Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.

Hebrews 3:1-6

The house of God are the people of God. Those who trust in His Son and call upon Him for salvation are the temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19). Those who are filled with His Spirit “as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5). In order to be a worker on His house, a laborer in His field, we must be a preacher, a proclaimer, of His gospel.

And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Ephesians 2:17-22

The purpose of my hands is to be engaged in the work of the Lord. As a part of His house my hands are to be a part of the repairing and restoring and strengthening of the house of God. If the house of God is built by the living stones of people who are alive with the Spirit of God, then the only way I can lay a brick is to share the truth of the gospel. The only way I can repair, restore, and strengthen a stone is to minister to a living heart that has been laid in the constructing of His house.

The bottom line is that if I am to be a worker of the Lord then I must be engaged with people. I must be willing to proclaim the hope of the gospel of Christ. I must be willing to go out and gather the stones that the Lord Himself will breathe life into and cause to call out His praise. I must be willing to get down on my knees in the muck of the lives of broken people and apply the mortar and grout of the Word of God that binds us to each other and to Him. I must be willing to search for the cracks and fill them with the truth of His love through the power of His Spirt that seals us for all eternity to His house.

Oh, let us be engaged in the work.

Let us be laborers.

Let us remember that Jesus died for people.

Let us remember that this world is not our home. We are not to be consumed with laboring for the things of this world, but for the eternal souls of those created in the image of God. We are to remember that better is one day in His courts, in His house, than a thousand elsewhere. Our hope, our confidence, is in Him whose house we are if we hold fast firm until the end. Let us hold fast. Let us stay focused on our calling and on our work and keep laboring, one stone at a time, brick by brick, until the builder of the house, our God, says that it is complete.

Let us not lose heart in doing good, but remember that in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

Galatians 6:9

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But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and *said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

Mark 8:33

The phrase “setting your mind” in Mark 8:33 is the Greek word phroneó and it means I think, judge, observe. The HELPS Word-studies adds:

phronéō (from Strong’s 5424 /phrḗn, “the midriff or diaphragm; the parts around the heart,” J. Thayer) – properly, regulate (moderate) from within, as inner-perspective (insight) shows itself in corresponding, outward behavior. 5426 (phronéō) essentially equates to personal opinion fleshing itself out in action(see J. Thayer). This idea is difficult to translate into English because it combines the visceral and cognitive aspects of thinking.

Visceral thinking is related to our deep inward feelings and cognitive thinking is related to or involving conscious mental activities (such as thinking, understanding, learning, and remembering). This Greek word combines both of these as one. That’s a pretty intense word when you really think about it. Thus the reason that it would be more than a thought, but would always show itself through actions.

Let’s place ourselves in the skin of Peter in this moment. He thinks he is coming to bat for his friend and teacher and in return he is rebuked. Can you imagine the halt of his mouth and shock on his face as Jesus identified him as Satan himself? Jesus related Peter to Satan because of the words that came out of his mouth and it was these words that led to this rebuke.

The rebuke that Jesus gave to Peter was the exact rebuke that He gave to Satan when in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry. In Mark 8:32 we read, “And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.” When you look at the Greek tense of the word rebuke in this verse we learn that this was not a rash emotional statement that came flying out of Peter’s mouth in response to Jesus teaching of His arrest and death. This word tells us that Peter kept on rebuking. Peter basically was telling Jesus that He didn’t know what He was talking about and that He needed to stop saying crazy stuff like that because it would not happen. Therefore, Jesus called him Satan because Peter was demanding the very same thing that Satan had offered… a crown without a cross.

After Jesus rebuked Peter He called the crowds and the disciples to Him and said:

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Mark 8:34-38

There would be no crown without a cross, not for Jesus, not for Peter, and not for us. A crown without a cross is a lie and lies come from Satan, because he is the father of lies (John 8:44).  Yet, how we desire a crown without a cross! We don’t want the cross. We despise the cross. We want to point to Jesus’ cross and say that’s enough. Why should I have to have a cross?

When we bow our knee and lift our prayers up for our nation, how many of us pray out of our fear of the cross? How many of us pray with the voice of Satan, requesting a crown without a cross? How many of us pray that God would never put us (or our children) in a situation that we would have to choose the cross or deny Christ? Do we lift up prayers that really are focused on our own interests rather than God’s?

Oh, let us brave!

Let us be strong and courageous!

Let us take up our own cross and throw down the world’s crowns!

Let us set our minds on the things above not on the things of this earth (Colossians 3:2). Let us not seek after our own interest but seek first the kingdom of our God! Let us not bow to the temptation of Satan and his offer of a crown that comes without a cross. Let us follow Christ… even to the death… even to death on a cross.

This can only be done in and through Christ. We can not will ourselves to carry a cross. Our hearts and our minds have to be transformed and renewed and only God and His Word can accomplish this miracle. Human wisdom and might will never give us the ability to walk this out. Fear of death will win every time.

Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself [Jesus] likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

Hebrews 2:14-15

Jesus took up His cross so that we might have the power to take up ours. Jesus took up a cross that bore the wrath of God so that we would be able to have the power to take up a cross that bares the wrath of the world. Jesus came and endured His cross so that we could endure ours, not avoid it. There is no crown without a cross. Satan simply offers the crown first and then leaves you with the cross. Jesus offers you the cross and then leaves you with the crown.

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.

Revelation 2:10

I have just heard of a new bill that is being presented to Russian leader, President Putin, for signing on July 20th. Mission Network News shared that,

The bill, coining the name, Yarovaya Law, is actually a response to last October when a Russian plane, carrying passengers over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, was bombed and killed all passengers, a total of 224 people. ISIS had claimed the attack as its own.

But, if this anti-terrorism bill is not amended before being signed into law, the already mention parts of this bill could be very damaging for churches. Slavic Gospel Association’s President, Bob Provost explains why.

“The difference in this wording is that all religious activity is restricted to a building that’s registered as a church. Ninety-percent of all evangelical churches in Russia, dating back to the communist days, when a church wasn’t allowed to own property, and so all the church buildings were registered in the name of one of the member families,” Provost says. “And that hasn’t been changed much. And so 90-percent of the evangelical church buildings in Russia today are not registered in the name of a church.”

In other words, if the bill is signed into law as-is, 90-percent of these evangelical churches won’t even be able to hold a service without being in contempt of the law. The same would go for ministries, such as SGA, and all others working to further the Great Commission. But, there’s hope.

President Putin has the final authority to amend this bill and save what so many have worked so long and hard for: religious freedom. He could easily become the Russian churches’ hero by sparing them this blow. For this reason, SGA is asking for prayer.

“From our standpoint, we want to ask God’s people, from all over the globe, please start praying right now,” Provost asks. “That God will intervene, that God will move in the heart of Mr. Putin and cause him to not sign this law, so that the Gospel can continue to go forth all across Russia.”

And even if Putin signs this bill into law to protect the Russian people in the only way he may know how, pray for the Gospel to continue to be heard, for lives to continue to be changed, and for Putin to see that the word of God is anything but terrorism. It is a redeeming love story written for all person, including Putin himself.

Just this past week I was talking with my daughter and my mother about the tribulation. My youngest daughter asked how we would know what the “mark of the beast” was that we are told about in Revelation 13:16-17. With all the new technology that our world is facing she questioned whether or not these new implanted chips would be that mark. She was afraid that she might one day take the mark mistakenly.

My mother and I assured her that she would not. God is not out to deceive His people. His people will not have to question “the mark.” It will be clear. I shared with my daughter that “the mark” whatever it might be, will be in direct opposition to the Word of God. It will in some way represent and proclaim a denouncement of Jesus Christ.

Our great grandparents feared that the introduction of the Social Security Card was the mark and today we fear that an identification chip implanted under the skin will be that mark. Personally I don’t believe it matters whether it’s a card, a tattoo, or a chip. It’s not the mark, but what the mark represents.

As we read our modern day headlines anyone with any Biblical knowledge at all has wondered, are we drawing nigh the end? I don’t pretend to know the answer to that question, except to know that today we are one day closer than we were yesterday. Knowing this should be enough to cause God’s people to get real. I don’t mean get real and fight politics. I mean get real and fight for hearts.

Never before in history has the entire world experienced terror as in our day. One centralized united group with the goal of destroying the freedom of others to believe differently than they do. Their actions are causing nations around the world to rethink their government in order to protect their land. ISIS is after territory. They are not out to simply terrorize.

Due to the reality of their intent on our world, leaders are making hard calls. Hard calls that not only affect the terrorist but affect everyone. In the meantime, here we are today in America, still free. In Russia, at least until July 20th, they remain still free. Yet, in a moment that could change, both in Russian and here in America.

So what do we do today?

We must get real. We must get ready. We must be responsible with the hope that is ours in Christ. There are things in this world that are too great for me and no matter how loud I shout I have no voice. I have learned that those are not my battles to fight.

However, when I look to my left and to my right and I place one foot in front of the other and I take the time to open my eyes and my heart… I see that within my reach there are battles raging against souls. Souls that the Lord has called me to suit up in my armor and to stand firm and fight for in the name of His Son and for the glory of His Kingdom. Yet I am not to fight with terror, hate, arguments, or force. I am instead to fight with truth, hope, peace, love, and prayer.

From faith, by faith, and for faith I am to live for the kingdom that I belong and to the One who reigns over it. I am to live for this kingdom in the way that I treat others, as human beings created in the image of the God I claim to worship and belong to. I am to live it in the way that I keep my word and honor the authority figures that the Lord has allowed over me. I am to live it by demonstrating the love of my God for me by demonstrating His love to others, especially to my spouse, my children, other believers, my coworkers, and anyone else I see on a regular basis.

It’s time get real and be serious about our Father’s business. There was never a time not to be, but if there ever was a time that we needed to be… it is now.

So, let us pray for Russia.

Let us pray for our America.

Let us pray for the Kingdom of God and our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.

Let us pray for His Kingdom to come and for His will to be done.

This past Sunday our topic in our small group class was anger. We were asked by our teacher if we lived in an angry city, nation, etc. I responded emphatically with a yes. My husband felt that we were not as angry of a nation as the media wanted to portray us to be and I agree with that as well. The media tends to stir the pot and usually does not share the whole story until they have already introduced both fear and anger. There where others in the class that felt that some things were more of a result of mental illness rather than anger issues, and I agree that mental illness is indeed a reality that needs addressed, but mental illness is not an excuse for actions of anger. Therefore, I still answer that question with an emphatic yes.

Last night we watched “No Man Left Behind”, the story of the men in the Battle of Mogadishu (or as we better know it as “Blackhawk Down”) on the National Geographic Channel. Mike Durant, the pilot of one of the Blackhawks that went down, was taken captive by the Somali rebels. In this special he shared how it felt to have this angry out of control mob descend upon him and how he witnessed human beings doing things he had never seen them do. Were they all mentally ill? Or were they just plainly and simply filled with anger?You might say “that was war”, well let’s bring it a little closer to home.

Let’s just bring it to the little league ball field when the umpire makes a call that the parents feel was the wrong call. Let’s bring it to the parking lot and the shopping malls during the Black Friday sales. Let’s bring it to the highways when someone has been cut off. Let’s bring it to a political rally. Let’s bring it to the streets outside an abortion clinic. Let’s bring it to the office when a practical joke goes south. Let’s bring it to the church business meeting when one group wants the pastor to resign and the other is ready to defend him to their death. Let’s bring it inside the doors of our home when things don’t go the way we think they should have gone.

In these situations is everyone mentally ill?

Or are we just as the Word of God has said…

You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.

Matthew 12:34-35

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But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. 

Matthew 15:18-19

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You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

John 8:44

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Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

Personally, I think its unfair to hand out the mentally ill card so easily. Schools use it as their reasoning as to why kids (who I believe are being required to attend school at way too young of an age) can’t sit still or pay attention in class. Our President hands it out for every mass shooting and uses it as his reasoning for pushing for more gun laws. Hitler used it as his reasoning to begin to put into effect his mass extermination Euthanasia Program.

I know many people who struggle with true mental illnesses and I am not one bit concerned that they will grab a gun and run into a building or school and begin slaughtering innocent people at random. That’s anger and hate induced, it’s not mental illness. It’s the result of unchecked sin, uncrucified flesh, unrenewed minds, and unregenerated hearts and I think it is time that we start calling evil what it is… especially we in the church.

In the book of Revelation in chapter 18 we read of the destruction of Babylon. Babylon represents the kingdom of this world that is antagonistic to the Kingdom of God. In Revelation 18:23 we read, for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery. The word sorcery here in Revelation 18:23 and in Galatians 5:20 above is the Greek word pharmakeia and it means the use or the administering of drugs, magical arts, often found in connection with idolatry and fostered by it. 

We live in a day when we want to call evil a mental illness and administer a drug for it. We want to diagnose sin as something that is treatable and fixable by our own human hands and measures. We just need more science, more studies, more laws, and we will fix the world without God. We will do it without His Law, testimonies, and precepts, and without His Spirit to guide and teach us, and without His Son to die for us and save us.

We have forgotten that we battle not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of darkness.  We have forgotten that those who know Christ not, walk out the will of the devil and are wide open to his manipulations and deceptions. That’s not mental illness… that’s the nature of man apart from Christ.

When I was in Poland walking through Lodz and then standing outside a cattle car with the claw marks of trapped men, women, and children lining the inside of it, our Israeli guide told us that some want to say that “monsters” engineered and carried out these atrocious acts. He went on to say, but we must NEVER say that because it wasn’t monsters, it was human beings. It was their neighbors, their teachers, their business partners, everyday men and women that they once passed daily on the streets. It was men who were trusted by the vote of an entire nation and were backed by other highly educated men and once considered upstanding citizens. It was husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. It was wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters.

Were they all simply mentally ill?

No, they were depraved as we all are apart from the grace of God. They were walking in the darkness and they carried out what was in their hearts. Evil is among us and evil is within us and it can only be cast out by God Himself.

It’s unfair to those who truly struggle with mental illnesses to lump those who are filled with unchecked anger and rage into the same group. It’s unfair and it’s dangerous and I refuse to do it. There are those who truly succumb to mental illness and take their own lives. There are those who are in such a dark and hopeless place, weighed down with burdens that no one has bent down to help them carry, maybe because they are afraid of being honest and real with those around them, or maybe because no one really cared enough to try and step into their mess with the hope of the Word of God and the hands and feet and heart of Christ, and they may take the lives of their children and then take their own. Yet, they are not those who kill in anger or with premeditated plans.

There is a difference between mental illness and hearts filled with hate, anger, bitterness, and rage. Mental illness is not a choice, it’s the result of a fallen world just like cancer and any other ailment that comes upon us as result of this dying and decaying world. God never commands us to put mental illness away from us. Yet hate, anger, bitterness, and rage He does… which means mental illness is not an excuse for these things.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

Ephesians 4:30-32

So please, let’s just stop using mental illness as a scapegoat.

Yes! This was it. Relentless. This world, this life, wants us to be the very opposite of this word. What are the near antonyms of relentless? They are: slackening, softening, yielding; impotent, invertebrate, slack, spineless, weak; complaisant, obliging…

Our God has not called us to be slack, or impotent, or spineless, or weak. Nor has He called us to be complaisant. No He has commanded us to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might” (Ephesians 6:10). “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). It doesn’t matter the situation or the circumstance we are not to oblige fear.

This morning the Lord brought Psalm 112:7-8 to my heart…

He will not fear evil tidings;
His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
His heart is upheld, he will not fear,
Until he looks with satisfaction on his adversaries.

Neither shall she who has become a woman of unwavering faith. She will not fear evil words, fearful news, discouraging information, or despairing communication. Her heart will remain steadfast, RELENTLESS, trusting in her Lord. She will know that her God will uphold her heart and she will not fear, but with her face set like flint she will press on determined, unyielding, and unflinching knowing that her victory is the Lord’s!

The question beloved is how? How shall she become this woman of such unwavering faith? Relentless. How shall we attain to this woman that we know God has called us to be?

We have to know Him. We have to know Him in and through the way He commanded us to know Him… and that is through His Word and THE Word. Os Guinness writes in his book The Call,

“With the brief, merciful, and marvelous exception of His Word in human form, God speaks to us in words, and our responsibility, as His creatures is to listen, to trust, and to obey those words… Words are the deepest, fullest expression in which God now discloses Himself to us. So it is in listening to Him, trusting Him, and obeying Him when He calls that we ‘let God be God’ in all of His awe and majesty.

God’s primary call, His address to us, always has two dimensions: summons and invitation, law and grace, demand and offer. Unquestionably the former comes first, yet that side is missing among many followers of Christ today. The result is a casualness in faith and a slackness in behavior that show no sign of having listened to any call from either Sinai or Galilee, let alone Calvary.”

If we are to be relentless we have to “let God be God”. We have to know His word and we have to trust Him. We have to respond to His summons to court and plead guilty as charged and accept His invitation for pardon through Christ as we cry out to Him for mercy. We have to acknowledge His law and our inability to keep it as it so plainly and simply points out our depravity and we must receive His grace through faith in the promises of His Word that in Jesus we will be forgiven our transgressions against our God. We have to bow before His demand for righteousness, justice, kindness, humility, and love and accept His offer to provide those things for us if we will just come to Him through the rent flesh of His Son.

Oh precious one, do you want to be relentless? I do. Oh, how I do. I want to be that woman of unwavering faith. I want my face to be set like flint as Christ’s was as He walked the road to Calvary carrying the cross that would bear my sin on His shoulders. I do not want to be shaken by the things of this world. I do not want to be tossed and driven by the wind (James 1:6). I want to be strong in the Lord as I trust in His relentless love for me, knowing that no weapon formed against me can prosper when I am walking in obedience to Him and His Word, knowing that even in death I remain victorious because Jesus overcame the grave, knowing that I am His and because of the cross nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate me from Him ever again.