been met with almost muted reaction! All of these events have led me to write a variety of musings about them to post on public media, which have also been met with little if any reaction. This leads me to believe, or really to confirm an idea that I’ve had for quite some time, that we’re living in a time and culture which first, is in total denial, and second, in complete apathy to the state of disarray that the world is in. Not long after I became clean and sober 30 years ago, and soon after became a born again Christian with God’s Truth revealed to me, I began to wonder if it was possible that the air we were breathing was so polluted with second hand marijuana smoke, that the entire populace were stoned! Or was it possible that generations of alcoholics and drug addicts and pot heads could have passed down genes to create a whole generation of “lost souls”? For those who are unaware of the damage that drugs and alcohol does to the human being, let me say this from 25 years of firsthand experience, whenever a person is drunk on alcohol, high on drugs, or stoned on pot, our minds are in a fog! Period! The entire world today, from top to bottom, appears to be living in a deep, thick fog! The entire world today appears, acts, and performs as if it were in a drunken stupor! When a high school student is so despondent, and his depression goes completely unnoticed until he commits suicide in front of his friends and classmates in the school cafeteria by setting himself on fire, we are clearly living in the very end times!
   
      As a Christian I fully understand that these are all signs of the end times, but I’m surprised and disappointed that there aren’t more Christians challenged and acting on, or fulfilling the words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” I’m certainly seeing a much clearer perspective of the words and message in Matthew 7:13-14, 13, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14, But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”  As Christians living in the end times, there is little we can do to prevent headlines in the news like those we’ve been seeing recently, but we can do, and are in fact “commanded” “to go,” and share The Good News of The Gospel of Jesus Christ with all those who don’t know God’s Truth. And we can pray for all the victims of these tragedies, that they may see God’s hand in them as part of that Truth! Or, we can continue living in denial ourselves of The Truth, and hope that someone’s praying for us!  

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