Greeting to all of our RC family members, ConnectPoint subscribers and friends!
While in prayer this week, I was thinking about and praying for our amazing RC & ConnectPoint family. I began to think about the word “loyalty” and, more specifically, about your loyalty to God and the church. So, in this week’s ConnectPoint, I want to write about loyalty.
First, let me say thank you for your commitment to God, to the Resurrection Center and your local church. The reason why your lead pastors are still here is because of your loyalty to the work of God.
Before the pandemic, I used to say that our members get to vote each and every week if they want us to be their pastors with their feet. Meaning, if you show up for church on Sunday, it meant you wanted us to be your pastors. Today, each person gets to vote if they want us to be their pastor by the click of a mouse. We want to say thank you for your vote.
Almost every day, I hear something about “cancel culture” or “call out culture,” but whatever happened to being loyal even if all your expectations are not being met?
In the midst of the current “cancel culture” or “call out culture,” loyalty seems to be a thing of the past. Many people are loyal to a person, place, or thing as long as their place or thing meets all of their expectations. But is this realistic? Is it possible for my wife, my church, my employer, friends, or even my God to meet all of my expectations?
See, I believe that there are times that we all need to be called out and held accountable for our words and actions, but what happens when we appoint ourselves the arbiters of right and wrong and also the judge and jury, rather than the Word of God?
We live in a melting pot that offers an alternative to everything in life. Think about it. Today, you can change churches with a click of a mouse on a computer. If you don’t like something that a pastor or a leader says, you have the power to cancel the pastor with a simple click and to let the world know you disagreed with him or her.
We actually live in a time when if you don’t like something that’s written in the bible, you can simply find another leader, denomination, or bible version that agrees with your views.
Family, every day, our loyalties and allegiance to Christ are tested. They are tested by the sinful pull of the old nature, the temptations of the enemy, who is an expert in seduction and luring people’s hearts away from Jesus and the godless world system. The world is relentless in its effort to get us to march according to its rhythm.
It inundates us. It overwhelms our senses. All through the images that flash before our eyes, the headlines that we read, the soundbites that echo in our brains, and the godless teaching that we are being force-fed by many of our educational systems, especially our so-called institutions of higher learning.
When we become desensitized to the godless philosophies of our day, we will slowly start to accept their message, believe it to be true, or at the very least see it as an acceptable alternative.
As it always has, this world is running away from God as hard and as fast as it can. If we are not careful, we will be caught up in its stampeding retreat. To be loyal and stand firm when the current of popular thought is flowing in the opposite direction of where we are headed takes courage.
We need to be loyal to God’s Word, even if that means we will be ridiculed, pressured, and/or ostracized. The truth will no longer exist if we allow God’s Word to become irrelevant and nonexistent. Many in our current culture want to “CANCEL” the Bible. They want to mold and shape it into whatever they want it to be depending on their current situation, feelings, personal reality, or perception.
Family, understand there is an objective foundational reality that determines right and wrong, that society should be built upon, that lives should be built upon. It is not left up to the whims and wishes of the powerful elites or the majority. Objective truth is and always will be found in the Word of God. We cannot walk away from that but must become more loyal to its principles and precepts.
Think about it, we now live in a world of universalism. Universalism says that all beliefs are equal and valid. It says that your Jesus, like my Buddha, Mohammed, or whatever other belief you may hold, are all different paths headed to the same destination.
It takes courage to say, “No! All roads don’t lead to heaven. Only Jesus, the eternal Son of God, God sent, born of a virgin, fully God and fully man, perfect in every way, never sinning in Word, thought or deed, dying a substitutionary death on the cross for sin’s penalty, rising from the dead, ascending to heaven and coming back again to take his church home is the way to heaven and that every person will be judged based on whether or not we have a relationship with God through Him.” That takes loyalty because the world does not accept that Jesus.
We live in a world that not only doesn’t know right from wrong, but they can’t distinguish male from female. They have corrupted God’s design of gender and sexuality. In this day and age, it takes courage to say boys are boys and girls are girls, that boys who think they are girls don’t need to be in girl’s locker rooms, and girls who think they are boys don’t need to be in boy’s locker rooms.
In this day and age, we need to be loyal to the fact that God designed marriage to be a relationship between a man and woman, not a man and a man or a woman and a woman. In this day and age, we need to be loyal to the Word of God that says that homosexuality is a sin. In this day and age, we need to remain loyal to the fact that God demands and expects sexual purity in what we see, think, and do. (Pornography is sin, fornication (sex before marriage) is sin, adultery (sex outside of your marriage relationship) is sin).
Family, many battles are being lost for the next generation. But we must become more and more loyal to God and His Word. More than ever, we need men, women, teens, boys, and girls who know the Word and are willing to be loyal to, live in, and by the Word.
See, living for Christ at every age has been difficult. You will be misunderstood. You will not be the majority. However, remain loyal and be courageous. Do Good! Speak Truth! Share Jesus! Live Holy lives! Show Jesus!
