GOD’S TRUTH IS NOT OURS

One of the truths about Christianity that calls to my soul is that it’s not about “feeling good,” it’s about knowing the Truth, and choosing to let the Truth set us free by embracing the way God’s love for us doesn’t leave us the same when we choose the Truth and reject the world’s lies.

Truth, with a capital “T,” is God’s Truth. Not the world’s “truth” which is really just a caricature of Truth; a subjective, commercialized ideation any individual or group would prefer to believe in apart from what is attributed to God’s divine character.

SELFISH AMBITION OVER GOD’S AUTHORITY

By “attributed to God’s divine character,” what I mean is that Truth, in itself, is a part of God’s character. To take subjective truth away from God’s Truth is to create a lie out of the Truth. We do this every time we want to justify any ungodly desire of our flesh in order to make it appear more reasonable to use free will to choose selfish ambition over God’s authority.

Our desire for the world’s truth is made greater every time we seek any sensationalized experience solely in pursuit of an endorphin rush; a vain pursuit aimed (whether conscientiously or subconsciously) towards reinforcing the right (and the preference) to choose evil instead of good. Furthermore, this integrates the devil’s idea into our minds and souls that choosing our own way is better and more idealistic than choosing the ways of any crooked religious affiliation.

INESCAPABLE HAPPINESS IS A LIE

What I love about Christianity is that it’s not “Every day is a Friday.” It’s not about being happy all the time. Speaking of truth—no one is happy all the time! It’s just not realistic. With so much adversity, demonic oppression, loss and suffering all over the world, one must make a choice to believe (and—more importantly—to trust) in something bigger than themselves, or get lost in the stress of maneuvering through a world trying to steal each other’s identities, starting nuclear wars, and cutting Jesus and God out of any and all institutions where reverential fear of His authority has kept evil at bay.

Constant happiness is simply unachievable. We could literally drive ourselves crazy repeating phrases in our minds to force ourselves into believing a truth that isn’t actually true—but even that wouldn’t produce happiness, it would only make us delusional. There’s no plausible way to sustain feelings of happiness in this life as a result of all the sin and evil.

But that is where faith in Jesus as Lord comes in.

THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN IS JESUS

With Christianity, I’ve found that I don’t have to be happy all the time. I find joy in knowing that I don’t have to be!

Psalm 30:5 says:

“Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Even the Bible acknowledges there is pain and suffering (for that matter, and for some period of time—no happiness), but the hopeful reassurance is that joy is coming. Indeed, those words were written long before Jesus ever came on the scene, so joy itself came to us after those words were written; Jesus Christ has become the very joy for every Christ-follower ever since!

PURSUING GOD’S KINGDOM INSTEAD OF HAPPINESS

Joy is what faith in Jesus as Lord brings to every follower who knows God’s character and believes in his heart that God is in control. It doesn’t mean we’re supposed to be happy all the time. The reason Christians aren’t looking for happiness and choose to seek the Kingdom of God instead is because we already understand there will be trouble in this life—Jesus warned us of this is John 16:33! Experiencing adversity in this life is part of being human, but it’s especially a part of being Christian.

OUR PURPOSE IS TO KNOW & GLORIFY GOD

This is why preaching the “prosperity Gospel” is so noxious and anti-biblical: people are brought into faith with a shallow and tainted understanding that God is okay with His children having an abundance of money… but they miss the bigger point that God isn’t okay with them turning money into their god.

People who think of God like a genie misunderstand His character: He doesn’t exist to give us whatever we want; we exist to experience His glory, His presence, His purposes for us… we exist to honor Him and revere Him with every aspect of our lives.

When a Christian understands God’s character, they understand we exist to bask in God’s goodness and experience His presence in true intimacy. We exist to experience God in the spirit and to be a living testimony of His impact on our lives and His love in our hearts. Our relationship with God should be a reflection to other believers and to nonbelievers alike—of the reality that the God of Heaven is more real than anything else we could ever hope for.

CHRISTIANITY WAS BORN WITH THE RESURRECTION

Choosing Jesus means choosing His Lordship (over all others), which also means choosing to live a life that invites the same or at least similar persecution that He did while on earth.

Let’s be real: Christianity wasn’t bought with smiles, hugs, and ‘thank yous’—it was paid for with the blood of Jesus on the cross.

If there was no death, resurrection wouldn’t have been a miracle; if there was no resurrection, Christianity would have stayed in the grave! Jesus had to suffer and die in order to rise—in order for Christianity to have a solid foundation. Let me reiterate: Christianity isn’t about happiness any more than it wasn’t created by politeness and holding back the Truth in a world hiding evil in the dark.

A CALL TO ARMS

Christianity isn’t a feel-good religion, it’s a call to arms for those with eyes to see rampant spiritual warfare happening every day all over the world, and the ears to discern all the deceptive, false teachings being delivered in many churches. It’s a call to arms that if we want to be part of the church (the churches teaching Truth and not “truth”), we need to be willing to put our lives on the line for the Truth of God in Christ, which acknowledges having such bold, unapologetic faith places a target on our back for spiritual attack that no other faith would receive such a threat for.

THE POWER OF THE NAME OF JESUS

The power of the light of Christ is the biggest threat to the devil, and the devil has been hard at work for thousands of years trying to capture as many souls into hell as he can. No other faith produces the threat level of Christianity to the kingdom of darkness. No other faith has the power of the name of Jesus. No other name under Heaven will cause a demon to hiss or scream but the name of Jesus Christ.

ONLY FIRE-HOT FAITH WORRIES THE DEVIL

For those who only take notice of Christianity if it’s made to sound easy and child-friendly, it’s clear their understanding of who Jesus was and is, and what He did in our behalf, is either grossly misunderstood—or devastatingly rejected.

One thing is sure: There’s no such thing as an authentic, pretty-looking Christian faith.

It’s either fire-hot faith anticipating and living for the Kingdom of Heaven to come down through us as followers of Jesus (Revelation 3:16), or what we have is simply just not going to cause any problems for the devil or his fallen angels.

Let’s be real again: The kingdom of darkness isn’t worried about lukewarm Christians who don’t talk about God or Jesus outside the four walls of a church building. The devil’s worried about those actually living the faith, because the gates of hell won’t see as many souls entering when the damned meet faithful followers of Christ effectively calling out evil with the authority of His name!

POUNDING ON THE WALLS OF THE SPIRITUAL REALM

Jesus promises to be with us to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), but He doesn’t promise that our journey will be light, without burdens, or void of threats from the unseen realm manifesting themselves in the physical realm. Christians are being attacked because of the spiritual world’s demonic opposition to the power of the light of Christ in our faith.

The spiritual attacks we endure have nothing to do with chance, coincidence, being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or the type of people we think we are; rather, they have everything to do with what we believe in and what our beliefs are causing us to do in this life that provoke backlash from the spiritual realm.

IT ALWAYS STARTS WITH WHETHER WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR SIN

Believe it or not, the destination of our faith directly corresponds with the type of life we lead here on earth, which has a direct impact on the eternal destination we choose. Hell is not an accident, it’s a decision that starts with first choosing not to view ourselves as sinful. In the very least, we must recognize with humility that we struggle with resisting the urge to choose ourselves before choosing to love a hurting world. Our realization of our sin is always the first step towards recognizing our need for Jesus.

If we can’t, or worse—won’t—realize our sin, we really don’t stand a chance in seeing the relevance of Jesus; therefore we won’t view His example or His death or resurrection any more seriously than Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, or Big Foot.

SO REAL, WE REQUIRE SPIRITUAL ARMOR TO STAY IN THE FIGHT

Christianity is so serious, we’re literally given spiritual armor and encouraged by Paul to put it on before facing the demonic realm (Ephesians 6:13-17). We’re told to put on the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the boots of peace, the sword of the spirit, and the helmet of faith.

Why would we need the armor for a ‘feel-good’ religion that treats faith like God is “only love”—as if we should all just do whatever makes us feel happy? Very clearly, these fallacious, worldly ideological concepts are not founded in Christianity. We are called to prepare for war, because we don’t always face opposition in the form of guns, knives, or swords; most times (and there is always demonic attack behind the scenes, forcing the hand of the gun, knife, or sword as well) it is the powers of this dark world, and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms that we’re fighting against.

A gun can’t shoot a spirit, but prayer in the name of Jesus can.

OWNING THE POWER OF THE SOLUTION TO THE WAR

I love Christianity because it advises us with the Truth against a world we cannot see but which is actually there. It arms us for battling against the unseen realm in ways we couldn’t possibly comprehend. And I love how it feels knowing Christianity acknowledges the evil in the world, calling it out and giving us not only the solution to it, but the power of the solution.

If the solution is Jesus, then the power is the gift of the Holy Spirit given to us when we place our trust in Jesus as Lord.

Upon being reborn, we have the authority of Jesus’ name to cast out evil and declare its return to the pit of hell. We do it fearlessly because we are children of God who choose righteousness over hedonism, and we serve Jesus and not the world. When we fall short, we repent and turn back, realizing His glory far outshines our fallenness, every time.

PICK UP OUR OWN CROSS & PRAY FOR THE CLOSED-HEARTED

We need only be humbled before the cross and realize we don’t need every day to be a Friday. We aren’t being called by God to pursue happiness. We have been commanded to pick up our cross and follow Jesus back to eternal life in the Kingdom of God, which all begins with our decision to put our old selves away, and to put on our new self in Jesus (Matthew 16:24, Ephesians 4:22-24).

We need not look back at those who obstinately resist the invitation of God to be free of sin, who decisively want to cater to their own desires unashamedly and without remorse. They are in need of our prayers, the grace of God, and of a softened heart; not our vain attempts to sway them when they’re unwilling to see their lostness.

NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

Let the dead bury the dead and let prayer for their souls be as close as we come to companionship with others living in fallenness and depravity.

Christianity isn’t for the faint of heart. We’re being persecuted. Many of us have already been martyred in today’s world. It’s not a prosperity religion, it’s a faith walk where we choose God over the world, even if it means sacrifice (John 15:13), loving our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48); making things right with our brothers before coming to the altar (Matthew 5:24); forgiving our neighbor seventy times seven times (Matthew 18:21-22), and dying to ourselves in order to find our life in Jesus (Matthew 16:25). These aren’t easy topics or concepts, and yet they are the framework and foundation of the Christian faith.

PUT ON YOUR SPIRITUAL ARMOR, KNOW THE WORD OF GOD, AND FIGHT

There is no Christianity without realizing our sin, repenting of it, and turning away towards the freedom of knowing God personally, intimately, and eternally through the righteousness of His Son. There is no other way (John 14:6), and it’s not the way of always being happy.

It’s the way of carrying joy in our hearts, confidence in our souls, and putting on the armor of God to protect us on our way through trials and tribulations. We are the Church of the living God, and there is a war to fight.

Are we ready?

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