My Complaints ~ Number One

My Complaints

Number One

I have wanted to discuss “church” with folks at several churches and with several people and pastors, but I have been afraid to be criticized or even shunned. I have several issues which I have let fester and need to vent to be healed. It is not just my present church. I was born again 35 years ago. It took some effort and not a few years to pray and study enough to understand what I was encountering in the churches in my city. We so often hear: “If you are looking for the perfect church join it, and then it won’t be perfect anymore.” And: “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.”

I wonder what God says about this? We know he says: “be perfect and holy for I am both.”  We say, “Nothing will happen today that God and I can’t handle.” And then because we are not perfect or holy we sin and count on His mercy for forgiveness, the second 3^rd and 13,395 time, counting on another r chance. Another chance at what? It must be perfection, yes? No? I know we fail, I fail a lot and it is too often sin. But in the climate of permissive “Christianity” I am exposed to I find little in the brethren to encourage me to be perfect and holy. But I shall forgive and not blame them, for they have had their own lukewarm brethren/pastors/teachers.

I don’t think many people know what perfect means or what holy means (or lukewarm).

So I go to the Bible and to the internet in search of the perfect and the holy. I am altogether certain that thought they would not boast of it, Paul, Peter, James, and John would confess if pressed that at the end of their lives they were prefect and holy, at least when they put effort into being so, and accomplished these ideals in the flesh by the grace, the gift of God. If not their letters would not be called infallible! You say, “But they were inspired to write them by the Holy Spirit. True enough, leading me to say that being perfect and holy has everything to do with a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

 Romans 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

To be perfect, what does it mean? 

In the Old Testament:

1) complete, whole, entire, sound

   a) complete, whole, entire

   b) whole, sound, healthful

   c) complete, entire (of time)

   d) sound, wholesome, unimpaired, innocent, having integrity

   e) what is complete or entirely in accord with truth and fact (neuter adj/subst)

In the New Testament:

1) brought to its end, finished

2) wanting nothing necessary to completeness

3) perfect

4) that which is perfect

   a) consummate human integrity and virtue

   b) of men

      1) full grown, adult, of full age, mature

I don’t think God has put perfection out of our present reach. I know He has not. Flawless sinlessness, yes, that is presently impossible. But we can be filled by the Holy Spirit as Stephen was, and who is to say we cannot? And if we are then I believe this goes along was to making us be holy.

In the Old Testament:

1) apartness, holiness, sacredness, separateness

   a) apartness, sacredness, holiness

      1) of God

      2) of places

      3) of things

   b) set-apartness, separateness

In the New Testament:

1) most holy thing, a saint

Are we unwilling to seek God’s great ability to change, to repent and become the new creation we are said to be by faith IN Christ?

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

If they are not then are we, am I  IN Christ? Is He in me?

This is the first beef the first of some few issues I have with the church. The Lord addresses it, unless I am mistaken, in this way:

Revelation 3    14And to the angel (messenger) of the assembly (church) in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the trusty and faithful and true Witness, the Origin and Beginning and Author of God's creation:

    15I know your [record of] works and what you are doing; you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot!

    16So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth!

    17 For you say, I am rich; I have prospered and grown wealthy, and I am in need of nothing; and you do not realize and understand that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

    18 Therefore I counsel you to purchase from Me gold refined and tested by fire, that you may be [truly] wealthy, and white clothes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nudity from being seen, and salve to put on your eyes, that you may see.

    19 Those whom I [dearly and tenderly] love, I tell their faults and convict and convince and reprove and chasten [I discipline and instruct them]. So be enthusiastic and in earnest and burning with zeal and repent [changing your mind and attitude].

    20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears and listens to and heeds My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will eat with him, and he [will eat] with Me.

    21 He who overcomes (is victorious), I will grant him to sit beside Me on My throne, as I Myself overcame (was victorious) and sat down beside My Father on His throne.

    22 He who is able to hear, let him listen to and heed what the [Holy] Spirit says to the assemblies (churches).

I think ever decade has had its Laodiceans, and I know I have been cooled down many times by the climate I have encountered in my 3 ½ decades of faith.  Not that it is ultimately anyone’s fault but mine, nonetheless and especially because this is so I must speak out against lukewarmness. If Joel Osteen ever said a marvelous thing it was this (paraphrased): “We should endeavor not to be thermometers registering the temperature around us, but to be on fire for God and thus raise the temperature of the “room’, of those around us.”

God can raise perfect and holy children to into young men and fathers. He can make a congregation perfect and holy. We must believe this and want this desperately as individuals and as men.


James 4

 1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

 4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

 5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

 6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

 8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

 9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

James minced no words, yet he wrote this to raise the temperature, not to condemn the brethren.

More to come.

David Severy

P.S. I would like to believe this is not my fault, or even all my fault, but we are in this together.

Obama promises ‘hand-to-hand combat.’ !!!!!!!!!!

Obama tells audience there will be ‘hand-to-hand combat’ if Republicans win.
http://redwhitebluenews.com/?p=7302

Is this the change Obama voters wanted? Is it what they want today?

This is as ugly as it has ever been with Pres O, and with nothing but love and forgiveness in my heart I would warn the left that there are not enough liberals willing to "go hand to hand" and take on the "mad as hell and won't take it anymore tea partiers" if things go "hand to hand." Sorry to be so ugly about it in that comment because I really do believe Jesus meant for christians to turn the other cheek.

Paul the Apostle wrote also that we are to be at peace with all men "as much as is possible." The liberals ought to beware how far they go to test the patience of the saints. If they make it impossible for us...

As Israel will defend herself (and even Obama has not found away to publically abandon Israel) so the families of free Christian America may also. Or not... It remains to be seen if God will bless the church in America which is so very divided and very sinful. READ your OLD Testament and see what happened to unfaithful Israel! Do you think because you say "Lord, Lord" you are immune from chastening or even rejection?

Someone wrote the blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the church. We need more Bible readers/believers and less hypocritical/sinners in the pews, folding chairs and plush theater seats. Would it be a bad thing for some of us to lay down our lives for our friends? Jesus laid down His for the Apostles and those who would follow them, the Jew first and then the gentiles.

We in America think we are God's chosen in the Promised Land! We are not! That honor still belongs to the seed of Isaac and the land once known as Canaan, then mistakenly called "Palestine" and now called Israel. If you read your Bible carefully and PRAYER fully the Holy Spirit will teach you it is so! John 4:22! So many do not KNOW what it is they worship! In fact they worship their bellies, bank accounts, retirement funds, portfolios, gold, homes, cars, entertainment systems, and the internet, AND EVEN THEIR BIBLE TEACHERS... all the while in so many nations there is still no clean water to drink or enough to eat. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+16:17-19&version=KJV
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%206:6-8%20%20&version=KJV
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%206:6-8%20%20&version=MSG

I was impressed by the statement of one Afghani Muslim who said that in the jihad against the west, the US and Israel that the Muslims would win because they were willing and able to "eat grass." In other words they were zealous beyond the call of duty. Jesus commands all in the church "to be zealous (therefore) and repent." Yet many Christians have not been taught the verse (Rev. 3:19) or its context, and they misuse the following verse (Rev. 3:20) as one spoken to the lost when it is spoken to the church! http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%203:14-22&version=KJV

Dear Father God, have mercy on us all, and on me, and forgive my many years of lukewarmness and silence. Grant us all again the opportunity to do the works of God (John 6:29) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%206:28-29&version=KJV

and the greater works (John 14:12). In Jesus NAME, AMEN. And Amen. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+14:12&version=KJV

John 15.7

(in part) Why Capitalism and Communism Must and Will Surrender to God

We live in the world and on the earth; we are spiritual beings and we are material beings. We all start out from birth poor in each case. If we are born again from above according to Jesus (John Ch. 3), we are given and taught His Truth and it sets and makes us free. This is the wealth of the Gospel that enriches us spiritually. We are warned by the Lord and the Apostles and by Solomon not to become servants of mammon. But we are not forbidden to have material wealth. We are instructed to use mammon to serve others.

Luke 16:8-10
The Message (MSG)

8-9 "Now here's a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you'll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior."

God Sees Behind Appearances
10-13 Jesus went on to make these comments:

If you're honest in small things,
you'll be honest in big things;
If you're a crook in small things,
you'll be a crook in big things.
If you're not honest in small jobs,
who will put you in charge of the store?
No worker can serve two bosses:
He'll either hate the first and love the second
Or adore the first and despise the second.
You can't serve both God and the Bank.

But we can't help others materially if we don't have material to help them with.

All this is to say that a healthy national economy will help the church do her righteous duty if she is wise and innocent.

Luke 17
7 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?
8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?
9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.

10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.

So why are things becoming so chaotic economically and financially? IMHO because we have lost our moral compass in the church and we have lost our unity in the Lord Jesus. In fact it was lost by the 4th century as the gentile church rejected the Jews and the Jewish covenants.

If we want to be of the nations of the earth which are blessed by God we ought to heed the Lord who told Abram:

Genesis 12:1-3
The Message (MSG)

1 God told Abram: "Leave your country, your family, and your father's home for a land that I will show you.

2-3 I'll make you a great nation
and bless you.
I'll make you famous;
you'll be a blessing.
I'll bless those who bless you;
those who curse you I'll curse.
All the families of the Earth
will be blessed through you."

And his beloved psalmist who wrote:

Psalm 122
5 For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.

7 Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.
8 For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.
9Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good.

The Lord prophesies many times in the Tanakh that Israel's end will be blessed beyond anything she has yet known. Some people fear a Jewish conspiracy! They should read the Book and they will see that it is God who has planned the end from before the beginning.

Deuteronomy 7
9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;
10 And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.

Amos 9
9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.

11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
12 That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the LORD that doeth this.

13 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.
14 And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.

"THEY SHALL NO MORE BE PULLED OUT OF THEIR LAND WHICH I HAVE GIVEN THEM," saith the LORD thy God.

R U E 2 C Jesus the Jewish Messiah?

spirit led bravery

Moral cowards run from God. The Morally courageous run to Him and learn Charity and generosity. The Lord loves a cheerful giver (a courageous and generous giver). No man good ever praised the tax man for doing his charity for him. Tyrants love to tax you to do their chosen "charities" and skim a bit for themselves. The goodness of America still remains in some of her living saints. Yet

Matthew 24:12
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. (the words of Jesus).

The Word comes to pass and today!

Let us who will love His appearing still now love our neighbor! He who endures to the end shall be saved!

Biblical Zionism | ICEJ USA

Biblical Zionism | ICEJ USA

...ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence, and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

Isaiah 62

 ¹For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.
 ²And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.
 ³Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.
 ⁴Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.
 ⁵For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.
 ⁶I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,
 ⁷And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
 ⁸The LORD hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured:
 ⁹But they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the LORD; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness.
 ¹⁰Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people.
 ¹¹Behold, the LORD hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.
 ¹²And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.

You Have No Idea?

Seen on a t-shirt at Towson Univ. Cook Library: "You think you know but you have no idea."


That sort of sums up my thoughts for us as a race, that is: the human race. We think we know…



I have noticed more and more the changing face of the U.S.: so many Latinos, and not a few Asians, South Asians and Africans. I heard a member of a surveyor's crew calling out measurements in an eastern European accent! I would be moved as many are in paranoia, except to remember that they are all human and for the most part all have human aspirations much the same as I do, and you.



From 1986 to 2005 the number of new legal immigrants admitted remained relatively stable at about 400,000 annually (http://www.migrationpolicy.org/) that is: eight million over that 20 years. It is said that there are 12-20 million illegal aliens in the U.S. of A. Why has this happened? Why have 20-30 million foreign born people come to this country to live? Some come for freedom. Some come for educational opportunities. Others are recruited by industry. Each is a story in itself to be sure.



Many U.S. citizens, almost all the sons of immigrants, cry aloud, bemoaning this wave of immigration. The minor holocaust of 9/11 certainly amplified the chorus of nay and doomsayers. But if you ask this writer, we are in part, in large part responsible for this situation. The following has not been received well by those I have spoken it to; nonetheless I think we must consider our complicity in immorally and illegally making room for 20-30 million foreigners in this country.



We will fast approach the infamous distinction of having aborted 50 million. Call them fetuses, babies, unborn, preborn, infants—it hardly matters; what cannot be disputed is that almost half of those aborted would now be 18 years old, and would be English speaking persons at some adult stage of life. Many would be employed. Some would be in college. Some would be in the military and others in Green Peace. Some would be disabled or chronically ill, or in prison. But most would be pulling their weight, and adding to the strength of the nation. In short, they would be human, and as a whole they would be just like the rest of us, but for the fact of their termination, their abortion.



Had they lived, they would be competing in the market place just like we are. And they would be spending their wages and salaries just like we do. In fact there would be far fewer aliens sending U.S. dollars out of country! Our economy, stupid, would enjoy the fruits of the labors of millions (billions?) of dollars that now find there way into other nations economies.



I expect that half of all reading this will blow off my theory as ridiculous. But these are those who find the idea of a fetus being a human being ridiculous. I would not mind being deceived of all I have said. But of this I cannot be deceived: pre born infants are human at conception; their abortion is murder in the sight of God and of some men and women. If the fetus is not a human being, what are those who say it is not a human? And if and since fetuses are human, it is clear that those who have supported abortion have been deceived. And what are the deceived? They are DECEIVED. The deceived know not that they are deceived. Their deception calls all their knowledge and speech into question. If you say it is no crime to abort a human fetus, I cannot even trust you to tell me water is wet.

Cultural Jihad vs Saavy Americans

How far down this road have we gone.....

We live in a free society where the cultural jihad of the Islamic terrorists may be protected by the first amendment. Fed and local authorities might actually be enlisted to advance the speech and freedoms cultural jihadists by protecting their rights under the USA constitution! If Muslims do not repudiate Jihad, Sharia and Islam itself, they may find themselves in a United States which is majority Islam and Sharia governed, even from the houses of Fed., State and local Governments!

Are Americans saavy enough today to understand this? Or are they deceivable enough to become dhimmis or converts? If you don't understand these questions you are not saavy enough.

The Christian faith is very much misunderstood by lukewarm unstudied christians. As G.K. Chesterton said: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” How much more is it misunderstood by Muslims and other religionists?

Muslims and all men ought to "try it."

http://www.anabaptists.org/bh/t2.html

If one allows for human error and Divine Perfection, one ought to see Islam offers no assurance of the forgiveness of sins and requires a completely unknown quantity of good deeds for entrance into paradise forever. To offer a pass to paradise to those who will murder an "infidel" is so clearly a controlling motivator offered by those who would advance world conquest and the Caliphate. Islamic "shahids" ("martyrs") are so evilly taken advantage of and evilly used in this "shahada." This is heartbreaking as well as somewhat maddening to most "infidels.”