The Simplest of Equations

How is it that we always seem to find topics of conversation that focus on anything other than Jesus within the church nowadays? How is it that we make time to have pointless, useless debates over issues that the Bible has already settled, but fail to find the time to concentrate on the risen Christ, and the message of the cross?

When real world examples do not exist, we start to spin hypothetical webs, asking the same redundant questions over and over again, just in a different context, as though making someone an usher and not a choir leader excuses a sin which they’ve chosen as their identity and refuse to repent of.

Sin is sin whether it’s committed by the pastor, the deacon, or the person sitting in the last pew.

Sin of which men do not repent separates said men from God, whether their chosen televangelist insists that they’ve been given a waiver, or their chosen denomination chooses to embrace it as wholesome.

God is not beholden to denominations. God is not beholden to televangelists. God is not beholden to anyone or anything, because everything other than God is creation, He is creator, and therefore He need not debase Himself in any way to either humor us or indulge us.

There is finality to what God established in His Word. There are absolutes over which men cannot gloss though they have tried, and continue to try with rabid ferocity.

I still find it laughable that we believe we can dictate terms to God, and if a handful of lost souls in a dying denomination decides something, then God must do as they decide or else.

I’ve said it before, and I will continue to repeat it until it either connects or you get weary of reading what I write and no longer visit this blog: men either love God more than their sin and part ways with their sin, or they love their sin more than they love God and as such find some huckster somewhere to offer them fire insurance and tell them they can be waved through the pearly gates without ever having been washed in the blood of the Lamb, without having gone and sinned no more, without having broken ties with the darkness and having embraced the light of truth and righteousness.

Men can say all sorts of things, and if there is a financial incentive in there somewhere they will be insistent upon the deception they try to force feed you, contending that those feelings of something not being quite right are due to the bigoted society we live in, and not due to the urging of the Holy Spirit to repent and be reconciled unto God.

How can you not feel obliged to bless the individual who insisted that you need not go through the trouble of repenting of your sins? How can you not feel obliged to bless the individual who insisted everyone goes to heaven regardless, even your long lost pets? How can you not feel obliged to bless the individual who essentially gave you license to live as the world and still cling to the illusion of being saved, sanctified, and heaven bound?

It’s like sending a muffin basket to the doctor who told you that you don’t have heart disease even though you do.

‘Thanks doc, I know the tests came out all wrong and it seemed like I only had a few months to live, but you reinterpreting them and telling me they’re not so bad after all really took a load off.’

Sin kills. It has a 100% mortality rate if not repented of. The reason so much of the New Testament focuses on the need to repent of one’s sins, to be renewed of mind and heart, is because the matter of sin is a serious one, one that we cannot gloss over or overlook because it has eternal implications.

Revelation 22:14-15, “Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are the dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.”

When the dust settles and all is said and done, when the final word is written, and the last song is sung, there will be those without and those within. There will be those who will have the right to the tree of life, and those who will not. There will be those who will be allowed to enter through the gates into the city, and those who will be cast into the outer darkness. Anyone who tells you different is a liar, a deceiver, a fraud, and a swindler, who cares not for your eternal soul, and whose desire to pacify your conscience is thoroughly tethered to your checkbook.

Either your sin or God! Whoever this is for, you can’t have both, and it is within your purview to choose one or the other. Choose wisely!

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.