The Things to Come

If you missed last weekend’s 21st Annual Pastors’ and Leadership Conference, you missed out on some serious and needed encouragement. Let’s face it, if you are living large in the last days, you need all the encouragement you can get. The enemy of our souls is trying to undo our faith, our witness, and steal our joy by getting us tangled up in the things of this life, whether it’s politics, finances, relationship problems, you name it – everyone is on high alert in one way or another. We are truly in the last days.

The theme was The Seven Letters to the Seven Churches, and it was the perfect theme for the times. It afforded some very practical teaching and exhortation with some prophetic topics thrown in. I am so grateful for teachers like Don McClure, Paul Smith, Ken Ortize, Lloyd Pulley and David Rosales who reiterated many of the things our own Pastor Dwight has been saying for years – that the time is short and it’s no time to be hiding our heads in the sand, but be on the alert for deception and discouragement. They brought many new insights and were very transparent with their comments. Thanks to everyone who made this event a tremendous blessing to us all, we could not do it without many willing hands/hearts.

Media from the Conference in the form of CDs, DVDs, and MP3s will be available in the coming weeks, call the office or email us to place an order. Contact me at cchapel@ccappleton.org.

On to the Prophecy Conference! September 11 – 13. Joseph Farah, Jacob Prasch, David Hocking, Chuck Missler, TA McMahon, Warren Smith, Bill Gallatin. Wow! Contact me if you want to be on the mailing list. Lord willing, we will have Pro Con #10 in Sept.

maranatha!!

mary

Riddle: What is it that everyone wants more of, yet more and forgets where it comes from and what it is meant to accomplish? What is it that we want plenty of for ourselves and yet often neglect to pass on to others just as liberally?

Answer: one of the sweetest ’sounds’ in life: GRACE. It can be a girl’s name, it can describe how we walk or move, and it can even be used as a excuse to avoid holiness by living however we want and then presuming on God to look the other way to our fleshly agendas. I have often heard it defined with an acronym: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. And this is accurate. Grace and mercy are two different things. “Grace” is getting what we don’t deserve, “Mercy” is NOT getting what we DO deserve. Grace inspite of who we are, Mercy because of who HE is. This is part of our great gospel. And yet I think there are multiple ways grace works in us, we just don’t really understand them all at this point in our lives. I know I don’t.

I just want to examine briefly one small way I think it does work. While it is not Scripture, I believe that the song “Amazing Grace” was written through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, many claim that “God gave me this song” for much lesser types of musical compositions, and I’m not going to go there, it’s not my table – but I think given the durability and sweetness of that old hymn we can likely find common ground on that one. So let me point out the part that really speaks to me in light of the times:

“Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” This hymnwriter understood something perhaps we don’t: that the manifold grace of God accomplishes something other than making us feel good and in right standing with God when in fact we may not be. Let me explain: at some point in our lives, if we are believers, the grace of God set to working in our hearts. I am willing to bet it did not feel ‘good’ at first. I remember my own conversion began with powerful, overwhelming conviction. And this was a miracle as my Catholic phariseeism was just as powerful and had a great stronghold in my young life. And so I was miserable, and thought perhaps God had abandoned me or more accurately, actually hated me at that point. To my carnal mind, I thought that being in God’s presence was to be happy and on some type of emotional high – which I had experienced as a devoted Catholic girl, and at a pretty young age, actually. Likewise today, Emergent adherents believe that doing good deeds and finding some gnostic happy place through mysticism is to find God. This is simply not so. They leave off the fear of God in their understanding of how He works and in how they should show him to the world. I personally believe there is a very serious lack of fear of the Lord in nearly every new book that flies off Christian shelves today. No one who truly fears the God of the Bible could ever write that mess called The Shack, and the seeker sensitive/church growth style of ministry that leaves people in their sins through a power-less gospel is another strong example of a lack of proper fear of God.

But as a youngster I had no right understanding of the other attributes of God – justice, holiness, righteousness – so I mistook what turned out to be His great grace toward me as cosmic cruelty. Kind of like when our earthly parents do something we just don’t want and then we try and cut them by saying, ‘you hate me!!’ as we storm off in a little immature huff. The truth is, when we are heathens and He begins to work in our lives, it is His GRACE and LOVE that draw us. That grace teaches our hearts to fear, first of all. Fear God, His commandments, His justice, His holiness – remember it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Once we have a right fear of God in all aspects, and we surrender our will to His in light of our sinful condition, THEN our fears are relieved. No one, and this includes our loved ones who are burdening under His conviction, should have their fears relieved until they are taught to fear first, by His great grace.

And so, if you have loved ones who are struggling with commitment to Christ, do not relieve their fears of judgment; do not let them off the hook in any way – let God do that in His timing, when He relieves their fears after full repentance, reconciling them to Himself for all eternity. Stand firm, do not be ashamed of the Gospel.

mary

This came across my email from Moriel Ministries (Jacob Prasch). I’ve never known them not to shoot straight, and so I appreciate their honesty in a time of great deception. It is always refreshing and I have never shied away from that mode of operation, and more and more as I see the DAY approaching. If God’s people aren’t going to be square with others on the state of things, then who will? The father of lies has had the podium long enough, I say. And so, the following by Scott Brisk at Moriel was my refreshment for the morning.

“Never, since I began collecting media reports and sifting them through the world-view of the Scriptures, have I seen such a group of reports as dismal as these concerning the state of the faith. The “church” as it once was, barely ceases to exist, and in my understanding, there is not much time remaining before “no stone remains unturned” of this current temple.

There is no such idea as “positive” in scripture. We need to deal with the truth, and the truth is: the church as we know it is done! However, this is really a good thing.

While some will continue to send out their “positive and encouraging” blabber based on the wisdom of men, I hope and pray this alert hammers home the point of actual the state of “the church” so that the remnant can get on with doing the real work of The Lord taught in the Scriptures.

Please understand that God always has and will always have a remnant and the gates of hell will not prevail against His church. However, we are rapidly approaching that time when all things that can be shaken, will be shaken, and the Lord wants a purified and spotless Bride. Much of what has been called the church in recent times has been nothing but an imposter harlot wearing a wedding gown. Yeshua our Messiah knows who belongs to Him and who does not, but He wants us to know and He wants the world to know as well…”

Amen! So, occupy ’til He comes! The church needs to get off their narcissistic worldly trip and get down to work while there is still daylight. —-Mary