Echoes From the Campfire

The Lord never gives us a job to do without He gives us the strength to carry it out.”
              –Elmer Kelton  (The Buckskin Line)

    “Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
              –2 Timothy 1:6-7 (NKJV)
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There is a Scripture that should sober us; it should give us cause to tremble.  

         “You are the salt of the earth.  But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty?  It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on by men.”
                   –Matthew 5:13(HCSB)

Just how salty are you?  How salty is the church today?  Has it become so complacent, has it so compromised that it is no longer recognizable as being different from the world?  Does it seem that man is trying to trample the church down into the dust?  If so, they wake up!
    I guess it is true–things do not change.  If you read of the apostasy of Israel then compare it to the apostasy that is taking place in the church today there is little difference.  An apostate does not fall into sin, they throw themselves into it.  They become blatant.  Have we changed our God for the gods of the secular humanist or the cosmic humanist?

         “‘Has a nation changed its gods, Which are not gods?  But My people have changed their Glory For what does not profit.  Be astonished, O heavens, at this, And be horribly afraid; Be very desolate,’ says the Lord.”
                   –Jeremiah 2:11-12(NKJV)

God tells those in heaven to be shocked at what is taking place.  When man calls good evil and evil good it is time to be shocked.  It is time to stand up and be salty instead of joining in with the cultural relativism of the day.
    It is important to understand, realize, and grasp that worship is a lifestyle.  There is not a “time of worship” on Sunday morning in church, but worship is your life and its relationship to God.  Know this–you worship your God/god by behaving as He does.  Hmmm, does your life then show signs of pagan worship, or the very least of tolerating it?
    Part of losing one’s saltiness if not necessarily not “worshipping” God, but worshipping Him in the wrong manner.  The people of Israel never forgot Yahweh, but they borrowed rites, practices, and idols of the pagans and brought them into their worship.  They began to tolerate what God said to destroy.  They began to accept what God said to hate.  They compromised when God called them to wholehearted obedience.  Instead of being controlled by the truth of Scriptures, they were controlled by their opinions and impulses of their sinful natures and those around them.
    Notice, at the beginning I did not ask how salty the Church (capital C) was.  For the true, living Church, the body of Christ will remain true no matter what culture and society thinks or says.  The true Church will not cave in to compromise and bow down to the false teachings of political correctness.  Jesus said, “I am the truth…” and the true believer in the Church of living God will continue to say, “thus saith the Lord”!