On fire for God?

Revelation 3:14-22
14"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:
15'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.
16'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.
17'Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,
18I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.
19'Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.
20'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.
21'He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
22'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'"

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Hebrews 12:25-29
25See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.
26And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, "YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN."
27This expression, "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
28Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe;
29for our God is a consuming fire.

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Matthew 6:24
24"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other You cannot serve God and wealth.

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1 Kings 18:17-40
17When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, "Is this you, you troubler of Israel?"
18He said, "I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father's house have, because you have forsaken the commandments of the LORD and you have followed the Baals.
19"Now then send and gather to me all Israel at Mount Carmel, together with 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table."
20So Ahab sent a message among all the sons of Israel and brought the prophets together at Mount Carmel.
21Elijah came near to all the people and said, "How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him." But the people did not answer him a word.
22Then Elijah said to the people, "I alone am left a prophet of the LORD, but Baal's prophets are 450 men.
23"Now let them give us two oxen; and let them choose one ox for themselves and cut it up, and place it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other ox and lay it on the wood, and I will not put a fire under it.
24"Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, He is God." And all the people said, "That is a good idea."
25So Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, "Choose one ox for yourselves and prepare it first for you are many, and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it."
26Then they took the ox which was given them and they prepared it and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon saying, "O Baal, answer us." But there was no voice and no one answered. And they leaped about the altar which they made.
27It came about at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, "Call out with a loud voice, for he is a god; either he is occupied or gone aside, or is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and needs to be awakened."
28So they cried with a loud voice and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them.
29When midday was past, they raved until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice; but there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.
30Then Elijah said to all the people, "Come near to me." So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD which had been torn down.
31Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD had come, saying, "Israel shall be your name."
32So with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD, and he made a trench around the altar, large enough to hold two measures of seed.
33Then he arranged the wood and cut the ox in pieces and laid it on the wood.
34And he said, "Fill four pitchers with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood." And he said, "Do it a second time," and they did it a second time. And he said, "Do it a third time," and they did it a third time.
35The water flowed around the altar and he also filled the trench with water.
36At the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet came near and said, "O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your word.
37"Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that You, O LORD, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again."
38Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
39When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, "The LORD, He is God; the LORD, He is God."
40Then Elijah said to them, "Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape." So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.

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2ndAmendment said:

I have been asked what happened to make me a "Bible thumper". The explanation applies to all Christians. Do you remember when you first were born again? The weight of the world was lifted from your shoulders. You had joy that was unexplainable. Your problems hadn't gone away. You just knew that Jesus was in control. You were probably telling everyone you knew about Jesus. I was like that.

Over the years, I grew complacent. I became a lukewarm Christian just happy to go about life without telling anyone about God's gift of salvation. I stopped reading my Bible after all I had already read it cover to cover a couple of times. Why did I need to keep reading it? I started to be more and more like the person I was before God picked me up out of the muck of this world and set me free to stand on the Rock of Salvation. Circumstances led me to stop going to church.

I started to feel a hole in my life. Something extremely important was missing or at least not felt. I started going to a new church; the way I found it was miraculous in itself. The preaching there is not watered down in the least. It is the Bible taught pure and simple. I remembered a verse from Revelation.
I was lukewarm so Jesus was going to spit me out of His mouth. You know like when you expect to have hot coffee in the cup and it is just kind of warm or you are expecting a Coke and it is ice tea. I knew this was not a good condition to be in. I had lost my first love for God. I had lost the fire of the Holy Spirit in my life.

The Holy Spirit of God is described as a consuming fire.
He is not like a nice warm fire that is in the fireplace and under your control. He is the kind of fire that will get into your life and gets into every nook and cranny. The one hindrance - free will. He respects our free will to let Him control our every action. I decided to get out of the way. I want to be on fire with the Holy Spirit.

Every Christian has a choice of whether we serve God who we cannot see, or we serve the gods of this world that we can see like money, cars, home, job. We cannot server two masters.
Does this mean Christians can't have nice things? No. It means we should put God first. If we do that , wealth may or may not come, but our needs will be met.

This same conflict has plagued God's people since the beginning. One of my favorite accounts in the Bible is Elijah, a prophet of God in Israel and the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the Asherah. Asherah were statues of a Canaanite goddess and Baal was either a god or various gods. Most of Israel were worshiping idols. Eight hundred fifty against one. That is worse than the NASCAR ads. This is long but I think it is worth the read.
If you didn't read the quote, at least read verses 30 to 39.

This is the God that I serve and love. He is being very patient with the people of the earth and His adopted children, Christians, because He loves us all. But when He returns or my time comes, I don't want to be found lukewarm.

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HORUS said:

Oh God....

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2ndAmendment said:

Your point?

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nomoney said:

its rude to interupt a man when he's praying.

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nomoney said:

its rude to interupt a man when he's praying.

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2005 (James 4:4)

***DON'T MISS NEXT MONDAY'S DEVOTIONAL, "The one question you MUST ask your Pastor." TUESDAY, the false theology of Bill O'Reilly.

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A friend of the world is an enemy of God. I have been holding off sharing this devotional for many months now. I am warning you right now, that you better say a prayer before reading this, because this is exactly where the rubber meets the road in our Christian journey. I will let you in on a secret. This is probably the one verse in the Bible that I hate to read. The reason is, there is no way to candy-coat it. There is no way to soften the blow. There is no way to dance around it, or explain your way out of it. It is exactly what is says. Black and white. It simply says that if you are a friend of the world, you are an enemy of God. It actually says it twice in the same verse. I don't know about you, but out of everything in the world, being an enemy of God is probably the last thing I want to be.

The natural question that arises, what exactly does being a "friend of the world" mean. Maybe this is where we can find some wiggle room in this verse. Sorry. This verse deals specifically with the free will God has given to us, and is simply saying, that you have choices to make each and every day. In each choice, you are basically electing to either do something your way...or God's way. When you choose your way, which God allows you to do, you are on your own. You cannot expect God's blessings since God does not bless disobedience. You cannot expect His help. You are on your own. In fact, you have chosen not only to do it your way, you have chosen to make God your enemy. I don't know about you, but that is not a place I want to be. When you do it God's way, you get the benefit of His strength, His blessings, the confidence of knowing you are in His will.

We make many decisions each and every day. I want you to start thinking about your decisions in the context of who you are really in love with. Yourself, or the Lord. Your will, or His. Your way, or God's way. A friend of the world, or a friend of God. Like the prodigal son, we are so blessed that God is merciful and full of grace, and even though we may turn our back on Him, He is still there. Waiting for us to turn back to Him. But we should never take God's grace and mercy for granted or tempt Him.

I want you to take a few minutes right now and really pray and ask God to make you aware each day of the decisions you make, and what you are actually saying in each decision about your relationship with Him. That is another reason I stress the importance of that daily time with Him in prayer and the Word. It helps us to stay focused on Him and who He is in our life. It reminds us that He really is our best friend.

I love you and am praying for you. This is a Devotional that needs to be printed and sent to everyone that you know. It is that important. Having this understanding can save us much pain and heartache. We need to recognize each day that we are deciding many times a day what we love most....this world....or the Lord.


In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

I can help you in any way you can contact me through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

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James 4:4
4You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

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nomoney said:

they have religious junk mail? thats cool.

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nomoney said:

they have religious junk mail? thats cool.

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2ndAmendment said:

No. You have to sign up for the letter. It goes out to more than 2 million people. Can you say the same for your posts?

I suspect I know why you have "nomoney", priorities.

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Sharon said:

Just for you...

www.prayforweightloss.com

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Sharon said:

Just for you...

www.prayforweightloss.com

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nomoney said:

I dont know how many people read the forums, maybe my posts go out to that many-but then again I'm not much for statistics. So if I follow your word I will have money? Will you lay your hands on my collection plate?

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vraiblonde said:

You think that really works? :hopeful:

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nomoney said:

its rude to interupt a man when he's praying.

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