Sin will take you further than you want to go.
Sin will cost you more than you want to pay.
Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay.
Unknown Author
Tag: World
From ‘Borderline Satanism’ to God Encounter: Former Lesbian Says Jesus ‘Completely Transformed’ Her
Melanie Rivas’ joy for Jesus is contagious. In fact, a recent video about how God changed her life has gone viral on social media, garnering nearly 400,000 views.
Yet, just nine months ago, the 22-year-old was homeless, broke, and fleeing from an abusive same-sex relationship.
“My ex-wife stole all my money and locked me out of all of my accounts. So I had nothing,” she told CBN News.
Rivas says she was despondent and on the brink of suicide. However, a strange email notification led her to randomly purchase a Bible at a local Walmart. Rivas said that as she began to read the New Testament, the Spirit of God filled her car and her life was “completely transformed” in that moment.
Early Years
The Chicago native grew up in a Catholic home familiar with the traditions of the faith, such as baptism and communion. She shared, “It almost felt like a routine for me.” Rivas admits her relationship with Jesus was “like (a) procedure,” and devoid of any connection to Him.
She told CBN News that because she didn’t have a solid relationship with Christ, she was led by the wrong influences.
“I was just following the world, and I was super (impressionable), because I didn’t have Jesus,” she said. “When you don’t have Jesus as your anchor, like you’re just looking at what’s around and you want to be a part of it.”
“I go into this high school where they’re telling me that it’s actually weird that I’m not homosexual,” she shared, explaining that was when she began “entertaining homosexual relationships.”
With little guidance and direction, Rivas also began to experiment with drugs.
“I was in a rebellious state too,” she recalled. “I started doing a bunch of drugs. That’s when I got into weed, and then weed turned into acid and then acid turned into shrooms, and then it turned into cocaine. And I’m doing this as a high-schooler!”
Rivas said she also struggled with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. All of that was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of lockdowns, social distancing, and isolation, she turned to TikTok.
As CBN News reported, the popular social media platform known for quick videos, one-minute dance challenges, and viral trends, became a big hub for witches and warlocks around the pandemic.
Videos with the hashtag #WitchTok had amassed more than 30 billion views and made it easier for would-be witches or those interested in the occult to learn more about it, according to a 2022 BBC report.
Rivas was one of its viewers. “Like I said, for a teenager who doesn’t have Jesus, the culture impacts you so much. So it’s almost like being a witch was cool,” she recalled. “I didn’t think of it as like a witch, like a warlock or something like that. I just thought it was cute.”
The young woman explained that she began to go deeper into witchcraft after she met a girl who worshipped the “idol of death.”
“We’re all created to worship God,” she pointed out. “That’s literally why we’re created to have a personal relationship with Him. But when you don’t have that relationship with (Jesus), you look to worship other things. Like you’re so open to it. I was searching for that missing aspect of my life.”
“I’m sitting there worshiping death. And it’s borderline Satanism,” she added.
The 22-year-old said she eventually married that girl, but the relationship was “very controlling and very toxic.”
Rivas said that the woman convinced her to join OnlyFans. The subscription-based platform is widely recognized for its explicit content. Rivas said she joined just before the platform became popular, but she quickly found herself “deep in the rabbit hole.”
Finding Jesus
Rivas shared that things in her life went from bad to worse overnight.
“(My former relationship) got to the point where we had a really bad fight. It ended with the marriage certificate being ripped in my face, my clothes were in trash bags outside, and I was getting kicked out,” she recalled. “In a single day, I lost my home, I lost the person I thought I was going to be with for the rest of my life and I lost my way of getting income…I ended up sleeping in my car.”
Rivas recounts that she spiraled into a depression. “I even tried therapy, and the therapy didn’t work, but the therapist did give me antidepressants.”
The artist said she began to be tormented by thoughts of committing suicide.
“I remember getting to a point where I thought I had tried everything. I tried drugs. I tried spiritual spells… like all this stuff. Nothing worked. I even tried therapy, and the therapy didn’t work. And so I was like, you know what? Like, I am so done with life. I don’t want to be here anymore. And so I ended up planning (to take) my life.”
Rivas remembers sitting in her car with a bottle of pills in her hand. She then made a decision that would change the trajectory of her life – she checked her email.
“I got this weird email from like a horoscope email, and it said, ‘You need to go get a book right now,'” she recalled, adding that she felt deep in her heart to go to the nearest store.
“I had a Walmart two minutes away from me, and I was like, okay, I’ll go,” Rivas said. With five dollars to her name, she perused the book aisle.
“My ex-wife stole all my money and locked me out of all of my accounts. So I had, I had nothing. And so I went to the book section, and there were all these (expensive) books,” she told CBN News. “They’re (books) that are $50, $60. I thought this was pointless.”
“And then I keep looking, and there’s one book, and it’s one dollar, not a $1.50, just a plain dollar,” she said. “It’s the New Testament Bible. And I remember looking at it and was like, ‘You can’t even get a candy bar for a dollar.'”
Rivas says she was shocked and intrigued by her find. She purchased the book, went back to her car, and sobbed as she read the Bible.
“As soon as I opened it…I don’t even know how to explain it. It was like I got this warm feeling in my body,” she said. “I genuinely felt the Holy Spirit.”
Rivas describes feeling God’s love for her, His compassion for her, but also a sense of sadness for how she was living.
“I felt His mourning for me…like He has seen me try and live this life alone…like He’s just been missing me.”
A Voice to Her Generation
It was an encounter with God that has impacted her. Rivas says she has fully surrendered her life to Him and now spends her time proclaiming the Gospel message on social media.
“I got baptized, and that was nine months ago,” she said, adding that God has called her to make an Instagram account to share what He has done for her.
“He’s grown it in like seven months from zero to 78,000 followers. And that’s all Him,” Rivas expressed. “I just proclaim Jesus everywhere I go.”
Her message has been getting out to the masses. Recently, Lila Rose, the president of Live Action, shared one of Rivas’ videos to her social media page, and it has gotten nearly 400,000 views.
Rivas says she will continue to share her story because it reveals “how merciful and how abundant our Father is.”
She is encouraging GenZ to turn to God because a world that promises answers in drugs, sex, and alcohol can only give you destruction in return. Rivas says true peace comes from Jesus alone. She says she hopes her story will help someone open their heart to Him.
“He’ll completely transform your life,” she said.
Source: CBN News
Where is everyone an evangelist?
Hell.
Everyone in hell is an evangelist.
Listen to the account Lord Jesus told of two different men who died. One went to paradise where he was greeted by Abraham and the person who had rejected the truth that God had given Moses, died and went to the place where he was tormented in flames.
Notice the wicked man’s desire for someone to evangelize his brothers:
‘Then I beg you, Father (Abraham), that you send him (Lazarus) to my father’s house — for I have five brothers — that he may warn them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ (Luke 16:27-28)
This man, now that he had left his earthly life where all that mattered was how he satisfied “Self” with his riches, now was concerned about “warning” his five brothers about coming to this place of torment.
Right now, the five brothers are being tormented in the flames with this man because the account goes on to tell us that the five brothers rejected Moses and the Prophets and what they said about how to be saved in the Old Testament. They have been there for around 2000 years, and they will be there until the Great White Throne Judgement of Revelation 20: 11-15. Then they will be cast into the lake of fire with the Antichrist, satan and death where they will stay FOREVER AND FOREVER.
The rich man waited too long to become an evangelist!
Dear Christian, have you warned anyone about this place or are you “waiting”?
Two things are coming that no man can stop: death and hell. Hell for those who reject the salvation found only in Jesus Christ. Let us put aside our busyness, our apathy, and our fear of rejection so we can be obedient and warn our neighbors, friends and others about this horrible place.
EVERYONE deserves a chance to hear.
Share the marvelous Light that brought you out of darkness with those who still sit in darkness. Darkness of unbelief and man’s religion!
Take the basket off your Light – Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.
Carl
Our Only Safety – Christ Jesus
“Our only safety is to have Christ ever before us as our all-governing object; and the more steadfastly we look on Him, the more will His character be mirrored on our souls, and the more distinctly shall we reflect it to others. In looking to Him, we are enlightened; to have any other object before us is to be in blindness of popish bigotry and the clouds that arise in the Christian’s heart of self-occupation. To be true witnesses of a heavenly Christ, we must be heavenly minded, and heavenly in our ways. And heavenly-mindedness is the result, not of trying to be so, but of occupation with a heavenly Christ, according to the revelation which we have of Him, through the power of the Holy Spirit. In what direction is the eye? is always the important question, for the heart is sure to follow the eye, and the feet the heart.
The following passage may be accepted as a practical view of Christianity, both negatively and positively. “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purifying unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2: 11-14).”
Source: Andrew Miller, Miller’s Church History (PICKERING & INGLIS LTD, London 1976), p. 898
These two paragraphs express the lesson learned from the Roman Catholic pope and Emperor Philip’s attempt to kill the Reformation in the Netherlands by murdering the Protestants over a span of 40 YEARS. This occurred in the 1500s.
Christ- our only safety and hope.
Carl
A Foreign Love for You and Me
For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Romans 5:10 (emphasis added)
Scripture tells us that God’s love for mankind is a foreign love.
A love not found in or exercised by the human race. This fact alone proves the divine source of the good news about Jesus Christ.
The Scripture says that “ while we were enemies” Jesus went to the cross for ALL humans after being scourged terribly. He died the most despised manner of death known in the Roman Empire. He hung naked nailed to the wooden cross before the very creation He had spoken into existence.
Jesus did this for ALL of God’s enemies. Humans do not die for their enemies.
Not only did Lord Jesus suffer physically, but also, became the sin offering for our sins. He took the wrath of God for the guilt of our sins and for the sins of ALL of mankind, the whole world. He took the wrath of God for God’s enemies so we would not have to experience the justified wrath of a Holy God.
Would you die for your enemy? Do you know of anyone who has or would?
Finally, Lord Jesus cried out on the Cross, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?” (Matthew 27:46) The precious fellowship with Father God which He had always known, was broken due to Him becoming the sin sacrifice on the cross. He had never known this separation before.
He did that for God’s enemies.
The Greek word for enemies denotes hating, hostility and is used as a noun signifying an enemy or adversary. As unbelievers we “were … alienated and hostile in mind” toward God and “engaged in evil deeds” (Col. 1: 21), opposing and breaking His commandments. Paul, in Philippians 3:18-19, describes God enemies when he writes, “For many walk…that…are enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite. and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things…”
James, Jesus’ half-brother, tells us that “friendship with the world is hostility toward God” and “whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4: 4)
Haven’t we all, at one time or another loved the things of this evil, Satan controlled world system, that are so anti-God and anti-Jesus.
These biblical descriptions of God’s enemy describe every human being on earth, before he or she comes to trust in Jesus Christ and receive God’s love for them.
God’s love for humanity is a foreign love.
No way around it. It is not of this earth nor practiced by humans. It only flows from His Being and expresses the high value He puts on His greatest creation, man. That He would give His Beloved Son for you and me reveals the high value He puts on each person’s soul.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
Believe in Jesus today as your Savior and Lord. Please do not reject God’s love for you. If you do, you will eternally suffer for your sins, separated from His great love.
Lord Jesus has ALREADY died for ALL of your sins. He has taken the wrath of God ALREADY for you, so you do not have to experience it.
Receive God’s forgiveness for every sin you have ever committed, turn from your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
Do it today.
Carl
The World and Us
I found this note while reading Luke 16: 13-15 the other day. As born again believers, the Lord Jesus Christ is to be “Lord” of our lives. The world system, which is controlled by Satan, is continually trying to impose its value system on us. In James 4:4 the Bible tells us that friendship with the world is hostility toward God. He compares it to a wife or husband having an affair thereby being an adulteress. James goes on to say that he who wishes to be a friend of the world is an enemy of God.
Sometimes we are so entangled in the affairs of the world that we do not recognize it for what it is. The kingdom of the enemy of God. May the Holy Spirit show us today if we are in an adulterous affair with some aspect of the world.
In closing, I share Luke 6:46 with you. The scripture that God used to rip the deception off our minds and show us we were lost and bound for hell. The Lord Jesus said “Why do you call me Lord Lord and do not do what I say?
Pay Close Attention To Yourself
Carl
Separation and Character
“It seemed clear to me from the teaching of the Bible that Christ’s people should be separate from the world in everything which denoted character and that they should not only be separate but appear so.”
― Catherine Booth (17 January 1829 – 4 October 1890, co-founder of The Salvation Army, along with her husband William Booth.
In The World But Not Of The World
May God help us to be in the world but not of the world; and not to be so wrapped up in the world that we are not interested in Jesus’ coming again. When the trumpet sounds, we’re going home, brothers and sisters. Whatever you’re going through today, it’s only temporary. Tears are for the night, but joy comes in the morning. So hold on. Stay very close to Jesus, until he takes us home and we hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant”! Pastor Jim Cymbala
Report: ‘Tremendous Progress’ Ahead for Religious Freedom Worldwide | News & Reporting | Christianity Today
Report: ‘Tremendous Progress’ Ahead for Religious Freedom Worldwide | News & Reporting | Christianity Today
— Read on www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/april/uscirf-tony-perkins-international-religious-freedom-2020.html
Andrew Brunson: US ‘increasingly hostile’ to Christianity; following Jesus will come at personal risk – The Christian Post
God’s Rescue of Man (Part 4)
“…the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that He might rescue us out of this present evil age,…” Galatians 1:4
(To see parts one through three, scroll down to the end of this blog.)
The picture, which is reported to be the largest outdoor mural in the world, is to me a good composite of mankind that Jesus came to rescue. Notice the eyes that are looking to the side as if something has caught his attention. May Jesus catch man’s attention with His love.
Continuing our previous discussing on the corrupting influence of this evil age, God warns us about the world in I John 2: 15-17:
“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
We are commanded not to “love” (agapao) the world nor the things in the world. The Greek word for “love” in this context means “a love called out of one’s heart by the preciousness of the object loved.” Apostle John was warning some believers to “Stop loving the world with a love called out of your hearts because of its preciousness.”. The verb used, speaks of the act of forbidding the continuance of an action already going on. The world system that God rescued them out of was still precious to them. John was telling them to stop loving the world.
The Greek word for world here is kosmos and is defined by Vincent as follows:
“The sum-total of human life in the ordered world, considered apart from, alienated from, and hostile to God, and of the earthly things which seduce from God.”
Kenneth Wuest says:
“Kosmos refers to an ordered system. Here it is the ordered system of which Satan is the head, his fallen angels and demons are his emissaries, and the unsaved of the human race are his subjects, together with those purposes, pursuits, pleasures, practices, and places where God is not wanted. Much in this world-system is religious, cultured, refined, and intellectual. But it is anti-God and anti-Christ.”
After reviewing the NT scriptures that use the word kosmos I put this composite together:
“Jesus called Satan the “ruler of the world” (John 14:30) and the whole world lies in his power (I John 5:19). All unsaved people are deceived by Satan (Rev 12:9) by his blinding of their minds, (2 Cor 4:4) preventing the light of the gospel from shining in. Therefore the kosmos is a dark spiritual place and a place of bondage. This is why Jesus came as a Light into the kosmos. Ephesians 2:2 tells us there is a “course of this world” which is “according to the prince of the power of the air”, unsaved people behave according to their cravings for things of the world thinking this is the way to true happiness and fulfillment only to find out it is a satanic illusion. They love the world because it is precious to them (II Tim 4:10); have worldly values (I John 4:5) which manifest through their words (Titus 2:12), Paul tells us to avoid worldly and empty chatter (I Tim 6:20) and worldly fables (I Tim 4:7). Jesus said there are “stumbling blocks” (Matt 18:7) in the world.
“Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world (John 18: 36). Jesus chose you, the born again believer, OUT of the world (John 15:19). After discipleship, Jesus sends His disciples back INTO the world (John 17:18) as lights in the world (Phil 2:5). Jesus prayed that the Father would not remove His disciples from the world but protect them from Satan (John 17:5). Believers can be conformed to the world (Rom 12:2, James 1:27) and be defiled by the world (2 Pet 2:20). The “worries of the world” and the “deceitfulness of riches” choke out the word of God in the believer’s heart making him unfruitful in the things of God (Matt 13:22). Disciples will have tribulations in the world but we will overcome the world (I John 5:4, I John 4: 17, John 12:25). The abiding word of God makes believers strong and helps us to overcome Satan (1 John 2: 14) The saints will judge the world in the end times (I Cor 6:2).
In summary, the modern world (kosmos) we live in today exist in the same pernicious age (aion) that Paul and Peter lived in. The moral characteristics of the age will not change until the Lord Jesus establishes His millennial reign on the earth. Technology has leaped forward a thousand fold but the evil moral characteristics of man remain. The predominate religion today is the false religion of works, whether it be works by themselves or mixed with belief in Jesus Christ.
This concludes our study of the world. Next post will explain the remainder of I John 2: 15-17. Hope you will join us again.
May the Holy Spirit search our hearts to show us where we are still considering the world precious. The next post will reveal some characteristics of the world.
“… because everything that has been born of God is constantly coming off victorious over the world. And this is the victory that has come off victorious over the world, our faith. Who is he who is constantly coming off victorious over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
(I John 5: 4-5 Kenneth Wuest Expanded Translation)
Carl
God’s Rescue of Man (Part 2)
“…the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might rescue us out of this present evil age….”
(Part One may be found at the end of this blog.)
Has the devil ever taken you “in tow”? This is what the picture represents. Your love for God being “towed” away. Read on to find out what in the world I am talking about.
Apostle Paul says Jesus came to be the substitutionary atonement for our sins. He took our guilt and the penalty the guilt required. One reason He did this was to rescue us from this present pernicious age. Because it is pernicious, this age has a corrupting influence upon the born again believer. Apostle Peter tells us in II Peter 1:4 that God has given to born again believers everything we need to live a godly life and become “partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”
The corruption (phthora) that we need to escape is defined in the English dictionary as “to degrade with unsound principles or moral values” and “to change from good to bad in morals, manners, or actions”. The Greek word means “a bringing or being brought into an inferior or worse condition, a destruction or corruption” (Vines). Some authors refer to the effect of corruption as “inward decay and rottenness”.
In other words, if we are not being led by the indwelling Holy Spirit, the corrupting influence of this age will cause our love for God (expressed in obedience to Him) to become infected with evil passionate cravings resulting in disobedience (sin). Our good morals or Christ likeness begins to rot or decay. Another way to say it, is that our love for God is corrupted by a worldly love that considers something in the world more precious than God.
The effect of the pernicious, corrupting influence of the age is to “carry away” or, as the original language says, “taken in tow”, the believer from his steadfast love for God by “enticing him with his own lust” . This is what James is saying in chapter 1:14:
“But each one is being solicited to sin when he is taken in tow and enticed by his own craving.”
(Wuest)
Satan uses the things of this evil, pernicious age to “carry us away” or “take us in tow”. The first thing he does is to get us distracted from God and focused on something in his kingdom (the world) and he hooks us up to his Enticement Wagon, so to speak, so he can “tow” us further down the Road of Distraction where he entices you with things that you crave, i.e. attention, money, fame, power, liquor, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, drugs, rebellion, your way, freedom, etc. And:
“Then when the aforementioned craving has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and this sin when it is full grown brings forth death.” (James 1:15)
It is “conceived” when we give our “will” over to do the enticement. When we say “Yes” to it. Satan knows what our passionate cravings were before we were saved and he will use the same passionate carvings to “entice” us to sin. Plus new ones. I was never a drug user; therefore, he does not tempt me with illegal drugs but he tempts me with other things that were in my life prior to salvation. Let us therefore, if possible, steer clear of areas of the world where we know our past and present temptations exist. Be wise as a serpent but as harmless as a dove.
In Mark 9:50 the Lord Jesus warns the twelve disciples “Have salt in yourselves…” This is an important commandment and we will discuss salt and how it relates to this present evil age in the next blog. Hope you will join me.
Thank you for your time and God bless you and your family.
Don’t be taken in “tow” by Satan. “…be keeping one’s self unspotted from the world” it says in James 1:27. Stay free from the corruption of this age and stay steadfast in your love for God. Let us keep our minds full of the Word of God and our eyes fixed on His purposes in the earth. Let us be led daily by the indwelling, powerful Holy Spirit who He has so graciously made to dwell in us!
Let us pay close attention to ourselves for the purpose of holiness.
Carl
God’s Rescue of Man (Part One)
If you have been reading this blog, you probably know that “lust” in the Greek New Testament means either good or evil “passionate cravings”. Today we are starting a four part blog on God rescuing us from this present evil age. I thought this picture was appropriate since the Pernicious One (Satan) and our flesh (old sinful nature) want us to follow our evil passionate cravings resulting in enslavement and destruction, ruining our Christian testimony and robbing us of God’s blessings. May this study be a blessing and warning to you as it was to me. Carl
“… Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age…” Galatians 1:4
The Lord Jesus willingly gave Himself on the Cross for our sins. This scripture states that the purpose was to “rescue” us “from this present evil age”. The word translated “rescue” means “to pluck out, to draw out, to rescue, to deliver”. In 1522 Martin Luther referred to this in the preface of the first German language New Testament:
“This gospel of God or New Testament is a great message, good news, sounded forth into all the world by the apostles, telling of a true David who strove with sin, death, and the devil, and overcame them, and thereby RESCUED all those who were captive in sin, afflicted with death, and overpowered by the devil. Without any merit of their own he made them righteous, gave them life, and saved them, so that they were given peace and brought back to God.” (Emphasis mine)
As we will see, the gospel is truly emancipation from bondage. Our opening scripture says He came to rescue us from the ethical characteristics of the present age.
“Age” (aion) is defined as a “period of time” and is sometimes translated “world” in the NT. Here it is defined by its moral characteristics. Trench says the following about it:
“All that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims, aspirations, at any time current in the world, which it may be impossible to seize and accurately define, but which constitute a most real and effective power, being the moral or immoral atmosphere which at every moment of our lives we inhale, again inevitably to exhale.”
Notice that it is called an “evil” age. The Greek word for this evil is poneros as opposed to kakos. A kakos man is satisfied to perish in his own corruption but a poneros man “is not content unless he is corrupting others as well, and drawing them into the same destruction with himself.” (Wuest). The English word best describing poneros is the word pernicious, “causing great harm or damage often in a way that is not easily seen or noticed”. A perfect description of Satan’ activity. He is known as The Pernicious One. Let us praise God The Father for sending the Lord Jesus to destroy the works of Satan in our lives, setting us free from the dominion of darkness positionally and experientially (I John 3:8 & Col.1:13).
This ends Part I of God’s Rescue of Man. Part 2 will discuss the pernicious influence of the age and the Lord Jesus’ command to “Have salt within yourselves…” .
Thank you for your time and God bless you and your family.
Carl
Psalm 119: 38 