Faithfulness

My heart is heavy today and I am struggling with how to write what God is putting on it. I have been praying and asking God where we are going today and He continues to speak faithfulness to my spirit. As I look at the society I live in, lack of faithfulness is in abundance in and out of Christianity. God’s word is “a light unto my feet”, “study to show yourself approved a workman rightly dividing the word of truth”, it is my individual responsibility to study God’s word. I have gone through times in my walk with Him that I have done that and I have also gone through times when I simply did not take the time but just accepted what was being taught to me. Today I am reading Jude and it convicted me how much this has become true.

Jude 1

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

5Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire

This is the state of the American church but it didn’t just happen, the enemy has been working this out for a while. I have no answer for the big picture here but faithfulness is an individual responsibility and I am convicted that I have prioritized according to my flesh and not my soul. “Contend for the faith” I don’t think that means beat people up with what I don’t believe but display what I have received. With the modern technology I can literally look up anything I want to find and someone agrees with me; for example how can every diet specialist be right when they are all different? Seriously, one says eat as soon as you get out of bed, the next one says don’t eat anything until 11:30 in the morning, don’t eat carbs, your body needs carbs, who is right? There are lost people all around me asking the same questions about Christianity and they can find any form of religion to answer the question but if it is not real and life changing nobody can stick to it. Maybe I just need to stop listening to all the opinions and start taking responsibility for what I eat. I should even more take responsibility for what I believe and how I grow and for using the talents God has given me and being active in reading and studying and talking with God but also learning to listen to His voice. I am praying daily for revival because I believe it is the only hope for the church in this nation but it begins right here. Do I want revival so I can live in a better place and have more wealth or am I concerned about the souls of men? Am I willing to give myself as “a living sacrifice”, “to walk worthy”, to be the woman at the well and compel others to come and see? I want change, I want to see school shootings stop and children being allowed to pray in school, “pray without ceasing” so why isn’t there prayer in school and a better question why would we want teachers that may or may not believe in God leading a prayer? I want our government to stop separating our nation for self-gain and go back to “one nation under God” so am I willing to put aside my own self-gain and put myself under the authority of God? The question always comes back to will I be faithful to what I say I believe and take responsibility for what others see in me? “He stands at the door and knocks” and He faithfully, patiently waits for my answer.