We Do Not Apologize for Following Jesus through the Scriptures

There are many who are following the US and Global Political climates today, saying that the battle lines are being drawn. I would contend that they are not being drawn, but that they HAVE been drawn since the beginning: worldliness versus righteousness, lawlessness versus Godliness, Death versus Life. Too many people want to come to church, check off the box, and live as if nothing is changed. They want Jesus as Savior, but not as Lord, but the Battle line is drawn, written in stone, and purchased in His blood. He is Lord or He is not your savior. As Christians, our job is to call people from death to life in Christ Jesus, not gently love them in to Hell!

Yet, too often, we concede battlegrounds, at risk of offense. We concede souls at risk of offense. We give up territory, and especially souls, because we don’t want to offend. Friends, the nature of the Gospel is offensive! It is foolishness to those who are perishing! Why? Because you must come to Jesus, die, and be born again that He might conform you in to His image. We have no righteousness on our own and are not good enough on our own, and the worldly-minded cannot stand that idea. So, we must stand on the Truth, speaking it, of course, in love. But love is not affirmation, and it is not coddling people into a false sense of security. Jesus does love us; we are made in His Image. But Sin tarnishes that image, He died to restore that image, and rose again to reconcile that image to the God it was created in. So, we speak the truth in love, and we do not apologize for following Jesus through the Scriptures.

2 Timothy 3:1-4:8

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

4 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.