Since I’ve started ministry, and really got back in to my faith (I walked away for a while, I was a rebellious turd in my late teens and early 20s), I’ve noticed more and more how non-Christians love to shame Christians in their walk with Jesus. They get just enough information (they think) to inform their arguments, and then try and bully us in to silence for not being “Perfect” or “Christian enough.” I’m going to say this as un-gently (that’s probably not a word), as I can: enough is enough. I’m done letting someone who’s not even a Christian tell me how to be a Christian. I’m going to be loving (which does not mean excusing or affirming bad behavior or sins that even the world knows is wrong), yet I’m going to stand firm on what I believe, I’m going to admit I’m not perfect but that Jesus is in the process of perfecting me, and I’m going to stiffen my spine, so that, should I face backlash or persecutions of any kind, I will rejoice that I can say that I am standing firm, as Jesus did.
The World has no place in the church. It has no place in your walk with Christ. Therefore, the world has no place in telling us who we should be in Christ Jesus, what we should and shouldn’t say, believe, or think, and it definitely has no place in criticizing our flaws that, as humans who are at war with our own flesh, we most certainly have. We have flaws! We are sinners! This is why we need a Savior! Yet, we will still stand in Jesus, who said He was THE Way, THE Truth and THE Life, and that no one gets to the Father but through Him. We will stand, by the Holy Spirit, on God’s word, and, despite our flaws, spread the Gospel and Love of Jesus Christ until we have no more breath or strength in our fingers to do so. Stand firm! Push the world out, and let Christ rule over your heart, mind, soul and strength. Watch, then, what the Peace of God can and will do in your life! 1 Corinthians 15:42-58 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
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