Prophet, Prophecy, Prophesy (Part 1)
(This “Blog Post” - or what began as one - turned into 20 pages in a Word document, so I broke it down into 4 blog posts that I will share over the next 4 weeks so as not to overwhelm you with too much information all at once. This is part 1.)
I’m on vacation in Los Osos, California in my happy place….a local coffee shop. I love to get up early in the morning and come here to study the Bible with noise canceling headphones and not a care in the world.
There are no responsibilities here. There is no one to disappoint as I get lost in the Word, and unless the LORD causes me to say something to someone, there is no one to distract me from my studies.
The one downside of studying the Word at the coffee shop is when it brings me to tears. When I’m fighting back tears, one might conclude that I’m really sad or I’ve just received tragic news. That’s where I’m at, fighting back tears.
In my personal studies and at Ruth and Naomi’s House, our Tuesday night women’s Bible study, we are reading the book of Proverbs. There are HUNDREDS of descriptions of the wise and the unwise person within the pages of Proverbs. I’m enjoying cataloging those descriptions, the explanations of what the wise and the unwise person does and the consequences of each. If you were to ONLY look at the words describing the wise and the unwise, you could have a good roadmap of how to live a life that honors God.
Jeremiah
I pulled out my Bible and laptop to continue this study, but the LORD brought me back to Jeremiah. Jeremiah is hard for me to read without tears. Even saying that is causing my eyes to well up again. Jeremiah was a prophet who God sent to prophesy to the people of Jerusalem of impending doom if they didn’t turn from their wicked ways. He could see what the people could not, and as he warned them, no one listened. Not just once or twice but for 40 YEARS he warned them and they didn’t listen!
I sometimes wonder about the calling on my life. The LORD clearly told me that I am an evangelist, that I am sent to share the good news, but what makes my heart beat out of my chest and burdens me more than anything else is those who ALREADY claim to follow Jesus, Christians, whose lives look just like the world. They are saved but starving.
Saved but starving
My burden for those who are “saved but starving” was born of my own 39 years as a Christian who was saved, but had not completely surrendered my life to Jesus, not only as my Savior, but also as the LORD of my life.
We can call Him Savior the moment we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus is the LORD and that God raised Him from the dead.
“If you confess with your mouth the LORD Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Romans 10:9-10
We cannot call Him ‘LORD’ until we surrender EVERY area of our lives to Him and walk in obedience in EVERY area.
“But why do you call Me ‘LORD, LORD,’ and not do the things which I say?”
Luke 6:46
I will not engage in the debate over ‘once saved, always saved’ or that if we are not living it all out perfectly, maybe we were never saved to begin with. Take that question up with God. I ‘loved God’ I thought, with all my heart, but the truth is, my heart was far from Him. I had a form of religion that mentally knew the Word of God, and in human effort, without relying on the power of the Holy Spirit to live it out, I tried to love God and people.
Do I believe I was saved in the eternal sense all those years? Yes, I do.
Matthew 7:21-23 says there are many who will say, “LORD, LORD, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?” and Jesus will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from Me, you evildoers.”
There are many mysteries within Scripture including what seems like a contradiction between our righteousness being a free gift through Jesus, the call to act on what we hear or our religion is worthless, and that we can do all the right things, drive out demons and perform miracles in His name and in the end be told He never knew us. This is why Paul exhorts us in Philippians 2:12 to work out OUR OWN salvation with fear and trembling.
I believe that salvation and righteousness is a gift God gives us through faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. If my good works add to my salvation, then it was not His Grace alone that saved me. My faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross is the beginning and end of my salvation in Christ. Living a life completely surrendered to Him as the LORD of my life is where the earthly blessing of that salvation is realized.
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”
James 1:22-25