Lose salvation? (Salvation part 3)

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Mark McMillion

Do I really want to write an article about this? Wouldn’t be safer to stick with simpler, less controversial subjects like the second coming of Jesus, abortion rights and if there’s apartheid in the Middle East? Nah, lest go for the big one here; let’s talk about losing your salvation.

First, a story to illustrate a point. The 30th President of the United States was Calvin Coolidge, affectionately know as “Silent Cal” because he so often said so little. Coming out of church one Sunday the President was surrounded by reporters, looking for a story. “Mr. President, what did the preacher preach about?!” they asked. “Sin”, replied the President in his typical fashion. Not satisfied, the reporters pressed Coolidge, “Well, what did he say about it?” “He was against it,” replied the President.

How do I feel about losing your salvation? I’m against it. In fact, (gulp), I’ll even say that I don’t think you can lose your salvation. And with that, I’m certain that there will be those who let the dogs out at that statement. Because this subject really fires people up.

I feel that if you are saved, you can’t lose your salvation. I’ve never found an example in the Bible where it clearly states that someone has lost his salvation. Let’s take a few examples. King Saul at one point was really a man of God and even got prophecies from Him. When he was “little in his own sight” (I Samuel 15:17), God highly exalted him. But he ended up becoming one of the biggest failures in the Bible. “The spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.” (I Samuel 16:14)

But did Saul go to hell? The night before Saul’s death on the battle field, he was so distraught that he turned to what must have been a witch or sorcerer in order to try to get back in contact with his old friend and mentor, Samuel. And the Bible says this even happened. But the news wasn’t good. Samuel told Saul, communicating to him from the spiritual world, “tomorrow shall you and your sons be with me”. (I Samuel 28:19) We certainly don’t think that Samuel was in hell. So if Saul was going to be with him the next day, then he would be with him in heaven, not hell. Con-tro-verse-ial!

But there’s more. This is not for delicate ears but we can look in the New Testament and I Corinthians 5. Paul needed to try to deal with a rather detestable subject that had come up with the Corinthians, “that a man should have his father’s wife” (I Corinthians 5:1). Evidently that had happened in the church there. Did Paul say the man had lost his salvation? No. He said they should “deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” (I Corinthians 5:5) Again the call is salvation, even for such a sin as that.

Several verses in the book of John or in I John also point this direction of “once saved, always saved”. John 3:36 says, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life…” It doesn’t say they will have, they may have, they someday might have, it says they have, present tense. If you have eternal life, you can’t lose it, otherwise it wouldn’t be eternal. And in I John 5:13, it says, “These things have I written to you that believe on the name of the son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.”

Not hope, not think, not wonder about. Know. That’s a strong word, much stronger than “believe” is in English nowadays. When you know something, it’s finished, it’s done, it’s certain. And that brings to mind two blog posts I’ve written which might be similar to this, one about “Certainty” and the other which is in many ways about Salvation, “The Seed and The Egg”.

Yes, I know there are a number of verses some people hold on to in their belief that someone can lose there salvation. I just feel there are far more verses that say you can’t lose it, if you have it. You may end up in heaven without much of any reward, you may have squandered your life and the grace of God that was shown you on earth in this life. You may have quite a lot of tears that will need to be wiped away in heaven, you may even be in “everlasting shame and contempt” (Daniel 12:2) on the other side for all that you could have done and said here on earth that you never did. But I don’t believe someone will lose their salvation. They’ll be there in heaven, but like the old farmers in the South used to say, “with a long row to hoe.”

“But Mark…!” (Salvation part 2)

Posted on May 17, 2014 by Mark McMillion

But, Mark! Salvation couldn’t be that easy! Mark, there are millions of people who go to church and aren’t saved! The churches make it so easy for them and tell them they are saved so they just stop any desire for progress in their lives! They live their lives in sin and think it doesn’t matter because of what the churches teach, “once saved, always saved!”

Whew! What do you say to folks who say this? Are they totally wrong on all counts? You know they aren’t. But the solution isn’t to teach that we have to keep struggling throughout our lives to somehow, at the end, to have earned and won salvation. That just isn’t the teaching of the New Testament.

It does go against some element in our nature that salvation could just be a free gift. It just seems like a part of the natural world that we should have to do something to earn God’s grace. But a study of God’s Word in the New Testament shows that this is actually how it is. “It is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8 & 9). This is a recurrent theme of the writings of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament.

“But Mark! If it’s free, then they won’t appreciate it. There will be no incentive to do good! What about all the admonitions to live a righteous life? What about the Ten Commandments? So many Christians are just spiritually fat and lazy because of what you are teaching!“

Here’s a big factor in this. While salvation and eternal life are free gifts through the sacrifice of Jesus, our rewards and recompense in that eternal life to come are highly contingent on what we do with the salvation He’s given us. You talk about all those weak, lazy, often stunted Christians you may see in church? I have friends who have told me that they think only 3% of the people that we go to church with are saved. And I go to a pretty strongly Bible-believing church.

I personally think that percentage of saved folks at that church is a lot higher than that. But what are those folks doing with their lives? Are they “laying up treasures in heaven”? (Matthew 6:19) Or just accumulating things in this world? Are they really growing in the Lord? Are they really feeding His sheep? Are they withholding or scattering abroad? “He that withholds, it tends to poverty, but he that scatters abroad it increases.” (Proverbs 11:24) How much time do they spend watching worldly, sickening, foolish, Satanic TV every single day? How much time do they spend witnessing and winning souls, or sharing Bible classes with those who need it? How much are they really supporting missionaries abroad who are winning souls?

Let’s face it, millions of Christians are “living in sin” every day! They think that “living in sin” refers to something sexual. So they may have real pure sexual lives and still be “wasting their substance in riotous living” (luke 15:13) by following “the course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2) and not really a path of discipleship in the Lord.

These are all things that will be part of their reward, or lack thereof in the hereafter. I’ll tell you of a somewhat unknown but extremely significant verse, slightly controversial. In Daniel 12:2, it talks about the resurrection of the saints at the coming of the Lord. Here’s what it says, “…some raised to everlasting life, and some raised to shame, and everlasting contempt.”

I believe some folks are going to be saved and go to heaven. But like it says about “He shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Revelatoin 21:4), some are going to have a lot of tears to wipe away when they see all they could have done in this world, but didn’t do, all the love they could have shown, all the witnessing they could have done to share their faith with others. But they didn’t. All the time they spent in frivolous worldly affairs to the neglect of God and His will and His sheep. Some are going to be in heaven but not much more than that. Very little if any reward.

So I personally believe that God “who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the acknowledging of the truth” (I Timothy 2:4) is going to see and recognize faith in His son in many people. “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13) . But sadly, for very many people, very many, they are like folks who never grow in their lives beyond the mental age of perhaps 5 years old. They never grow up spiritual beyond early childhood. They remain children and sometimes little children in their spiritual lives for their entire Christian life. Because they were saved but that’s about as far as they went. This of course is heartbreaking. Some seem to almost never know there is anything else. Their churches and pastors don’t challenge them to discipleship but are content to just let their members drift along in the lowlands of spirituality.

There’s just a vast work to be done to mentor, disciple, teach and admonish the immense numbers of people who say they are Christians, believe they are Christians but so often don’t really know for sure as they just don’t know the Word. Many just are content to stay where they are. Some of these would make progress if they were shown how.

What about salvation?

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Mark McMillion

You can hardly think about or talk about a bigger subject than salvation. If there is anything at the heart of the New Testament, it would be the subject of salvation. And yet it is another of the almost endless things that believers disagree on. And I’ve found, since being back here in the States for the last 4 years or so, that it’s a very divisive issue among Christians here.

When the Jesus Movement folks witnessed to me back in the ‘70’s, they could tell I already believed in God because I hitchhiked across Texas to find them and I had a Bible with me. I believed in God, but I didn’t know who Jesus was. So they simply asked me, “Are you going to heaven?” I said, “Well, if my good is more than my bad, I will. But if my bad is more than my good, I won’t.”

I was really surprised when they didn’t agree and promptly started sharing the plan of salvation with me, something I’d never heard of before. They showed me Ephesians 2:8 & 9. “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.” They said that salvation was a gift of God, not something that you could work for.

And of course they showed me the most important verse in the Bible, that sums up the whole thing, John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” And there were other verses, these folks really knew the Word.

They showed me “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23), and “the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ” (Romans 6:23). One verse that really impacted me was John 1:12. “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.”

So they told me that I needed to receive Jesus and they showed me Revelation 3:20, another classic clincher, “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” They strongly told me that Jesus was knocking at the door of my heart and wanted to come in, that I needed to receive Him. I did and it totally changed my life.

Does everyone have to have the exact same experience as me? Of course not. Many people are brought up in a Christian home and sometimes never remember a time when they didn’t believe in the Lord. But it’s one heck of a big subject as to whether or not some people are saved and if they are saved, if they can then loose their salvation. Some feel that there are millions of people who go to church and go through the motions but that they are not really saved. I’m sure that there are people who go to church who don’t really know what it’s about. I’ve met some who told me that this had happened to them. They said that, after 10 years or more of going to church, they actually got down to business with God and that’s when they got saved.

I think a lot of people just don’t really know what it’s all about and they really waver about their salvation. Some large denominations have become so wishy-washy about their teachings that they hardly even teach or preach salvation anymore. So one thing that all of us who know the Lord and know the Word can do for folks like that is to just go through the plan of salvation with them.

It’s not an emotion, it’s not a ceremony. It’s belief. A great verse about salvation is Romans 10:9 & 10. It’s a little complicated but it says it well. “If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes to righteousness. And with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Do they believe that God raised Jesus from the dead? Do they say that? Then according to that verse they are saved. Paul said to his jailors, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house.” (Acts 16:31) So often with these things, the Bible time and time again boils it down to faith, belief. That’s the essence, the essential of Salvation. But many people don’t have the assurance of salvation because no one has ever really gotten down to business with them and showed them His plan from the Word. I think many people are saved through faith in Him. But they just don’t know it or are certain of it through the Word.

Whew, big subject. I think I may have to write some more on this. But this is a start.

Direct Revelations

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Mark McMillion

If you never hear a voice, if you never see a vision, if you never dream a dream, if you’ll just obey God’s Word, you can have a wonderful life in Him. On the other hand, God often wants to enrich our lives and provide more power from His Spirit to us by using these other means.

I’m thankful that in my life there’ve been a number of manifestations from Him by His Spirit that have completely been supernatural and unexplainable except through an acknowledgment that God is still a God of miracles. I’ve written several blog posts about some of the “little miracles” that have happened in my life, such as “Lights on the Side of the Road”, “the Radio Miracle” and something that happened 18 months ago here in Austin called “God’s Little Miracles”. It’s so inspiring when these things happen and I’m glad I now have this avenue to share these experiences with others.

God is a supernatural God. He’s not a theorem, an equation or “Mother Earth”. He’s not something that theologians are supposed to dissect in post graduate work. He’s the divine Creator and Guiding Power of the Universe. When I was little, the way it was explained to me is that God is way up there and we are down here. So be good, do good and things will be ok. Don’t bother Him and He won’t bother you. Boy, that sure didn’t help or hold up when things got really tough in my life.

But even in many evangelical churches today, it’s not like they really teach that you can get answers from God or that you can even expect miracles. Here’s a verse that I’ve held on to and claimed in prayer many times, John 14:21. Jesus said, “He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself unto him.” I’ve called out to the Lord many times in prayer to manifest Himself to me. King David of old even prayed to God one time, “Show us a token for good.” (Psalm 86:17) Some might think that’s like “seeking after a sign” (Matthew 12:39), which Jesus chiding the Pharisees for. But the truth is that God loves to manifest Himself to us, if we’re walking in the truth of His Word and following the truth He’s shown us already.

I’ll share a couple of things here where the Lord just totally punched through with something outlandishly supernatural when I really needed it. When I was young in the Lord and had already moved to the mission field of western Europe in the early ’70’s, I ended up in a place where there was a spiritually collapsed situation involving a body of believers I was working with. What should have been a group knit together in His love had been taken over for a while by some cruel, hireling types who were mistreating His flock.

I was in prayer about this as it was very disheartening and suddenly, out of nowhere I got the Bible reference quickened to me, “Jeremiah 10:21”. I had no idea in the world what that verse said but I opened my Bible and read it. It says, “For the pastors have become brutish and have not sought the Lord. Therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flock shall be scattered.”

I was dumbfounded as that verse so encapsulated the situation I was in and also gave a promise that it would be resolved. And it was, by the hand of God. Within two months the “brutish pastors” had been exposed and the ones I was working with were able to find more loving and kind people to shepherd them. But the Lord had just quickened that verse to me out of nowhere, as a comfort and foretelling of what He was going to do.

Another time, even earlier in my Christian life, when I’d only come to the Lord a week or so earlier, I’d been invited to a Christian training camp for those preparing for the mission field and for discipleship. But this was in the States in early 1970 when there was still a very deep divide between the youth culture and the more conservative, establishment side of society. I was beginning to work with the Jesus Movement and at that time it was pretty youth oriented and even radical.

I was told that I would need to cut my somewhat long hair before going to this training camp. It was off in a conservative, cowboy part of the States and it was literally dangerous to be in the area and look like a hippy. But the amazing thing was that the morning before I was told this, the Lord had quickened to me a verse, extremely obscure, Ezekiel 5:1. I’d only been a Christian a few days and I had no idea what that verse said.

But I found it in my Bible and here’s what it says. “Son of man, take a sharp knife, take a barber’s razor and cause it to pass upon your head.” So when a few hours later my friends told me I’d need to have a haircut, I told them that the Lord had already told me that was coming. I was just a babe in Christ and back then I may have figured this was just sort of normal.

It’s not like this kind of thing happens every day. Not at all. The Lord wants us to go by faith and to obey His Word in our daily lives. But also He wants us to know that He can and will do this kind of thing to lead us and guide us and show us what to do. Or sometimes just to rejoice our hearts and/or have a testimony of His love and power that we can share with others. So don’t knock direct revelations. They’re not mandatory. But they are there, they help and He may have one for you.

Pray the Word

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Mark McMillion

I don’t know about you but, for me, life is a fight every day. And we have a lot to fight, especially with (as the Bible calls them) “the sins which do so easily beset us.” (Hebrews 12:1) Almost everyone has to fight laziness, indifference, boredom and the swarm of little distractions that assail us each day. This happens to everyone, not just Christians.

That’s why for me, prayer is utterly, absolutely essential. Life can be wonderful and beautiful. But at the same time, I’ve found that to stay alive and survive, I have to never lose sight that this life also is a battleground. Some may not like that but this truth is something I’ve found by difficult personal experiences.

Life is full of amazement and joy. But there’s a darker side which fights the Light of this world and will do all it can, in whatever way it can find, to extinguish the Light and those who hold onto the Light, if it can.

And of course, I’m of the opinion that the Light came to this earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He said so. He said, “I am the Light of the world, he who follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) I’ve found that personally true and have lived that for over 40 years.

But in the world as it is right now, the powers of darkness are very strong and seem to be getting the upper hand more and more each day. Recently I found that a dear friend, a missionary comrade who fought together with me on the mission field 20 years ago is now virtually totally secular. They have put down their candle, taken off their armor and relinquished the banner of the Lord they once did so mightily hold high. Will others arise to take their place? Maybe. I hope so.

So what can we do? As Jesus said to His disciples after multitudes of them went back from following Him, “Will you also go away?” (John 6:67) Is there anything any of us can do to overcome the insidious tide of darkness that grows in these times?

I for one believe that it really comes down to each individual. The devil can’t quench your light and steal your crown if you recognize him and resist him. When the Bible says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7), it’s presenting one of the greater truths in the Bible.

Of course one of the devil’s favorite and successful ploys is to convince you that he’s not there in the first place. That’s why so much darkness today is presented as “light”, which we are encouraged to view as “modern” ways of looking at the world, culture, values or truth itself. Jesus said, “If the light that be in you be darkness, how great is that darkness.” (Matthew 6:23) So much in our times is presented as enlightenment and rational relativism but it’s just the latest darkness, packaged in today’s trendy way.

Again, what can we do? First, recognize the battle. Two, if you have faith in God, nourish it and defend it with all your might. How can you do that? You feed your body every day, no one has to be told to do that or reminded. In the same way, it’s essential that you have a spiritual feeding every day. The Jews of Moses’ time knew this. God told them, “These words which I command you this day shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children.” (Deuteronomy 6:6 & 7) In the Old Testament, there were daily rituals that were commanded them in order to keep the blessings of God. There’s even an obscure verse, “The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.” (Leviticus 6:13) Does that have any meaning to us in these times? Yes. The fire of faith, commitment and love for God should ever be burning upon the altar of our hearts, the depths of our soul, daily. It should never go out. It should be something that is a part of you daily.

Let’s face it, it could seem the Catholics and even the Muslims know more about prayer than most Protestants. I know Catholics who go to Mass every single morning. And everyone knows that Muslims are called upon to pray 5 times a day and ten’s of millions of them do. So our prayer life is one place where we can personally take action to “be strong in the Lord and the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10).

And for me, I find that praying the Word is a great strength. When I go to the Lord in prayer, I bring His Word with me. I “pray the Word”. It pleases God when we honor Him by reminding Him of His Word and His promises. We have been given “exceeding great and precious promises, that by these we may be partakers of the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4). Even Jesus Himself prayed the Word. On the cross, Jesus cried out to His Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Mark 15:34). And at that moment He was quoting the first verse of Psalm 22, one of the strongest of the prophetic passages about the Messiah in the Old Testament.

My friends, it’s a battle. It’s a battle to keep the faith, hold on to your crowns and not to be part of the “falling away” of the last days. We each want to be one of the virgins who kept their lamps burning, not the ones who ran out of oil and so their lamps went out. Have some kind of personal devotions daily. Have some kind of personal private, even desperate prayer daily. Try to help your loved ones to do the same. “Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day. And having done all, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13).

“Who Do You Think You Are?!”

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Mark McMillion

Has anybody every said that to you, “Who do you think you are?” Or maybe, have you ever said that to yourself? It can get kind of deep.

Pride is such a major pitfall of Christians. But on the other hand, you can be so negative about yourself that you just feel God couldn’t possibly use you. These are things our human hearts are privy to, even without any assistance from the Devil.

So an equally dangerous pitfall can be a misplaced self-abasement. Basically, if we get our eyes on ourselves, it is almost hopeless. Like the old song by Tennessee Ernie Ford said, “If the right one don’t get you, the left one will.” If one sin doesn’t get you, sometimes it seems another one will.

But of course, things are not hopeless at all. That’s why the Bible says, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2) It doesn’t say, “Looking unto ourselves…” That’s why prayer, immersing ourselves in God’s Word, being busy and active in obeying what He’s told us to do, and just mostly forgetting ourselves is so essential.

I think it was the famous blind song writer, Fanny Crosby, who said, “There is joy in self-forgetfulness.” Boy, is that true. But there’s more to it than that. Once we get our eyes off ourselves, either how great we are or how terribly we are, we find that God Himself has a plan and an agenda. And He’s wanting to get in contact with us about it.

An example of this can be found in these verses from Matthew 9:36 through 38. It says, “But when He (Jesus) saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion upon them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is truly plenteous but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth laborers into the harvest.’”

We so easily keep our eyes on ourselves. But it’s like Jesus said in another place, “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest.” (John 4:35) And He wasn’t talking about barley and wheat fields either. He was talking about the vast harvest of souls who long to be part of the Kingdom of God.

When we begin to take heed to God’s Word, we find that…He needs us. Not just to pray, not just to go to church, not just to be good citizens and vote for the right political party. He needs us desperately in the work that He commissioned His disciples to do: to witness, win souls and take care of the results.

“But who am I?! I can’t do that!! I don’t have the gifts!! I haven’t been to the Dallas Theological Seminary! I might say something wrong!” Etc, etc, etc.

And some of this might not be misplaced. True humility is what the Lord wants. But so often, other things enter into the mix and just hinder the calling of God in our lives. A much better response is what’s found in Isaiah, “And the Lord said, ‘Who will go for us and who shall we send?’ And I said, ‘Here am I Lord, send me.’” (Isaiah 6:8)

Would to God that more people of the Lord would respond like that! If more would respond like that, then you wouldn’t have verses like Jeremiah 8:20, “The summer is past, the harvest is ended, and we are not saved.” Why were they not saved? Because no one shared the message of salvation with them? Because no one “went out into the highways and hedges and compelled them to come in”? (Luke 14:23)

But so often for sincere Christians, their hesitancy to answers God’s call and obey what the Spirit is leading them to do can come back to condemnation and misplaced self abasement. They think they’re not worthy. They think they don’t have enough gifts. They doubt that it’s even God’s Spirit calling them. They have such a “humble” view of themselves that it’s morphed over into their heart condemning them and belittling them.

So many of God’s greats in the Bible were just little people who did what God told them to do. Jesus said of one woman, “She has done what she could.” (Mark 14:8)

That’s what we each should be asking ourselves each day. “Have I done what I could? Am I obeying what I know God personally wants me to do? Am I resisting the voice of the Lord in some area of my life? Is there some step forward in service and God’s calling that He’s drawing me towards that I’m hesitating in?”

It’s not a question of talents or abilities; it’s just a question of yeildedness to His voice, both the voice we hear in our hearts personally and the voice that speaks to us through reading His Word. “He gives the Holy Spirit to them that obey Him.” (Acts 5:32). He can “lead us into all truth” (John 16:23) and also into opportunities of service and fruitfulness in Him that are far more than we can imagine. God help us all to obey and follow His Words and His calls. “Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart.” (Psalms 95:8)

The Greatest Song of All

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Mark McMillion

I am not a musician but music has always played a really big role in my life. I’ve sometimes wondered how my life would have been different if I‘d ever been able to learn to play guitar. I got to where I knew a lot of chords but I just never could get the strumming part down. Oh well.

I’m thinking of sharing different times in my life when some song really spoke to me, lifted me or affected me. But then I’m realizing how very personal it all is. Each song I think about I hesitate from sharing because it’s such an opening into some of the most personal moments of my life.

For example, I wrote a blog post about “The Radio Miracle” how that, during an indescribable few weeks when I was 20, when so many things happened to bring me to the brink of death and hell, that at one point in the middle of the night when I was in desperate prayer, my radio came on without my touching it. And a song of that time was just then playing which said, “Lift up your fellow man, lend him a helping hand, put a little love in your heart.” The words of that song were the words of God to me for that moment, conveyed through music, by a complete miracle.

But just a week before that, I’d been listening to a completely different kind of music, by my favorite group at that time, The Rolling Stones. I’d listened for the first time to their most recent album back then, “Beggar’s Banquet”. The voice of darkness that so strongly came through that album very nearly claimed my life. That’s what I wrote about in “Lucifer and the White Moths”.

There are many other incidents where music has carried me through deep valleys of despair that I don’t think I would have survived if a song hadn’t been on my heart and on my lips, virtually non-stop in some cases for weeks and even months.

I’d like to share a song with you that perhaps many of you know but some don’t. It’s called “The Greatest Song of All.” I don’t know the history or background to it but I first heard it in the 90’s, during what seemed like a time of great defeat and loss. I guess for me this song is such a combination of an incredible heavenly concept, really good music and a perfect text to the song. But maybe in some ways it doesn’t do much good to talk about a song since it’s a thing of itself which goes beyond descriptive words. I’ll paste it in here and hope it will be blessing to you.

http://youtu.be/IWjbZhbRZAE

Well, it’s Christmas

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Mark McMillion

Everybody’s different. Paul said in the Bible, “One man esteems one day above the other, another esteems every day alike.” (Romans 14:5) I guess I’m like the second group there when it comes to holidays. But also there’s just something about Christmas, or at least there should be. In many parts of the world, it’s the most revered holiday of the year. And of course if you’re a Christian, you know it’s supposed to be the celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

For probably I can say “literally billions of people”, the story of the birth of Jesus is known to them through the Christmas carols and all the hoopla that goes on each year in late December. Or early January if you are of the Orthodox branch of Christianity.

But I guess I’m hoping to be more than informational here in this post. Being a Christian and/or a believer in the God of Abraham is more (or should be more) than information and knowledge. It’s supposed to be something that goes to your very soul and essence of your being, changing it radically and totally.

Like God said in Ezekiel, “A new heart I will give you and a new spirit I will put within you. I will take the stony heart out of you, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26) I can certainly say with all my soul that this is what happened to me. I was like “the tin man” in the movie, “The Wizard of Oz.” I just felt like I didn’t really have a heart. Or if I did, it didn’t really work very well at all.

That’s why when I came to the Lord and I was told that I needed to love the Lord and tell Him I loved Him, I just told Him that I felt like I hardly even knew what love was. I believed in Him. But He would have to teach me how to love Him or actually love anybody for that matter. Over the years I think I can say that He has heard that prayer and gradually given me more of a heart that can love Him and others.

This may not be the kind of Christmas message you’ve heard very often and maybe it’s not even the kind of Christmas message someone is supposed to share. But, sadly, often Christmas has been a pretty rough time for me. For one, just being really honest, it seems to happen with me that the enemy of God seems to especially want to act up around this time of the year.

Some of the most dangerous situations I’ve ever been in happened right at Christmas and it even involved other Christians. The darkness just hates the light and it seems the enemy of God brings depression, anger, and whatever else he can get a hold of to try to break into the camp of the saints and into their hearts at Christmas time, even more than at other times. Maybe you’ve never experienced that or maybe you have. But I have repeatedly and it’s made me a little wary of Christmas time.

On the other hand, I think that if I can steer myself around that particular danger and make an effort to make Christmas a time of personal devotion and a time of specially drawing near to the Lord, I’ve found that it can be a really wonderful time.

Like it is for many people, the songs of Christmas, Christmas carols that really sing about Jesus have been a special thing for me all my life, even when I wasn’t a Christian. I’ve heard a number of friends of mine say the same thing about a certain Christmas song, that it’s not only their favorite Christmas song, it’s their favorite song of all.

But I’m speaking about the song, “Oh Holy Night”. It is just one of the most stirring, soul-quickening songs I’ve ever heard, probably the most so of any song. I suppose if you aren’t a Christian, it might not speak to you. But if you are, it’s just like a national anthem of heaven, or something like that. For me each Christmas, whether I’m with my family or not, whether I’m with Christians or not, the high point of Christmas is hearing and singing this song. I’ll add it in here.

I hope you can singing it from the bottom of your heart and be moved, touched and thankful for that holy night when our dear Jesus was born. Without Him we can do nothing good and be nothing but lost and hopeless souls.

I’ve had a really pretty good year and I hope you have too. It is such a thrill how I’ve been in connect with so many this year, friends new and old, both here in the U.S. and literally all over the world. I know the darkness rages against us all so much. So it’s always a thrill to hear of all of you how are keeping the faith and continuing to stay on the Wall of His will wherever you are. I love you very much. I pray you have a great Christmas and a blessed coming year for Him. Thank God for the Holy Night which has made our wonderful lives possible. With love, your friend, Mark

“Judge Righteous Judgment”

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Mark McMillion

The first Bible verse I ever memorized was John 7:24, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” Boy, I needed that verse. I had come to believe in God in the previous few months, after very nearly dying and not going to heaven. So I knew from experienced that God was real. And I knew that the Devil was real. But I hadn’t at that time become a Christian as I just didn’t know who Jesus was. But I began to read the Bible vociferously because I knew it was the book that told about the God I’d come to find was real.

I’d been so horribly misjudging so many things at that time. I think that’s the reason that God put that verse into my mind and heart right then because I really needed to look at things differently and judge things differently. But when you think about it, the whole idea of judgment is not a real popular concept nowadays, whether you’re a believer or not.

When they think of judgment, so many Christians immediately remember what Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged”. (Matthew 7:1) And so they get the idea that we’re to just sort of acquiesce and go along with almost anything since, “We aren’t to judge.” Hmm. And then the atheists and agnostics often feel that there’s no right or wrong anyway, no good or bad, no truth. So “judgment” just becomes almost a bad word.

Judge righteous Judgment-flattened Is that really how it should be? Don’t we all make judgments all the time? Every decision you make is in some ways a judgment, based on your values, your information, your ethics and your interests. So actually we’re all making judgments and we have to.

Jesus said plainly in that verse He put into my heart that we’re to “judge righteous judgment”. But what is “righteous”? Here the believer and the unbeliever may go different directions. A believer will know that righteousness is found in God and the unbeliever hardly even believes in any kind of righteousness since “Who are we to judge?”

But the Bible often says that we are to judge, not in a self-righteous way but in a Godly way, on His foundation, with His eyes of mercy and truth. Paul told the Corinthians, “Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Don’t you know that we shall judge angels? How much more the things that pertain to this life.” (I Corinthians 6: 2 & 3)

Jesus even said of Himself, “My judgment is just; because I don’t seek My own will, but the will of the Father which has sent Me.” (John 5:30) Maybe that’s a secret or key. If we are not seeking our own will or way but are seeking God’s way and His best, then our views and judgments can be more aligned with God’s love and justice. That way, our judgment on maters big or small will be moving towards the “righteous judgment” He wants us to have.

James, “the Lord’s brother” (Galatians 1:19), had some important things to say about this. “So speak and so do as those who shall be judged by the law of liberty. For He shall have judgment without mercy to those who’ve shown no mercy. And mercy rejoices against judgment,” (James 2: 12 &13). Merciful judgment. It all comes back to a loving God, a loving Savior, a pleading, interceding Holy Spirit, all moving in us to be wise and merciful in our judgments, whether they be tiny daily decisions or our most major “affairs of this life.” (Proverbs 4:23)

Jesus reproved the Pharisees because they were so busy with tiny details like tithing their spices and had “omitted the weightier matters of the law: judgment, mercy and faith,” (Matthew 23:23) We are called on to judge righteous judgment, judgment with mercy, led by God’s wisdom and Word. And like Paul said in that verse above, it’s even going to be a part of our job in the world to come. So Lord help us all to judge righteous judgment, to be basing all we do on His foundation of truth and love and to be learning now in this lifetime to see things through His eyes, so we’ll make the best decisions and to be examples to others of His loving justice and judgment.

Conviction or Condemnation

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Mark McMillion

The difference between conviction and condemnation was something I struggled with a lot as a young Christian. It seems to be something that’s not often touched on or even understood by many Christians. But for me, learning the difference between conviction and condemnation was a battle that I had to win if I was to grow in my Christian life.

Simply put, God convicts us of specific sins or weaknesses, giving us hope that if we bring it to Him, He can and will forgive us and heal us. On the other hand, it’s the Devil that condemns us, saying that we’re just generally bad and hopeless. It’s been understanding the difference between these two that has been an essential part of my being able to get to grips with some of the sins, failures and shortcomings of my life and to also recognize when the voice of Satan is trying to bring hopelessness to me in some matter.

Is what I’m saying here according to God’s Word? In John chapter 8, the Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who’d been caught in adultery. They called upon Jesus to agree to the writings of the Jewish law that she should be stoned to death. But Jesus said to them, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.” And the next verse says, “When they heard it, they went out being convicted by their own conscience”. (John 8:9) Jesus’ words brought conviction.

How about the Devil’s words? In Revelation 12:9 the Devil is called “the accuser of the saints”. The devil is like the prosecuting attorney in a courtroom, constantly bringing our sins before ourselves and God, calling for our condemnation and judgment.

But there’s another kind of condemnation and one that’s perhaps even more subtle. The apostle John wrote, “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” (I John 3:20) Some people have a lot of trouble with that. Their heart condemns them in several ways. For one, since we are all sinners (Romans 3:23), then without the rebirth through salvation in Jesus, each of our hearts overcomes us through one sin or the other.

Sometimes though, even if you’re saved, your own heart may have the habit or tendency to condemn you. It’s like negative thinking. A verse that helped me on this one time was “He that justifies the wicked and he that condemns the just, both of these are an abomination to the Lord.” (Proverbs 17:15) You can get to thinking, “Oh I’m really humble because I’m always so down on myself”. But it’s not the way the Lord wants us to be in the spirit. For us to condemn ourselves is actually an abomination to God, according to that verse, just as much as if we were justifying the wicked,

Maybe the most famous verse about condemnation is, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which be in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:1) But in some ways, it’s a thin line to walk. On one side, we don’t want to “fall into the condemnation of the devil” (I Timothy 3:6). God forbid. But that sure doesn’t mean in any way that we want to harden our hearts against the gentle chiding voice of the Holy Spirit which “will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment”.

It comes down to which voice you are learning to listen to. We don’t want to be in tune with “the accuser of the saints” or our own heart that can condemn us. But we do want to have a clean conscience that can help to be a guidance to us. And even more than that, we want to have a clear channel to the voice of the Lord Who will convict us and lead us in the paths we are to walk in.

Someone said one time that it’s like a chain with a weak link. We’re that chain and we all have weak links, sins, and weakness, areas that we need to change and grow in. The Lord takes a look at the chain, probably sees a number of weak links and He points out the one that He wants to work on. He points to one weak link and says, “That one right there, give that one to me and I’ll fix it.” But then the Devil comes along and says, “Oh my God, that is a bad chain! It’s bad! It needs to be totally thrown away!”

That’s the difference between conviction and condemnation. One is specific, doable and brings hope for change and improvement if there is repentance. The other is general, totally negative and also hopeless. God help us all to know the difference between condemnation and conviction and to learn to recognize the Lord’s voice of conviction that brings change, hope and progress. “For Godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, not to be repented of. But the sorrow of the world works death.” (II Corinthians 7:10)

Mark McMillion

Creeds and Deeds, Facts and Acts

Category Archives: Basic Christianity