A FINAL WARNING DEVOTIONAL 2023

[A FINAL WARNING DEVOTIONAL 2023]

☆ (‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭1:20‭-‬33‬ ‭NIV‬‬)
[20] Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square; [21] on top of the wall she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech: [22] “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? [23] Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings. [24] But since you refuse to listen when I call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand, [25] since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke, [26] I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when calamity overtakes you— [27] when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. [28] “Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me, [29] since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord. [30] Since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, [31] they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. [32] For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; [33] but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.”

♡ (The Great Disparity by A.W. TOZER)

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun and which in its effect upon the Christian religion may be more destructive than some corrupt worldviews combined. It is the glaring disparity between theology and practice among professing Christians.

So wide is the gulf that separates theory from practice in the church that an inquiring stranger who chances upon both would scarcely dream that there was any relation between them. An intelligent observer of our human scene who heard the Sunday morning sermon and later watched the Sunday afternoon conduct of those who had heard it would conclude that he had been examining two distinct and contrary religions.

A church conference, for instance, may listen to and applaud the most spiritual message, and twenty minutes later adopt the most carnal procedure, altogether as if they had not heard the impassioned moral appeal a few moments before. Christians habitually weep and pray over beautiful truth, only to draw back from that same truth when it comes to the difficult job of putting it in practice.

The average church simply does not dare to check its practices against Biblical precepts. It tolerates things that are diametrically opposed to the will of God, and if the matter is pointed out to its leaders they will defend its unscriptural practices with a smooth casuistry equal to the verbal dodging of the Roman moralists.

This can be explained only by assuming a lack of integration in the religious personality. There seems to be no vital connection between the emotional and volitional departments of the life. The mind can approve and the emotions enjoy while the will drags its feet and refuses to go along. And since Christ makes His appeal directly to the will, are we not justified in wondering whether or not these divided souls have ever made a true committal to the Lord? Or whether they have been inwardly renewed? It appears that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right but are not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right. So the divorce between theory and practice becomes permanent in fact, though in word the union is declared to be eternal.

Truth sits forsaken and grieves till her professed followers come home for a brief visit, but she sees them depart again when the bills become due. They protest great and undying love for her but they will not let their love cost them anything. Could this be the condition our Lord had in mind when He said, “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead?” (Rev.3:1) What can the effect be upon the spectators who live day after day among professed Christians who habitually ignore the commandments of Christ and live after their own private notions of Christianity?

Will they not conclude that the whole thing is false? Will they not be forced to believe that the faith of Christ is an unreal and visionary thing which they are fully justified in rejecting? Certainly the non-Christian is not too much to be blamed if he turns disgustedly away from The invitation of the Gospel after he has been exposed for a while to the inconsistencies of those of his acquaintance who profess to follow Christ. The deadening effect of religious make-believe on the human mind is beyond all describing.

In that great and terrible day when the deeds of men are searched into by the penetrating eyes of the Judge of all the earth what will we answer when we are charged with inconsistency and moral fraud? And at whose door will lie the blame for the millions of lost men who while they lived on earth were sickened and revolted by the religious travesty they knew as Christianity?

◇ ‭‭James‬ ‭1:22‭-‬25‬ ‭NIV‬‬
[22] Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. [23] Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror [24] and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. [25] But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
‭‭James‬ ‭2:14‭-‬18‬ ‭NIV‬‬
[14] What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? [15] Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. [16] If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? [17] In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. [18] But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.
[26] As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

□ ‭‭Titus‬ ‭1:15‭-‬16‬ ‭NIV‬‬
[15] To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. [16] They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.

#ABETTERLETTERTOAMERICA2023

[#ABETTERLETTERTOAMERICA2023]

(By Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. PORTRAYING TO BE
ST. PAUL )

I would like to share with you an imaginary letter from the pen of the Apostle Paul. The postmark reveals that it comes from the city of Ephesus. After opening the letter I discovered that it was written in Greek rather than English. At the top of the first page was this request: “Please read to your congregation as soon as possible, and then pass on to the other churches.”…

I, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to you who are in America, Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

For many years I have longed to be able to come to see you. I have heard so much of you and of what you are doing. I have heard of the fascinating and astounding advances that you have made in the scientific realm. I have heard of your dashing subways and flashing airplanes. Through your scientific genius you have been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. You have been able to carve highways through the stratosphere. So in your world you have made it possible to eat breakfast in New York City and dinner in Paris, France. I have also heard of your skyscraping buildings with their prodigious towers steeping heavenward. I have heard of your great medical advances, which have resulted in the curing of many dread plagues and diseases, and thereby prolonged your lives and made for greater security and physical well-being. All of that is marvelous. You can do so many things in your day that I could not do in the Greco-Roman world of my day. In your age you can travel distances in one day that took me three months to travel. That is wonderful. You have made tremendous strides in the area of scientific and technological development.

But America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about “improved means to an unimproved end.” How often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but through your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. So America, I would urge you to keep your moral advances abreast with your scientific advances.

I am impelled to write you concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: “everybody is doing it, so it must be alright.” For so many of you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.

But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Or, as I said to the Philippian Christians, “Ye are a colony of heaven.” This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God’s will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.

I understand that you have an economic system in America known as Capitalism. Through this economic system you have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that history has ever known. All of this is marvelous. But Americans, there is the danger that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that money can be the root of all evil. It can cause one to live a life of gross materialism. I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life. You are prone to judge the success of your profession by the index of your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile, rather than the quality of your service to humanity.

The misuse of Capitalism can also lead to tragic exploitation. This has so often happened in your nation. They tell me that one tenth of one percent of the population controls more than forty percent of the wealth. Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. If you are to be a truly Christian nation you must solve this problem. You cannot solve the problem by turning to communism, for communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. You can work within the framework of democracy to bring about a better distribution of wealth. You can use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth. God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and he has left in this universe “enough and to spare” for that purpose. So I call upon you to bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth.

I would that I could be with you in person, so that I could say to you face to face what I am forced to say to you in writing. Oh, how I long to share your fellowship.

Let me rush on to say something about the church. Americans, I must remind you, as I have said to so many others, that the church is the Body of Christ. So when the church is true to its nature it knows neither division nor disunity. But I am disturbed about what you are doing to the Body of Christ. They tell me that in America you have within Protestantism more than two hundred and fifty six denominations. The tragedy is not so much that you have such a multiplicity of denominations, but that most of them are warring against each other with a claim to absolute truth. This narrow sectarianism is destroying the unity of the Body of Christ. You must come to see that God is neither a Baptist nor a Methodist; He is neither a Presbyterian nor a Episcopalian. God is bigger than all of our denominations. If you are to be true witnesses for Christ, you must come to see that America………



I must bring my writing to a close now. Timothy is waiting to deliver this letter, and I must take leave for another church. But just before leaving, I must say to you, as I said to the church at Corinth, that I still believe that love is the most durable power in the world. Over the centuries men have sought to discover the highest good. This has been the chief quest of ethical philosophy. This was one of the big questions of Greek philosophy. The Epicurean and the Stoics sought to answer it; Plato and Aristotle sought to answer it. What is the summon bonum of life? I think I have an answer America. I think I have discovered the highest good. It is love. This principle stands at the center of the cosmos. As John says, “God is love.” He who loves is a participant in the being of God. He who hates does not know God.

So American Christians, you may master the intricacies of the English language. You may possess all of the eloquence of articulate speech. But even if you “speak with the tongues of man and angels, and have not love, you are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”

You may have the gift of prophecy and understanding all mysteries. You may be able to break into the storehouse of nature and bring out many insights that men never dreamed were there. You may ascend to the heights of academic achievement, so that you will have all knowledge. You may boast of your great institutions of learning and the boundless extent of your degrees. But all of this amounts to absolutely nothing devoid of love.

But even more Americans, you may give your goods to feed the poor. You may give great gifts to charity. You may tower high in philanthropy. But if you have not love it means nothing. You may even give your body to be burned, and die the death of a martyr. Your spilt blood may be a symbol of honor for generations yet unborn, and thousands may praise you as history’s supreme hero. But even so, if you have not love your blood was spilt in vain. You must come to see that it is possible for a man to be self-centered in his self-denial and self-righteous in his self-sacrifice. He may be generous in order to feed his ego and pious in order to feed his pride. Man has the tragic capacity to relegate a heightening virtue to a tragic vice. Without love benevolence becomes egotism, and martyrdom becomes spiritual pride.

So the greatest of all virtues is love. It is here that we find the true meaning of the Christian faith. This is at bottom the meaning of the cross. The great event on Calvary signifies more than a meaningless drama that took place on the stage of history. It is a telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity and see the love of God breaking forth into time. It is an eternal reminder to a power drunk generation that love is most durable power in the world, and that it is at bottom the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. Only through achieving this love can you expect to matriculate into the university of eternal life.

I must say goodby now. I hope this letter will find you strong in the faith. It is probable that I will not get to see you in America, but I will meet you in God’s eternity. And now unto him who is able to keep us from falling, and lift us from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, from the midnight of desperation to the daybreak of joy, to him be power and authority, forever and ever. Amen.

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INTRODUCING OUR NEW POSCAST: “NEW WINE 4 NEW WINE SKINS” AN ( ACTS 20:24 MINISTRY )

In a world of headphones, video calls and podcast. We welcome you to our newest ministry ( NEW WINE 4 NEW WINE SKINS ). We are at the height of our social media progress with more to come. Let’s continue to declare truth in a world hostile to humanity and offer the hope of NEW WINE found only in and 4 NEW WINE SKINS!!

[Pastor Rigo Winter Devotional 2022]

♤ The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Exodus 14:14 NIV

♡ (We Must Be Still to Know by A.W. Tozer)

Be still, and know that Iam God. (Psalm 46:10)
Our fathers had much to say about stillness, and by stillness they meant the absence of motion or the absence of noise or both.
They felt that they must be still for at least a part of the day, or that day would be wasted. God can be known in the tumult of the world if His providence has for the time placed us there, but He is known best in the silence. So they held, and so the sacred Scriptures declare. Inward assurance comes out of the stillness. We must be still to know.
There has hardly been another time in the history of the world when stillness was needed more than it is today, and there has surely not been another time when there was so little of it or when it was so hard to find.

Christ is every man’s contemporary. His presence and His power are offered to us in this time of mad activity and mechanical noises as certainly as to fishermen on the quiet lake of Galilee or to shepherds on the plains of Judea. The only condition is that we get still enough to hear His voice and that we believe and heed what we hear.
Some things can be learned in the din of modern life. Amid the noises we may become engineers or scientists or architects. In the humdrum we may learn how to fly a jet plane or to manage a department store. We may win an athletic contest, conduct an orchestra, earn a degree or get ourselves elected to public office. We do these things by accepting civilization at its face value and getting adjusted to it. Thus we become children of the twentieth century and our psychology takes its complexion from the times. We move as gracefully as we are able through the complicated steps of the dance of circumstance, the noise actually aiding our motion; or, not knowing where we are headed, we march with the multitude to booming music that keeps us in step and adds a bit of pleasure to the effort.
These things men can do and are doing. But when we begin to doubt the validity of a philosophy built on physical science and to question the soundness of a civilization that produced the H-bomb, and especially when we begin to grope after God if perchance we may find Him, something strange and wonderful happens. As we draw nearer to the ancient Source of our being, we find that we are no longer learned or ignorant, modern or old-fashioned, crude or cultured, white or black; in that awesome Presence we are just men. Artificial distinctions fade away. Thousands of years of education disappear in a moment and we stand again where Adam and Eve stood after the Fall, where Cain stood, and Abel, outside the Garden, frightened and undone and fugitive from the terror of the broken law.

There before the judgment seat which suddenly becomes as real to the trembling sinner as if it were the very last judgment itself, no modern religious techniques avail; none of the carefully thought-out methods work. The civilized man surrounded by his lately invented and noisy gadgets passes back in his heart through the centuries of “progress” and becomes again a terrified, whimpering human thing desperately in need of a Savior.
Because this is true, any evangelism which by appeal to common interests and chatter about current events seeks to establish a common ground where the sinner can feel at home is as false as the altars of Baal ever were. Every effort to smooth out the road for men and to take away the guilt and the embarrassment is worse than wasted; it is evil and dangerous to the souls of men.
One of the most popular current errors, and the one out of which springs most of the noisy, blustering religious activity being carried on in evangelical circles these days, is the notion that as times change the church must change with them. Christians must adapt their methods by the demands of the people.

If they want ten-minute sermons, give them ten-minute sermons. If they want truth in capsule form, give it to them. If they want pictures, give them plenty of pictures. If they like stories, tell them stories. If they prefer to absorb their religious instruction through the drama, go along with them—give them what they want. “The message is the same, only the method changes,” say the advocates of compromise.
“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad,” the old Greeks said, and they were wiser than they knew. That mentality which mistakes Sodom for Jerusalem and Hollywood for the Holy City is too gravely astray to be explained otherwise than as a judicial madness visited upon professed Christians for affronts committed against the Spirit of God.
Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. (Isaiah 6:9-10)
But, some earnest persons reason, since there is no stillness in this mechanized world we must learn to get along without it. We cannot hope to bring back the still waters and the quiet pastures where David once led his sheep. This rat race of civilization is too noisy for us to hear the still, small Voice, so we must learn to hear God speak in the earthquake and the storm. And if modern evangelism is geared to the tumult and the agitation of the times, why should anyone complain? Does it not represent an honest effort to be all things to all men that by any means some should be saved?

The answer is that the soul of man does not change fundamentally, no matter how external conditions may change. The aborigine in his hut, the college professor in his study, the truck driver in the bedlam of city traffic have all the same basic needs: to be rid of their sins, to obtain eternal life and to be brought into communion with God. Civilized noises and activities are surface phenomena, a temporary rash on the epidermis of the human race. To attribute sound values to them and then to try to bring religion into harmony with them is to commit a moral blunder so huge as to stagger the imagination, and one for which we shall surely be paying long after this frenetic extravaganza we call civilization has ended in tragedy and everlasting grief.
What certain religious teachers fail to understand is that true Christian experience takes place in the human spirit, far in and beneath the changing surface of things. It is only the surface that responds to noise and agitation. The deep-in part of the man lies in primeval silence waiting that quickening word that shall give it second birth. Because this far-in spirit of the man is separated from God the whole life is out of order; so the flesh and the imagination take over and direct the thinking, the willing and the doing of the individual man and the race of which he is a part. These create the dance macabre, the dance of death we know as society and in which as natural men we find ourselves.

Popular Christianity parrots the language of New Testament theology, but it accepts the world’s opinion of itself and sedulously apes its ways (except for a few evil practices which even the world itself admits are wrong). Then Christ is offered as something added, a Friend Up There, a Guarantor against the time when the tumult and the shouting dies and we are called in from the playground and forced to go to sleep.
Be it remembered that the great essential facts have not changed. Men are still what they were and the Son of Man is forever who and what He was. He calls to the eternal in us. Deep calls unto deep and the call, if it is heard at all, is heard by that in us which is neither savage nor civilized, old nor young, Western nor Oriental, but simply human and once made in the image of God.
It is significant that the psalm in which the words “Be still” occur is filled with noise and commotion. The earth shakes, the waters roar and are troubled, the mountains threaten to tumble into the midst of the sea, the nations rage, the kingdoms are moved and the sound of war is heard throughout the land. Then a voice is heard out of the silence saying, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

So today we must listen till our inner ears hear the words of God. When the Voice is heard, it will not be as the excited shouting of the nervous world; rather it will be the reassuring call of One of whom it was said, “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street” (Isaiah 42:2).
It cannot be heard in the street, but it may be heard plainly enough in the heart. And that is all that matters at last.

◇ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:5‭-‬7 NIV

♧ My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
James 1:19‭-‬25

A CHAPLAINS DEVOTIONAL DAY 5

(A CHAPLAINS DEVOTIONAL DAY 5)

The Human Will

◇ There is something that the Bible implies or presupposes on nearly every page, but seldom speaks of it directly. What I am speaking of is the human will.
To imply is to refer or allude to something without there being a direct reference to it. To presuppose is to suppose or assume before-hand.
Examples:

1. When I use the word “wet,” I automatically imply or presuppose the concept of “dry.” We cannot have one concept without the other. Wet has meaning only in opposite to dry. If there were no such thing as something being dry we would have no clue of what wet is. They both must exist to give each other meaning.
2. If I believe in the existence of “creation,” I automatically imply or presuppose the existence of a “creator,” since there can be no creation without a creator. Creation receives its meaning from creator.
3. If I give a command or instruction, such as the Bible does, it is implied or presupposed that there is the existence of the will. The command or instruction may appeal to the mind, emotions, or conscience but ultimately it’s up to the will not only to chose to accept the command but also to obey it – to take action. Many call it, “an act of the will.”
   When I speak of the human will I do not mean;
   Examples:
4. Desire or plan – God’s will (desire is for all to be saved)
5. Helping verb – I will go to the store
6. Last will and testament – He left his whole estate in his will.
   Definition: The will as focused in this study is the ability to make a choice and the power to carry it out.
   Examples:
7. Robots have no will since their choices are not theirs but the programmers who program them.
8. On the other hand, the Hebrew slaves in Egypt had no will in many areas of their lives. They had a choice but no power to carry it out. When this happens their will amounts to nothing more than just a desire. A slave may chose to retire from work but the slave’s owner says, “Absolutely not,” and may work the slave severely. We are made of: 1. spirit, 2. body, and 3. soul
   The soul consists of the:
9. Mind – intellect, reason
10. Emotions – desire, passions, feelings
11. Conscience – inner judge between moral right and wrong
12. Will – ability of choice and power to carry it out
    Note: all these are interconnected and influence each other. They also make up our character – who we are.

♧ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Genesis 3:1‭-‬13‭, 17-19

♤ Problems of the Soul
(As unbelievers)

1 Our minds – “The god of this age (Satan) has blinded the minds of unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Result – “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).

2. Our emotions/desires – (As a result of Adam’s sin), “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way (sin and) death came to all men” (Romans 5:12).

Result – “Every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood” (Genesis 8:21). “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). “Each one is tempted when by his own evil desire he is dragged away and enticed” (James 1:14).

3. Our conscience – “(Those who) do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their mind and conscience are corrupted” (Titus 1:15). Result – “There is a way that seems right to a man (due to his corrupted conscience) but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12).
4. Our will – “The devil who has taken them (the unbeliever) captive to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26).

Result – “You (the unbeliever) belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire” (John 8:44). Note: understanding our problem, we come to realize how hopeless we are without help. It’s at this point that many of us throw ourselves before the mercy and grace of God to save us.

♡ [ Will and Emotion in the Christian Life ]
( By: A.W..TOZER )

EMOTION, SAYS DREVER’S Dictionary of Psychology is a state of excitement or perturbation, marked by strong feeling and usually an impulse toward a definite form of behavior. “Excitement, perturbation, feeling.” These are states of mind we are all familiar with. In a world as violent and full of conflict as this these come and go, blaze up and die down in the average mans bosom a hundred times a day. The normal man and woman will in the course of a few months experience every degree of emotion from near ecstasy to mild dejection without apparently being any the better or the worse for it. Of course I have in mind here only the normal man and woman. The psychopathic personality lies outside the field of this study.

The emotions are neither to be feared nor despised, for they are a normal part of us as God made us in the first place. Indeed the full human life would be impossible without them. One recoils from the thought of the man who lacked all feeling. He would be either a cold, naked intellect such as inhabits the pages of the science-fiction novel, or a mere vegetable, such as is sometimes found in the incurable wards of our mental hospitals. The right relation of intellect to feeling and feeling to will is disclosed in Matthew 14:14. “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.” Intellectual knowledge of the suffering of the people stirred His pity and His pity moved Him to heal them. This is how it was with the ideal Man whose total organism was perfectly adjusted to itself; and this is the way it is with us in a less perfect measure. A state of emotion always comes between the knowledge and the act. A feeling of pity would never arise in the human breast unless aroused by a mental picture of others’ distress, and without the emotional bump to set off the will there would be no act of mercy. That is the way we are constituted. Whether the emotion aroused by a mental picture be pity, love, fear, desire, grief, there can be no act of the will without it.

What I am saying here is nothing new. Every mother, every statesman, every leader of men, every preacher of the Word of God knows that a mental picture must be presented to the listener before he can be moved to act, even though it be for his own advantage. God intended that truth should move us to moral action. The mind receives ideas, mental pictures of things as they are. These excite the feelings and these in turn move the will to act in accordance with the truth. That is the way it should be, and would be had not sin entered and wrought injury to our inner life. Because of sin the simple sequence of truth— feeling—action may break down in any of its three parts. The mind which is created to receive truth is often turned over to falsehood, and the feelings thus aroused may incite the will to evil action.

The contemplation of any wrong or forbidden thing cannot but inflame the feelings to sympathy with evil. A regrettable example of this was David’s long gaze at the beautiful Bathsheba in the act of bathing. The king was moved by what he saw and acted accordingly, and the bitter and tragic consequences dogged him to the end of his days. He saw, he felt, he acted, precisely as his Lord did centuries later when He healed the sick. The difference in the moral quality of the acts of the two men resulted from the difference in their feelings, and these were the result of the objects that aroused the feelings. David saw a beautiful woman; Christ saw a suffering multitude. One gaze led to sin, the other to an act of mercy; but both followed the simple law of their inner structure. Another breakdown in the truth-feeling-act sequence comes when the heart for selfish reasons deliberately hardens itself against the Word of God. This is the state of all who love darkness rather than light and for that reason either withdraw from the light altogether or when exposed to it stubbornly refuse to obey it. The covetous man looks on human need and sternly refuses to be moved by it. To yield to the impulse of generosity naturally aroused by the sight of poverty would require him to give up some of his cherished hoard, and this he will not do. So the fountain of generosity is frozen at its source. The miser keeps his gold, the poor man suffers on in his poverty and the whole course of nature is upset.

Is it any wonder that God hates covetousness? But be sure that human feelings can never be completely stifled. If they are forbidden their normal course, like a river they will cut another channel through the life and flow out to curse and ruin and destroy. The Christian who gazes too long on the carnal pleasures of this world cannot escape a certain feeling of sympathy with them, and that feeling will inevitably lead to behavior that is worldly. And to expose our hearts to truth and consistently refuse or neglect to obey the impulses it arouses is to stymie the motions of life within us and, if persisted in, to grieve the Holy Spirit into silence.

The Scriptures and our own human constitution agree to teach us to love truth and to obey the sweet impulses of righteousness it raises within us. If we love our own souls we dare do nothing else.

CHAPLAIN RIGO DEVOTIONAL

(CHAPLAIN RIGO DEVOTIONAL) FRIDAY

♧ Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18 NIV

♤ Then Daniel (also called Belteshazzar) was greatly perplexed for a time, and his thoughts terrified him. So the king said, “Belteshazzar, do not let the dream or its meaning alarm you.” Belteshazzar answered, “My Lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies and its meaning to your adversaries! The tree you saw, which grew large and strong, with its top touching the sky, visible to the whole earth, with beautiful leaves and abundant fruit, providing food for all, giving shelter to the wild animals, and having nesting places in its branches for the birds— Your Majesty, you are that tree! You have become great and strong; your greatness has grown until it reaches the sky, and your dominion extends to distant parts of the earth. “Your Majesty saw a holy one, a messenger, coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Cut down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump, bound with iron and bronze, in the grass of the field, while its roots remain in the ground. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven; let him live with the wild animals, until seven times pass by for him.’ “This is the interpretation, Your Majesty, and this is the decree the Most High has issued against my Lord the king: You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like the ox and be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes. The command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots means that your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that Heaven rules. Therefore, Your Majesty, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.” All this happened to King Nebuchadnezzar. Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven, “This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.” Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.
Daniel 4:19‭-‬33 NIV

◇( On Receiving Admonition by A.W. TOZER)

An odd little passage in the Book of Ecclesiastes speaks of “an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished.” It is not hard to understand why an old King, especially if he were a foolish one, would feel that he was beyond admonition. After he had for years given orders he might easily build a self-confident psychology that simply could not entertain the notion that he should take advice from others. His word had long been law, and to him right had become synonymous with his will and wrong had come to mean anything that ran contrary to his wishes. Soon the idea that there was anyone wise enough or good enough to reprove him would not so much as enter his mind. He had to be a foolish king to let himself get caught in that kind of web, and an old king to give the web time to get so strong that he could not break it and to give him time to get used to it so that he was no longer aware of its existence.

Regardless of the moral process by which he arrived at his hardened state, the bell had already tolled for him. In every particular he was a lost man. His wizened old body still held together to provide a kind of movable tomb to house a soul already dead. Hope had long ago departed. God had left him to his fatal conceit And soon he would die physically too, and he would die as a fool dieth. A state of heart that rejected admonition was characteristic of Israel at various periods in her history, and these periods were invariably followed by judgment. When Christ came to the Jews He found them chuck full of that arrogant self-confidence that would not accept reproof.

“We be Abraham’s seed,” they said coldly when He talked to them about their sins and their need of salvation. The common people heard Him, and repented, but the Jewish priests had ruled the roost too long to be willing to surrender their privileged position. Like the old king, they bad gotten accustomed to being right all the time. To reprove them was to insult them. They were beyond reproof. Churches and Christian organizations have shown a tendency to fall into the same error that destroyed Israel: inability to receive admonition. After a time of growth and successful labor comes the deadly psychology of self-congratulation.

Success itself becomes the cause of later failure. The leaders come to accept themselves as the very chosen of God. They are special objects of the divine favor; their success is proof enough that this is so. They must therefore be right, and anyone who tries to call them to account is instantly written off as an unauthorized meddler who should be ashamed to dare to reprove his betters. If anyone imagines that we are merely playing with words let him approach at random any religious leader and call attention to the weaknesses and sins in his organization.

Such a one will be sure to get the quick brush off, and if he dares to persist he will be confronted with reports and statistics to prove that he is dead wrong and completely out of order. “We be the seed of Abraham” will be the burden of the defense. And who would dare find fault with Abraham’s seed? Those who have already entered the state where they can no longer receive admonition are not likely to profit by this warning. After a man has gone over the precipice there is not much you can do for him; but we can place markers along the way to prevent the next traveler from going over.

Here are a few:

1. Don’t defend your church or your organization against criticism. If the criticism is false it can do no harm. If it is true you need to hear it and do something about it.
2. Be concerned not with what you have accomplished but over what you might have accomplished if you had followed the Lord completely. It is better to say (and feel), “We are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our duty to do.”
3. When reproved, pay no attention to the source. Do not ask whether it is a friend or an enemy that reproves you. An enemy is often of greater value to you than a friend because he is not influenced by sympathy.
4. Keep your heart open to the correction of the Lord and be ready to receive His chastisement regardless of who holds the whip.

The great saints all learned to take a licking gracefully – and that may be one reason why they were great saints.

♡ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
1 Peter 5:6 NIV

CHAPLAIN RIGO DEVOTIONAL

( CHAPLAIN RIGO DEVOTIONAL ) FRIDAY

◇ And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Hebrews 11:6 NIV

♤ (Faith Is a Perturbing Thing)
( by A.W. TOZER )

“Faith,” said the early Lutherans, “is a perturbing thing.” To Martin Luther goes the credit under God for having rediscovered the Biblical doctrine of justification by faith. Luther’s emphasis upon faith as the only way into peace of heart and deliverance from sin gave a new impulse of life to the decadent Church and brought about the Reformation. That much is history. It is not a matter of opinion but of simple fact. Anyone can check it.

But something has happened to the doctrine of justification by faith as Luther taught it. What has happened is not so easily discovered. It is not a matter of simple fact, a plain yes or no, an obvious black or white. It is more elusive than that and very much more difficult to come at; but what has happened is so serious and so vital that it has changed or is in the process of changing the whole evangelical outlook. If it continues it may well turn Christianity inside out and put for the faith of our fathers something else entirely. And the whole spiritual revolution will be so gradual and so innocent appearing that it will hardly be noticed.

Anyone who fights it will be accused of jousting against windmills like Don Quixote. The faith of Paul and Luther was a revolutionizing thing. It upset the whole life of the individual and made him into another person altogether. It laid hold on the life and brought it under obedience to Christ. It took up its cross and followed along after Jesus with no intention of going back. It said goodbye to its old friends as certainly as Elijah when he stepped into the fiery chariot and went away in the whirlwind. It had a finality about it. It snapped shut on a man’s heart like a trap; it captured the man and made him from that moment forward a happy love-servant of his lord. It turned earth into a desert and drew heaven within sight of the believing soul.

It realigned all life’s actions and brought them into accord with the will of God. It set its possessor on a pinnacle of truth from which spiritual vantage point he viewed everything that came into his field of experience. It made him little and God big and Christ unspeakably dear. All this and more happened to a man when he received the faith that justifies.

Came the revolution, quietly, certainly, and put another construction upon the word “faith.” little by little the whole meaning of the word shifted from what it had been to what it is now. And so insidious was the change that hardly a voice has been raised to warn against it. But the tragic consequences are all around us. Faith now means no more than passive moral acquiescence in the Word of Cod and the cross of Jesus.

To exercise it we have only to rest on one knee and nod our heads in agreement with the instructions of a personal worker intent upon saving our soul. The general effect is much the same as that which men feel after a visit to a good and wise doctor. They come back from such a visit feeling extra good, withal smiling just a little
sheepishly to think how many fears they had entertained about their health when actually there was nothing wrong with them. They just needed a rest.

Such a faith as this does not perturb people. It comforts them. It does not put their hip out of joint so that they halt upon their thigh; rather it teaches them deep breathing exercises and improves their posture. The face of their ego is washed and their self-confidence is rescued from discouragement. All this they gain, but they do not get a new name as Jacob did, nor do they limp into the eternal sunlight. “As he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him.” That was Jacob – rather, that was Israel, for the sun did not shine much upon Jacob. It was ashamed to. But it loved to rest upon the head of the man whom God had transformed.

This generation of Christians must hear again the doctrine of the perturbing quality of faith. People must be told that the Christian religion is not something they can trifle with. The faith of Christ will command or it will have nothing to do with a man. It will not yield to experimentation. Its power cannot reach any man who is secretly keeping an escape route open in case things get too tough for him.

The only man who can be sure he has true Bible faith is the one who has put himself in a position where he cannot go back. His faith has resulted in an everlasting and irrevocable committal, and however strongly he may be tempted he always replies, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”

♧ Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
Hebrews 11:1‭-‬2 NIV.

♡ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
James 2:14‭, ‬17‭-‬18‭, ‬22‭, ‬24‭, ‬26 NIV

(CHAPLAIN RIGO DEVOTIONAL)

(CHAPLAIN RIGO DEVOTIONAL) THURSDAY

◇ Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:1‭-‬2 NIV

♤ (Christ Is the Pattern)

[ BY A.W. TOZER ]

Religion correctly assumes the fluidity of human nature. It assumes that the human character is in flux and can be directed into pre-chosen channels leading to desired ends. Could human nature be shown to be static, religion would instantly lose most of its meaning. For the one thing that religious persons want most is to be changed, to be made over from what they are into something they desire to be. The Christian faith takes for granted that men should be and can be changed, and the change it sets before them is so radical as to amount to a moral transformation. The message of Christ lays hold upon a man with the intention to alter him, to mold him again after another image and make of him something altogether different from what he had been before. “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” is the injunction laid upon believing men by the apostle. Now, granted that men may be changed and that the power of God in the Gospel can change them, the important question naturally is, Into what image are they to be changed? Who or what is to be the model for them?

To this question there have been many answers given. The quasi-Christian religious philosophy so popular today answers that there is a ‘norm’ somewhere in human nature from which we have departed to a greater or lesser degree and to which we must be restored. So religion is brought in to aid in the restoration. It operates by “adjusting” the inquiring soul, first to himself and then to society. Everything depends upon this work of adjustment. Human nature, so runs the theory, is basically right and good, but it has been put out of focus by the world stresses in which it is compelled to live.

It has been warped by environment, by bad teaching and by various harmful influences, beginning at the time of its birth or before. The whole burden of this type of religious thinking is to restore the man to an image of himself. All he needs is to be made into his own likeness again, to become “a real person,” free from the warping influences of prejudice. fear and superstition. He was all right to begin with, as were his ancestors before him, and his highest present goal is to be restored, like a damaged painting, so that the hand of the master may again be discovered under the soil and grime of life.

All this sounds just cozy, but the trouble is that the underlying idea is completely false, and all the religious hopes and dreams arising from it are and must be without foundation. The message of the New Testament is bluntly opposite to this. People are not all right except for minor maladjustments. They are lost, inwardly lost, morally and spiritually lost. That has been the persistent Christian testimony from the first, and human history has shown how correct it is. There is nothing in us that can serve as a model for the new man.

Conformity to ourselves, even our better selves, can lead only to ultimate tragedy. The human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. It must have help from outside itself, from above itself, if it is to escape the gravitational pull of its own sinful nature. And this help the Gospel furnishes in full and sufficient measure.

The Gospel not only furnishes transforming power to remold the human heart; it provides also a model after which the new life is to be fashioned, and that model is Christ Himself. Christ is God acting like God in the lowly raiments of human flesh. Yet He is also man; so He becomes the perfect model after which redeemed human nature is to be fashioned. The beginnings of that transformation which is to change the believing man’s nature from the image of sin to the image of God are found in conversion when the man is made a partaker of the divine nature.

By regeneration and sanctification, by faith and prayer, by suffering and discipline, by the Word and the Spirit, the work goes on till the dream of God has been realized in the Christian heart.

Everything that God does in His ransomed children has as its long-range purpose the final restoration of the divine image in human nature. Everything looks forward to the consummation. In the meantime the Christian himself can work along with God in bringing about the great change.

Paul tells us how: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). 33

♧ We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
1 John 2:3‭-‬6 NIV

♡ That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin” : Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Ephesians 4:20‭-‬32 NIV

CHAPLAIN RIGO DEVOTIONAL

( CHAPLAIN RIGO DEVOTIONAL ) THURSDAY

♤ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16‭-‬17 NIV

◇ (To Be or To Do)
[ BY A.W. TOZER ]

Historically the West has tended to throw its chief emphasis upon doing and the East upon being. What we are has always seemed more important to the Oriental; the Occidental has been willing to settle for what we do. One has glorified the verb to be; the other, the verb to do. Were human nature perfect there would be no discrepancy between being and doing.

The unfallen man would simply live from within, without giving it a thought. His actions would be the true expression of his inner being. With human nature what it is, however, things are not so simple. Sin has introduced moral confusion and life has become involved and difficult.

Those elements within us which were meant to work together in unconscious harmony are often isolated from each other wholly or in part and tend to become actually hostile to each other. For this reason symmetry of character is extremely difficult to achieve.

Out of deep inner confusion arises the antagonism between being and doing, and the verb upon which we throw our emphasis puts us in one of the two catagories: we are be-ers or we are do-ers, one or the other. In our modem civilized society the stress falls almost wholly upon doing. We Christians cannot escape this question. We must discover where God throws the stress and come around to the divine pattern.

And this should not be too difficult since we have before us the sacred Scriptures with all their wealth of spiritual instruction, and to interpret those Scriptures we have the very Spirit which inspired them. In spite of all our opportunity to know the truth, most of us are still slow to learn. The tendency to accept without question and follow without knowing why is very strong in us. For this reason whatever the majority of Christians hold at any given time is sure to be accepted as true and right beyond a doubt.

It is easier to imitate than to originate; it is easier and, for the time being, safer to fall into step without asking too many questions about where the parade is headed. This is why being has ceased to have much appeal for people and doing engages almost everyone’s attention. Modern Christians lack symmetry.

They know almost nothing about the inner life. They are like a temple that is all exterior without any interior. Color, light, sound, appearance, motion – these are thy gods, 0 Israel. “The accent in the Church today,” says Leonard Ravenhill, the English evangelist, “is not on devotion, but on commotion.”

Religious extroversion has been carried to such an extreme in evangelical circles that hardly anyone has the desire, to say nothing of the courage, to question the soundness of it. Externalism has taken over. God now speaks by the wind and the earthquake only; the still small voice can be heard no more. The whole religious machine has become a noisemaker. The adolescent taste which loves the loud horn and the thundering exhaust has gotten into the activities of modern Christians. The old question, “What is the chief end of man?” is now answered, “To dash about the world
and add to the din thereof.” And all this is done in the name of Him who did not strive nor cry nor make His voice to be heard in the streets (Mat. 12:18-21).

We must begin the needed reform by challenging the spiritual validity of externalism. What a man is must be shown to be more important than what he does. While the moral quality of any act is imparted by the condition of the heart, there may be a world of religious activity which arises not from within but from without and which would seem to have little or no moral content. Such religious conduct is imitative or reflex. It stems from the current cult of commotion and possesses no sound inner life.

The message “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” needs to be restored to the Church. We must show a new generation of nervous, almost frantic, Christians that power lies at the center of the life. Speed and noise are evidences of weakness, not strength. Eternity is silent; time is noisy. Our preoccupation with time is sad evidence of our basic want of faith.

The desire to be dramatically active is proof of our religious infantilism; it is a type of exhibitionism common to the kindergarten.

♧ The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
Isaiah 29:13 NIV

♡ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
1 Corinthians 6:19‭-‬20 NIV