You Are Called (Compilation) — Compilations

Rejecting Another Christ and Self-Serving Religion

And Paul says, I'm afraid if somebody comes and preaches another Christ, just as the serpent came to Adam and Eve and said to them, in effect, use your position in God for your own gain. Use it for your own betterment.

Go to this forbidden fruit and partake of it. And in the day you do, your eyes are going to be open. You're going to have greater knowledge than you have now. And you're going to be just like God is. In other words, you're going to increase in godliness if you use your position that you have in God for your own advantage.

And Paul says, I'm afraid of this because we're not called to use Christ to our own advantage. We are called to walk with Christ and glorify Christ. We are called to be partakers of the heavenly calling that God the Father placed upon his son to go through this world, proclaiming the kingdom of God, to be healing the sick and opening prison doors to those that are bound, to be proclaiming this incredible, wondrous news of God's love to those who are physically poor, spiritually poor and poor in every other way.

Defending the Living Word Against Progressive Revelation

And while all this is going on, the enemy is concentrating all of his force on the places where people draw water. In other words, he's attacking the living word of God. He's attacking the authenticity of Scripture.

He's attacking the character of Christ. He's attacking the very promises of God. He's doing everything in his power, even in God's house, to move people out of the word of the living God, move them into progressive revelation.

You have to understand where all this stuff comes from. It comes from the heart of Satan himself. Move the people out of the promises of God because there is no life apart from this book. And move them into this new prophetic revelation.

These new things that are happening, this new Christ as it is, that is, of course, was limited. Now, all of this is going on until God's people again begin to hear his voice. God begins to speak again.

The Lord says, I've heard a cry. I've got somebody whose ears are open to my voice and I've decided to fight again. There is a season when the Lord will arise to defend his own name. Hallelujah. I believe with all my heart we are living in that season.

I believe the time of imposters and thieves reigning over the church of Jesus Christ is over. Christ is rising. Christ is going to fight for his own namesake. He's going to fight for his church. He's going to fight for every sighing mother and father, every child that's out on the street looking for reality, every person in the house of God who's saying, God, if you are still alive, would you please show me who you are and where your power might be found?

The Lord says, I hear the cry. I hear the cry. And I've decided to rise up in this last hour for my own namesake and deliver those that are crying out to me. And verse 20 tells us that they fought from heaven.

Prayer, Heavenly Instructions, and the Foolish Instruments of God

There was an incredible battle about to take place. The people were about to enter into that battle and they were not going in the natural any longer. No longer five steps to victory. Hallelujah. They were going in the power and might of Almighty God.

These are a people who know how to pray. They know how to go to their knees and get their instructions from God. And they said, God, whatever you speak, that's what we're going to do. And we don't care how ridiculous it may sound.

This is the way you've always done it. You always take the foolish. You always take the weak. You always take the nobodies. You always take the nothings of society who can hear your voice and you empower them.

You make them more than they are. You give them strength they could not possess. You give them battle plans that come out of heaven itself. And you send them against the powers of darkness. You'd find the people somewhere, even if they live in an upper room.

Bold Declaration and the Foolishness of Preaching

And you fill them with the spirit of the living God. And they step out into the open air and begin to make a declaration of who God is and what God has promised He's going to do. And by the foolishness of preaching, as Paul says, bloodthirsty mobs that were crying crucify Him just days before are now pricked in their hearts saying, what must we do to be saved?

The Enemies of the Cross and Earthly-Minded Discipleship

He says, brethren, be followers together of me and mark them which walk so as you have us for an example. For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.

Now, Paul, the apostle, is talking about a people who profess to know Christ. They profess to walk with Christ. They profess to be disciples of Christ. But they are the actual enemies of the cross of Christ.

And you have to really think about this. The cross of Christ represents taking up the will of God and doing the will of God that the name of God and the heart of God might be glorified and satisfied. It was Christ Himself who said, Father, glorify Yourself.

The Divine Purpose of the Christian Life

And, of course, the glory that was going to come to God through His Son involved the cross. Jesus said, if you're going to be my disciples, there is a will that God has for your life. And you are just simply to walk with me in an honest and sincere relationship.

And as you walk with me, you will find that will for your life. In effect, it's your cross. You're not going to be nailed to it for people's sin, as Christ was, obviously. But there's a will that God has.

Do you believe that? Do you believe there's a divine purpose for your life? I believe it. God began to speak to me about it when I was just a young Christian. That, yes, I could live in the church where I was all my life, and I could do things and perhaps even still scrape into the kingdom of God.

But there was a divine purpose for my life. It would involve some forms of self-denial. It would involve a pathway, as with Peter, that perhaps I'm not even able to walk in my own. It might even involve, in the latter years of my life, being led into some places that I can't go in my own strength.

Only God can take me there. He spoke these things to Peter. He said, He signified through this by what death He would glorify God. I don't know, but I do know that life, an abundant life, is found in the will of God.

The Cross Is Not a Source of Selfish Gain

It's not found in a pretending religiousness. It's not found standing at the foot of the cross like a pile of vultures, just simply taking this sacrifice of Christ's life and gorging one's belly on it.

And so many today are coming to the cross, they're coming to Christ, and they're just gorging on this sacrifice of Christ's life. You see, like vultures, what is in it for me? Fill my belly. Fill my belly again.

Fill my belly some more. Make me better. Make me more powerful. Give me more influence over the lives of men. Make me richer. Make me happier. Make me healthier. Just gorging. But they are themselves enemies of the cross.

The Church's Call to Represent Christ

They fail to understand the call of Christ on the Christian church. We're called to represent Christ in our generation. We're called to stand for God. We're called to be a voice for righteousness in a darkened time.

We're called to passionately love God with everything that is in our heart, soul, mind and strength. We're called to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We're called to stand as burning lights in a darkened time.

We're called to be extended hands to people who are starving, to be keys to people who are in prison, to be salve to people who are blind and wounded in heart. This is the call of the Christian church.

Your life and my life. He says, curse Smeros. Curse this form of religiousness that does not even have a desire to come into the battle. Couldn't care less about dying humanity. Only at the cross to fill their bellies.

Oh folks, we are inundated with this type of religion today. A belly, belly satisfying and filling religion that comes to the cross for everything it can get. And vultures standing in the pump and leading the people of God.